#hee isn’t even close to making an appearance either

[hanlimz]

— untitled (lee heeseung) word count: 1089

sneak peek 🫣:

[aliveandrestless5]

TRICK OR TREAT 👉👈

Happy Halloween beloved!

For you, a Halloween-themed FHTN snippet, featuring our favorite pair of lesbians. Enjoy~

In a place so far away that it would be pointless to even try and speculate exactly when this is occurring, a human woman is, once again, dozing off behind a cash register.

A bell over the door gives a rusty ding! And she startles awake with a, “Happy Halloween!”

The woman walking through the door pauses, giving her an incredulous look.

“Uh. Happy Halloween to you, too?”

The first human, Clementine, or Clem, blinks as the second woman saunters over to the counter, takeout coffee cup in hand, bringing with her the smell of gasoline and engine grease. It's not a pleasant smell by any means, but Clem relaxes into it all the same.

There is nothing particularly special about this human, either. Both of them are about the same age, in that strange limbo between ‘teenager’ and ‘adult’, but that's where the similarities end.

Clementine is shorter, with dark skin and darker hair, a smattering of freckles across her nose and a pumpkin-themed bandanna keeping her ringlets of tightly-curled hair from falling into her face. This new woman is tall and lean, with tanned skin and dark-blonde hair pulled back into what had probably once been a tight, no-nonsense ponytail, now coming apart with flyaways framing her face.

Her name is Clara, but you already knew that, didn’t you?

“Sorry.” Clementine says, sheepish. “Rough night.”

She seems a bit more awake now, but still rests her chin on her arms like she’s considering going back to her nap any minute.

“I figured. Big test tomorrow, right?”

“Yeah I- wait.” She blinks owlishly. “How’d you know?”

Clara grins. “You haven’t looked this shitty since finals week.”

Clementine lets out a miserable groan, reaching out a hand to swat half-heartedly at whatever part of Clara she can reach. The other woman dances just out of reach, smug grin firmly in place, and she collapses back with a whine. “It's too damn early for this.”

Clara lifts an eyebrow. “It’s almost noon.”

“Too. early.” Clementine hisses back through gritted teeth.

She rubs her eyes again, doing her best to force herself awake through sheer force of will alone. By how she’s drooping back into her seat, it doesn’t appear to be working.

Clara chuffs out a laugh, a rusty noise, like shoes in an old dryer, and holds out the plastic coffee cup in her hand as a peace offering. Clementine hadn’t noticed it until just then, and the moment she catches a whiff of coffee, it’s game over. All traces of exhaustion gone as she all but climbs over the counter, making grabby hands at the cup, chanting like a thing possessed, “Give it, give it!”

Clara lets out another rusty laugh as Clementines hands latch on to her sleeve.

“Okay, okay, chill—”

And finally, the cup is relinquished into her grip.

Clementine all but collapses back into her chair, folding dramatically around her prize like a puppet with cut strings as she cradles it close. “Oh, sweet salvation, my one true love, atlast.”

Clara looks on, amused.

“Well good mornin’ to you too, sweetheart.”

Clementine hums, uncaring. “You should have opened with the coffee.”

There’s a gasp of mock-offense as Clara tries to fight off the grin tugging at the corner of her lips. It's a losing battle.

Forgoing the lid, Clementine downs half of the drink in one practiced swoop. Her face screws up at the taste of cheap, black coffee sold at ungodly hot temperatures, but it doesn't stop her from drinking it.

A bit more awake, but no less dramatic, she goes back to being pitifully slumped over the countertop in no time, the cup already half-drained. “Ugh. Midterms are a bitch. Why did I decide to get a nursing degree?”

“You poor thing.” Clara drawls, leaning her elbows on the counter.

She still runs a hand through Clementine’s hair when she gives her puppy eyes, rolling her eyes and huffing the whole time as she does her best to pretend she isn’t completely head over heels for the woman sitting across from her. She really isn't a very good actor, not that Clementine would ever tell her that.

Clara sips on her own ‘coffee’, which, in actuality, is just hot chocolate, and Clementine’s dramatics petter off into drowsy silence.

It’s quiet, for a few beats. A companionable sort of quiet, broken only by the humming of the slurpee machine, the drone of the many, many fans, and the insistent buzzing of one of the overhead lights. They sip on their drinks together in peace.

“Sorry.” Clementine breaks silence first, looking a little bit sheepish. “Didn't get much sleep last night. You know how it is.”

“S’alright.” the blonde shrugs. “Stay up late studying?”

“Yeah. That and…”

The hand in Clementine's hair goes still. “Nightmares?”

“No.” she says quickly, and the hand goes back to running soothingly across her scalp. “just… weird dreams. You know how it is.”

“Ah. Aliens again?”

Clementine takes a moment to think. She has a very expressive face, especially compared to Clara, who has been told on many occasions about her ‘serious case of rbf’. You can always tell what Clementine is thinking about, she's a bit of an open book. Her eyebrows narrow together as she thinks. “I don’t… something like that.”

Clara listens intently, nodding along. She's a very good listener.

“It wasn’t scary or anything,” Clementine finally says, giving up on explaining. “I just kept waking up.”

“I think.” Clara hums. “You should stop watching Alien before bed.”

“But it's Halloween!”

[deonideatta]

Alright it's Vincenzo and fire meta time! I dont know if this is super obvious and I'm just repeating what everyone's already picked up on, but Solar's version of Adrenaline gave me the push I needed to write down my thoughts (Italian version >>> tho imo) so here goes. I apologize in advance for the length sflds this is my thoughts straight to the page so it went on for a while :')

We associate Vincenzo with fire almost from the first episode. From the get go, the first major thing we see Vincenzo do is burn down a vineyard, pretty nonchalantly. Then we establish his habit of fiddling with lighters, and to round it off he blows up Paolo's car. The fire imagery is there from the beginning. When he loses his temper he's fiery, he fights fire with fire, his birthday is on bonfire night, it's a pretty clear link. Yet, interestingly enough, as we get to know more about his character, it appears like he is mostly a very level-headed person when it comes to high stakes conflict, as seen in the court scenes and in scenes like the ones where he threatens Choi Myung Hee. In fact, his cool-headedness is one of the things Cha Young lists as one of his charms in ep8. He doesn't come off as hot-blooded as quickly as a character like Father Kim in The Fiery Priest, for example.

Besides the times when he's just annoyed angry over things like being robbed or the drama with Geumga plaza, we see him get seriously angry only over the emotions from seeing his mom (he yells at her, he lights a cigarette) over Hong Yu Chan's insistence on pursuing Babel despite the danger (he raises his voice on multiple occasions), and over the death of HYC (he throws a wine glass and then he has syringes stuck in JHS's pillow and he organizes the warehouse arson). Note how most of these things are accompanied by some use of a lighter (more on that later). Yet, times when he yells and cusses in Italian aside, in doing most of these things he's not very visibly aggressive? If you get what I mean. He's still almost cold/mechanical in the way he goes about it. Like the result of his anger is an inevitability; if you light a lighter you start a fire. This is seen when he gets angry over the vineyard owner's attitude (he doesn't lose his cool, he just burns down the vineyard) and Paolo's attempted assassination of him (he shoots the assassins calmly, he blows up Paolo's car and threatens him, he leaves italy). Even the actual act of the Babel arson isn't very fiery on Vincenzo's part.

The thing about Vincenzo though is that, much like the lighters which he constantly opens and closes without lighting, most of the time he's not always very openly fiery. As mentioned above the only times we see Vincenzo actually light a lighter are when he's truly angry. He opens and closes them to calm down, but occasionally instead of calming down he lights the lighter, and he burns down a vineyard or lights a cigarette. He says in ep 2 that being weak and feeling helpless make him angry, and perhaps that's why opening and closing a lighter helps him calm down, because it reminds him that he can do something, he can light the lighter if he chooses to.

A lot of his anger/bitterness goes back to him being abandoned by his mother, and we see that it's still a big deal for him because some of only times we see him lose a grip on his anger and have outbursts of emotion are in scenes related to his mom (when he comes to tell her no one will come visit her now, when she doesn't want to get treatment, early on when he's in the courtroom for her case). We see that momentary crack in his level-headed personality when it comes to his mom, and the cracks get larger the worse her condition gets. (I wonder how it will go if she dies? It seems like she might. Perhaps that'll push him over the edge). Being someone who doesn't like feeling helpless, the scenes where he's angry about his mom become all the more impactful because there's nothing he can do, he can light the lighter but all he can do with that light is light a cigarette. Notably we also see him get emotionally angry/agitated worrying over Hong Yu Chan's perseverance in fighting Babel, perhaps since he also comes to see HYC as a mentor/father figure. He was helpless again, he couldn't do anything to help his mother's sentence and he couldn't do anything to stop HYC and his eventual death. In all this we see that there is a marked contrast between fiery emotionally engaged angry Vincenzo and cool-headed business minded angry Vincenzo. The more dangerous of the two is arguably cool-headed angry Vincenzo, because this is the mode he enters after the initial burst of emotional anger, after which he hatches and executes another high stakes plan.

Which brings me back to Adrenaline. The lyric about wanting to leave so as not to cause hurt is there in both versions, but in english it's "Fire, rising up (to) higher, I'm burning up it's dire, I don't wanna hurt you so leave" (According to this translation of the Italian version the equivalent part in that one is "The fire (is) rising upwards, I'm burning slowly, Please leave me, I don't want to hurt you", more or less the same thing). At this point we're aware that Vincenzo has a lot of unresolved internal anger, but we aren't clear on the full extent of it yet. He effectively hides it behind smooth words and well thought out plans, but that doesn't change the fact that he's "burning up" with all that pent up anger (over his mother mostly, and now also over Babel to an extent), which is also "rising up" as he's reminded of his past and faces new challenges. It's only a matter of time until he hits burnout, or an explosion of some kind. If you think of it like a water balloon (idk i'm bad at coming up with metaphors), over time more and more things (abandonement issues, having to kill so many people, having to leave italy, frustrations surrounding the tenants, BabelTM, the death of Hong Yu Chan, meeting his mother again, hearing the truth about his mother's case first hand, his mother potentially dying, and so on) fill it up until bANG, it's too much and it bursts. Pent up anger is a ticking time bomb, and it's anyone's guess when he'll stop clicking the lighter open and shut and set the world on fire again. We'll either have Vincenzo overcome and learn to let go of his anger, or we'll get to see him truly snap and cause some real damage to his status as a non-fugitive and/or his relationships. Maybe some combination of both.

Interestingly though, we haven't seen him get directly really angry at Cha Young before, though they were very passive agressive in the earlier eps. This shows a difference in the way he sees her now and the way he saw Hong Yu Chan, she's willing to get her hands dirty and so even though they're still fighting the same Babel he's not as worried about her safety because she's a lot like him. And yet, assuming that Adrenaline is from Vincenzo's POV and the person he doesn't want to hurt is Cha Young, we can infer that Vincenzo knows full well the potential danger of his pent up anger, and that he cares enough about Cha Young to want to still keep a certain distance from her so as not to hurt her in the event that said anger leads to bigger trouble/more illegal high stakes plans/things she wouldn't approve of i.e hurting or killing people. We see that he is drawn to her (very obviously), and that he likes her (VERY OBVIOUSLY), but he doesn't want to burn her, hence scenes like the "villains don't deserve to love/love requires qualifications" scene. Fire can warm people, it can be a force for 'good' (for example, the revenge on Babel for its victims and Cha Young via the arson), but it can also destroy people. It looks like it is definitely eating away at Vincenzo, and he doesn't want the fire consuming him to burn those close to him.

He's done things that may or may not haunt him, and he may not deem himself worthy of love because of those things, but deep down I do think he wants to be loved, to have a home, to let go of his anger and be allowed to live without it. His initial plan was to get filthy rich and then run away, but like the monk said, unless he faces his anger, it'll follow him wherever he goes. Forests burn down and regrow naturally, but unnatural forest fires are hella destructive, it's all about how he handles his anger. Harness it and overcome it, or let it control him and eventually destroy him. Rn it looks like it torments him but he uses it to his advantage, as a driving force, but how sustainable is that? Each of the arsons are preceded by gasoline, what will serve as Vincenzo's gasoline and what will be the spark that sets him alight? Will Cha Young be the bucket of water that settles Vincenzo's flames, or will she be the bucket of gasoline that burns him to the ground? We'll just have to wait and see.

Pls interact it took me like a week to write all this :')

[btsficsforthehumble]

adj.: 1. Modern, unfamiliar, or different

2. Not based on or conforming to what is generally done or believed

pairing: reader x ot7

genre: college au; angst, fluff, smut, poly, ot7

Summary: You begin your first year at a prestigious university, set out on achieving your academic goals when a series of men step into your life that change the way you view the definition of love.

Part Five

Warnings: none in this chapter

Word count: 2.3k

A/N: New characters, yay! Just an fyi but I would like to start posting one chapter every week... thots?? Also, I've been thinking of adding a taglist? sksk I know it would be small but I personally love to get tagged when new chapters come out for my faves. If that's something ya'll would like comment so I know!! Alright, back to your regularly scheduled program :)

----

Literature was next. Now this? This you could handle. Always being a bit of an avid reader, you could devour a novel in one night --- and you often did. Finding the hidden meanings between the lines of text, like unwrapping a present, gave you a thrill. You were the person who could debate for hours about the meaning of a symbol in a book, as annoying as that is to everyone else.

Maybe it was the promise of escape, where you could be transplanted into another world, detached from your own, that appealed so much to you about reading. You could lose yourself, feeling the rush of the love affair or the thrill of a dangerous adventure. Coupled with your analytical nature, you felt more than at home in a literature classroom.

With this in mind, you make your way to your next class with more vigor than usual. When you arrive and take a seat, you pull out your materials and wait for class to begin.

Several minutes later, your professor walks to the podium in the front of the room to introduce herself. After several minutes of reviewing the syllabus, she explains the structure of the class. You were to be placed in small groups, to discuss the readings and write a paper at the end of the semester. This made you a little nervous --- having to rely on others to some capacity for your grade always gave you a bit of anxiety.

She began reading out the names of the students belonging to each group, so you listen carefully as to not miss your own name despite your anxious thoughts swirling inside your head.

“... Eum Hee-Young, Gal Ae-Cha, Ree Mun-Hee, you are group seven. Kim Seokjin, Y/l/n y/f/n, Kim Namjoon, you are group eight. Ok Youngsoo…” her voice fades off as you glance around the room, trying to meet the gazes of other searching eyes as your group was announced.

Your eyes meet those of a guy who looked maybe a year or two older than you, with round, wire frame glasses. His mahogany hair was pushed off of his forehead, parted to the side giving him a youthful but put-together look. He holds up eight fingers, looking at you expectedly, and you nod quickly. He picks up his belongings, preparing to move to you as you had empty space in the seats around you. As he slings his backpack over a shoulder, you scan your eyes around the room to try to catch the other member of your group.

To your surprise, your eyes meet those of the same boy you had ogled over yesterday in your calculus class, before it had started. You shyly hold up your own eight fingers, to which he gives a decisive nod to, and begins to make his way to you as well. You can’t help but notice the planes of his back as he bends down to grab his backpack, his wide shoulders tilting making them seem even larger. He is wearing a simple blue button down and jeans, but even through that you could tell his shoulders tapered to a narrow waist, making him have the perfect masculine inverted triangular build.

Slightly embarrassed at your thoughts, you glance at your other partner, now close to you. His oversized yellow knit sweater swallowed him a little, but with the glasses gave him a cute bookish look. His large frame juxtaposed his cute appearance --- he was on the taller side and seemed built as well. You made eye contact, and gestured to the seat next to you for him to sit. The other boy now approaching, you both watch as he takes the other open seat in front of you.

Your group now assembled, you tune back into your professor who was explaining the first text you were to read together. She told you that it was a short love story that relied heavily on symbolism and became a prominent symbol in and of itself in movies and television. Your first assignment was to analyze the symbolism of the text, and come to a more complex conclusion than what the surface of the text presents. You could feel yourself becoming slightly excited to jump into the assignment as she explained.

“You will be given the rest of class to get acquainted with your group members. They will be permanent, bar any issues that may arise. The first assignment is due at the end of next class. While on this first assignment I will be more lenient with grading, please do your best and set a good standard for your groups. Okay, go ahead everyone,” she finishes.

At her dismissal of your attention, you glance back at your group members. The boy with glasses speaks first. “I’m Namjoon, nice to meet you guys.”

“Seokjin, or just Jin,” the other boy gives.

“I’m y/n, nice to meet you both.”

“So, what year and major are you? I’m a third year, and a journalism major,” Namjoon offers. As he speaks, he gives you both a grin that displays deep dimples on both cheeks. He was very cute, you decided. He had a nerdy charm to him, with a build on the beefy side that made you want to cuddle him.

“I’m a first year… and to tell the truth I haven’t decided on a major yet,” you admit, but give them both a smile.

“Ah, hoobae, you are lucky you are with us pros then! I’m a fourth year, and a business major,” Seokjin says with a wide smile.

“Sunbaenim, are you in calculus before this? I thought I recognized you from there,” you downplay a little. You knew he was in that class since you had spent time checking him out in it, but didn’t want to seem creepy.

“I have a recognizable face.” At this he gives a smug look, but is clearly using a joking tone. “Yeah, calculus with Yoo at nine?”

“Yep. That guy goes so fast,” you frown. “But anyways, how do you guys feel about this assignment?”

Namjoon enters the conversation again, “Honestly I’m kind of excited for it. It’s been a while since I’ve done any reading that isn’t research related, which kind of sucks.”

“That does suck. I love to read, that’s why I took this class, actually,” you empathize.

“Yeah? What do you like to read?” Namjoon leans towards you a bit, excited at the prospect of talking about reading it seems.

“Oh, um… I’d say my favorite genre is probably any type of fantasy, I like being able to be in a different world for a bit. Oh, I also like historical pieces, that stuff is always so interesting.” You were a little hesitant to share, afraid he’d judge your preferences.

“I love historical pieces. I think that’s one of the things that lead me into journalism actually, it’s basically writing history for those in the future to look back on. I just think that’s really cool.” His eyes seemed glitter as he talked about something he was obviously passionate about. You felt yourself developing a soft spot for the boy, finding his friendly disposition and slightly nerdy personality to be incredibly endearing. It didn’t hurt he was also very attractive.

“What about you sunbaenim? Do you like to read?” you ask Seokjin, whose head was oscillating between you and Namjoon.

Surprised the attention shifted to him, his eyes widened to give him an owlish look. You are really surrounded by some beautiful men, you think. What do they put in the water here? It would be normal to run across a cute guy here or there, but this is kind of ridiculous. Seokjin himself has a face that is so beautiful it looks like it should have been carved out of marble!

Focus! You have to scold yourself. The boy you were just admiring in your head is now answering your question and you are too distracted to even process what he’s saying.

“... not too crazy, occasionally I guess…” His body language told you that he was slightly embarrassed at not being as enthusiastic a reader as you and Namjoon.

“I’m sure you have hobbies that are cooler than reading then, if I was athletic or creative I wouldn’t read so much either! Namjoon-sunbaenim, I’m sure you agree,” you encourage with a smile, wanting Namjoon to follow suit in making Seokjin feel comfortable.

Thankfully, he catches on quick. “Oh, yeah, I am way too clumsy to do anything more high stakes than page turning,” He chuckles. You and Seokjin both smile at Namjoon’s subtle self-deprecation. They both were sweet, you think. Your earlier fears about working with others subside. “I guess I could say that I do have another hobby though, I actually help out at the school’s radio station for fun,” Namjoon adds shyly.

Jin tilts his head in surprise. “Oh really? I have a friend who…”

He gets abruptly cut off by the professor’s voice echoing through the room, which causes him to stop his thought.

“Hopefully everyone is acquainted now, and is ready to get to work next class. I expect good things from you all this semester. You are dismissed,” your professor says with finality.

The three of you quickly gather your things, ready to merge with the swarm of students streaming out of the door. You give them both a smile, and say, “It was nice meeting you both. See you next class!” to which they give their own farewell.

As you leave, you check your phone out of habit. It seems your intuition is right, as usual.

*Miss me yet?*

Does Taehyung really have nothing better to do?

*What exactly is there to miss?*

You hope that after your curt response he’d get the memo. This guy is such a fuckboy, you think. While you don’t know why he set his sights on you for now, you hope he gets bored soon. While you give that tough persona to him, the truth is you are more sensitive than that. The idea of being used for sex once and then discarded was unappealing, and Taehyung seemed like the type to do just that.

----

Finally home after attending two more classes for the day, which were thankfully much less eventful, you slip off your shoes and let your bag slide off your shoulder to thunk on the floor. You were tired. And hungry, apparently, because your stomach makes some concerning noises as soon as you slip your light jacket off. You make your way to the kitchen at the sound, ready to make a nice dinner and decompress.

When you get there, you see one of your new roommates sitting at the stools for your kitchen counter. This roommate was one that you had connected with immediately, drawn to her blunt but fun-loving aura. Her short stature, shorter than average, gave no warning for her and ‘gives-no-fucks’ attitude. You could tell however, that inside she had a soft heart. Even in your short time together, you had seen glimpses of it here and there.

You learned when you had met that she had moved to Korea from America last year, making her a second year at your university. Her features stood out from the crowd, with brown skin and large curls that framed her face in a halo. She was really quite beautiful. Tia, but called Bean by her friends, which now included you, made you feel welcomed to campus and you were thankful for her.

Wanting to not scare her as you walked into the kitchen, you gave her a greeting. Her head pops up from where it was buried in her phone, which had been drawing her into her own world.

“Hey chickie. Long day?” she asks. Apparently your exhaustion was pretty obvious if she could tell right off the bat. You sigh, bending over to pull some vegetables out of the fridge.

“I just want to know who let me schedule four classes on Tuesdays. They should be in jail,” you complain.

She gives you an amused look, watching you now stand at the cutting board to prepare your food. “I think that person was you, sweet thing.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me. If I could go back in time and slap my past self I would,” you grown with your head tipped back. She lets out a laugh at your expense.

“Don’t laugh at me unnie! I’m going to pass away from exhaustion over here!” you try to say seriously, but can’t help but let out a little giggle. “What were you doing with your head buried in your phone, huh? Are you talking to someone?” you tease, pointing your knife at her with your other hand on your hip.

“Why, do you wish it was you?” She wiggles her eyebrows, giving you a side smirk. You knew she was deflecting, so you lift your eyebrow and give her a flat expression, waiting for her real answer. “Ugh, it’s nothing. There was just this really cute girl in my class today, and I tried talking to her but she didn’t really seem like she liked me… and I may have just been looking at her social media,” Tia admitted.

Now at the stove, stirring your dinner, you look over your shoulder to say something that would hopefully ease her anxiety. “You know that you can come on strong sometimes, maybe she’s just a little shy, ya know? Maybe try again with a softer approach,” you offer. “What is there not to like?”

She gives you a wide grin to match your own at your last remark. You both giggle, any tension in the air from Tia’s concerns gone. Dinner now finished, you grab two bowls and serve you both. You both slip into easy banter, almost like you two have been friends for years. You hope that you will be, someday.

[cherripeach]

Chapter 7

Little Match Maker

Summary: Your life motto is “I have the power of god and anime on my side, don’t mess with me,” and you stand by that with your life. No human, magician, or random creature could ever stop your firm belief in it.

However, getting transported to this world that seemed to turn your already bad luck worse was not what you wanted to be in your life story, but you made the most of it. Making friends, enemies, and disasters, you were in your prime in this world, and so you decided to help as many people as you could flourish, at least what you believed to be.

Prologue 14-18: i have the power of god and anime on my side

Chapter Summary: So a normal anime battle, right?

Warnings: Curse words, kinda jokes about death

Words: 3.4k

Relationships: developing but future twstxreader

Walking through the mirror portal was like walking through a fever dream on drugs: directions weren’t a thing and every color was being blasted through your eyelids into your eyes and once you opened them because the colors calmed down, you think you saw a talking cat who smiled and waved at you in there.

All three of you with Grim on your hip stumbled out of the portal to this new forest area.

Problem with the forest was nothing was moving. No noises from birds. No wind blowing the trees. No crunch of the leaves on the ground by any animals. No footsteps. Nothing.

Your eyes surveyed the land and only found the forest deserted. Even the little cabin in front of you did not look like it had been touched in years. There were holes in the roof and cobwebs all over the house. And there were no lights on in the entire house.

You and the color duo had the same thought and locked eye contact with a cringe on each of your faces, absolutely not ready for anything.

So you began your journey with Red in front of you and Blue behind.

Blue looked around the forest, and then looked back to you and Grim, “So this is Dwarf’s Mine...It used to be prosperous, thanks to magic crystal mining but…”

Grim spoke up, “Uuuuhh.. Feels like something could jump out…” and slipped further into your arms.

You held on a little tighter to your cat and voiced your opinion, “Feels like someone died or something... “ You paused and decided to get this moment over with, “What are your names again? Like full name…”

Red just rolled his eyes and turned to face you, “Are you actually kidding me? You're such a dumbass…” He rolled his eyes and faced forward and continued to move forward to only mutter, “Ace Trappola, loser.”

Deuce pulled up by your side and sympathized with your struggles, “It’s okay. I’m Deuce Spade,” and he rubbed the back of his neck with his hand, “I’m not really good with names either, and I have to ask all the time.” A small smile appeared on his face.

Ace grabbed back your attention while announcing his founding of the house you already knew about, “Oh, there's a house back there. Let's go ask them about the mine”a

You were not for this, “You sure that house isn’t haunted. I’m not okay with going into a haunted house and dying with people I’ve barely met.”

Ace was not in the mood and twisted his head to stick out his tongue at you, “Shut it, dumbass.”

You four finally got to the door of the cottage or cabin, and you realized that the cottages looked a lot like the Dwarf’s House in Snow White which you really should have put together when Deuce called the area the ‘Dwarf’s Mine.’

Once all three of you stopped at the door, Ace, the genius he is, decided to knock on the door as if anyone would answer. He even called out to those inside, “Good evening..” until he realized that no one was home, “I guess it’s abandoned …” Then, his next great idea was going inside which totally is not a crime of breaking in and entering, “It’s a mess in here.”

Grim jumped out of your arms to get into the cottage and began his exploration which landed him right in a spider web where he spit out pieces onto the floor,“ Puwah! I got a spider web in my face.. Peh! Peh!”

Ace moved over to the table, “Aren't the tables and chairs on the small side? Are they for kids? One, two... There's seven! So many!”

“I don’t know about you, but I think that dwarfs might have lived here,” You had to make a sarcastic remark at his lack of judgement.

But of course none of them heard you or acknowledged you until a light bulb flashed over Deuce’s head while he brought up something similar to you,“This was probably a lively home when Dwarfs' Mine flourished.”

Your face fell while you could only shake your head at the audacity (of this bitch), look away from him, and mutter, “Well, no shit, sherlock.”

Ace brought your attention back to the task at hand, “They did what they had to. After all, magic crystals are found inside coal. For now, let's go check it out.“

And so all three of you ventured out of the cottage into the forest. Heading through the forest, you discovered something when looking at the sky: The Neverland Star was in the sky. You had to ponder for a minute if what if you actually were in a world where all things that happened in Disney Movies existed. You pushed that aside the moment you thought of it and laughed because ‘Naw, there’s no way that could happen and certainly not to you. You weren’t some Y/N from a fanfic where their parents sold them to Harry Styles.’

The more you followed the terrible forest path the less the path could be seen; years of no use made the path basically nonexistent. But the mine was the worst: broken pieces of wood and metal were thrown about like it something happened when it was closed, grass was growing from the train tracks, and not a single forest creature was in sight.

Grim studied the vibe for a minute and freaked out, “W-we're gonna go in that pitch black cave!?” He could only cling back onto your cloak for protection as if you could protect even yourself.

“Scared? Lame.” Ace rolled his eyes and emerged first from the four of you in horror at the mine.

Grim threw your cloak back in your direction and crossed his arms, “Naaanh!? I'm not s-scared at all! I'm taking the lead! You guys, follow me!“ Grim pranced to get in front of the three of you and entered the mine.

Everything was going well until two ghosts emerged from within the mine, creating chaos from the four of you.

The ghost’s could only reply to your chaos with, “Heeee hee hee! Our first visitor in ten years!” from one and, “Make yourselves at home. For eternity!” from another.

And all three of you raced away from the ghosts.

Ace could not help but panic, “This place is haunted with ghosts, too!”

Deuce tried to handle the situation, “We don't have time to deal with them one by one. Let's go!”

But Ace is Ace, “Don't think you can just order me around. If you hadn't done something so idiotic, we wouldn't be in this mess.“

“You wanna talk about who started it? It's cause you wouldn't clean!”

“It started when that furball burned the Queen of Hearts' statue!"

Grim tried to save his dignity, “Ffgna! That's what you get for making a fool outta me!”

Deuce set the objective again to the two idiots, “All of you! Do you understand our situation right now? We're all expelled if we don't get back with a magic crystal by tomorrow morning!”

You just couldn’t stand the arguing of these boys. They were worse than children arguing over a favorite toy.

Ace flicked his hand at Deuce and voiced his attitude, “So stop patronizing me. It's really ticking me off.”

“Will you all just shut up and run? Is it that hard to comprehend in your tiny brains that this is a situation where we could all I don't know..d i e? Either get your asses out of here and follow me or I’ll leave you in here.” You grabbed Grim and put him back on your hip.

“...on’t….ive….wo....” A ghastly voice spoke from far in front of your group.

Everyone jumped.

Ace peered around the cave only stopping to lock his frantic gaze onto yours, “W-who said that...”

“St...one....sssss.....mine..” The voice murmured.

“I think it's... getting closer…” Deuce whispered-yelled at you.

“Stone.... IS MIIIIIIIIIIINNNEEEE!!” A creature with a broken glass head with tar or a substance like gasoline leaking out of the broken area. The creature had a red coat with a belt and a brown hat on top of its broken glass head.

All three of you jumped with wide eyes and open mouths and screeched, “I-It's heeeeeeeeeeeree!!!!”

You with Grim in your arms, Deuce, and Ace all scrambled to get out of the cave with the monster, pushing and shoving the others to get out of the way and get through. You ended up tripping on a rock

A new section of the cave came into view while the monster was still chasing after your group. And even after you three sprinted through the cave, you did not stop until the monster’s footsteps could not be heard from behind you.

You three came to a halt and you let Grim stand up in order for you to place your hands on your knees so that you could take a break and breathe after the run you just had. The other two boys followed your same form and let out large puffs of air.

Deuce stood back up while still exhaling air, “What the heck is that thing?!”

Grim clutched your cloak as he hid under it this time, “Ffgnaaaaaaa!!” He almost pulled your pants down, “Crowley didn't say anything about that!! Let's get outta here!” He tugged your cloak in the opposite direction of the cave.

Ace fixed himself and thought out loud, “It’s so nasty,” but he placed his hand on his chin and finished with, “But didn't it mention a 'stone'!?” He did peace signs and moved his fingers up and down to signify he was quoting the beast.

Grim’s mouth flew open wide while he voiced his opinion of the monster with a solid, “Eehh??”

He was lost in his confusion until the monster appeared behind him again, “St....one, won't....give...!” The monster seemed pretty strung up about this stone which made you pause for a minute and think. Why is this monster here in the first place? And why does this monster need this stone? Is it like its source of magic like the chandelier or something?

Deuce had a cry of “Eureka!” by proclaiming about the magic crystals, “So there really are magic crystals left!”

Grim’s response was plain, “N-n-n-n-n-nope! Nope! I'm a genius, but I can't beat that thing!” He was still clutching onto your cloak while pointing at the monster.

Deuce curled his fist up, “But we'll be expelled without it.. I'm going!” and he threw it up in the air.

Ace’s wide eyes locked with yours, “You’ve gotta be kidding!?”

“Well, if we are gonna do this and get this stone, we gotta do this right.” You threw your hands on your hips and your lips twitched up.

Deuce now had both of his hands in fists while proclaiming, “I cannot, under any circumstances, be expelled!”

The monster was not hearing any of it, “Leave! Leave!! Leeeeeaave!!!”

And so the three and the monsters began to fight. Grim had to jump out of his hiding spot, and he would spit fire at the monster every couple of steps that the monster was taking. Ace and Deuce kept hitting the monster with common attacks that they knew. But you realized something sooner than they did.

So you yelled at them, “Idiots, nothing is working. Get your butts out of here if you want to live!”

They, of course, would not listen to you and continued to fire their attacks at the monster, and even when Grim noticed the attacks weren’t working and informed the others with a “I-It's not working at all!” they still continued to fight.

It was only when you found a sparkly light at the end of the tunnel did your scream of “Dudes, there is a crystal thing here!” spurred them to listen to you.

Ace turned and found the crystal just as you did, “Behind that thing! At the end of the tunnel, something...”

Deuce nodded, “That light, is it a magic crystal!?”

And once the monster hollered at the group of you again about how he “WON’T GIVE” your group the crystal, you made the assumption that there was at least one crystal left.

Grim turned back to you and called for the others to get out of the mine as soon as possible because there was no way they were gonna win now.

You grabbed Grim once he made grabby hands at you and started to dash down the mine in the opposite direction of the creature.

You three ended up making it back to the little cottage before you stopped.

Grim panted even though he was on your hip the entire time, “Is this far enough?”

Ace was still stupefied, “Ooooww.. What in the world was that? No one said anything about that!”

Deuce was also lost in confusion, “It didn't seem like any old ghost.”

Ace sighed in defeat, “Let's give up and go home. I'd rather get expelled than fight that thing.”

Deuce looked incredulously at Ace, “Wha!? Don't screw with me! I'd rather die than face expulsion! There's a magic crystal in front of us and you wanna go home!” Deuce gripped Ace’s collar and pulled the boy in front of his face.

Ace scoffed, “Ha. You talk big for someone worse at magic than me. Go alone if you want. I'm done.” Ace pushed Deuce’s hands off of him and started walking away from the direction of the mine.

Deuce snapped, “Oooh, that right? Then stay right there cowering like a spineless coward!”

Ace’s face swiveled around, “Huuuuh?? Coward?? Who exactly are you talking about?”

Grim’s hands tigented around your shirt, “U-uuuh... Deuce. Did you switch up your character?” His head tilted to the side.

Deuce coughed, “Huh! A-ahem! My bad. I lost my composure a bit.”

You decided that if any time is good, now is the perfect time for your opinion, “Okay dudes, let’s use what we have. We know that magic can help us in this situation, but being a dumbass won’t. All three of you need to actually use your brains and remember that you don’t have to do this alone.” You placed your hand on your chin, “If one magic alone does not work with our level, maybe magic combined could work. There is always the power of friendship if we really need it.”

Ace’s eyes narrowed in either disgust or confusion, “Well, yeah we can only do small stuff that we are good at. That’s why we have schools for magic, so that we can practice a lot to use magic just as it comes to mind. You’ll screw up if you lose your cool.”

Your eyes sparkled, “So what you are saying is I’m right and that we do need to work together as you are all inexperienced magicians that can barely do anything!” This was just what you needed.

Ace continued and ignored you, “Shut up. Stuff you're good at, you can go off instinct.”

Deuce voiced his decisions, “At any rate, I'm going in there. I'll figure out how to beat that thing and come back with a magic crystal.”

Ace rolled his eyes at Deuce, “However, judging by the chandelier incident, you're a complete idiot. You couldn't land a single hit earlier, but now you'll 'figure it out'? It's going to end the same.”

Deuce’s eyes narrowed at Ace, “Come again!? You think…”

Grim tugged on your cloak to get your attention, “Here they go again. Can you stop it?”

A sigh came out of your mouth to launch you into your rant, “Will both of you put your dicks away and calm down? For Pete’s Sake, I really thought your brains would be bigger than your dick, but now I’m just assuming that your brain is nonexistent…” Your hand ran through your hair, “Please, I beg for you to listen to me for one second. Get your head out of your ass and realize that you, all of you, need to work together as a team and think with your heads to defeat this monster. Capiche?” You closed your eyes and smiled as wide as you could.

Both of the students looked at you like you just told them that the world would end, and ended up yelping after their eyes met yours.

Grim covered his ears with his paws, “Waah. Why are you shouting all of the sudden?”

You opened your eyes and obtained a resting bitch face, “Either you suck it up and realize that you can’t do anything alone or you can go try again and maybe you’ll have a good short death.” Your smile appeared back on your face.

Deuce deflated, “Guuhh... B-but... What exactly should we do?”

“We have to have a plan for this to work,” You knew you had to put your head together.

Ace still had disgust in his eyes, “Strategy? You mean get along and work together. Ha! That's cold. You have no problem saying lame things with a serious face, huh.”

Deuce bobbed his head, “Disagreed. No way I'm working with this loser.”

Grim shook his head, “But... I feel like it's way lamer to get expelled on the first day of school.”

Ace stuttered, “U-uh, that’s…”

Deuce stared at his shoes.

“So, are you finally gonna listen to me?” You smiled and ran your hand through your hair.

Ace groaned, “....haaaahh.. Fine! We just have to get it done, right! So, what's your plan?”

And all three of you then had a discussion about what you were going to do to defeat the monster. Neither of the males had any ideas, so it depended all on your ideas. Later, you three ended up at the opening of the mine with confident looks on your faces, empty stomachs, and worn out bodies.

Grim, shaking next to you and gripping the end of your cloak, gazed up into your eyes, “You... really think it'll go as planned? I'm sca... no, just nervous.”

“Hey, Grim,” You pet the top of his head right next to his ears, “Nothing bad will happen to us. You just have to believe in yourself and everyone else.”

Ace slapped you back, “Haha, you're too stiff. Just go with the flow. Let's get this over with!”

All three of you strutted into the mine as if you knew what you were doing, but you didn’t.

Grim jumped in front of you and waved his arms all around, “Hey, beasty! O-o-o-over here!”

The monster ended up sprinting at you which makes sense because before it ran at you, you cupped your mouth and yelled, “Hey, whore, bet you never passed elementary school!” And then stuck out your tongue at the monster.

Grim sprung up and went in the opposite direction you did screaming, “Gah! It’s coming!”

While you tried to doge the monster, the monster growled, “Grrr!There... thief... too. Won't give... Mine... Mine!!”

The monster’s growls and shrieks soon turned into wails and cries. You paused your run to observe the monster who was in the middle of fighting Ace and Deuce because Ace decided to punch the monster in the monster’s face of glass. (Grim ended up cheering at Ace’s punch) This monster you had now learned was not mad at you but was probably attached to the mine and especially to the crystal with how the monster’s screams turned to cries.

(‘Great character analysis!’ You thought while patting yourself on the back.)

You surveyed the outfit of the monster once more, and you learned that it was much more familiar than you thought.

A light bulb went off in your head because the outfit looks like one of the seven dwarfs outfits, and, of course, now when you need it you forgot what they all look like.

You had to get everyone’s attention, especially the monster’s, “Hey hey hey! I’m gonna steal the crystal if you don’t run after me!”

The monster stomped after you out of the mine and into a big meadow roaring, “Go away! Go away!!!”

And with a wave of your hand, the three magicians in your group did a grand attack. All of them were yelling their movies like basic anime heroes.

(‘Am I in an anime?’ flew through your mind for a second, but your slowly pushed it down)

You knew that this was your only chance because the monster was stuck in all of their attack, “I’ll go get it, don’t worry!”

The three of them high fified and talked a little bit about how just amazing their combined attack was. You were spirinting into the mine, tripping on some of the rocks and slipping on a puddle of muck from the monster. The crystal slowly came into view and you went in that direction.

Large, booming footsteps were heard from behind you causing you to circle around to the noise and find not only the monster racing toward you but your idiotic boys following after it.

Ace hollered at you, “Watch Out!”

The monster even though the boys were still attacking it ignored everything and sprinted straight for you and the crystal.

You had to jam your hands into the rocks surrounding the crystal and pull as hard as you can which honestly was not a lot. Your hands were soon donned with scraps and cuts from the rocks surrounding it, and finally after using a piece of metal from the train tracks behind you, you got out the crystal with the monster not on your ass but almost.

When the monster locked sight onto the crystal in your hand, a sickening screech flew through the air, “Hands ooooofffffffff!!”

Deuce, Ace, and Grim all began panicking and trying to find out what to do by actually asking each other.

However, your biggest priority was to get out of the monster’s range, so you had to do something that could get you killed possibly.

(At least unless you wanted to go deeper into the mine which honestly was a worse idea than facing the monster in front of you).

The monster could almost reach out and grab you now so you performed your amazing save: you kneeled to the ground as the monster was still running at you causing the monster to trip and fly right over you into a wall of rocks. Since the monster was now a little caught up, you stood up and rushed to get the boys who you pulled by their sleeves as they were still arguing and forced them to follow you out of the mine once and for all.

Grim surveyed your hand and ordered the others, “We got the magic crystal! Let’s skedaddle!”

Ace looked back at the monster, sighed, then turned to Grim, and shouted, “Roger!”

The monster ended up gaining focus quicker than you expected because it appeared right behind you as the exit to the cave came in sight.

Ace incredulously gazed at the monster, “You're kidding!? It knocked off all that stuff and came after us!”

Deuce cursed and then remarks, “Shoot, it’s gonna catch up to us!”

You noticed that the monster did not stop even when all of you were close to the cottage in the woods, and you knew that it was because the monster is dead set on getting the crystal out of your hands, “There’s no way it’s gonna let us go. Either we end this now or die trying, so let’s go.” You halted your run and faced the monster with your fists in the air.

Ace sighed, “Aaah, fine! Let's finish it! Don't let me down, Mr. Serious!”

Deuce's eyes flicked to yours and then Ace, “You too.”

Grim jumped in front of you, “I’ll show off my true power!”

All three of them ended up using their magic together to defeat the monster, and even though they all came out of the battle close to dead they still cheered and celebrated with each other with shouts and highfives.

A breath of relief passed your lips, “Now this is when you confess your love for each other?” You locked eyes with first Ace and Deuce.

“Knock it off!” Ace and Deuce yelped at you.

It seemed they have become so much in sync that they are even imitating each other.

Deuce continued with red cheeks, “...Ah. N-no. This is nothing like that!”

Ace added, rubbing the back of his neck, “Y-yeah, yeah! Could you stop saying weird things?”

Grim puffed out his chest and bloated, “W-we won, thanks to my genius!...It's not because we pooled our strength!”

You turned to Ace and shook your head causing Ace to run his hand through his hair and frown, “...I guess making excuses is pretty lame. I hate to admit it but we won thanks to your plan.”

Deuce slowly nodded, “... True. We got the magic crystal because you gave us level headed instructions. We can prevent our expulsion this way. ... I'm so relieved.”

You smiled at the two, “Everyone did their part, and now we can finally relax.”

Ace finished it off, “Yeah, yeah. We're all relieved. And seriously worn-out and battered. Let's go home.”

Grim pulled your coat and remarked how starving he was, but all you could think about was a change of clothes and a bath, so him eating a black crystal or whatever did not really bother you, not even when the other two boys were yelling at him not to.

Deuce let out a cheer of excitement and a breath of plain exhaustion, “Switching gears, let's get this magic crystal to the headmaster!”

Everything was finally going your way. For now.

~~~

It be very cute how my laptop now does not work

[jjmorelikeotp]

What thing? What type?

Seongjoong college au?? Ft. Wooyoung; ONESHOT 😚 no warnings, humor ig

Yeah idk where that came from, I'm in my seongjoong feelz, mingi is back, I love woo, anyways besties enjoyyyyy ✌ also just in case anyone is still waiting for the promised minsung au! It is in the making!

"I cannot believe they've put all of that into one exam!", Wooyoung cries out, knuckles turning white around the strings of his backpack."Like, what am I - a robot?!"

"Maybe if you started studying earlier, you wouldn't have that much stress now."

"Nobody ever does that!"

They're on their way from the student dorms to Hongjoong's apartment - not for the first time, but this time, Seonghwa's car is standing in the parking lot.

"Oooh", Wooyoung makes. Your hot roomie finally home for once?"

"God, I wish I never told you that."

"But you diiiid", the younger cheers, wrapping his arm around Hongjoong's neck only to pull him down with his full body weight, making him groan.

With work, university and producing his tracks, the dorms weren't an option for Hongjoong anymore. Too loud, too smelly, too...first semester vibey. So, he saved up, worked through vacations and even during normal periods - and voila. His own, tiny, little room, a living room, a CLEAN bathroom he doesn't have to share with 727272 people, simply put : heaven. Sure, he might be a little tighter on budget now, but at least he was able to remain his sanity, and that's a win.

The apartment is not that cheap; sharing it makes it easier. And with Seonghwa, a business major in his 3rd year, it was a good catch.

He's nice, friendly, tidy - too tidy if you ask Hongjoong, especially when he is bitching about the coffee mugs in the sink, like, who the hell cares - but he is also very, very pretty, and caring, and that, ladies and gentlemen, isn't a good thing, at least not to his heart because he is - well, in some cases of being near him, and especially when Seonghwa smells good, becomes - the definition of a useless gay.

That's how bad it actually is, but luckily, only Yunho knows that.

For the rest of his friends, the older is just known as "hot".

Which is also very, very true.

"Hey!", Hongjoong shouts, tossing his keys onto the shelf next to the door.

Seonghwa is busy watering the plants. "Ah, hey! How was your scenery project?"

"Good, good!"

"What, this is it?", Wooyoung hisses, taking off his jacket. He pinches the older's waist. "If I called your storyboarding a scenery project you would have behaded me."

"Well you are a brat", Hongjoong whispers back, to which the younger only rolls his eyes, only to add a louder "brought someone with me today. Seonghwa, this is Wooyoung."

"HEEEYYYY", Wooyoung gives him a wave and earns a chuckle. "Nice to finally meet you, you know, Hongjoong always talks about his infamous roommate."

I'm going to kill that kid.

"Ah, really?" Seonghwa shoots him a glance, and he can't read an expression from it before it's already gone. "He talks about his friends too." Hee points at Woo with the water in his hands. "I'm guessing you are the loud one?"

"He is", Hongjoong quickly states before the younger has enough time to answer. "And you're just here to pick some notes up, c'mon. I got things to do."

With that, he pulls him into his room.

"What, you're not even inviting me for dinner?", Wooyoung says fifteen minutes later as he is getting dragged out by his friend.

"Exactly. You're a vaccuum when it comes to food, and I'm broke."

"You're mean, that's what you are-"

"Yeah, yeah, you're gonna survive it."

He somehow managed to get the boy into door-and-floor-space; he knows how long it can take to get him actually past the frame.

"Now go home and study. And use the notes!"

"You know I would be better off if you helped me study!"

"I got my own stuff to do."

"We could study together."

"I will clean my desk now. Go ask San!"

He sighs at the whine the younger lets out.

"Yah, hyung, you're really no fun. You don't even care about me or my grades."

"I literally just gave you all my notes."

"Yeah, but you got a monster brain and I don't understand them-"

A soft giggle makes them both turn around.

Seonghwa is done with the plants - he now seems to be cleaning the dining table, and for that, he's taken off his hoodie.

The tshirt he's wearing is white, a perfect match to his skin. His tan, muscular arms flex lightly at his movements.

"Huh." Wooyoung stares for a moment, tilting his head.

"Hongjoong hyung?"

"Hm?"

"You know the thing...you told me earlier?"

"The thing? I-what thing?"

"That thing."

"Oh. Yeah. Let me guess. You get my point now?"

"Definetely. Yeah."

Hongjoong leans onto Wooyoung's shoulder with one arm.

Four eyes are on Seongwha, who is painfully oblivious, probably not even listening. He's holding a can in his hands.

"Juice, anyone?"

"He's kinda like a mum. You're kinda like a mum, Seonghwa."

"I-what?"

"That's his way of giving somebody nicknames, I think. Either that or he's got both mommy and daddy issues. He told me I sound like a dad-"

He coughs away the pain as the younger smacks his stomach; for a moment, Seonghwa's eyes are on him.

"You know, hyung, I agree with you", Wooyoung says right before he's out the door, getting his revenge. "Your roommate is hot, you were right about that."

Snitch.

Hongjoong, however, did not expect anything less. He deals with it the way he always deals with pretty boys : joking about it until it hurts because he doesn't stand a chance anyway, vibing in the frequency of an awkward wave.

Hakuna matata.

"I know I am - I'm always right!", he shouts after the younger friend although the door is already closed.

Just be shameless, nobody knows you're dying of embarassment until you show it.

And maybe he is a little competitive as well. Maybe.

He doesn't even look at the older; he plays it off with a soft chuckle, focusing his attention back on his desk that, he must admit, looks like a battle field of supplies. Brushes, pencils, notes, papers, folders - a cup of coffee here, a computer mouse there. Sweet sweet college life.

It's quiet around him, nothing unusual, Seonghwa is a calm person after all. If he's honest, Hongjoong is glad to have found a roommate like him. (If only he wasn't so handsome that it's hard, like, really hard, to focus. He can't complain though.)

The weird knot in his chest forces him to go against his anxiety and look up. He meets Seonghwa's eyes immediately.

Again.

"What?", he asks, breathing out a laugh that - he hopes sincerely - doesn't sound nervous.

"He just gave you a compliment, that's Wooyoung for you."

"Mhm", Seonghwa makes.

"Aw, are you getting shy? Don't you know how to handle a compliment?"

A light hint of pink appears on the older's cheeks, which is weird because at the same time, he's furrowing his brows. Hongjoong wishes he didn't enjoy teasing him so much.

(Spoiler alert: not really.)

"What? No-"

He grins.

Cute.

He might be smiling through the pain when it comes to the next comment, but hey - Nobody has to know. (How would they know?)

"Is it because he's pretty? Is he your type?"

That's how you do it. Just drop hints and make him date another dude, to cope with the fact that you might develope an unhealthy crush on your roommate and don't stand a chance.

Hah!

But who would do such a thing, not Hongjoong.

Obviously.

"He's a really great guy", he cheerfully adds, focusing on his organization again. "A little loud, but maybe that's a match. I could totally set you guys up."

He doesn't even know what paper he has in his hands.

"Well, yeah", a deep voice suddenly murmurs in his ear and he nearly jumps.

Seonghwa is standing right in front of him.

"You could do that...but", he inhales softly, grabbing a pastel pink pen from the tornado of chaos Hongjoong calls his work place. It's got a little plastic strawberry on its tip.

"He's not really my type."

And then, almost like a whisper, and a lot closer to his ear, he just says: "You are."

And then he leaves, letting Hongjoong alone in the living room, with the words "I think that's my pen, thanks", and Hongjoong just stares at the wall.

[shadow-sovereign]

New idea: The ants on Jeju island where too much of a risk to leave them alone. So Japan makes their move earlier (bevor Beru is born) and their plan is successful. The korean Hunters perish and the Draw Sword Guild has expanded their influence all over Korea. The possible reawakening of an E rank Hunter is just a minor incident. Jin-Woo is having a hard time trying to level up, not getting noticed by the Draw Sword Guild and helping the remaining korean Hunter Association. (dark!Jin-Woo maybe)

1/2 Ruby here and yes, the other fic idea was from me too. Sorry for not putting my name in it. To be honest, I had already forgotten about it until you mentioned it. XD In the novel Japan would have demanded an exorbitant price every time Korea needed the jap. Hunters. Like "You need our Hunters? Ok but in exchange we get island x." I think that was their plan (chapter 104). 

2/2 They would keep a close eye on any highranked or possible reawakened Hunters. If one of them becomes too strong, then the japanese would arrange an 'accident' inside of a dungeon. So Jin-Woo would have to be very careful until he is strong enough.  Maybe Jin-Ho would become the guildmaster of Yoojin Guild with Jin-Woo as vice-guildmaster, so they would have more political power. I am not sure, if a relationship between Ryuji an Jin-Woo would be possible (maybe one-sided?). 

I’m going to group the follow-up messages with the original message to make things easier.

This idea would definitely make for a dark au. In one fell swoop, all of South Korea’s S-rank Hunters would be killed, except for Go Gun-Hee who was too old to fight on Jeju island. Even just one S-rank can kill a lot of monsters inside the dungeon and prevent many of their raid teammates from being killed.

Without an S-rank going inside the high-ranking A gates, a lot of Hunters will start losing their lives. I imagine the Japanese government would wait until a lot of the Korean A-rank Hunters had died and South Korea was desperate before making their move.

They probably wouldn’t outright admit to sabotaging the Jeju island mission, but it would be pretty obvious after they ask for Jeju island in return for their help. With how much help South Korea would need, the Japanese Hunters would have to create a base of operations in their country, slowly expanding their control. They’d essentially be creating their own guilds in South Korea and perhaps taking over some of the guilds that are already there.

The S-ranks in the Draw Sword Guild would probably take turns going to South Korea to deal with the higher rank gates, as I doubt any of them want to permanently move over there. With most of the dangerous raids being supervised by one of the Japanese Hunters, they can make sure the number of Korean A-rank Hunters doesn’t get too high, by making sure some of them have ‘accidents’ inside the dungeons.

Timeline wise, let’s say that Jin-Woo was an E-rank Hunter for about three years before Japan started doing their evil shenanigans and have their claws in deep by the time Jin-Woo starts leveling up. He’s been watching all this unfold for a year, seeing more and more reports of Hunters losing their lives inside the gates. Even when the Japanese Hunters aren’t actively trying to kill Korean Hunters, they don’t particularly care about whether they get out safely either. So, some are dying to negligence rather than outright malice.

Jin-Woo finds an ironic humor in that hated nickname of ‘World’s Weakest Hunter’ becomes his greatest asset once he starts leveling up. He’s not even on the radar of the Japanese Hunters, and even if someone suspected him of reawakening, they wouldn’t expect him to go up more than a couple levels.

To keep up appearances, Jin-Woo would have to keep going into the low level gates the Korean Association sends him to. But he’d keep his mana suppressed and be on guard near higher ranking Hunters who might be able to sense him. To actually level up, the system would need to create more fake dungeons for him to fight in.

The architect can obviously see what’s going on around Jin-Woo, so it would naturally start creating more dungeons for him. And perhaps putting the entrance to them in less obvious places. The whole goal is for him to get stronger and not die, after all. It would defeat the purpose if he got caught before he could fight back.

[If I wrote this, it would be interesting to create new dungeons. A chance to be creative, especially since the system can create a wide variety of items.]

One major downside of Jin-Woo not being able to get retested and go into higher dungeons means a lack of funds. He’s still getting paid for E-rank dungeons. And while he could at least start killing more monsters in there, to get slightly more money, it would definitely chafe at him. Knowing he could be making a lot more.

But I like your suggestion of him joining the Yoojin guild. I think they could probably even meet the same way. I doubt the Japanese Hunters care if Hwang Dong-Suk and his gang of low level Hunters goes around killing other low level Hunters, as long as none of their targets are Japanese.

In canon, I believe Chairman Yoo was originally going to have an S-rank Hunter as the guild master with his oldest son as the vice-chairman. (Maybe the oldest son isn’t awakened? Considering he was eventually convinced to let Jin-Ho be the guild master, that’s the only reason I can think of to not have the oldest son be the guild master.)

Yoo Myung-Han isn’t willing to have one of the Japanese Hunters as the leader of his guild, so that leaves him looking for a Hunter he can trust. Perhaps Jin-Ho overhears a conversation or his father lets slip that the reason he isn’t making him the guild master is that he doesn’t think he has enough experience. So, Jin-Ho goes looking for raid experience, first by joining a raid, then planning to lead some of his own to prove he can do it.

Jin-Woo goes on the raid with Hwang Dong-Suk, despite it being C-rank, because he needs the money for rent and the ad for a temporary teammate says they’re just looking for someone to fill the slot. He figures he won’t have to do much fighting and he’ll try to be discrete if he does. Getting a few ‘lucky’ hits on monsters, then leaving the supposedly higher rank Hunters to finish them off.

Things go the same in canon, Jin-Woo has to kill the boss monster and Hwang Dong-Suk’s gang. The only difference is, this time there’s a really obvious reason for Jin-Woo to be keeping his power secret. Jin-Ho asks if the secrecy is so he doesn’t get targeted by the Japanese Hunters. Jin-Woo confirms it is. Then Jin-Ho reveals his plans to try and become the guild master of his father’s guild.

Jin-Woo needs the money and there’s no way he can start his own guild under current circumstances. He takes a risk by agreeing to go with Jin-Ho to talk to his father. (Though, maybe have the confrontation with Hwang Dong-Suk happen later than in canon, so that Jin-Woo is already close to being an S-rank.)

They speak with Myung-Han, who appreciates the fact that Jin-Woo saved his son’s life. He agrees to let Jin-Woo join the guild, but he’s not yet convinced of Jin-Ho being the guild master and Jin-Woo the vice master. He wants to make sure they have the experience necessary to lead first.

Myung-Han has been finding trustworthy hunters all this time, finding ones who don’t agree with what the Japanese Hunters have been doing. They’re in on the plan to make a guild that the Japanese Hunters can’t interfere with, one that could eventually start rivaling them. Which means finding strong Hunters before the Japanese Hunters can make them have ‘accidents’ in the dungeons.

He sends Jin-Ho and Jin-Woo on dungeon raids with them, to test his son’s leadership skills and Jin-Woo’s strength. On paper, Jin-Woo is there to fill in the numbers and help carry stuff. They let people assume he’s there as a charity case, someone who befriended Jin-Ho on a dangerous raid and was given a position in their guild.

When Jin-Woo unlocks his shadow powers, it feels like a game changer for them. Now, they have a chance to create an army. The more dungeons Jin-Woo goes into, the greater their army will become.

Perhaps, at some point, they’d end up contacting the Korean Hunter’s Association, letting Go Gun-Hee in on their plans. With the Association on their side, it’ll be easier to hide what they’re doing. Especially since they would eventually need to sneak Jin-Woo into some higher level gates for stronger summons. (Maybe the system could interfere and turn one of the gates into a red gate? There would be more monsters inside then.)

But eventually, it would be time to fight back. Once Jin-Woo is strong enough and has enough summons that he could take on the gates himself, no longer needing the Japanese Hunters assistance, then it would be time to kick them out of the country. Of course, they’re not going to want to leave without a fight, but once Go Gun-Hee realizes that he’s stronger than the Draw Sword Guild, he’d give him the go ahead to kick them out through any means necessary, even if it means killing them.

Taking all factors into consideration, I think he would kill them. Jin-Woo may value human life, but he’s not a saint. These people have been going around, killing the Hunters in his country. He may be even-tempered, but this would be enough to make him furious.

There would also be the draw of turning them into his Shadow Soldiers. He’d find a certain irony in it, taking the people who attacked his country and making them protect it as his summons.

In this au, the only way Jin-Woo could have a positive relationship with any of the Japanese Hunters would be after he’s made them into his summons. He would probably be quite pleased to have Ryuji kneeling in front of him, proclaiming his eternal loyalty. That might eventually lead to more after he’s had a few years to calm down and get his country back to rights.

I wonder if they’d end up in a war with Japan?

Jin-Woo would have just killed off their strongest Hunters, then went on to reclaim Jeju Island. Not sure if there’d be anybody living there yet, though. They would have needed time to clean up the place after the ants wrecked havoc and then start building. Either way, Jin-Woo would kick them out, then have some of his summons guard the place while the South Koreans start building and moving in.

Manpower wise, I don’t think Japan could afford to go to war with them after that, but they might try to turn the other countries against South Korea. However, Go Gun-Hee and the Korean Association would doubtless have been collecting evidence of Japan’s wrongdoing and share that with the world.

There would then be negative sentiments against the Japanese government, like in canon, but otherwise the other countries wouldn’t care enough to get involved. I suppose, after that, the major canon events would happen. Fighting the architect, then the other Monarchs.

Not sure about the canon ending. Obviously wouldn’t have the canon pairing since he never got a chance to know her before she died.

Spoilers for canon ending: It would make sense that Jin-Woo would want to do the time traveling thing in this au. Even before the Monarch war, so many of his people died due the Japanese Hunters. The only reason I didn’t like the time traveling in the novel is because he went back before there was magic. What’s the point of writing a fantasy novel if you’re going to make it go back to normal at the end? Yeah, Jin-Woo still had magic, but how out of place must he have felt being the only one?

The only way I could see him not doing the time traveling thing in this au is if he manages to save his dad. Jin-Woo is rather family-focused and going back in time has its risks (of the monarchs finding a way to win). If Jin-Woo’s family is safe, I don’t think he’d take the risk to time travel.

And that’s all I can think of for this au. If anyone feels inspired by it, feel free to use the ideas here. ^_^

[sackreligion]

WELL, HERE’S SOME THINGS ABOUT RHEDD!

I’ve seen some AMAZING, WONDERFUL HEADCANONS about the various Alastors and their thoughts and positions (TEE HEE) regarding sex and kink! I think it’s EXCELLENT! And though you PROBABLY WOULDN’T BELIEVE IT after everything Rhedd’s been doing, he’s actually way more in line with Juju’s, even if he cannot clearly remember his LIVING LIFE, he is NOT a virgin either. Didn’t die a virgin, I hate the often infantilizing takes of Alastor! 

SO... WHAT IS THE DEAL WITH RHEDD?

For those of you who were here when I first made him, you probably realized I do this thing where I make a character and then write their story backwards-- and that’s the same here, too! I wanted to write an Alastor that was PURE CHAOS and instead of focusing on a BYGONE ERA, I wanted to focus on the Radio Demon’s LUST AND HUNGER for entertainment at ANY cost. 

After a particularly bad complete and utter mental collapse he suffered in the 50s (my mans thought about eternity), Alastor threw away his name, started going by Red (later spelling it as Rhedd), and devoted himself to finding entertainment wherever he could. He didn’t WANT to be the RADIO DEMON anymore, and that was because EVERYBODY HATED HIM! Terrified of him! OH! The NONEXISTENT HUMANITY! 

It’s hard to enjoy things when everyone runs screaming from you. So, he ended up spending a lot of nights IN, and that’s when he stumbled upon the VIDEO PORN INDUSTRY! He knew porn existed, he is not braindead. BUT OH! Look at all these people doing all these RIDICULOUS THINGS and CLAIMING IT’S SEXY! HAHA! 

And then he found the subset that featured  ALASTOR THE RADIO DEMON! WOW! Actors donning their Frequency Devil costumes and engaging in the most DEGENERATE ACTS the mind can IMAGINE! HAHA! Rhedd was HOOKED. He became a huge fan-- and when he started up his own little TV show, he explicitly hired porn actors that had done movies that featured him. 

Rhedd’s entire relationship with sex was just so that it did not involve him in any way. He didn’t want it to. He didn’t want to exist! As far as he was concerned, he was a background character with no name, no backstory, no NOTHING! He was an observer, content to observe! And the moment he was put into view, oh his skin crawled. 

Sex doesn’t upset Rhedd. He’s not a prude. He doesn’t feel any way about it, he just absolutely did not want to be involved. 

And he still feels that way EXCEPT around The Engineer. Rhedd was actually really close to giving up entirely--even thinking about letting himself be exterminated next time ‘round! And then he met The Engineer. This giant creature that was a living nightmare, a giant transformer tower, a man and a sweet voice all together! And Rhedd carried on as usual, did his little dance, wore garish clothes, expecting that this Thing would also hate him, like everyone else did.

He tap danced out the routine of Moses Supposes, and The Engineer gave a feedback shriek of delight, clapping its hands. 

This was Rhedd on the inside, his outside always holding that characteristic grin. He was liked??? By this Thing that could easily unmake him in a second, Rhedd was adored-- and that seemed to rekindle whatever spark was about to go out in the Radio Demon.

And a CHANGE happened inside of him. It was like he was reaching his FULL! POTENTIAL! Suddenly, doors flung open in his mind-- and with the company of The Engineer, he wasn’t afraid to shove his fingers into all sorts of jars! 

When it comes to sex, the idea of doing these things with other people just isn’t on the table. He isn’t interested. But when it comes to Engi, nearly ANYTHING is on the table. He feels completely seen, inside and out, and understood and it’s not something words can describe. ƎMOH ƎЯ’UOY ЯƎWꙄͶA ƎHT ꙄI ƎVO⅃ ꟻI

Rhedd’s outer appearance has changed to match how he feels inside-- hot pink, with any number of accessories. Black-Red lipstick to match the tears of The Engineer, outfits that would kill Grandma all over again! He’s not afraid of being perceived anymore, instead, HE IS HERE, HE EXISTS, AND HE’S GOING TO MAKE IT EVERYONE’S PROBLEM THAT HE CAN BE PERCEIVED. 

I was supposed to talk about Sinday wasn’t I? 

Here’s a fun fact! Rhedd’s heart shaped pupil came about when he had a rather powerful orgasm after his first time with Engi, and his pupil got stuck like that. YEP, JUST WALKING AROUND WITH EVIDENCE OF AN O-FACE IN PLAIN SIGHT!!!!

Most people wouldn’t want to watch porn with him Mystery Science Theater 3000 style, but Engi does!!! These two wear FULL BONDAGE GEAR and then just cuddle on some MURDER COUCH and watch Netflix. Rhedd has never been so comfortable in his existence. 

also he has no shame and will just say things for a reaction because it’s funny shdjfkhj

[baka-monarch]

It’s A Small World Chapter 2: Protecting His Honor

Summary: Virgil has a plan to catch Roman being a bad person, but instead finds some feelings he thought disappeared after ninth grade...

TRIGGER WARNINGS: CUSSING, ANXIETY ATTACK

Prologue Chapter 1

“It’s been three days Patt! Three days!!!” Virgil was in a video call with his brother as he packed a bag. “And he still hasn’t done one bad thing!” Currently he’d been explaining the roommate situation to Patton. For the past three days Roman had been a perfect roommate to Virgil, he’d kept the whole dorm clean, he would cook amazing meals for Virgil by waking up before him and having something always prepared for when the emo came back from class, AND he had yet to fall back into his old pattern of bullying Virgil. He had become the perfect roommate, but Virgil wasn’t quite ready to believe the act.

“Well, is that such a bad thing kiddo?” Patton had been listening to his little brother ramble on for the past hour about all the good things Roman had done as if Roman had done something terrible while... packing a bag? “Maybe he has changed?”

“Patton.” Virgil paused his packing. “People like him don’t change that fast.”

“Yeah but-” Patton tried to argue but was cut off as someone peeked at the screen over his shoulder.

“Patton dear, Virgil’s right. People can change but not that fast.” Janus, Patton’s lover, had been the one to cut off their boyfriend.

“Thank you Jan.” Virgil sighed as Patton had gained an exasperated look of defeat.

“No problem kid.” Janus smiled down at the screen, until his eyes caught on the bag Virgil was preparing with curiosity. “I thought you already finished your classes for the week?”

“Oh, I did.” Virgil had started packing it again, now adding a rather large water bottle.“Then why are you packing a bag?” Janus started adding a little motherly sternness to their voice as they said this.

“I uhm…” Virgil paused and looked at the screen, finding himself facing a worried brother and their glaring significant other. He cleared his throat before continuing. “I’m going to catch him in the act of being a bad person.” He smiled awkwardly, praying they wouldn’t ask more.

“Yes, but why do you need a bag for that?” Of course Jan would ask more, they are a lawyer after all.

“Well…” Virgil swallowed his nerves. He couldn’t lie to them. Literally. Janus always knew when someone was lying. “Remember when Patton would go to school and I would have to stay in his pocket because I was too young to be alone?”

“Oh Virgil…” “Oh kid....” They both seemed to say at the same time with that disappointed parent voice.

“Virgil you could get hurt!” Patton tried to argue as Virgil quickly zipped up the bag needing to escape this conversation.

“Don’t worry, I thought it through all night and I’ll be fine.” Virgil collected the bag onto his bag.

“Did you get any sleep last night?” Janus pinched the bridge of their nose.

“Does it matter?” Virgil blushed.

“Kiddo, you need sleep!” Patton worried. “And you can’t just sneak into people’s pockets!” He scolded.

“It’ll be fine Patt,” Virgil argued, but now was starting to doubt himself. “plus,  I have everything I need in this bag.” He slung it onto his shoulders.

“That’s not the point Virgil.” Janus deadpanned. “You should listen to your brother, you could get hurt or worse.” Virgil opened his mouth to argue but Jan beat him to it. “And don’t reference when did it as kids. Patton knew you were in his pocket, Roman won’t. One wrong, unaware move, could seriously injure you and we won’t be there to help. I understand that you want to prove that he isn’t any better than he was in highschool, but there is still three days left in the week, plenty of time to either catch him being that person or to urge him into being like that again. There are other ways.” Virgil stared at the wall. Exhaled. Then closed his laptop.

It was time to get into position. Good thing Roman had left his jacket in the living room last night.

●●●

Roman woke with a start as his alarm blared into his ears. As he checked his phone he found it had actually been going off for the past hour, and he was about to be late to his first day of class.  He jumped out of bed and pulled on his clothes for the day, not bothering with a shower, or brushing his hair and teeth. He ran out of his room and snatched his jacket off the floor and threw it on before grabbing his backpack and slipping into it as he rushed out the door. As Roman ran to class his jacket swung around threatening to spill the contents of it’s pockets, luckily there was nothing in it’s pockets.

Or so Roman thought.

As Roman ran Virgil was on the verge of an anxiety attack as he held on for dear life. It was now that Virgil regretted his plan of hiding in Roman’s jacket pocket. Virgil was sure that if he hadn’t had a death grip on the inside fabric of the pocket he would’ve fallen out and gone ‘Splat!’ on the ground by now. He was lucky that he had decided to pack a backpack and not a different type of bag or he would have definitely lost his supplies by now. Maybe he should have listened to Patton and Janus, there definitely were more options to see Roman not be the perfect Prince Charming he was in the dorm. Unfortunately, it was too late to turn back now. For the time being Virgil would have to focus on his breathing and holding onto fabric.

As Roman ran to class Virgil could feel every thump as his pocket hit Roman’s side with every step. Virgil’s heart pace quickened as he could only hear Roman’s pounding footsteps as he stomped down with what sounded like all of his force but Virgil knew Roman was barely touching the ground with how fast he was running, and it was terrifying. Virgil’s mind raced as he squeezed his eyes closed, trying to block out the rest of the world. Breath, just breath. He tried telling himself but it was hard to focus on his thoughts when his ears were pounding from the strain of hearing so many loud sounds, pounding footsteps, a heart beating impossibly fast and loud, breathing that sounded like a tornado, a stomach that just would not stop growling. It felt like hours before Roman burst through what had to be his classroom door, but it had actually been a few minutes.

“Oh thank god… “ Roman exhaled with relief as he had made it on time with a few minutes to spare. He chose a seat off to the side and promptly collapsed in it.  Virgil was relieved as Roman sat down and slid down in the pocket as he finally relaxed, taking a moment to let go of the fabric and rest his fingers. Virgil took this time to calm himself as he listened to Roman’s breathing and rhythmic heartbeat. Once Virgil’s breathing had even, he pulled out his phone-like his backpack it had shrunk with him-and focused on Tumb.lr to defray his nerves.

While Roman waited for the professor to arrive he pulled out his phone and got onto Instagram. Not long after he’d gotten his phone out did he receive a message from someone he thought he’d blocked. Heather. His ex from highschool. She had sent him a picture of him sitting in class from the back of the room he was in, with the caption: “didn’t know you’d be here lover boy~” with a heart. Roman took a moment to glance behind him, and sure enough in the very back of the classroom, was the makeup covered, plastic, fake, bitch, Heather. Roman took a moment. Screamed internally. Then blocked Heather on Instagram again. He held back a laugh as he heard her noises of disbelieving offense, but did allow himself to gain a satisfied smile.

“Do you how do, class?” Someone exclaimed as they walked through the door. “I am your teacher,  Professor Picani.” He smiled as he gave them all a small bow. “And I am here to teach you about acting!” He smiled brightly. “But for today, let’s get acquainted with each other, shall we? All you have to do today is talk to each other, have fun you sassy lassies.” With that Picani sat at his desk and watched over the room as students took the opportunity to talk to get crazy. Everyone immediately surrounded one desk as someone had pulled out a couple of prop swords and was setting up duels for everyone.

Roman was halfway out of his seat to join them when Heather appeared in front of him saying, “So Roman,” she leaned over him with her hand on his desk, preventing him from moving. Virgil stiffened at her voice, easily recognizing it.  “I didn’t think you would be able to afford going here, did you just miss me that much?” She smiled innocently as Roman grimaced.

“No, I got a scholarship for doing theater.” He deadpanned, wanting nothing more than for the conversation to be over. Virgil listened closely from his pocket, surprised by Roman’s harsh tone. Hadn’t he been dating Heather?

“Ooooohhhh.” She said, feigning ignorance. “So they took pity on you and emo fucker?” Virgil flinched at the nickname, but surely now Roman would give up the act?

“No, I think we earned going here.” Roman was curt, cutting his words making them sharp. “Unlike you who paid them to let you in, but just because you’re hee that doesn’t give you the right to say that.”

“Say what? Emo fucker?” She smiled with innocence but a dangerous gleam could be seen in her eyes. She leaned in close to Roman and from the pocket Virgil could feel the shift in atmosphere, both the tension and the heat radiating from the two giant bodies that were now close together. Virgil shifted uncomfortably and scooted back closer to Roman, although he may not like the prep they were better than the bitch any day. Roman gained a look of disgust as he leaned away from her. “Ya know, I heard that you share a dorm with him. Are you an emo fucker, Slut.” Roman promptly blushed and pushed her away from him. As Heather stumbled back she smiled mischievously. Virgil was blushing as he got startled by Roman’s sudden movement to push the bitch away.

“Get away from me!” Roman had exclaimed as he’d pushed her. She just chuckled darkly at him.

“So you are a gay looser?”  She gained a sinister smile. “Just like that emo fuck up.” She purred.

“You have no right to talk about him in that way!” Roman exclaimed surprising Virgil. “You can say and do whatever you want about me but you never even talked to him, got to know him, you have no right to treat him the way you do.” Virgil was dumbstruck. Did… did Roman just defend him? 

“Oh, and you did?” Heather retorted striking Roman speechless. “That’s what I thought.” With that she walked away leaving Roman to his own devices. Virgil just sat there listening to Roman slow breathing and quick heartbeat. He didn’t know what to think, and he definitely didn’t trust his feelings right now considering the immense heat he could feel spreading across his face. He huddled further into the pocket-not cuddled, he would never cuddle up to Roman! He closed his eyes and decided to take a small nap for now…

●●●

Later that night Virgil crawled out of Roman’s pocket after the prep had fallen asleep and returned to his room in disappointment, having not found what he was looking for. When he finally got back to his usual size he collapsed into bed and checked his phone to find hundreds of messages from both Patton and Janus asking what happened and if he was okay. Instead of texting back, he recorded a little voice message.

“ ‘m fine… Roman might be cute again, updates in the morning…” Then, he slept. 

Next Chapter =>

Tag list: @unevencube2554 @bullet-tothefeels @carryondrawing

[wirewitchviolet]

Hate Mobs Gotta Go

Last night, I did something I have never expected to do, and just full on gave up on a fun RPG writing assignment. Which I had to do because I hit a point where it was so overdue and unfinished that I was falling asleep sitting up and stress vomiting and other such things. There’s a whole lot of factors behind that. Other health issues, the toll of being on total pandemic lockdown for months, with neighbors just straight up open mouth coughing at my door, emergencies with friends and family, multiple fires and hardware failures, but the main thing was, and still is, the constant harassment from a militant hate mob, completely out of touch with reality.

Years ago, I remember there was this thing the internet at large was fond of doing with foaming at the mouth far right religious extremists- Mercilessly ridiculing them in public to expose how disconnected everything they said or did was from reality. Remember seeing this one float around and laughing your head off?

And if I mention the Westboro Baptist Church, you immediately picture a single family of raving bigots picketing funerals and such with their big homophobic signs, with a bigger crowd mocking them, right?

For some reason, the modern version of that particular flavor of fringe weirdo doesn’t get that sort of ridicule. Presumably because they’re focusing almost exclusively on trans people, and most people have this weird thing where like if you stick up for trans people you get cooties or something and never dig into the real juicy ridicule fodder. But for real, this stuff is OUT THERE. Just look at a few examples here.

Come for the weird ravings about harvesting baby organs. Stay for the... adult woman who apparently believes breasts get their shape from actually being sacks filled with milk under women’s skin? Now, how about this colorful comparison?

For anyone who wasn’t aware, pronouns are words like “I” “you” “he” “she” “it” and “this,” while rohypnol is colloquially known as “the date rape drug,” so this is utter gibberish. The full context of course is that this person is trying to make the argument that forcing this bigot to refer to women she’s prejudiced against as “she” instead of arbitrarily tossing around “he” or “it” is... raping her brain, I guess?

So... this is pretty clearly some creep’s weird little fantasy. The obvious giveaway is pretending that trans women “aren’t in the correct bathroom” when going to... the correct bathroom, and that the non-existent law about this is somehow enforced by... random bigots opting to deputize themselves. What DOES happen for real though is bigots like this being arrested for barging into public restroom stalls with camcorders aimed at the crotches of women on toilets and trying to defend themselves by insisting they have some duty to check what their genitals look like. On which note...

That’s just disgusting. It’s also as close as I feel comfortable to posting all the graphic fantasies I see from these people about the barbaric genital mutilation they imagine trans women subject ourselves to which really has no basis at all in reality. Well maybe I can post this one.

I’m not going to go through and itemize all the baldfaced lies in that, because I really kinda hope I don’t have to, and also because the person who slapped this together was kind enough to break it up in such a way that I legitimately can say “every single line of this is a completely baseless lie.” Also the art in the corner is stolen from a child-friendly comic whose author is trans, so, that’s extra slimy. Also wow that “bone scans” bit is actually one I’ve never seen. Where the hell do they even get these ideas?

Also this one needs some setup. If you have time, this right here is a freaking journey, if not, I’ll try to summarize.

So a while ago, this one particular unhinged bigot decided the most productive way to spend all her time was to get in touch with a bulk sticker printing business and order thousands if not millions of these weird gross poorly framed slabs with a really crude drawing of a penis and bunch of gibberish she really wishes were the names of popular twitter hashtags that nobody else but her ever uses. And then after receiving these, just... wandering around the city she lives in all day every day plastering them on phone booths and power poles and the mirrors of bathrooms in like.. elementary schools and park benches, just everywhere. And then makes multiple passes a day apparently to make sure nobody has tried to remove any of them, as detailed in this amazing thread I’ll link again.

So the latest break in that particular saga is that same zealot going around plastering stickers like this around too, to make it seem like “both sides do it.”

It should be obvious that that’s a “blacks rule!” sort of fake between the baffling text and using the extra inclusive, particular emphasis on supporting people of color, general purpose LGBT+ flag, but also, like their fellows on 4chan, they plan this sort of “false flag” crap in broad daylight:

I should really properly credit the whistle-blowing on that particular oddity, and I should also note that aside from the breast milk sacks, this is all just stuff I saw TODAY catching up on my twitter feed, but my main point with all this is to illustrate that we really are dealing with Jack Chick/Westboro Baptist-level unhinged zealotry... but again, nobody’s out there pointing and laughing. And it turns out, when you don’t have people pointing and laughing at this sort of thing, you get people taking it seriously. So... when I went to quickly search for a news story to link with the bit about creeps barging in on women with cameras, the results I got were... this.

That... sure is a lot of stories about totally innocent people in a demographic I belong to being murdered by total strangers goaded into blind murderous hatred by the sort of people I’m pointing and laughing at! Ha ha! There’s a very real chance of that happening to me every time I step outside, for any reason! Tee hee! I live in a state of constant fear! Whoopsie!

And it’s not just stuff like that. The people posting these rambling tirades about “breast milk sack implants” and putting crude penis stickers everywhere, never being called out as the unhinged weirdos they are, either have the world turning a blind eye to all this crap, or have everything they do downplayed in the media to the point where outright sexual harassment, doxing, and slurs I don’t want to repeat get headlines like “so-and-so made comments that some fringe trans activists on the internet deem ‘possibly transphobic’” and that’s AT BEST. More often you get stuff like the one incident I managed to bring a lot of public attention to way back when, where some bigot just literally walked up to someone on the street, grabbed them, savagely beat the hell out of them until pulled apart, had friends film the whole thing, and bragged after the fact about it, and every story that appeared as a result claimed the assailant was the victim, because they were all written by her friends.

Face obscuring provided by me here, by the way.

And that isn’t a one-off incident. Because, see, most of these unhinged weirdos spewing out all this transphobic gibberish are not, as you would think, a bunch of barely educated Trump hat wearing members of some fringe religious congregation. They’re editors and producers in major British news outlets. This isn’t me shouting conspiracy nonsense either, this is well-documented. Like, The Guardian gets public internal protests over this crap. So does the BBC. Yes, other respected news sites cover this. Media watchdog groups do their best to reign this in with hearings and such, but, don’t actually have any power to enforce anything really. So when there’s “reporting” on this crap, it’s coming directly from the “breast milk sack implant” people. Oh and here’s some screenshots of the headlines of those stories you’re too lazy to click through and actually read:

And of course, sometimes when they want to really come across as respectful, they try to find “scientists” and “doctors” who back up their ravings but all they have to fall back on are disgraced quacks who spend most of their time on activism work to normalize pedophilia.

I’m not bringing that point about Cantor up to discredit his writings about trans people by the way. He doesn’t really HAVE any writings about trans people. He just pasted the names of a bunch of random studies from the 70s about whether playing with barbies makes you gay into his blog a few years back and this crowd was so desperate for validation they declared him an “expert in the field” and started passing out links to his.... pro-pedophila blog. Which is part of this whole pattern, but I’ve written about that before. Oh and the governments of multiple countries manage to treat all these people as “experts” and make policy decisions based on their ravings. That’s fun.

Anyway, aside from encouraging random people to, you know, just randomly murder anyone they see who looks like maybe a trans woman, every so often this weird little cult pulls in an actual celebrity who then has a public meltdown as they post all this gibberish to a wider audience. Currently this is going on with Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling (who’s actively promoting the pedophile guy up there on Twitter), and I think also William Shatner, but I haven’t really looked into it. The last big one though was Graham Linehan. Who you might remember from co-writing some sitcoms that were popular decades ago in Britain, or from being the weird cartoon villain who tried to kill the funding of a children’s charity, prompting this strange pledge drive marathon of Donkey Kong Country.

You might also know him as one of... I think honestly just two people who have ever managed to be such out of control stalking hate mongers that they were actually given a permanent no possible appeal ban from Twitter. Personally though I know him more as, you know, that one absolute creep who’s been obsessively stalking me for like 5 years and never shutting up about his weird personal obsession with me.

I WOULD link the recent freaking filmed interview he did where he spent forever rambling about me, but I’d have to actually watch it to confirm I had the right link, and also the only place I could quickly find a link to it would be on his twitter feed, which as stated, no longer exists. Oh and random side note there, despite being personally, by name, the person he was explicitly targeting all his hateful ramblings at, he wasn’t banned from that site for any of the disgusting stuff he said to me. He just slipped up and mentioned a cis woman with a professorship while shouting about this crap recently and that caused people to actually take action. I do so love being invisible.

Anyway, point is, prior to Rowling grabbing the baton from him as his social media presence went up in flames, this guy was name-dropping me a LOT. Presumably he still is, just in places fewer people see it. And when you have as big an audience as he did, and that audience is as full of hatemongers as his was, that has a pretty noticeable effect. I’ve been deluged with so much hateful garbage for so long it’s impossible for me to put any numbers on it. The closest I can do to quantify it is note that hate dump was big enough that I was also flooded with more weird messages intended as support from total strangers than I could deal with, totally losing access to social media feeds and my e-mail from the volume for a good bit, and THAT flood was big enough that I got this whole second wave of creepy stalkers who’d built up this whole weird fanon where this stalker here is like, someone I used to date or be business partners with and not just some creepy dude like twice my age stalking me over the internet, from a completely different hemisphere.

And I mean... in the broadest of strokes, I can kinda laugh all this off. Because... these people are completely ridiculous, out of touch with reality, and mostly live in other countries. But... all the threats and shouting are very real and very constant and like.. picture someone outside on the street shouting at your windows about how they’re going to break in and kill you. You really can’t ignore that. Even if they’re unarmed, and all they’re really capable of doing is shouting and pounding on your door, you can’t really just ignore that shouting and pounding and just watch a movie or play a game or write this article you promised would be done 3 months ago. You can certainly try, but a pretty big part of your brain is going to be occupied with thoughts about how maybe you should call someone to see if they’ll escort this violent person away, or maybe you should barricade your door in case all that pounding does something.

And I mean this isn’t a bad metaphor for how all the constant threats and stalking I’m dealing with thanks to celebrity bigots personally obsessed with me impacts my life, but it also does a pretty good job of describing how my night went pretty recently when I ACTUALLY DID HAVE SOMEONE POUNDING ON MY ACTUAL REAL PHYSICAL DOOR SHOUTING ABOUT STABBING ME TO DEATH, and no, there was no resolution to that beyond the sound of sirens causing that person to back off.

I also had an experience not too long ago where I was supposed to take a cab to a routine appointment, a car showed up with the cab company’s name on it, somewhat early, and proceeded to drive me... out to the middle of the freaking woods like an hour from where I live, and when my phone rang with my actual cab asking where I was the driver freaked out, had me get out of the car, and took off leaving me just... stuck in the middle of nowhere freezing to death and trying to find a landmark an actual cab could pick me up from. Still don’t know what the hell that whole thing was about and whether a cab driver just REALLY didn’t know what he was doing and panicked or what, but I do know that talking about it publicly in the vaguest of terms lead to a bunch of unhinged shouting from... apparently some unconnected ride share driver with a habit of dumping trans women between stops when they try to get medications or something, convinced I was calling him out for that.

So.... yeah. Things aren’t exactly going great in my neck of the woods. I’d really appreciate it if people would properly treat these unhinged violent weirdos like unhinged violent weirdos and not respectable members of society so they quit getting so bold and public with the violent stuff, and people who listen to them get properly shouted down for doing so.

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Z Movie 11: Bio-Broly

Sigh...

Okay, Bio-Broly.  

The 11th DBZ movie premiered on July 9, 1994, as part of the Toei Anime Fair.    This would have been right after Episode 232 aired, but before Episode 233.   So a fan in 1994 could watch Majin Buu hatch from his magic ball, then go to the theater to see this movie, and then see Buu begin wrecking everyone’s shit.  

This is widely regarded as one of the worst, if not the worst Dragon Ball movie.   In 2015, Team Four Star made a list of the top 24 movies and specials, and Bio-Broly was at #21, beating out various specials, the live-action movies, and its sister film, “Broly: Second Coming.”   The only real surprise was that they ranked Movie 11 above Movie 10, but I think they made a pretty good argument for that.   Movie 10 is pretty darn bad.   I think 11 is worse, but I’ll admit it’s a close call.   

Does anyone actually like this movie?   I don’t just mean “Does anyone think it’s pretty okay?”   To be honest, I’ve been looking forward to watching this one again, and there’s some cute moments and decent action in this one.    It’s a DBZ movie.  There’s a lot of worse things I could be watching instead.   I’ll take “Bio-Broly” over a Harry Potter film festival any day.   When I say Movie 11 sucks, that’s kind of dishonest of me, because it just sucks compared to the rest of Dragon Ball.

No, what I’d like to know is, is this movie anyone’s favorite, or near-favorite?   My assumption has always been that Movie 11 is in everyone’s bottom three.    But you never know.   Team Four Star’s Kaiser Neko loves Movie 2, and hates Movie 6, and that blew my mind when I found that out.   He’s wrong of course.    Meta-Cooler is rad, and Dr. Wheelo is dumb, but it just goes to show that there’s no accounting for taste.   So I’m just throwing the question out there.    There must be someone out there who really digs Bio-Broly.   They’re fascinated with Lord Jaguar, and the purple slime, or they’re just super-into Android 18.   Maybe this was one of the first DBZ things you saw, or you saw it at an early age, and it left a lasting impression.     If you’re out there, drop me a line.    I’d be interested to hear your perspective.   

But for now, I’m here to rip this movie a new one, so if this is your favorite one, be warned.

So, just to make my case, I’d like to skip ahead to the ending of the movie and start there.    Bear with me for a moment.   

On the Grand Kai Planet, Goku’s eating lunch, when he gets word that Broly is running amok in hell, and King Kai wants him and Pikkon to go down there and beat his ass.    

Somehow, Bubbles is the one relaying the message to Goku, and I have no idea how, since he can’t talk.  

Anyway, Goku’s ready to rock.... just as soon as he finishes eating, wokka wokka.    Goku, you rascal!

And that’s how the movie ends.    We’re not going to get to see Goku fight Broly in hell.     I’m pretty sure this epilogue was only included to work Goku into the film, and to establish that Broly will never bother anyone ever again.   

The thing is, wouldn’t you like to see Goku and Pikkon fight Broly in hell?     Wouldn’t you rather see that than what we ended up getting in Movie 11?     Because Movie 11 doesn’t actually feature Goku or Broly.   They’re both dead.   Vegeta and Piccolo aren’t in this movie either.   Gohan isn’t in this movie.

And this is why Movie 11 ticks me off so much.    Maybe it’s objectively better than Movie 10, but at least Movie 10 was up front with you.   It attempted to act as a sequel to Movie 8.    Broly comes back, and it’s up to Gohan, Goten, Trunks, and Videl to deal with him in Goku’s absence.    It’s not very good, but it at least delivers on the promise of a second Broly fight.    Movie 11, on the other hand, is trying to do a Broly movie without Broly.  Worse, the movie seems determined to rub my nose in it. 

I mean, let’s take a look at all the major characters in Movie 8.

Broly

Paragus

Goku

Vegeta

Future Trunks

Gohan

Piccolo

In Movie 10, that list gets whittled down to this

Broly

Gohan

To be sure, I think that’s part of the point of Movie 10.    A lot has changed over the years, and when Broly wakes up, he’s lost in a world that’s moved on.    It’s up to Gohan to finish up his father’s old business.    The problem is that a lot of what made Movie 8 so good lay in those jettisoned characters.    It was Paragus who laid the insidious trap for Vegeta.   It was Future Trunks who went along just to investigate and save his father from his own ego.   It was Goku’s presence that sent Broly into an epic meltdown.   It was Piccolo who bought them time, and got Vegeta to shake off his fear and join the fight.    It was Vegeta who put aside his pride and gave Goku the power he needed to win the day.   When Movie 10 cut all of those characters, they cut out most of what made the first Broly movie work so well.    By himself, Broly was reduced to a dopey monster. 

In Movie 11, the Movie 8 cast was pared down even further.    Here’s a list of all the Movie 8 main characters who were major players in Movie 11.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Yeah, there is no list, because they’re all gone.    Goku makes a cameo in Movies 10 and 11, but that hardly counts.   Krillin appears in all three movies, but only in a supporting role.    Kid Trunks is in all three movies, but he’s a baby in the first one.   In the second one he doesn’t even know who Broly is.   

I’m not pointing this out to knock the main cast of “Bio-Broly”.   My point is just that they tried to do a second and third Broly movie without the character dynamics that made the first one work.   What’s the point of having Android 18 fight a clone of Broly?   She doesn’t even know who that is.    If you’re going to do an 18 movie, have her fight a clone of Dr. Gero, or Cell.   At least then there’d be some impact.  

Okay, let’s get into this.    This movie is essentially a continuation of Episode 226 of the anime, where 18 offered to take a dive so Mr. Satan could win the 25th Tenakichi Budokai.   All he had to do was pay her 20 million zeni, which is twice as much as the grand prize for the tournament.    But Mr. Satan’s rich, so I guess he could afford it, and he agreed to her terms.    In this movie, 18 has dropped by his mansion to collect.     Krillin and Marron are waiting outside with Goten and Trunks.   Apparenly Krillin had promised to treat them to lunch once 18 got her money.   

Meanwhile, this other dude lands on the property in an air-limo, and as soon as he steps out of the car, his pants fall down and he falls in the pool while trying to catch his hat.  This is Menmen, and I really don’t know what the deal is with this guy.   They seemed determined to give him lots of gags and personality, except he really isn’t important enough to the story to justify that effort. 

So while 18 is breaking stuff and demanding her payment, Menmen just waltzes right into the room and issues Satan a formal challenge.    Satan brushes the guy off, until he mentions that Mr. Satan wet the bed in 6th grade.

That’s when Satan realizes that Menmen’s cousin must be his childhood friend, Lord Jaguar.    Well, that’s what he’s called in the dub.     In the original version, he’s called “Baron Jaga Batta”, which is apparently a wordplay involving potatoes.   The Japanese word for “baron” resembles another word for a type of potato, and “jaga batta” means “Buttered Potato”.   He also lives in “Mei Queen Castle”, and this is a reference to May Queen potatoes.    I always thought “Lord Jaguar” was a little too badass a name for the guy, and now I see the truth.    I’ll keep calling him that, though.  

For some reason, the two of them get down on the floor while they talk about this.    The story is that Satan and Jaguar both studied martial arts as children, but when Satan defeated him, Jaguar gave up fighting, and he’s never heard from him since.    Also, at some point Satan must have pissed his futon and Jaguar found out about it, so now he’s blackmailing Mr. Satan.   If he refuses the challenge, Jaguar plans to go to the press and reveal to the world that Mr. Satan is a bedwetter.   Honestly, would anyone even believe that?    Would anyone care?  Well, Mr. Satan doesn’t want to chance it, so he accepts the challenge.    Only he won’t be fighting Jaguar, but a team of Bio-Warriors he’s assembled.   As long as they don’t have glowing golden hair, Satan likes his odds, so he’s down to clown.

But 18 is not.    Well, specifically, she doesn’t seem to care if Satan fights these guys, just so long as she goes with him, to make sure he doesn’t try to run out on her without paying.   I don’t really understand this.    Why should 18 bother with any of this?   She wants the money, and she seems to think Mr. Satan has the money, so why let him leave the house at all?   For that matter, if Jaguar’s in such a hurry, Menmen could probably cut her a check to get her to stand aside.  

So 18 tells Krillin to head home with the kids while she sticks with Satan.     But Goten and Trunks have stowed away in the trunk of Menmen’s car, because... I dunno, I guess whoever wrote this part watched Speed Racer that day.  

Krillin could fly after them and fetch Goten and Trunks, but Marron has to go potty.    He runs inside Satan’s house to find a toilet, but the dialogue indicates that he doesn’t make it in time.    So here’s another reason this movie is the worst: Piss jokes as a running gag.   It’s not that DBZ doesn’t indulge in this sort of humor from time to time, and honestly, I’m down for a good piss gag once in a while.    Hey, we all gotta go sometime.   But this movie is just relentless with it, like it doesn’t know how to do anything else.  

I don’t get why Goten and Trunks are so fascinated with this trip to Jaguar’s place.   I mean, they get a gorgeous view of the ocean this way, but they could have done this by flying under their own power.   Anyway, cool dolphins.   

"Tee hee!   What if this seawater was pee?”  -- The screenwriter, probably.

And here’s May Queen Castle.   A little ostentatious, don’t you think?

When they arrive, we see all these nude, bug-eyed dudes working out in the courtyard.    These are the Bio-warriors, not to be confused with the Bio-Warriors from Movie 2, which were also very stupid.    Jaguar comes out to greet Satan, and he’s astonished to see Jaguar looking so out of shape.    Also, he probably hasn’t grown since they last saw each other, but whatever.

While they talk, Goten and Trunks are snooping around, and they encounter Jaguar’s dog, Hei.   I think Hei is supposed to be some sort of genetically engineered creature like the Bio-Warriors, but he might just have a very stylized design, kind of like Commander Red’s weird-looking cat.  Anyway, Goten calms the dog down because he’s good with animals.   

There’s a cute gag here where the boys overhear Jaguar talking about the biotechnology used to create the Bio-Warriors, and Trunks tells Goten that biotechnology is genetic engineering, which he knows because his mother and grandfather are scientists.   Goten asks what genetic engineering is, and Trunks is stumped, so he just says it’s biotechnology.    Goten is young enough that he is impressed by this answer.  

I don’t know, maybe I should take the time to explain this properly.    I learned about DNA from G.I. Joe cartoons, and I think Jurassic Park was a popular enough movie that everyone’s familiar with the concept, but just in case: Living things are made up of many, many cells, and each cell contains DNA, molecules whose structure represents the “instructions” for building a particular organism.    In theory, if you had a sample of DNA, you could use it to grow an entirely new specimen of the creature it came from, which is called a clone.     Or you could modify the DNA to produce a different creature.   This is what people talk about when they say “GMO’s” with regards to food.    A lot of modern agriculture relies on crops that have been genetically modified to resist disease or to produce more food.   It creeps people out because they’re used to thinking of genetic engineering as mad scientists making horrible monsters, like in this movie.    But the reality is that humans have been genetically modifying organisms for thousands of years.     Breeding dogs and cattle to favor certain trait is just another kind of genetic engineering.    The apples we eat are grown through asexual grafting rather than by planting seeds.   Most of the fruits we know of look completely unlike the wild versions they originated from.  

Anyway, Jaguar leads Satan to a battle stage, and Trunks and Goten like the look of the place, but then they notice someone familiar next to Jaguar...

It’s Maloja from Movie 10.    As you may recall, he was the guy who wore a purple tie around his head and convinced the people of Natade Village to sacrifice their children to appease the mountain god.   

So here’s the thing.    I watched this movie before I saw Movie 10, mainly because I had no idea that this would be a direct sequel.    “Return of Cooler” was the first movie to follow the plot from the one before it, but “Bio-Broly” is the first one to act as the sequel to a sequel.    So when Goten and Trunks reognized this guy and had a flashback about him, I was amazed.   

Anyway, the Bio-Warriors are way too strong for Mr. Satan, so he asks 18 to take care of them in his place.   For some reason, he told Jaguar that she was his star pupil, and she didn’t see any reason to dispute this.   18 agrees to save his bacon, but it’ll cost him another 20 million zeni.  

Jaguar isn’t so keen on that idea, because this is his show, and he wants to organize brackets for this.    I have no idea how that diagram is supposed to work.   Is this some sort of round robin thing?    We’ll be here all week...

But 18 insists on a battle royal, much like the one she fought in during the 25th Budokai.   Jaguar objects, but then Goten and Trunks offer to participate as well, and I guess that satisfies Jaguar, since there’d be an equal number of fighters on each side?   

He asks the Bio-Warriors to make a “village fest”, and 18 corrects him by saying he wants a “bloodfest”.    That���s the gag with Jaguar.    He says the wrong words sometimes, and someone has to correct him.    I have no idea why.

Anywy, Satan’s group wins without Mr. Satan even having to get involved.   Maloja takes this as his cue to leave, but Jaguar insists that he stick around while he plays his “trump card”.   

Satan tells him to bring it on, since he figures no one could be any match for his squad.   

Then Jaguar has the walls of this arena lift up to reveal a vast scientific complex all around them.   This is impressive to see, but I don’t get why it should change anything.   He just uses this to grow Bio-Warriors, and we already saw how those did.   

Then the movie kind of goes off the rails a bit.   Instead of just unleashing his best fighter, Jaguar just kind of sits there while Goten and Trunks take a tour of the facility.     They look at the Bio-Warriors growing in tanks, and talk to the scientists.

Then they spot one specimen with a tail and...

Yeah, it’s Broly.  

Again, this was a shock to me, because I hadn’t seen Movie 10 when I first watched this, so it was weird that Goten and Trunks knew who Broly was, and that they had fought him before.   He’s supposed to be dead, so what’s the deal?

Ah, good another piss joke.  Just what we needed.

While Jaguar’s scientists very slowly release his next fighter, Goten and Trunks confront Maloja, figuring that he must have something to do with Broly.   Maloja explains that when they showed him up in Movie 10, he lost the confidence of the Natade villagers, and he couldn’t find work anywhere else.  

Apparently, Maloja witness the fight in Movie 10, and knew that Broly had been killed.   But then he found the space pod that brought Broly to Earth, and discovered some of his dried blood inside.    He took a sample and sold it to Jaguar, whose scientists used it to create a clone of Broly.   

I find all of this pretty hard to swallow.    The only part that makes sense is that Maloja might have watched Broly die and that he would have become fascinated enough with Broly to discover his pod.  

The rest, not so much.   How did Maloja know about Jaguar?     Did he just stroll up to the front door of May Queen castle with a beaker of blood crust in his hand?    How do the scientists know that their Broly clone is so much stronger than the other Bio-Warriors?  None of these characters know anything about Saiyans or ki.   

Goten and Trunks ask him why he would do all of this, after seeing the terrible power of the original Broly.    Maloja knows what’ll happen when they release the clone, which is why he’s cutting out now.    Okay...

One reason I wanted to watch the movies and TV episodes in order was to get a handle on what the movies were referencing.   Obviously, 18′s business with Mr. Satan is a direct reference to the 25th Budokai, but in addition to that, there is a similiarity between Jaguar’s relationship with Broly and Babidi’s with Majin Buu.    They’re both little creeps who seek to unleash forces they don’t understand, all to settle a petty grudge.    Like Babidi, Jaguar is convinced that he has full control over the situation.   Like Gohan against Buu, Goten and Trunks decide that their best bet is to destroy Broly with a Kamehameha before he can wake up.

Except the clone is already aware of his surroundings, and when he senses Goten and Trunks powering up their attack, he bursts out of his tank in full-on Legendary Super Saiyan form.    All the green glop that was in the tank with him sort of stays put for a second, and then spills away.  

The scientists, led by Dr. Kori and Nain, have a contingency for this, and they raise a containment wall around the broken tank.   The thing is, they seem more worried about the culture fluid than the Super Saiyan who was soaking in it.   

Naturally, Clone-of-Broly breaks out easily, spilling green glop everywhere.   

Then he turns into a glop monster himself.

Annnnnd here’s Bio-Broly, folks.   Drink it in.

Hei runs up and starts barking at Bio-Broly, but before they can fight, Hei gets too close to the culture fluid that’s spilling all over the platform they’re on.    Hei is immediately dissolved and abosrbed into it.   

So here’s the deal with the culture fluid.    Inside the tanks, it’s not a problem.   But when it’s exposed to the air, it turns into a mindless monster like the Blob, consuming other life forms and replicating uncontrollably.   I guess that answers one of the things that’s bugged me for years.   I never understood why this fluid was so dangerous, yet they soak all of their monsters in it.    Apparently it’s only dangerous in the presence of air.   And I guess this is why it didn’t alter Clone-Broly’s appearance until he stepped out of the tank.   

On the other hand, why didn’t it kill the clone completely, the way it killed Hei? 

Lord Jaguar doesn’t seem to care about Bio-Broly’s appearance or the leaking culture fluid.    He just wants Bio-Broly to beat up Mr. Satan.   In turn, Satan asks 18 to handle this, and she agrees, for another 20 million.    I’ve lost track of his tab, but I think he’s up to 60 million zeni.  

But 18 quickly realizes that Bio-Broly is too much for her to handle, and Jaguar sends him to attack Mr. Satan.   

Goten and Trunks rescue him...

...And they charge into battle.   

Of course, there’s still the culture fluid to worry about.   As the three of them fight, they wreck the whole facility, which causes even more purple glop to spill out.    Fortunately, most the casualties are Bio-Warriors, and the dumbass scientists who should have known better.

So in the last movie, the original Broly pretty much kicked the crap out of Goten and Trunks, and the only reason they lasted as long as they did was because Broly was too dumb to finish them off.    This time, the boys don’t have Gohan to help them, but it doesn’t seem to matter much, because they can read Bio-Broly’s moves a lot more easily.    In other words, Bio-Broly is clearly weaker and slower than the original.    By itself, that isn’t such a bad thing.     The bad guy needs to be weaker because he’s fighting weaker opponents: Goten, Trunks, and 18.   So at least this movie took the time and effort to explain why this battle is more even than the ones in Movies 8 and 10.    Maybe it was the cloning process, or the culture fluid, or some other issue, but this clone of Broly isn’t as strong as the original one.  

But that’s still a let-down, because the general pattern with these DBZ films is to raise the stakes, nor lower them.   There’s some counter-examples to this, notably Hirudegarn in Movie 13.   But at least Hirudegarn was a whole other character.     If Janemba had returned from Movie 12, and Goku beat him without using fusion, then he would clearly be weaker than he was in Movie 12.   And what would the point of that be?   Why bring a villain back if he’s going to be weaker than his last appearance?   

As much as I hate how they keep bringing back Frieza, as least they’ve handled him properly.    Mecha-Frieza was much stronger than the original version, and the only reason he died so quickly was because Trunks was that much stronger   When he came back in Movie 15, he got a new form to allow him to keep up with Goku and Vegeta.   A weaker Frieza would be pointless.   You might as well introduce a new character.    But that’s basically what they did with Broly.  He had a strong start, and then he came back weaker in Movie 10, and even weaker in Movie 11.  I mean, it’s not even really Broly this time, but you get the idea.   Toei went out of their way to clone him just so he could return for a third appearance.  

Meanwhile, Jaguar’s island is getting overrun with purple glop.    I don’t know if this is because new glop got spilled during the fight, or if the stuff we started with has had time to grow.    

Maloja supposedly bugged out, but he’s actually been somewhere in Jaguar’s home, filling a sack with cash.    Was this the money Jaguar paid him, or is he just stone cold robbing Jaguar before he leaves?    Either way, the purple glop drips in from the vent and kills him.   

A bunch of scientists try to escape in an elevator, only for it to get stuck and flooded with purple glop.   

Back at the fight, things go haywire for Goten and Trunks because they can only hold off Bio-Broly by working as a team.   When Goten wanders off to rescue people from the culture fluid, Trunks gets his ass kicked.

18 tries to step in and help, but she gets overwhelmed.   Then Krillin shows up and pulls her out of harm’s way just in the nick of time.

Krillin’s the best, but he still can’t save this movie.  

Bio-Broly nearly shoots them with green hand energy...

  But then Mr. Satan falls on Bio-Broly, distracting him long enough for Goten and Trunks to step in.   

Honestly, that’s the problem I have with this fight.    It’s pretty well-produced, with some good action sequences and nice teamwork between all the players, but so much of it is played off as slapstick.    18′s the only serious one here.    Krillin’s kind of a sidekick, and Satan’s comic relief, and Goten and Trunks are as chilidish as they are strong.    On the other side, you’ve got Bio-Broly, who literally has no motivation here at all.    I assume he’s only fighting on instinct.   He was literally born today.

Apparently Jaguar draws the line at murder, so he commands Bio-Broly to stand down.    Only Bio-Broly just attacks him instead.   Was he ever under Jaguar’s control?   Who cares?

Krillin throws a Kienzan disc to save Goten...

But Bio-Broly’s head just reattaches itself after getting cut off.    D’oh!

Things look pretty bad at this point.    Goten and Trunks can’t fight and save people at the same time.    Then Trunks realizes that he might be able to use one crisis to solve the other.   

First, he moons Bio-Broly, because of course he does.

Then he lures him over to a vessel of culture fluid and blasts it open so it’ll spill on to the jerk when he approaches.

It doesn’t spill right away, but then it finally does, and Bio-Broly is covered in purple glop.

Although, I don’t understand why this should work, since Bio-Broly was already exposed to this stuff from the beginning.    Why should it kill him now?

Well, it doesn’t exactly.   A big purple Bio-Broly emerges from the glop like it’s going to attack Goten and Trunks....

But then it sort of collapses, like this was Bio’s last gasp or something.

When Goten recovers, Trunks explains that he beat Broly with his strongest muscle... his brain.    Up yours, Trunks, this is Dragon Ball Z.    Nobody wants to see you outsmart the villain.    Especially when the villain is mindless to start with.

Anyway, there’s still purple crap all over the place.    I guess it must be self-replicating, because I don’t see why they would have had this much of it on hand.

The gang evacuates the survivors.   Krillin carries Nain to safety, and gets her to hold on tight.

18 is not amused.    Hey, who’s watching their kid right now?    Master Roshi?   That’s a terrible idea.

Trunks saves Jaguar and Menman, and Jaguar is amazed that anyone would bother to rescue him, since he’s responsible for the plot of Movie 11.   “Look,” Trunks tells him, “this movie is bad, but it’s not nearly as terrible as ‘Hocus Pocus’ or ‘Seven Pounds.’“  

Everyone crowds onto boats that put as much distance from the island as possible.   Why is there a child here?    Did the scientists have their families on this island?  

But that still doesn’t solve the problem of the culture fluid.   Dr. Kori theorizes that its power increased when it absorbed Bio-Broly, making it even more aggresssive than it was before.   It’ll eventually expand until it covers the entire world.  

Meanwhile, Mr. Satan is trying to swim away from the stuff, and as he kicks up seawater, he splashes it on the glop, which causes it to solidiy.  

Goten notices this and realizes that seawater will deactivate the fluid.   I always thought that was a little too convenient, but now that I know it only becomes dangerous when exposed to air, that makes a little more sense.   Cover it in enough water, and it can’t get the air it needs to sustain it.   

So the boys and Krillin fire off a Kamehameha at the shore, which kicks up a big enough wave to flood the entire island.    You know, I once saw a T-shirt based on this scene at a Hot Topic, if you can believe it.   

I don’t see why they needed to do this at all, though.    The fluid was already confined to an island, so it would have just died off on its own after absorbing all the available biomatter, right?    But I guess it’s better to resolve this sooner than later.   

Then another giant Purple Glop Bio-Broly rises up out of the water.  

And it immediately solidifies.    This is stupid.    They already pulled this gag earlier, so why would anyone believe it now, after they’ve already killed the monster twice over?   

Goten and Trunks blast it to pieces anyway, just to be safe.

And we’ll never see Broly again!   Until 2018.   Thankfully, Broly IV was a much better movie than this turkey.

Below, Mr. Satan pleads for someone to pull him out of the water.    18 offers to help him....for 40 million zeni.    Damn, girl.   18′s the coldest bitch in the land, and she’s adorable.  

Anyway, Mr. Satan swims away, which I can only assume means he can’t afford to pay.   The thing is, I think 18 kind of has to save him.   I mean, if he drowns, she can’t collect any money from him, right? 

From there, we get that scene I already talked about with Goku and Bubbles, and that’s the end of the movie.

The end credits here are notable, because they feature original animation of Goten and Trunks’s early childhoods.    I’ve seen people on the internet ask where these are from, and the answer is here, in th closings credits of this movie.

And yeah, there’s another piss joke.    Great job, Movie 11.

On a personal note, the ending theme “Dragon Power Mugendai“ is what inspired the name of this blog, “Duhragonball”, because the refrain is “DORAGON!   DORAGON POWAA” which sounds a lot like “Duh-ragon”, and I thought that would be cute.  

And that’s it for Movie 11.    Not a complete trainwreck by any means, but still a very poor showing by DBZ standards.   These movies really took a bad turn starting with Bojack, but it’s over now.    In March 1995, Toei would premier a new movie.    One that would be better than ten Super Bowls.  But we’ll get to that...

[writer-and-artist27]

Hikari and Haru

A gift to @wingbladeweaver1357 in return for the beautiful fanart. You made my day. I hope I make yours. :)

The song for one Haru? Over here.

The song Tomoko plays for one Hikari? Right here. From one of my favorite YouTube pianists.

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

The little brunette girl was the first unexpected guest in my day. She could’ve easily blended in with the other customers at Nagareboshi Cafe, but the small tug on the ribbon tying the back of my dress was enough of a sign that things were different.

Thankfully, the song that was at my fingertips was already coming to a close once the tug happened, so I let the notes fade into the air before carefully turning around in my seat of the piano bench to look in that direction. “Yes?”

I was not expecting to see sparkles.

“Hi, nee-chan!” Bright teal-green eyes were beaming up at me, and I blinked. “You play really beautiful music!”

Ohmigosh, she’s cute, when did she get there? From her light blue hoodie and matching white-blue collared shirt, she certainly looked like a child any parent would grow to love. The side ponytail held up by one bright green scrunchie simply added to the charm. And the smile… 

Awwww. I could’ve sworn I could see a reflection of myself in those big green eyes.

She is absolutely adorable. Hisako agreed with a solemn nod. Wanting to be a ninja maybe? She did sneak up on us.

I blinked. You didn’t notice her either?

My Nobody shrugged, the handle of Oblivion barely hanging onto her fingers. Your music is nice to listen to, Tomoko-chan.

Huh. Compliments were going all around today. I took a breath to calm the sudden onslaught of heat about to flood my face, putting on a kind smile. “Oh, really? Thank you, dear. Just when did you sneak up on me?”

“In the middle of your performance!’ The girl grinned at me, exposing what looked like bright white baby teeth, and I could already guess my newest companion was somewhere between 4-5 years old. “And I knew it!”

“Eh?” I inclined my head at the girl putting her hands together. She rubbed them for a few seconds.

I was also not expecting the small puff of smoke. Blinking, I rubbed at my eyes as the new pink rose made its appearance in the sweetie’s hands, and she offered the flower to me. “With that melody and that voice, you must be an angel sent from Heaven, nee-chan!”

Oh. Oh my. Oh my gosh.

She called you an angel. An angel. Wow. She one-upped Kakashi and took the words out of my mouth!

OHMIGOD, HISAKO. And, wait a minute. What do you mean by “one-up Kakashi”?

My Nobody simply threw her head back, long brown hair swishing and all, to cackle loudly.

Gosh darn it. The blush was hard to even fight back at this point because of how much my heart was pounding. From the bright grin being flashed towards me, I couldn’t deny that this little girl meant every single word. And I was supposed to be the one on the cafe job. Compliments were still something to get used to. “Th-Thank you?” I stammered, putting a hand to my chest as I could feel my voice crack just as much as my ribs from the happy juice. “I’m just a mere pianist though, dear.” A giggle left my lips as I reached over to lightly boop the top of her head. “As happy as I am to be called an angel, I’m just as human as you.”

“Ehhh?” The little girl pouted and scooted back a bit so I wouldn’t poke her again, puffing her cheeks while still offering the rose. “It’s true, though! Every time I hear you play, I get lost in your beautiful music, nee-chan~!” And with that hum in the air, the grin from before was back, and the rose was still sitting in her hands. “This is for you as thanks for the songs!”

“Oh dear…” the grin on my own face was unmistakable as I reached over to gently take the flower, gripping it as delicately as I could. I had no idea where it came from, but roses were just like any other flower — beautiful and deserving of quiet respect. “Thank you, ojou-san.” I sniffed the rose softly, taking in the scent of the sweet pollen before looking at her with a warmer smile. This was turning out to be quite the pleasant surprise. “Do you want me to play another song for you?”

“Eh? Really!?” Her mouth formed a surprised “o” for the briefest moment, her hands going back to rub the back of her head. “Is it okay, nee-chan?”

“Please, dear,” I took a page from Mama’s book, putting the rose down in a safe crevice near the piano stand to face her. My newest customer. She was certainly young, but for some reason, those green eyes reminded me of someone. “Call me Tomoko.”

“Tomoko-nee-chan?” she ducked her head and spoke the syllables slowly, and I held back the urge to squeal, feeling my smile grow to the point of stretching my cheeks. She was cute. So cute.

Was this how Kushina-nee felt when she first met me?

Maybe?

It was a nice thought.

“Hoshino Tomoko, ojou-san,” I said gently with a small waggle of my finger. “And you’re my customer now, and I’m your pianist for the day. So,” the girl’s teal-green eyes sparkled as soon as she raised her head to make eye contact. “Could I get your name?”

“Fujino Haruka!” The newly dubbed Haruka-chan beamed, swaying back and forth on her chair all the while. “Haru is fine too!”

“Haru-chan it is then,” I decided with a giggle back, not even minding the sparkles flying off her anymore. It was warm. “Then, for the sweet Haru-chan, Tomoko-nee-chan has a job to do, just for you.” I pressed the first key on the piano and closed my eyes, recalling the childish drawings of pink and blue dumplings coming together to raise one tiny yellow dumpling.

“As pianist of Nagareboshi Cafe, I welcome you to the Big Dango Family.”

I already decided with the first chords that I’d do what I can to make sure this little girl kept that smile on her face for the day.

There was no way I could allow the Third Shinobi World War to take another smile from my job. I couldn’t let it steal the innocence from another little girl who deserved better.

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

Kakashi was surprisingly sulky as soon as Haru-chan left with that bright grin on her face. Even if his mask was hiding the bottom half of his face as always, the slight furrow of his eyebrows and narrowing of his eyes said otherwise.

I made sure to wipe some dust off the piano keys before facing him with a wry smile. “What is it, Kakashi?”

My best friend didn’t respond, simply getting up from his chair to instead plop himself down onto the piano bench next to me. I did my best to not move as soon as he leaned over to rest his head against my right shoulder. “Nothing,” he grumbled quietly. His silver spikes, if I leaned in just enough back, were close enough to tickle. “Just let me rest like this for a bit.”

Huh. He was sulking.

I decided not to question it and reached over with my left hand to gently pat his head. “Want a song?”

“…That’d be nice.”

I gently nudged him with my shoulder, holding back the urge to giggle. “Love you too, Kakashi.”

“Hn.” A pause. “Love you too.”

“Hee hee.”

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

“What should I get around here…? Munny doesn’t really work as currency.”

Another unexpected guest around these parts. My Nobody casually shouldered the Oblivion Keyblade again, not even minding the books flying around her head. I get ninja, but it’s not every day we get new faces outside of the village.

Yep. Though, is she okay?

Don’t ask me. Ask her.

I couldn’t help but find myself fixated on the newest oddball sitting near the piano. Unlike my first unexpected guest, she was definitely not a child. Teenager, maybe even my age or older. She wasn’t even sitting in a chair near my piano bench, simply seated at one of the many tables surrounding the stage, her blue eyes frantically scanning the menu in front of her. Her short brown hair seemed to frame her face in a way that reminded me of Sora from Kingdom Hearts, and if the plaid blue-white pattern on her waist sash was any indication, Tetsuya Nomura must’ve had a hand in her clothing design. There was no other reason I could attribute the belts and zippers to.

Still, her eyes. Even if they were blue like Mama’s, they shined behind that menu like Haru-chan’s. Similar sparkles, even.

Maybe…

I gently got up from my piano bench to walk down from the stage and approach her, my voice already coming out in the waitress tone I’d been used to for years. “Excuse me, miss?”

She startled, putting her menu down just slightly to meet my eyes. Her blue eyes were wide with surprise. “Whoa! Uh, hi?” She scratched her cheek with her apparently fingerless gloved hand, looking sheepish. “Sorry for taking too long, I just don’t know what to get.”

I smiled and shook my head, tucking a stray strand of hair behind my ear. “There’s no trouble. I was just thinking of offering something instead.”

“Offer?” She gave me a questioning stare, her mouth caught between a frown and a pout. “What kind of offer?”

“It’s not too much, you’re just new around here, right?” She nodded, and the smile grew on my face. “Well, I’m Hoshino Tomoko, your pianist for the day in Nagareboshi Cafe. And it is my policy to play a song for any new faces. So, how do you feel about sitting next to me on the stage to listen?” Those blue eyes widened again once I gestured to the grand instrument sitting behind me. “Maybe the song could give you an idea of what you’d like to eat.”

What looked like a conflicted smile passed over her face. “Tomoko-san, I wouldn’t want to trouble you—”

“Nonsense,” I said immediately, finding myself fondly rolling my eyes. With the way her shoulders were tensing and the simple stunned, fish-like look on her face, she definitely reminded me of Sora. And, for a childhood hero… “You’re a customer. I’m the pianist. And,” I winked at her, “the pianist has to serve the customer first, no?”

The wide look in her eyes was back before she threw her head back to laugh. “Okay then! I don’t know what else to do, so sure!” She swayed forward to grin at me, offering her hand. “I’m Leonhart Hikari.”

Wait, isn’t that—

I held back a giggle.

Hikari-san sat there, blinking. “Tomoko-san?”

“I-I’m sorry, I’m not laughing at you,” I took her hand and shook it, feeling myself smile back. “It’s just, you share the same name as my Mom. Just as pretty and sincere.”

“Oh,” she said, blinking. Once the handshake finished, she took her hand back to rub the back of her neck. “Does that make it awkward or—”

“No no no,” I reached over to gently grab her free hand. “It’s just funny. Now I know just want to play for you.”

“What’s that?” Hikari, thankfully, didn’t seem to mind my guiding her to the piano, so once I was back on my familiar piano bench with Hikari taking a seat next to me, I could feel the smile on my face start to stretch my cheeks.

That pink rose from Haru-chan was still sitting on the piano, just in a small vase thanks to Papa. It was enough inspiration.

“You’re Hikari, another bit of light, sooooo…”  I uncovered the piano keys to take a breath, “why not play a song such as Hikaru Nara to honor that light?”

I never got to play the song before. It was well about time to honor that pianist-violinist duo who made smiles out of a shared lie.

[stillinaincrad]

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Summer 2019 Edition

There are still a few that I have yet to check out, mainly due to a significant lack of free time (hooray, adulthood!), but there is already way more going on at the start of this summer season than there has been in months, at least to me. 

The Good

1. Given

Honestly, I don’t care how long it lasts. Honestly, I don’t know how long they can carry an entire anime based on the flimsy story already laid out. Either way, I really don’t care. The interesting art and especially the various facial expressions in just the first episode drew me in and caught my attention, but I was shoving all my chips to the center of the felt the second the music started. As a guitarist myself, there’s no way I could stay away from this combination of drawing, characters, and technical music. I think this is going to get very good from here, but even if it doesn’t, I’ll be onboard. 

2. Are You Lost? (Sounan Desu ka?)

I have this system I’ve developed where if the OP starts and it’s the cast singing/lip-syncing? The anime is almost always raw sewage. (take it out for a spin sometime, it’s amazingly accurate) There are exceptions, and I’m not going to call this one great, but so far it’s not too bad. I grew up out in the woods, hiking and camping sometimes where you were nowhere for days at a time with only what was on your back. I probably could be stranded and survive. Doesn’t mean I want to, but for all this anime is fluff, it’s also pretty realistic and accurate in places, too. Plus, I mean, even if it were awful, is only 12mins per episode, so yeah - not hard to move on from after. Still, though, am enjoying it so far. Am certainly not expecting anything, but it has yet to annoy me too badly, either lol  

3. A Certain Scientific Accelerator (Toaru Kagaku no Accelerator)

Know what anime I was most excited for last year? Yup, Index III. Know what anime I struggled to get through and kinda didn’t care for? Yup, Index III. In the first two, as well as the Railgun seasons, there was enough offset. I mean, yeah, there were themes of mass murder, and government corruption, and imbalance and all, but there was enough humor and goofiness to offset it. Index III to me felt like a great big piece of meat that was dense and you had to chew until you were tired of eating just to get through it. Accelerator seems to be sandwiched in between storylines and feels like it will have more of that balance. And, I have to admit, the first of the ‘Scientific/Magical’ series I watched was Railgun and haaaated Accelerator - thought he was the worst of the worst - but then as you get into the other stories and see how they intertwine, you see he's a little more Walt Kowalski and a little less Amon Goth than what you thought. Am interested to see how this show goes, given we know how he begins and how he ends. 

4. Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? (Dungeon ni Deai wo Motomeru no wa Machigatteiru Darou ka)

I did not get to see the prequel Dan Machi series because I wasn’t going to pay the money for Amazon Strike, which was the only place that had it without all the pop-ups and viruses and fun stuff we don't feel like dealing with like we used to for our shows. So, I never saw it, which drove me insane. I have really loved these characters since day one, and am wicked stoked that DM2 is being streamed and I get more of them for a while. They moved right in on the first episode, too. Looks like it’s going to be another fun season! 

The Bad

1. Magical Sempai (Tejina-senpai)

Yes, it is fun in small doses, but this is a bad anime. And I don’t just mean the weak writing, the dependence on fanservice, or any of the things anyone can demise from sitting through an episode which, well, isn’t totally terrible. The schtick gets old quickly, but there are funny moments. But what makes it bad to me is that Kotoyama, Tezuka, Feel... none of these names appear anywhere in the credits, but damn if Senpai isn’t awfully close to a dead ringer for Hotaru Shidaire, and the OP music/mood/sequence doesn’t have Dagashi Kashi written all the frick over it. This show is bad to begin with, yes but stolen valor is the worst kind of imitation. 

2. Granbelm

If you can’t tell what is going to happen about ten minutes before it happens - right down to lines that are going to fall out of these girls’ mouths - then you probably shouldn’t play video games. Granbelm has every edge rounded off for safety, and if the Powderpuff girls had had mecha back in the day, this is exactly what they’d have looked like (and at the same time, bizarrely enough, kind of remind me of the Invid from Macross in a way, too). Don’t get me wrong, I’m going to watch the hell out of it start to finish because it’s about badly acted mages having a battle royale in another realm using gooftastic-looking mechas that fire spells, and let’s face it - who wouldn’t? Just don’t expect me to talk about how good it is. I already know it’s going to be very bad lol

The Ugly

1. Isekai Cheat Magician 

OK, look - I watched In Another World with my Smartphone. It was awful. I watched Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody (Death March kara Hajimaru Isekai Kyousoukyoku) and it was mindless as can be. And just this past season, I watched every episode of Wise Man's Grandchild (Kenja no Mago). They ALL are quasi-dependent upon cliché and irritating romances, tee-hee characters that are as shallow as the writing, and a singular, ridiculously overpowered character that nothing ever happens to. I really enjoy the isekai genre of anime and will tend to watch just about anything to see where it goes, but two episodes into this turd, I said no more. I just can’t do another one of these mimeographed brain leeches. Not this season, at least. 

[dustedmagazine]

Dust Volume Five, Number 10

The Hammered Hulls

Time again for a load of short, mostly positive reviews of records that caught our attention at least for a little while. This edition is typically wide ranging with free jazz, teen garage pop, piano experiments, acoustic guitar picking and goth-y post punk all jockeying for your ear. It’s not just obscurities this time around either, as Ian Mathers looks for the solid core of the National’s over-long latest, while Jen Kelly makes peace with the Futureheads. Participants besides these two include Bill Meyer, Andrew Forell, Nate Knaebel and Justin Cober-Lake.

CP Unit—Riding Photon Time (Eleatic Records)

Riding Photon Time by CP Unit

CP Unit, an evolving ensemble formed around saxophonist Chris Pitsiokis, exhilarates live, the sound anchored by antic, twitching, faster-than-advisable-but-nailed-anyway bass, complicated patterns of percussion and abstract slashes of guitar. Live, the music is colored rather than dominated, by the urgent, chaotic energy of the proprietor on horn. A late summer set at the Root Cellar in Greenfield, MA left me gasping. Riding Photon Time captures the same band I saw—Pitsiokis, Sam Lisabeth on guitar, Henry Fraser on bass and Jason Nazary on drums (which is different from the line-up Derek Taylor reviewed here )— in two fiery 2018 live settings. The first half of the disc was recorded at the Moers Festival in Germany in May, the second at the Unlimited Music Festival in November. “Once Upon a Time Called Now,” from the earlier set, captures the spare, rippling tension between Pitsiokis’ free-ranging inquiries and Nazary’s intricate but grounded rhythms; they duel for a couple of minutes before the rest of the band enters. The cut also foregrounds Fraser’s restless, rampaging bass work, carving a headlong through line in the squall and storm. “Seasick,” from the November show, gives space to Lisabeth’s guitar, lyrical in a tilted, offkilter way, the tones bouncing off Pitsiokis’ sax melody in loose conjunction and counterpoint. My only complaint is that the mix favors melody, zooming in on the sax and obscuring, somewhat, the fascinating interplay between drum and bass. In most bands, that’d be fine, but in this case, the rhythm is just too good to hide. 

Jennifer Kelly

 Eluvium — Pianoworks (Temporary Residence Ltd)

Matthew Cooper has done enough things under his Eluvium moniker that even those only mildly acquainted with his work might not be surprised that he’s put out an album of solo piano compositions; they might, however, be surprised to find out that Pianoworks is the second such Eluvium album, after 2004’s An Accidental Memory in Case of Death. That record, coming after the striking (and often noisy) debut effort Lambent Material served to establish that Cooper wasn’t going to be restrained by genre, form or instrument. Here, having accomplished an awful lot over the past 15+ years it’s fitting that Cooper appears to be in a more contemplative, even melancholy mood. Whether it’s the gently rippling “Underwater Dream” or the brightly rounded runs of “Carrier 32”, Pianoworks serves as a reminder that Cooper can stop you in your tracks with the simplest of setups, if he chooses. (And for those really a fan of his piano work, the deluxe version features an extra disc of new versions of practically all the previous Eluvium piano pieces as well.)  

Ian Mathers  

 Frieda’s Roses — Jessica Triangle (Mika)

The three women of Frieda’s Roses—that’s Greta Fannin, Ava Miller and Poppy Lang—aren’t even in high school yet; their ages range from 13 to 15. And yet, this debut album, Jessica Triangle, is a marvel of minor key garage pop, raucous and wistful at the same time. Its bristly onslaught of guitars guards a tender center. You also realize, about halfway through the album, that teen girl pop has changed since the last time you looked, and the subject matter here is rather empowered. In a very strong middle section, “Isadora Giving” chides a girl for being too accommodative (“She’s kind in the way of giving things away”), while the stand-out “Lucy Poe” celebrates the complexity and intelligence of a young woman (“She’s happy and not/at the same time.”) “Forever Defend Her Story” recounts the ordinariness of sexual assault and the way women are blamed for it. The songs are bright and dark simultaneously laying in the pretty vocals of, say, Grass Widow, atop a raucous, acerbic foundation. There’s no way you’d know, without reading the coverage, how young this band is. They sound like they’ve been doing it forever.

Jennifer Kelly

 The Futureheads — Powers (Nul)

Back at the old Dusted, I wrote perhaps my most vicious review ever about the Futureheads’ second album, News and Tributes. It was disappointment speaking — I’d genuinely liked their taut, fizzy debut — when I said, “Now, with News and Tributes, the sad truth emerges. The Futureheads were lean from hunger, not discipline. With opportunity, they tend toward the flabbiest sort of excess.” Well, 13 years have passed, and I no longer expect anything from the Futureheads. I’d forgotten they existed, to be honest, but their latest album, Powers, is kind of fun. Much of what made the debut such a pleasure—the tightly wound guitars, the unexpectedly complicated vocal counterparts, the exuberant avowal of depressing ideas—is here, too. “Electric Shock” trips all the wires (ahem) by itself, with its zingy guitar and drum cadence, its densely harmonized vocals and its celebration of an extreme form of mental health therapy (“When I got my electric shock/it knocked me off my feet”). “Jekyll” punches, stings and tantalizes, its hoarse, wracked northern lead pillowed by giddy oohs and ohs. “Can you control your transformations?” asks the singer Barry Hyde, and then the song itself transforms itself, turning into a popcorning cacophony of closely aligned vocals. Even the willfully positive, good time anthem, “Good Night Out” ripples with existential angst; it’s only a feel good song if you don’t listen too closely. And yet, there’s a great deal of joy in these tight, complicated songs. They burst into flames as you listen, leaving spots in your eyes from the brightness and the bitter taste of ash.

Jennifer Kelly

 Hammered Hulls — S/T (Dischord)

S/T by Hammered Hulls

Perhaps it's a bit lazy to toss out the old "super group" appellation; but, come on, if you're even a moderate follower of that thing we call indie rock, you have to recognize the extraordinary line-up of Hammered Hulls for what it is. With DC hardcore royalty Alec MacKaye on vocals, newly minted arena rocker Mary Timony on bass, Chris Wilson of Ted Leo and the Pharmacists fame (among other outfits) on drums, and Des Demona/Pink Monkey Bird Chris Cisneros on guitar, Hammered Hulls represents an undeniably impressive assemblage of rockers. If any individual band member's musical history comes to the fore here, though, it's probably MacKaye's, as the band trades in a brawny yet cunningly complex punk that recalls the musical revelations delivered by Dischord's first blasts of post-hardcore creativity. And while this is clearly a team effort, each sonic component is worthy of the listeners attention as much as the superlative whole. Though two of the three tracks clock in at just over a minute, indicating that at least in spirit the band isn't denying its past, the practically byzantine by comparison (coming in at almost four minutes) "Written Words" hints at the potential Hammered Hulls has to be more than just a spirited one-off by some friends with impressive resumes. This single should leave everyone desperate for more.  

Nate Knaebel  

 HTRK — Venus In Leo (Ghostly International)

Australian duo HTRK’s latest Venus In Leo is a collection of electro-acoustic minimalism characterized by a woozy shimmer reminiscent of Mark Nelson’s work as Pan American. Jonnine Standish and Nigel Yang have stripped their music to the bare bones. A heartbeat throb, sparse percussion, occasional washes of synth and Yang’s simple guitar strums underpin Standish’s voice mixed to the fore on nine songs redolent with damaged longing. There is a rawness of emotion and acute observation of small domestic moments recorded with an intimacy that draws the listener close. Influenced by dub’s use of space, echo and silence Yang and Standish achieve a feeling of momentum to evoke quiet turmoil. Their miniaturization of Missy Elliott’s “Hit ‘Em Wit Da Hee” takes repeated lyrical snippets from the original and turns the song into a ghostly waltz. “What's up star? /We know who you are/Shit, no shit I thought you hadn't noticed.” Venus In Leo’s unadorned modesty is at times devastating.

Andrew Forell

  Justin Peter Kinkel-Schuster — Take Heart, Take Care (Big Legal Mess)

Songwriter Justin Peter Kinkel-Schuster frames his new album Take Heart, Take Care as the result of an artistic problem. He'd become used to writing dark songs, until he found he was content and had mostly good things to say. It's a false dilemma, of course. Any number of artists have built not only albums but careers on encouragement (see the War and Treaty as an example of a current act doing it really, really well). The real trap for Kinkel-Schuster was to avoid get treacly in his new mood, and he successfully avoids that snare.

His performances rely on his patience — he's content, remember, but not exuberant. He builds his songs comfortably within his context, but he doesn't jump on them. When he sings, “There's plenty of wonder in this world still to be found,” on the opener, his ease prevents it from sounding like a naïve epiphany. Kinkel-Schuster's Americana-influenced indie-rock comes carefully constructed, but only to make space for that heart to come through. It's a songwriter's record, easy melodies supported by well-balanced guitars. It's the singer not the guitars who have done their processing. The record and its bright sound create a warm space and sit down in it. Kinkel-Schuster may have found his ease, but his desire to share it quickly becomes apparent.

Justin Cober-Lake

 Longriver—Of Seasons (Hullaballou)

Of Seasons by Longriver

David Longoria of Longriver picks nimbly at his guitar, plucking out porch blues-y tunes that are steeped in tradition but freshly imagined. Not quite spare, his tunes are abetted by a crew of Texas regulars, songwriters Sarah LaPuerta of Strange Paradise and Lindsey Verrill of Little Mazarn, Evan Joyce and Colin Gilmore, as well as composer/percussionist Thor Harris. Though mostly acoustic guitar and voice, his sound is filled out with harmonica, soft percussion and twining communal harmonies. His songs run at a mid-temperature folky pace, so soft spoken and unassuming enough to elide one into the other, and honestly, don’t quite catch fire until late in the album when ghostly, lovely “Texas Doesn’t Care” comes along. This one uses all the tools, an aching pedal steel guitar, some silvery electric keyboards, punchy drums and fiddle. It also contains the prettiest melody of the disc, fluttered out in a high, not quite falsetto quaver. A few more like this and Texas might sit up and take notice.

Jennifer Kelly

 Lunaires — If All the Ice Melted (Shades of Sound/Wave Records)

IF ALL THE ICE MELTED by Lunaires

If All the Ice Melted is a highly polished blend of cold wave, goth and stadium synthpop. This first outing from Milan post-punk Jeunesse d’Ivoire veterans Patrizia Tranchina (vocals) and Danilo Carnevale (guitars, programming, synths) evokes the heyday of 4AD bands such as The Cocteau Twins, Xmal Deutschland and Dead Can Dance. Here, Tranchina ruminates on loss, mortality and nature’s power as Carnevale constructs dreamy electronic soundscapes with sparklingly clean guitar lines twinkling above. The results are lovely but polite. The edges have been sandpapered to nothing and the dust swept away. “Mirror Trancefix” stands out precisely because it has that grit — the drum programming a little ragged, the bass dirty, the guitars cutting. Otherwise the gloss creates an emotional distance, which may be the point but discourages complete engagement with Tranchina’s often affecting vocals. If All the Ice Melts sounds good, and if it never quite breaks out there’s enough here to enjoy and look forward to what Lunaires could do with a little less restraint.

Andrew Forell

  Bill Nace & Chik White—Eel (all parts) / Wild Wire (Open Mouth)

The news that Bill Nace (Body / Head, Vampire Belt) has picked up an acoustic guitar and sat down to jam with a jaw harpist might give some cause for pause. Is he going American Primitive, or maybe going skiffle? Spoiler alert — the ghosts of John Fahey and Lonnie Donegan will not hear their names called when you play this record. But play it you will, and for only the best of reasons. First of all, it’s a seven-inch, black vinyl single, and no one buys such things anymore unless they really, really love them. But this one does more to earn your affection than merely exist. On the a-side, White’s orally organized vibrations and Nace’s persistent smacks on prepared strings stir up a constellation of buzzing sounds that’ll reliably destabilize your equilibrium without getting you fired when the Feds drop by to drop everyone on the work floor. The flip combines broad feedback ribbons with intermittent glottal eruptions to create a sonic sweat lodge experience so deep that you’ll be unloading all your Scientology machines on e-bay, all issues resolved.

Bill Meyer

  The National — I Am Easy to Find (4AD)

The National have been getting expansive recently (with the instrumentation and their runtimes, among other things), and who can blame them? Having attained the kind of big-venue prominence that means either you start lapsing into the version of yourself the hecklers always claimed you were (an especially slippery potential slope for a band like this one, so precisely emotionally calibrated and so close to being the bad kind of dad rock) or you start just going for it. The latter approach served them mostly well on Sleep Well Beast a few years ago, but this time finally feels like the kind of record that the National needed to make for their own progress more than one that’s necessarily fully successful. One absolutely successful move is the series of accompanying singers (“backing” seems almost disrespectful for what Gail Ann Dorsey and Lisa Hannigan, among others, bring to these songs), and the expanded studio palette first highlighted on Beast is still mostly working for them. There’s even a quick comparison in the form of old fan favorite “Rylan,” which still sounds great here. Ultimately what doesn’t quite settle right is just the sheer length, bulk, and discursiveness of the album, complete with accompanying film, brief interludes by the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, interpolating a Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 song into a track that was already too long and feeling that somewhere within these 63 minutes is a really killer 40 minute or so album just waiting to be carved out. Eight albums in, things could be a lot worse.  

Ian Mathers  

 Reduction Plan — (Ae)Maeth (Redscroll Records / Dune Altar)

(Ae) Maeth by Reduction Plan

Reduction Plan swells to epic size in this sixth full-length, turning the darkwave, synth-heavy aesthetic laid out in the five previous albums into an enveloping, shimmering, near-post-metal overload. Daniel Manning, the band’s single member, worked with Swans/Walkman producer Kevin McMahon this time, a move which transformed his Cure-circa-Disintegration gloom into a weighted, gleaming edifice. “An Act of Self Immolation” sets the tone with giant masses of guitar sound that tower and lumber. Unencumbered by vocals, it’s more like Pelican than gothy-post-punk. “The River” hews closer to new wave, with its clean, chiming synth tones, gate-reverbed drums and echoey vocals — there’s a nice smouldery sax solo in this one, too — but still looms and glowers with a palpable heaviness. “Ae Maeth,” at the end, brings on Jae Matthews from Boy Harsher for added vocals, a kindred spirit in reviving music at the intersection of dance, goth and industrial; the album’s longest cut slows the thump of dance floor into a desolate cadence that can’t and won’t stave off destruction.

Jennifer Kelly

 Rosenau & Sanborn — Bluebird (Psychic Hotline)

Bluebird by Rosenau & Sanborn

The house on the cover of this LP is surrounded by fallen leaves. But even though it depicts the location of this recording, and that recording took place in October, and they recorded with the windows open, the sounds inside are not particularly autumnal. Chris Rosenau’s (Collections of Colonies of Bees, Volcano Choir) is too quick and eager, Nick Sanborn’s (Sylvan Esso, Megafaun) electronics too effervescent. This music feels like the sun hitting your brow, refracted by heavy air. It feels like the first awareness of escape when you turn off the work phone and start a vacation. Or maybe it just feels like Indian summer. Put it on, put the speakers out the window, and go kick some leaves.

Bill Meyer  

 We Melt Chocolate — We Melt Chocolate (Annibale Records)

we melt chocolate by we melt chocolate

The reanimation of shoegaze pioneers My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive and Ride has brought renewed attention to the genre’s flourishing across Europe, the US, and Japan during their absence. Italian band We Melt Chocolate — that’s Vanessa Billi (voice and synth), Lorenzo Sbisa (guitar), Enrico Baroncelli (guitar), Marco Crowley Corvitto (bass) and Francesco Lopes (drums) — hit all the classic marks on their latest, excellently produced self-titled album. Ethereal vocals, banks of effects laden neo-psychedelic guitar, washes of synth, and a thick bottom end are all present and correct. Taking Loveless as their template, We Melt Chocolate strive for the epic and on tracks like “wishful” and “orange sky” reach it with elegance rather than sheer volume, although turning it up never hurts. We Melt Chocolate probably won’t convert non-believers, but fans of shoegaze and dream pop will find a lot to like here.

Andrew Forell

[wiredandrewired]

Was trying to actually work on something but my brain is stuck on loop.  So instead I’m gonna make a post of the Voltron stuff sitting unposted in my writing WIP folder to help me organize my thoughts.

I guess since I’m posting this, if you have anything you wanna say/ask about any of these feel free.  I respond well to outside interest.

1. Project ReVolt is without a doubt the project I’ve posted about the most here.  And talked about in random tags.  And tangents.  Originally it was just the name the project had in my internal brain filing cabinet but it’s kind of spread and stuck to where my wife and I just refer to it as that when we talk about it.

ReVolt is basically going to be a VLD series rewrite more along the lines of how my wife and I would have done it or at least liked to see it done.  In some places it will probably stick pretty damn close to the events of the series canon, but in others go completely off the deep end.  We’re each going to be doing one, so a lot of the headcanon and worldbuilding and such that we’ve worked out together in various other stories and RPs will be consistent between the two stories, but it will also give us a place to veer out and do things without the others’ input (as we’re not gonna let each other see our fics until they post, tee hee).  I’ve done a SHITPOT of rules and infrastructure work using actual alchemy tracts to try and make sense of the series’ largely Powers As The Plot Demands system,  and am pretty convinced I’m going to A)fall hard into my very common Esoterica Ranting Mode pitfall and B)enrage literally everyone who reads it with my character and plot choices.  Most conservative estimate says this will be six ‘books’ long as again, we’re doing literally the entire series.  Current status: at the ‘ridiculously large amount of notes and setting up actual arcs and outlines’ stage, and waiting for the wife to finish ‘Happier HOPEless’.

2. There Are No Monsters Here is a fic I really want to do but cannot seem to get off the ground, set to take place entirely in the ‘last universe’ from season 8--the one native-Honerva died in and crazed-death-god-Honerva picked out as her ideal and tried to wedge herself into.  I guess the basic idea was that, like the ‘main’ universe, it got rebuilt pretty much as it was prior to Nightmare Mom Ruining Everything, and I have it with no one fully remembering the events of season 8 that took place there, but characters really closely tied to those events having some itching feeling that something happened, and all the Altean alchemists agreeing that some kind of massive quantum Event certainly occurred even if they don’t know what.  

Mostly the story exists as  a place for me to have a canon-compliant AU that still lets me explore stuff like Altean history, the racial and cultural tensions of the Coalition, dink around with Oldadins that DON’T die in one fell swoop, a living Daibazaal and Altea, Lotor growing up with a decent-but-not-without-strains relationship with his dad, teen Allura and tiny Lotor being absolute shits to each other while also coming to terms as they grow up with who and what they MUST be both on a political and quantum scale, and generally prove that even a perfect universe isn’t, all in one place.  The title is entirely facetious, and anyone who’s read any of my alien culture headcanons for this series knows that.  Lol.  Current status: lots of bits and pieces, but no good beginning or connective tissue.   I have a lot of notes, some arc outlines, and a few scattered scenes and bits of dialogue from later in the story, but my god, I CANNOT get it off the ground.

3. Someone Must Get Hurt (But It Won’t Be Me) is supposed to be a pretty wholly Honerva-centric fic that starts...sometime in her youth?...and carries forward to an as-yet-undetermined point.  Probably her death.  I mean the first one.  I’m not sure.  Another chance to dig my fingers into Altean culture and Alchemy, this time leading up to All The Bad Shit That Happened, with the added bonus of being done from a focal point of a character I have a lot of really strong feelings about both positive and negative that’s resulted in me somehow being EVEN MORE wrapped up in her than I was before I added abject knee-jerk trauma hatred to the mix.  In no way meant to make Honerva more sympathetic, I think I just want to write her even more like my mother so I’ll feel EVEN BETTER about killing her?  Idk man my feelings about her are so complicated.  Also an excuse to write a shitpot of her and Zarkon because listen, I’m really glad they’re married because I ship them so fuckin hard.   Current Status: SO many notes.  SO much infrastructure.  Like three pages of an opening I’m almost definitely throwing away because I can’t decide where, when, or how to open but feel like this isn’t it.  One short but very telling scene of Honey and Zarkon from late in the story.  I’m obsessed with it but I can’t get anywhere. 

4. Currently Untitled Demon Hunter AU started because my wife talks to me about Happier HOPEless a LOT and I just got an itch in my bones to work on one myself.  In spite of the entire Demon Hunter AU thing getting started by a prompt on a Shance blog, neither Shiro nor Lance are set to appear for at least a chapter?  And I am not confident in my ability to not veer off into utter non-shipping anyway because man, am I bad at it.  Or like...just an entirely different ship for either or both of them.  Current Status: A lot of vague notes, a POWERFUL urge to structure the chapters and overall arc after Ripley’s Gates even though that limits my chapter count and means I will DEFINITELY have 20k+ word chapters, and about seven pages of the first chapter so I guess I’m committed now?

5. Currently Untitled Post Series Fic basically exists for me to vent my frustrations about two main things: The Universe is Fucking Huge And There Are Dangers Other Than Galra, and The Galra Empire Was Huge and Is Not Going To All Fall In Line Behind Voltron Coalition and Especially Behind Keith Who Just Arbitrarily Fucking Decided To Tell Them They Couldn't Pick A New Leader According To Their Own Traditions And Need To Do What They’re Told Now What The Fuck.  Also there was a lot of stuff in the series that got left hanging, and while ReVolt is an IN-series fix-it fic, I wanted something that patched up loose ends in a way that was satisfactory to me but also kind of canon-compliant.  Current Status: A lot of notes and screaming.  No one has seen my progress on this and they might never.

6. Dog Runs And Death Dreams is a warmup file turned deeply self-indulgent series of scenes in which I choose to assume that Shiro’s rare neuromuscular disorder was left so ambiguous so I could plug the symptoms of mine into it.  It’s genuinely not any deeper than that.  The whole thing is set pre-Kerberos, and includes copious Shiro x Adam content because of it, but also not the kind that makes me feel good about writing because that means it includes the ‘slow fizzle’ that leads up to their breakup before the mission.  Ugh.  Working on it does make me feel better when I've been having symptoms, though, and I’ve been letting myself write it, unchastised, in a really loose rambly way that I usually deride myself for.  It’s just cathartic.  Current Status: no notes, no plan, just strain-writing between seizures, but somehow it feels like it has some kind of structure and just keeps growing?  Possibly too close to the bone for me to ever post.

7. Birth and Rebirth was born out of two things: the fact that Zarkon is shown to have two ENTIRELY DIFFERENT reactions to first being presented with his baby son in different flashbacks and different seasons, and the fact that in spite of the flashbacks we get at the end of the series, earlier on, the impression I got of Lotor and Zarkon’s relationship wasn’t of a young man who had never had affection from his father, but who had instead lost it.  Well, three things: I have a lot of underlying issues at work, at play, and at large when it comes to the Galra Imperial Family.  Also, anyone notice the monitor blips in the first baby Lotor flashbacks indicate a heart murmur?  Anyway, it was supposed to be a thoroughly self-indulgent and thoroughly self-hurtful examination of Lotor’s early life and the death by degrees of what was left of his father in the husk Rift Adventures left behind, but I got stuck on it a little way in.   Current Progress: ten pages, a lot of notes, and some wistfulness.  I keep hoping I’ll get inspired to pick it back up again.  Contemplating rewriting some of the beginning, maybe it’ll help?

Bonus entry that is not actually in any form of progress soever:

50/50 Voltron Trashfire Edition is spawned from the ‘50/50′ challenge on an old TF board I used to haunt.  It’s a fifty-prompt smut challenge using the list of ‘50 reasons to have sex’ from some tv show, and the idea is to write a different ship for every prompt (hence the name).  My wife is blazing through it and has several (like twelve?) up on her AO3, but I’ll be utterly blunt: I haven’t written fifty porn fics in my LIFE.  Over ALL my fandoms.  Current Status: Literally all I have done is assign a ship to each prompt, and I might actually have some prompts with just question marks beside them still.  I have one aborted start to one entry.  That’s it.  It’s not happening.  But the empty file is technically in the folder, SO.

[sonicringbond]

Sonic Ring Bond: the Journey - Scene 23

And with a lengthy little scene, we have moved away from the exposition for now. Or at least most of it. Rosy still has some exposition to give every scene just due to the story structure, but we actually have things getting started started again in this scene so i hope everyone enjoys...

    ~The biggest thing I love about adventuring is all the new people I meet and all of the wonderful places that I see. Sometimes though the people I meet need help, or just want a favor in exchange for a service. Tee-hee~♥ This time the people I met are little meaner though.

    ~To people who rely on Rings, they are irreplaceable. They do so much, and we rely on them so much. I don’t even think I really thought about it until I ended up in these strange lands with that little planet watching me every day. When I first discovered that most people here didn’t trust Rings it was so unnatural. Yet to them it was perfectly normal. Or so I thought until I met the Engineers.

    ~They were the first people here who actually used Rings like I was used to, but when Rings are treated as bad, they have to keep it a secret. It makes Ring Thieves even worse than they are back home. Stealing Rings is so hurtful, even helping a Ring Thief will get you hurt. I’ll have to talk Gill into changing his way of life when I finally catch up with him.

    ~Fortunately, though I was afraid that knowing Gill would have lost me an opportunity to catch up with Zooey, the cloud sailors were very understanding. They just didn’t trust me, or Draw, so they sent us out on a little quest to prove that we were trustworthy.

    ~Hmph! I think it’s ridiculous since they saw the photo with me and Zooey both in it. It should be obvious. But Gill did steal Rings from them, so it makes sense to help them gather Rings. I’m kind of excited too as I haven’t had a Ring gathering job in what feels like forever! Hee-hee! It’s what I used to do back home so it’s a nice little reminder of who I am. Which is fortunate too under the circumstances.~

    An airship that was barely more than a deck, cabins, and a hold wrapped around a metal balloon and further wrapped in sails, rigging, propellers, and wings soared across the jagged terrain. The mountains were unusual in that they almost appeared like domino tiles that had fallen on top of each other. The geography resulted in the top side of the mountains being covered as far as the eye could see in lush grasslands where sheep roamed, and Rings spun about on their axes arranged in any number of patterns. Despite being high enough for clouds to drift across the meadows the temperature was warm and balmy. From the deck railing Rosy watched the scenery passing by below with a huge and excited smile.

    “Ooh~! It’s so perfect! There are so many places to run, and so many Rings too! I bet there are all sorts of interesting things to find down below the cliffs too!”

    “You’re awfully excited considering they’re making you do their work,” Draw looked at Rosy wryly before a smirk adorned his face. With a shrug he closed his eyes and turned away. “But I guess I shouldn’t be surprised when dealing with a weirdo girl like you.”

    “How many times do I have to tell you stop calling me names!”

    Rosy complained and Draw snickered before Rosy stuck her tongue out in retaliation. It earned them both a good laugh, but Rosy felt it would be rude not answer the implied question from her koala companion. Wiping a tear from her eye she explained her excitement.

    “Believe it or not, but this is what I did back home,” Rosy demonstrated vaguely drawing a doodle in the air with a finger. “My job was to collect Rings and I went all over the place doing it. Me and my best friend. Ooh~ I haven’t seen Tails in forever and I miss him so much. I really hope he’s okay.”

    “I’m surprised you haven’t forgotten him with how long you’ve been searching. It seems like something you’d forget.”

    Hopping off the railing, Rosy sat down on the deck beside Draw and pulled her knees to her chin. It made her look very small, even next to the younger and smaller koala.

    As Draw continued to clean his bow, he looked at Rosy wondering if she was upset about something. The mischievous grin she wore hidden behind her knees told him otherwise and he leaned in closer as she motioned to him with a wave of her hand.

    “Well that’s the thing,” Rosy whispered excitedly, her wagging tail thudding against the deck giving away her enthusiasm. “I’ve noticed that the things I’m most likely to forget are things that aren’t associated with what I normally do. I think that’s why it’s so important for everyone to have the defined roles that they do. It helps you stay you, I think. But adventuring is what I do, and what my friends do too so most of those memories are just kind of fuzzy now, but I can still remember them. That’s why I’m not worried about helping the Engineers out.”

    “I get it,” Draw contemplated as he absently rubbed down his bow. “They aren’t trying to have you repay the stolen Rings, they’re trying to use how everyone always forgets things to make you loyal to them.”

    “That’s what I was thinking too,” Rosy beamed as Draw had caught on. “But I know it won’t work on either of us. First and foremost, I know that the Rings will always remember. Secondly, they think we’re dumb because we’re kids.”

    “Well you’re certainly a weirdo girl,” Draw countered Rosy’s attempts to build up their confidence. She puffed up her cheeks at him and he simply flashed her another playful smirk. He did not prompt her to go off topic however and stayed quiet.

    “But they shouldn’t look down on us like that. I know you’ll be fine too because practicing to hunt golems is what you do, and I’ll be fine because I’m going to be doing what I always do. They won’t beat us so easily, and we’ll still help them and get to hear more about where Zooey is.”

    ~I felt like my belief was spot on. Why wouldn’t it be? This strange land may steal people’s memories, but I’ve been doing my best to pay attention and protect my precious memories as best as I could. I had gotten Draw involved too so it was important that I protect his memories too. The thing is though, I wasn’t prepared for how bored I was going to be. And after it looked so exciting too.

    ~Overlooking one of the best views I ever saw of the wide openness of the world was a weird little tower that was as much a part of an old ruin as it was something that looked like it grew out of it. It was like a smashed together building built from a windmill, a water tower, a lighthouse, and a giant boiler chimney. There were pipes everywhere and covered almost as much as the ivy and other plants that covered the stone brick building. But there was nothing else of interest.

    ~A kitchen, bedrooms, and a lookout post. Even the weird little arch that served as the airship port was just quaint. The old guy who worked at what they called an Engineer’s waystation was nice enough too, but he laid down a very strict rule about never going further out than he could see. And so, by the afternoon of my second day there, I was so bored and turned desperately to Draw to help me chase away the boredom.~

    “It’s your fault for collecting the Rings so fast,” Draw remarked dismissively as he fired off a practice shot into a target he carved into the side of an old tree within the outer wall of the ruin that held the waystation.

    “I know, but I get so excited!” Rosy whined. “It really is like back home. Rings show up in random places and patterns every day and I just can’t help myself. It’s so much fun but being limited on where I can run makes it so boring. I know they don’t trust me, but it’s still unfair.”

    “And why do you think I can change their minds?” Draw asked as he fired off another arrow.

    “I don’t,” Rosy admitted as she clasped her hands behind her back and began swaying her body back and forth. “I was just hoping you could help me chase off my boredom for a little bit.”

    “Why do I have a bad feeling about this?” Draw asked as he eyed Rosy wearily.

    Her cheeks puffing up, Rosy energetically defended herself. “It isn’t anything bad! Really! I just want to practice my fortune telling. I may consult the cards every morning, but I know so many other ways of reading fortunes too. Like I can do a really simple one right here and now. All I need is for you to show me you hand.

    “And if I say I don’t want to?” Draw challenged.

    “Don’t be like that!” Rosy fussed and snagged Draw’s hand in both of hers.

    “Why do you care about my future anyway?” Draw pressed as he yanked his hand away, not noticing that Rosy drew her thumbs along his palm as he did. “Or do you think I can’t beat your golem–?”

    Draw stopped short as he noticed Rosy’s mischievous grin had returned and he frowned in disgust and fear. “What did you just do?”

    “Nothing,” Rosy swayed playfully, teasing the poor koala. “Just read your fortune is all~♥”

    “What! That easily?”

    “I’m really good at it,” Rosy laughed as she shook a playful finger at the bewildered Draw.

    “No way! What did you learn!”

    “Well…,” Rosy started enthusiastically, but she seemed a bit perplexed and looked down at her thumbs. Draw swallowed loudly afraid something bad lay in store for him, but Rosy dismissed it as she reached into one of the shoulder puffs of her leotard. “It’s kind of confusing so I’m going to ask my cards to help clarify for me.”

    Without missing a beat, Rosy flopped onto the ground, her legs forming a “W” like shape in front of her as she withdrew the small waterproof container. Carefully extracting her tarot cards Rosy split the deck and paused a moment before shuffling. Giggling, she lay the two halves on the ground in front of her. “I better give them a Ring first. I don’t want them getting worn out. They’re my oldest friends you know.”

    Draw gave Rosy a doubting look, but she ignored him and cheerily pushed a Ring into her cards. With a twinkle of golden motes of light, the Ring vanished as quickly as it had appeared from Rosy’s person. Her cards seemed no different, but it was obvious that they still looked brand new. Testing the snap of the cards Rosy smiled wider as she began to shuffle them.

    It was a mundane action, but a sudden breeze blew one or two free and Rosy gasped in apologetic surprise.

    “Ah! I’m sorry!”

    Scrambling to catch the errant cards, Rosy looked like a child chasing butterflies and Draw hung his head and sighed. The sudden urgency in Rosy’s voice as she spoke to him again though caused him concern as he looked back up at her.

    “Draw, we have to go.”

    “Eh! What!” Draw stepped back surprised, but Rosy’s face was desperate with seriousness. Still, he needed clarification as she hurried to put her cards away. “But if we leave… I mean won’t they never help us find your friend if we go now.”

    “They probably won’t,” Rosy conceded, but did not linger as she offered Draw her back so she might carry him piggyback. “But I know seeing them and how protective they are that Zooey is safe. I want to see her. Really, I do. But… but right now, someone else needs our help and we have to hurry before it’s too late!”

    “How did come up with that?” Draw guffawed at the absurdity of what Rosy claimed.

    “The cards told me!”

    Rosy’s claim baffled Draw even more and he gave her a doubting look and began to mouth a response but Rosy cut him off with a stern look as she forewent an explanation. “I know you don’t believe me, no one ever does at first, but my cards never lie to me. And right now, someone needs our help more than Zooey, so we have to go.”

    “Well… If you… argh! Fine!”

    With a shout Draw gave in and soon found himself whisked away at speeds he could not comprehend across the meadowed mountain sides.

Scene 23 · CLEARED A Tiny Voice, to be continued

-----

And with that, Rosy is chasing after trouble yet again. Draw seemed to have mellowed out this scene, but hopefully not jarringly so. I definitely need to get some excitability into him again. But we’ll leave that for the future.

Thank you for reading everyone! i hope you enjoyed!

-----

Special Thanks to Cutegirlmayra Story by @JoshTarwater/SonicFanJ Inspiring Song – What Makes the Sky Blue – Tsutomu Narita – Granblu Fantasy Original Soundtrack: Promise

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Sonic the Hedgehog and all affiliated characters and logos are the express property and Copyright© of SEGA SAMMY HOLDINGS used without permission under Title 17 U.S.C Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976 in which allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. “Fair use” is use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be considered copyright infringement. The Sonic Ring Bond: The Journey alternate universe (AU) consumer written work of fiction is a non-profit transformative work primarily for personal use and can and will be taken down without warning or prior notice at the request of the copyright holder(s) should it not be recognized under “fair use”.

*Sonic Ring Bond logo created by DEE Art – twitter.com/daryliscute.

Sonic Ring Bond AU and Sonic Ring Bond: The Journey are the creation of Joshua David Tarwater/ynymbus/sonicfanj/@Joshtarwater and is to be, including all contents herein considered for all legal purposes the property of the Sonic the Hedgehog intellectual property (IP) and copyright owners, SEGA SAMMY HOLDINGS. All story contributors via prompt, suggestion, written scene, art, and all and every other contribution acknowledge that all contributed material is forfeit for legal purposes to SEGA SAMMY HOLDINGS upon official request from SEGA SAMMY HOLDINGS.