#continuation of sorts? basically I just wrote this and have no where to put it

[thatsrightice]

Here’s unused content from my mota Crosby x Bubbles fic “and maybe if i hold you now”, but can be read alone!!! It’s basically just some fluff of Blakely’s crew after the October 8, 1943 mission to Bremen where Just-a-Snappin’ had gone down and their crew was presumed KIA. They returned late that night much to everyone’s surprise, though several of their crew were injured and one KIA.

Bubbles pulled off the path and into a gap a few buildings down from the interrogation hut. He glanced at his watch as he got out of the jeep. H-minus 0410. Inside, Blakely, Kidd, Douglass, Forkner, and Thornton were seated around a table with Colonel Harding. Standing behind the Colonel were several other members of Group Ops and lurking in the corner of the room with a dark look on his face was Bucky. Crosby walked around the table and sat in the empty chair between Blake and Doug. Bubbles nodded to the other members of Group Ops as he took his place beside them, across the table from Crosby.

“Glad you could finally join us, Lieutenant. Captain,” Harding addressed the pair.

“Sorry, Sir,” Bubbles spoke politely, stepping forward to place a document in front of him. “Lieutenant Crosby needed to be taken to the hospital to get checked out.”

“Lieutenant?” Harding turned to Crosby, who currently had his nose in his briefcase as he pulled out his logs and maps.

“Uh, yes, Sir,” Crosby confirmed. “Just a concussion, Sir.”

“We were just talkin’ ‘bout how you and Forky missed your calling to the Red Cross,” Doug grinned, tipping back in his chair back. His hand was wrapped in a bandage and his face was bruised but he looked to be in good spirits. Crosby was sure he didn’t look any better.

“I just did what Forky told me to,” Crosby protested. He flipped open his log book and shuffled through some maps.

Douglass ignored him, instead launching into his retelling of events. “Picture this, Croz is holding Charlie’s hands and smooth talkin’ him while he’s sitting on McClelland’s chest to keep the kid from climbing back in the ball,” Dougie boasted to all the flyboys around them. “All the while Forky is packing Charlie with our open parachutes and thawing a syringe of morphine in his mouth.”

“Let’s back up a bit now that we have the navigator’s logs,” the Colonel interrupted. “Try your best to remember what happened. Crosby, I hope your logs are as detailed as I hear.” Crosby’s head shot up, face taking on a red tint. He looked briefly from Harding to Bubbles and then back down to the logs in front of him.

“They will be, Sir,” Forky assured, smiling at the navigator. Blake nodded in agreement, resting an arm on the back of Crosby’s chair.

“Of course. Now let’s start from the top…”

☁️☁️☁️🔥✈️🔥☁️☁️🛬💥🌳

“... and then Croz starts talking about lamps…”

“Yeah! What was it he said? Two lamps or one?”

“By land, or by sea,” Forky added. Bubbles snorted, shaking his head as he suppressed a laugh. The others looked at him in confusion.

“Wait, was that supposed to be a joke, Croz?”

“Maybe?” the navigator admitted, not sounding too sure of himself.

“Paul Revere,” Bubbles inputs. There was no response and everyone shrugged. “Ya know...the British are coming?”

A chorus of ‘ooohhhhhhh’s broke out amongst the group.

“Yeah, well these are the Germans and they came at us by air so make that three lamps,” Blake interrupted.

☁️☁️☁️🔥✈️🔥☁️☁️🛬💥🌳

“Up ahead we spotted another Fort with some Messerschmitts smelling around.”

“They were playing with them,” Doug grimaced in disgust.

“No chutes. Unable to ID,” Crosby added.

“Yeah, then they turn to us and the Luftwaffe, they just don’t stop coming but we took care of them.”

“That’s what happens when you have dead-eye gunners,” Crosby smiled at the man next to him. Doug leaned over and bumped shoulders with him.

“How many do you have noted in total?”

Crosby ran a finger down the page as he read the columns of his notes. He flipped to the next page. “I’ve got two for Via; two for Doug; two for Mac; two-no three for Thorny; one for Yevich and one for Nord.”

“That’s what, eleven?”

“Yes, sir. I have the IDs where observed in my logs,” Crosby confirmed.

Someone let out a low whistle.

☁️☁️☁️🔥✈️🔥☁️☁️🛬💥🌳

Crosby kept his head down as he quietly gathered his papers. Bucky’s footsteps echoed thunderously in the near-empty room, punctuated by the slamming of the front door.

“Don’t worry about him, Croz,” Kidd spoke softly, squeezing his shoulder.

“I should have paid closer attention,” Crosby shook his head.

“You did everything you could,” Blakely reassured him, lighting a cigarette. “There was so much solid flak, you could almost slice it like cake.”

“And I’m not sure there was anything you could have said that would give him the closure he’s looking for,” Douglass put a hand on his shoulder and stood. “Now, come on, I’m starving.”

[copperbadge]

I was making breakfast and listening to an episode of Just King Things this morning, which is a podcast I do recommend -- two very smart English teachers are reading the books of Stephen King in publication order and discussing them. This could go extremely awry except they're both highly conscious of his failings as well as his skill, so they do really well handling a lot of his less salutatory content.

They've hit the point in King's ouvre (this episode was about Hearts In Atlantis) that follows his recovery from the car accident that very nearly killed him, where he was struck by a van while out walking. One of them pointed out that it seems as though he came back from nearly dying determined to write the wildest shit imaginable and only write what he wanted, which struck a chord in me this time despite having listened to this episode before. Perhaps because I was thinking about my own writing and where it's going in the short term (there are a couple of short stories I want to do that I don't quite have a way into yet). I generally don't think about the drift of my creativity in the long term because when I do I usually draw the wrong conclusions.

I don't really classify my life, the way some people who've had high-impact injuries do, as before-TBI and after-TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury -- the fairly severe concussion I had in January of 2020). For one thing, given I had to cancel a trip to NYC because of it, it may have saved my life; I almost certainly would have caught COVID as someone with known lung issues in New York at the time. For another, the TBI was way scarier to almost everyone else; for me it was just one more dumb injury I gave myself and I didn't even remember most of it so it hardly registered. I used to open the story of it with a joke about waking up not remembering going to bed the night before, but nobody ever found it funny.

It's true that there are changes it wrought in my life, though. Even practical stuff like making sure my living space doesn't have tripping hazards and continuing to wear a fitbit even though I don't really need to (the fitbit told us, the morning after, exactly when the concussion happened, because it registered a heart-rate spike when I fell). For weeks after, I had to move slowly and put off making important decisions because I couldn't trust my physical or intellectual judgement; I didn't even jaywalk in my own neighborhood because I couldn't be sure I was judging the cars' speeds properly. For about a year after I had periodic post-concussion syndrome which basically just slammed me back into concussion space, which wasn't painful or upsetting but was definitely inconvenient.

And it's also undeniable that my writing shifted after the injury. It's not necessarily because of the injury, since my initial recovery from the TBI and the declaration of quarantine happened at roughly the same time, and anyone who tells you that a years-long global pandemic didn't impact their artistic expression is selling you a line. But the last thing I wrote before the TBI was the first draft of Six Harvests, and aside from the Six Harvests publication draft, which had fairly minimal changes, almost all that I've written has been blue-sky, light-hearted, PG-rated romance. It's been on my mind that I've been writing different subject matter from what I used to, but the timing of it didn't strike me until just recently.

I don't mind, really. I love fandom and I support fanfic in whatever expression it comes, but I'm also happy writing my own stories. While I'm aware it's been years since I've meaningfully written fanfic, it doesn't bother me per se, as long as I'm writing. It bothered me much more when I could write fanfic but not original fic, especially in those last few awful months at my last job. I'm proud of the literary and non-genre fiction I've written in the past, but it's also much more trying and frustrating to write at times, so I'm enjoying having a different sort of challenge that feels more fulfilling in the process. I'm sure at some point I'll go back to literary fiction -- there are ways in which it's hard to avoid turning the later Shivadh novels into literary fiction, being honest -- but for now I like what I'm writing, and I'm writing primarily to please myself and without regard to what's necessarily rational or linear.

Just struck me, is all, that it's by far the most noticeable major shift in my work. I do sort of wonder what will be next.

[ocean-blue-orchids]

Pocky Panic pt 2!

This is a continuation of the “what if Yuu introduced the pocky game to NRC and it caught like wildfire” prompt from @the-fab-fox ! I took some of the pairings he suggested and wrote some of them! And snuck my own oc in too because :3 I can :3

Gay chicken and tooth rotting fluff ahead‼️

Pairings are: Trey x Vil, Riddle x Floyd (this one has a short drabble too!), Azul x Cater, Jade x Ruggie x Jamil, Leona x Silver, n2squad (aka Jamil x Leona x Vil, named and basically created by @mellosdrawings), Jade x Finn x Trey (Finn being @the-fab-fox’s oc, hope I did him justice!), and Wiro x Sebek (Wiro being my own silly little guy oc bebo)

This is all mostly off the top of my head and absolutely not beta read lol. I hope people enjoy!

Trey x Vil

-going back to the “vil wont participate because of the sugar content in Pocky” thing…we know Trey has baked healthier sweets for Vil before and by GOD does he have some extra motivation to do it now

-A giant variety all in Vil’s favorite flavors (which based on his favorite food of smoothies, is probably fruity flavors), and he bundles them up in a bag and puts a nutrition label on it and Trey you aren’t beating the mom friend allegations ever

-But yes this does indeed work and Vil has to try to keep cool and act like this very romantic act that’s tailored directly to him doesn’t make him want to giggle into a pillow like a teenage girl.

-That’s hard to do when he’s also like an inch from Trey’s face but. Well. It’s fine he’s fine

Riddle x Floyd pt 2 eelectric boogalo aka “Candi somehow convinces themselves to super ship FloRid after years of not really caring for the ship just by writing some fluff”

-Hm yeah I can say more on this topic. Because Riddle could literally collar Floyd and he would STILL be begging to play this with him

-I mean, it’s Goldfishie! Every reaction Riddle has is like Floyd’s favorite personal react channel. He needs to see how this would go

-But after being collared twice and almost getting hit by a flying cauldron once (thanks Deuce) he is completely lost for ideas

-He complains about this during a basketball club meeting…and maybe Ace is annoyed with Riddle for one reason or another, and he mentions the fact that rule #267 is that any new sweets that are to be presented at an unbirthday party must be thoroughly taste tested by the Queen first!

-And there’s a taste testing day coming up soon…

-Cut to Floyd baking up a STORM in the Mostro Lounge kitchen (which Azul is typically fine with, since he gets to add new things to the menu). Floyd gets the hang of making pocky pretty fast and bakes a bunch. And then maybe he breaks into Heartslaybul to plant the pocky in with the other sweets. And then also he hides in the room with the sweets overnight

-I mean he is an ambush predator so-

-And woagh! The plan works and now Riddle is shouting because Floyd jumpscared him when he went to inspect the pile of sweets

-oh my god I’m writing a snippet AGAIN? Man we’re only two ships in but the voices. The voices!!!

—————

Riddle instinctively tossed the first thing in his hands at the intruder-a frosted sugar cookie. Floyd caught it in his mouth with minimal effort.

“Mmh. Dish ish good stuff, Goldfishie~”

Riddle’s face moved on from pale shock into a pinkish red as he realized who he was dealing with. He should have expected this-who else would bury themselves in the Heartslaybul pantry like some sort of raccoon?!

“But not as good as your face right now~! Man, you really should get a portable mirror, you’re missing out on yourself.”

“This is absolutely UNACCEPTABLE! I know you like to cause chaos, Floyd, but this is a new level of ridiculousness! When I tell Azul that you’ve been snooping around the Heartslaybul pastry storage, he’ll-“

“Eh…why’dya think I’d care if you told ‘zul? Not like he’s my dad or somethin…”

Floyd stood up from where he had been hiding all night, his body making slightly unnatural clicking sounds as he stretched.

“Besides, don’tcha have a bunch of taste testin to do now? Why waste your time yelling at me?”

Riddle’s face was currently at tomato red, working its way up to beet-but he paused to think about what Floyd was saying. He scanned the pile of containers and counted at least fifteen new sweets to taste test…and he had a study session in an hour, and it absolutely wouldn’t do to be late-!

“…you’re right. For once. Now get out of here so I can get to work! You have ten seconds before I collar you and send you back to Azul with your tail between your-or-your legs between…uh…TEN, NINE, EIGHT-“

“Aw, come on!”

“-SEVEN, SIX, FIVE, FOUR-“

“I’m here to help youuuu…”

“-THREE, TWO-“

“You can’t follow your rules without my help!”

“-..? What are you talking about?”

“That rule you gotta follow says that you have to give a thorough examination of the sweets.”

Floyd approached Riddle, leaning down slightly to lift a container filled with the sweets that had been the bane of Riddle’s existence for the past week. He shook it slightly for emphasis.

“How did you know about that rule-no, that’s not important. There’s nothing about those dreadful fad sweets that I need your help with.”

“Oh yeah? You don’t think you gotta put it through a pocky game stress test? Seems pretty neglectful of you to ignore that…”

Riddle took a moment to run that absolutely insane logic through his head…and the conclusion he came to made him let out a small huff. He snatched the container out of Floyd’s hand, opened it, and took out a pocky, pointing it at the eel.

“Very well. Your logic is…somewhat sound. And I’m on a time crunch as is. So you get one. Game.”

Floyd’s eyes widened like a dog being shown a new treat. He grinned, his face now a mix of sinister satisfaction and childish glee.

“Yaaaay~! Ok, ok, Floydie’s going first!

He eagerly leaned down slightly and bit his end of the pocky. It was raspberry flavored, and sure enough it was delicious. The ball was now in Riddle’s court.

Riddle was glad he was in his dorm uniform, his heels gave him the hight to reach his end of the pocky.

It’s just some candy. Just a silly little game.

Riddle bit down, not looking at Floyd-who was keenly looking at Riddle’s face.

Floyd took a surprisingly small bite. They weren’t too close now…maybe this wouldn’t be so bad.

Riddle took a similarly small bite.

Then Floyd followed by halving the length of the treat-Riddle was so close that he could swear he had heard a second pair of teeth crunch down on it.

For once, his face was turning red for a different reason.

Floyd grinned, almost giggling like a child at the sight.

Two more bites later, and the pair were almost out of pocky. Riddle looked at the pocky, then at Floyd. That was a mistake-Floyd was still looking right at him! The eye contact startled him and kept his face matching the pink hue of the pocky in their mouths.

Riddle had never willingly been this close to Floyd, and any time he had gotten this close before, he would quickly blast Floyd away. But now that he was so close…

Had Floyd always looked at him so intensely?

If Riddle didn’t know better, he could almost see a look of admiration on Floyd’s face.

No, no. That’s silly. It’s just entertainment. Maybe…this could still work out in Riddle’s favor. Floyd was just a childish eel, after all, and the best way to handle him would be just giving him the funny experience he wanted so bad. Just a peck on the lips, and he would probably finally get bored and move on to pestering someone else.

Riddle bit down on the last section of pocky. If Floyd didn’t chicken out, which was unlikely, the next bite would be a collision. Their lips were so close, he was surprised they weren’t already touching. It almost felt like they were.

Floyd wasted almost no time once the ball was in his court. He snatched up the last bit of pocky, and kissed Riddle.

It was an awkward kiss, their lips adjusting from holding the candy to a proper peck on the lips. It didn’t help that both of their eyes were open. Despite the butterflies in his stomach (which he was willfully ignoring), Riddle hoped this would be over soon so that Floyd stopped looking at him with that dumb look on his face.

That stupid smile totally screamed “haha, I won!”, didn’t it?

And the way he was leaning forward was clearly to try and knock Riddle off of his balance since he was already feeling lightheaded-which was only because of the strange situation, of course!

And the look in Floyd’s eyes…

Was…

The look in Floyd’s eyes was one that Riddle hadn’t gotten a good glimpse of before. He had thought he had seen the look once or twice, but whenever he saw it, it swiftly disappeared. Now he finally had a chance to see that Floyd was looking at him with…

No, it couldn’t be. Floyd couldn’t be looking at him with adoration. That had to be wrong-this was just him playing a little game with his favorite toy! So he should look like he’s proud of himself, or he should have that dumb sweet face he makes when he’s just told a funny joke, or-

The kiss was over now. Floyd had ended it, to Riddle’s surprise.

But Floyd didn’t move far away. He just…kept looking at Riddle. Scanning his whole face with that same strange expression, as if Riddle’s face were a precious gemstone glittering and reflecting onto Floyd.

His eyes were fixed on Riddle.

Floyd was always calling Riddle “entertaining”. Riddle was accustomed to taking that as yet another insult from someone who viewed him as nothing more than a passing interest. He was entertaining in the same way a cheap toy was. That had to be it.

But Floyd wasn’t looking at him like a toy.

He was looking at him like the sun.

He wanted to see that look more.

He wanted to…do that more.

So he did.

This time Floyd’s expression had a hint of surprise on it-that quickly melted into elation as he wrapped an arm around Riddle to support the second kiss.

——————

HAHA WHOOPS THAT GOT OUT OF HAND UHHH NEXT COUPLE QUICK GO GO GO G

Azul x Cater

-See…these two are idiots

-They’re talking about the game all the time. After all, they both watch trends as a part of the their passions; Azul keeps the lounge updated with themed foods, Cater’s posts stay on trend.

-So of course Azul comes to Cater to talk about the new trend and scheme I MEAN…plan out some new business ventures

-And despite these two being all happy and cute and down bad for each other I firmly believe neither has the romantic confidence to ask the other to play the game with them

-So naturally Jade and Floyd see this happening while Cater and Azul talk in the lounge and their solution is to quietly shut down the lounge for the night, dim the lights, serve up the food Cater ordered and the pocky special…and lock all of the exit doors (Jade pickpocketed Azul’s master key)

-They send Azul a text letting him know he’s not leaving their romantic setup until he mer-mans up and plays with Cater

-Pucker up fish boy (Cater tries to play it cool when Azul asks to play with him especially because Azul is trying to sound suave and completely failing-Cater can tell when he’s nervous by now)

-Something something shalalala don’t be scared

Jade x Ruggie x Jamil

-And if I said that this instantly becomes a “who can spoil Ruggie the most” competition

-His tail WAGS. When you give him SWEETS

-This is an almost everyday thing for Jade and Jamil, trying to beat the other to the punch on playing the game with Ruggie

-One time Jade finds an excuse to be at the Savanaclaw dorm at the crack of dawn to gift Ruggie more pocky and play with him (Leona sees this and thinks it’s pathetic-)

-Meanwhile Jamil is using that hypothetical excess stock from Kalim’s overbuying to try and one up Jade on quantity

-Competitions like this are probably a form of flirting for Jade and Jamil. Which means eventually one of their play arguments ends when Ruggie lifts a pocky stick in between them

-They mellow out a little bit after that. Only a little though

Leona x Silver

-honestly these two kinda stumped me at first but then I locked in and opened my mind fr

-Neither of them seem very keen to follow trends, they seem like a couple that goes on casual dates and often naps together

-But I’m sure that Lillia keeps his son updated on trends, and Leona has head or it by association with seeing his underclassmen doing it

-So I think that perhaps on one of their sleepy dates, Silver jumps into Leona’s dream as may be the usual for them by now

-And perhaps the ever so cool Leona is actually having a dream about playing the pocky game with his darling. Little lovesick lion

-So of course Silver does a quick change with his dream self and enjoys the game with Leona in his dream

-It’s so enjoyable that he goes out to get some pocky for them to play with in real life, and he swears he heard some purring when he gave the box to Leona

————

Ok and now for some self indulgent ocs and also n2 squad aka: “man I hope I get these dynamics right”

————

N2Squad (Jamil x Leona x Vil)

-Ok what if I said that this happens during the early “Jamil is feeling a little awkward around the pre established LeoVil couple” period in the relationship

-Kalim won’t shut up about the trend and Jamil has half a mind to offer to do it with Leona and Vil but what if it turns awkward? Any good planner thinks of all of the possible outcomes and all Jamil can think of are the worst, most embarrassing situations possible

-So when trend setter (and trend watcher) Vil comes over to Jamil and Leona with the pocky Jamil is extremely relieved that he didn’t have to make that move. Touched, even. Not that he’d say it.

-However his little reaction, the small widening of eyes that Leona notices and the way he sat up straighter that Vil caught, gives him away. Vil and Leona watch Jamil just as closely as he watches them, Jamil’s just been so preoccupied with his own low self worth to realize it.

-Leona and Vil don’t let onto this though. They play the game as usual, although I imagine they all play in different ways

-Leona intends to end every round with a kiss. He will get a surprising amount of the pocky in his mouth in one bite just to surprise whoever is on the other end with a kiss

-Vil on the other hand does enjoy the feeling of being desired. So if he deliberately bites his end in a way so that every round ends in the other player having to make the move to kiss him…wow, what a coincidence! Leona and Jamil clock this like three rounds in. Jamil still goes for the kiss. Leona starts messing with Vil and trying to stick him with the last move instead and now they’re somehow competing. At the pocky game. Good job boys

-As for Jamil…I don’t want to say “uncharacteristically flustered” but what else do I call it? I mean can you blame him? His boyfriends are cute, and they’re playing a game about kissing each other for sevens sake

-He actively chickens out the first few rounds, although he tries to play it off

-Eventually he cools off enough to beat Leona to the punch and take a big enough bite for them to kiss. It’s hard to tell if Leona is more satisfied about the kiss or about being outplayed. He gets Jamil back right away of course

-And Vil refuses to make the move for a kiss until Leona insinuates that perhaps Vil is the truly flustered one in this scenario, which Vil objects to fervently.

-TLDR they go through quite a few boxes that night, and for what it’s worth, Jamil feels a bit better about his place in the relationship by the end. It’s a start, at least. (Jamil turn around Jamil your boyfriends have more pocky to play with Jamil they’re behind you jAMI-)

Jade x Finn x Trey

-I know I play around with if the characters are dating or not in each of these so to clarify, this is in the cringefail flirting/pining stage of the ot3. Man I hope I got this close to right 🙏

-As the trend spread, it probably hit all three dorms at the same time. Jade was helping Azul develop a new pocky menu, Trey was seeing Adeuce being not subtle in the Heartslaybul lounge, and Finn probably helped Jamil transport all the pocky Kalim bought to a cooler when he saw poor Jamil lugging box after box through the halls

-So it was only a matter of time until someone made a move and of course Jade was the first to think of this

-His plan was likely to offer to play the game during a lunchtime study session in the courtyard. Good atmosphere, it’s lunch so they’re already eating, and most importantly, it would be just the two of them. No green haired competition to get in the way

-Of course Jade couldn’t account for Trey having baked some pocky of his own for Finn to try. How in the hells did he even know where to find them anyway?

-So while Jade and Trey are proooobably lowkey making some passive aggressive (emphasis on the passive, knowing these two) remarks to each other, they’re too focused on that to notice poor Finn’s temporary blue screen

-Pocky game? With Jade AND Trey? Right now??? At the same time????????????

-and I think it would be very funny rom com love triangle shenanigans if the only way the two are able to settle this is by playing the game themselves-whoever chickens out goes second

-At some point during this discussion Finn manages to squeak out an “ok” to the situation

-Watching Trey and Jade play probably doesn’t do anything to help him calm down

-And for what it’s worth Trey and Jade are making wayyyyy too much eye contact to be normal. Calls coming from inside the house you two

-Surprisingly Jade is the one to back out first? It’s…weird. Uncharacteristic of him. But Trey goes first with strawberry pocky

-Finn is probably just as red as the pocky at this point and he’s so obviously flustered as they play…poor Fox probably has to loose the round once Trey gets within an inch of his face. It’s not that he doesn’t want to kiss Trey, I just imagine that he’s probs flustered out of his mind

-Which is why Jade lost on purpose-he wanted to go in for the weakened prey I MEAN UHHH he wanted to swoop in after Trey went

-He uses some lavender pocky he got from the lounge, and he makes small bites at first unlike Trey’s medium ones

-So Finn is actually able to hold his own for a bit, it’s not too overwhelming!

-until Jade goes for a MASSIVE bite in true eel style and ambushes Finn, getting mere centimeters away, close enough to just close the gap by shifting his face

-He grabs Finn by the chin, thumb under his lips…

-…and pushes the sliver of pocky into Finn’s mouth, ending the game

-He didn’t want to be too brash, after all. He’s playing the long game here. So he lets Finn win the round, and makes quite the impression of course

-Oh and if that isn’t the passing period bell! Time to go to class-and Jade has to go to a different one than Finn and Trey, so he’s off~!

-Trey may have been a touch outwitted but he does get to walk a flustered Finn to class, and he gets to leave his baked goods in Finn’s bag (he slipped them in before they started walking)

-Poor Finn probably looks like a ghost when he gets back to the dormitory-Kalim probably asks if he needs to see the nurse

Wiro x Sebek

-Ok this is self indulgent lol I couldn’t help myself. I did restrain myself from doing the entire freshman polycule, that is my version of restraint

-But assuming Wiro and Sebek are still stubbornly fighting over dorm pride…there’s honestly no way they don’t end up playing this game of gay chicken

-Every argument they have is a game of gay chicken anyways so uhhhh what’s the difference lmao

-They do this during some meeting after school, treating it like it’s a duel when they’re literally playing a kissing game

-They do keep chickening out of it an equal amount, because who would want to kiss their enemy??!! Duh!!!!

-Until they’re at Sebek 6 Wiro 5 and Wiro can’t afford to loose the round

-Octavinelle dignity is on the line!!!!! He’s gotta do something!

-But no matter how close he gets and how warm Sebek’s face gets, Sebek isn’t backing down to Wiro’s frustration

-But Wiro isn’t planning to back down either…even as they get closer, and closer…

-And eventually he moves in for what could be best described as a collision

-It’s not exactly the most romantic kiss but it certainly leaves the two stunned for a moment

-And then they agree that it’s a tie

-Guess they’ll just

-Have to have a rematch

-Of course. That’s only logical

-(If the music club sees Wiro suddenly writing love songs for the club, no they DONT)

[hollowed-theory-hall]

Throwing out the Epilogue and Cursed Child, how would you imagine the ending of the series? Like, what comes next after Harry goes to bed after beating Voldemort?

Anonymous asked:

What changes you would like to see in the wizarding world after the war?

Anonymous asked:

If you could rewrite the epilogue of Harry Potter, how would you do it and what changes would you make?

Thank you for the asks, it gave me a reason to try and think more about what I actually want from a post-book 7 story since I usually prefer to diverge from canon before book 7. I already talked a bit about the epilogue here, but this is more of a list of things I would like to see instead of reasons I don't like the existing one. There are going to be a lot of headcanons here, so be ready for that. I don't have something super thought out in terms of how it'll happen or who will be involved in everything in the long run. But I have a few bullet points about the epilogue itself and further in the future for the HP characters.

Like, for the epilogue itself, as I wrote in the past, I'd make it only a few months in the future, not years. What I'd put there is:

Showing a bit of the Golden Trio's friendship, and the three being hopeful about the future.

They are back at Hogwarts for 8th year and offhandedly mention Harry tried to go straight to Auror training and regretted leaving Hogwarts behind so quickly.

Ron was with Harry in Auror training and when Harry told him he was dropping out, Ron dropped out too. Kingsly assures them they could both return and continue the training from the point they dropped out after 8th year (Ron would return, Harry wouldn't).

They all get to worry about a future they weren't sure they'd have.

It's mentioned Neville is helping out Sprout and Harry is helping out the changing roaster of DADA teachers (since McGonagall decided to not really sign one on permanently to avoid the curse until it could be broken).

Some sections of Hogwarts are still a little worse for wear or were rebuilt completely after the battle and it shows.

Society is a little different. I want to see a Hogwarts where houses don't matter as much. Actually, start building the unity the sorting hat sang about. Show Harry has a few Slytherins he's friendly with. Show a pure-blood Slytherin be at least polite to Hermione — show the seeds of change.

Harry and Hermione are both mentioned going to the ministry for various meetings, and we get a hope that the ministry could be changed from within. That the system that let Voldemort and the Death Eaters take over so easily could be helped.

The epilogue won't show the actual changes or politics, just imply they are happening/or will happen. Many of the ex-DA members are primed for key positions in the ministry which would help this change to happen. Still, it would be slow, but now that there is no war, they have time. Like, the epilogue would mention people like Susan Bones getting a good position in the DMLE or something.

They reference rebuilding Diagon Alley and many places that were destroyed along with setting up a war monument and a separate monument for muggleborns.

Basically, I just want to end on a note of hope, of seeing a reason to work towards a future Harry finally had, you know?

But, that note of hope needs to have a bitter taste to it. I'd mention how this year, almost all the students could see the Thestrals leading the carriages to Hogwarts, an entire generation who gazed upon death.

Like, I don't care that much who Harry marries and what he names his kids, so I don't really mind not seeing that and leaving that to each reader to imagine their own future for him. If I were to rewrite the epilogue, that's what I'd do, I'd keep it vague.

As for other things I have in mind for Harry's future after the books, well, I think I mentioned some of them in the post I linked but I'll note down a few:

Harry becomes DADA professor and eventual deputy headmaster for McGonagall and Professor Potter doesn't let an abused kid go unnoticed. He's going to do something about it, for all houses.

Ron does still become an Auror, and I see him getting really good and valued there. I want Ron to become head of the DMLE instead of Harry.

I like to imagine Hermione becoming an Unspeakable actually, I think she'd enjoy it more than politics. Like, as much as she cares, she isn't very politically savvy. She is going to use Harry's Potter Wizengamot seat and war hero status (+ her own war hero status) to help him and other ex-DA members push for more creature rights and changes in the Wizarding World though.

Neville becomes a Herbology Professor and head of Gryffindor, and he and Harry become closer friends when they work together at Hogwarts.

Harry also breaks the DADA curse, either by figuring it out (he's very intuitive about magic and he knows how Tom thinks, so he could figure it out) or the curse recognizes him and just ceases. Even if Harry isn't a Horcrux anymore, I think carrying Tom's soul for so long had a lasting effect, so he just might get a pass. And even if the curse doesn't break, honestly, if anyone knows how to survive a year at Hogwarts when something's out to kill you it's the Boy-Who-Lived. So the curse might break after it fails once because it's Harry James Potter, Master of Death extraordinaire, and exception to magic.

I think Luna continues editing the Quibbler with her father, as well, and after the war, it becomes a real competition for the Prophet. She still becomes a Magizoologist in my headcanon.

Harry would eventually become Hogwarts headmaster, I think, in my version of events. Obviously, this would be way later, but I really see it happening. I'm hoping in his time as headmaster he'll finally fire Binns and get an actual history teacher into this school.

As for shipping, in my ultimate vision, Harry and Theo get together either during 8th year or by meeting in the ministry, maybe in Wizengamot warlock conventions (since Theo's father was a Death Eater and is either dead or in Azkaban, it'll be Theo there). I believe Theo wasn't actually in Britain during book 7 and the war and that's how he got out of being a Death Eater. He wasn't mentioned among the Slytherins that were in Hogwarts, so it's possible. I disagree with everything Cursed Child did to my boy Theo Nott except him being an Unspeakable since I can see that happening. His and Hermione's work dynamic in the DOM could be really fun, I think and it might be how he and Harry start talking.

For everyone else, I'm honestly less picky. I'm fine with Ron and Hermione together at the end, but I'd also be fine if they won't be, so 🤷‍♀️

[shirecorn]

Your reindeer designs give me such childish joy I can't wait to see the rest. What's your process (aka any advice) for designing from scratch with something like just a name or concept?

Redbubble (buy reindeer swag) || Patreon (see all early!) || Ko-fi

See more free tutorials!

You can see my process unfold in real time by joining any tier of my patreon discord. Which doesn't even have to go through patreon! If you want, you can just pay me $20 and let you in for a year (and then lose track and probably keep you anyway)

Here's a preview using comet! (nevermind the preview thing I wrote you a whole lecture lol)

initial sketches in 2021:

Revisited in 2022 and 2023

I was constantly asking which design was the weakest, why, and how to fix it. Whenever I tested without the magical comet behind it, people could only guess who comet was by process of elimination.

I didn't want to rely on throwing icons into the design. I wanted each one to communicate through shape and silhouette alone. It would be like drawing a little cherub with a bow and arrow floating along with cupid. If you have to include a nametag to communicate, your design can be improved.

So I tried a few different strategies to say "comet" before I realized I could twist the antlers into any shape I wanted. I was worried I would have to discard the drawing and restart from scratch! Which is what I did for rudolph about 6 times before I had a breakthrough.

Then I gave my patrons a brief lesson in antlers to explain where and why I was placing the tines. When I stray from the caribou structure, I do so knowingly in order to achieve something that cannot be achieved within the caribou shape, like dancer's tutu. Know the rules before you break them. My goal is to make animal nerds (myself chief among them) happy when they see species-specific anatomy instead of cop outs.

I tried a few things before figuring out antlers could become comet

Another thing that often caribou have is an unsymmetrical "spork" that comes forward off only one antler. I figured this out by looking at hundreds of reindeer pictures and saving them to my reference folder. A few of my designs have this, that's what the little spiral is in the final comet antler design.

When I put comet in my lineup, I realized that the antlers I drew were way more stylized, chunky, and "tribal" than the others. I had already changed the proportions on one of my designs to match, so then I had to hack away at the basic comet rack to make it look natural.

I already knew that comet's colors would be easy because a basic reindeer already Has the big comet on the shoulder. But here's a peak at all the reindeer images I posted for my patrons to look at.

As you can see below, I chose reindeer markings for all my designs instead of other deer or animals. Even vixen is tied to actually possible reindeer patterns rather than copy-pasting a fox. Almost all of my designs have light-colored anklets on dark colored legs, which is very common with caribou of any color. This is the sort of thing no one tells you; you have to observe it yourself.

Ft cupid's early design! I was continually testing out my reindeer silhouettes and colors on new people, taking their feedback, and fixing what wasn't clicking.

I know I could have made vixen sexy and curvy to play into a recognizable trope, but I really wanted them to be scary and fox-like. Sometimes you gotta do what you want and not what you think will appeal to audiences. Reindeer Days is a purposeful exercise in audience resonance. Most of my art is 100% me and what I feel like doing with no regards to anyone else. So it was a fun challenge!

My patrons also got to see me making fun of corporate designs for recognizably/cliches at the expense of literally anything good

One of these is going to get a lot more "that must be vixen!" results from people who aren't constantly thinking about animal colors, markings, hunting strategies, and teeth.

And one rocks.

Vixen changed the least from the initial 2021 concept!

A Vixen is a female fox. In english slang, it means a cunning, fierce human woman, and sometimes sexually attractive or promiscuous. Quite often an insult to someone because she won't date you!

But to me, a vixen is an animal. A predator.

When designing to reference something, I like to hit it at multiple angles, referencing obscure trivia about something to delight and educate. This is done by researching a topic deeply, far below surface level and beyond what you think you need to make your design. Or in my case its just knowing a bunch of animal trivia already.

After researching/dredging your knowledge, sit there and Think. Don't draw anything. Come up with several ideas and then throw them all in at once for the ultimate trivia design.

Trivia about red foxes:

They have Long bushy tails

They have teeth that include large sharp canines, flat incisors, triangular premolars, and chunky molars with points on them that slide scissor-like with the molars above to cut meat via chewing

They hunt rodents in burrows under the snow by jumping into the air, arcing, and slamming down with their face through the snow

They are orange

They have a dark vertical stripe on their snout

They have black legs, with the backs and bottoms being orange

Translated into the design:

Pose based on a fox jumping, about to land in the snow

Antlers twisted to resemble teeth

Long (for a reindeer) bushy tail

black mark on snout

Some adjustment to the pose to be at the top of the arc and flow better.

Tinkering with the design to make it recognizable but not 100% copypasta fox

I was finally happy with a design that absolutely showed "fox" while still being creative and plausibly caribou shaped. This would absolutely communicate who it is! I thought!

The most obvious one of the bunch! After all, everyone knows what a vixen is!

Nope! No they do not

Want to be part of the design process, help me with WIPs months before everyone else, see exclusive doodles every day, and join a funky little community?

(you also get to see photos of my dog)

Connect your discord to your patreon and join any tier to automatically get added to the server. Not a fan of patreon or monthly subscriptions? message me here, on ko-fi, or via email (shirecorn.art@ gmail.com) and ask if you can pay $20 to get put in the server for at least a year and longer if we work it out later!

This was supposed to be a preview to get you to pay me but instead I wrote an entire lecture for free because I can't help myself.

Want to thank me for the free info? Tag me when you use what you learned! Comment and give feedback! If I could pay rent with attention I would never need anything else in life.

You can also thank me by tipping my ko-fi! I use it to buy pens since I die if I have caffeine. But could you imagine??

[saynomorefic]

On Simon, apologies and healing

One thing I'm having a hard time with in writing YR fic lately: writing fix-its involving justice for Simon, not just related to Wille, but basically to every character that's hurt him (and the list is long). I have no issues getting to the scene, or what I want the outcome to be, but the how it happens has been tripping me up every time. Struggling mostly to make it feel realistic, and getting the other party to verbalize what they've done wrong while staying in character.

I realized that it's largely because we didn't see this happen in canon. Honestly, full stop. While I'm so relieved Simon and Sara made up, a large part of it was him letting go of his hurt over her initially choosing August to comfort her in their shared trauma. (She did acknowledge she felt he was right about Micke and trying to forgive people, which is sadly ironic.) And then, of course, him and Wille's trauma was tied up only by Wille renouncing his title, as though this paves over all the harm done.

I feel like that's why we see so many fics continuing to put Simon in the cycle of pain? Because we're echoing what we saw in canon, therefore writing real resolution and healing for Simon kind of stops at the moment of apology, or glazes over it completely (often times for him and Wille to get back together). I'm absolutely not blaming authors for this! I think we want to give Simon that resolution and healing. That's sort of the point I'm making here, that it's genuinely so hard to write. I wrote a whole AU to get Simon and Wille to have these real conversations, to really reckon with the privilege gap, in part because it didn't even feel possible to try in canon.

Do any other writers struggle with this? How do we get our boy out of the cycle of pain? 🥺

Also feel free to leave recs of Simon-centric fics featuring apologies/ where he gets the opportunity to actually heal. ❣️

[bonefall]

Elder Bones, what is your opinion on Brightflower supposedly being in the Dark Forest according to the 'magical warrior cats god' Su Susann? According to the Warriors Wiki, Su Susann put Brightflower in cat hell for hating Yellowfang once and supposedly not being sane after the truth was revealed about the death of her children. I quote, "On Vicky's Facebook, Su Susann wrote that Brightflower resides in the Dark Forest since she was filled with hate when she thought Yellowfang killed Mintkit and Marigoldkit, and was subsequently shocked and no longer sane when Brokenstar revealed the truth about the death of her kits." Seems pretty fucking messed up if you ask me.

HOT TAKE: I think it works okayish with the older "vibe" of the Dark Forest being the sort of place where your feelings put you. Like you lose a mortal part of yourself in death, and what lives on in the afterlife is your life's energy.

So it would be fucked up if, say, your kittens died and you blamed the wrong person, were consumed by it, and then in death were dedicated to that revenge in a sort of nightmarish Angry Ghost kind of state. But also, kinda neat. No wonder they take such good care of their elders, when their belief is that negativity at death can make you into an evil spirit.

And that's interesting with Ashfur in mind, too! Like it's not really something StarClan can control! If you feel like you were justified, if you didn't believe you had hate in your heart, you go where you think you should go. Tweak the line from Yellowfang to Ashfur, and have him decree, "My only crime was that I loved too much!" And you have GREAT setup for TBC.

It could unironically have made a really good way to drive conflict-- have heroes who believe they don't deserve Heaven, and villains who fully believe they do. Makes an interesting worldbuilding idea, at least.

BUT that said, that's probably a personal bias. I want the Dark Forest to be SOMETHING deeper and less simple than canon, where everyone who goes there is usually some flavor kind of murderous freakazoid (unless youre frecklewish, in which case, RIP but dont be The Nearest Woman next time, the Erins HATE those). I'm perfectly capable of seeing how fucked up it is that the two Authorial Damnations were basically just... sad women.

The other one was Lilywhisker, who was "bitter" because... she broke a leg. So the only two non-murderers who were actually sent to Hell under that feelings-first system were a Sad Mom and a Disabled Woman. If that system continued, you KNOW we'd end up seeing a billion girls damned to Hell while the boys are judged less harshly by the narrative, because the Erins are a LOT harder on women's feelings than men's.

In any case, it's not canon any longer so it doesn't invoke white-hot rage like some other statements. But it really was massively uncomfortable, considering their poor track record with both women AND mental illness.

[originalgenshinscenarios]

I am so sorry Miko for this assignment to Ayato 😔

Part 1 (Lisa, Kaeya, Diluc, Rosaria)

Part 2 (Zhongli, Kokomi, Hu Tao, Baizhu)

Alhaitham, Ayato, Nilou and Yelan monster scenarios with human reader

Reader here is gender neutral

Warning: for the sake of it being a romantic story rather than dark fiction the description of Jorogumo is in a few ways inacurate on purpose.

Warning 2: researching Naiads was hard asf since I kept getting different sources to different questions I had so apologies ahead if I accidentally wrote something in an inacurate way.

Alhaitham- stone golem

Have you ever seen a man as gorgeous as a statue? Well... he was a statue at first. You remember how often you used to sit nearby it whenever you had an idle moment. It was in a secluded place, sometimes you even wonder if anyone else knew about it.

Sometimes, when you were feeling a bit alone- you talked to him like he was your friend. You couldn't take out some frustrations in your everyday life, so why not just talk to a statue that has no way of responding or judging you?

One day however you noticed something. The statue had a hole on his chest (at least that's the time you actually paid attention to the hole), like something was supposed to be there- but it was nowhere to be found.

You started to look around it. You had no idea what you were even looking for, but you just got a bit too curious.

Luck had it that not long search later you found a gem behind one of the bushes. Without hesitation you put it in the hole which caused an interesting reaction...

The statue moved. It's voice was very pleasant unlike what he said "And what did you wake me for exactly?" Judging by his tone, he wasn't exactly happy about being awakened.

Of course you had no idea that he would wake up so you told him that. To which he called you ignorant for not recognizing something as "basic" as a cursed gemstone.

You decided not to argue with him. I mean it'd be like talking to a stone wall. Which you sort of were doing before...

It was getting awkward at this point, especially since he was indifferent to that. So he just left...

He knew exactly where he was going so he must've been "asleep" for not a long time. He didn't pay you much attention. Actually he acted as though you weren't there.

So you decided to just leave him alone. It was as simple as that. But a part of you continued to be curious about him.

Especially since it was hard not to pay attention to him. You saw him around quite often. Whenever he was reading something, he was still. Looking once again just like a statue.

A very handsome one. If only he wasn't such a stone hearted asshole. But it's not like you can expect much of a guy who literally has a heart made out of stone if he has one to begin with.

One day, you were feeling a little frustrated. So you went back to your usual spot. It was weird coming there knowing that the statue isn't there anymore but when you got there you were surprised to see him.

He didn't feel the need to explain himself. It was clear that he just wanted some peace and quiet. And that's exactly what this place was giving. With a little hesitation, you sat down next to him and just allowed yourself to relax.

You enjoyed each other's company in silence, until he asked what made you come here this time. To which you looked at him surprised.

It didn't take long to connect the dots, although earlier he was "asleep" he still was concious and aware of the things around him.

You didn't know what to do... But in the end you told him a short summary of your recent worries.

And as earlier the point of talking to a statue was the lack of judgement, this time you felt it more than ever.

Then again... Having an active conversation helped you more. And to be honest... You had fun. He was blunt, and while his words did sometimes hurt his lack of social understanding was... Cute in a way.

Ever since that moment, you found yourself getting closer to him. He didn't talk to people much, but he started to look for excuses to talk to you.

When he caught feelings and recognized them he also didn't see any point in pretending. He was blunt even in his confession, but you accepted his feelings.

Honestly you were freaking out yourself a bit before that when you started to fall for him. I mean what were the chances of him returning your feelings when he wasn't exactly the type to be interested in romance.

And yet here you were. With a man who's heart was a stone- and yet it was beating for you.

Ayato- Kitsune

Recently, you found yourself being the victim of some harmless pranks... although you could never tell who or what was pranking you or were you just unlucky.

Each time you went through that path between Konda village to Inazuma city some minor inconvenience happened to you. And nobody but a few foxes were there to witness it.

You started slowly suspecting that you were being harassed by Youkai, and you were pretty sure of that actually- there is no buts here.

And since it was always in company of foxes there was no mistaking it that at least one of them was a fully sentient Kitsune. It wasn't that hard to guess which one was it though.

So next time you were pranked by it's illusions you decided to check your theory. You walked up to the white fox, it had an incredible fluffy tail- or perhaps was it because it had more than one?

You asked what their deal was and they acted dumb for a moment, making you question your sanity. Eventually it got bored of pretending and changed forms. With how childish these pranks were, you were expecting some kid. Instead you saw quite a handsome guy...

You didn't recognize him from anywhere. But his clothes were rather fancy, so he could be some sort of big shot you had no way of recognizing. But how would he have so much free time to prank you like this?

"Ah and so you caught me, I was wondering how long it'd take" his voice was mischievous but at the same time oddly appealing.

You only wondered what did you do to gather such attention around yourself. But there wasn't any real reason for it actually.

It was just a coincidence, and your reactions just happened to entertain him enough to keep his interest.

He tried to leave once his cover was off, and you managed to stop him to ask for his name... And you were surprised to learn that he was actually someone important.

Ayato was never much of a public figure, even though his name is known by many nearly nobody had seen him.

There were a lot of rumors about him as it was... him being a Kitsune actually explained a few of them. But since it wasn't a common knowledge among the public, he sure was great at masking his Kitsune features.

In the end it didn't matter much. It wasn't very likely for the two of you to continue crossing paths.

He won't catch you off guard anymore, and he "interacted" with you for the sake of entertainment... Yet a part of you had fun as well.

He added something to those walks of yours and while sometimes you prayed to not run into him... At other times you were wondering what he'd do next.

You didn't see him on that path for about a week, so you were pretty sure he won't show up here ever again... But then you fell victim to his pranks once more.

Turns out that he was actually busy for once but the moment he had the time he went back hoping to see you again. Actually, his schedule is always tight. It's just that he found himself always being able to find an excuse to go to that spot.

He couldn't quite explain it, but he found himself falling for you at a first sight. Your first meeting was a coincidence, but everything after it wasn't.

And he was right to trust you. Because even though you knew what he was, you didn't pass that information onto anyone. Even if you didn't do it because you thought you wouldn't be believed... He appreciated such "loyalty".

Eventually he stopped entertaining himself with your reactions, instead whenever your paths crossed he indulged in a nice conversation with you.

He wasn't surprised to find out that he was right in having feelings for you... But he only silently adored you.

There was a lot of barriers that should be keeping his heart away from you. From social status to your mortality. And yet he allows himself to have those joyous moments with you.

Nilou- Water Nymph (Naiad)

Getting lost in the desert wasn't something on your to do list and yet here you were. Dehydrated and desperate. Your Sumpter beast ran away as it got scared of something.

You were trying to follow it but it quickly lost you and so you could only rely on the traces it left... but the wind was slowly taking care of them so you needed to be quick.

From afar the beast's tracks conveniently were towards an oasis... so you started to wonder if it wasn't an illusion. But you had no other choice but to follow it.

You were really lucky as it turned out to be an actual oasis, and as you reunited with your beast you noticed that you weren't alone.

A pretty lady was dancing on the water. Standing on it like it was solid ground. And thus you wondered now if you weren't just dead or asleep so pinching yourself you react to it causing the lady to turn around and notice you.

Seeing you in such a dire state she immediately walked up to you and asked "Oh dear..! Are you okay? Do you need help?"

Once again you started to wonder if you didn't die and the pretty lady wasn't an angel. Her sweet voice, graceful moves and gorgeous face really were making you question your state of mind.

But your exhaustion was getting to you, so before you got to respond to her you passed out.

Nilou panicked at first but she quickly pulled herself together and tried to help you. She took care of both you and your beast and waited for you to regain consciousness.

She was patient and other nymphs teased her for worrying so much but she just couldn't help it.

Once you awakened she wanted to help you prepare to head back home... But first you needed to rest and she was very insistent on it.

As you rested you got to know her better and you very quickly got to get along. It was almost like you could knew each other for ages.

She was just so such a kind and gentle soul, talking to her was relaxing. It was maybe even a little bit too perfect.

But you weren't too surprised about it, after all Nymphs are supposed to be perfect... Right?

Your departure was sad for the both of you. But Nilou tried to mask her disappointment when seeing you leave.

She was only wondering if she'll ever see you again. While you were asking yourself if you really just fell in love at the first sight.

You soon found yourself reading more about Nymphs and there were maybe one or two romance stories between a Nymph and a human you stumbled across while researching...

There was one major problem though, you had no clue where to look for that oasis. But when there's a will, there's a way.

You felt it was a little bit insane to risk your life just to meet Nilou again... But you'd also go insane if you wouldn't be able to speak with her soon.

You prepared yourself for the expedition. Hoping for a little bit of dumb luck to guide you.

And guide you it did. Just as you were about to give up you saw it in the distance. Now you only hoped that it was the right one. But you had your suspicions since it wasn't on your map.

Upon seeing you she was really surprised... But also extremely happy. Just like last time the two of you decided to rest together and talk the night away.

This time however you didn't let your interaction end on "what if"s you asked if she wanted to come back with you. You didn't ask her for anything big. Just for her to be your roommate and if she's okay with it girlfriend.

Although it would make her mortal she didn't hesitate to agree. It was spontaneous, but she definitely wasn't going to pass an opportunity to see you every day.

Yelan- Jorogumo

There has been a lot of odd cases lately. The milileth would be suddenly summoned for arrest of various criminals, just for them to be found in something that looked like spider web.

At first you didn't really pay mind to that odd occurrence. Until a pretty lady showed up in your life. Coincidentally, around the time where you were being threatened.

You accidentally happened to hear a bunch of idiots talking about their "perfect plan" on causing some mayhem in the harbor. And ever since you were told to keep your mouth shut or everything will be pinned on you.

So it was hard to trust anyone. They could've been sent as a distraction or maybe the pretty lady was sent to plant some evidence while you weren't looking to make you look guilty.

And although you couldn't deny how... Charming... She was. You weren't some idiot that would do anything for a gorgeous woman.

Then suddenly she leaned into your ear and said "We're being watched. Follow me and I'll explain everything" her tone was serious. But it wasn't said in a way to further threaten you.

With some hesitation, you decided to temporarily trust her. So once the two of you were alone she explained that she knew what was going on.

She introduced herself and said she'll help you. But you needed to cooperate with her. Before you agreed to it blindly you asked her what her plan was.

She just needed you to act as a bait. And while you didn't like the sound of that... She was rather convincing.

It was just before they started setting everything up. They had all the evidence they could have on them and the moment couldn't be more perfect.

You waited for those bandits and as you looked around, you didn't see Yelan anywhere. You started to think that she was setting you up but you had no time to further think about your doubts as the group was there.

You started to act as though you wanted to join their scheme. After all, you're already involved.

You didn't talk much, you were just buying time that's when you noticed for a split moment that Yelan was here. Dashing between the trees. You had no idea how or why for that matter.

When she was done doing... Whatever that was she interrupted your conversation. When the bandits tried to attack, her incredible speed impressed you once again.

And those who she didn't catch in her spiderweb in that run, got caught by the web that was set on the trees.

As the two of you were leaving the scene, you heard the milileth in the back. Everything happened so fast you honestly had no idea what to think. Especially since you witnessed the person (?) behind all these odd occurrences.

When all of it was a done deal the two of you were walking back to the harbor in silence for the first few minutes.

You had so many questions... And yet you said nothing. She was the one who eventually spoke up, she asked if you were okay.

Somehow, from that question the conversation started moving in it's own direction.

It was rather enjoyable, you soon found yourself really enjoying her company. It was hard not to.

So your interactions didn't end with that situation. You ended seeing each other quite frequently- and you'd be lying if after some time your intentions weren't purely platonic.

She was just so interesting and awesome in every way. Even her creepy spider quirks were just something you couldn't help but admire.

You hoped that you weren't delusional and you're right in suspecting that she likes you too...

Without wasting much time, you told her how you feel. She wasn't very surprised by this but she didn't mask that it made her happy to hear you say so.

You were glad the "trap" you had fallen into was love and not her web.

~Mod Lisa

[catsfor2]

hands ellie x artist!fem!reader

pt2 but can be read standalone  pt 1 an: shocked to see the interaction on my first post (also super, super happy, ty :))honestly, i like this part more than the first one i wrote. pls. pls request/submit asks, i will gladly do them ! !

@prettyplant0

warnings: UNEDITED, mild smut, fluff, hand + finger kink, mild drug use (alcohol + weed)

You were undoubtedly not a party person. Not that you'd really had the chance to figure that out too many times, but after the first 20 minutes of tonight, you knew for sure.

Ellie however? Not the life of the party or anything, but the loose and confident energy she held was undeniable. She had the ability to make you swoon from across the room. And clearly the rest of Jackson has also noticed, as they huddle around her almost magnetically.

You absolutely were not trying to avoid anyone, but somehow, you have been left out. Sidelined. Othered. It's strange, as most of the town had quickly familiarized themselves with you and your creativity. But now, in this tattered party shack off the edge of the woods, you were nobody again.

"Hey! Hey! Are you fucking listening?"

Suddenly, Ellie's in your face, waving her bottle of beer around as she shouts. She laughs before taking another swig. "Are you thereee?"

"Oh fuck, sorry. Kind of zoned out I guess." You say.

"I see that. Why are you over here?" She asks.

"I don't know, I kind of-"

She cuts you off by grabbing your arm and hoisting you off the low couch. She pulls hard enough to hurt.

"Doesn't matter- we're playing pong. You don't need to do anything, I just need a partner, so..."

"Yeah, fine. Are you, like, drunk drunk? Right now?" You question, almost regretfully, not wanting to overstep. It's just that her hands are climbing up and down your arms, mindlessly, almost like she just can't help but to feel your skin.

"Well...ha...kinda," She rolls her eyes, "why?"

Before you can answer she speaks again, the hand resting on your shoulder starting to drift upwards towards your ear.

"Actually- don't tell Dina- but I'm kinda high right now also," She says, her voice getting quieter as she continues. Her fingers fiddle with the jewelry on your left ear again. You changed them for the party, (something almost unnoticeable to the average person) but Ellie can't seem to keep her hands off of them.

You pause.

"Um, why shouldn't I tell her?"

Ellie stares at you for a moment, like she's deciding on whether or not to tell you the truth. It almost hurts to see her not automatically say what's on her mind.

"Cause last night I got fuckin- I got fucked up, basically. Dina made me promise to not drink and smoke together again,"

Her hand inches up to your forehead as she talks, where her thumb starts to fidget with the clips spread through your hair.

"And Dina always tells me, 'Ellie you're like an insecure guy when you drink. Always trying to pick people up and lift random shit,'" She takes the last swig of her beer before tossing the bottle on the couch.

"And yeah, I do that, but at-"

"Get in here dicks, pong's starting!" A voice yells, cutting Ellie off.

Jesse whips a ping pong ball at the back of Ellie's head, successfully taking her attention from you. He quickly picks it up before letting out a warm drunken laugh.

"Oh shit, is Ellie putting the moves on you? Y'know more than three beers and she's-"

"Shut the fuck up Jesse. Y/N, lets go.

Jesse just laughs again while Ellie grabs your hand to lead you to the kitchen.

"You didn't mention that Ellie," You look up at her, hyper-aware of how often she stares at your lips ever since that morning in her house. "are you a player?"

She scoffs before flicking your head.

"Uh, no. I just...like talking to pretty girls at parties," Her flannel whips behind her as you finally enter the kitchen. "is that a fucking crime or something?"

People crowd around a table, set with various cups, all filled slightly with some sort of liquor. Dina and Jesse stand at the other end of the table, attempting to un-dent the only ping pong ball they've found so far.

Ellie's arm snakes around your waist before you hear her voice beside you.

"I might need to hold onto you, by the way, I've had--like--four beers and a shot."

Your face heats as you think of all the people in the room seeing her arm wrapped so tightly around your midsection. As you fumble to say yeah, of course Ellie, she glues the side of her body to yours, making sure her hand stays firmly on your waist.

Ellie almost falls over trying to get closer edge of the table.

"Hey everyone! Hey! From now on, y/n is my designated pong partner! No fuckin' arguments."

A shocked laugh escapes you immediately.

"Ellie!...Jesus..."

"What? You're my girl right? I've got to let 'em know you're my girl," She assures.

"Well with the way you've been holding me..."

Ellie's smile widens.

"I feel like they'd figure it out..." You finish.

"Yeah? And how have I been holding you?"

Your eyes dart back to Dina and Jesse and all the other people in the room before meeting up with hers again.

"Like...like I'm gonna...run away, or something," You say.

"Yeah, well...what if you do?" Her grip on you loosens just a bit. "You did the other morning. You were all yes Ellie, touch me, and then when I went for the pencils and came back you were gone!"

Your blushed cheeks turn an even darker shade of red. Your voice comes out slightly shaky when you talk.

"I--I got nervous! I'm sorry! And with the way you were so mad at first?"

You let out a breath of air you didn't realize you'd been holding. "I was questioning if you really wanted me there at all."

Her eyebrows crease. Then, almost as if to block you from view, she turns the both of you so that your back is facing the wall closest by. Her face gets near enough to yours that you smell the yeasty tang of those four beers on her tongue.

"Oh sweetheart. I almost fingered you after knowing you for like, 10 minutes. You think I don't want you?"

Your skin warms as you process what she's saying. You want to back up and let her crowd you against the wall. The way her hips shift against yours, not touching but close enough to feel every jut sets your insides buzzing. You can't repress a shiver from the sensation. Or the cold- your skirt is on the shorter side.

"Reeally cute when you get speechless like that," Ellie breaths out, tugging at the neck of her flannel and taking it off. "here. Since you wanted to wear something you know you'd freeze in. Like an idiot."

You spacily grab it out of her hands, and as you do, she takes it back from your grasp while shaking her head.

"I got it. Arms out, c'mon," as she starts to put her flannel over your shoulders, she continues. "I have an idea. How about weee...ditch this party. And smoke the joint I have hidden in the shed right now."

"Are you sure? You're already pretty drunk-"

"I won't smoke that much. Maybe a hit or two. I'll let you have most of it," She grins.

Reluctant to make her miss the rest of the party and lively night in general, you keep pushing.

"Yeah, but, the pong game? Right?"

Ellie laughs, throwing her arm around your shoulders and resting it there. Her bicep being so close to your face makes you dizzy. It feels dirty to admit you don't mind how strong she smells there--unsurprising after a night of partying.

"Just let me treat you, alright? High under the stars. Forget about your worries. That kinda shit." Her finger twirls a strand of your hair as she waits for you to answer.

"Yeah. Of course. That sounds really...lovely." You say, too focused on the weight of her body across your back.

"Ok. Good. Great. I'm gonna tell Dina we're going."

Instead of walking over to Dina, Ellie simply screams over the jumble of conversation until Dina hears, and responds, also screaming across the noise.

"Perfect. Let's head out, pretty lady."

-------------------------------------------------------------

You've only taken three hits, but you know you feel something. The greeny ash taste in your throat hasn't gone away, despite you consistently sipping your water.

"How's it feeling?" Ellie asks you, relishing in her fourth puff despite telling you earlier she would take less. You don't mind.

You'd both been slouched on the floor upon a blanket, picnic style, Ellie leaned against your side and her hand starting to creep up the outside of your thigh.

"Good...I guess. I feel warm. Like, cozy." And you did.

Truthfully, you were also a bit on edge. Like, sexually on edge. The blanket heat of the weed with Ellie's presence has you constantly wet and burning. Aching. Of course, that's not something you'd tell Ellie.

"Are you gonna teach me how to roll it?" You ask. "I want to do it next time."

"Next time?" She questions, dramatically opening her eyes.

"I, I mean, you want to hang out with me again...right?"

"Obviously! I'm fuckin' with you," she covers her mouth to laugh before grabbing your hand.

"And, no, I'm not teachin' you how to roll. I'll do it for you. No need for you to learn sweetheart."

When Ellie says things so simply like that, especially in that tone, you have no choice but to go along. You can't bring yourself to push back against something that makes you feel so tingly.

"Oh. Ok." You mumble, staring at her hand encompassing yours.

"It's far easier to just let my hands do all the work," She squeezes your thumb. "right?"

"Yeah-yes. Far easier." You say.

Ellie drags her thumb across your knuckles. Her eyelids droop slightly, eyes shaded a light pink, and her is face flushed from the alcohol. She's so, so beautiful, and you wish you could will the courage to tell her.

"I wore the skirt 'cause I thought you'd like it." You voice, eyes unable to meet her's as you talk. "Do you?"

She lets out a breath.

"Fuck. Fuck, of course I fucking like it. You're so pretty in it." Her hand inches under your skirt, finally grasping towards your upper thigh and edging the hem of your panties.

A brisk exhale escapes your lips as her fingers drift, navigating the plush of your hips expertly. As if she's already planned on where and how to touch you.

"Hey where'd you go? Keep your hand on mine," Ellie grabs your loose hand, which had wandered to your side, and places it firmly on her hand grasping your underwear. "and don't let go."

"Ellie..." you huff, burning hot all over.

"What, this is too much for you? I haven't even done anything yet."

You feel her palm, big and warm, cup you through the fabric and knead, forcefully but slowly rubbing your clit and watching your face for a reaction. Your hand still clutches over hers and you can feel her muscles flex in tune with the heavy pressure on your folds.

Your mouth parts open, lips shiny and untouched as your head looms closer to Ellie's. Her eyes remain locked on yours as her fingers move faster, and it becomes difficult for you to keep your hand on hers as she speeds up.

"Hah--Ellie," You gasp, eyes a bit watery from the sudden stimulation.

Something in her eyes shift and her face is moving closer to yours, her free hand enveloping one side of your face. Ellie kisses you hastily, smearing saliva over both of your mouths. Your teeth clack together, and her tongue is rampant, licking deeply into the kiss. She sucks and bites at your lips, ravaging them, while her other hand still palms you consistently, the strength of her entire arm grinding against your pussy.

The hand on your face reaches to fondle your breast, clawing at your shirt with force to feel underneath your bra. Her hand, despite its size compared to yours, still can't grab your entire breast. Ellie lets out a groan at the sight of you spilling out of her fingers.

Interrupting the both of you, a small metal trinket falls out of the band of your bra and onto the floor.

"Oh--shit, I forgot I was keeping that there," You say, immediately picking it up and holding it to your side.

"Uhm...what is that?" Ellie asks, eyes still partly drawn to where your skirt has ridden up, exposing a part of your ass.

You notice her gaze and mindlessly fix your skirt before picking the item up. The star-shaped rock on the front of the ring took you hours to tediously chip down due to the tiny size. It was worth it to possibly please Ellie.

"It's--well, remember the ring?" You rotate it forward, showing off the small star emblem like its a priceless diamond. "I made it. For you."

"Holy-holy shit! That's so fucking cute! You're so fuckin' cute!" She says in between short laughs. "I can't believe you actually like...made it." She puts the ring on the middle finger of her left hand, pleased with the way it fits perfectly.

"Y'know, now, you jus need to wear something that has a star like mine. So we match."

Her words make you smile wide, also while painting your face rose.

"I actually—my belly," You lift your shirt a tad, exposing the bottom lace of your bra but also the tiny piercing on your bellybutton. "the shape is a star, but-I swear, completely unintentional."

"Oh, shit. That's...cute." She murmurs, leaning closer to your stomach to give it a kiss. "Yeah, 'unintentional', my ass."

You slap her wrist lightly. "Oh shut up,"

Her hand again travels up your legs to reach your thigh, only to pause and retract for a moment. Ellie then takes the ring off of her left hand and triumphantly places it onto her right.

Oh.

"Ok, Ellie, that's like a tiny bit gross-"

"I'll clean it. I promise. I just feel like- I need to baptize it, or something, y'know?" She assures, lips curving up into a sly smile.

"Shut up." You quip. "You really must be high or something."

“We’re both high babe. It fucking reeks in here.”

[johanna-swann]

Now that I finally finished that multichapter fic I think it's time to self-promote my Bucktommy collection on ao3 once more. They all take place in the same continuity and are sorted chronologically, but each story can be read independently.

"But in this life I met you" is about Tommy who, some months into his relationship with Buck, starts questioning his and Eddie's respective places in Buck's life. (3.6k, Bucktommy endgame, I repeat Bucktommy endgame. Yes, Buddie is mentioned and Tommy is a little insecure about it, but no romantic Buddie.)

"Tommy meets Evan" is a very short oneshot about the first couple of meetings between Tommy and Buck. (Tommy's pov, 1.3k. This is mostly me trying to get into LFJ's head and understand certain acting choices.)

"Most people call it falling in love" is yet another oneshot from Tommy's pov. He's being very normal (read, freaking out) about how much he likes Buck after only three months of dating and goes to Henren for advice about it. (feelings realisation, 3,7k.)

"Love and Lack thereof" is the multichapter fic I just finished this weekend. It's basically a "Tommy begins" type of story. Covers his childhood, his time in the army, his coming back to LA and finding a place for himself until he eventually meets Buck. (6 chapters, sort of angsty but in a very grounded / realistic way as I'm told. 28.5k.)

"I wouldn't know what to do with myself" is the odd one out, sort of, I wrote it before 7x10 aired. In the hospital Buck and Athena sit together for a while and wait for news on Bobby. They talk about all sorts of things while waiting, including Tommy. (ngl this one is more about Buck&Bobby than Buck/Tommy, but I included it anyway. 2.5k.)

I was also working on a story where Tommy and Karen bond and have a conversation about kids and the foster system, but I got sidetracked and wrote the Tommy origin story instead. (Both projects feature Tommy as a former foster kid.) Might still continue this though.

I have an almost finished proposal fic, but it's way too cheesy for my liking. I might need to edit that one a few times before I deem it worthy of publication. (I know the show itself is also very cheesy, at this point it's almost a soap and I do enjoy the drama. But I prefer a hint more realism in my own writing.)

Then there's this break up / make up story I've been thinking about non-stop, this is maybe my favourite wip right now. It needs a lot of work though, I would really put Buck through the wringer here.

That's it for now, if any of the wips pique your interest feel free to ask follow up questions, the links to the completed fics should all be working.

[elvisabutler]

you know how kids are supposed to be good judges of character? i was wondering if you could do elvis x reader where their kids don't like mommy and daddy's manager?

children 'n dogs

summary: your children with elvis never have been a big fan of the colonel and neither have you even if elvis is. but as you and elvis like to say: "children 'n dogs, best judges of character." fandom: elvis presley | elvis ( 2022 ) | austin butler rating: t pairing: elvis presley x female reader ( or austin elvis x female reader ) word count: 1854 warnings: talk of children being absolute menaces. a married couple being very much a married couple. pregnancy. the colonel being the colonel. brief mentions of period typical and culturally typical opinions on child rearing re: discipline and spanking. calling elvis a backwater hick. brief brief mention of vomit. i think that should be everything. author’s note: so hi anon thank you for this prompt, this was actually a really sweet one and i kind of fell in love with it but wasn't too sure how to start it- plus the fun tired exhaustion i've been dealing with. i set this as a sort of continuation of my queen of graceland fic ( that i wrote for specifically austin elvis ), you don't have to read that one, just know it basically has elvis and the reader getting together right before he gets shipped off to germany, and they have a set of twin girls right about that time and i implied they were going to have plenty more kids after those two. read this with austin elvis or elvis in mind, i am not picky, since i left it faintly nebulous.

"Whaddya mean Jess spit on 'im? Damn boy is 6 years old, he knows better." Elvis asks as you start to take down your hair for the night, wincing at one of the pins digging deeper into your hair. "Christ, mama, let me get those ones in the back, ya know ya can't get at 'em."

You roll your eyes but remove your hands only to have your husband's warm hands replace them, finding the pins in your hair with an ease you envy. "I meant exactly what I said, sweetheart. Jesse spit on the Colonel in the five minutes I looked away while tryin' to make sure Loretta and Elizabeth were all ready to go. They all know I'm not movin' all that fast right now." Your hand moves to rub at your bump, an act that has Elvis letting out a heavy sigh above your head, one of his own hands following downward and pressing against it, earning a powerful kick.

"That's what I get for putting another set of 'em in ya, isn't it? My Queen of Graceland too big to be chasin' after my lil' hellion of a boy." He moves his hand off of your stomach, only to watch another kick happen with a chuckle as he busies himself with your hair. "Colonel seemed madder than just a lil spit. Gettin' the feelin' there's more."

There is a moment when you contemplate not telling him the rest, not telling him how your oldest daughters had lost their tempers once you got them over to where their siblings were and how the other two boys promptly followed their older brother and hit the Colonel and how your youngest daughter, your sweet 18 month old daughter had thrown up on the Colonel's shoes. You contemplate all of this only to look up at your husband and realize he's waiting, mid trying to take out a pin. "Everyone might have- well- everyone might have had their own things they wanted to do t'him."

Now you're no stranger to trying to smooth over things your children have done to Elvis, no stranger to making it seem as if your children are far more innocent than they actually are. But in being married to you and in knowing your children together from the day they were born he knows when you're doing it. He knows exactly when you're trying to gloss over things and make them look presentable. He leans down and places a kiss to the top of your forehead. "Darlin'. I ain't gonna be mad at 'em. Or maybe jus' a lil, but ya gotta tell me what they did so I can apologize."

You hum and purse your lips as you move to grab a brush to brush out your hair. "Oh, I don't think any of 'em want you to apologize for what they did. They know very well what they did was wrong." A pause and you shake your head. "Loretta and Elizabeth kicked him in the shin and stepped on his foot. While tellin' him to stop bein' angry at Jesse for spittin' and Anthony and Aaron for tryin' to bite and hit 'im."

The two warring emotions that filter across Elvis's face show just how much of a child he can be even as he's a parent to six kids- eight if he counted the ones inside you. He wants to laugh at the sheer chaos the scene brings to mind but at the same time he knows that he should frown upon everything, that you expect him to be able to discipline them a little but at the same time he looks in your eyes and doesn't see a hint of anger. At the children or him. He raises an eyebrow. "And the vomit on the shoe?"

"Rebecca's lunch." The most simple answer as he pulls out the final pins that you couldn't properly see to pull out. "That one i wasn't expectin' in the slightest. Don't know if it was her tryin' to follow her sibling's leads or jus' an upset stomach. But- she hasn't done it since then."

Meaning it likely was her trying to get in on the action. Elvis sighs, sitting on the chest at the bottom of the bed. "Goddamn, darlin'- Our kids did all o' that to him? Our well behaved kids? The ones who know their manners 'n-"

You hold up a hand waving it for him as a signal to stop talking. "Our kids who know their manners 'cause they know I'd have their hides if they didn't. Yes, those kids. Those kids also hate the Colonel 'bout as much as I do-"

It's Elvis's turn to cut you off, standing up only to kneel down in front of you, taking the brush out of your hands so that he can hold them in his own. So he can envelop them in his own and make you focus on his face as he talks. "I know- I know the two of ya haven't ever gotten along but he's why we have all o'this. Wouldn't have gotten so big and wouldn't be in these pictures if it wasn't for 'im."

There is a part of you, a tiny part that will admit he's right, that the Colonel is the reason he's as famous as he is and why he's able to keep up with paying for your ever growing family but at the same time the man hasn't ever truly liked you and he especially likes you less and less the more kids you bring into the world. "Elvis, if he had his way you wouldn't have me or our kids." You whisper, pulling up your hands in an effort to get him to pull up his own so that you can place a small kiss to them. "He never has liked any of us. Got mad when I was pregnant with Loretta and Elizabeth but liked how he could spin it. Same wit' Jesse. But our other three? And these ones? If he could leave us out in a ditch somewhere, I honestly think he would. He- This doesn't give you the all American, Hollywood star look, it makes you look like a backwater hick."

"A backwater hick." He repeats back slowly, knowing fully well it wasn't you saying that. Oh he'd expect that from your mama, but not you. Which had to have meant that was the Colonel's words, not your own. "He tell ya that? He tell my goddamn wife that?

When you had first gotten married you might have looked away due to how Elvis's voice deepens in pitch, a sure sign of how angry he is simmering under the surface. Nowadays? Now it just makes you shake your head for a moment before nodding. "He has- which might be why your children kinda like a dog know when someone is-"

"Not a good person? Has a bad character?" He finishes for you before muttering under his breath. "Children 'n dogs."

The puff of air that leaves your nose betrays just how aggravated you're getting to be with the entire conversation as does the rolling movement of your twins. "They've done this for years, Elvis, it's jus' today that they've all done it at once. We deal wit' it for ya. I know you won't leave 'im so I handle it."

His eyes drift down to your stomach where he sees his children move a bit angrily and he frowns realizing that you've been stuck dealing with this alone while he sung the Colonel's praises all this time. He had to admit that as of late he was feeling a bit dissatisfied with the man and was beginning to wonder if maybe it was time for a change. A change that would make everyone happy. He pulls his hands away from yours and allows you to start to brush your hair again while he moves to touch and rub your stomach in an effort to calm the children. It works quicker than he'd have thought was possible judging by the way you lean back in the chair a little and sigh. Placing a kiss to your stomach he stands up. "I'll talk to 'im tomorrow, a'right? 'Bout a lot of things. Now come on, lets get your hair all brushed and my teeth all brushed and get ya into bed 'fore these lil ones wake back up and make a fuss."

You tilt your head up for a kiss before you nod. "Don't need to tell me twice. Go on, I got my hair sweetheart." You pause. "I love you. And I am sorry about what they did."

"Don't be, they're- our kids, mama. If they weren't like this- I'd be worried." He kisses you one more time before he pulls away to go to the bathroom to brush his teeth. "Love ya too."

Elvis manages to finish brushing his teeth before you finish with your hair and murmurs something about checking on the kids. It's a quick walk to the bedrooms and when he opens the door he's bombarded by a flurry of hugs and overlapping voices.

"We know we shouldn't have but he's so mean to mama!"

"He was yelling at Jesse and Anthony and Aaron, you'd've been mad too daddy!"

"He spit on me first!"

"He what?" The last words uttered by Jesse are what finally have Elvis putting up his hands and telling everyone to be quiet. "Didya jus' say he spit on ya?"

Jesse looks away when he answers, knowing that he technically is lying but he knows Mr. Parker would have. He just knows. "He didn't but- Daddy we jus'. He's mean. He's never mean when you're here but he's mean."

Elvis frowns and pulls his children in for a group hug, noting how they try and burrow into him as best as they can almost as if they want his forgiveness and protection all in one. When he pulls away he places a kiss to each of their foreheads. "I- I'm hearin' all 'bout this tonight. Listen. You all go on 'n get into bed. Daddy's gonna deal wit' some things tomorrow. Some things wit' Colonel Parker. Don't you worry 'bout it."

The grins so much like his own crossing all of their faces make his heart so full of love he almost feels like crying before he shakes his head. Lights out once I leave. And be nice to your mama tomorrow mornin' ya know your siblings are a lil rough on her right now."

A chorus of "yes daddy" leaves everyone's lips in whatever way they can manage it before he shuts the door and moves back to your shared bedroom. You're already on the bed by the time he comes back, curled up with a pillow fast asleep as he slides in next to you and nuzzles at your neck. "Ya gotta tell me 'bout these sorta things, darlin'. Can't protect ya if ya don't. But I'll deal wit' it tomorrow mornin'. Have some words wit' 'im. Love all of ya too much to not."

taglist: @ab4eva, @eliseinmemphis, @powerofelvis, @headfullofpresley, @precious-little-scoundrel, @blurredcolour, @butlersxbirdy, one day i'm gonna keep track of who would want to be tagged with what. today is not that day.

[dullgecko]

(Just read your comment and thank you so much I’m so glad your enjoying my headcanons, also I would turn anonymous off but part of me just likes being known as the anon that signs their comments xx)

To go with your goblins having their tails touched being considered a flirty/ intimate thing or just something close family and friends do;

During that bit you wrote about riz being perched on Fabian when they’re being welcomed by a hoard of goblins and growling at anyone that comes too close, what if Fabian without really thinking about it starts playing with rizs tail (the same way someone might play with a hoodie string, ya know kinda just gently twirling and flicking it around).

Riz does know that tail touching is considered an intimate thing but thinks that since Fabian is a close friend and part of his hoard the other goblins won’t have a problem with it.

Which they don’t, the only thing is the way Fabian is touching his tail is basically the goblin equivalent to hardcore flirting. Combine this with the fact that riz is currently sitting on Fabian, his reaction to the other teen goblins flirting, his lack of reaction to Fabian’s ‘flirting’ and the entire hoard is now convinced Fabian and riz are definitely going out.

Also it’s great to think about riz being really hot by goblin standards, cause imagine your just some teen goblin and one random day a group of elders bring in this group of tall men and a random smoke show goblin you’ve never met before with exotic clothes and accent.

So of course every single teen (and some that aren’t, polygamy a thing) shoot their shot, some more aggressively than others, only to get completely rejected and later find out that oh he’s definitely dating the half elf.

Also I know you wrote about everyone having a hard time eating Goblin food, but I’m thinking since gorgug is a half orc who canonically ate raw meat as a baby he’d be fine and actually enjoy eating goblin food.

Plus since he’s so big he definitely put a lot of it away, that is to say imagine a bunch of tiny goblin grandmas being delighted by gorgug, fussing over him, continuously offering to have him try various dishes and talking about how a growing boy needs food etc. xx

(Yaaaay xx hi! hi xx!)

All of his friends will mess around with the tail tuft if they get the opportunity, which they do because he often wraps his tail around their wrists or arms to stabilize himself while perching. He doesnt even think about it when Fabian starts fiddling with it, just readjusting his position slightly and dropping his head onto the other boys hair with a huff.

They werent exactly all hanging out in private, Gorgug can barely fit through the doors of the sleeping areas let alone fit in the interior rooms (goblins like their dwellings a lot more claustrophobic than gnomes so the half-orc has no chance), so the whole party had just been hanging out in a common-area plaza inside the cave where they'd set up their camping gear.

Riz DOES however notice the sideways glances, and body language shift of a couple of the younger goblins. Ears flicking up into a curious and alert position before settling back to a more confused cant. Clearly they just comprehended SOMETHING, but he hadn't been listening all that closely to what they were talking about.

Riz wasnt all that interested anyway, since it was probably more of what he was getting bothered by while not perched on Fabians shoulder (at least three of the female teens had asked if he wanted to go back to their living quarters, and when he turned them down one of the males had fully groped him and made a lewd comment about joining him instead). He was starting to prefer the total LACK of flirting he got in Elmville at this point.

It was more fun watching a group of elderly goblins rushing backwards and forwards with various food-stuffs to Gorgug, who was very happily sorting through what they were handing him and eating most of it. Apparently they had made a bit of a game of working out what the huge, sweet, green lad (Riz was belatedly realizing that oh yeah, Gorgug WOULD be considered kindof hot by goblin standards) would and would not eat and the answer was 'almost everything as long as its not too old, but definintly not any mushrooms or berries'. Which was smart on Gorgugs part, because while he could digest the meats they were handing him Riz clocked at least four things in the 'not eat' pile that were definitly a little bit toxic to half-orcs.

At least one of the nonnas had broken off from the feeding group to come over and ask if Gorgug was single, because he was such a sweet and tall lad and her granddaughteer Skeklen was looking for a mate but definitely didnt want children so it would be a good match. Riz had thought for a moment, ears flicking as he did so, before shaking his head at her question. "No, i think he's spoken for? And before you ask i'm not sure if he's open to polyamory either."

Fabian had paused in his fiddling with Riz's tail when she came over, but since he couldnt understand anything had gone back to working the tangles out of the hair in the tuft quickly enough. Jumping a little when the elderly goblin gave him a fond pat on the knee before toddling off.

"Oh well, that's a shame. Make sure you tell your lovely elf lad here he's doing a good job of taking care of you, but if he wants the others to back off he's going to have to make a bigger show of it. I know they can be a sort of delicate folk but he needs to be more outwardly forward." She laughed, wandering back to the group of other elders to amuse herself watching Gorgug taste another goblin dish.

Riz was just very confused by that little comment, plopping his head back down as he yanked his tail out of Fabians hand. The tail-thrashing recommencing as he rotated the mystery in his mind. What the hell could she mean by 'more forward'?

[queenvhagar]

idk why i'm so surprised but the fandom turning on GEORGE for his blog post is absolutely bonkers. the way hotd fans refuse to engage with any sort of criticism of their show confuses the living daylights out of me. the aggression? the illogical defenses? the basic lack of sympathy and willingness to understand what he actually meant by his post (ie: it's not "just" about maelor, maelor-omission is an example of the nature of his conversations with condal and their creative disagreements)? their arguments alone are concerning. why does this show elicit this kind of heinous reaction? 😭 i know the world/the internet is out of whack right now, but fr. the bad faith interpretations of what he meant ("he's just being salty" "he's trying to have his cake and eat it too" "this means nothing to me so long as he keeps making shows for hbo and taking their checks" "he could've been writing twow") are so disappointing.

it's "respect creators" but no one actually means it. what they really mean is "respect creators as long as they conform to my wishes and entertain me personally."

The disrespect on this man right now. It's only thanks to decades of work and imagination from this man that we have this story, these characters, these books, these shows at all. People treat his critique as if he has no authority on the stories HE created. What he says is how it is. HE wrote it. HE knows who these characters are and how the story unfolds better than anyone.

I'm all for death of the author, to like, an extent. Obviously when fans see a finished work they can interpret all they want and take the story somewhere new, like when fandoms create art and work and new stories to expand the world that has been created or bring it to a new context. But what Ryan Condal is doing to the work he supposedly cares so much about is decidedly not that, because he was never really a fan of the real story being told.

Ryan Condal sees Fire and Blood as an incomplete story filled with holes. But it never was. The story was there, plain to see. Just because certain accounts of history are put into question doesn't mean that GRRM included them for no reason. There's clearly a narrative being told about this group of characters. And this is where a good writer would see that existing story and fully expand on what was there. Instead, bad writers are lazily making changes constantly to fit a certain story they came up with based on loose understandings of characters and the conflict overall. Then they have the audacity to claim theirs is the superior story, that the original source was not well thought through and constantly made stuff up to the point that they just had to change it. Meanwhile they collect their checks and record podcasts so they can continue to praise themselves for what they fully believe is masterful writing of the highest level.

After not one but two separate works of his have been flubbed onscreen while his creative control has been overridden and his opinion has been ignored... Y'all should be saying thank you that he believes this story is worth advocating for and that he's willing to take risks to change the trajectory of this show. He cares about a good story. Shouldn't you?

[ewyband]

EWY BIG Q&A

hi!! recently i did a q&a on instagram about SLAD. unfortunately (or fortunately?) there were too many questions to answer purely on instagram stories without spamming. here's the ones i couldn't answer on instagram, answered here!

MERLOT, both in terms of my favourite composition and performance

my partner and i were on a break whilst they were studying abroad ("we're only on month 1 of 4"). I just kinda word vomited my feelings. I was feeling pretty depressed at the time I wont lie.

yes i DID!!! this EP was MADE for fun. i wrote the songs specifically to make fun songs to play live. (aside from HOLLOW DRUG)

"And I could be displaced from my home And it could be seen on all your phones Is it real? Or is it fake? Look close, do my arms look like legs?"

probs the most lyrically dense I've been?? i'm not sure.

first of all, thank you so much!! second, some songs i write it all in one day but others can take a week or so before i'm fully happy with how its sounding. that being said, i always end up changing something before recording (usually around a month after writing, but in the case of MERLOT, that was recorded only a week after writing).

if i had to just name one, it'd be Nirvana. I wrote a 3000 word essay on In Utero for uni and that genuinely inspired me to make these songs. I really loved how Nirvana performed and I thought 'man, if only I had songs like that where I'd have an excuse to go crazy' other influences would include Jeff Rosenstock (my #1 fav artist) and PUP (greatest live show I've ever been to) btw, thank u sm!!

yes,,, very much

unfortunately i havent learnt proper scream technique so all of my screams were done at the very very end of my recording sessions. i think it worked out because that meant i had a lot of pent up frustration

i will start by saying my uni lets me hire out all of these microphones for free (if you don't count the student loan) vocals: SM7b & RE20 (only on sociopathic leech) guitar: AKG C414 matched pair (acoustic and electric) bass: my takes were originally done with an RE20, pretty sure fern just DI'd drums: Audix DP7 + SM57 (for hi-hat) + C414 for room mic's

i'll try get this done tomorrow!

i was in a guitar lesson at uni and we were talking about chromatics in the blues scale. my guitar teacher suggested i try to make a riff using the blues scale and particularly the chromatic part. that riff ended up being the middle 8 section of RIGHTS TO MY WRONGS. the rest of the song basically acted as a vessel to transport this breakdown middle 8 section. hopefully it doesn't come across that way !!!!!! but that was the main idea.

it felt very natural. i'll probably continue to go this direction in my future releases.

its mainly a reference to SOCIOPATHIC LEECH! 'i could beat you with a bat'. i just wanted something that felt visceral and angry and i feel like izzie really captured that.

yes and no! brett romnes is a super nice guy and very fun to work with. i obviously had my own mixes so he could see what i preferred and essentially made it better. i think there ended up being 4 drafts before we reached a final master.

these were my original mixing notes! i think the only thing that really got lost in translation was i added some really subtle vocal distortion at the end of HOLLOW DRUG in my original mix. in the end, i feel empowered by brett because he made it sound like what i felt it should sound like in my head (DOES THIS SENTENCE MAKE SENSE!?)

after i wrote SOCIOPATHIC LEECH and RIGHTS TO MY WRONGS, i was like 'okay, this is the style we're going for, lets do some sort of project in this particular style' i was pretty dead set on an EP since i'd just done an album. so to answer your question, yes and no!

i wish i could put something significant here. im sure theres some psychologist out there who could tell me that the song represents something about me. i was feeling alienated at the time, hopefully this helps? "confess your sins to the crowd, no-one can hear you when you're talking so loud" is definitely about my frustrations with song meanings though

hi mikey!

this person was the GM for a cyberpunk TTRPG game i played in. i wanted to write a cyberpunk themed album at one point but i guess that one merlot line is the closest we'll get.

i have semi answered this question but I WANTED TO WRITE SONGS THAT WERE FUN TO PLAY LIVE !!!!! and i think it worked out in the end

THANK YOU EVERYONE WHO WROTE IN !!! MY ASKBOX IS ALWAYS OPEN!!!

[rockwgooglyeyes]

Hey Rocky, I’m back to talk about the Traces Till comic and also Till possibly being dead again. 

I love this comic a lot. It's really good! It's one of my favorites we’ve gotten so far. I really like small, contained stories within a larger story that help breathe new context into the main narrative and cast (I also really liked the Heavenly Garden comic). But when it comes to it possibly being Till’s “death comic,” the fact that it's not told from his perspective is where I start having conflicting feelings about it, specifically from a meta viewpoint.

It makes sense why they wrote it this way; it's a comic about his mother’s hopes and dreams for him, and I love that we got introduced to her and got a deeper look into her as a character since we may not be seeing her again. My issue comes from the fact that this and the majority of content we have about Till as a person is from OTHER character’s POV and not his own. And if this trend was continued into what may be his “death comic,” that feels kind of crazy.

The fact that we don’t get much insight into his perspective is honestly why my “Till is alive” reaction after watching Round 7 was so strong, because despite him being the third major character introduced, it feels like we’ve hardly gotten anything about him.

I feel like we have this problem when it comes to Mizi content as well, but because she’s the main character with this same issue, I thought it was a signal that Till was being set up to be more important than currently shown and that they would both be getting a lot more development from their own POVs later (I honestly thought that Till was going to be the deuteragonist of the series because of this).

Before Round 7, them holding out on this kind of Mizi and Till content made a lot more sense to me since they needed to develop Sua and give Ivan more impact for when he inevitably died, but post Round 7, I don’t know how to feel. If Till really is dead, wouldn’t it have been better for them to have given more insight into who he is so that his death could have been as impactful as possible? He’s not like Sua, whose death is a part of the essential groundwork of the story, and who can afford to have her POV given to us after death.

I don’t know; this is basically just more “I don’t know how to feel about Round 7, so I’m going to have to wait and see what they do next.”

(Also sorry that this is so long, and also if this comes off as me being negative, it's not supposed to be; Round 7 just sort of brought all these thoughts I’ve had to the front. Also again, I really like the Traces comic and Io as a character. My only issues with the comic are from a meta viewpoint. Hope you have a good day!! ❤️)

Hi hi, Geo!! Sorry that this took me a minute. I hope it's alright that I am just getting to this now :) I really don't mind this being long or some elements of reluctance/disappointment when it comes to the storytelling of the series! The funniest thing is, Vant (@ivanttakethis) and I have actually had discussions before about our nitpicks with the series- mostly our wariness when it comes to complaining combined with our difficulty in accepting that this is just where the series will let certain character arcs end. Admittedly that's mostly been about Ivan and how little time he was given as a character- while he does have probably the most POV screentime, we know so little about him and sometimes, it feels as though his death was just for the impact that it had on Till, which would be proven all the more pointless if Till really *is* dead. That's not what this ask is about, though, so I'll let that sleeping dog lie for now, but basically, I brought that up to say, I trust you and I have faith in the time that you've put in considering the series. You are not saying this just to be mean or get attention or something, you're saying this because you care about the series and the characters!!

Personally, I also think that Till's death comic not being from his perspective is really strange. It reinforces the way that Till hasn't really had much about himself from his own perspective but at the same time, it breaks another of the constant patterns in the series so far with the death comics being from the character's own point of view. As much as Till is a character that is constantly subverting the narrative patterns- in this instance, it feels wrong. If it makes sense, and it very well may not, to me one of the reasons why I am very hesitant to believe Till is dead at this point in time is because while this death comic, if it is his death comic, would disrupt the established pattern with the death comics, it wouldn't disrupt Till.

These elegies, obituaries almost, are all about showing the character's connections to other people, albeit in a twisted way. Ivan's connection was shown to be Sua and how he once believed they were similar, before that hope within him was crushed (later we also learned that Ivan views Sua as a sister, furthering that feeling of resentment and betrayal towards her- she was supposed to understand and yet, she didn't). Sua's connection was her older sister, as she was established to have something of a family, but her older sister is shown to be both a caring and traumatic figure to Sua- something we didn't know before (we knew about her sisters but we didn't necessarily know that Sua had real relationships with them). One could very well argue that Till's comic is from the point of view of his mom and that's the connection it's highlighting- and to a degree, that's true, but at the same time, the real connections that are highlighted are the ones that Till has with the other three kids.

Yes, Traces is about Io's relationship with her son but moreso, it's about Till's passion for music, how it tore him away from his mother and irreparably damaged his ability to socialize, and how he still made friends and found people who loved him in spite of that. It's more about Io's wishes for her son than her actual relationship with her son, which only serves to make it an even stranger addition to the obituaries. Like, I adore Io, I adore learning more about who shaped Till into who he is today, but if this is really Till's death comic, then it's hard not to feel cheated in a way.

As you mentioned, like Mizi, Till has very little content about him that's from his own perspective. (I also think it's really cool that you hoped he would become a deuteragonist because of this, that would be so fucking cool!!) Even Luka, who is one of the characters we have the least content of overall, has more stuff from his own point of view- and that's kind of crazy, isn't it? Not only that, but as I mentioned earlier, if Till's arc does end here (which it very well could) that would set a precedent for the rest of the narrative because Till is, like Hyuna, a narrative disruption. He challenged the status quo (killing Freddie, winning his round despite wearing white, being the first unrequited lover) and by extension, set precedents that continued onwards (Luka wearing white both times and dying neither time, Mizi wearing white in round 5 and escaping death, Ivan disrupting his round with violence and throwing said round with it, etc) and while breaking the pattern of the obituaries being from the dead character's point of view, while that would continue Till's role as a challenger of the status quo, it wouldn't show the way that ultimately, Till's death was a confirmation of the status quo- Icarus flying to close to the sun with his wax wings in an attempt to find freedom after living his whole life in a cage.

In my opinion, it would frankly be stupid for Traces to be Till's true death comic because perpetuates the false narrative that he's built up around himself and that's exactly what these comics are supposed to break down. Ivan's breaks down his princely image by showing the ugliness of his resentment, Sua's breaks down the purity of her sacrifice by showing that she was afraid to die and at the same time, that she was unwilling to live in a world without her paradise (Mizi). It wouldn't actually be stupid, because I'm sure that if Traces truly is Till's obit would make sense in the retrospect as Vivimeng expand on the series and build it out, but where we sit now, it wouldn't make sense with what they've established. I love Vivimeng and their penchant for challenging preconceived notions and previously held ideas but I will admit, it would feel very peculiar for them to be subverting the story that they already laid out? Then again, we're barely more than halfway through, so perhaps I shouldn't say much at all, it's not the best time to judge, is it?

[scottmemelordstrashpile]

My Murder Drones series review. (WARNING: SPICY TAKES CONTAINED WITHIN AS WELL AS GENERAL SERIES SPOILERS.) (UPDATED for the August 2024 series finale!)

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I hate to say it but I think I'm just done with the series at this point. Or if nothing else I've just kinda stopped giving a shit. At most I might continue to watch out of morbid curiosity but I'm past the point of caring about it on any other level. I'm just here to watch the fire burn.

I wanted to give it the benefit of the doubt. I really did. But the problems I have with the show just kinda continue to persist. It's sort of a death by a million cuts thing where my issues just continue to pile higher and higher with each new episode.

Please don't take this as a personal attack if you like the show, if you enjoy it that's fine. You're entitled to. This is just my own opinion however if you don't want to read me being overtly negative and critical of the series then feel free to just continue scrolling. If however you'd like to know more then I implore you to click the "Keep reading" button and you can get a better understanding of why I feel this way and why I have a love-hate relationship with this show.

(Author's note August 2024: Originally I wrote this shortly after Episode 7 first came out however I have returned to make some small additions after the premiere of the series finale. That being said most of my thoughts haven't really changed much.)

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I have tried very hard to push my feelings aside and put on a positive face.

I kept telling myself "Maybe they'll get better as they go. Maybe the storytelling will get better as it goes on." but every episode I just feel even more confused and frankly kind of annoyed.

Everything just goes by so quickly, we're almost never given time to ruminate or rest. Sometimes it feels like entire scenes are missing with how it jumps between things. Hell, a good example is in-between episodes 4 and 5 where it feels like we missed something in-between. (Episode 5 in general is very confusing and probably my absolute least favorite, but that aside.) The last scene we see is Uzi and N falling asleep on the bus then somehow I guess we're back at the colony in Uzi's room and V is there too now? We don't even know V is there too until later either. At first we think it's just N but then it's revealed V is also unconscious. (And I guess also somehow hooked up to the same simulation or whatever N is? Also how do they know the parts neither of them were there for?) This is just a single example but they do things like this more than once. Jumping between scenes with no context.

It's still unclear who did what or why and they killed off Doll who was like the only character that had a definite motivation which also annoyed me. She was like the only character we actually had a very solid understanding of so to see her get killed off without a thought was almost kind of symbolic with how the writing in this show is. (Though I guess at the same time even Doll didn't 100% make sense like for instance why she was perfectly fine with slaughtering random members of the colony just like the DDs that killed her parents even though they hadn't wronged her or anything to warrant it. I understand she likely needed to due to the solver infection but during the prom scene for instance she kills two random worker drones for basically no reason, just because she could.)

I don't really get the point of masquerading as Tessa when it's pretty much stated outright she can basically brainwash drones by rewriting their memories and programming. And the whole "I wanted you to keep your original personality" spiel just seemed like a lame excuse if I'm going to be honest. (This section has been altered due to later revelations.)

The show just seems to never actually answer any questions and just continuously piles on more and more questions with the few it does answer.

But if I went into intricate detail on every little thing that bothers me or doesn't make any sense I'd be writing a novel and this post is already getting kind of long and ranty. Plus I feel like that'd be a bit petty of me to do. (In addition to just taking way too long.)

(Obviously the part below was written before it was confirmed Episode 8 was going to be the end for the foreseeable future.)

I know I said before I would reserve my judgement until after the show is "Over" so I guess I kind of lied. But since what I presume to be Season 1 is coming to a close and it'll probably be a long while before Season 2 is announced if Glitch's previous tendencies are any indication I'd say it's a decent enough time to form an opinion. If the show hasn't got me by the end of the first season I feel like something might be wrong. I will not deny, it could also just be the show isn't for me to begin with which I guess I can respect. So I won't go out of my way to say it's bad, but I don't like it. And considering there's only one episode left of season 1 I highly doubt it's going to save it for me. It feels like I'm watching the series out of context when I'm not.

Me from August 2024: So now that we know Season 2 is bunk and the future of the series if any at all is uncertain I think I can safely say the series did a really bad job of conveying it's lore to the viewer.

I also really dislike how the series uses so many "Blink and you'll miss it." moments to dispense lore. It gets really tiring, I shouldn't have to analyze a show frame by frame just to have an idea of what is going on. I hate to act like I'm an authority here but I feel like that's bad writing. It feels like the writer(s) completely misunderstand the idea of "Show, don't tell." almost completely.

In general the show suffers from how rushed everything is likely due to its short 8 episode format, but instead of trying to fit the narrative to their limitations it seems like they're trying to cram all of this lore and information into these tiny 8 episodes and the result is a confusing mess.

Now I'm not familiar with Vicker's history but I would assume this is likely his first big project that has gotten this much attention. It feels like he's trying to go way too big and it shows. The show is almost hurt by it's own ambition to be this big sprawling narrative with deep lore and intricate detail when it probably would've been smarter to go for a much more straightforward or simple form of storytelling.

I feel like it would have been a better idea to instead filter things a bit more, knowing that we only have 8 episodes I feel like they should've cut out any unnecessary elements and tried to get everything across that they wanted to as concisely as possible. Like if something wasn't 100% necessary to the narrative it should probably be removed and things that ARE important to the narrative should've been more concisely presented.

In general the show seems to suffer from over ambition, despite that severe restriction. It feels like the 8 episode limit hurt it more than anything not to mention with how expensive the series is to produce I can see another reason why they would want to rush things and not take too much time to let things flow naturally.

I also see a lot of people praising Uzi and N's relationship as well as V's "Character development" but honestly I didn't see much of it at all. Again everything feels so rushed, from our perspective at most Uzi has only known N for a few days at most same for V, it almost feels like kind of whiplash from how she goes from being uncaring psycho to laying down her life for the others.

And while we're on the subject another thing that bothered me a lot about the series was it's seeming indecision on whether it wanted to be series or not, pretty much all of the time. Characters practically die left and right in the series and none of it is taken seriously most of the time infact the characters reactions are usually "lol, lmao even." most of the time so it felt really jarring and not in a good way when V's apparent death was treated so seriously and dramatically when before characters were dropping left and right without a care in the world.

I'm honestly not even sure what Doll's point for existing even is beyond her debut episode either since she doesn't really play much of a role beyond it or really do anything too interesting afterwards. Barring the trap that led to V's death she kind of just exists. Until she doesn't. I feel like she was a waste of potential like a lot of things in the show so far. She COULD have served as an interesting foil/mirror antagonist to Uzi but that potential was basically thrown into the trash.

Here's hoping that Season 2 is allowed to have better pacing because... yeah I'm a bit tired of the plot going a million miles at once.

During GlitchX it was hinted that Season 2 might happen and I recall Liam saying something implying that Season 1 is "Just the setup." so one can hope I suppose.

Me from August 2024: Yup, unfortunately we know now none of that is happening. Oof.

Anyway yeah, probably not going to be discussing it as frequently anymore. So if you were only here for my insane Murder Drones related ranting and want to unfollow now, that's perfectly fine. But I can't ignore my feelings any longer.

I'll still talk about it, but probably not with the same passion I used to. Again it sucks because I really wanted to like the series but... yeah they just keep fucking it up.

Oh yeah, everything else is fantastic though the animation, the voice acting, the soundtrack... I just wish the writing was on-par... I feel like the problem is they're being overly ambitious and trying to cram all of this lore and plot into these mere 8 episodes and it just isn't enough.

I may return to this to make an addition after Episode 8 finally drops on the off chance it somehow changes my opinion, but I doubt it...

Me from August 2024: So yeah, it didn't in fact it kind of went exactly how I expected and almost emphasized everything I said was wrong with the series. We got no answers, lots of flashy action and even a seemingly cliffhanger ending but none of the burning questions were answered and many dangling plot threads were just outright ignored...

I'd also like to take this time to once again emphasize I REALLY WANTED TO LIKE THIS SERIES, I can't stress that enough. Especially because I love robots and media focusing on robots since we don't get that too often. But the series just seem to keep disappointing me more and more with each episode. And it makes me sad. I'm disappointed because I cared and wanted to see the series improved and grow but frankly at a certain point it kind of just started freefalling.

My disappointment cannot be properly conveyed in words.

Feel free to leave thoughts and such I guess. But I'm probably the only idiot that feels this way.