#i finally did it woW. i just solved all of everyone's problems

[lizaluvsthis]

Smg4: smg4 doesn't meme for 1 second

Mostly Gay Boys talk / and well lil bit of crew talk

SPOILER ALERT!

The crew convinced three to take four in for a therapy session. Tho that didnt solve his problems on complete brain rot with all of the memes.

Three did try his best to make him stay a bit focused on the topic they were meant to discuss with four's own meme problems.

And that didn't work-

- after smg4 was sent to meme rehab -

Everyone in the crew were sitting in the gaming room watching some tv, they were seen bored as ever without smg4.

Even just a small glimpse with each memeber entirely they've missed smg4 as well. He was their friend, their leader.

Shroomy came in with the mention of "among us" everyone- as in EVERYONE looked at where smg4 is supposed to be sitting at- reminded them the times when he would laugh at couple of meme jokes.

It is pretty much saddened by the crew how worse it could be in a day without smg4 is by at their side could make them feel miserable.

Then Meggy mentioned about missing smg4...

You know who responded to that?

Three himself...

"Yeah...like, if... er... smg4's stupid humor... like actually... made our lives more exciting...and we didn't like... realize it or something?"

"We're going over to that facility... to get SMG4 back!"

Smg3 was the one who knocked the door, he wanted him to come back. Even the crew also needs smg4 back because he wasn't just any other leader. He was already part of them as well.

They could all tell so, even for smg3 too.

Smg3's character development has taken him way more better to where he'd come far off being the evil villain he used to be before then coming to how much important he chose his own path.

"Hi, how are you" gave them the shock on their faces. Like they felt it was already too late to take back the treatment he was given while he was away.

"Woah smg4! Look at the phone! Wow, sk---di! Yeah you like this! Wooh! Sk---di t--l-t! Hehe. Stinky, woaaaaahh!" ★(I had to censor this because I hate reading nor hearing [REDACTED])

Smg3 attempted to try and brighten out his mood. Gave it a chance who mightve thought would work, giving him those meme moments that definitely would make him laugh.

But three didnt even know he wasnt even sure- if he even liked sk---di t--l-t.

Last time we know is that four almost lost his sh-t during that one cintent farm episode, he cringed to the part of mentioning this kind of brain rot.

But now that his mind is not any other that he'd act at all, smg4 became the normal. The person he wasnt supposed to be. Who SHOULDNT be.

"What is... a meme..."

Everyone didnt want to lose smg4's senses, they didnt want his own person to disappear SO. they went inside the lab to get back his uhh... meme... thing-

Then- yeah he did-

Some of their eyes were relaxed but still worrying for him, while tari and smg3's eyes were a bit widened in shock. (Three was more widened than tari btw)

This indicates that three may have grew tons of roots being there for smg4 as well. That their friendship they both have planted is far beyond than just "sticking" to the sides.

Now that Four is back in his senses, everyone joined in including smg3 to do the... t pose? Whatever it's called.

Three was so happy- to finally get him back- speaking of having the role as a tritagonist, he really mustve took way more care and tells how important he already is to him. Even as a friend.

Honestly the hosts here who've completely have done much was Meggy and Three. Well- mostly three since he'd been convincing the crew to not give up or regret the choices made.

He LITERALLY told them that they need to get him BACK.

And everyone did understood.

So- tell me- PLEASE THEY BOTH HAVE TO BE CANON ALREADY THERE IS JUST NO WAY YOU'RE MISSING A 'HOMIE' FOR THAT-

Mark my words they have to be- (if they dont become canon in wotfi 2024 i will cry and die)

There is literally no way you guys look at each other like that. Stare for atleast SIX MORE SECONDS. (/referring to Puzzlevision movie when FOUR HAD BEEN STARING AT THREE)

and then caring for one another so emotionally like- mate- THATS FRUITY ALREADY- ENOUGH- WITH THE "FRIENDS" WHERE IS THE "BOY" AND "FRIEND"??????

I cant- I cannot- thats how badly they both need each other and slow burn is just- literally... uuuuuurugghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

They both mightve had the longest slowburn i have EVER seen in the sun and moon shipping history/silly

This mostly takes alot of time (judging by like lumity or catradora)

But i wouldnt mind with this also- its- well- kind of almost there but not yet...?

[pruneunfair]

Characters I hate the most in remarried empress

5:Heinrey

A lot of people dislike him now for being a cruel bastard to the point of torturing foreign nobles just so he can favor his wife. While that is messed up I'll take that over his constant "UwU my queen~" persona that he displays 90% of the time because at least the former is the remnants of his inital personality. It goes from kind of funny to straight up cringey, I do not see what Navier likes so much about his puppy guise, he's so low because to be fair, he was introduced as a scumbag (kind of), he just spends so much time simping that it's basically tossed to the side

4:Lebetti

I know a lot of fans say Lebetti is young and can learn better, she's 17 sure but it took her entire family being executed just so she'd be inclined to care about Ian. She's basically a mini me of Lotteshu and when's she not doing that, she's another blind Navier worshipper who is used for as a stand in for the reader, I don't know how fans didn't realize their stand in is a slave owner but I digress. The only reason she's at number 4 is that while I do find messed up she gets to raise Rashtas child and likely feed a biased view of her to Ian, if she really wanted to be evil, she would've let Ian become a slave for his mother's crimes so I guess there's that.

3:Kaufman

Jesus christ this man is a walking, talking manifestation of second ML syndrome. He's essentially a plot device for no other purpose other than propping up Navier as so beautiful that multiple royal guys want her and so shit can go down , And of course the obvious slipping love potions in others for no other reason then "the plot calls for it", he doesn't even face the consequences. He's fucking creepy as well since he's STILL in love with Navier even after she's married and pregnant GET OVER IT MAN! In the end he just gets with Charlotte (Kosairs ex fiancé) so writting wise: his whole "nice guy" problems can be solved

2:Alan

I really just have a personal vendetta against the whole Rimwell family. The moment I lost all hope in remarried empress is when I was expected to sympathize with a rapist. The narrative wants readers to believe Alan was wronged even though he was the one to participate in keeping Ian away from Rashta until she got rich, even though it was HIM who decided to abandon Rashta after she wanted to run away with him. Yeah he's a good father so what? Wow! A dad actually raising his kid how amazing, it's almost like that's called the bare minimum. The moment he tried to say that Ian deserved to be treated like a prince because he was Rashtas son is when the comments finally saw him for what he was, he makes up for all this by getting executed in the end

1:Laura

Your probably wondering out of all these scumbags, why is a random side character on top? Well, the characters below at some point had personality traits that made then complex characters in the past or they did something to make up a little for it making them a tiny bit more tolerable. Laura however has never once shown any signs of any other personality other than "Your majesty! Your so wonderful and the best! That slave needs to know its place around you!" At least all Naviers other ladies in waiting have some sort of gimmick to them or in rare cases they have other stories going on with just them. Laura's gimmick is that she is willing to hit a slave for Navier even if said slave made a genuine mistake and isn't used to palace intrigue. Her face pisses me off everytime I look at it and everytime she speaks it's never anything besides love for the leads and hatred for anyone against Navier. she needs to get off her glazing and go back to bullying Cinderella with her evil stepsister design she's got.

Anyway let me know if there's any other manhwa/comic to rant about because I'm sure everyone's probably tired of me bitching about remarried empress

[thekingofwinterblog]

To me the best sign of the fact that MHA kinda went down hill in the second half is that all the stupid, delusional, trolltheories not coming true... Is disapointing.

Because of course AFO being Deku's dad would be stupid and cliche and contrived - of course introducing time travel to make the "Bak U Go" theorie work would be parody levels of crazy, even Eri turning Shigaraki back into a child Tenko would be an obvious asspull to fix a difficult situation in the most deus ex machina way.

But in retrospect, compared to what we got, that all would be more satisfieng. Cause thats the problem - the real thing we got was just boring, so nothing, just a wimper that seemingly went out of its way to be as unfulfilling as possible.

And the final chapter is the culmination - ofcourse shipping all the charachters together just for the hell of it and giving them kids is self indulgent and formulaic - yet atleast that would give something, make people debate about wacky relationships that make no sense or whatever - but this "wow everyone just went on, vaguely continuing their one dimmensional arcs, solving racism etc" Hell, even just making quirks disapear would be cool, especially if heros lived on, showing that truely being a hero doesnt mean having a flashy power but doing the right thing, with the costumes being reframed from stupid consumer crap into a comitment to do whats right no mater how one looks

One of my buddies descrived the MHA ending as a "no risk one", and honestly, he is absolutely right.

The BIG problem with the final chapter, the reason i describe it time and again as a "Nothing ending" is that it is painfully afraid of committing to ANYTHING as far as how the heroes ended up.

Izuku endes up in a bad outcome ending, where ended up quirkless, and became a teacher at Yuei? Okay, that could work just fine, so long as you emphasise both his regrets but also how much he is fullfilled at his new school... Whatsthat? We never really get a sense that he truly does have regrets? Also we get only the briefest of glimpses into his life as a teacher?

Okay, so who did he end up with? Showing Izuku's partner and maybe q kid or two would go a long way to show that Izuku did not end up like All Might, a man who sacrificed any chance of a normal human companionship to a frankly unhealthy degree the manga critiqued. Also wheter or not he ultimately ended up eith her, Uraraka confessing her feelings is ctitical to her character arc ending on a high note, so jow did that end?

...okay so we get no suggestions that he ended up with anyone? That he seemingpy just resigned himself to be alone forever, just like all might?

All right then, but at least we're committing to an ending where Izuku no longer is a Hero, right?

No wait the twist at the end is that his friends swoop in to finance it all.

...okay? So... Why wasnt the chapter about this? If 1-A loved Izuku so much they were willing to save 5 years worth of Gathered funds to help Izuku, why did we get nothing else in this entire chapter to remind us that they actuqlly loved him still, and instead the entire chapter emphasized how distant Izuku had become?

These two things, Izuku slowly growing distant from his friends in a realistic manner, and them ultimately going all in on helping him out to let him live his dreams, are completely at odds with each other.

In the question, the idea of MHA ending on a "Realistic" is described as by default Boring, but it didnt have to be, so long as it focused on the right things, and actually committed to it to the hilt.

It was more than poasible to Have Izuku ending up as a teacher at Yuei withouth a quirk, teaching the new generation work as an ending, if you actually committed to telling that ending all the way. Realistic does not have to mean boring or unsatisfying.

Similarily, there was absolutely a good way to tell an ending where Izuku lost his quirk and ended up a Tech based Hero as well. So long as you committed to that, and didnt relegate it to the last three pages as a twist ending joke that still wants you to take it seriously.

Ultimately, the ending was a failure because it failed to commit to anything, or to put it another way, it was afraid to take any risks at the very end.

Any shipping resolution in any way? Well, that would absolutely go a long way to hammer in the feel of a realistic ending, because that is how Human beings' work... But that would have been a risk, as someone would have been pissed off by it.

Izuku and ochako getting together? Would have pissed off the bakudeku shippers, the uraraka x toga shippers, and Uraraka x Bakugo shippers.

Him getting together with anyone else? Would have pissed off the Izuku x uraraka shippers, and most certainly the Bakudeku shippers as well.

And on it goes.

Kirishima getting together with Mina? Eould have pissed of the Kirishima x bakugo shippers or the people who headcanon him as gay.

Him getting together with Bakugo? Would have pissed off the ones who shipped him with Ashido.

Aizawa finishing his character arc of growing to actually love teaching and his students by going back to miss joke and finally reconciling with her, and addmitting she was right all along, that he really did want a "household where the laughter never ended" as she put it?

Would have pissed off those who shipped him with Present Mic.

Now im not saying the lack of shipping was THE thing that ruined this ending(other than Izuku x ochako whose lack of resolution one way or another is a massive structural weakness), but it is absolutely a sympthom of how this ending was absolutely terrified of actually committing to any risks.

It is the thing that defines this entire chapter, and honestly the final arc as a whole.

Just to give one example, the reason why Bakugo has NO thematic climax or satisfying ending at the end, is because it is painfully clear that His story was absolutely going to end back on the platform.

Before Hori's editor made him change it, and demand he got a bigger role, Bakugo's thematic ending was going to be that he was murdered while stalling Shigaraki.

He was not going to get to be the Hero who defeated AFO, or even come close to becoming number 1... But he WAS going to get to die a hero.

That was a bold, and very much not safe direction to end one of MHA's most popular characters.

It would also have been a great thematic ending where Bakugo actually did get to be a Hero like he always wanted... while at the same time NOT ultimately rewarding him for the horrible he treats Izuku through the Manga.

You know, like what happened to Endeavor.

There were no happy endings there, with one of his sons rejecting him once and for all, while leaving his firstborn's thoughts on him on a note where we ultimately didnt know how it went, while at the same time ending up crippled in a wheelchair.

Enji was a terrible man who ultimately did become a true hero... But he was not rewarded for it. And that's why it actually works so well.

And it certainly was not the safe way to end it either.

This is also why the villains in MHA ended up on amuch stronger thematic note than any of the heroes.

None of them got safe, nothing endings.

With all of them, Hori one way or another committed himself to have an actual ending that said soemthing, as opposed to the wishy washy final chapter that had no spine to go in either direction.

Dabi burnt himself out, and now has to deal with the consequences of trying to kill himself and everyone else, only to fail at it.

Spinner and compress gave everything for the cause, only for his side to lose, and him ending up in jail, and now has to deal with that.

Toga spent her entire life searching for someone who didnt reject her, and wanted to understand her, and ultimetely though she did not get a relationship with thay person, she went out on her own terms.

Shigaraki tried to destroy the world, having decided to commit himself all the way to becomign the greatest supervillain of all time... Only to in the end, be defeated and being killed, like he himself did to so many others.

None of these were safe options to end these characters on, and there are plenty who werent happy with it... But they are endings where Hori actually committed to going through with it all, wheter to succeed, or fail.

The Heroes by contrast get none of these.

Izuku does not get an ending where it actually commits to... ANYTHING because by doing so, he would piss off some part of his audience.

Bakugo couldnt die at the platform, because he's popular, no matter how much sense ending his story there might make.

Uraraka couldnt confess her feelings and either hook up with, or be rejected by Izuku because that would piss someone off.

Mina and Kirishima couldnt hook up because it too would piss someone off.

We could not get deep, important looks into the Heroes family lives 8 years later, because it would piss people off.

MHA's ending(as far as the heroes are concerned) would have been so much better if the manga was willing to end on an ending that actually take real risks that would have had the possibility to fall on their face.

Or as Wit from Stormlight Archive puts this kinda thinking oh so well:

“All great art is hated. It is obscenely difficult - if not impossible - to make something that nobody hates. Conversely, it is incredibly easy - if not expected - to make something that nobody loves.

This makes sense, if you think about it. Art is about emotion, examination, and going places prople have never gone before to discover and investigate new things. The only way to create something that nobody hates is to ensure that it can't be loved either. Remove enough spice from a soup, and you'll just end up with water.

Human taste is as varied as human fingerprints. Nobody will like everything, everybody dislikes something, someone loves that thing you hate - but at least being hated is better than nothing. To risk metaphor, a grand painting is often about contrast: brightest brights, darkest darks. Not grey mush. That a thing is hated is not proof that it's great art, but the lack of hatred is certainly proof that it is not."

[bengiyo]

Don't Care for an Old Man's Underwear! Ep 8 Stray Thoughts

As always, this watch was made possible by @isaksbestpillow

Last time, Kakeru revealed to Mika and Moe that he wants to go to a premier makeup school, and will finish high school to make sure he qualifies. He had a good conversation with Hasegawa after being asked if he was gay, revealing that he sometimes finds either men or women admirable in their own ways but as yet has not felt love. Hasegawa expressed his admiration for Kakeru for never playing along with boy talk that also makes him uncomfortable. Kakeru also managed to form a new friendship with his rival. Makoto is struggling at work to keep his misogynistic senior from pissing off everyone, and it seems like Haranishi suppressed him with his bra for now. Makoto also unfortunately thought Kakeru was seeing two people and put his foot in his mouth again trying to be supportive. However, he did help Daichi by reassuring him that Madoka choosing him is also a valid choice, even as we all worry about Madoka giving up on being a vet to dodge his family's disappointment. Not to be forgotten, Makoto insisted that Mika enjoy the tickets they got for her.

I like how much easier the friendship between Daichi and Makoto feels at this point. Saying they help each other feels genuine.

Oh no. Is Daichi avoiding Madoka?

Looking forward to seeing more rude men at Makoto's job!

I love that Daichi doesn't lie to Kakeru about reaching out at Makoto's request.

Kakeru admitting that he took out his frustrations on his parents feels like an important step for him.

Oh no. Daichi is pulling back from Madoka, and now he's going to think Daichi is trying to get with Kakeru because Kakeru is so cute.

Hold on, I'm suddenly invested in Furuike trying to use the contacts he's built up across his career in a digital age that cuts down on human interactions.

Ah, Furuike knows the engineer who designed the copier and is trying to protect his reputation. He's also got little left in his life besides his idea of work and the efforts they made before, so he's trying to validate that their way of doing things wasn't completely wrong. Look at this show giving this unpleasant man recognizable humanity.

Okay, I was touched by the two old guys solving a problem together.

Also feels significant that Kakeru wanted to wait to talk to Makoto.

Aw, they get to bond over having similar troubles navigating human interactions.

"I respect your grit and perseverance. In order for them not to go to waste, would you please change with me?" is basically the plea the show is making to the masculine audience.

Not me crying because this old man made tea.

Kakeru teasing about never hearing his dad complain before also feels like a moment. I wonder if we'll return to Kakeru's comment about not being an adult.

Why do both Okita men blush the same way? Lol

For saying he stumbles constantly, Makoto recognized that Kakeru didn't tell him what he really wanted from that booth.

Oh, Kakeru. Once again this show hitting queer notes left behind in romance all the time. It's easy to resent people for not being able to understand you, but that's just hiding the loneliness and disappointment you feel at not being able to connect with them, too. Kakeru admitting that he's feeling sad that he can't be the son he wanted because his father is actively trying to be a father Kakeru can love and respect got me.

As always, Daichi doesn't tell Kakeru what to think, and reaffirms that Kakeru always has a choice in how to engage with the world.

Dammit, they got me again. Madoka explaining to Makoto how hard it is to tell your parents important things about yourself because of the huge stakes, and then trying to accept being dumped, is making my chest clench.

Oh, Makoto, finally your over sharing tendencies pay off.

Wow, this man is so tall that he could see Daichi over the crowd.

Ugly crying about Kakeru and Makoto talking out the baseball thing at the festival, and then Kakeru asking his dad to teach him how to use the pop gun to get what he wants for himself.

He let his dad put the necklace on him!

Daichi and Madoka are holding hands in public!

Well well well, Kakeru still has to face the boys on the baseball team.

This has quickly become one of my favorite shows of all time. She wasn't in this episode a lot, but Mika continues to be one of my favorites because of her instincts. She could tell that Kakeru wanted to face Makoto properly, so she makes sure to check in with him first before hovering to see that they're okay. She then later insists on sending Makoto to the festival in a yukata with Kakeru because she knows they need to do that together. If she doesn't insist on Makoto going and dressing up, he doesn't have that conversation with Madoka, and he doesn't make progress with Kakeru at the booth. She helped four men with her kindness and determination, and enabled her daughter to support her brother while also receiving validation about her hobby from her dad.

Makoto has come so far. I really loved him supporting his senior through the resolution of that work problem, and still telling him that his attitude was wrong. I also liked that he also got corrected by Shimura afterwards, who insists that he use respectful honorifics for her. He's finally earned the confidence of his team by being the leader they need him to be.

This show is excellent, and I've not cried this much watching a show in a long time.

[man11c]

Xavier x Reader - Maybe a few more lessons. Pt 6.

Plot - During second term, you join Nevermore academy. One of the first things you do is join the archery club, and from there you get to know Xavier Thorpe. At first he seems head over heels for Wednesday, but maybe at some point he'll see something in you? In school, you go through many dilemmas which you need to solve.

Part 6

────♡────

After Xavier and you finished the project, you didn't see him as much. You'd see him in some of your classes, and he'd catch you after school to chat to you or then again at archery. That was really it. You had no other excuse to see him.

You always noticed Xavier would disappear after his last class and would be gone for what seemed like hours. You overheard his friends talking about sometimes. Curiosity struck you, but you weren't one to go snooping in other business but what harm could it really be? After all, everyone wanted to know where Xavier disappeared to for so long the moment bell rang.

When you were anticipating for the bell to ring, it always seemed to drag out. Minutes seemed to take hours to pass. The seconds flicked over as you tried to patiently wait. It lasted a whole eternity before you got to the final stretch of class. Only a minute or two left before the end of the day. You thought you'd be mummified in your seat at the rate time was moving at. Yet finally, the loud and annoying bell you had been so desperate to ring finally made its appearance. You could finally let out a sigh of pure relief as you jumped up from your seat, putting things away. From afar, you kept your eye on Xavier. Xavier looked over to you and shot you a smile before he walked away from the class. He always remembered to say some sort of goodbye after class, or even something small like that.

Usually, you'd be strolling out of class, nowhere important to be but yeah, no - not today. You walked quickly out of the class to see where Xavier was headed off to. It turned into some sort of sneaking game. You walked out into the woods, it was strange for sure but it didn't matter yet. You tried to make little noise, avoiding the things in your path sat down to make you fail and expose you. Even mother nature was against you in this moment.

The walk wasn't long until Xavier made it to his location, and his companion, which he didn't know about... from the outside, it looked grubby, some worn down shed? Why the hell did Xavier drag himself all the way out for... this? And it had a padlock and everything. How strange, still your couldn't help but just imagine what could be inside in such a place. What could Xavier be hiding away in the woods. Well, you'd soon find out wouldn't you...?

You saw as Xavier slipped in, and you stayed behind a tree from a far. You groaned, you couldn't see anything from where you were standing. So you just had to wait, in this forest which you already forgot the path out of. That was a problem for later. It didn't seek long for Xavier to leave the shed for a moment and walk off. You took that moment. Heading right inside, and all your wild assumptions far off anything that was inside. Drawings, paintings. So much art, some grotesque snd grim to look at. Other so beautiful and delicate. You stared in awe as you looked at all the paintings. "Wow..." You said to yourself as you took a few steps around the dark room. You looked with admiration at the paintings but you couldn't help but notice multiple discarded paints and drawings of Wednesday. All shoved into one corner to hide them away. You went to look at them, stroking your fingers along the canvases that had been coated with paint and charcoal.

"I didn't know I had a secret admirer of my paintings." A sudden voice from behind you which caused you to get startled. Xavier stood at the door, his silhouette glowing agints the light outside. You turn slowly on your heel to bring yourself face to face with Xavier. "Don't worry, it's not the first time someone intruded into my studio... sure they had other reasons for it." Xavier didn't seem phased at all. "Xavier, your art is beautiful." You tell him, looking at his approaching tall figure with wispy hair. "They are so... powerful to look at." You turn back to look at the paintings around the room. You looked closely at the details on the paintings. Xavier stood there sort of flustered from your comments, but he tried to play it off. "I'm, I'm glad you like them (y/n). I spend a lot of my time in here painting. I would make too much of a mess in my dorm if I tried to paint." He laughed as he stood next to you, your shoulder scraping against his arm. "Why would you hide this? You should be showing these off." You rip your eyes away from the painting to look at Xavier. But he kept looking at the painting with a dim look in his eyes. A shaft of air around you, shifting up from the ground up onto your skin. Crawling up your legs.

"Not everyone looks at them the way you do, some are too weird to show. And most of them are from my dreams." Xavier told you, finally bringing his eyes back down to you. He could see the admiration in your eyes. His paintings were genuinely liked, even at their most raw state. "And then again, I got blamed for being a monstrous killer... so let's say that's put me off aswell." Xavier inhaled a deep breath.

The way he said it himself made you look at him confused, but it didn't look like he'd tell you any further. "It's nice to have someone like you liking my paintings. It inspires me, really." Xavier looked down at you, bits of hair falling from his ear. His eyes looked into yours, so intently, but it wasn't weird. His eyes held something you couldn't explain. It was silent. You were too busy looking into Xaviers eyes. At some point, you got slightly embarrassed of this and looked away to the side. "I noticed all your paintings of Wednesday, the way you painted her... it was so elegant. You are really good at capturing the beauty of her." You changed subject, assuming this would be something he'd be dying to talk of. Instead, he looked off... an expression of a person who has given up on something so dear to them. "Yeah, that'll be the last of them." Xavier walked over to them and turned them away, showing the canvases face against the harsh wood. Had he really given up on Wednesday now? "I'm like a dog chasing my tail. I go in circles again and again to try catch her, yet to no avail." Xaviers tone grew somber. He seemed so calm, but the hurting in his heart showed through under his reserved manner.

The topic changed not long after, and you sat and watched Xavier drawing. You didn't know what it was, his canvas opposite you. In the silence, there was sounds of a pencil gliding across the canvas and the soft bristles of his paintbrush mapping out things in his mind. Xavier looked so concentrated, his eye focused, and his fingers wrapped around his paintbrush. Holding it with so much love. You could tell he loved this. "I think, this might be the most beautiful addition to my work yet." Xavier voice cutting through the silence that hung around you. Excited you walked over. And what you laid your eyes on. It was ethereal.

Your mouth parted, yet no words left your mouth as you looked into your own eyes. And Xavier hovered behind you, looking down at you with a small gentle glint within his eyes. His eyes clung to the small features of your face, how your lashes were long and parted just right. How your nose sat on your face. He just looked at you, lost in your features meanwhile, you were too lost in your own. Wet paint sitting drying upon the big canvases. "It's to show my gratitude, for helping with the project and making archery more enjoyable. Thank you (y/n)."

You couldn't even process his words, but his voice mused through your ears. "Xavier... I'm? I don't know what to say." You tried to make up a sentence, but you had swallowed all your words, leaving you speechless. "Don't say anything, just... enjoy it." He raised his hand to the painting. You saw how the painting brought itself to life. It was you laughing and generally just being happy. You turn to look at Xavier, your eyes saying a lot more than you could say properly.

───────────────────────

I absolutely adored writing this. Oh my god... I made myself smile smh I love artist boys

Part 7 out now❗️❗️

Word count : 1446

[cynopter]

Orange Peels on Fire: aka Townsend lore

because someone asked: here's a big dump of stuff about the story Townsend is from, i.e. the narrator of Choker!

Major TW for suicide/hanging, and obviously OCD.

Also, heads up that it's a really silly, REALLY emo story about ghost hunting lol.

Townsend is the deuteragonist of a (really extremely unfinished) story I had, that was provisionally called Orange Peels on Fire (opof). I started working on it when I was watching a lot of Demon Slayer, and it was basically my attempt to create a cast of shounen anime characters who were all girls but look exactly like the typical shounen anime protagonists. (I mention Demon Slayer because I took a LOT of inspiration from that - at times I described it to people as a shitty lesbian Vietnamese Demon Slayer knockoff... wow it's like it was made for me!!!)

A lot of lore is super wishy-washy because I did like the OG concept art in 2021, then I just kinda fucked around until 2022 when I revamped it for a screenwriting class. I don't really consider either version more canon, but I did a lot more work on the screenwriting version so I'll just describe that :P

Setting

It's set in post-apocalyptic US (either Virginia or like California but I couldn't commit because I've never seen California). A lot of the human population is gone - old civilization is being reclaimed by nature and the surplus oxygen means that there are also giant bugs now who take a lot of the niches previously held by mammals (like mice, dogs, deer etc). The oxygen is also how I campily explain away people being able to do epic anime jumps and stuff lmao. This, plus global warming, also means that the middle of North America now has a sort of tropical climate.

The part that actually matters is everyone in the US lives in tiny villages created out of suburban neighborhoods, and they're constantly having Ghost and Monster Problems of some nature because society has forgotten how to properly bury the dead --- and also because that apocalyptic event 100-or-so years ago caused so many ghosts to be created.

Phượng Lê

The protagonist is Phượng Lê, an 18 year old girl who can see ghosts. She's a triplet, with a living brother (Thanh) and a stillborn sister (the titular Cam / "Orange") who she's always seen as just a normal sister because she's a ghost that lives with them.

(All three of these characters are from a depressing realistic fiction short story I wrote, which I personally consider to be their "true" versions, but I imported them into this because I thought it'd be stupid and funny to turn a story like that into a shounen anime lol)

This is what Phượng looks like! (modern on left, old on right)

She's struggled with depression her whole life, partially because everyone thinks she's a sad and delusional pyromaniac for acting like she has a living sister (whose bones she keeps in a box) and for burning stuff to send it to her. Because of that she puts a LOT of stock in Cam's happiness because keeping Cam's ghost kind of cost her everything (including her parents abandoning them etc).

Cam's remains get stolen one day and long story short, Phượng and Thanh end up traveling around the country trying to solve ghost problems, scooby-doo style, in pursuit of the person who stole them. There's like a different category of ghost every time, based on Vietnamese folklore. (And if you're wondering, Cam's bones are valuable because stillborn baby remains can be used for evil magic, which is of course what the evil people in this story want to do).

That finally brings us to...

Townsend! (aka May Hoàng)

Townsend has pretty different lore between 2021 and 2022, but again I'm going with the latter because I've spent more time on that.

In the story:

She's a self-proclaimed "evil ghost" who haunts a tree at the edge of town. Phuong comes to her to ask if she's seen Cam; Townsend is surprised to meet a human who's friendly to ghosts.

She lightly antagonizes P & Th (in what is later revealed to be an attempted suicide-by-cop type thing) and runs away from them a few times before finally deciding to join their team. (In some versions she has to pretend to be human to deceive Irene, the secretly evil lady helping P & Th out).

Originally I had her birth name as Townsend - in the most recent iteration, this is a nickname Phượng gives her through this miscommunication:

She's the only member of the team who can actually, you know, touch ghosts? (Except when Phuong goes all danny phantom on their asses but I don't need to get into that).

Despite this, and despite the fact that she constantly threatens to kill people*, she basically bursts into tears at the thought of enacting violence on people/ghosts, so she ends up just serving as their strategist **(as the only one who isn't kind of dumb lol).

* Her catch phrase is basically "Don't touch me, i'll kill you." This is really emo lol, but what you find out eventually is this is actually a warning and not a threat.

**Specifically, because Thanh is the only one with absolutely no ghost powers, he has to use weapons made by Phuong, and because Phuong is like the main character, Townsend and Thanh have to work together to strategize & fight in the background. That's a whole arc because Townsend is a coward who doesn't want to be in fights, and Thanh doesn't trust Townsend because she constantly threatens to kill him and Phuong. Fair, I guess.

Townsend's backstory:

She's supposed to be this fundamentally irrational character, who eventually becomes a love interest of Phượng (they're both lesbians) but still never brings herself to stop antagonizing her whenever they get too close. After months and months of working together, Phượng finally gets Townsend's backstory:

She was originally a 17-year-old girl named May Hoàng, who lived in a town next to Phượng's. She suffered from something that we would in modern times describe as OCD, but had since been forgotten by society because of the apocalypse (rip). Her family was Catholic, and they didn't think much of her earlier obsessions (except that she was being annoying), but when she confided in them about her newest obsession about dropping and strangling her baby brother, Meri, they confided in the church - and eventually all the townsfolk came to believe she was being influenced by the devil.

May's parents kept trying to work with her, but eventually she ran away to hang herself.* In some versions, instead of going through with that, she conveniently gets attacked by a hangman ghost (which is how I really loosely translated ma thần vòng) right before that, who strangles her and she still dies. Fun!

*This is what's described in the beginning of Choker. In the original version, she runs away on the back of a giant-giant american millipede, as depicted on the cover, and that becomes kind of a faithful steed that they can all ride around on later.

Either way, what she didn't realize (I guess because she's Catholic) is that if you hang yourself and nobody finds your body, you turn into a hangman ghost, and can only pass on if you strangle a living person to take your place.

So..... obviously that's not going to happen.

Phượng & Townsend

May died about a year before the story starts. She was kind of hoping Phượng could just exorcize her, but because it takes about 3 seconds to realize May isn't actually a threat, Phượng refuses to do that.

Instead they kind of fall in love (shipname Phuongsend if you're wondering lol), and they eventually figure out she's just mentally ill and reinvent ERT or something.

Meanwhile, because of both Cam and May, the whole team is looking for a way to turn ghosts back into living people. I never decided if they actually succeed, but honestly I don't think they ever will. May committed suicide and that's just not something you can undo.

As foils

They both care a lot about each other, but that's despite (or maybe because of?) some very conflicting values. There's a little undercurrent of each trying to change the other's morals.

Phượng's mother abandoned her and Thanh because of her obsession with her sister, Cam, who was stillborn and never even got a chance at life. She's only leaving home now to find that sister and maybe even bring her back to life.

From Phượng's perspective, May HAD a shot at life, and somehow thinks she has the right to get it back even after squandering it. May also loves her baby sibling to death, but her idea of protecting him was to run away forever --- and to Phuong, that's just about the worst thing you can do to someone you love.

They were both treated as heretics, but Phượng reacted by getting a superiority complex and starting to hate everyone, while May still thinks everyone is fundamentally good, except herself. Phượng is (technically) a younger sister and constantly pushes back against Thanh's overprotectiveness, something May sees as disrespectful and scary, as an older sister who spent years obsessing over Meri's safety. Finally, Phượng's violent tendencies/occasional anger issues are something May sees as a big moral problem.

And.... that was a LOT. I'm not sure if I'll keep this post up honestly because there's still like a TINY chance I'll adapt this into something. But for now enjoy the lore dump :P

[outatmako]

take time to realize

clewis, pre-canon. this started as a headcanon, then turned into a drabble, and landed somewhere between drabble and one-shot. pure fluff and pining and first kisses and 12 y/o nonsense.

Cleo sat on the sand, her knees pulled to her chest, watching the waves. She knew that any minute Lewis would show up—it had been low tide when she got there, but that was a couple of hours ago. The tide was running now, which was the best time for fishing. Lewis was sure to show up before high tide. At least no one else had bothered her. That was the appeal of this cove as a fishing spot. Only Lewis and his brothers ever came here. And Cleo. Apparently.

She didn’t know where else she could be alone, away from her parents and her sister, and even away from Emma. She felt a little bad about that one, but Emma just hadn’t understood why she was so upset. It wasn’t Emma’s fault—she tried to comfort Cleo the night before. Last night was Emma’s annual sleepover party, and that was where the problems began. The girls started talking about boys and kisses, and Cleo had stupidly admitted she’d never kissed anyone. Of course, some of the other girls made fun of her for that. Apparently being 12 without having kissed anyone made her a total loser.

Emma said it didn’t matter, but that was easy for Emma to say. Everyone knew she’d kissed Zane Bennett. Even if she did privately tell Cleo that the kiss hadn’t been particularly enjoyable. She still did it. She wasn’t a loser. She was cool. And Cleo was just her weird friend, who tagged along to sleepovers and hangouts and swim meets. But she wasn’t like the other girls Emma hung out with, the popular girls and the swim team girls. Cleo was just…Cleo.

She sniffed, brushing a few tears out of her eyes.

“Hey, Cleo!” Lewis’s voice echoed from the rocks. “What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to be alone,” she called back, trying desperately to keep her voice steady.

Lewis made his way down the rocks to stand next to her on the sand. “Are you alright?”

Cleo shrugged.

He sighed and sat down beside her. “What’s wrong?”

She shook her head. “It’s stupid.”

“C’mon, you know you can tell me anything.” He gave her a sweet, encouraging smile.

“I’ve never kissed anybody,” she admitted quietly.

He blinked and cocked his head to the side. “Okay?”

“So, that makes me a loser!”

He scoffed. “Says who?”

“The girls at Emma’s party last night.” She pulled her knees even closer to her chest. “Apparently everyone else has at least had a first kiss.”

“Cleo, those girls are just shallow,” he tried.

“Are they?” Cleo turned to look him in the eye. “I mean, we’re starting secondary school next year. I can’t be the only girl in high school who hasn’t kissed anyone.”

Lewis was silent for a moment, considering, before he came out with a solution. “You can kiss me.”

Her mouth dropped open. “What?”

“You can kiss me,” he repeated, firmer this time.

“Lewis,” she hesitated. She’d recently started noticing that her best friend was a boy—a cute boy, at that—and suddenly she wondered if maybe he’d noticed her, too. “Do you like me?”

His blue eyes went wide as oceans. “Oh! Uh, er, no, no,” he stammered. “That’s, I mean. I didn’t mean it like that. But I haven’t kissed anyone either, and this way neither of us would be losers.”

She tried to hide the sudden, expected wave of disappointment that crashed over her. “Oh.”

“It would be like practice,” he added. “For when you kiss someone you actually like.”

“Right.” She chewed her bottom lip as she took in his suggestion. It would solve her problems. And it would probably be bad, so maybe it would cure whatever weird feelings she was starting to develop for him. “Okay,” she said, finally.

“Really?”

“Yeah,” she nodded. “You’re right. It would be good practice.”

He took a deep breath. “Okay. Wow. So, how do we—”

“Lean in and tilt your head,” she told him.

Cleo thought kissing Lewis should’ve felt weirder. He was her best friend, after all. But it was actually kind of nice. His lips were chapped, but warm, and he didn’t press too hard. It was hard to breathe, but that wasn’t bad, either. She felt tingly all over, and like her heart was beating of her chest. It was hard to say if that was from the lack of oxygen or something else.

It wasn’t a long kiss, lasting only the time it took for a single wave to crest, and then it was over.

“So,” Lewis cleared his throat. “That was, um. Nice.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah,” he repeated. “I guess we’re not losers anymore.”

They sat for a moment in silence, the air between them thick with a new tension, a new awkwardness, that hadn’t been there before.

“I should,” she swallowed, pushing herself to her feet. “I should probably go home. My parents’ll be wondering where I am.”  

“Right,” he followed her up. “And I came here to fish.”

“Thanks, Lewis,” she said with a slightly forced smile. “You really did make me feel better.”

“Of course, Cleo,” he replied, with an equally forced smile. “What are friends for?”

“Best friends,” she corrected, not knowing why the word friend caused such a pang in her chest. She loved being his friend. None of her emotions were making sense.

“Right. Best friends.” He smiled more genuinely this time. “I’ll see you around.”

“See you!”  She turned away from him and took a big breath. Whatever she was feeling, it didn’t matter. Lewis was her best friend, and he always would be. And he told her he didn’t like her like that. So, it wasn’t even worth thinking about. Instead, as she walked back towards her house, she focused on the fact that she’d finally kissed someone.

Maybe she would actually be cool in high school.  

[venranae]

Now I understand why Horikoshi had Afo take over Tomura instead of allowing him to become the next big bad. He had no narrative way of writing Izuku ‘saving’ him. So he had to have afo take him over to make it seem like Izuku did something when ge inevitably had to kill him. Otherwise, it would have been way to distracting that the problems the league brought up weren’t addressed, this way they can just say ‘he saved him cuz afo had taken him over and there was no other way for him to find peace’ bs cop out. At least leave Deku with the somber message of ‘you can’t save everyone, let’s just work on creating a world where someone like Tomura Shigaraki isn’t created by the same structural issues’ allow Deku to feel bad for taking a fucking life. Wasn’t that the whole point of ‘I know he needs saving’ and having empathy for the villains?

Instead this whole damn mangas become pet Deku on the back academy. If you took a shot every time someone said ‘you can do it Deku’ you’d straight die. I had this ending so damn much.

LITERALLY ALL OF THIS. Listen obviously I want Tomura to survive but even if he had to die in the end for Deku to see the fucking point it would have made SENSE he would have died for A REASON but this is just so lazy because the entire conflict of the manga just turned into dust (literally). Like??? You can't solve the problem by just killing the villains?? There will be people after Shigaraki because its a problem with the entire hero society construct THATS THE ENTIRE POINT. are we just glossing that over now?? Like wow Deku you're the greatest hero of all time for killing the biggest baddest guy ever!!!! AND HEAR ME OUT I LIKE DEKU AS AN MC I LIKE HIS POTENTIAL AND HIS EMPATHY but that just flies out of the window and he can pat himself on the back now bc tomura was so big bad and evil he deserved to die I guess?? Because thats the only valuable form of punishment in this scenario? Don't piss me offff 😭😭 i FEAR for what's to come in the final chapters

[stitching-in-time]

Voyager rewatch s2 ep23: The Thaw

I'll come right out and say it, this is one of the dumbest episodes of Star Trek I've ever seen. Seriously, why do we dunk on Threshold or Move Along Home when this exists??

The opening scene with Tom and Harry hanging out and chatting in Harry's quarters is the most interesting thing that happens in the whole episode- we learn that sound travels easily through walls in the crew quarters, which must have caused a lot of drama on the ship that probably would have been juicier than half the plots of actual episodes lol.

This episode wants so desperately to be psychological horror, but this circus, that’s supposed to be so menacing, is just like, mildly wacky?? And every time they try to kill someone, whatever device they use is painted literal Barbie pink, so it's a little hard to be terrified when the threat being posed is 'oh no! we're caught in a virtual reality simulation with Barbie's Dream Guillotine!' lmao

And the PLOT HOLES! PLOT HOLES EVERYWHERE!! Why does the clown kill off the people if he needs them to survive?! He won’t let them go, but he’ll kill them willy-nilly?? What?? That doesn't make any sense. And if the people know they’re in virtual reality, why would being virtually guillotined scare them at all, let alone enough to give them heart attacks??? And why do they not just kill the clown?!? Why don’t the Voyager people just kill the clown?!? He’s not a real person, he’s a computer program, you’re not even killing an actual life form- problem solved!!!  (Also, the evil clown is supposed to read people's minds, and says that Harry misses Libby, but the first scene had Harry telling Tom he's been seeing the lieutenant Tom's been trying to date for six months- clearly he doesn't miss Libby that bad lol. And clearly Tom got over Kes pretty quickly too! It's like Star Trek: High School on that ship!)

We do learn that Harry Kim's parents are apparently civilian doctors, so that's kinda interesting I guess. (I felt very sorry for the baby they uesd for baby Harry though- poor kid seemed terrified of all the weird masks and makeup everyone was wearing. This episode is scary if you're a two year old, but if you're older than that, not so much.)

And why is the evil clown Michael McKean?! Hiring a comedian, and a well known one at that, to play a character who's supposed to be scary, is... a choice. Mostly he was just annoying more than anything else. (And I do like Michael McKean in comedy roles. In fact, I just watched the movie 'Earth Girls Are Easy' the other day, where he played a surf bum, so it was even harder to take him seriously with that movie in mind- although, I will say, that movie is a great example of how to make someting so over-the-top bad that it's actually good- this ep did not even come close to achieving that, unfortunately.) I just.... I have so. many. questions.

The ONLY scary thing in this entire episode is Captain Janeway at the end. When she does that lowered voice, with the simmering wrath underneath, and then the gleeful triumph of watching some idiot realize they just got played?? Ugh. MA'AM. WHO GAVE YOU THE RIGHT TO BE THIS HOT?!

It’s like wow, okay bad guys, she’s gonna end you, and you will probably die in some kind of strange state of beatific awe at the sheer majestic honor of having your ass handed to you by this badass queen. I love her so much!! Anyway, I give this episode zero stars from a story standpoint, but ALL THE STARS for Captain Janeway’s hotness and badassery in the final scene.

Tl;dr: A complete dud on every level, only worth watching for the fun of the first and last scenes.

[hazbinficsandstuff-eyeshadow]

I have when people are like OHHH HAPOY CAMPERS RUINED MOXXIE. NO! NO! NO!NO!

WE HEAR ABOUT BLITZ RUNNING 3 RINGS DOWN AND MAZING HIS GFS CREDIT CARD ON SHITTY HORSE RIDING LESSONS AND ITS FINE!

There is cannibalistic serial killers and it's fine!

Heck some of you even watch catra just smack adora to the floor and are like " WE STAN! SO RELATABLE!"

but heaven forbid moxxie makes his wife upset for a second.

My problem with this is especially the reasonings. I feel all these char we don't know why they did what they did super or well or at least not as well as moxxie. Like moxxie was forced to kill people and had to watch his mother get abused and get abused himself. He's extremely insecure and we know why he does what he does. He doesn't kill the target at first because millie found it and he feels like he's finally being put in a place where he can prove himself to not be worthless, but if millie solved it for him then it will re-establish his beleifes on himself.

Sorry for the rant, I think I just really relate to moxxie and light have read in between the lines and added a bunch of stiff that wasn't actually there based off personal experience but I see people saying similar things with blitzø like he can't accept stolas loves him because that would go against what he believes, I. Which I think moxxie and blitz are kinda opposite in this way. Where blitzø is trying so hard to keep his beleifes that are negative but everything around him tells him the opposite while moxxie is trying so desperately to be anything more than what he thinks he is and everyone and everything around him seem to reaffirm his beleif

And wow that was a Long ramble I should write a video essay

[the-whumpening]

Meet the Character Monday #3

Ash - Tigerverse (The Caged Tiger, The Freed Tiger, The Pet Tiger)

[Image ID: A sketch of my OC Ash. The drawing is a shoulders-up portrait of Ash smiling and facing to the right side of the screen. As this is supposed to be before The Caged Tiger, his hair is shoulder-length and he is uninjured. His left eye is blank as if clouded by a cataract. He is shirtless and his muscles are clearly visible. The whole piece is done in shades of orange. /End ID]

(Ash smiling! Wow! Yes, it's possible! This drawing is representative of what he looked like right before his capture: happy, healthy, without major scars, but after he lost his stripes/tail/ears.)

Basic Info:

Name: Moss Pelt (Ash) Catteau

Age: 26(ish)

Birthday: Spring? (Aries) Ash doesn't know his specific birth date

Height: 6' 4" (193 cm)

Hair: Black

Eyes: Green

Favorite Color: Green or orange

Gender ID and Orientation: Is very comfortable as a man but has never thought about it (much more concerned about his status as human vs beast), is attracted to both men and women but once again never put much thought into it. If it needed a label, he might say he’s “my partner”-sexual. While I also wouldn’t call him “poly” per se, he’s not strictly monogamous in the traditional human way.

Pronouns: He/him (never, ever “it”)

Other: accidental autistic rep (oops), tiger-human hybrid creature

What's Ash's role in the story? Ash is a human(ish) barbarian and the protagonist of the Tigerverse series. He is the current partner of Evius, who was previously romantically involved with Ash’s whumper: Ozmund Greenthorn. Ash was originally created as a character for an ongoing DnD campaign, though the stories on this blog mostly divert from the canon of that game.

Fun Facts about Ash:

Due to his tiger heritage and upbringing, Ash can communicate with cats and (with some effort) most other animals. He’s also picked up bits and pieces of other languages based on whomever he interacts with most (including a little Elven from Kane and Infernal from Evius).

Ash, like all tigers, is red-green colorblind. He only learned this after being with the party for some time—he didn’t realize he had orange fur. In fact, Evius’ coppery tiefling skintone doesn’t look much different to Ash than his human disguise. He can, however, distinguish shades of blue and yellow. (I’m just now realizing he probably doesn’t realize Mouse’s hair is pink. Bummer.)

Even in his human form, Ash has heightened animal-like senses which often overwhelm him. For that reason, he tends to dislike crowded areas and sticks close to Evius or Kane in the city.

He does not have a barbed penis, but man do we love to joke about it lol

His intelligence is kind of paradoxical. He didn’t have any formal education, and just about everything he knows about the “civilized” world came from Kane, so he’s not exactly “book-learned.” But, for the same reasons, he doesn’t have a lot of social knowledge either. His intellect is mostly centered around his knowledge of the natural world and survival, as well as his keen skills of observation and problem-solving. When his intelligence increased from the mindflayer tadpole, it mostly just made it easier for him to learn things and put concepts together; it didn’t impart any factual knowledge on him. Almost like he had ADHD and got adderall for the first time lol

That being said, he did become more aware of all the social rules he hadn’t noticed or cared about before. Suddenly, he felt embarrassed at being seen nude because now he could put together that not everyone was as comfortable as him and that most people felt some amount of shame about nudity. It also helped him finally connect the pieces that his attraction to Evius wasn’t just platonic.

Hilarious corollary: Hsa (what the tadpole named itself) has experienced the world through Ash since it was implanted. Meaning, it has felt everything Ash has felt and seen everything he’s seen. It knows all his thoughts and feelings. It has seen aaallll of Ash and Evius’ . . . interactions.

Biggest Secret: Ash would love to have a big family and lots of babies. He’s even fantasized about being pregnant—he’s still a little shaky on exactly how humanoid biology works. (And Evius’ player has forbidden me from writing mpreg fanfic boooo)

[whentherewerebicycles]

with work stuff I am going to try my best to set good boundaries around when I’m available—like really striving to keep evenings/weekends as no-work zones except when we have events (and then adjusting my weekly schedule so I’m not working extra hours). but I also want to really try, in this first month or two, to say yes to as many invites to attend classes/talks/events and to see my primary job as building relationships with people and mapping the institutional landscape. I think in my previous program job I self-isolated a lot initially because I was worried about whether I was qualified to do the work and was scared that if I talked to too many people about what I was doing they’d be like uhh how did you get this job. then of course the pandemic derailed everything just as I was starting to settle in, and by the time we got back to campus there was an end date on our grant and I couldn’t really do the type of long-term networking I finally felt ready to do.

I don’t want to make that mistake again! what I learned in the later stages of that job was that if I had started talking to people earlier I could have oriented myself in the role a lot faster and made better use of other people’s insights/expertise in redesigning our program. things still turned out okay (and maybe had to unfold that way so I could learn this particular lesson!) but I’ve learned it now lol and I want to apply it in this new job. like I can already feel those first tendrils of panicky self-doubt… like what if I talk to a bunch of people and they’re all like “wow… how did they hire you when you don’t know anything about [insert random niche topic my brain has chosen to fixate on that day as the thing that will lead to my Unmasking].” but also like probably that won’t happen haha as I am a qualified professional and a capable person with a good track record of not making a fool of myself in my past jobs. AND ALSO I want to really push myself to model the behaviors I am always working to instill in my students, such as:

do the thing that scares you

do it little bit before you’re ready

talk to everyone! and be open with everyone you talk to about what you’re trying to learn or discover or figure out or build

assume that most people love to feel useful & especially love to be able to use their insight or connections or expertise to help you

don’t front! don’t front! don’t front! ask for help & advice easily, casually, and often. never pretend you’ve read the thing you haven’t read or know how to do the thing you haven’t learned or are confidently able to navigate the thing that feels murky and confusing to you. as one of my kids wrote in his end of year reflection letter: the more you ask for help the less you end up needing it, because you have so many people you can casually talk to or enlist assistance from that you’re typically able to solve your problems or challenges typically get solved before they become big scary paralyzing roadblocks. so don’t front! don’t perform! be honest and open about your own learning or the things you’re grappling with in ways that make the people around you feel like it’s okay for them to drop the act too and let others see when they too are in the process of learning something new

we are social creatures we are networked creatures we can’t do everything on our own we flourish when we build relationships with people who have skillsets and ways of looking at the world that are different from our own it’s okay/good/healthy to not be able to do everything and be everything on your own. build a really good community both of people who are skilled at the things that don’t come naturally to you (they can help you/teach you/introduce you to different ways of working) AND of people who are skilled at the things that you are good at (they will spark new ideas while pushing you to keep growing and learning).

anyway I am saying all of this aloud to myself because today I have gotten a bunch of very nice emails from faculty inviting me to attend a bunch of talks & end-of-semester student events and my first reaction was YIPPEE I CAN’T WAIT and my second reaction was what if I embarrass myself by not knowing enough and they’re all like wowwwww yikes and I am now gently steering myself towards my third reaction which is: gosh how incredibly lucky am I to have landed myself in a job where I’m going to have SO much room to grow as a person and a professional. I don’t know everything but I can reframe that fear for myself: if I knew everything there would be nothing left to learn! and I was born to learn!!!!! learning is where I thrive!!!!!!!! so even as I want to be thoughtful about what I take on (to preserve a non-work life for myself lol) I am also saying yes to every single invitation that involves talking to new people and learning more about what they do and building relationships that will help me thrive in this role. PHEW OK and now it’s time for bed

[brendughh]

COC DAY 2: AU!

It's my first fic! Here's a milkshake scene au from Heartstopper I did at 2 am, hope you enjoy. I also posted it on a03

For @ic3-que3n and @erzbethluna, your tags are not in vain

"Oh my god, no, that is a crime." Simon misses the snarky comments Baz used to make about his everything that he was almost caught by him in surprise. Almost.

"I can't believe you've just disrespected Unicorn Frappuccino infront of me." I thought you are fond of rainbows, Simon decides not to add.

"Unicorns don't taste like that, Snow." It tastes like lavender, actually. Baz knows this.

"All right let me try yours" Simon reaches for the cup that says 'Pumpkin Mocha Breave' and takes a sip. "wow. "

"See, I make good choices." Baz says, and the barista, (he likes to refer to himself as one) Levi, winks at him.

"We should share!"

"No Snow, you made your choice."

"But we are on a date. This this is what people do on dates, I think. Or maybe. Yeah I could just stick with my-"

Baz is proud at Simon for speaking his mind, but honestly, who does he think Baz is to say no to his gorgeous face? "It's alright, it's what people do."

And, with a little more confidence– " We should go on a real date you know, just us. If you want to."

"I'd love too, Baz."

"Im not interrupting anything, am I?" Agatha chimes in, popping their rose colored bubble.

Agatha. She doesn't know anything about Simon and Baz. Simon knows she likes Baz. Baz knows he really don't. Like. Agatha.

"No Aggs, uhm, me and Baz, we're just talking about-" he raise his hands to his chest, providing some life to his lie "milkshakes. Whose taste better."

"Hmm. If that is what I think it is, " she points at Baz's cup, "then Baz, you have my vote."

"Thank you, Wellbelove."

—

Penelope, Simon, Baz, and that girl in boycut all sit around their table waiting for Agatha and the rest of the milkshakes . Simon and Baz are side by side, facing Niamh and Agatha. Penelope wonders when did the two become friends. She and Agatha used to sit beside each other after all.

"So, Niamh, I didn't know you and Agatha are close friends."

"We are not," Niamh immediately regrets what she said adding "I mean, she asked me to be her train mate for lacrosse and I said yes." They were supposed to share the thing with them together.

The two boys are hoping for the exact same thing too. What is taking you so long, Agatha?

"I guess lacrosse has it’s way bringing people together. Just look at those two." Penelope gives a look at the boys. "They were literal enemies, and now I think Baz has replaced my title as Simon's best friend."

Best friend , Simon is turning red all while Baz's cough sabotages his own smile.

Thank Merlin, Agatha is finally here.

"What are you guys talking about?"

"Oh, babe. Penelope was talking about how good friends Simon and Baz are being these days. I think Penelope is jealous."

" I am not." says Penelope at the same time Baz said "Babe?"

Subtlety is not Niamh best suit.

"We actually invited you to tell something." Agatha carefully look at each person's eyes landing on Niamh the last. She is scared.

" I'm so sorry Baz, I know that it seems that I was attracted to you, but I don't want to give you false hope." Baz isn't sure if his snort is only audible to his head, or is also seen by everyone at the table.

"When Simon and I broke up, I thought you were the solution. I joined lacrosse to get close to you, then I met Niamh and I realized that you are not the solution neither Simon is the problem. I've been trying to solve something that is not made for me.

"Me and Niamh are dating. I am sorry if this hurts you Baz, but I am not sorry for who I like."

That is it. Agatha's petty face is the last straw. He is laughing, crying, and screaming, Simon- all of them- never heard Baz like this. He is manic.

"I'm sorry, do you find it funny that I like girls?"

Penny can see all the emotions passing through Aggie's face, she decides to call Baz out "Stop laughing Baz, nothing is wrong with being gay."

And then Simon is at it too. All the laughing is turning him into a tomato.

"You know what, I actually think this would go okay. You're a bunch of dicks." Standing up, Niamh goes to comfort her girlfriend. She thought that this would go okay too. Maybe she is wrong about Baz.

"Wait, Aggs, WAIT!" Suspending his laugh is not that hard for Simon when something special is at stake. They will all make a core memory of this.

"Wearenothomophobic"

"Simon, let me"

"But I want to be the one to tell them too!"

"Wellbel– Agatha. I don't find it funny that you like girls. It's just ridiculous that you think I would be hurt from that. I dont like you that way, I like guys. Me and Simon—

"Meandbazaretogetherandheisgay"

"I am gay. Simon and I are dating since last year, fifth grade." Baz let Simon join their hands together, completely smitten, he kisses it.

"I still don't know what I am but I really like Baz."

"I have something important to share with you guys too" they all face Penelope.

"I am straight."

They only stop laughing at each other when the ice in their drinks are melted.

[sixpossumsinatrenchcoat]

Auditions — ch 2 (of 5) — lockout

Hajime is just wandering down the beach, thinking about how to track down Komaeda without Chiaki and Sonia finding out and getting all stupid about it, when he trips over a lump in the sand and falls flat on his face. “Oh!” the lump greets him giddily. “Hajime! What a nice surprise.” ...Just his luck. “Hey, Komaeda-kun.” “Are you ever going to drop the formalities?” Komaeda laughs. “You could call me anything you want, you know. I wouldn’t mind.” “Uh huh.” “Even if it was really mean.” Hajime had got that impression, yeah.

[Danganronpa 2 spoilers thru the 3rd trial. You can start from ch 1 here: https://ao3.org/works/51548557/chapters/130285615]

Hajime doesn’t have a crush on Komaeda. It’s just that, now that the girls already brought it up, he can’t stop thinking about how bad it would suck if he did.

It’s Sonia’s fault, really. As the Ultimate Princess, it's her job to decide what’s true. To impose her will on the world around her and expect it to bend to her. Sonia got it in her head that there was a problem to solve, and now suddenly there’s a problem. And the problem is that, all of a sudden, Hajime can’t just be fucking normal around Komaeda. 

“Hajime!” a scratchy voice greets him, and Hajime spits his coffee halfway across the table.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Komaeda says sunnily. “I didn’t mean to ruin your appetite. I should really know better, haha! Looking at me would make anyone sick.”

“N-No,” Hajime rasps. He’s still trying to wring the coffee out of his alveoli. “That’s n—” 

But he can’t force the words past all the coughing. Which is annoying, because for once, Komaeda doesn’t seem to be in one of his moods. His eyes shine clear and bright: serpentine, not jade.

“Haha! Sorry, Hajime. That’s luck for you. But hey, I’ll see you around!”

Hajime can’t swallow around the lump in his throat. So he chokes on it. 

###

“You’re being really annoying,” Chiaki tells him later.

“I’m what?”

“Being really annoying.”

Okay, so he obviously heard her. “How so.”

“All this stuff about Komaeda,” she says calmly, without looking up from her game. “I mean. If you want to know what he’s thinking, shouldn’t you just ask?”

Hah. Wow. Right. Shows how much she knows. Komaeda would never just answer a question. That’s why Hajime has to stay two steps ahead by never asking one.

Chiaki looks dubious. “Are you sure you’re not just scared?”

“S-Scared??” Hajime sputters. “How—or, I mean—of what?”

"I dunno." Chiaki’s eyes stay locked on her screen. "Being wrong. Being embarrassed. Not being on the same page."

“Wh— I’m scared of dying!”

Chiaki's game lets out the crunchy little blip-blp-bl000p of Game Over. When she finally looks up, she looks distinctly unimpressed. “You and everyone else.”

###

Okay, this is getting ridiculous. 

The girls just got in his head a little. That doesn’t mean they’re right. Sonia gets fired up about all kinds of stuff that isn’t real. J-dramas, mostly. Sometimes she’ll get so wrapped up in a series, it's like she can't even remember where fiction ends and reality begins. She’ll start prodding Hajime to trade his tie for an ascot, or begging Chiaki to let her put her hair in pigtails ‘please, Chi-chan, just for tonight; I just know you’ll look -just- like Ai-sama!’

This is probably the same thing. Probably Sonia has been binging some ridiculous BL office drama and got it in her head that Hajime and Komaeda are star-crossed lovers, and not just two normal kids having an insanely traumatic semester. (Well. One normal kid and one total wild card. But the point stands.)

Hajime just has to remind himself of what’s real. By hanging out with the actual Komaeda. And then he’ll remember that, in real life, Komaeda is fucking terrifying. 

Besides. To have a crush on someone, you probably need to know literally anything about them. Any tiny, insignificant little detail that feels true. And Hajime knows full well that he’s never gonna get that from Komaeda. Komaeda is a mystery wearing another mystery as a hat. He’s a ludicrous fucking layer-cake of facades. Masks on masks on even weirder, more unsettling masks until you finally accept that you’re never going to reach the bottom, because it’s masks all the way down. 

…Like he said. Fucking terrifying.

###

Hajime is just wandering down the beach, thinking about how to track down Komaeda without Chiaki and Sonia finding out and getting all stupid about it, when he trips over a lump in the sand and falls flat on his face. 

“Oh!” the lump greets him giddily. “Hajime! What a nice surprise.” 

…Just his luck. “Hey, Komaeda-kun.”

Komaeda laughs. “Are you ever going to drop the formalities? You could call me anything you want, you know. I wouldn’t mind.”

“Uh huh.”

“Even if it was really mean.”

Hajime had got that impression, yeah. “Is there something you want me to call you?”

“Huh? What I want doesn’t come into it! A worthless animal like me shouldn’t get any say in the matter.”

Ugh. Komaeda always looks so cheerful when he’s degrading himself. It’s honestly really disorienting. “Komaeda-kun, then.”

“Haha! You’re so stalwart, Hajime. So unyielding. The hope that might be born of such resolve… Just thinking about it gives me goosebumps!”

“Komaeda-kun,” Hajime says abruptly. He almost loses his nerve when Komaeda aims that double-barreled mirrored stare straight at him. Then he remembers that he definitely doesn’t have a crush. “Do you—uh. Do you ever think about anything other than hope?”

“Hm? What do you mean?”

“Like… I dunno. Stuff that catches your eye, or… stuff you want. For you, I mean. Not for ‘humanity’s future,’ or whatever.”

“Haha! Oh, Hajime. Even if I did want something, what would it matter?”

“But if it did.”

Komaeda frowns. (Hajime can never tell if Komaeda is making fun of him or listening with deadly seriousness. Or if maybe it’s both things at once? You can never really tell, with Komaeda.)

“‘But if it did,’” Komaeda muses. “Hm. I guess I must have desires, like anyone else. But I’ve never seen any correlation between wanting something and getting it. So maybe I’ve inoculated myself against… I don’t know. Expectation? Since it doesn’t seem very useful.”

Hajime lets out his breath. As usual, Komaeda’s given him a lot to think about. And as usual, Hajime has no idea what to do with it. “...Komaeda.”

“Yes, Hajime?”

“Do you ever just… not talk?”

“Haha! What an interesting question. But of course I do! Even a worthless animal like me can appreciate a comfortable silence, just like any other man. In fact, some of the most meaningful moments in my life passed me by without a single word. Just the simple understanding shared by two people who have no need for speech. Why do you ask?”

“Huh? Oh. No reason.”

###

“Hajime-kun,” Sonia tells him that night. “Your behavior of late has been… untoward.”

Huh? “Huh?”

“Or, rather—not untoward, but, perhaps… unseemly?”

“...Uh.”

Sonia sighs. “You are distracted, Hajime-kun. Which is wholly understandable, in the circumstance! I am not displeased so much as I am… concerned. Do not fear, Hajime! Such a trifling concern could not threaten our bond! If someone were to invoke the blood-rite of disrespect, I would not hesitate to take up arms in your name!”

“Oh. Or, I mean. Thanks?”

“Of course!! You are my comrade, and I yours! Should the need arise, I would defend you to my dying breath! ...But I would, of course, prefer to avoid such an outcome altogether.”

Hajime is lost. “I’m sorry, I have no idea what you're getting at.”

“Oh my god, Hajime,” Chiaki huffs, startling them both. Hajime thought she’d been asleep for hours. “She’s obviously talking about Komaeda.”

“In what world was that obvious??”

“Chiaki-chan speaks the truth,” Sonia admits. “I have the utmost admiration for you, but… I fear that this fixation may compromise your focus.”

“This what?”

“No, Sonia’s right,” Chiaki cuts in. “You’re all over the place, Hajime. No offense.”

“Wh– Of course I’m offended!”

“Unresolved tension poisons the mind,” Sonia agrees, nodding. “Left unchecked, it is as insidious as any neurotoxin. And your wits have been our salvation three times over. I wish to believe that no more of our beloved friends will come to harm, but…” She bites her lip and then shakes her head fiercely. “No. I will not allow it. I will not lose anyone else. Which means that I cannot allow you to succumb to distraction.”

“Okay? I… won’t?” 

“Then you’ll speak to Komaeda,” Sonia tells him. It doesn’t sound like a question. “And seize the answers that you so desire. By any means necessary.”

Hajime runs out of patience. “What answers!! What’s even the question? …And I do talk to Komaeda, by the way. I just talked to him this morning. It’s just that trying to get a straight answer out of him is pointless. So I’m not sure what you want me to say.” 

“I see,” Sonia sighs. “You refuse to make your feelings known.”

“My—??? I don’t have any—”

She shakes her head sadly. “The hard way, then.”

###

So that’s how Hajime winds up locked out of his own cottage, in his pajamas, on murder island. Barefoot. In the middle of the fucking night. 

###

“You guys,” Hajime says. Endlessly, excruciatingly reasonable. “This is crazy. You know this is crazy, right?”

“It is for your own good!!” Sonia wails through the door. “We only want you to be happy!!!!”

“Oh, I’m happy,” he says darkly. “I’ve never been so happy. The only way I could get any happier is if I was in bed. In my room.”

He can just barely hear Chiaki’s breathy monotone. “You can come back whenever you want. You just have to talk to Komaeda first.”

“And say what!!”

“Only you can answer that, Hajime-kun.” That would be Sonia, of course, sounding just as self-assured as she is totally off-base. 

“And if I refuse?”

There’s no answer. 

Hajime rolls his eyes. He’s not sure how Sonia managed to talk Chiaki into this ridiculous little game—or if maybe it was the other way around? Frankly, it’s a little out of character for either of them. But he can sort of see how, together, they might talk each other into it. 

Not that it really matters. Hajime isn’t planning to stoop to their level. Even if he wanted to play along, what would he even say? Hey, Komaeda-kun. Sorry to stop by so late! It’s just that my girlfriends think I have a crush on you, and they’re worried it’s going to make me worse at investigating murders.

…Yeah, no. Hajime will pass, thanks.

He kills a few minutes on the boardwalk, kicking his feet over the edge of the bridge and looking at the stars. Once he decides that it’s been long enough to lend a little credence to his story, he hops up and raps on the door. 

“Sorry, guys. He didn’t answer. He’s probably asleep.”

“You didn’t even knock!!” Sonia shrills.

Chiaki’s voice comes through a little quieter. “You know we can see you, right?” 

Hajime thunks the butt of his palm against his forehead. No, he did not know that. Obviously. “You’re seriously not going to let me in?”

More silence. 

“You guys are being crazy,” Hajime mutters. “This is, like… mutiny, or something.”

“It’s only mutiny if you’re in charge,” Chiaki points out. “This is just coercion.”

“…You’re gonna feel really bad if I get murdered.”

“W-We have faith in our classmates!” Sonia squeaks. 

“Shh,” Chiaki hisses. “You’re encouraging him.”

###

What else can he do? Grudgingly, reluctantly, very much under duress, Hajime makes his way to Komaeda’s cottage. 

The lights are on, but he can’t hear any signs of life. There’s no huff of breath, no scuff of human motion. 

Hajime squeezes his eyes shut. This is a nightmare. He’s not even properly dressed. He was already half-asleep when the girls asked him to “investigate” the “weird noise” that they definitely didn’t actually hear. So instead of his uniform, he’s stuck in a pair of ratty sweats and a sleep-shirt worn so thin that it’s more hole than cotton. It would almost be less embarrassing to lose the shirt entirely. But only almost.

Whatever. The girls just need to think that he tried, right? Then he can set all this exhausting crap aside and go to the fuck to bed. 

He raises one hand and taps at the door with just the tip of one fingernail. If he’s lucky, Komaeda won’t even notice.

“It’s unlocked!” Komaeda calls cheerfully, because of course he does. Because Hajime has never been lucky in his entire stupid life.

Well. No turning back now. 

Hajime takes a breath and shoves the door open.

###

Komaeda wasn’t lying. The door is totally unlocked. Hajime peers through the crack with all the grim trepidation of a man called to identify the body of his only son. "Uh. You, uh. Don't lock your door."

“Are you suggesting that I distrust our beloved classmates?” Komaeda asks mildly. He's lying on the floor, for some reason, even though his bed is literally right next to him. “That’s not very hopeful of you, Hajime. Besides. To be a stepping stone for such powerful hope would be my life’s greatest honor. If one of you Ultimates deigned to dirty your hands with my blood, I could die truly happy.”

Huh. It’s weird… Komaeda is saying the same weird shit as ever, but. It’s like his heart isn’t in it, or something? For the first time that Hajime can remember, Komaeda looks tired. Chewed down to the bone. Even when he was chained up in the old hotel, uncomfortable and underfed and utterly alone, he never looked like this. 

And why is he wearing his normal clothes? It's, like, one in the morning. Hajime might not remember how he got to this island, but he still found a neatly-packed suitcase waiting for him in his cottage. The dresser was stuffed with t-shirts and blazers and crisp white button-downs, a wardrobe that some fundamental corner of his brain recognized implicitly. But Komaeda’s room looks barren. Untouched. Like there’s no one living here at all.

Now that he thinks of it, this is probably his first time seeing inside Komaeda’s room. He’s not sure what he expected. Sculptures made from fingernails and human hair? A shrine in worship to some vague, unspecified future hope? But Komaeda’s room looks the same as anyone else’s. Wide glass windows. White wood walls. Unvarnished floors. Except that Komaeda has a fridge, for some reason. Why didn’t Hajime get a fridge?

“Um.” Hajime shifts his weight from one foot to the other. He can’t stop thinking about the pajama thing. Surely Komaeda doesn’t sleep in skinny jeans. “Uh. Do you… really mean that?”

Komaeda finally looks up. When he sees Hajime’s sleepwear—the frayed sweats; the overstretched shirt—his eyebrows go up. “Trying out a new look? It suits you.”

“Fuck off,” Hajime says tiredly.

“I mean it.” Komaeda’s eyes linger on Hajime’s collarbone and then drift slowly, almost languid, down his chest. “Haha!! You’ve been holding out on us, Hajime-kun.”

Hajime rolls his eyes. “You don’t always have to make fun of me.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. I can’t figure out why everyone always seems to think otherwise. But putting that aside… What brings you here, Hajime? Unless…” Komaeda leans forward, suddenly eager. “Have you finally come to kill me?”

“Uh. No. Sorry.”

“I expected as much,” he sighs, leaning back on his palms. “Ah, well. Then why are you here?”

Right. That is the obvious question. “I'm. Locked out.”

“How strange! I thought our rooms only locked from the inside.”

Of course he wouldn’t just let it go. Hajime bites the bullet. “…Chiaki locked me out.”

Komaeda lets out a startled laugh. Hajime is at least 30% sure that this one is genuine. “But why was— Oh, Hajime, really? You and Nanami-san? Not that I can't see it, of course; two such inspiring minds, trapped in such… compromising circumstances. Still, Nanami-san is hardly worldly. However did you manage it?” Before Hajime can say a word, Komaeda is already answering his own question. “No… You would never make the first move, would you, Hajime? I’ll bet you let her seduce you.”

“Wh. What makes you say that.” 

For the briefest instant, Komaeda’s eyes flash with something like annoyance. “Haha! You’re an exceptional specimen, Hajime, but—if I can be honest? You’re unusually dense.” His smirk, when it arrives, comes with too many teeth. “I’ll bet you didn’t notice what she wanted till she reached out and took it.”

“It’s not like that,” Hajime says loudly. It is actually a little bit like that, but not in the way Komaeda means. “Or. Um. She just—sleeps over sometimes.” No, that still sounds way too suggestive. “Because of. All the murder?”

“I see. Because of the murder.”

“S-Sonia sleeps over too,” Hajime blurts out. Shit, is that better or worse? Why does it feel so important that Komaeda not get the wrong idea about Hajime being off the market? “Uhh. Chiaki wants to invite Kuzuryu. To sleep over. Also. As well.” What the fuck, what the fuck are you saying, why are you STILL talking????

“I see,” Komaeda says again, this time with a glimmer of amusement. “Well! That certainly sounds lively.”

“Y-Yeah.”

“You must have quite a lot of energy, for all that… hospitality.” Komaeda brightens. “Perhaps that’s your talent!”

God, Hajime hopes not. 

“You seem very flushed, Hajime-kun,” Komaeda says innocently. “Are you, perhaps, afraid?”

“Huh? No. Or—of what?” 

“To be alone with scum like me, of course! All alone at night, with someone so disreputable… Aren’t you just a little bit scared of what I might do?”

“What? No.” He’s surprised to find that he means it. Hajime really doesn’t see Komaeda killing him. Or anyone else here, actually. “You’re not gonna kill me, Komaeda. We’re both walking out of here alive.”

Komaeda looks impressed. “Do you know already how you’re going to die, Hajime?”

Ugh. “That’s obviously not what I meant.”

“Would you like to?” 

Hajime freezes. 

“I could tell you, probably,” Komaeda says. Still with that same friendly smile. “If you wanted.”

“Are you… threatening me?”

“That is a romantic thought,” Komaeda says thoughtfully. “But—no. I’m afraid that I could only take a guess. But I'm a very good guesser.” His eyes glitter. “Do you want to find out?”

“Uh,” Hajime chokes out. He tries to swallow, but his mouth is too dry. “But. Um. If you guessed right, and then it happened, then… isn’t it sort of like you did it?”

“Is that what you think?” 

“I asked first.”

Komaeda chuckles. “This isn’t a class trial, Hajime. I’m under no obligation to answer. But if you’re really that curious, then… yes. I suppose I do.”

“Oh.”

“Your turn.”.

“—Uh?”

“To answer something for me.”

Hajime stares like a deer in headlights. Tracking the coming impact but helpless to stop it. The thump of meat against the hood. The broken crunch of bone.

Komaeda smiles like a fox. “Why did Nanami-san lock you out?”

“Uhh,” Hajime says. “I—She thinks—or. I mean. Her and Sonia, they both… I guess they think I need to…” God, it sounds so fucking stupid. “I don’t know. ‘Understand you.’ Or something.”

“H-Haha!! Aw, come on, Hajime. Buy me dinner first, at least. I’m joking!” Komaeda laughs, while Hajime sputters. “After all, you’re our best and brightest hope. If you wanted to, you could take anything you wanted.”

Hajime chokes. 

Komaeda’s eyes narrow. “...Oh. That is what you want.” His mouth curves into a thin smile. It’s not a nice smile. “You’re easier than I thought, Hajime-kun.”

“I have to,” Hajime says, too loud. “Go. And. Break into my room?”

“The lock on the window sticks,” Komaeda says absently. “It never latches properly. So it’s easy to force it open.”

Great. That is really cool to hear from the scariest person on this island. “Uh. Thanks.” 

With one foot out the door, Hajime hesitates. “Komaeda?” 

“Yes, Hajime?”

“Do you know how you’re going to die?” 

For a second, Komaeda looks very, very tired. “Haha. Yes. I suppose I could take a guess.”

###

The instant his front door opens, Hajime is already hurtling through it. “I think Komaeda’s trying to seduce me.” 

Sonia brightens. “Oh, good for you!” 

“Yeah, congrats, Hajime.”

“No, I mean—”

“If this is about my prior concerns,” Sonia says bravely, “you needn’t worry! I've already come to terms. The chemistry was undeniable.”

Chiaki nods in agreement. “He’s grown on me a little. He hasn’t tried to kill anyone for ages.”

“He never—!!” Hajime takes a breath. “I just… really think he did that stuff because he knew we’d get through it.” I’m a very good guesser, Komaeda’s memory whispers, and another piece of the puzzle slides into focus. “He was… betting on us, I think. And. Trusting his luck.”

“Hah!” a new voice laughs. “Man, you sure know how to pick ‘em. You got a thing for blondes or somethin’?”

Hajime whips around. “K-Kuzuryu?????”

Against all odds, Ultimate Gangster Kuzuryu Fuyuhiko is sitting on Hajime’s desk, looking utterly at ease. When Hajime turns to stare, he shrugs. “Hey, I’m not here to judge.”

“No, I mean— What are you doing in my room???”

Kuzuryu bristles. “That’s a lotta judgment from a guy who’s shacked up with half the class, apparently.”

“I’m not—”

“Kuzuryu-san came looking for you!” Sonia says brightly. “He hoped to discuss something of grave importance! He was taken aback to find us instead, but it would have been horribly rude to leave him out in the cold.”

It is 86 degrees outside.

Kuzuryu’s hand finds the back of his neck. “Look, you don’t gotta dance around it, alright? I got it. I'll get out of your hair.”

“N-No, no, it’s not that,” Hajime rushes to explain. “It’s just. Uh. I… think we’re gonna need a bigger bed.”

If you wanna find out when I update next, you can always find the latest on ao3!

[ssj2hindudude]

If Jeremy Belpois was petty to the writers.

Thomas Romain: Aw yeah. Things are looking up. We've got Code Lyoko: Evolution in the works, a more orchestrated version of "A World Without Danger" for the theme, live action, and cleaner 3d models, it's gonna be lit!

Tania Palumbo: Heck yeah! And the first episode is gonna be called "X.A.N.A. 2.0" so people know what's up! And we're bringing William back and making him a full member of the team! So looking forward to this!

Jeremy: Uh, guys?

Thomas: Oh, hey Jeremy! What are you doing here?

Jeremy: Well, I just heard the news about what's gonna go down in the new sequel series and I just wanted to ask you something.

Tania: Oh, well, go ahead! We're all ears!

Jeremy: Yeah, um, why don't I have a Lyoko avatar?

Thomas: Uhhh

Jeremy: It's just something that's been bugging me. I mean, you pretty much kept brushing me off with this throughout the original and when I heard we were getting a sequel, I thought, "Oh, maybe now's my chance" but now I'm hearing I'm still not getting a 3d model?!?

Tania: Look, Jeremy, we can explain-

Jeremy: What's there to explain?!? You had me be the face of the show constantly in the original, having me look ridiculously goofy in the cover art as a 2d character next to everyone's 3d Lyoko models, and now that you have a bigger budget for cleaner animation, you're just gonna brush me off again?!?

Thomas: Jeremy, you're the computer guy! We needed someone to-

Jeremy: To look after the supercomputer every episode. I get it. In the first few seasons, I was the only one who could work the supercomputer, but you lost that excuse when Aelita was finally de-virtualized and was just as proficient with the supercomputer as I was. Plus, how many times did the others have to step up and take over when I was out? Heck, Sissy took over once and we got through!

Tania: Ok, that's fair. But it's not like we left fans without a reason! You were scared of the scanners!

Jeremy: You lost that excuse the day you had Aelita scan me into that little bubble of 2d animation where I still didn't get a Lyoko model, btw! That could've been my debut! I finally wasn't afraid of the scanners anymore and could've walked out of there looking GOATed!

Thomas: We just didn't think people would be that interested since you're-

Jeremy: A nerd, right? So, you're telling me the fans wouldn't have cared and I didn't get enough clout to have my own Avatar despite being the face of the show???

Writers: ...

Jeremy: And it's not like you didn't have concept art from the beginning, I mean look at this!

Thomas: Oh, come on! You gotta admit, the elf look is cute but not as awesome as the others. Plus, the Legend of Zelda fandom would've been after us faster than an actual XANA attack!

Jeremy: So, you don't think after all this time, you could've edited it to look better? Alright bet, let me show you something. Do the words "Code Lyoko: Overpowered" ring a bell to you?

Thomas: OH-

Jeremy: Yeah, I want you to take one look at this and tell me there's no drip here:

Tania: You gotta admit, this has more drip than a waterfall.

Thomas: *sigh* Tania, you're not helping.

Jeremy: I could've been something huge, man! My glasses could've been upgraded to goggles, I could've had tech gear, I could've had drip! You totally f***ed me up! I could've led the team in both the real world and cyberspace.

Thomas: Even if we gave you an avatar, what powers would we even give you?!? You're literally just skilled with the computer and the program upgrades your physical skills.

Jeremy: Oh wow, that's a tough one. Just as a thought, maybe you could've, I don't know, BASED IT OFF OF AELITA'S POWERS! Dude, before the energy spheres, she barely had anything either and she was still a major asset. I could've been another character that could deactivate the towers! Do you know how many of our problems would've been solved if the team had a backup key!

Tania: I mean, then the stakes wouldn't have been as high.

Jeremy: We are dealing with a sentient program bent on world domination and you're saying the stakes aren't high enough? If literally any of the towers or replicas weren't stopped in time, WHAT WERE WE GONNA DO??? We would've been TOAST!

Thomas: Ok, maybe you have a point.

Jeremy: Even then, I still could've had other powers. Do you realize how OP I would've been with my computer knowledge put to work inside the actual computer? I could've had a holographic keyboard giving us all kinds of access while still virtualized! I could've been out here flying, shutting monsters down left and right, I could've been a GOD in Lyoko! You robbed me of that!

Thomas: And what if XANA 2.0 got you? What if we had another William situation on our hands, what would you have done?

Jeremy: Well, one of two things would've happened. Either (1), the whole thing would've lasted an episode with Aelita using the program we used to bring back William or (2) We would've had a whole arc of trying to get me back while also showing my thoughts merged with XANA 2.0's and given us more insight into the character, which would've gotten the fans even more invested! We could've found out whether XANA 2.0 had its father's memories of being left behind by Franz Hopper, why it wanted to take over the world in the first place, whether William ever had some kind of impact on it. WE COULD'VE HAD A DEEPER STORYLINE GOING HERE!

Tania: Not gonna lie, that is pretty good. It would've had me invested.

Jeremy: But no, you still think people are just gonna brush me off as a nerd despite my live-action counterpart looking like Cody Martin with glasses right before he evolved into Jughead Jones. I could've been something, man! You f***ed me up you godd*** f***ing imbecile!

Thomas: How are you even censoring your curses right now?!?

Jeremy: I hacked this conversation and now can curse like a motherf***ing sailor! That's how f***ing GOATed I am!

Tania: We really should've given him an Avatar.

Thomas: Dammit...

[ignylinn]

Right, so I was going to write smth about Veilguard after I finished it. But I'm 23 hours in, my eyes are blurry and I need to pause, but I'm still mentally there, so.

Spoilers ahead.

As my friend said, this game should have been titled Guilt-Tripping in the Fade. Unlike other games, I have no clear answer as to why our guys are the ones to lead the fight here. It was clear in Origins. DA2 showed the whole path for Hawke and how he got himself into that situation in the third act. It was pretty obvious in DAI.

Here? It looks like

a) Varric is very caught up in his life narrative, and

b) Literally everyone feels responsible or guilty, and the main drive here is correcting their mistakes (regardless of their responsibility)

c) Well, there is also Solas inhabiting Rook's mind, but that's a nice bonus.

Sometimes it feels weird, like when you have to choose between saving one of the two cities. Like... I'm literally just one person, nothing special. Minrathous is stuffed with really powerful mages, why would I make any difference.

Anyway, this slight weirdness is my only complaint so far.

Now to good things in no particular order.

I'm playing a mage, I really love that they gave mages a second set of weapons. I'm having a blast with melee mage.

Factions are cool! I was choosing between Mourn Watch and Shadow Dragons (chose the second), but all of them are cool. I did not quite get the feeling of Lords of Fortune yet, though. I think I might do a Crow on my second playthrough.

Locations are also fantastic. Also, I like that they you need visit all of them often, cause new quests are added now and then. Treviso is my favorite though. Minrathous is a bit underwhelming, but we shall see.

Companions. I love voice acting here. Almost cried several times, especially with Harding. I do not yet have any favorites. I mean, they are all extremely likable in their unique ways

I think I especially like Davrin's story. Like, there is little sad backstory, he is just a struggling single dad, and I feel like the three of us have a nice queer platonic family by now. Or I am the uncle.

Taash really feels extremely young compared to everyone else, they are just trying to find their way in life and does not yet understand complexities of it (in my playthrough Taash is still thinking on their gender identity, but the wiki uses "they", so). Meanwhile, everyone else is significantly older and already seen all the shit.

Also, initially I thought I would not like Bellara, cause she is annoying in the way that does not vibe with me at all - but no, she also grew on me. I suspect she is in relationship with Neve. I mean, Neve flirts with anything female looking, but they def have something special.

I am romancing Lucanis, cause just... have you seen him? Have you talked to him?

Harding really makes me cry half the time, and I suspect her story will be tragic.

I will see how the others' stories will go, and I'm tired.

Finally, Solas. I played Solavellan once in DAI, just to see how it goes, but he never grew on me. Here, however. Rook's talk with Solas in the Fade? That's just... wow. The tension is palpable, and their relationship is so so so intense. I would definitely read some fanfiction about this.

Oh, oh, and I also like how they solved problem with Orlais and Ferelden - well, there is Inquisition, they are dealing with the issue in the South.

Also, you can pet all the pets. Unfortunately, I could not pet one cat because it was chilling between two other cats, and I could not catch the necessary position to pet this parrticular cat.

This is a very grave bug and needs to be patched ASAP.

Unfortunatel, I play through a cloud service, so for the love of me I have zero idea where the photos from photomode were saved :( just a regular screenshot.