#his hat is also the bane of my existence why is it shaped like that

[rogue-centric]

this is the gist that lives inside my brain. I'm sorry he looks nothing like cannon aauuuughhh

[randowolfwriter]

Rocking that Solo (Intro)- Hot Dog Dilemma

Just a little one-shot from my self indulgent Older Warners au. Might consider doing more of these if it gets enough interest. 

Summary: 

A hot dog vendor meets the strangest girl (or puppy) he’s ever seen. Little does he know, she has a few tricks up her sleeve. 

She was a weird child. Probably one of the strangest the hot dog vendor had ever seen.

At first, he figured she had really poofy hair tied back with a sparkly heart-shaped hair tie, but then she approached him and saw that it wasn’t hair, but a pair of really large ears. Rabbit ears maybe? Then he noticed that she appeared to be covered in fur, ink-black with the exception of white that covered her entire face with a red nose that looked awfully a lot like a cat’s. When she smiled, he noticed tiny little fangs that made up her canines, and when she stepped back for a bit, he noticed that she wasn’t wearing any shoes—she didn’t need any. Giant white paws were what she walked on all day, much bigger than her front paws that looked more like hands. Then the key indicator of her strange appearance was that she had a tail, a long black one that was hard to determine whether it better belonged on a cat or a monkey. She could have been an animal that just escaped from the zoo had she not been wearing a giant purple sweater with a jean skirt and asking him tons of questions like any girl her age would ask. 

Yes, this indeed was the strangest little girl the vendor had ever seen, and yet, this wasn’t the first time she had visited him that day.

“You seem like a pretty cool guy,” She beamed through what appeared to be a Liverpool accent. “I’d love to have your job.”

“What are you doing back here?” The vendor barked. “Didn’t I tell you to get lost?”

“But I know where I am, so how can I get lost?” The girl inferred.

“I told you, I’m not bringing down the price of a dog.”

“But ten dollars is a little much, don’t you think? If I ran a hot dog cart, I would give everyone in the world a hot dog, and then I’d have the rest for myself.”

“Listen, little girl?” The vendor leaned over, trying to size himself up in order to intimidate her. “Are you gonna buy a dog or what? I haven’t got all day.”

Not once did she flinch from the vendor’s harsh demeanor, instead she kept smiling with a glimmer in those dark beady eyes of hers. “Well, I probably won’t since they’re so pricey. I just thought you should know that one of your cart’s wheels is missing.”

“What?”

The vendor tried to examine the wheel from where he leaned, but unfortunately, he couldn't. It was one of the front ones, which led him to move his lazy self to examine it. Clear as afternoon it was missing, despite it was there this morning when he wheeled the cart through the park. He only had a few customers that day, and none had bothered to mess with those wheels. In conclusion, it seemed that not only was this little girl strange, but she was also a wheel thief.

“Alright, where is it?” He grumbled.

“What?” The little girl asked coyly.

“The wheel? What did you do with it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t play dumb with me!” He could hear his voice raise at the girl’s bewildered expression. “I know you have it!” 

“I swear I don’t-- well, I mean I don’t swear because Daddoo says it’s not nice to swear-- but I know I don’t have it. Here, I’ll show you.”

She then reached into the pockets of her skirt and pulled out a bunch of trinkets and trash she had collected over time. “See, I have a bobby pin, two pennies, a piece of lint, a heart sticker…"

As the vendor was preoccupied with the girl, another child appeared behind the hot dog cart. Just like the little girl, he had long ears that drooped like a puppy’s, white fur on his face that covered his black fur like a mask, a red nose, and beady black eyes that made him look more animal than human. The only distinction that he was more human than animal was a green sweatshirt he wore (yet he didn’t wear any pants.) The boy stuck out his tongue nervously as he watched the little girl prattle on to the hot dog vendor about the items in her pockets; it seemed like she had a lot for just two measly pockets.

Seeing that the vendor was distracted, the boy began piling hot dog packs, bratwurst packs, hot dog bun packs, small bags of potato chips, soda cans, anything he could get his paws on and threw them into a random sack that he pulled out of nowhere. Well, more like from behind him. But how he made a sack appear from nothing was really something. 

Meanwhile, the girl did everything she could to keep the vendor’s attention on her at all times.

“See, I don’t have it. I only take things that can fit in my pockets,” she explained.

“Fine, so you don’t have it,” the vendor grumbled once more. “But how is it that it hasn’t been missing all day, and then suddenly you show up, and it’s gone?”

“Don’t know. Sounds like a ‘you’ problem.”

The boy was taking an awfully long time. Every time he grabbed a hot dog packet or a bratwurst packet, his stomach lurched – the thought of eating meat was the bane of his existence.

Suddenly, the mustard bottle slipped out of his paws just as he reached for it, and rolled right in front of the girl and the vendor. To make matters even more awkward, the vendor stepped on the bottle and it squirted a dark yellow onto the pavement.  

“Huh? How did that get there…” The vendor turned and finally noticed the boy. The boy let out a startled gasp and shivered where he stood. 

“Um, hey! Wanna see me do a dance?” The girl chirped, trying to divert the vendor’s attention back to her. She then performed a couple of twirls seeing if that'd work, but it was too late. The vendor had already noticed the thief at his stand, her partner in crime.

“Hey, what do you think you’re doing?!” The boy immediately closed the sack and scrambled out of there. “You have to pay for that!”

“Run, Smakko!” The girl cried as she raced after him. As the boy sped off like a frightened hare and the girl caught up to him in seconds, it was clear that the two were related.

Twins.

She was the distraction, and he was what the hot dog vendor should have been looking out for. Now here they were, little dog-monkey rascals that were better off locked up in a zoo than running away with his product.

“When I get my hands on you two, I’ll make sure you’ll get what’s coming to you!” He roared after them. 

“But you have to catch us first!” The girl shouted with a giggle. 

All through the park, the vendor chased after them. The chase felt like it went on for hours with the kids’ insane energy and the vendor’s determination to get his product back. It wasn’t until the kids ran smack dab into an officer minding his own business that they were finally caught. Immediately upon collision, he grabbed the two kids by the scruff of their clothes and held them up like noisy kittens, mostly pertaining to the girl who kicked in defiance while the boy hung there like a wet rag.

“Are these two giving you any trouble?” The officer spoke in what also appeared to be a deep Liverpool accent. He sounded a little like Ringo Starr. For some reason, upon hearing the officer's voice, the girl settled down. 

“You bet! Those mongrels there stole my hot dogs!” The vendor exclaimed, pointing a large index finger at the two. 

“Not like you were using it anyway,” The girl spat.

“Those two need to be taken back to the zoo where they belong!”

“No worries, sir. I’ll take care of them,” The large officer said, eyeing each of them with a stern glare. “Now give the man back his dogs.”

The boy then handed the vendor the giant sack. It seemed lighter than what he thought it would be. “Well appreciated, officer,” the vendor thanked.

He gave the vendor a small wave, “No need for thanks. All in a day’s work."  Then he gave the kids another stern glare. "Let’s go, pups.”

For some reason, as the officer walked off with the two kids curled in his arms, they seemed too content for having just been apprehended. Well, the boy still had that fearful look in his eyes as if it was stuck that way, but the look on the girl’s face was one that was not expected; she seemed too happy. 

The further the vendor walked away from them, the more he realized that the officer himself looked kind of strange. He looked like any other big officer just patrolling the city and keeping the neighborhood peace, yet then he remembered his face...something was off about it. It was pale, almost like it was covered in fur, he had a big red nose, and he had beady black eyes, just like those kids…

Suddenly, he stopped and opened the sack to find that his cart’s product wasn't in there, just a bunch of stuffed rubber dogs that squeaked.  

He’d been duped. Those weird kids and that weird officer were all related and they made off with his hot dogs. He wasn’t going to let them get away with it that easily. The vendor ran right up to them, his face red as the ketchup bottles that were just stolen.  

“Thieves!” He screamed at them. “Who do you think you are?”

The officer then stopped and set the kids down, “Well, I know for a fact that I’m no Bizzie.” 

Suddenly, he tore off the hat to reveal pierced dog-like ears sticking out of a baseball cap that looked like it had been beaten up over the years, especially with that giant bite mark that ate half its bill. Long unkempt black fur-- or it might have been hair-- flowed past his shoulders, while some even jutted out from his hat. Underneath the uniform, he wore a blue sweater covered with a brown leather jacket, torn jeans, and giant white paws that he walked upon just like the two kids. In likeness, this man could have been a rock star had he not had the black and white puppy-dog face like the kids and stuck out his tongue to compliment the look. 

“What are you?!” The vendor shuddered in bewilderment. He couldn’t decide whether he was some mutated dog or probably the ugliest man he had ever seen.

“Why he’s my Daddoo, silly!” The girl giggled. “I’m Jojo,” then she pointed towards the boy identical to her, “and this is my brother, Smakko." Then she held out her arms and posed, while her brother seemed hesitant to follow suit. "And we’re the Warner twins!"

“I don’t care if you were the Olsen twins. I demand that you give me back my hot dogs this instant!"

“I hope you don’t mind me asking,” the man referred to as ‘Daddoo’ asked, “but that wouldn’t happen to be your cart, is it?”

The vendor then turned to see his hot dog cart speeding right towards them. Without a moment to react, the vendor was hit right with the cart and sent flying down the path while the father and his children moved to the side just in time. Luckily for the vendor, the cart didn’t go right into the busy streets of downtown traffic, but it did crash him into a nearby tree, causing the poor man to see hotdogs flying over his head.

“Look sir, your wheel came back,” Jojo pointed out.

“Yes, I see that,” the vendor said dizzily, then passed out.

“Naughty kids,” the father scolded, “who taught you such awful manners?” Then a giant smile appeared on his face, his tongue sticking out once more. 

“Now what do you say to the nice man?”

“Thanks for the hot dogs, sir!” Jojo thanked with a wave. 

“Thank you,” The boy named Smakko only muttered.  

The hot dog vendor perked up from his short comatose just as the father, with both of his strange puppy kids, the girl clinging to him like a koala and the boy clutching the bag filled with his product, walked away. No doubt about it, this was a horrible day, both personally and economically. 

But really, why did it matter? The vendor's cart was surprisingly okay, despite the crash and the strange reappearance of the wheel. Not to mention, there was a lot more product than what the family made off with, but losing those profits was going to hurt him. He'd have to lower the price of those dogs, and bratwursts, and basically everything at his cart just to make up for the stolen product. 

He went to authorities about it, but all they did was laugh, except for one, who seemed to shake in his seat at the mere mention of puppy-kids. Like they were going to be any help. 

Eventually, the hot dog vendor had to shrug off this brash occurrence and continue with his business. People were still going to want hot dogs, and unfortunately be desperate enough to pay ten bucks for it. 

However, this strange moment like a fly in the ear returned to him one day when he was visiting his family. His nieces and nephews were busy watching an old cartoon that he remembered was on when he was a kid called “Animaniacs,” which was considered one of the greatest cartoons of the decade. Of course, he didn’t think much of it now that he was a man in his thirties, but during this particular viewing, there was something that stood out to him.

The three main kids, with those long ears, black-furred with pale white faces, those red noses, and those beady black eyes…they looked exactly like the kids that harassed him at the park. Not to mention, the boy wearing the baseball cap looked exactly like the timid boy who barely spoke a word during their encounter. The boy in the show brimmed with confidence compared to the shy nature of the boy who had the gall to steal his hotdogs, yet had his sister do most of the talking.      

Then another thought occurred to him. The father of those two children also wore a blue sweater, and his head was covered with a red cap similar to the boy’s in the show, except his was worn with age. Then there was that smile, that puppy-dog-looking face with his pink tongue sticking out as if to distract from the fact that he was a freak of nature. He also brimmed with tons of confidence. How could anyone go out in public looking the way he did, with that long unkempt hair, those piercings that bit at his ears, and the strange rock star vibe he gave off just by being near him?           

No, it couldn't be. But maybe? 

Could possibly the middle child, the hungriest, the quietest, and the wackiest of the Warner trio next to his chatty older brother and his sassy younger sister might have grown up into the man he encountered at the park? That strange man with his strange children who were also giant troublemakers like he was. Could possibly the father of those two twins might have been…

Wakko Warner?  

[minatsuki-on-main]

for the character meme: laica 😏

…And this one is going to get exceptionally long…

(Ask meme)

What I like about them: To preface, I’ve had a thing for both quiet bodyguard type characters and edgy, tragic supervillains, so when you conglomerate those two tropes into one person, there’s no doubt I’m gonna like them. Since I finished watching BTB it was obvious. It was so obvious that I would be fucking obsessed with the Hat Man. It’s like somebody just made a character to appeal to my specific taste. It’s scary, really.

I feel like there’s something about villains that’s really hard to write; making them sympathetic without having them fall into some generally accepted ‘good person’ category. The fact that it was so well-done with him is the reason itself I realized this was a problem for me with other series. You know Laica is terrible, but he’s also not where the fault lies, which Keith even specifically mentions. It’s another good thing that the trauma he suffered was more internal than external (Gilbert just told him a bunch of lies and that was the shock, not some more generic dire outside circumstance, I don’t know if I’m explaining myself). It’s a smarter way of going about bad pasts.

Laica just really made me think a lot, he feels a lot more real than characters who have a schematically completed development and story arc just to obey the laws of fiction. For him it was cut short in the most tragic way before he could even find out half of his own backstory. His way of thinking is also messed-up on so many levels once you start musing on it, it just doesn’t end... He grew up in circumstances that would demonstrably ruin a person’s healthy development, there was Gilbert’s influence on him that he seemed almost unaware of, he has a disastrous way of conceiving human relationships (from what I’ve concluded after way too many considerations). Laica is a huge mess, but in a very deep and kind of subtle way. 

What I dislike about them: Listen, I’m in so deep he could do anything and I’d like it because he did it. If there’s anything... I’m disheartened by how absolutely batshit obsessed he was with the Jetblack, just because it’s what forever prevented him from having a better life. 

Favourite moment: When he talks about how he used to listen to the others through the window at Jaula Blanca because it just kills me inside. Or when he restrains Kamui because he’s all cool and it’s asmr to me. 

Least favourite moment: Having his head chopped off would mayhaps be one.

A situation with this character that I want to see explored more: ANYTHING. I’M DYING OF THIRST.

An interesting AU for this character: Anything sci-fi where his brainwashing translates to messing with artificial consciousness. Or AUs where he’s actually Koku’s brother and they’re constantly frustrated with each other, in any shape or form. Then I had another AU I actually started writing where he’s a bodyguard. Shove him in any AU and I’ll like it. 

A crossover: At one point I realized that what I call ‘prohibition era mafia AU’ is really just a 91 Days crossover... It might be the fact that Laica already kinda dresses like that, but I want him to be surrounded with those good aesthetics. Maybe be that one person in the mafia who does all the mundane jobs and carries around liquor but is secretly very important. What goes in canon, just in that setting. 

OTP: Minatsukicest, also known as the bane of my existence because I can’t stop craving content and writing fics constantly, I’m really invested in it.

Other ships: I’ve reached the stage where I started shifting away from ships with him and anyone other than Minatsuki, but either way. Laica/Koku sin. Extra sin. I wash my hands because it was someone else bringing it to my attention. Laica/Izanami I still prefer as brotp, but not bad, as I already said. 

BROTP: With Izanami; I already ranted about why in the other ask.

NOTP: I’m shifting towards having everything non-minatsukicest in this category... And either way, I’d be the last person to give ideas for bad ships with Laica, I don’t want to start reflecting on it.

An assortment of headcanons:

To elaborate on what I already mentioned; he doesn’t know what a human relationship is to a tragic degree, which would be unsurprising since he spent most of his childhood either alone or being raised by Gilbert. He thinks manipulation is part of it, sort of (considering who he learned from). 

The extent of his fatalism comes from how many psychological boundaries he has; he can’t go up against Gilbert, he has to behave how he was instructed to at Jaula Blanca, he has to do this, and that, etc. so it feels right to him that nobody would have a choice in anything besides what the Jetblack says.

He has a hard time controlling his eye and keeping it from randomly transforming in some situations purely out of anger, hence the sunglasses.

The reason he implanted resentment towards Koku into Yuna is specifically that he knew Izanami was also in love with Koku and thought they’d like it as a sort of gift to try and fuck it up for kokuyuna. The followup to this hc is that Izanami didn’t appreciate at all and was mostly just terrified.

His is not just a resting bitchface, it’s him not knowing appropriate facial expressions because he didn’t learn from seeing them on other people’s faces a lot when he should have. The creepy ep12 smile is kinda just instinctive and due to the epiphany of fighting Koku.

All he did as a kid besides looking out the window was drawing; only the very few times he was given tools though.

He’s the one responsible for the clown aesthetic, and it comes from Gilbert taking them to see a circus once and small Laica thinking it’s the coolest thing in existence. (This was from a convo from long ago but I just had to bring it back.)

Gilbert taught him some very basic medicine so he could give the reggies their dose, check the drug’s quality, inject it properly, etc.

(I could continue the hc list forever onwards but I won’t exhaust it here, I’ll just keep talking about Laica on the daily because that’s how we roll here.)

[e-mangos]

Goblin: Episodes 13-16 (Final Thoughts)

I cried so much, my eyes and lips are dry and I’m cradling a thermos of water now as I write this. Having heard about the postponement of episode 14 for this week in exchange for a “special” episode, I decided to wait and binge watch 13-16 all at once, which turned out to be both blessing and bane. I gotta tell ya, when it rains on “Goblin”, it bloody hell pours.

I don’t know, guys. I may be reaching, but me thinks the universe has it in for Kim Shin/Goblin.

Loses his family and mortality for disobeying a foolish boy-king’s jealous commands.

Gets sword shoved through his chest cavity. Rots in pretty field for decades. Alone.

Wakes up as the Goblin and is tasked with being a guardian spirit. Spends 900+ years wandering the earth. Alone.

Finally finds his bride only to lose her--ironically in a bid to keep her alive. Instead of dying, a creature of fire gets banished to a spiritual Siberia where chapstick doesn’t exist while said bride goes on her miserable way with no memory of their love. Spends nine years alone.

Finds his way back via a (strange) loophole, reunites with bride and then loses her again when she sacrifices herself. Not only that, best friend and sister pass away. Spends several more decades alone.

Numbers one and two I can understand. It’s three and four that get my knickers in a right knot. While I can understand why Goblin had to go away after removing the sword--consequences are consequences after all--I just can’t wrap my noggin around why he had to suffer during that time. I mean the man is a hero, both as Kim Shin and as Goblin. He sacrificed himself to rid the world of evil and what does he get in return? Nine years in a barren wasteland between life and death.

Why? Hasn’t he had enough? What exactly did he do to warrant such cruel punishment disguised as “mercy”? This is the core of my dissatisfaction with this ending. I’ve nothing against loneliness in fiction. When it feels like a contrivance, however, it loses all meaning. It becomes another cheap sleight of hand to wring a couple more tissues worth of tears from viewers. What makes it hurt more is how much Goblin didn’t deserve it. I can get behind him having to go away for 9 years--hell, I loved it because it evened out the playing field between him and his bride--but if he was going to come back anyway, couldn’t he have spent the time in a spiritual Bali? Even he was going to be alone, couldn’t he have been stranded on a beach or in the field of flowers where he first passed? Why is he always left waiting for so long?

A part of me wants to think it’s because if he had gone somewhere comfortable, perhaps he wouldn’t have wanted to come back; he wouldn’t have fought his way back to Eun Tak. Eun Tak’s future was obviously set in stone, so what if Goblin’s return was a given and they all just had to wait the “divine” nine years until she turned 29? Although Goblin wouldn’t have known he was destined to return, the Almighty would’ve, so why not send Goblin somewhere more chill?Why did this poor man have to cross country through a blizzard with only a piece of paper for company? Adding insult to injury, Eun Tak kicks the bucket barely a minute after enjoying wedded bliss. Whut? Admittedly, her death initially excited me. I assumed her dying would somehow “rewrite” the issue of her pesky mortality and his lack of; you would think such a noble and brave sacrifice would warrant her becoming an angel or a fairy or a sprite--bloody something!--with a bit more longevity. Nope. In the end, we get the return of barely legal!Eun Tak. Is she just going to keep reincarnating until she uses up all four of her lives? Oh boy.

That being said, the finale was still an emotional tour de force. Never has a time skip been more satisfying. Eun Tak’s age was always a sore spot for me, so I appreciated the drama giving her time to mature and “catch up” (though how much you catch up to a millennium old supernatural creature prone to fits of childishness is debatable lol) to Goblin. It evened out the playing field having a self-realized and self-confident Eun Tak rebuff Goblin’s clumsy advances; a perfect mirror of their first meetings where she relentlessly pursued her new hubby and Goblin played it too-cool-for-school because 900+ years alone can make a guy rather bitter. It was particularly fulfilling watching her fall back in love with a man she has every right to be wary of because even though her mind forgot him, her heart was--in some ways--beating for his return. Of course her being older also made their spicier engagements more entertaining. Say what you will, but those 900 years did wonders for Kim Shin’s ability to sweep a girl off her feet. My goodness, Gong Yoo can get it. *Eagerly awaits all of the kissing montages sure to flood Youtube in 3...2....1...*

Sun Reaper. Where do I start with you two? Theirs is a story of regrets, almost’s and could’ve beens/should’ve beens. That age-old cliche of two lovers constantly missing each other isn’t a new one but it still feels like Kim Eun Sook managed to put a fresh coating on it in that both remained cognizant of the lost chances. They willingly chose to continue walking past each other--and with good reason. There was too much baggage between both Sunny/Grim Reaper and Kim Sun/Wang Yeo. Plus’ there’s something pure (and painful) about knowing you can be with someone, but choosing not to for both of your sakes. Again, that idea of love trumping life, death and everything in between rings strong and true between Grim Reaper and his Sun Queen. Seeing them finally get their “happy ending” made all of Lee Dong Wook’s tears truly worth it.

While it suffered from a rambling middle and a rather rushed closing that screamed of Kim Eun Sook’s signature cheesiness (hur hur), “Goblin” delivered. The mythos alone is enough to fuel spin-offs and sequels (yes please!). This, coupled with one of the best OST since 2005′s “Soulmate” and you’ve got a drama that packs an emotional, visual and auditory punch; a real treat for all the senses. It’s truly rare for me to enjoy the entire cast, but hats off to you Kim Eun Sook; from Deok Hwa to teenage Wang Yeo, the actors made each and every character lovable, relatable and most importantly, real. You could feel every beat of their emotions; all the highs and the lows were played out with such depth and rawness that you couldn’t help but cry and laugh and rejoice with them. Writing for an ensemble cast can be challenging, but Kim Eun Sook is quickly shaping dual couple storylines into an art form.

Because the episode was great..because it wasn’t...because it was decent, but all my days watching “Goblin” were the happiest....