#i wish either of them had. idk. some agency in the story

[mimicmew]

fnaf puppet and circus baby i can save you from this shitty franchise

[fullmetal-scar-simping]

Remember that scene where Heinkel implores Alphonse to use the Philosopher’s Stone against Pride, arguing the souls within it would want him to fight?

That should’ve been Scar and his mentor. Those are Ishvalan lives, and while Heinkel at least wasn’t involved in the genocide and has also been dehumanized and experimented on by the system, he’s still a white man and a former soldier, imploring a white boy to use these resources to save Amestris.

Idk I think it’d be soooo much more compelling if Scar’s mentor went from being skeptical of his violence to recognizing the need. To see him remind Scar that he’s ultimately committing an alchemical taboo anyway for the sake of his fellow Ishvalans. Something about Ishvalan souls reclaiming actual agency via the mentor being a fellow Ishvalan himself, acknowledging they would likely want Scar to use them.

And not to protect Amestris, but to protect the Ishvalan refugees within the circle. That isn’t talked about enough, if at all; Scar says he’ll save this country so he can change it (so he can save his people) but what about the fact that we’ve already seen two communities within the border of the circle?

What about him doing this to prevent the remaining Ishvalans from being sacrificed into a Philosopher’s Stone, and how the lives of a prior stone would feel the same way? What about Scar recognizing that the Promised Day transmutation circle was what his people were slaughtered for, and so he won’t let anymore die in direct fulfillment of it?

And then when Scar is mortally stabbed by Wrath, whose mindless violence is contrasted with Scar’s meaningful, justified violence, he actually gets to use the stone to save his own life and live and heal. Because these Ishvalans would give up their lives to save their kinsmen. That’s exactly what Scar is doing. It would give them peace to reclaim their objectification as energy that is instead used to prevent further harm to their community. All while giving their souls peace by freeing them.

At least it’s not a white doctor who created this specific stone from their lives speaking on their behalf to a war criminal who’s killed more Ishvalans than anyone else, saying that Mustang needs to heal his eyes and ultimately use these souls for the good of the remaining Ishvalans so if you think about it this is what these Ishvalan souls would REALLY want. Because there’s no way Mustang could possibly give reparations to the Ishvalan community as a blind man who is still wealthy and with connections to the new Fuhrer (reminder that state alchemist payrolls are huge and there’s multiple jokes about this too).

Man I wish instead of Father talking hot shit about how life is unfair in a neutered take on Dante’s Equivalent Exchange is Bullshit speech, with Ed rebuking him, Father did the opposite; Contrasting Dante’s speech by suggesting this ‘injustice’ of Roy losing his sight IS the rightful toll for his genocide. Maybe even insinuating that Hughes’ murder was also justice, too, ever think about that human? Both villains in either version of the story having different takes on whether equivalent exchange is real, yet ultimately using it to deliver the same brutal wake-up call to our MC.

If this had been what Brotherhood served instead of the hot garbage that is its actual canon I'd have been over the moon. (Would still dislike a lot of other things, but at least I'd be able to say I enjoyed it enough to not want to launch it into the sun.) Seriously, I love this take on the last chunk of mangahood.

We were absolutely robbed of any opportunity for a dialogue between Scar, his Master, living Ishvalans, and the souls that comprise that particular stone. How that could have eventually led his Master to rigorously challenge both Scar's and his own clashing spiritual, culture-honouring, and political philosophies. Perhaps have some other monks of Ishvala (is there a specific way to refer to practitioners of the Ishvalan faith?) bring up their own shift in perspectives, some agreeing with the methods of rebel fighters and Scar's tactics. And contrast these opinions with those who are resistant to adapting their beliefs and goals (because of course some will not budge). The dissonance between passivity feigning as tradition, leaving Ishvalans at the mercy of Amestris and other powerful nations for the foreseeable future; versus an active stance of principled violence and land reclamation, that seeks to give Ishvalans a fighting chance against full annihilation/unending displacement/amalgamation. Coming to a head with the Master imploring Scar to use it as needed, in a form of restitution and ceremony that finally grants the dead to peace.

And man, how that would enhance Scar's battle against Bradley. (What you wrote about how this could change that showdown, and what that would mean for the transmuted Ishvalans, Scar, and his people-!!!! 🥹) That he has to allow his own people to heal him, while reminded that Ishvalans are actually in his corner. That he isn't doing this for Amestris, that countering Father's nation-wide circle is to protect surviving Ishvalans. Having the knowledge that if he is forgiven and cared for by his own people, then salvation need not come from prostrating himself to Amestris whatsoever.

All of this would of course require Scar to have never fully reneged on his own actions against the State, even after being cornered into agreeing to aid the military insurrectionists. Some part of him cannot swallow their chauvinistic idealism that still centers the protection of the existing imperial nation. Slowly returning to a rejection of this rickety compliance with the military writ large. And you wouldn't necessarily have to retcon the fuck-awful Briggs recuperation of Scar either. It just can't go from the canon bs "Woah yeah, being an Ishvalan ~changing minds~ in the military is so based, unlike me, who is shitbad," to a sudden "We need violence to upend Amestrian domination of our people". Some part of him, even with his coerced comradery, would have to be internally rejecting that premise, and increasingly so. Without that, the change wouldn't scan imo.

Scar and his Master actually tearing into the meat of Scar's and his brother's blasphemy; what Scar has seen in his path of vengeance, as well as what he's seen/overheads regarding the attitudes of the military members who wish to overthrow Bradley, with their obvious bid for self-serving power rather than seeing Ishvalans and other occupied peoples as anything more than bartering chips; the will of the transmuted Ishvalans pushing through the stone just enough to rally their wishes for liberation of their living kinsmen; Scar and his Master having to reevaluate some of their long held beliefs and their distaste for all forms of alchemy. Hell, getting to see Scar admit to his Master what his brother had been studying and what he discovered in the process when he was recruiting Ishvalan refugees for the coup effort would have been a huge character moment for them both!

We could have had it all.

Rip to what could have been, but bless those few fans with taste and the wide range of changes/ideas you all have shared so far! You guys make talking about mangahood far more enjoyable than it has any right to be.

With the Ishvalan stone, I wouldn't be surprised if Scar would have to reclaim it out of Amestrian possession secretly. Maybe, without yet fully tapping into the unheard voices of their souls, he could feel them resonate and rejoice being in Ishvalan hands. The weeping of the damned who cannot bare to be used by Amestris for one second longer stirring his (re)growing suspicion and anger against the people who forced him to ally with their cause at the cost of his degradation and threat of imprisonment (and let's be real here, the threat of execution by the State was guaranteed if he rebuked Miles and therefore got arrested). He could feel their storm of memories and regrets, their hopes and their sorrows. If the stone could have called for action against the homunculi, they would just as much call for action against the human monsters as well.

But no, instead of all of that we focused on the will and humanity of the Xerxian philosopher's stone exclusively.

(Super love the military getting to exploit Scar's deep-seated self-hatred and suicidality for their own gain. Cool moment all around. Awesome. Really good stuff there. Very reformed. Checkmate, Scar.)

Everything you mentioned re: Father, his neutered approximation of Dante's speech, and what you would have preferred his perspective to be is 💯💯💯. ESPECIALLY with how he would mock Roy for having his eyesight taken in order to fulfill his own plans for yet another nation-wide sacrifice. It would serve as a biting counterargument to the nonsense excuse that Roy and friends "had no choice in joining the military and killing Ishvalans". His choices led him to desecrate so many lives for himself, to transmute as much of a (smaller) country as possible for their own goals (thus having already served Father). How would this be any different then? Mustang can argue with Truth and Father that he was forced to perform human transmutation, but why did that ever excuse anything in the past? Did clinging to the nation "betraying" Mustang's naivete ever spare any suffering for anyone? He has part of himself nonconsentually sacrificed now because of his continued pigheadedness, suffering only a fraction of what he's done. And Roy thinks he's going to make reparations for so thoroughly incinerating Ishval by vying for the Fuhrership? The very system Father and scores of humans built? This is the toll for everything foolish people like Roy have done. It's not random or unfair insofar that equivalency can merely be another way of describing consequences. Survivors might interpret Mustang's maiming as justice, so why should he resist that when he still wants to hold the power that decided their fates to begin with?

Father could have been a more cold, conniving fucker who grinds Mustang's remaining fortitude into dust. From there Roy would either have to have the greatest reckoning of his life as the eclipse fast approaches and understand that reforming what Father and his legions have created is not worth it after all, or be a husk who falls crumbles under his desperate need for a seat of power that would never be his anyway. Buuuuuuuut that would ruin the big fun shonen fuck yeah humans rock we're all best pals slapping faux-god wowowowow action scenes and alchemic-jojo punching and our protags were always right and just and super cool finale that 99% of the fanbase has been fellating since 2010. So. 💩

Total aside, but the design for Father's humanoid homunculus form (when he sheds Hohenheim's appearance for the eclipse) sucks so much ass lmao

[skyloftian-nutcase]

Imo I’d suggest writing it bc some people haven’t read everything (me tbh) and so idk who ur guys r or what their personalities r etc, but most importantly for u, if u wanna write it then u totally should, no matter what u think other people will think❤️

Anon, thank you LOL, I was going into quite the silly spiral. Anyway, I have A LOT of things to say about blorbos, so I’ll just talk about two who probably won’t get much fleshing out because I write piecemeal for them and their story isn’t really something that’s gonna be on AO3 or anything because they’re backstory characters.

Rambles under the cut :D

Orik/Link, Hero of Power – Born of a Hylian mother and a Sheikah father, Link lost his mother to childbirth and his father to illness shortly after. He was raised in his father’s culture, collectively raised by multiple families that pitched in to look after orphans after the illness that killed many in their tribe. Link went by the name Orik during his childhood, as Sheikah viewed the name Link as sacred, and not to be given to Sheikah children. He liked the name Link, though, and wanted to have something of his mother’s. He kept a shawl she wore and used it as a blanket when he was little, and later as a scarf when he was older. The cloth and the name were all he had of her.

Throughout his childhood, Link could tell that while he was considered part of the tribe, there were some who viewed him as being beneath the others. He once heard his father’s best friend say that Orik was his father’s greatest mistake, and it stuck with him. Link naturally seeks the approval of others (he is a MAJOR people pleaser), and he wants to prove himself to his people, so he strives to be the best warrior in the entire tribe. He makes a name for himself by becoming the youngest to pass the trials into adulthood, doing so at the age of 12. Once he does, this, he basically has to fend for himself now.

When Link turns twelve, his entire life changes. He has earned some respect from his elders, and he’s eager to continue doing so. He was always a quieter boy, and when he becomes a guard, he’s dutiful, obedient, and generally a little shy and not talkative. It makes him come across as either incredibly stoic or unnervingly/annoyingly lifeless. Despite his quiet, demure nature, though, Link is very keen and observant. He’s vigilant of his environment, and is pretty good at getting a vibe for people. However, he’s now forced into a position of responsibility given to adults, and he kind of just… skips over the development he should get in adolescence. Link has spent a good portion of his childhood trying to prepare himself for adulthood before he even became a teenager, so he’s internalized a lot at this point. He keeps his emotions to himself. He bows and obeys. He doesn’t argue, even if he doesn’t like something. It isn’t until Hemisi drags him out of himself, and until the war forces him to step up, that he really starts to come into his own.

As such, Link’s entire life centers around and stops at the war. He was so stifled as a kid, self-imposed but very much affected by his environment, and so the war is both horrible and freeing. He finally stepped forward to make his own decisions when he saw the casualties at the Battle of Hyrule Field, despite King Ozen’s orders for all the Sheikah—his best warriors—to remain at the castle. Link chose to join the war, and when he was going to sneak off to do so, acquiesced to Princess Zelda’s wish to sneak out with him so they could investigate something. What she sought was the Master Sword, as she suspected Link was the Hero, and he only drew the sword because ordered to. Being the Hero to him is a privilege, and granting him the approval and attention he sought as a child, but he really doesn’t know what to do with it once he has it. It does give him something he isn’t used to having: agency. While he obeys his queen, his status as Hero gives him the ability to befriend her as well, not just follow her orders. While he has a heavy destiny on his shoulders, he chooses to fight against Ganondorf, despite his feelings for him, because he wants to do what’s right. His agency slips through his fingers as the war progresses, as he loses himself to the constant fighting, and it isn’t until the war’s end that he feels like he finally has a chance to make his own life in marrying Hemisi, someone he is madly in love with, and rebuilding together.

And it’s all taken away when he has to marry Zelda instead.

Link’s marriage to Zelda… basically destroys him for a long time. He lost Hemisi, someone who treated him like a person and didn’t bother with the formalities and protocols that plagued his life, someone who made him feel like he could break the rules and have fun and be himself, someone he had just gotten back in the war after losing her initially to it, someone who shared his pain in losing a father figure, in having to kill said father figure. He feels like he shackled himself to the throne, having to obey every whim of the queen to make Hyrule look strong. More than anything, though, he feels like he finally did what he’d been trying to do his entire life: the Sheikah were more proud of him than ever, Hyrule adored him and recognized him and his abilities, Zelda needed him… and he felt completely powerless. He finally got the approval he sought and then realized it was pointless.

This, in turn, leads him to completely spiral. What’s the point of his life, if everything he sought was for nothing? He’d never had a father figure in his life until Ganondorf, only to lose him and have to kill him. Hemisi was his entire world, helping him discover himself and he adored her, only to have to abandon her. He’d tried again and again to make the Sheikah proud, and when he finally did he felt like he’d enslaved himself more than ever. And more than anything, it was his choice – Zelda didn’t force the matter. But he’s always done his duty, and really, why wouldn’t he try to help? He wasn’t going to abandon his entire country for his own needs and wants. That’s selfish. He can’t possibly put himself first like that. It’s wrong. It’s wrong.

So why the hell does everything feel so wrong now?

Link spends years trying to figure out his life after this, to figure out who he is and whether he even has freedom or not. He feels like he doesn’t, and given that he never really had a full childhood, he does not know how to cope with it. Despair, confusion, loss, hopelessness and frustration brew into bitterness and anger, and he does not know how to stop it. He’s prone to melancholy, usually being depressed and sluggish, until he’s pushed to a point of rage, because he doesn’t know how else to express his emotions anymore. He was trained to fight and kill. It’s all he knows. And now he’s stuck in a position where that isn’t entirely needed, and he’s not sure what he’s supposed to do aside from bow his head and do everything Zelda says.

He tries to pick himself up. If nothing else, for the sake of the children he made with the queen. They deserve better than what he’s doing. But it takes him years, and a lot of his anger and hurt is focused on the queen since she, buckling under her own pressure, orders him around expecting him to be okay with just obeying blindly since he agreed to the marriage.

Someday, Link learns to live with everything. Sort of. For the most part. At the very least, he learns to live. He focuses on helping the Sheikah, on developing their technology. He gets Terrako as a gift from the scientists for all the effort he puts into it. He tries to rekindle a healthy relationship with Zelda, though that takes much longer as they’re both hot messes with too much baggage to know what to do with. He tries to be a good father for his children. But he struggles hard, and sometimes he gets angry at himself for doing so - he’s not a child anymore, why can’t he just deal with this? (Because you never learned how, Link. You moron.)

Link loses himself when the war ends, what little he’d managed to find. It takes him over a decade to get that back. He doesn’t entirely succeed… not in time for his early death. But he does try. And he looks out for his family and his kingdom as best he can.

Queen Zelda, the Sacred Diplomat – Zelda spent her childhood mostly in solitude. Her father, King Ozen, was the second son of the previous monarchs, and watched his older brother get assassinated because his claim to the throne was viewed as weak both due to his weak magic and the fact that he was a man. As such, when Ozen had Zelda, he flaunted her existence like a badge of honor and a certification of authenticity. Zelda, however, wasn’t really given any leeway to do anything as princess. She was kept in the castle, like a bird in a cage, to be admired and viewed but not touched or spoken to. Her mother died when she was little, leaving her entirely under her father’s rule. While her father was weak and paranoid, though, Zelda has an inner strength that is not to be trifled with, and she dreamed of gaining her birthright and becoming queen.

During her childhood, Zelda really wanted to make sure she was ready to rule, thinking that her father would of course give her the throne when she came of age. She tried to seek his approval as best she could, and while she seemed to get it in some ways because she’s the princess, it never felt completely genuine. So she stepped up her game to be the best princess ever, learning everything of the politics of Hyrule, learning especially how to wield her magic as best as possible. She dreamed of becoming queen, of being the best queen there was, and of protecting and taking care of her people. Her family history and responsibilities were seen as stories of heroes to her, and she wanted to add to that story, proud of being able to take care of so many.

As the years went by, Zelda saw her father systematically tear Hyrule apart by allowing anyone who sweet talked him to gain power. She tried arguing to no avail, and by the time she was in mid adolescence she started to realize that maybe her father did not have the kingdom’s best interests at heart. She tried to hold on to hope, though, until she saw him fumbling the war and not taking Ganondorf’s threat seriously.

She took matters into her own hands. On the eve of her seventeenth birthday, fueled by confidence over the fact that she bore the Triforce of Wisdom, she overthrew her father with the help of Impa and half the Sheikah. Zelda regrets to the end of her days how her relationship with her father unraveled, as he wasn’t always particularly bad to her (they had plenty of good moments, but his paranoia outweighed everything), but she still thought the duty of her family was more important than her father’s approval.

Because of her mostly isolated upbringing, Zelda is very naïve to the emotions of others. She learns how to manipulate people quickly, but can sometimes lack empathy – she will 100% trample someone’s feelings if she thinks she needs to in order to accomplish a goal. She has a compassionate heart, but it hardens if the objective and the emotions clash. Most of the time, it isn’t even on purpose – she’ll order Link to bring their daughter and accompany her on a tour of Hyrule because she knows the people of Hyrule will want to see the royal family, because marrying Link and creating a family was for the benefit of creating stability and bringing hope to her people. She doesn’t bear in mind that Link’s suffering—she doesn’t even realize it for a long time, too caught up in her own stress and duties—or that showing their daughter off to the world to make people happy is exactly what her father did to her. She doesn’t understand why Link is so melancholy initially, and as for her his relationship with Hemisi, Zelda knew they were close, but clearly they couldn’t have been that close if Link chose to marry her anyway, right? Duty comes first anyway.

Zelda struggles in being a mother. She wants to be there for her children but she doesn’t know how – her parents were never there for her, after all. She spends time with them, nourishes them, loves them, but sometimes the best way she shows she cares is to drag her daughter into politics to teach her so that the nobles can’t take advantage of her, and Link hates that.

As for her personal feelings for Link, he’s one of the first people around her age to ever act normal around her. She loved his friendship during the war, and she doesn’t understand why it’s changed – she knows she isn’t necessarily in love with him, and that he isn’t in love with her, but he agreed to the marriage, so why is he acting like he doesn’t like it? It was his choice, after all. This frustrates her, and sometimes she can’t help snapping at him when he seems to be slacking off. After all, she’s got nobles nipping at her heels trying to take back the power she’s slowly siphoning away from them, given to them foolishly by her father. Sometimes Link helps her out, but most of the time he’s still struggling with his own issues and trying to raise their children while she’s consumed by her desire to take care of everyone. Zelda finds her happiness through protecting others, and she really enjoys the satisfaction of seeing her plans work, and it can make her enjoy manipulating people a little too much sometimes. Despite this, she genuinely wants what’s best for Hyrule, and she wants to make her husband happy too, even if she’s not sure why he isn’t already. (Talk to him, Zelda. Talk to him. Oh, wait, they both suck at expressing their emotions.)

Zelda is not a trusting person. She has too many enemies for that. So she keeps her thoughts and feelings close to her chest, which can cause hiccups with Link. However, she trusts Impa implicitly, considering the Sheikah chief literally had to overthrow the king and her own people in aiding Zelda’s coup. Impa fills the void of a mentor and mother figure for Zelda, and she is eternally grateful for her counsel, but sometimes, having been told her entire childhood that she knows nothing and should keep her head down whenever she tried to advise/talk to her father about matters, she gets fairly defensive. She does not appreciate being corrected by anyone aside from Impa, and she can get a bit dicey about it even with the Sheikah chief sometimes. But she tries to recognize that wisdom means knowing when one doesn’t know something – it’s just a sore spot for her.

Despite her not trusting easily—at all—and despite her having a difficult time figuring out what’s wrong with Link, she does try to reach out to him multiple times to extend an olive branch. Sometimes she rescinds it with her own mistakes, and sometimes he smacks it out of her hand with his own flaws. But eventually, they rebuild a friendship, partly with the help of Impa being injured in an attack organized by Ozen’s loyalists (nobles who know he’ll give them power if he’s back on the throne) – Link and Zelda both love Impa dearly, and they’ll put aside any differences to protect her (Link will burn the world to the ground if he has to, Zelda will temper that but inadvertently cause emotional damage, Link will temper her lack of empathy in turn).

In the end, Link and Zelda have similar backgrounds with very different results. Both wanted to prove themselves, one to his culture by becoming the best warrior and a dutiful servant, the other to her father and herself. They both have a lot of grit. Link’s far more sensitive, basing his identity on the approval of others, while Zelda bases her identity on her ability to take care of her people. This means Link was drowning when he got married and realized that the approval of others only left him feeling more enslaved than ever and unable to make decisions for himself, while Zelda was thriving when she got married because she was doing everything to save everyone. The roles reversed as time passed, when Zelda started to wonder if her efforts truly were worth it when problems continued to arise and she saw Link suffering, while Link started to step up and try to take advantage of the situation he was in and help Zelda.

[atthebell]

this may become a sort of rant but i realised after reading your post about qcellbit that I kinda wish purgatory wasn't canon to the events of the qsmp ... like I thought purgatory would be The Event that brings everyone's individual lore together by forcing them to work together to save the eggs while also making them confront each characters association with the federation... which is why its called purgatory.

but the purgatory we got was lowkey minecraft punishment for 2 weeks. It was fun to watch! I just wish none of it was canon/had anything to do with the disappearance of the eggs

who are the eye workers? hows this relevant to everything we previously knew about the island? i wanna know if the eggs are real and alive outside the island but instead we got egg attacks with these eye fuckers which was happening with the codes anyway. sooo many unanswered questions and purgatory brought even more confusion

you are preaching to the choir nonnie lmao i don't want to be overly negative on here so ive tried to keep my complaining to a minimum but narratively i hated purgatory and yes it felt like two weeks of pure punishment. there were little to no rp opportunities, the lack of player agency was exhausting, and it felt like they were playtesting an event on server members rather than creating an event that would work for lore and be a fun event itself. two weeks was far too long, what does this have to do with the regular island, why did it have to interrupt so many people's lore, why the actual hell did cucurucho save the eggs and not the players (this one ill give some grace to bc so many people were on break and frankly i just needed the eggs back period. but it is one of the most disappointing story choices for me). i liked people getting to play together in new ways, but i wish it hadn't been so long and had been a non-canonical event in the first place. similar to the eggs going missing, i think the rp that has come out of it has been brilliant, but i think it did not need to happen this way.

for a while now it feels like players are no longer the main characters and in an attempt to make overarching lore make more sense and be more cohesive, there's been too much focus on federation npcs and the eye and cucurevil-- there's too many parties at play, and none of them should be the actual focus of the story. this is livestreamed roleplay. the server members should be the main characters. it is less entertaining and less meaningful narratively otherwise. i wish players had more agency again and there were more small, character focused bits of lore going on that weren't so focused on making sure everything is interconnected. i DO have faith that this could be the case again, i there's just been a rough patch for a bit that hopefully gets better.

also listen i do not call myself a cellbit main for a reason i watch a lot of different people and i think that's a better way to go at this type of medium. however, i think im allowed to acknowledge that for my preferred POV, which is cellbit, this has been torture. ive been avoiding talking about it because it felt like idk selfish or whatever or like I'm whining on his behalf which i don't need to do, but i think it's fair to be upset by how much this has fucked his lore because as a viewer it's been disappointing as hell (and not just for him but for other RP & investigation focused people). they helped him plan out the whole murder spree arc that was going somewhere before purgatory and then interrupted it entirely, they took away his best friend who he, atp, spends most of his time either building or investigating with and doesn't really want to play without, they did not provide any clues for finding the eggs nor any kind of investigation (until the minimes which. i don't need to tell you how that went but i can assure you it was the most negative cellbit has ever been about the server and he was still very polite about it).

i know he talked about the server moving from investigation centered storytelling to more pvp/conflict-centered storytelling, but, frankly, i don't think that's working out, especially not for him. and considering the break he's been on in part due to fatigue from purgatory i think this whole period of time has just not worked for what he wants to do with his character. i have faith he'll make it work, and i think the admin team is really good at addressing players' needs (especially cellbit who will just tell them all the stuff he wants), so i have faith in them as well. it's just frustrating considering how much it has sucked to be a qcellbit viewer for the last. idk two months if im being generous four if im not. it's hard bc im not a person who deals in idealism so i don't want to be like "i wish it all had never happened from this exact point" and i do like some of things that have come from rp post-eggs disappearing and even during and post-purgatory. so idk where im going with this anymore anyway i think there are ways to go about fixing this and making the narrative less clunky and focused on players again and allow for individual lore again, i just wish that that had remained the case continuously. sorry for the rant ill try to tag this appropriately

[rev3rb]

Hi, again! I have to admit that the end of this chapter intrigued me quite a bit. I definitely wanna see where they’re going with Shinoa’s powers over demons. After a lot of time spent on angel flashbacks, it’s a good reminder that the humans have unique roles to play. I liked seeing the Shinoa squad, although spending time on crushes I’m not particularly invested in and making very vague, somewhat redundant plans was kinda boring. I enjoy some good girl talk, but I’m not particularly excited about having so many different groups working towards basically the same goal. It’s similar to what you pointed out about Saito still not siding with The First. It sorta seems as if everyone is stating similar values but personal issues are stopping them from just working together and actually accomplishing shit. Idk maybe it’s just me, but I think some of the most engaging and productive moments happened bc of the dynamics within the alliances. As of now, there’s at least 4 different factions, which truly seems unnecessary at this stage. Regardless of how happy an ending we get, I’d feel a bit unsatisfied if 1/4 groups succeeded at the expense of all the others failing. No matter which group it is, because they all have an interesting perspective and feel like protagonists in unique ways. I’m lowkey rooting for them all, so I’d really prefer if they could just compromise lol. I’m sure that solution is way too idealistic of me, but it’s not my fault Kagami wrote such sympathetic characters 😔

On another note… Happy Birthday!!! If I remember right, it should’ve just passed. I hope you had a great day <3

First off, oh my god! You remember! I didn’t expect that. At the time of posting this, yes, it would have been four days ago, but you sent this Tuesday so you were pretty spot on! Thank you so much! I did have an okay day!

I’m actually excited to see where Shinoa’s powers go as well! For quite some time now, the story has hyped Shinoa up as being special and ‘the perfect experiment’ or however it was phrased, but we’d had no real indication of it until now. It’s about time we shifted from tell to show. I’m hoping it gives her a bit more agency. However, I will say that Shinoa, or really rather how Kagami writes her, does disappoint me a bit in other ways, which leads me to the next thing you bring up.

I don’t hate Yuunoa. I don’t care for it either, but the fact that this chapter sorta confirms that Shinoa doesn’t have that much of a driving force outside of it makes me quite sad. You could argue that other Hiragis (Mahiru and Shinya) have a similar thing going on and they do, but there’s more than that, even if the story prefers bringing up Guren as their main motivation instead. Mahiru has the whole thing with wanting agency to live how she wants (which ties to Guren but I firmly believe can stand on its own) as well as wanting to protect Shinoa, as twisted as her methodology was. Shinya also had his goal of wanting to break free from the Hiragis before Guren became what he’d rather stand for. Being able to see that shift adds quite a bit of depth to that.

What else does Shinoa have going on really? As she says her she doesn’t feel like she has much reason for living, so she mind as well have this fight with Mitsu over Yuu be that driving force. You could say it’s similar to Yuu since he’s sorta said Mika is his reason for living, but I honestly wasn’t a huge fan of that either. I liked how Yuu was, at one point, able to somewhat move on and live for others (the Shinoa squad and Guren at the time) he was getting better in a way! But I don't want to rant for too long. End of the day, I kinda wish Shinoa had goals that didn't center around Yuu, even if she ended up dropping them at some point. As she said, she's really just been along for the ride her whole life.

It's nice to see Mitsu actually back and doing something though! Mitsu fans come get your food! I too wish they'd talked about something else, but what can you do I guess. It's just nice to see her. The focus hasn't been on her in SO long.

Now the whole Shinoa Squad being a new group. Yeaaaah this is driving me a bit insane as well. Weren't they just working with Guren, Mahiru, and Ferid? Why is that suddenly changing? I get that it's because they think them untrustworthy, and I get it to a degree, but it's exactly as you said. There's just SO many groups that are fighting for similar things that it's become kinda weird? Like... why did Guren and Mahiru even let the Shinoa Squad run off? They don't appear to be around, and I know that their priority is probably Yuu, but it feels weird that they're suddenly just elsewhere now when they were working together last we saw. It feels like we're missing something here. Anyways. I can't imagine these groups won't join up later, but the fact that we now have to follow 3 different groups (with there being 5 or maybe 6 factions atm) is going to make for an even more disjointed story. And that's one of the big problems with OnS. It's story is kind of all over the place and it can be difficult to follow with how much it jumps around and drops plot points and characters for no reason only to pick them up later like nothing happened. Nothing I've seen here instills me with confidence that this problem will get better.

That all being said, I didn't hate the chapter. Shinoa squad as a whole hasn't felt like they've been the main focus since the Nagoya arc and while I don't think we'll be following them for too long, it's about time they became more relevant. Maybe what I'm saying is a bit contradictory since I just complained about different factions, but hey, there's some pay off here with Shinoa and her abilities like I mentioned earlier, so idk. It's something.

[edgepunk]

If you're still up for talking about your Spider-Man AU, I would love to hear more about your ideas for Connors! I really liked that you kept him and Peter having a close relationship from university (something that I wish had been true for the game, but oh well) and that he seems to be an actual character with his own thoughts and agency rather than just showing up to move the plot forward and drop exposition, so I'd love to know more about things like his backhistory and relationship with Peter, what's going on between him and Norman and the symbiote, the smaller focus you mentioned regarding his conflict over what he did, and anything else you want to talk about!

I'm always up for talking about it!!

I feel the same, it was a shame that Peter and Connors didn't know each other personally outside the whole Spider-Man - Lizard shebang. Which is why I wanted Connors and Pete to have a closer relationship, so Connors saving Peter didn't seem out of obligation, but more so of him being emotionally invested in Peter's well-being. Him saving Peter using the symbiote was more of a "spur of the moment" thing when he wasn't thinking clearly, all he wanted was to keep Peter alive since he grew on him during their university days, and he was something like a nephew to him. If Peter had time, he stayed with Connors after classes helping him out in the lab and worked as his teacher assistant for a short while. (ngl I took that from the game because I thought it was Connors that Peter helped with teaching before the second game got released)

Curt and his family were brought into the bunker by Norman who assigned him to a project where he was supposed to study the symbiotes to be able to defeat them and/or use them as weapons. He's conflicted about it, but he knows that if he refuses to cooperate with him, he'll kick him and his family out of the bunker. The safety of Martha and Billy is his top priority, which unfortunately results in Norman having some control over him. But he doesn't have much choice since all of them being kicked out of the bunker would most likely result in their deaths. Despite Norman acting all like "ahhh I built these bunkers, so humanity and our brilliant minds survive" he's still a manipulative corpo weasel.

Him giving the symbiote to Peter didn't halt the project - quite the opposite, it pushed it further into the "using them as a weapon" direction and before Peter left, he thoroughly scanned him and asked him to do some physical exams. Throughout the story, Peter's group would discover other bunkers with scientists and people living in them, so he'd stay in contact with Peter and monitor the symbiote's effect on his body while simultaneously working on a "cure" on how to separate them without killing either of them. The cure is not what Norman asked of him to do, but it's something he's working on in secret out of guilt.

So, despite being a side character, he's pretty important. Would he have successfully created a cure? Hmm maybe. But it wouldn't be the deus ex machina he was hoping for. That's my way of saying "idk if I want a happy or sad ending"

[glamfellens]

Any thoughts on the FNV companions you'd like to share?

sorry i have had to Ruminate on my answers. so!

i think arcade is probably up there as one of my favourite companions. his self-deprecation was very familiar, extremely relatable and funny in a sad sort of way... like king please be more confident in yourself. his general awkwardness is endearing too, like this man really isn't supposed to be trekking the breadth and width of the mojave wasteland but he's potentially here because he thinks the courier is too fucking stupid to survive on their own. LMAO

i found his personal quest really interesting and i personally encouraged him to remain with the followers and step out of his father's shadow and carry on with his life outside of the enclave. i havent played any other fallout games so im not 100% on the context of the enclave and what they did exactly but from what i gathered they were an organisation that did some terrible things, the only reason they're coming back for the battle of Hoover Dam is to attempt to atone for what they did so i just didnt feel as though arcade had any reason to really... stick with them, i guess? it just feels as though they're coming to an end and he was better off elsewhere.

it was so sad when he left....... i really like it as a story choice and i find it really interesting that he was allowed that much character agency... it just felt bittersweet but realistic... :'^)

boone is another favourite...tho i'm not a fan of what happened with carla. having a female character being sold into slavery which ends in her being mercy killed just to further the pain of a male character and challenge him is just like :^| Ok. like i understand that its there to illustrate the brutality of both the mojave wasteland and the legion but i feel as though theres a disproportionate amount of....intimate violence perpetrated against female characters in new vegas in a way that doesn't happen so often to the male characters. idk! anyway

boone is so quiet and harriet isn't a very open person either so i love the idea of the two of them just existing in comfortable silence the entire time theyre travelling around and everyone finds it a little weird but they're perfectly content.

i need to do another playthrough and thinki about the others. i didnt spend much time with raul because i got him kind of late...

oh but i do love ed-e. he's my son. also i wish the concept of benny as a companion hadnt been cut i think that could have been really interesting and it would have been fun to work with him and take new vegas... but alas

[diamondcitydarlin]

I'm not gonna tag this because shadows fandom loves to be contrarian and base their metas directly on people who didn't like things while calling them stupid and shallow and whatever (because apparently I can't not like the way a thing was written without directly insulting someone else who did?? Or being stupid? make it make sense) but I honestly am all for Guillermo being and staying a human. I've been all for it since day one, honestly. To me, everything about his story from the first episode, first season suggests that this is the kind of idealized dream he's going to wake up from eventually and realize it's not everything he wanted. I've always been 100% on board with that, especially with the reveal that he was a vampire hunter which came with its own set of powers. In fact, I was working on a fic a couple years ago that I intend to return to that is ALL about Guillermo finally eschewing his dreams of vampirism for a purpose that better fulfills him etc.

So no, my problem with this last episode is not that 'Guillermo needs to stay a vampire or it's bad writing phwah', my problem is with the swiftness that all of this happens, coupled with the fact that Guillermo is between a rock and a hard place and more or less just being guided into place by what everyone else in the situation thinks is best for him. Despite the fact that he literally DRINKS BLOOD FROM A CUP to fully come into his vampire powers naught but a few scenes before, the fact that he cannot bring himself to drain a human directly from the tap until dead (which I still don't think makes a lot of sense on it's own but fine) is treated as this insurmountable problem they can't possibly get over so, obviously, he needs to be reverted via Derek's death (a character who also doesn't deserve that). Can't just let him drink blood from cups or bottles for a while. Can't just let him half drain someone but not to the point of death. Maybe at least to give him some time to decide??? Maybe give him better reasons (of which there are many) to decide to revert? He has been idolizing this for most of his life, after all, I just think it's a shame that we're meant to accept that ONE moment of revulsion towards killing someone (KILLING SOMEONE OF ALL THINGS) is enough to make him just nope out completely. That's a disservice to him and what he's capable of, if you ask me.

See, I of course enjoyed the deliciousness of the whole cheating/sex parallel to Guillermo being bitten by someone else, loved that, I'm just not sure how I feel about that storyline ending with Nandor being like 'im gonna forgive you for this but only because you're too much of a stupid little baby to know what you want, but I know what you want better than you do, now lemme kill the guy you cheated on me with real quick ok' LIKE. I KNOW that they are toxic I KNOW they are unhealthy, but Guillermo is a character that has constantly been struggling with his own agency, often seizing it on his own by very aggressive means, often being shown as smarter and more capable than most of the household, and for this storyline to just end with Nandor 'fixing' it all because Guillermo's just too dumb to know what's best for him...IDK YALL. DIDN'T LIKE IT. I can see how people would find it romantic and I do think it's meant to be but...nope. I don't find that romantic lmao I find that insulting and patronizing. Maybe that's the point? But it wasn't funny either. Or interesting, really. (The Freddie stuff was fucked up but at least it was funny to some degree lol)

I guess my point is that I wish there had been more time spent on this. We can't keep excusing these cop-out, rushed and dropped storylines on 'well it's a goofy show' because yes, it's ALWAYS been a goofy show I get it, but there's no denying that seasons 1-3 did a better job of holding on to arcs and creating consequences for the characters as a result of these arcs and their actions, such as the Vampire Council tricking them into custody after a season of Guillermo killing a bunch of vampires etc. There's precedent in this GOOFY GOOFY show to think that there will be follow through and consequences of characters actions etc, so no, it doesn't come from nowhere and it's not people just seeing what they want to or whatever.

I do kind of think this was rushed because the next season will most likely be the last, but even if that is true, I don't see why we couldn't have dedicated more time to it in this next season. It's deflating, it's boring, it sucks that one of the main narrative questions of the show 'Will Guillermo transform or not?' has been answered with what I find to be more or less a wet fart that doesn't even really make sense or fully take into account who the characters are and what they're capable of.

Yes, it's a goofy show that is usually just episodic moments of whatever crazy shenanigans the vampires will get into today, but it used to be elevated and tied together by story arcs and narrative consequences that would, eventually, sooner or later, show up for the characters to deal with. It used to be arcs that spanned episodes of Guillermo coming into his power and feeling conflicted about his dreams versus his destiny. It used to be the Vampire Council or the Baron being a certain kind of existential threat. It used to give us the idea that while funny stuff was happening, buckle up, because it's going to get REAL in the last few episodes.

But now that's uh...more or less just not a thing anymore. Everything is dealt with in a 25 min runtime and there are no consequences for anything that last or mean anything. To me, that sucks, and not in a cool vampire way lmao.

[troglobite]

laskdjf cr c3 spoilers i guess

in the 4 sided d/ve ep m/risha was like "yeah i asked matt how l/dinus knew abt k/yleth and v/x and that he'd show up to protect her" and matt apparently responded "well that's not the first time that she's been attacked"

well yeah clearly

the attack on the ashari that killed or/m's family was obviously a test run to get an idea abt how best to kill kiki as quickly as fucking possible

BUT THAT DOESN'T FUCKING EXPLAIN HOW AND WHY LUDIN/S WOULD HAVE ANY IDEA ABT THEM IN THE FIRST PLACE!

they start on different continents, as far as we know, they've never had cause to interact at all

and you expect me to believe that kiki has been in enough danger frequently enough for her level 20+ powerful druid self to be near death that it SUMMONS V/X???? like on the reg???

and that for some reason, vax, who has grown as a person and is a deeply important and busy entity, would just be able to show up on a whim to help kiki??? like, whenever???

also they'd already discussed what happens and that was NOT part of it. how is kiki supposed to MOVE ON AND EVOLVE past that devastating thing? how does she not immediately develop a death wish if THAT'S what happens every time someone tries to kill her?!?!

OR ALTERNATIVELY she's so opposed to him doing that that she is OVERLY cautious with her own safety, in WHICH case WHY WOULD SHE JUST CHARGE INTO SEE L/DINUS WITHOUT ANY SOLID PLAN, ASSUMING SHE WAS SOMEHOW STRONGER THAN HIM, DESPITE THE FACT THAT SHE SHOULD HAVE INTEL?!

she faced him and the crew once before! it went VERY badly! WHY IN THE WORLD would she think that charging into the middle of EVERYTHING ON HER OWN would be safe?! so either she has a deathwish or she's VERY stupid, all of a sudden, even though she literally last had a WIS score of 22.

and then also--

and that, for some reason, word gets around about that???

and that for some reason, they all find out who and what vax is??? so that they know he's divine in essence and can be used for this purpose specifically???

like i'm sorry, the sheer VOLUME of serendipity and coincidence and perfect timing that has to happen for ANY of that to be possible. like no! absolutely not! THERE'S NO WAY THAT MAKES ANY SENSE!!!

listen i'm not shitting on cr all of a sudden or whatever, and by and large i still think matt is a great person, storyteller, and dm.

but this move w c3 is SO just. fucking infuriating.

i'm rambling bc i was talking w friends abt it today. lol

but the most batshit part, as a friend pointed out, is that MORE ppl aren't screaming RAILROADING!!! SCRIPTED!!! SHITTY STORY!!! at c3 when they were all losing their minds at c1 and c2.

but here we are in c3 with the most blatantly pre-planned, railroaded shit ever that completely removed player agency to accomplish One Thing, and no one??? cares????

truly nostalgia is a powerful drug, apparently.

like matt turned vax into an orb or a hockey puck or something and WE'RE ALL JUST FINE WITH THAT?!?! batshit.

anyway point being, matt had an idea, he thought it would be cool, he worked backwards to justify it, he constructed the scenario so that no one would be able to stop it, he forced it to happen

that's what happened in c3, end of.

and i don't particularly like that.

i'm not like. ABANDONING it. but c3 was already kind of on thin ice. lol i'm compelled by parts of it but oof. it does kinda suck.

esp when the party is just like.

NOT engaging with the immediate consequences of whatever the fuck happened. and matt has ALSO made THAT happen on purpose.

he 10000000% knew that they would fail to stop the event (bc there was no way they could change anything) and planned far ahead of time to split the party.

which--fine! more time and space for guest players! which is great!

HOWEVER

these characters are, again, so low level that they just......are flailing in the face of something so much bigger than them that HAS ALREADY HAPPENED. so idk what really they're supposed to do now.

i'm just rambling abt my thoughts

this mainly started as a whole thing abt like--

no, matt's justification, narratively, for vax and kiki made no sense.

and then m/risha also said that he told her they did "middling" w their performance trying to stop it--that it could've been worse but it could've been better

yeah i'll bet because they wouldn't be able to change anything, period.

they managed to do so much and everything they destroyed was just...what? a decoy? backup? so they changed nothing.

and that sucks.

[SIGH GRUMBLE GRUMBLE COMPLAIN LOUDLY]

i'm rehashing it all again but i was just thinking abt it again bc i had to plan for my own game today and i was talking w friends abt it again bc it happened to come up.

anyway.

bad writing, matt.

very cool idea and moment!

terrible logic. absolutely hand of god kinda bullshit, there. "because i say so" vibes. lol

hopefully everything gets better from here. aabria and christian have been wonderful guest players, though shit is also hinky there. i think aabria has something up her sleeve so i hope that THAT is ALSO really good.

[purplesurveys]

1691

Would you rather have another job?  I’m fine where I am now and the career field is something I want to continue be in; but I mean yeah, I’m not gonna lie to you, scenario-wise it’d be cool to experience something new. Like working on the brand side for once (I work in an agency), or even be relocated to another country altogether. Relocation is a dream, but I feel like there’s still lots to accomplish here. I don’t feel like I deserve that big a win just yet.

Did you ever live in a house with more than one story?  I currently am. It was my childhood home that didn’t have more than one story.

What room of your home do you spend most time in?  This is a no-brainer – my room. I work from home here, so that’s already automatically 8 hours of my day in my room.

Is your second toe longer than your big toe?  Just a little bit.

Have you ever given yourself a tattoo?  No and I don’t think I could ever do that. I can’t even put eye drops on my own without squirming.

Do you own any clothes you wouldn’t wear in front of your mother?  No. I do own tops that are on the revealing side and have already gotten a fair share of earfuls from my mom in the past, but those sermons haven’t fazed me in years.

Do you have health insurance?  Yes.

What are some medical issues you’re currently dealing with?  Scoliosis is an everyday thing I deal with, but other than that I’m fine.

Why did you last take pain medication?  Headache.

What physical traits have you inherited from your father?  My eyes, I think? Idk my face is generally a very hazy blend of my mom’s and dad’s and I can never tell which physical traits I got from either.

How about your mother?  ^ ...Yeah.

What personality traits do you wish your children would inherit from you? To care about political and social issues, to be curious about the world, and to be bold and vocal such that they are confident in standing up for themselves.

What parts of the world are your ancestors from?  Probably just the Philippines. I doubt I have any ounce of Spanish blood in me.

Have you ever had a strange pet, outside of the normal animals people keep?  Nah, we’ve only had dogs, a cat, rabbit, birds, and goldfish.

Do you believe in astrology?  Couldn’t make me a billionaire to make me start biting into that crap.

Do you drive an electric car?  I don’t. There’s no, like, market for it either here. You’d waste your money on a Tesla because it’s not like charger stations for e-vehicles are readily available.

What are your opinions on global warming?  I think it’s too late for us to do anything about it - this planet is fucked regardless of any changes we make. < I am pessimistic about it too, yes.

Do you like facial hair on guys or do you prefer the clean shaven look?  I don’t have a preference mainly because to me facial hair is a hit or miss. It can look good, but it can also look gross.

Who was your first celebrity crush?  Zac Efron and Ashley Tisdale from High School Musical.

Are you good with kids?  I was great with them as a teenager but I’m not sure how I hold up now. I have no way of knowing either – I am rarely around kids, haha.

Are you usually late, early, or right on time?  Right on time, or a few minutes late at worst. Pre-pandemic Robyn who was obsessed with making it an hour early to things would be horrified to learn the latter. But I dunno, going through the pandemic and the other rough bullshit in between...changes your outlook in life. I try not to get hyperfixated about time now, among many many many other things.

Are you good at applying makeup?  I don’t care for it and I know I would be horrible at it, especally if I attempted to do any blendy blendy contoury stuff that’s trending. I stick to foundation and concealer, which is hard to fuck up.

Do you like pastel colored hair?  I find it okay, but I would personally never get it for myself. Too light.

What do you think about the most?  Work – the next event, the next time I have to go overtime, the next deck I have to finish, the next Word doc I have to whip up from scratch. I’ve been  obsessively trying to break the habit because I’m finally coming around to the fact that work is not everything, but at this point I’ll say that work and worrying about work still eats up most of the space in my head.

Do you like to see it snowing outside?  It doesn’t snow where I live.

Do you have your national flag hanging up anywhere outside your house?  No, that’s not practiced here but I’ve seen it done in other countries. Patriotism to that level is quite fascinating to me.

Have you ever been in a choir?  Not particularly but whenever we had mass in school the batches would always get divided into main and second voices so that the whole student body acted like a choir.

Do you look older or younger than you actually are?  Younger. I always get checked if I’m not a minor...

When is the next time you’ll be up on stage?  No idea.

Where did you spend your last birthday at?  It was at home! It happened to be a holiday so I just gathered my friends at my place for dinner. D-DAY and Yoongi’s Disney+ documentary also came out that day so we just had a little listening party and watch parties for Haegeum and the docu as well.

What was the last show that you watched a full episode of?  I’m not so sure...maybe Friends? I can tell you the last full vlog I watched though was Smosh’s.

Is there anything you need to work on doing soon?  Not anymore. I had weekend work I wanted to get done to lessen my load for tomorrow, but I already did that earlier today.

Were you ever a boy or girl scout?  Nope.

Do you take your medications in the morning or at night?  I don’t take any.

Have you ever bought a YouTuber’s merch?  Nah. Most of my favorites are foreigners and it’s so hard and expensive to get their merch shipped all the way here, anyway. The most I’ve done for YouTubers are attend YTFF 2015 and purchase a membership tier for Smosh.

What is the best type of donut?  I like any kind of donut as long as it is not the filled kind. I never got the appeal of those.

Do you like thrift stores?  They’re fine! I’ll stop by if I see something I like. I used to snob them but when I saw how nice the offers can be, I began frequenting them.

What is your town known for?  Pilgrimages and giving you an awesome view of the Metro Manila skyline.

Have you ever used a fake name at Starbucks?  Yeah maybe once or twice as a teenager; it’s not something I think of doing when I’m at Starbucks.

What color is your lava lamp?  I never had one of those. I wanted one when I was younger, but it was seen as an unnecessary expense.

Who is your favorite Lisa Frank character?  I never had any Lisa Frank thing.

What’s your favorite movie that you remember seeing in the theater?  Some Stuart Little movie.

Do you know anyone who has ten cats?  I don’t think so. Have you ever had a cat?  Yes, we adopted Arlee and had her for a few years.

Have you ever had a dog?  We have had three – Kimi, and at present Cooper and Agi.

Have you ever any other kind of animal?  We used to have goldfish, chicks, lovebirds, and a rabbit.

Have you ever had a pet rock?  No.

What were you voted in the senior class polls?  We don’t have that tradition.

Who was your favorite teacher in high school?  My music teacher. Hated the class, loved her.

Do you want to give your kids common names or unique names?  In a hypothetical world where I have kids, common. I know what it’s like to have an ever-so-slightly-not-so-common name – I lived through it – and kids were already brutal at that point.

What collection are you thinking of starting?  No new ones; I just want to keep my BTS collection growing.

What are five of your favorite stores at the mall?  I don’t go to malls for the stores, tbh. I always just head to a café or restaurant – occasionally I’ll visit a bookstore but rarely to actually buy anything.

Do you organize your clothes by color?  Nope, I don’t group my clothes a certain way.

What do you want to name your first child?  Mia, Emilia, Isla, and Charlotte have been my favorites as of late.

List ten favorite girls names.  ^ Those four, and also Isabella, Ava, Arden, Elizabeth, Harper, and Lily. Ooh Elliott, Inez/Ines, and Dylan are also beautful.

List ten favorite boys names.  Liam, Mason, Seth, Noah, Jacob, Lucas, Ezra, Matteo, Gabriel, Rocco. I don’t have a lot of favorite boys’ names so I struggled with this one actually hahaha.

What season do you want to get married in?  We don’t have seasons; but October-November or January-February seem ideal so that the weather is a little forgiving. Purposely blocked out December because people aren’t likely to RSVP given the Christmas season haha.

Is your Pinterest cluttered?  No. I never use Pinterest beyond looking for pegs for work, and I never curate my feed or create folders or anything like that.

What is your favorite insect?  I don’t have any.

What bugs scare you?  Most of them, if not all.

Who picked your name, your mom or your dad?  Dad picked the first, mom picked the second. So they’ve told me.

What are your siblings’ names?  Nina, Joaquin.

Have you ever fallen asleep in a significant other's arms?  Sure.

Do you have a television in your room? If you do, is it one of the old school big ones? Or i it a new flat screen?  I do. It’s a flatscreen but not a new model; we’ve had it since 2008.

What was your favorite cartoon or television show as a child? What about movie?  Spongebob was my favorite show; Toy Story and Lizzie McGuire were my favorite movies.

Did you have sleepovers at your friends' houses a lot as a child? Or did your friends come over to your house more often?  I wasn’t allowed to join sleepovers and I didn’t have enough friends to host my own, either. My first proper sleepover was in third year of high school.

Do you have any significantly older siblings?  Nope, I’m the eldest and our gaps aren’t too wide; with my sister it’s 2 years, with my brother it’s 5.

When opening presents on Christmas or birthdays, do you first try to guess what is in the package? Do you tear the wrap off slowly, or just rip it to shreds? Are you polite no matter what the gift, and say you love it anyways?  1) I never guess; we all have vague ideas of one another and our interests anyway and if I were to guess I’d 100% be wrong all the time; 2) I immediately rip it; 3) Yes. Well I always legitimately appreciate whatever is given to me, so faking my reactions is a non-issue. A gift is a gift and if someone had taken their time to think of what to get me and spent for it, it’s more than enough.

What happened last time you got drunk?  Played trivia questions with Angela, Hans, and Reena. Possibly talked about how big and fat of a crush I have on Namjoon.

What are you listening to?  Amygdala, Agust D.

Which parent do you feel the most affection for?  Dad, no question. Easier to tolerate, appreciate, like, love.

How do you feel about God?  "If there is a God, He will have to beg for my forgiveness." A quote that reached fame by being found carved in a concentration camp wall. And I will forever agree with it, violently so. <-- I like this answer. < There you go.

Which platform do you use to listen to music on the most?  Spotify. YouTube on my work laptop as I can’t seem to get Spotify to work on there.

Who do you care about the most?  Myself, my close friends, my pets.

[requiem626k]

I need to complain and I feel like you'd understand

I hate it when Kunikida is reduced to workworkworkworkwork by the fandom! yes he's hardworking and organized and maybe a little too obsessed with perfection but he's still human! I just read a fic where Atsushi was completely exhausted, and the author (no hate intended! The rest of the story was great) had Kunikida yell at him for being late and I just think... he wouldn't do that. He is kind at heart, and probably would rather have Atsushi sit down and give him a (worried and fond) lecture about not overworking himself... or idk maybe it's just me.

but there's definitely more to Kunikida than workworkdamnyoudazaiworkworkwork. I wish the fandom would explore it more.

You’re so right, anon. This is something I’ve been holding inside because I felt like nobody cared about him or this anyways, I’m so glad you wrote it to me.

This will be some kind of a hot take maybe, but I despise fanon Kunikida. He is so mischaracterised, so boiled down to 2 dimensions with absolutely no depth, it’s almost like he’s there only to symbolise either a comedic anger or a stereotypical workaholic man with no emotions, no quirks, no personality. I once saw a story that claimed that he had never smiled once. Are you kidding me? Y’all know that he is a human being that is capable of feeling the emotion called happiness, right?

I understand it so well, sadly. I’ve been on here for at least 6-7 months and the amount of times where I experienced something of that kind is unbelievable. Just as an example, an author had written multicharacter-comfort headcanons, and when you scrolled down to Kunikida’s part it would say “he probably isn’t good at comforting so idk” or something of that kind. It had hurt me so much because, you know, who likes being told that their comfort character cannot actually comfort people?

There is the equation of Kunikida = work, Kunikida = boredom, Kunikida = stupid ideals lol etc. among the fandom, yes. I do think it’s also derived from the franchise itself. Firstly, his ‘main’ character arc (I consider the Hunting Dogs arc as such) isn’t animated yet and there are so many anime-onlys in the fandom. I think another factor is that we’re given absolutely nothing about his past, which kind of dehumanises him honestly. You know how many episodes/arcs/light novels are there just to discover Dazai more deeply, for instance. We don’t have that for Kunikida. And I honestly don’t have anything to do but to cross my fingers, because I do long for it so badly 😞.

As a final note, to comfort you, no my dear nonnie, he would not yell at Atsushi for being late. I do believe that, at this point, I have some kind of a good grasp on his character, and I believe from the depths of my heart that he would indeed sit him down and have a tender talk with him. He is not a robot. He is a human being that actually cares about his responsibilities and likes functioning through the intrinsic moral compass he possesses. A human being that knows so well how to read the room, a human being who is actually soft inside for the ones around him because he cares about them so much. People don’t understand that his ideals include the people around him too. He is the Vice President that the whole Agency counts on during an emergency situation for a reason.

I truly hope that the fandom will be starting to explore this side of him more, especially after season 4.

If someone ever dares to dehumanise him once more, they will need to pass over my dead body first.

[elephantinparis]

So I finished the season last night and I thought I’d share my immediate thoughts about my two favourite ships – kathony and polin. I read the second book earlier this year to be prepared (joke’s on me lmaoo) This might be an unpopular opinion among book readers but I LOVED IT? Like I had my problems, no show is perfect. I guess this might be in part because while I loved the book so much I didn’t really get attached? And I found some scenes ridiculous or completely stupid. Like Anthony sucking on Kate’s breast to get the venom out(hello that’s not how it works) would have been so cringe to see on screen ajahsha I get them taking a different approach because the author seems to make her couples get together in the same way (forced marriage). In the books the bee was a catalyst for their forced marriage while in the show it was a catalyst for showing both Kate and Anthony that there’s something there! It was the beginning of more than banter between them which I love way more. I wasn’t mad about the slowburn because that’s how it usually is in period dramas the couple gets together at the very end. I do wish we got one more episode to see their actual wedding and domestic stuff but I’m okay without it because I’m always more interested in the journey not the destination. Wasn’t mad about less explicit scenes either but I would have liked them lmao The only thing I disliked was the triangle stuff or rather how dragged out it was. I would have been fine if they called it off after that diner with the grandparents. I liked how they made Edwina feel like a “real girl” (a pinochio reference 😂) in the book she was a pretty ornament there for kathony to interact. What I did love about book Edwina though was how perceptive she was. Show Edwina is blind and i wish they didn’t make her fall for Anthony. She knew in the books they were broke so she had this duty to marry, so I would get her wanting to marry Anthony if she knew they had no money at least. Or they at least could have played it like Edwina fell for his title (she mentions wanting a prince or a duke) sure it would make her a bit more shallow, but it would have fit better. Overall, I loved the story, but wish they moved everything one episode like the wedding could have been episode 5 and the finale could’ve had more kathony. And some Edwina stuff was...a choice. Now as for polin I read their book after season 1 aired and I wasn’t the biggest fan? Probably because I rarely vibe with friends to lovers. But the actors in the show had me hooked idk what it is. And I did enjoy the book for the most part that is why I was incredibly pissed in the finale...they added THE scene if you know you know. I hated it because Penelope had no agency? Like in the book she calls Colin out on his bs she says she never asked him to marry her or told anyone she would like that and show Penelope just runs away crying? Now Colin doesn’t even realise how he fucked up. Like it would have made perfect sense because Penelope just had her world shattered, Eloise knows and hates her basically. Her losing it on Colin would have worked perfectly. Generally for them this season was more of the same...I was hoping for actual development not romantic but FRIENDS development. Like it’s so one sided, it’s just Penelope. I wouldn’t call them friends even, he knows nothing and really isn’t interested in anything about her. She’s his hype woman and that’s how Colin likes it. I loved what Penelope says in the book how he liked her better than most, but he doesn’t care. This season was the definition of that. Before the season aired I heard they might be switching couples for season 3 and polin might be it. Honestly I was so excited but after watching the season I hope not lmao like they need time to grow on their own, Colin needs to start seeing her, Penelope needs to not pine and try to forget him. They need that time jump their story provides. If not 10 years then at least 5. So yeah I was pretty disappointed by what they did with them this season 😔 I hope it changes in season 3&4! Sorry for my rant 😂

[sugawara5]

a world without you

genre: angst

warnings: suicide mentions

summary: the love story of you and dazai osamu. and it's ending.

note: i wrote this at 2 in the morning so I might repost to fix stuff. Sorry for any errors, I'll fix them later or smth idk. I got too poetic oops. (if you actually read this- ily)

word count: 1.1k

=============================

The first time you met, he’d grabbed your hand with a devilish smirk, asking you to commit double suicide with him around ten seconds into knowing you. His silver tongue drawing you into him so much that the expression on his face when you said yes was etched infinitely in your mind.

“But not yet-” you had said right after. “I’ll only die with you when I fall in love with you.” You knew it was your fault, your words that had ended you up here. His smile did not falter when you spoke of your condition, instead he pulled you to your feet and had you experience memories so vivid you couldn’t ever forget them. “The only thing better then committing suicide with a beautiful person, is commiting suicide with a beautiful person you love.”

You remembered staying up till two in the morning, dancing to whatever song came on, eating old take out, laughing your hearts out. He grabbed your waist gently and twirled you around his living room, dipping you every now and then. The sharp pain on your hip from when he had accidentally dropped you and the long stream of apologies falling from his mouth felt like it was yesterday.

You remembered him taking you on little adventures throughout the city. Sometimes it was cafes, other times it was trails he had found in a park. He’d never failed to show you something that spiked your curiosity and made you want to kiss him for being so amazing. You remembered how he’d grabbed your arm and pulled you into a Ferris Wheel telling you about how he’d jump from the top when the fireworks started. But when they did, he was too busy talking to you about what he was going to show you tomorrow then to remember his words. That was the moment you had finally started wanting to fulfill his wish. You were falling in love.

You remembered him giggling for ten minutes straight after you had touched one of his ticklish spots, and how he had immediately tried to find yours. Both of you were in tears by the end of the day, your ribs aching from laughing so much and your arms limp next to you. He had wrapped you in his arms right after, nuzzling his face into your neck, speaking softly into your collarbone every now and then.

You remembered every single time he smiled at you from across the room and waved you over, introducing you to his coworkers or bragging about you to random strangers in the store. It had always embarrassed you. But oh- the things you would do to have him do it again just one more time.

You remembered his hands on you. The gentle kisses he’d lain on your lips, his hair messed up from the night before and his bandages unraveled on the floor. You’re so beautiful, he had said, taking you into his arms and laying your head on his bare chest. The cold biting your skin, but his warmth enveloping you from the other side. And for a while, everything was ok.

“I love you, Osamu.”

Oh, how things had gone from there.

Everything became a memory. No more waking up in the morning with him beside you. No more holding his hands while walking around the shore. No more laughing at the TV at midnight. Gone, it was gone, everything was gone. Forever.

You didn’t know why it happened yourself. Why Dazai Osamu never showed up to your house the next day like he always did with food and a flower he picked on his way to you. He had just disappeared from your life.

He didn’t pick up his phone, nor did he reply to your texts. You knocked on his apartment door but no one answered. You called the agency, they said he wasn’t at work. At first you thought he might have needed to do something important, you knew how he was, always full of surprises.

But the grand finale he threw your way was nothing but cold and bitter abandonment.

Weeks had gone, and you hadn’t heard a word from the burnette. You knew that he was really, truly, gone. And it was finally settling on you. You hated the feeling more than anything in the world. You didn’t want it to settle on you. You wanted to stay in denial forever because then, at least you had hope that he’d come back. Even if that hope was so obviously fake.

And then the day came.

A single email, sent to you at noon on a rainy day. Sent by an unknown. But you knew exactly who “unknown” was.

Dearest-

I’m sorry.

Though it was me who offered, I have to back out of my request.

I’ve come to realize you cannot die, you have a whole life ahead of you to live. I’ve only spent a while with you but I can say with determination that I’ve never met anyone as vivid and fascinating. You are alluring to me, pulling me back again and again like some drug I took to feel something and ended up being addicted to. But it is impossible for me to keep tasting you like this. It’s dangerous, and will end only in tragedy worse then this one.

I cannot have you dying, love. I cannot imagine taking away such a beautiful creature from the Earth for my own selfish desires. What will this world do without your smile? Without your words? Without your touch? A world without your existence would hold some meaning- possibly. But what would that meaning be?

A meaning dull and rusted compared to what it was before, yes.

I apologize again but I will not commit suicide with you. It seems to me, almost like a crime. A horrendous crime even my inhuman self wouldn’t dare to commit. I cannot meet you again either, it will lead to complications. I hope you forgive me over time. If you do not, I understand.

I doubt a day will go by without you crossing my mind. I shall dream about holding you in my arms. About laying kisses on your body and going to sleep with you. Till the end of time, I shall think of you darling. Of reaching you. Of meeting you. And of loving you.

It ended there, no signature. You felt empty as you closed the tab and trudged to your empty, cold bed. It felt as if you were laying on ice, only the distant remembrance of warmth existing, a memory you never expected to experience again. Not in such a brilliant and aweing way at least.

How painful his words are, you thought as you closed your eyes. How beautiful and how painful.

[dinosaurtsukki]

BSD x university au hc’s | pt. 1

hi i am an absolute slut for university au’s in case you couldn’t tell so i just had to write some for my first BSD post. also this is going to be slightly ooc because i am a crackhead

check out pt. 2 here

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Atsushi Nakajima:

he’s definitely the kind of guy who still had no idea what he’d take up in university even after he was accepted 

either wants to not major in anything at all or just major in everything because he’s also scared that he’ll eventually not like what he’s majoring in

so for his first two years you’d probably find him jumping around different classes 

also he still calls the professors ‘teacher ____’ like a high school student and everyone laughs but thinks its cute

eventually, because of his *cough cough* traumatic childhood he decided he wanted to help children by becoming a guidance counselor

he ends up taking Child Psychology and bOY does he love it so much

well he actually just loves all of his classes because Learning is Fun

although because of his *cough cough* traumatic childhood he’s the one in class that people are all like 👀👀

atsushi: *talking about children’s responses to fear and emotional abuse by talking about his own emotional abuse*

the professor, under their breath: wait, do you need help?? 

i can definitely see atsushi as a Roommate of the Year kind of guy. he’s just so polite and tidy with his room. also he’d definitely be the type to take care of plants inside the dorm room and put them on the windowsill

in terms of extracurricular activities, he’s definitely a sporty type of person so i can see him joining a varsity (something like Frisbee because he likes things that go whoooosh) but he’d probably join a student org that does stuff like community outreach

because of all this, he is a Very Busy Boy but his friends do manage to drag him out to parties once in a while

although atsushi would probably sit in a corner and drink only one beer for the entire night 

he’s notorious for helping drunk people though. most of the time he’ll be putting blankets on people and making them drink water

if he knew how to drive he’d definitely be the designated driver

Akiko Yosano:

omg i’m so excited for this i love yosano so much 

she’s the friend who’s just effortlessly awesome all around and a fricking MED STUDENT to top it all off

she gets a bit too excited when it’s dissection time but it’s alright she has good intentions 

probably the only one in your class who doesn’t go and throw up whenever a cadaver is being used (actually do they still use cadavers i have absolutely no idea)

she also interns at the local hospital as part of her degree program but OMG yosano will not stop telling disgusting stories about the patients she’s had

everyone: *eating lunch peacefully in the dining hall*

yosano: so i pulled a guy’s toe out of a meat grinder this morning

everyone: sHUT UP

for some reason she still has a social life despite being a med student and it’s one of the mysteries of life i guess

yosano LOVES going out clubbing on friday nights. if you have the fortune of being her roommate, be prepared for make-overs and being dragged with her out to the city

she’s such a social butterfly like at every bar you go to, the bartender knows her name and her regular order. she’d probably end the night befriending a couple more people

also she’s amazing at karaoke i kid you not

as for extracurricular life, i don’t think yosano’s the type to join an org that’s related to her major cause like ‘what’s the point?’

instead, she’d probably go wherever her friends are because to her, she’ll enjoy any activity as long as she’s with people she loves

but when it comes to her own interests, i can definitely see yosano as someone who loves the outdoors, especially hiking after having to be cooped up inside clinics

it just makes her love and appreciate the value of life more

Kunikida Doppo:

ok, i KNOW he was a math teacher before he joined the ADA bUT i can’t help but think of him as a political science major ??

i can definitely imagine kunikida as someone who’d want to become a lawyer someday and would take political science as a pre-law

he does like the idea of following in the footsteps of great men but omg kunikida would absolutely hate the exclusivity of white, male political theorists

he is such a good student except for when his professor has some sketchy values then kunikida will !! fight him !! every !! chance !! he gets !!

raises his hand constantly to contradict his professor if they even tRY to defend thomas hobbes and authoritarianism

but other than that he’s probably the most diligent student out there. kunikida genuinely enjoys doing the readings for class and writing essays

also has such a balanced schedule that he can make time for anything and everything

except for when his friends dazai drag him out to parties and get a social life

despite how rigid he is, kunikida has absolutely no problem helping out others with learning. he often holds study sessions in his dorm room or in the library before exams

he also likes to volunteer in tutorial centers because he’s just like that

OH OH some of his ‘students’ suggested that he make crash-course type videos for political science and it took some convincing but eventually kunikida decided to go for it

he’s not the most tech savvy or photogenic person so it took some time for him to get used to things but after seeing all the comments from people who benefited from it, he decided to continue with his crash course videos

whether or not he’s the best or worst roommate is completely up to you. if you like someone who’ll basically micromanage your life from your daily schedule to your study habits, you’ll absolutely love him

he doesn’t like to go out for parties that much but he will if his friends convince him enough (kunikida’s an utter lightweight when it comes to drinking though)

Osamu Dazai: 

i genuinely have a hard time thinking about what this guy’s major would be and tbh even his friends have been wondering what dazai’s major was for TWO YEARS

that’s because he keeps taking the most random ass classes like Basic Pottery or Intro to Molecular Biology in the same semester

idk how he even plans to graduate at this point

although to be honest, i can definitely see him as a philosophy major despite the fact that i LOATHE every male classmate i’ve had who’s a philosophy major (idk they’re always so condescending)

i feel like dazai’s just taking that because it’s somewhat challenging for him but to him, university life is just more of crazy experiences rather than learning

and oh my god has he gotten up to the weirdest shit

the number of times he had to climb gates or sleep on benches at three a.m. is too many to count

dazai also loves volunteering for random things like people’s thesis projects (once, he offered to be a snake venom tester to a bio student and they told him that was illegal) or even being the school’s mascot in games

also he and kunikida probably met each other in freshman year at an intro to philosophy class and oh my god did dazai get on his nerves

what’s worse was that they had to work on a group project together and dazai was MIA most of the time and it drove kunikida crazy

that is until dazai showed up last minute to pull an all-nighter with him for their paper and kunikida just couldn’t help but be impressed by dazai’s ~~intellect~~

they don’t exactly get along but they do have some mutual respect for each other enough to work on projects well

omg if dazai ends up being your roommate I WISH YOU LUCK 

the first time you walked into your room dazai was microwaving a metal bowl and you had to run to stop it in time

also he has a tendency to wear his headphones and sing his favorite double suicide song out loud 

kunikida please come pick him up

Edogawa Ranpo:

i love this one man so much i swear to god 

ranpo is definitely the kind of person who just didn’t like school so when college applications came around he was just like ‘why bother though ???’

his friends did convince him by saying that he wouldn’t have to do subjects he wouldn’t like and just focus on his major (this is a lie btw)

is it a surprise that ranpo would choose forensic science ?? NO

he thinks its cool that he can learn about something he’s already super good at and it just gets him really pumped up to show off how good he is

LOVES getting praised by his classmates and professors

ranpo probably thinks lectures are boring as hell so sometimes he just,,, doesn’t,,, come,,, to class

if attendance IS required you can bet he’s bringing snacks and game consoles with him and sitting WAAAAY in the back of the room

Mukbang at a Lecture Hall with Edogawa Ranpo

his classmates think its cute that he puts on glasses before doing exams or answering his prof’s questions as a way to hype himself up

everyone calls him ‘The Greatest Detective’ and ranpo LOVES IT

despite that, he’s not too overly social he just likes being with his close group of friends UwU

he’s also someone you can drag around to places like the fair or an aquarium, but he’s not into clubbing or drinking for that matter

he DOES enjoy seeing his friends get drunk and mess with them though

ranpo isn’t into joining student organizations BUT he gets scouted a lot by detective agencies and he likes interning for them

i’m saying detective agencies because police are gross

ranpo did end up joining a baking club with the assumption that he would just be EATING the cake and not BAKING the cake

yeah he was just there for less than half a semester

***********************************************

taglist (check out my post for details on being part of my taglist): @waitforitillwritemywayout @tpwkatsumu @laure-chan​

[redrabbitspod]

This is in no way meant to be rude or disrespectful and I am fully aware that you can do whatever you please but I feel like Neil is getting so out of character. He clearly started to develop more of an own personality but he definitely has been through so much and he is just so..cheery and happy and clingy all the time(which if you’re like that is in no way wrong or bad) and now he reminds me so much of Nicky in AFTG. It’s really hard for me to still see Neil.

OOC: This is very long, and while we think everything leading up to it is super important to our thought process (and yes this is something we’ve thought about) the bit in bold is the heart of the point we try to make. (Please read the whole thing though!)

Hey, I’m actually really happy that you sent this in because I’ve been wanting to talk about it. I know that there’s a post going around that we both wholeheartedly agree with about Neil reaching far past ooc and becoming very ‘fem’. Jeni and I had a really long talk about this because we were worried that our Neil would be perceived or mistaken to fit in that trope. And while I think your concern is EXTREMELY valid (note: people can write the characters however they want. It’s fanfiction, they can do as they please, like you said, we just did not want to go that direction), I have a few points as to why I disagree. 

On surface I definitely get that. Idk if you’ve read the entirety of RRP, but I know for those of you that just read the asks (Im sure there are a lot), it DEFINITELY seems that way. But we went into RRP right off the bat letting people know that these characters will fundamentally be different. In Andrew’s case, we know he’s extremely soft now and we bring that up a LOT in the fic. Both himself acknowledging it and all the other characters around him. But we went in knowing he was going to be very different from canon - mainly because we took out the plotline that he was ever put on meds. In Wish You Were Here, the story we are writing post-season 2, we will be mentioning that and how we twisted it. Because in canon, that shaped his entire character. The medication changed the physiology of his brain and we hated the fact that something so abhorrent was forced upon him by the courts that we didn’t do it. And as a result, Andrew’s character is completely different because he’s able to tap into emotions that were blocked in canon. He’s able to grow in ways that he was not able to before and besides the fact that this is set a good while after college and especially his sophomore year that we saw in canon, he was going to change. We definitely know that them admitting that they love each other, making strides in their relationship both physical and mental, opening up, expressing, for his character may seem extremely ooc for some, but we had to take into account what would’ve happened if we took the thing that shaped his character in canon away. I hope we’ve done him justice. 

Now onto Neil. Neil we work over a LOT. And when Jeni brought this up to me because of the post, there were glaring things in my mind that automatically said no. This doesnt apply to our Neil even though to some it may seem that way. Here’s what we’ve done at least very consciously to make sure that our Neil holds integrity to his canon character, that he holds merit and a backbone to back up how he’s grown throughout our series. 

From day one, we knew that they knew each other. We knew that an event from the past not only shaped how Andrew approaches life, but how Neil does as well. Childish sentiment and nostalgia kept Neil in Arizona for so long, which we imply throughout season 1 and start the ball rolling in the first chapter. For the both of them, they held onto the boy they met at the Grand Canyon through everything they’d been through. When shit got tough, it was each other they thought of. And on some wild whim, Neil hoped one day Andrew would walk through the Book Nook’s doors and he’d see him again. Not because Neil had a crush, because he didn’t. But because Andrew was the embodiment of strength for him. 

New York was really important to us. Neil standing his ground and letting Andrew know exactly what he’d done to him, was what the entirety of Season 1 and EVEN season 2 culminated and came back to. Neil being able to say no, fuck you asshole, and always express exactly how he was feeling, was so vitally important to us. ESPECIALLY when it came to Andrew. Those few weeks of New York we wanted to build a bridge if you will. Andrew’s intentions were always genuine and well-meaning and Neil knew that, but survival instincts and what’s been ingrained in him stuck. They started to have a little give when he came to realize that he felt something for the man before him. But he never lost that fight for himself. That HE has to ALSO be okay. And I think we see a lot in that trope of Neil that he loses the fight, the backbone, the integrity that makes his canon character so compelling (even if he is a martyr). 

One thing we worried people would misinterpret was how fast we pushed their characters together. We definitely get that. In our world we didnt really have the luxury of really stretching it out like some may have, just because we were working with real-time. And honestly? As we wrote, the drive to push them together because they were so connected and intertwined just fell genuinely and organically. For us, it only made sense and not because of canon, but because of the story we’d written already. It made sense to us for Andrew to be the one to hold himself back and Neil be the one reaching out - Neil be the one exploring and beginning to recognize what want and really, agency over himself AND his wants, was. Neil was the one to ask for their first kiss here, Neil was the one to initiate them all afterwards, Neil was the one that asked Andrew to touch him, Neil was the one that asked what they were in Arizona, Neil was the one to bring up sex. And in return, Andrew was peeling away layers of himself, feeling accepted, and wanted, and understood in ways he’d never been before. And honestly? Feeling honored that they were both experiencing emotions in ways that they both never felt before. We see their relationship has an equal give and take, a push and pull. And I’m saying all of this because it’s honestly and truly really important for why we’ve made Neil’s character the way that he is. 

Going into season 2, we knew that happiness could not last long. They both had things to sort out, they both had hurdles to hop over, bridges to cross, whole fucking oceans to swim. Before season 2 started, before we had anything written or really even solidly planned, we knew they had to break up. Jeni even had the scene written back in either july or august. We knew that in order to continue trying to give integrity to their characters and relationship, how far they’d grown but also that growth is not a linear path, we needed to break them up. And in the lead up to that, we made sure that Neil was not only looking out for Andrew or trying to, but that he was looking out for HIMSELF. Unlike in canon, he didnt automatically have the foxes - not in his head at least. Of course he knew he had a home there, he knew that he had friends, but they weren’t like canon because he didnt grow WITH them like he did in canon. In his mind, he really only had Andrew and if there was no Andrew, why stay? And when their fight happened we made sure that Neil had value enough in himself, care for himself, love for himself AND for Andrew that they couldn’t let this go on any longer. Neil left because he knew he deserved better. He knew Andrew needed help and he couldn’t provide it. And he held onto that. In fact, Andrew even held onto it himself: 

“Is there no hope, then?” Andrew asked, unable to help himself.

Neil sighed and Andrew was grateful that he at least didn’t pretend that he didn’t know what Andrew meant.

“I don’t know, Dr- Andrew.” Was it possible for his chest to hurt even more? He wanted to curl in on himself, but settled instead for clenching the sharp corners of the pack of cigarettes in his pocket into the palm of his hand. He watched as Neil bit the inside of his lip and that little indent appeared. Maybe he feels it, too . “Part of me wants to say fuck it all and let’s just go home. I hate this... But I hate what you’ve been putting me through these last couple of weeks even more. I can’t do that again,” he stopped talking once more and inhaled a shuddering breath. “You broke my heart, Andrew. I know I sound dramatic and stupid, but I don’t know how else to say it and - I don’t know how to do this, for fucks sake.” He finally turned to him, but the eye contact was brief and before it was even there, it was gone. “I came into this knowing nothing about relationships and I know even less about breakups. I don’t know how to navigate this.”

“You think I do?” Andrew asked. He didn’t mean  for it to sound so bitter, but there it was.

“I don’t know with you,” Neil shrugged. “I feel like you keep everything so close to your chest, that there are whole sections of you I’m missing. And listen, I don’t blame you. You should be able to choose what you want to share. But I can’t help that it makes things hard when you’re falling apart and I don’t know why...”

Andrew let go of the box and put both of his hands in his lap. Grinding his teeth together, he heard the beginning hum of Bee’s buzz , but took a deep breath to try and keep her at bay. Clearing his throat, he looked back to the stadium and that stupid orange fox paw, before he murmured, “What if I offer you a piece?” - suddenly and quickly said, it was as if his mouth was trying to outrun his mind, despite the second he took to contain it. He’d known this would eventually come - that he would have to do this. And besides, Neil deserved an explanation, even if they never got back together.

“Andrew-”

“I’m not offering with hopes that we’ll get back together right now, Neil. I’m working through shit the best I can. Therapy is helping, but I know it’s a process. I just know you deserve an explanation. And I haven’t wanted to tell you because it’s fucking horrific, but I was also afraid that it would send me even further down the spiral if I talked about it. Now that I have a space to vent through, I don’t think I’m so afraid of the fall.”

This part was so important to us for both Andrew and Neil’s character. And in the entire build up to the break up and directly after, Neil held onto the fact that they needed to talk. He kept bringing it up. Because he knew that if they didn’t it would escalate just like it did before. 

“I wouldn’t risk being with you again if I didn’t think things would be different. I’m not better and to be honest? I probably wont ever be better. I’ve spent my entire life dealing with my shit by myself because that’s just how it was. I’ve avoided relationships because I never trusted anyone with my baggage and I didn’t think it’d be fair to pile it on someone anyway. So when it comes to talking about shit - I’m not used to that. Bee was the only person I’d ever told everything to, and she doesn’t even know all of it.”

“I know that,” Neil said, leaning forward as if to show Andrew how much he actually understood. If that was the case, Andrew believed him. “I know you, Andrew. I would never force you to talk about something you don’t want to. That’s not what I’m trying to do. But , I need you to work with me, and if not me, someone else. Don’t take it out on me when you’re going through shit that neither of us can control. It’s not fair and it makes me feel like I’ve done something wrong and I can’t fix it.”

Now. Now we’re up to your points. I promise all of this was important for me to explain, because I know there’s literally SO MUCH that we’ve written, that shit happening now can get in the way of everything that’s happened before to lead up to this. 

We fully recognize that Neil is definitely happy. But he’s not happy-go-lucky and we tried really hard to make sure he didn’t lose his integrity - his backbone - the things that made Neil, Neil. 

Something I realized throughout this series was that I was getting worried that the focus of season 2 was so heavily on Andrew. I was seriously worried about that. But then I realized that Season 1 was focused solely on Neil. Season 1, Neil was a fucking wreck. It was Matt AND Andrew comforting him, Matt and Andrew bringing him down, Matt and Andrew trying to protect him, take care of him, find him, search for him, all of that. But even through Neil’s horrific anxiety and all the bad shit that happened, it was still Neil that pushed himself up from the ground, pulled Lola back, and gave Andrew the in. It was Neil that fought with the doctors and nurses to see Andrew and make sure he was okay. Even still afterward though, it was Neil discovering and Neil understanding and a lot of Neil, Neil, Neil. 

Season 2 is heavily focused on Andrew. We’ve already seen Neil’s story and his growth. Its Andrew’s turn to try and again, build his bridge to getting better. But with that, it was Neil that made the strides to speak and handle Ichirou, it was Neil that figured out things with his uncle, it was Neil that ultimately had the gun, brought Andrew for practice - took it out and demanded Andrew get behind him this time. It was Neil that looked Andrew in the eyes as the cops patted them down and desperately tried to tether them together.  It was Neil that kept reassuring Andrew they were going home. It was Neil that snapped the moment the cop tried to put his hands on Andrew to show them where their things were when they left the prescient, and ANDREW that allowed himself to be pulled into Neil’s arms in that moment, because he knew that he was the one thing that was SAFE. It was Neil that held Andrew that night and Andrew that LET himself be held as he broke down. 

That was one chapter ago. And we really tried to illustrate at the end that they have a life ahead of them now. They have a future - a future that is spread out and it’s bright and full of possibilities. They have a future where they can do what they want. They have a FAMILY. They have nieces, Aaron, Kate, Bee, the entire TFN team. Neil had nothing and now he has something. He has hope. 

Promise Im coming down to the end omfg. This is why our Authors and End Notes are so fucking long i swear to fucking god. 

This BTP chapter, we wanted to explore that fucking unbridled happiness. That elation of fuck - we have the world out in front of us. We don’t have any killers on our backs, Hailey is safe, Robin is safe, Jean is out, the Moriyama’s are taken care of, Stuart isn’t begging Neil to join the Hatford Branch, Aaron and Kate might be moving back to South Carolina, they’re married and all of that isn’t terrifying. It’s COMFORTING. So yes, this BTP chapter was bright and cheery. Neil was most certainly happy and showing it. Jumping on the bed, kisses all around, getting excited over ZOO BABIES and a ZOO CHOO train. But just because we show this side of him where he gets to go on a road trip and experience real and true fucking freedom for the first time, doesn’t mean that we’re all of a sudden shedding everything that we’ve built for his character. I don’t think that’s what you meant, but I mean it when I say we take the characters, the integrity of the characters, very, very seriously. Also in this chapter, Neil takes a homophobic asshole to task and not in the way that a lot of people do, but by quietly hinting at the threat because Neil doesn’t need bells and whistles. In fact, he even talked about how being happy was something his mother frowned upon: 

Because the way he looked at Neil when a butterfly landed on his finger or when he snuggled up to a goat in the petting zoo let Neil know that Andrew was happy. And he was happy.  That was something Neil never really had in his life. His mother didn’t care if he was happy, only that he was alive . In fact, the less happy he was, the fucking better. By her logic, he was less likely to go rogue if he didn't feel like there was something to be happy about outside of her. 

Neil’s finally had a moment to enjoy and let go and we know exactly how that can come off, but we have an entire future planned for them and the book they’re about to explore. Spoiler Alert: It won’t be all “butterflies and rainbows”. But all of this does not mean that all of a sudden we’re giving in to tropes and changing his character entirely because of one chapter. RRP and it’s characters mean too much to us. 

So I definitely get where you’re coming from and I’m so fucking sorry this is so long omfg. And I respect your view because we definitely worried that people would see them like that. But we have a reason for almost everything we do in this fic and really, we just wanted to see the boys happy here. We don’t believe he’s like Nicky and we don’t believe he’s clingy, but everyone interprets these characters differently, and you’re certainly entitled to that opinion. We hope this just makes our thought process on Neil’s development a little clearer. - The Creators

[spiders-hth-is-an-outlier]

Possibly a big ask to get just out of the blue but: what are your Supernatural season opinions? Which one is your favorite? Least favorite? Did you watch long enough to have showrunner opinions? If yes, which showrunner is your favorite and which is your least favorite? If no, which season that you haven't seen most tempts you to get back in the Supernatural trenches? Answer exactly as many of these questions as you want to. Carry on.

You know, I am not sure how long this Ask has been sitting here, because my Tumblr notifications are borked -- I hope not long? If long, I apologize, I wasn't ignoring it on purpose!

Okay, so I have more than the average number of Supernatural opinions, probably, but I'll try to keep this to a dull roar! Inside Me There Are Two Wolves: one of them believes that only the original five seasons of Supernatural are worth defending in any way, the other really, really loves seasons 11 and 12. The Kripke Era had a lot of problems, particularly in its treatment of women as bodies without agency and its treatment of Black men as literal predators, but also for all its flaws, it had a kind of coherence and narrative drive that comes from being the product of a dude who obviously cared about it and had something to say. Taken on its own, seasons 1-5 are a brutal and compelling story about the traumas of being men in a universe that's been absolutely destroyed by its Fathers: on almost every level, it's about these abandoned and brutalized boys discovering that their entire reality is the product of an abandoning and brutalizing God, populated by authority figures who are universally demanding and arrogant, but also completely fucking useless. It's quite literally about Sam and Dean trying to hang onto their souls and their own agency when everyone around them wants them forced into shapes formed by conflicts that fell into place at the beginning of time. It's hard to remember, but back then even the Lucifer plotline was about that! It was about the damage fathers inflict on sons! Things were about things, in the Kripke era!

Then we get to the Gamble era, and. Woof. I actually -- don't hate 6 and 7? Like everything Sera Gamble touches, those two seasons are kinetic and memorable and funny and weird and hit some really, really great emotional beats. There are Some Problems, but Gamble was saddled with a pretty dire job, trying to find a way forward after everything about the series really had effectively wrapped up in Swan Song, and I think she did an okay job. People got mad at her for killing Castiel, but you know, damn, I give her this: that was a storyline. Like, this character who was fresh out of the cult he was raised in becoming disillusioned by how messy normal life is and deciding that maybe people need better authoritarianism instead -- the way he's driven to take too many risks by the fact that he's abandoned and desperate -- Crowley as a legitimately scary villain while still being charming af -- and the tragic resolution of Castiel being torn apart by both his hubris and his heroism. It's actually really good. I understand why people didn't want what Gamble was serving up -- and I'm able to like it because it was undone later, you know? -- but she really did commit to a full season of character arc and saw it all the way through to an earned ending, and I gotta respect that.

I genuinely hate seasons 8 and 9. I think everyone is a dick, particularly but not exclusively Dean, to the point where I just find it a bummer to watch. I mean, you get Benny, and I love Benny. You get, I dunno, bits and bobs of decent episodes, but overall they are very fucked up seasons in my opinion. So Carver era is on thin fucking ice with me, but I do think you start to get a rebound in season 10 with the Mark of Cain stuff, although I wish they'd managed to keep Cain around longer. All the really good Claire stuff starts happening, which is nice because Claire, but also because for once the show is really letting itself go back and deal with the mess these protagonists leave behind them constantly. Castiel and Claire have maybe the most interesting non-Winchester relationship on the show. Oh, and Rowena shows up around here too, right? Love her. So the back half of Carver, 10 and 11, are starting to really gain traction for me. The world is building outward, secondary characters are starting to be genuine characters in their own right, the politics of Heaven and Hell get a little richer and more interesting. The show is really starting to feel like it takes place in a universe, which is great because we love the Frigging Winchesters, but they shouldn't be the only thing going, right? We have 15 seasons to get through! Season 11 is basically bracketed by what are probably my two favorite Supernatural episodes: Baby and Don't Call Me Shurley. (I think I'm the world's only living Metatron fan; I fucking love that little dude.)

Dabb takes over in 12, and I really, really, genuinely love season 12. I fucking love Mary. There are so many episodes I adore -- Celebrating the Life of Asa Fox is a special favorite of mine, and I remain pissed off that the Banes twins never made it to recurring status, bluntly that feels wildly racist to me -- probably the best three-episode streak in the show is Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets to Regarding Dean to Stuck In the Middle (With You), three just almost perfect episodes. So I was poised to really love the Dabb era. I wanted to! My body was ready!

And I do really love the first chunk of season 13, the Widow Winchester arc. Obviously I'm a romantic, love that for me, but it's just also really good? The acting, the writing, the psychological complexity of Dean wanting Jack to be Bad so he has an outlet for his anger and Sam wanting Jack to be Good so he can retroactively parent himself and raise a Lucifer-tainted child who isn't crippled by self-loathing. Billie's great, and it looks like she's going to start being one of the major powers of the universe. Unfortunately -- with the occasional exception of this or that solid episode -- that's kind of the end of Pretty Good Supernatural. Season 13 kind of unravels; season 14 always feels like it's looking for itself (which is a bummer, because I wanted very much to care about Michael); season 15 is, idk. Idk about any of it, it's all pretty pointless. I feel bad complaining on some level, because the show's been on for like fourteen years at this point! It's kinda justified in feeling a little worn out. But the reality is that the later seasons systematically undo all the expansion that had excited me earlier -- the Wayward Sisters crew pretty much vanishes when the spinoff isn't picked up, Naomi and the angels stop doing anything, Crowley's gone, Mary's gone for much of it. We're just kind of futzing around with monsters who don't seem to matter (very much including Lucifer, who hasn't mattered in ages) and a lot of Jack, who. I try not to shit all over, because I know he's a popular character, but I find him just ungodly boring. Everything in the last two and a half season just feels like it's headed nowhere in particular, and also it bored me. The Empty deal is just sadness porn; it doesn't have any resonance or meaning in terms of Castiel's character, it's just him agreeing to die for his kid, which is okay, it means he's a loving dad, which he is, but there's no conflict there, ergo no real drama. It's just mean; it happens because it'll make us sad, and no other reason. Rowena is the only strong secondary character left, and her ending also doesn't feel particularly relevant to her, it's just a generic Sacrifice to Save the World. Everything just feels like they're autogenerating plotlines, rather than letting the actual needs and drives of the characters shape the narrative. So while I have this weird split personality with Carver where I either hate what he's doing or I love it, most of the Dabb era is just. There. It doesn't make me feel anything except kind of tired and embarrassed. Which is a bummer, because I have an inexplicable fondness for Dabb, probably just because of how much I love s12. I wanted to love his seasons! I did love his first season! I feel like maybe something happened when the CW rejected Wayward Sisters? I know that was kind of his darling, and it feels like maybe losing that kind of sucked the joy out of him, and he's kind of checked-out by the end. That's genuinely just my guess, however.

That's Professor Milo's Intro to Supernatural Studies, don't forget to fill out your course survey on the way out!