#idk if I'm going to write a part 2 or just imply the ending I've got smth else I need to work on today too

[millenniumdueled]

When the Other Yugi arrives at the Paradias headquarters, it's alone. In his exasperation and grief, he had gone and done exactly what he'd just chastised Kaiba for: running ahead.

The Other Yugi frowns as he steps inside the empty corporate high rise. Speaking of Kaiba, shouldn't he be here by now too? There's no sign of the man. Had he gotten so far ahead? Was he facing Dartz now, alone?

He glances at the deck inside his DuelDisk and shakes his head. If Kaiba were dueling, surely he would play Crittias. As if he did, wouldn't Timaeus react?

Steeling himself, the Other Yugi takes a deep breath and walks across the lobby to the bank of elevators at the back. As he does, the lights above one indicate a car decending from the upper floors, and the Pharaoh braces himself.

But when the doors slide open, he finds neither a monster nor an enemy. Instead, the soulless body of Mai tumbles forward, and Other Yugi's stomach drops as she does.

No. No. Not again.

He lunges forward to try and catch the woman, managing to ease her down to sit against the wall.

How many friends is he going to lose?

"I'm sorry, Mai," mumbles the Other Yugi as he stands and faces the elevator. Empty, save for one fluffy, white feather. Not from a harpy, but from something more angelic.

He squares his shoulders and steps inside. As he faces the panel of buttons, the doors close, and the elevator begins to rise on its own.

The elevator ascends calmly. When he's certain no monsters are going to attack, as they did at Kaiba Corp, the Other Yugi takes that moment to remove the deck from his DuelDisk. He fans out the cards in hand, brows knit tight as he looks them over. He carries other important cards in the box on his belt, and his enemy has seen most of what he's used so far. But as he weighs his options and strategies, his chest feels heavy.

He and his Partner had built this deck together.

They had stayed up late the night before flying to America, testing combo and strategies into the morning hours. They'd both put their Hearts into this deck. And now, it's all he has left of his better half.

He has no right to change it himself.

Ultimately, the Other Yugi returns the deck, unaltered, to its slot just as the elevator stops, and the doors slide open with a ping!

Just as he thought, it isn't the mysterious leader of Doma and Paradias waiting for him on the rooftop, but another, more familiar man.

"Raphael," hisses the Other Yugi.

"I've been waiting for you, Nameless Pharaoh." As he speaks, calmly, Raphael takes a card from his pocket. He tosses it skillfully across the space between them, to be expertly snatched by his opponent.

The Other Yugi's eyes go wide when he realizes what he holds.

"The Claw of Hermos.... You... Took Joey's soul too?!"

"No," Raphael corrects firmly. "He lost to Mai Kujaku."

"Then why did you take her soul too?!"

"She turned against our Master Dartz. Something about that boy gave her a change of heart. Her purpose was served, anyway. She wanted to give you that card, since it's useless to me, the least I can do is honor that wish."

The Claw of Hermos trembles in Other Yugi's hand. "Doesn't your heart hurt, Raphael?"

Raphael is silent.

"Joey, Mai, Rex, Weevil, my Partner..... Even your allies have lost their souls now!! You preached about the value of your monsters lives, you fought to keep them alive at all costs. But what about your friends?!"

"I told you before, Nameless Pharaoh. There is darkness in the hearts of humans, and a power greater than you can comprehend that wants to erase it. Their sacrifices will bring about a new world, a better world."

"You can change the world without destroying it. There's light in our hearts, too!"

"It's too late to stop it now." As he speaks, slow and solemn, Raphael turns his head upwards, towards the sky above, where something seems to move and writhe. A band of inky darkness, a ribbon of void-like shadow, blocks out the stars as it snakes across the night sky.

"What is that?" the Other Yugi gasps.

"The great beast that will bring about the birth of our new world. The god Leviathan that you have been destined to resurrect through your sacrifice, Nameless Pharaoh. You should feel honored, to know your soul will awaken such a powerful entity."

Other Yugi takes a step back, in awe of the shadow that circles overhead. The ribbon of shadow seems to stretch for miles, with no clear sign of a beginning or end, as it blots out the stars.

How can Raphael speak of darkness in the hearts of humans, when this great darkness hovers right over them?

Other Yugi returns his focus to his enemy as Raphael approaches him, removing the deck from his black DuelDisk as he does. The Pharaoh narrows his eyes as he does the same, cautiously though.

"You can try to give me that card again, but I won't use it."

"I know."

The Other Yugi watches him closely as they swap and shuffle each other's decks well. A clean, fair fight.

But as Raphael returns to his side of the roof, the Other Yugi has to try again.

"We don't have to do this, Raphael. You don't have to do this. It isn't too late to save everyone, we can face each other as true Duelists, not like this--"

Though Raphael's gaze is determined as he sets it on the smaller man, Other Yugi swears there's some kind of sorrow there.

"Duel, start."

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

This thoughts still cooking, so it might not make sense, but I think Thomas (Tomas?) Astruc is a very good case study on how being too attached to your own ideas can hinder your story telling.

I don't mean this in a "Thomas's original idea for the series was bad", but rather that he seems so attached to this concept that he can't stand other people having a differing view from him.

Chloe's the titular example here. Some people thought she deserved a redemption arc, and instead of just saying "nah, I don't think so" and continuing to write her the same way he had been, he had to prove them wrong, prove that his idea was the only correct one, and so turned her into the spawn of Satan and let her rule over Paris for some reason.

Instead of making Marinette less stalker-y, he wrote an entire episode poorly justifying it. And, imao, somewhat diminishing what PTSD actually is and does to people.

I'm not saying he has to make any change (though I think making Marinette less stalker-y would be a good change), but instead of 1.) sticking to his resolve or 2.) taking the criticism, he clung dearly onto this perception of his characters and his writing suffered because of how much he had to twist things to "prove" that his original assertions were right. And also that everyone who disagreed with him was wrong and didn't understand

idk if that makes sense, but the concepts been lingering in my head recently

It makes perfect sense! I've had similar thoughts. It's hard to say for sure, but Miraculous may be a case study in "kill your darlings". I'm not deep into the behind-the-scenes lore and I was not here in the early fandom, but I do know that, at some point, a much darker version of the show was pitched. That's why these exist (image source):

[Image description: two sketches styled like comic book covers. Both have the title "The Mini Menace Ladybug". The left cover shows Marinette's silhouette in a doorway. The door's glass and the glass of a nearby window are broken. In the foreground lies a hand holding a ladybug charm. The hand is limp and surrounded by blood, implying that someone is injured or dead. The right cover is Ladybug doing a spinning kick while looking angry.]

We also have this evidence of the darker original concept:

Jeremy Zag then proposed another project... which he was unable to sell to broadcasters... the project was called "Ladybug". No one was interested, as the project was aimed more at an adult audience... Sébastien had to make sure that the project could be broadcast on Disney and TF1.... Thomas wanted to make a series for adults, but at the time, it was very complicated to make a cartoon for adults. What's more, they didn't have enough money to take on such a project. Sébastien finally agreed, but there were some changes to be made, which Thomas accepted... In the end, Thomas Astruc's entire project was discarded, leaving only the love story between the two heroes and the city of Paris, where the story was to take place.

I've been aware of this darker origin story for a while due to Tumblr and, because of this knowledge, I have often had the thought, "are the writers trying to sneak elements from this darker version into canon?" Because that's the most likely explanation for what's going on here.

If I'm right, then I think that was a terrible move on their parts. They needed to let go of the story that they couldn't sell and embrace the story that they're being allowed to tell. It's why "kill you darlings" is such good advice. Many good stories have been ruined by writers clinging to an idea that ultimately doesn't work for some reason.

It's why the sitcom How I Met Your Mother has such a universally hated ending. The show was originally supposed to go for two seasons and so they wrote an ending that would fit the second season. The show ended up running for nine seasons and, by then, the ending didn't fit, but the writers kept it and left everyone with a bad taste in their mouths, which is not what any writer wants. That's why you have to do what's best for the story even if it means abandoning something that you really love.

This early version of canon may also be why the writers are so obsessed with Marinette. My understanding is that this concept had her mainly acting as a solo hero and, oh look! What is one of canon's biggest problems? Marinette being treated like a solo hero even though she has a partner and, later on, a team!

Not saying that this theory has to be true, just saying that it would explain some things. And if they're poisoning canon by trying to include elements from their darker original? Then it makes sense to assume that they're also doing it for smaller stuff. Like I'm pretty sure I've read that the head writer wanted Chat Blanc to be a lot darker originally, but no one would green light it, so we got an incredibly lackluster episode that spat in the face of the genres Miraculous' is trying to be part of while also falling to have the sort of impact we'd expect from an episode like that. It's a good example of a darling that really should have been killed. It just doesn't fit.

(Totally unrelated sidenote, but is your blog name from Tangled? Because that's what I immediately thought of and it made me smile!)

[perpetuallyfive]

did you think act 2 had a dip in quality when in comes to writing? i've seen so many people complaining and i can't, for the life of me, understand why, apart from people having these really personal expectations that weren't met (vi's pitfighter era being just the montage, caitlyn not spelling out her inner turmoils, isha's entire existence, jinx being family oriented instead of a freedom fighter, sky is also pissing people off lol), and I'm just so confused bc idk if I'm just easier to please, or if my lack of expectations just allowed me to enjoy the story plain and simple

I think there's a fair chance that many of the people complaining didn't watch season 1 until all three acts were released and aren't used to watching Arcane as a week to week experience; a huge percentage of the people in this fandom only joined it around the time they saw an "oil and water" gif set. No shade, of course. I can understand why people weren't jumping to watch women written by Riot, but that does color how you're going to view the pacing of a season.

This very well might be the first time a lot of those complaining built up expectations of where the story would head next, how they'd watch the struggle play out between Zaun and Piltover, only to see things they wanted to watch in depth get covered in a montage.

The fact that a single montage tells us everything we need to know about where Vi is at and what she's been up to is actually good, economical storytelling, but that's not the kind of thing people are used to in most shows. If you go back and watch the pilot of Arcane, so many things happen in that one episode. You get almost a full season of TV in a single 42 minutes of Arcane. A lot of other shows are just filling time, running in place until one of the two or three big moments for the whole season can happen a few episodes later.

That's not how Arcane works now or ever.

I imagine if some people had watched season 1 week to week — with lots of time to imagine what came next while at the edge of their seat — they would have been upset that we never saw the three youngest girls growing up. Act 1 ends with this huge cliffhanger and then we jump an unspecified amount of time into the future. We don't spend time with Vi in jail, we don't actually see any of the trauma alluded to. We don't see the tension in Caitlyn's relationship with her mom and how that plays out over time, which is a pretty huge part of season 2. We don't see Jinx's transformation into the damaged girl she becomes. All of that happens off screen and is only implied.

The techniques people are complaining about this season are exactly the same as last time, when they loved the show. But if you watched everything all at once before — no time to build up an imagined result that didn't pan out — and were reassured by how much you liked the payoff, then maybe you didn't even notice these things that you can hyper analyze while you wait 7 days for the next drop.

Hell, I saw multiple people surprised that introducing tension into Vi and Caitlyn's relationship has already paid off so well because it led to, you know... tension. Some people are so used to shows not doing anything that they are surprised when actually doing things can turn out to be interesting.

I think a lot of the things you say people are complaining about are probably going to be covered in act 3. Jinx has always been family oriented. She only cared for the found family she had with Vander, and then Silco took that place. She didn't give a shit about anyone else working with him, and actively made their lives harder just for fun. It's going to take some effort and time to move her from that pretty self-interested place she's always occupied to being some kind of freedom fighter risking herself for strangers, and Isha was a vital part of getting her there.

I also think there's a really strong chance that isn't even Sky, but rather a manifestation of her created by the Hextech/Void/Whatever that consumed her using her as a puppet to manipulate Viktor into spreading its influence further and faster. But who knows! There's an entire three episodes left and, again, a single episode of Arcane covers so much and always has. None of us can actually know where the stories will be one episode later, let alone three.

Look, for all I know, this might not pan out. We never know if a show is going to stick the landing one season to the next. But they're not really doing anything differently from last time, so I don't see a reason to panic or complain yet.

[coffeelovesdramasalatte]

LITA Ep. 5 Rewatch Thoughts Part 1

(edit bc I started writing this post like 6 months ago - hi! I'm gonna finish going through the rest of the phayurain episodes of LITA finally! I've lost all sense of shame so these posts are just gonna be love letters to Eul, hope that's ok) Hi hi hi! I find it absolutely hilarious that the notes on the final part of my episode 4 rewatch post (which contains my best screenshots of That Scene) has like triple the notes of the rest of the parts. I love the thirsty LITA fam <3 I think I kept it mostly clean for the first 3 episodes but LITA brainrot is real and from here on out I'm putting down all my deranged thoughts into words so enjoy

Onwards to episode 5!! Ok so y'all should know by this point that BossNoeul sang the opening right? I added it on spotify and have listened to it on repeat so much over the last week that I could probs (badly, bc my singing voice leaves much to be desired but I can and will belt it at the top of my lungs) karaoke it now. If y'all haven't heard the full version check it out bc they rap a few bars and Noeul has this line "shake your bo- shake your bo- shake your body" that makes me lose it every time

The recap sees us revisiting some rather adorable moments from the previous episode including PhayuRain in the rain and tub. Imagine if they stuck the leg kiss in the recap >.<

We open to sunlight pouring in through the curtained windows on the morning after. I kind of wish the last episode had ended with this scene bc it would have been a soft transition after the intimacy PhayuRain shared rather than the abrupt cut to credits. But I digress.

Phayu's hair looks glorious out and I wish we'd gotten to see it like this more. In fact I think we should've seen Rain push his hands through it and grip it during episode 6's NC scene. Also the definition of that bicep? Sir pls.

I ADORE how sweet Phayu is towards Rain all the time, and this is yet another example. I love it when characters look fondly at their lover (I finally get to use that word for them!!), cover them with a blanket, and then give them a forehead kiss before sliding out of bed. SO FOND

I just think it's really attractive when people do this. Rain was really missing out by snoozing.

The state of Rain's neck and chest sends me into hysterical giggles every time. Phayu you did not have to go that hard with the marking bestie (let's be honest though, looking at the state of Phayu's neck post episode 6 they both have marking kinks) - everyone's gonna know Rain's officially yours soon enough. Also throwback to how like two months ago (or something like that idk the exact timeline) Rain was like hmph I never want anything to do with P' Phayu ever again. I didn't hear any complaining from you last night hmm??? Also I love how confident Rain was in his abilities to seduce Phayu, so true of him

I'm DECEASED

OK WAIT I think I finally get the whole yellow-blue thing. It literally is just that yellow is Rain's representative color and Phayu's is navy blue. So by making Rain put on Phayu's navy blue shirt for the "morning after" they're just reiterating that Rain belongs to Phayu now. Mystery solved :)

Obligatory shot bc he's worked hard for these gains and I think he deserves some appreciation ft. Rain who's making the same face as all of us. I think they spent like 30 whole seconds on Phayu's shoulders and that's so valid of them

Sir, do you have a good reason for striding in here shirtless and sweaty to wake your new bf up? Methinks someone was hoping for round 2

Ok, and we're back to Rain in a yellow t-shirt looking very feverish. He's holding his teal green phone (case) up though which is a combo of yellow and blue, isn't it? I'm sorry my color theory is lacking. His eyebrows look really nice here and I don't know why I noticed. I hope he has a good nap! But oops he misses calls from Phayu...

This episode's title is "the Calm Before the Storm" which implies it's gonna be a mostly tooth-rotting fluff episode and that drama is on the way next week. I'm already smiling so wide my cheeks hurt so the title is apt.

Phayu (dressed in navy blue!) is here to make sure his precious Rain is ok and Mama is already planning the wedding in her head.

The first three or four times I watched this, I was paying too much attention to their faces and probably missed a lot so let's break it down a bit. Phayu comes in, Rain's surprised and sits up, and Phayu sits down next to Rain on the bed but facing away. Phayu is slightly upset that Rain went away without saying anything and he was worried that since Rain was sick that him driving home alone was dangerous. The second Phayu sits down this way, Rain reaches out to grab his arm but Phayu pulls away. Compared to couples in other dramas, PhayuRain depend on touch a lot to communicate so obv the situation is quite serious plus Phayu is not immediately making eye contact with Rain.

The next couple of shots are just back and forth where Phayu asks why Rain left and Rain tells him what happened and apologies for worrying him. He looks v v soft and fluffy here

Gonna take a second to appreciate the background music bc it sounds so serious and doom-y right now but they're literally about to clear it all up so it was unnecessary to go that hard. Sound artist I love you

Throughout this conversation, Phayu starts far away (which for PhayuRain means there's like 1.5 meters of distance between their faces instead of 0.15 meters) but he moves closer and tilts his body more in Rain's direction as Rain gives each justification. He also lets Rain grab his arm. It's very subtle but I like the acting choices here.

Phayu, Rain is sick. Can you pls stop staring at his lips bff give him some rest (spoiler alert I counted like 5 lip-looks in the next 10 seconds, Phayu didn't hear me)

OK this hug. Exquisite. The gap has been bridged, all parties are happy again, and they both absolutely sink into each other.

Boss' little shoulder rub here is so soft and gives us more PhayuRain believability. We can see how worried he was and how relieved he is now that Rain is safely in his arms again.

Rain's cheek-smushed nod agreeing to never disappear from Phayu's side ever again is everything to me.

I don't actually think this was what I was supposed to get out of this but there's something about the symmetry of this hug and them being in the shape of a triangle and how technically their first encounter as a couple involved Phayu's triangle tool etc. etc. etc. Also headpat alert!

More subtle and soft gestures from Phayu. Rain is down bad.

HANDS!!!

We really heard the MWAH here and I want to forehead kiss whoever placed the mics

Everyone needs to observe Rain's expression right after Phayu asks this question bc it's very sus

(I couldn't get it in motion but Rain straightens up a bit and raises his eyebrows. Someone thinks they're about to get spanked like before)

Except this is not that kind of punishment and I can't believe Phayu really brought along a rectal suppository. To his credit though, I believe they're supposed to be more immediately effective than oral medicines because they absorb more directly into the body so he just wants Rain to be healthy faster. Although I wish Phayu would've not proceeded to yank Rain's pants off without permission, it's fiction and I hope if Rain had shown signs of major discomfort he would've listened. I do have to wonder if Mama put on headphones though bc Rain was really loud with his protests. I also think this must've been funny to film bc if you look closely before it cuts to Rain's mom, Rain looks like he's holding back laughter.

Uh-oh, Mama it's better if you walk away now

This sequence was actually so adorable and funny. I love purrito!Rain and Phayu is looking way too smug. Mama Rain walked out of there trying to name all the yellow and blue flowers she could for the wedding centerpieces.

omfg Phayu calling Rain's mom "Mama" is so friggin cute and I love how smoothly he just slid into son-in-law position

Rain's like excuse me I'm sick I should NOT be slandered right now

To part 2 with all the cute shots!!

[teawitch]

Hi so I want someone else's opinion on the matter who is open minded. I find that most people around me are extremely sceptical about every small thing and wouldn't refrain from being negatively bias. I'll give a little background info before asking asking your thoughts and if you have any advice. (Sorry for the long ask.)

To start this off, about 5 or 6 years ago I was sort of told/implied to that I would be the person to heal ancestral scars on my father's side of the family. Me and the person who told me are the only people who knew this and she's not involved in the rest of the story.

My dad passed away 6 months ago. and honestly while I've been a little frustrated because he had nothing prepared so I don't fully get to mourn since I'm stuck cleaning up his mess. I haven't felt true ANGER towards him until like a day or two ago. I haven't told anyone that I finally was angry with him.

Now my mom was meeting with a spiritualist/medium(? idk if she calls herself that) a day or two ago. My mom has been separated/divorced from my dad for 17 years so she wasn't close with him anymore. But she brought up my dad and the medium mentioned two things that took me by surprise. 1)she said she's feeling a lot of anger from me towards him. (which I could write off as assuming I'm going through normal grieving stages but the timing was just so spot on) and 2) My dad is having to do a lot of healing on the otherside. He treated a lot of people poorly he said (especially women) which was a paternal trait passed down in his family. But that I was going to be the person to end that behavior in his line and heal familial wounds. (I'm a woman so I'm not fully sure how the paternal trait of treating women poorly applies to me but 🤷‍♀️

I would love to hear your thoughts as an unrelated third party who seems not to be extremely bias. and 2) if you believe in healing family scars, how do I start? I just feel a bit lost. Thanks for any help or insight you can offer!

Hi,

Okay, this one is one where I have to deal with some personal shit to answer. Having been raised partly in the New Age movement the important thing for me to say is - No one else should ever obligate you to heal ancestral or family scars.

Not saying it isn't work one might take on. More that certain people have a tendency to tell parents that their special child will do the special thing. Which can be annoying.

Now before you can begin to heal ancestral scars, you really need to heal yourself. This can mean proper therapy or a combination or therapy and shadow work. There are some techniques for ancestral healing that build from metaphysical shadow work but honestly, the easiest step is simply not to repeat our ancestors' problems.

We start by not treating other people poorly.

"Learning or "healing" on the other side" is something I see a lot from the New Age and Spiritualist communities. And it's often said to the same people who the deceased treated poorly. But frankly, the place to learn and enact the lessons learned is here where the other people are. We really aren't obligated to spend our time when we should be moving forward stopping to look backward to heal the person who created the past and is no longer here. (This is different from grief. We must move through grief as part of the moving forward process.)

Right now I'd recommend finding a group or therapist where you can talk about your situation with your father and the simple matter of the mess he left behind. You might find Bereavement groups in your area or perhaps Google Death Cafe - they often have a more practical take on things.

Once you've put that anger properly in its place, you can decide where the next step lies.

[hees-mine]

i've been inactive but i just caught up on your page and wow! The patreon is def a good marketing idea lol. There will definitely be people who pay to read your works since desperate horny ppl with money buy anything😂this whole "i don't have enough money" excuse is tickling me bc it seems like these ppl have more things to worry ab than begging for part 2s😭.

but yeah it was a bit surprising bc even though writing is time-consuming and im not getting paid on here, that's not what I do for it for. I genuinely like expressing my creativity for the fun of it and over time it feels like a piece of art. its just fun idk.. it's kind of mind-boggling that you're complaining about not getting anything in return because what else would you get in return? All your supporters can do is like comment and re-blog, they can't do anything else bc it's just a social media platform lol. i'm a pretty big page but even if it were 20 people reading I would still enjoy pleasing those 20 ppl. If the hate or negativity ur referring to is getting that bad I personally would just turn off asks!

ur gonna do what you wanna do and you'll make money regardless so kudos to you! It's just that i don't think this writing field should be taken so seriously or have such an effect on you, and heeseung is a human being in real life, so it is kind of weird that you'd want financial gain from it since he can't consent to that. but hey I support everyone's hustle.

you have amazing stories on here so I took a sigh of thanks that you're not going to delete or deactivate. They get me through a lonely night girl.😂😂def just delete the app if it ever gets too much for u!

Sigh

The wording of this is horrible

A lot of back handed compliments here but it’s all over text so maybe I’m not reading it right so I’m not going to dive into it

As far as money goes people can do whatever they want with it if they have it they have it if they don’t they don’t I’m not going to get into peoples finances let alone call it an “excuse” however I do agree their are more important matters than asking for a part 2

Key word YOU don’t do it for that reason me and you are two different people I don’t do it to make money either cause this blog was free to the whole public in the beginning so money was not on my mind when I made it

By you saying “i genuinely like expressing my creativity for fun” implies that I don’t

Im sorry that your mind is boggled because when I said I don’t get something in return was not in regards to money it’s a simple request for respect thats what I’m not getting here is basic respect and thats all I’ve been asking for for the past couple months

I get how social media works lol and the thing is I don’t need numbers or reblogs simply appreciate and respect my wishes and we’re gucci over here I don’t care if I had one reader as long as you’re appreciative of what I take time out of my day to do I’m cool with that

The negativity comes in more forms than just my ask box

I’m not taking it seriously and I don’t think anyone else is either clearly at the end of the day it is by no means affecting me in my personal life

Geez

This isn’t about “financial gain” it’s an opportunity for me to try and find the people who actually care about what I do and weed out the ones who just mass consume content with zero feedback sure I’d be making a little money off it but it would never be enough to sustain anything in real life I’m not greedy for a few bucks

So basically with that logic if him not being able to consent to me writing stories about him and making said money from those stories people would have to stop making fanmade items as well cause he’s not consenting to that either

Or is this different because there’s smut involved?

Either way it’s neither here nor there

Again the financial gain part is not even what I aim to do like I said some money would be involved yes but I’m not out here asking for 200$ dollars

Don’t know if you looked far enough but I’ve stated multiple times that if anyone had questions about pricing and what content they’d like to see then shoot me a dm/ask I’m open to making this a place where my readers can be happy and I can get away from the negativity that has plagued this blog

Thank you for liking what I put out i appreciate it🩵

It’ll never be a point where it gets too much because as I stated it’s just annoying but other than that it doesn’t have an impact enough for me to delete my blog it’s only an issue on tumblr

If I do ever delete it’ll be because I’m done with writing

Thanks for the input I hope my response just gives a little more insight on what things are like from my pov

[withacapitalp]

i’m gonna be real here, and i mean this in the kindest way - i loved your wayne & steve series so much when i first read it, and i just stumbled on it again and saw it was still updating and thought ‘now why didn’t i subscribe???’ and then went back to reread and catch up, and then i got to the end of the fifth fic and remembered why - it seemed like you were turning it into one of those fics where billy is a rapist, who abused & assaulted steve, & you didn’t tag that you would be using him as a villain, and in your end notes you said that arc would feature heavily in your next fic, but then i go to that fic and i don’t see any relevant tags or warnings and i didn’t want to read and get even more attached and then be caught off guard, again, by such a harsh depiction of one of the characters without any warning.

idk. i get that a lot of people don’t like billy, and that’s fair and it’s up to everybody which characters they do and don’t jive with. it’s not even like i haven’t read and enjoyed fics where billy is set firmly as a villain or presented in a really 2 dimensional way, because i have. but it’s different when you go into a fic, wanting to read about a certain dynamic and certain characters, and are blind-sided with hate towards another character that you like - especially when the author has decided to depict that character sexually assaulting somebody and implies that the character is a repeat sexual predator. that’s really heavy to be sort of thrown into on a fic where you’re not expecting to see that character at all, you know?

like i said, i really enjoy most of your fics and i think you’re a great writer. i guess i’m just disappointed that i’ve now TWICE had the experience of happily reading your fic and then being blindsided by such a dark depiction of a character who wasn’t even tagged. it’s really disconcerting and upsetting. ao3 has a great tagging system and i wish you’d chosen to use it a bit more effectively, i guess.

looking at your sixth fic in that series, it’s not tagged for domestic violence, sexual assault, anything like that, and it also has no tags for billy, a past steve/billy relationship, or even just a general ‘this fic is not billy friendly’ tag. looking at it i’d never think you’d have any of that sort of content in it, especially because you DID tag for /other/ potentially triggering content, but then in the end notes of the fifth fic you said that the sixth fic would deal very much so with that introduced plot line. it just sucks because i’d probably read it if i didn’t feel so much like i was clicking on a youtube jump scare video.

Long ask and long reply so I'm going to put my thoughts under a read more but TL:DR This is the kind of constructive criticism that is incredibly valid, and I appreciate your courage and energy that you put into writing all this. Also I'm going to get slightly personal here so if you don't want to read that just continue on

This is like, strangely, the fourth or fifth ask I've gotten about A New Perspective today, which has forced me to look at it again and admit to myself why I stepped away from it.

I use my fics to work through a lot of my own personal things. This fic series and the relationship that Billy and Steve have in it is based entirely on a real life relationship I had with an ex. They have an incredibly complicated sexual relationship that is inherently unhealthy for both of them. Not just Steve. Not just Billy. Steve does not think of himself as a victim, he sees himself as the problem. In reality it's both of them. I think Billy Hargrove is a really interesting character, I don't talk about him a lot here because he's really divisive in the fandom, and I don't need to get involved in Billy drama tbh.

For this fic he isn't the villain to Steve, even if he might seem like a monster, and I hope that gets across when I eventually come back to this series. I took a break from it for a lot of reasons, but part of it is needing to reevaluate what I'm getting out of writing it, and if it's healthy for me. I don't know if this is an exceptionally harsh depiction of Billy, it's not necessarily positive, but it does have a lot of different layers. Finding a nuanced way to portray that relationship (and a way to work through my own thoughts and feelings about mine) isn't easy, but I don't really think I write it in a two-dimensional way. I'm not sure if you were saying I did, but if you were, I'll just have to respectfully disagree and leave it at that.

As for tags, well this one I just have to own up and say I'm sorry. I didn't really know how to tag it, because I still didn't know what to consider for them. I don't really know how to consider my own relationship, which is what this is based on. So tagging it with things like sexual abuse or with things like SA...I don't know I just haven't worked through if it would even be considered that?

Regardless of my personal journey with my writing though, there's outside readers who have their own journeys. It's something that you explained in a really clear way, so I appreciate that you took the time to make me see where I was leaving a gap. I don't want people to think it was intentional? I don't think of my fics as a 'YouTube jumpscares' but more as a complicated web of a lot of things I work through in my own mind.

I put the note on my fifth fic to let people know that there would be a lot of complicated stuff going on, and so they could choose to opt out or not, but I understand that wasn't enough. If anyone got triggered or upset by what I wrote, then I do sincerely apologize for that. We talk a lot about curating your own online experience, but to do that you also have to be properly prepared for the experiences you go into. Where I didn't help contribute to that is on me.

As for people who might be worried about the series mentioning this a lot after this? It won't. I work through things in my own way, and I knew I wanted to make this part of Steve's journey, but it's not his entire journey. After this there's just a lot of fluffy parts like the first few one shots again. This was just something I needed for myself.

It's funny, I owe that series a lot, but I honestly just kind of hate it right now.

I don't really know if 'being blinded by hate' is really fair to say about the relationship I'm trying to portray, because I don't hate Billy and neither does Steve. There's love there, and a wish for something better that they'll never get to have, and I hope that you can stick with it to see how it all plays out. I like to think I'm writing for more than just bashing on a character. As for just dropping it in, well I've known what I want to do this entire time, but I can understand where people would come from thinking it was just dropped in.

I'm sorry if you're disappointed, but don't forget, writers are just humans too. We do things and we make mistakes, and this was just one of mine. I think I have everything properly tagged on the series now? If you feel differently though, you're welcome to DM me. I don't bite. I struggle with ao3 tagging in general, so I'm always grateful when anyone suggests tags I should be adding. Someone told me today I should add a genderfluid Steve tag to my latest fic, and I didn't even realize I forgot to.

Anyways. Long and probably too personal, but I figured I wanted to explain best I could. If you don't care about any of that, well, the tags got added.

[alliumbunny]

If I know anything it's that 2012 tmnt is both my least favorite show ever and also my second favorite show. ever.

so.

anyways

so I watched like 4-5 more episodes of tmnt (left off at the season 3 time travel episode, y'know.. with renet aaaaaaa)

um so. I don't like renet.

not really the character itself, but like, how they, depict her. 1. her outfit, idk what it is, but i can't help but think it's fucking ugly. I kinda understand how hard it is to make 3d models of humans but omg you've done semi-good outfits before, casey has a pretty good outfit i'd say, i think, i don't look at him much, april's outfit is... okay... at least... kinda good at most, I think it can be turned into something really good with just alittle bit of change in it, but it's okay. like renet tho, idc how future she is, her outfit, ugly as sin, omg. please omg why. anyways um

2. I fucking hate, the mikey and renet romance, it feels so so so so so so so, how many so's can I put... so so so So, weird. Renet says a line, after mikey implies a first "date" that, isn't he alittle OLD for her, She hasn't even been born yet, and WOW, good point, I was mostly looking at the fact that renet looks like a fully grown adult, like 21 at least, 25 at most, I do not see that women as a teen, she acts like a teen at times, but every time I look at her and her character and what I know about her, it gets more and more unlikely for me to think she's even close to being a teen. and since Mikey is canonly at least 15 and at most 16 at this time(He's 15 in the start of season 3 but leo says that they go at least 16 years in the future so idk if there's a year inbetween tang shen dying and splinter buying(lol) the turtles, that probably is it but incase it isn't, y'know, idk) I personally think their "15" still(although depending on how many months he spent in Dimension X and how many months ago their birthday is, he might genuinely be 16 in canon, but we will never know) from how the show puts it but u can think what u want, either way, still a minor, still weird to me, I just can't get renet being an adult out of my head now that i've seen her in the show. I also just don't like how mikey acts with her tho, All the brothers are slightly similar when it comes to romance, aka... they can be kinda.. creeps, in a way. i don't like how renet kisses mikey(i think on the forehead or cheek, but I skipped that part, ngl) because they have JUST met, not kidding, they have JUST MET. another thing i hate. I hate that they JUST MET and yet they are inlove, i don't like it... i understand the love at first sight trope, it's in like half of the other romances in this show, i just fucking hate it, :) There's probably SO MUCH MORE, I fucking hate this romance aaaaa

3. I don't think there is a three, other then then those two, i think the character is kinda under welling and could've been done better, but they are pretty cool in concept, I will continue hating the writing and design of this character and will probably like them more in the fanfiction side of things. yippee.

I have to remind y'all that this is all my opinion and you should watch the show or at least those episodes before you, yourself, decide to hate renet aswell. I look into this show, WAY too much. If you like Renet, that is totally fine and very valid, you could've taken her character a completely different way than me and that is completely fine. I see nothing wrong with liking the character or the romance/love story between her and mikey, I just personally see it as a really weird choice. that doesn't mean you will see it the same way, and that is completely okay. people see things differently all the time and this is definitely going to be one of them. There's gonna be people who love renet, i'm just not one of them. Tho i wish i could like her ngl.

in the end, umm... i wanted to rant about another tmnt thing, and I did. i wrote way to much, I'm sorry if you actually read all of it, my thoughts run wild, and I am too lazy to fix any spelling mistakes </3

I will continue to ramble about tmnt another day, today, i am done watching tmnt, i got through a tiny amount a episodes and i am mentally exhausted <3

[afflatusmiqo]

hgggh

I finished Assassin's Fate last night and I really wish I had someone to talk it over with.

I wish I could remember everything from the last 15 books that might be relevant for interpreting everything.

The circumstances were really horrific. I wonder if the author had to put the Traitor's Death in there just so we would know that it was really, truly, actually the end this time. (At least, the end for Fitz as we knew him.) When the Fool said his death would not be fast, I had a glimmer of hope that he would have more years with Bee.

tbh it was as happy an ending as I could have expected -- everyone who loved Fitz coming to be with him; he and Nighteyes and the Fool becoming complete. (I just wish it could have happened later!)

Like many people, I've been trying to figure out what Bee's last lie was that so impressed the Wolf (who I'm assuming is mostly Nighteyes, but idk there), and which father he is comparing her to.

If the father that the Wolf refers to is Fitz: well, Fitz is best at lying to himself, particularly about whether people really love him. So perhaps she was lying about not wanting the Fool to stay with her as a father figure, or about not wanting Nettle and Riddle to adopt her. Neither of these seem very consistent to me.

(I don't think she's telling the truth when she says that she's fine on her own, though.)

I see several people online saying that they think the lie was that Fitz loved Beloved over everyone else, implying that Beloved needed to be loved "the most" to give himself up for Fitz. I don't think that's something the Wolf would find amusing anyway - it's not a very clever lie.

Yes, I do think Fitz wants the Fool to be with him and Nighteyes forever in the Stone Wolf and the Skill Stream, as one being, which is, a pretty enormous kind of love. I do think he truly wants to be with Bee, too, but he definitely does not want Bee to lose her mortal life or to stop being her own person. As a reader, I think it's a bit mean for that to be a "true" ordering over people Fitz loved, although I totally understand why Bee (and Nettle) would feel that way especially at the time.

(OTOH, there really is no one else Fitz thinks about the way he thinks about the Fool.. honestly, it's just too sad for me to think about Fitz having truly failed Bee.)

Perhaps the lie is that she ever *did* lie about one of the things she said to hurt Beloved. I think she may have lied that she *didn't* have a dream about the black and white rat leaping away from the "thing that used to be a man." The details seem too accurate for her to not have dreamed them. Perhaps she did write down a true dream in the first place, but realized that she could avert that outcome by lying that she dreamed it. Or, maybe the rat didn't jump away, and that's the part she lied about.

Earlier in the book, just before she tells Beloved about her father's letter excoriating him, the narration says "An omission is as good as a lie". I'm not sure if the omission is hers (something about the letter) or Beloved's. As in: if he won't reveal anything to her about himself, she'll give him a lie in exchange, because she's a very hurt child. I do think it's entirely possible that Fitz wrote a letter somewhat like the one she describes. We saw a few examples of heartbroken love letters from Fitz to Fool back in Fool's Assassin. In particular, I'm remembering one where he says he's not going to give up on his daughter to go off on a wild goose chase for the Fool's son (oops). Bee's lie may have been (1) to omit all of the *other* letters he wrote (his love letters), (2) that he didn't burn it (there's a chapter intro near the end of AF referring to a burned letter), (3) something else in the letter.

Tangentially, I've also been wondering about how related the White Prophets are to dragons. When trying to explain to Bee how he could be her father, Beloved drew an analogy with Heeby and Rapskal. Beloved's haughtiness really does resemble the dragons that we've met in some ways, but his love is more like a human love, I think. (iirc he was the one who said that the Liveships would be a new kind of dragon because they also had the memories of humans)

[audioaujom]

27: Victim's Memoirs [wrong end 4 ★5]

Corpse Party Hub, < prev, next >

This is wrong end 4 ★5 from Chapter 2! A lot of these bad endings are fucked up and awful but I honestly debated not writing this one because it’s nasty, but… when whump calls lmao

I've also written (or begun writing) nearly every other bad ending for this game and I guess this one felt left out idk

I know compared to a lot of the other graphic shit on this hellsite this is probably nothing, but I’d feel uncomfortable posting this without a bunch of warnings. I don’t really have a taste for such graphic things, but I’m actually kind of pleased with how it came out. I like the ick ig Be safe and enjoy responsibly.

Pairing: Ranboo and Charlie

Word Count: 3190

Chapter TWs: Mind Manipulation ("Darkening"), Graphic Depictions of Violence, Gore, Implied/Referenced Cannibalism, Vomiting, Character Death

--

“Whoa hey, do you see that?” Charlie asked as he stepped out of the classroom, Ranboo poking his head out the door to look over his friend’s shoulder at the floor.

“The notebook paper with blood on it?” Ranboo asked, Charlie turning around to face him with a sinister grin. “Yeah, I see it. Why?”

“C’mon, aren’t you curious?” Charlie all but whined, his eyes darting back and forth between the page and Ranboo’s disapproving glare from the doorway.

“Uhm, not really. What’s it gonna say? ‘Here’s how to get out of this horrible haunted elementary school in three easy steps’?” 

“It could!” Ignoring the obvious deadpan, Charlie smiled hopefully up at Ranboo—who just sighed and shook his head.

“No, it really couldn’t.” Ranboo then paused, an unreadable look crossing his face before he continued, “But I’m not going to stop you if you do wanna look.”

“Aha! You are curious!” Charlie poked a finger into the taller boy’s chest, his smile splitting into a wide grin. “It’s just as I suspected!” Triumphant, he turned and swiped the paper up off the ground, eyes scanning the page from behind his glasses before his grip on the page tightened and his face paled. “Oh. Oh god nevermind.”

“What? What’s it say?” Ranboo asked, his own curiosity morbidly piqued by Charlie’s horror, taking the scrap paper from his friend who passed it over wordlessly.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — I ate my friend today. What else was I supposed to do? I was starving. We both were. And there's no food here. So we decided, together, that one of us should try to live just a little bit longer. If I ever get home, I'm supposed to tell all the people waiting for us what happened. We left it all up to a game of rock-paper-scissors. Loser eats winner. And I lost. I felt her blood going down my throat, quenching my thirst. And her meat was surprisingly satisfying. But that blood and that meat was once my friend. Up until just a few hours before, I'd been talking with her. As I feasted, I just kept thinking, this food used to be a person. Before I tore it apart, it all worked together to sustain a life. And every time I thought about that, I just started crying… and I couldn't stop. I wanted some part of her to be with me even after she died, so I decided to keep one of her eyeballs. And I thought maybe I should write all of this down, to help preserve some small portion of my sanity. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

“Oh.” Ranboo gagged in disgust and horror, dropping the page to put one hand over his mouth as the other went to clutch at his stomach. “Well, alright. That’s… wow, okay. Um…”

“Couldn’t have said it better myself.” Charlie tried to joke, but it fell flat as his voice shook nervously. He then put a gentle hand on Ranboo’s shoulder, quietly suggesting, “Let’s just… leave that there.”

“Yeah. Good idea.” Ranboo nodded, staring down at the paper on the floor, his look turning to a slight glare. “Just when I think things can’t get any worse…”

“C’mon, let's keep looking somewhere else.” Charlie offered, lightly pulling Ranboo by the arm away from the classroom and towards the stairs.

The two silently made their way back down to the first floor, wanting to search in a more orderly fashion by working their way up from the bottom. By the time they’d made it downstairs the odd tension in the air had already dissipated, them hunting in a much more comfortable silence until—

“Uhm… Ranboo? Is that…?” Charlie asked tentatively, pointing at another rather innocuous piece of notebook paper lying behind a ruined table near the rows of shoe shelves at the front doors.

“Another bloody piece of notebook paper probably containing horror beyond my worst imagination?” Ranboo responded rhetorically, giving Charlie a look as he blandly stated, “I think so.”

“Would it be wrong of me to say I’m still curious?” Glancing at Ranboo beside him, Charlie quickly backpedaled, “Not in a weird sort of way, I just… if it’s from the same person I want to know what happened to them.”

Ranboo stared at him blankly. “Why are you asking for my permission?” 

“It makes me feel better.”

“Wow, no hesitation there.” Ranboo shook his head at his friend’s immediate answer, sighing and gesturing forward at the page. “Sure. Go read it if you really want to.”

“Okay!” Charlie nodded, jogging forward and crouching down before looking up as he realized he wasn't being followed. “Are you not coming too?”

Ranboo stood still for a long moment before he finally gave in and stepped over with a quiet, “...coming.” 

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — I hold, in the palm of my hand... a piece of a person's body. A piece of a person who was living and breathing only a short while ago. This body part used to be attached to her head. And now, I'm walking around the school with it. I had no idea eyeballs were so heavy. And I just keep squishing it in the palm of my hand, as if I'm testing its firmness. Squeeze, and release... Squeeze, and release… — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

“Okay.” Charlie announced, dropping the page immediately after finishing it. “Somehow that’s worse than the vivid description of cannibalism.”

“Couldn’t have said it better myself.” Ranboo grinned as Charlie turned to look at him, betrayed.

“Hey! That’s my line!” He whined with his own smile, before it slowly faded alongside the playful air as realization started to dawn on his face. “But dude… this place is really fucked up. The bodies we keep coming across are all of kids, which means—”

“Don’t. I’m gonna stop you right there.” Ranboo cut him off, firmly waving both of his hands and shaking his head for emphasis. “I don’t… don’t. Nope. I am not going to think about the implications. You are not going to think about the implications. There are no implications. None.”

Charlie nodded, his widened eyes slowly closing as he let out a breath to calm himself down. “No problem.” 

Working their way around the main floor and then to the row of first floor classrooms, the second page—while weird—was long forgotten as the two briefly bickered about how to open the nailed shut door at the back of 2-A until Ranboo remembered the nail puller they’d found earlier. The secret room was strange, with large gaps in the floor and a mechanism at the far corner, the two venturing all the way to the back corner to look over the mechanism to try and figure out what it did.

“...Charlie.” It was Ranboo who broke the silence this time, an arm flying out to the side to stop Charlie in his tracks about halfway into the room. The two boys paused, both noticing the page on the floor.

“Are these notes following us around or something?” Charlie questioned with a frown, pushing Ranboo’s arm away. “Cause we can’t seem to go more than a few feet without finding another one.”

“I don’t like this at all.” 

“Yeah, that’s… fair.” Nodding to himself, Charlie paused before shuffling forward a few steps. “...I’ve gotta, right?”

“No, you really don’t.” Ranboo answered, Charlie ignoring him as he bent down to pick up the page with a shit-eating grin. “That sounds like a yes to me!”

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — I've been searching every last corner of this school building, trying to find a way of escaping with her. But it's not happening. No matter how much we struggle, only further misery awaits us. I'm so unbearably thirsty… so hungry that it feels like my stomach is eating itself... And every moment, it gets worse. It's like a big, black mass in front of me that's slowly closing in. I can't keep ignoring it. I've started talking to the eyeball in my hand, to help stay focused and maintain my sanity. Stop looking at me like that! I swear, I'll find us a way out of here! I have to make sure I tell your family what you did for me… — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

“Hopeless. Lovely.” Ranboo commented from over one of Charlie’s shoulders, watching as his friend curiously started re-reading a section of the note.

“What’s that black mass thing they were talking about?” Charlie asked after he finished looking over the page, setting it back down with a huff. “That sounds a little more imposing than the hunger or thirst.”

“I’m not sure… but whatever it is we should avoid it if we can.” Ranboo sighed, staring down at the note on the floor, lost in thought.

“Oh. I assumed that went without saying.” Charlie agreed, before smirking and commenting, “Y’know, to avoid the big black ball.”

“Dude.” 

“Not even  a sliver of a smile?” Smirk dropping, Charlie sighed and shook his head. “Throw me a bone here man, I’m trying to cheer you up.”

“...thanks.” Ranboo smiled a little, recognizing Charlie’s effort but still too anxious to actually feel any sense of relief. “But the best way to cheer me up would be to stop reading these creepy notes and find a way out.”

“Aye aye, captain.” 

Ignoring Charlie’s mock salute, they continued investigating each floor systematically in an on and off silence until they reached the end of one of the hallways on the third floor, the two noticing another bloodied page near a particularly large gap in the floorboards.

“Okay, I know you said to stop reading them, but it’s right there.” 

“I already said I wouldn’t stop you like ten times, Charlie.” Ranboo sighed, watching Charlie run up to the page and instantly scan its contents.

“Epic.” About halfway down the page, Charlie's expression dropped, setting the page down with a wince of nausea. “Oh. Nevermind. I think I’m just gonna… put this back…”“What did it say?” Ranboo asked curiously, wandering over and picking up the page as soon as it hit the floor.

“Oh, you don’t wanna—” Charlie reached out to stop him, but was a moment too late as Ranboo had already begun reading. “Wait!”

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — I am writing these memoris wit hsticky hansd but its not me that is stiky but somethng else I hope you re not mad about this maybe you will think im a horribl e person but i got hungry again really hungry like i was about to DIE so i I did something I shouldn't have done. I promised myself I would stay sane, and promised myself I wouldn't do what I did, and I am so, so sorry, really, really sorry, really sorry but there is no excuse for what I did. With my bloody hands, I took the thing that I've been squishing, and I put it in my mouth, and I swallowed it. Iateit. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

“...yeah.” Ranboo silently let go of the page as Charlie spoke, letting it slowly flutter through the air until it landed at his feet, Charlie grabbing him by the shoulders to maneuver him further down the hall. “Let’s go, Ran.”

“Yeah.” Ranboo nodded absentmindedly, fiddling with his hands before glancing over at Charlie and timidly asking, “We’ll figure this out, right? You and me?”

“You and me.” Charlie affirmed, squeezing his shoulders. “We got this.” 

No matter how confident Charlie sounded Ranboo couldn’t shake his lingering anxiety, the longer they searched around the school with no clear goal only serving to make it continually spiral. By the time they’d backtracked to the second floor for a second time, it had gotten so bad he almost didn’t step off the landing and through the doorway to the floor, letting Charlie pull him along as he couldn’t seem to get himself to walk forward. The anxious ice in his veins that had shattered when Charlie urged him forward resurged rapidly after the briefest moment as both of them noticed the paper lying beside the large gap in the floor at the same time.

“...is that—?” Charlie asked, cutting himself off as the two stared at the page on the floor.

Ranboo nodded, dread coiling in his stomach as he couldn’t will himself to move any closer to it. “I think it is.”

“It’s fine.” Charlie said randomly, pulling Ranboo into a nearby classroom with a soft smile. “I’m not curious.” 

“What? Really?” Ranboo asked, disbelieving, some of the dread giving way to relief as Charlie sounded genuine and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“Yeah, really. We have other priorities right now.” 

“Yeah. Yeah.” With a short nod from Ranboo, the two went back to investigating the small room. “Everything’s gonna be fine.”

The classroom held nothing useful, Ranboo giving up after a few minutes and slamming shut the teacher’s desk drawer he’d pulled open in a vain hope of finding anything they could possibly use. He turned to comment about the empty nature of the classroom to Charlie, only to realize his friend was no longer beside him. Confused, he poked his head out of the doorway to see where he could’ve gone in the minute he was distracted with rifling through the desk.

“Charlie? Where’d you— NO!” The yell of surprise ripped out of Ranboo before he knew what he was saying, staring at where Charlie was crouched on the floor by the staircase with the previously seen note clutched in both of his hands. “Charlie, what are you doing?!”

“Sorry, Ran. I’m too curious.” Charlie apologized, flashing him a quick smile. “Besides, this is probably the last one, anyway. No harm, no foul.”

Reaching out, Ranboo threw himself forward to try and take the page from Charlie—who easily ducked out of the way. “No, don’t—!”

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — if you are reading this allow me to forewarn you there is no hope of rescue there is nothing to be gained endless wandering and endless torture is the nature of this place i succumbed to my hunger and thirst began nibbling on that corpse again there is no flavor, no sensation just meat and fluid to sate my empty belly i promised i would not desecrate your body any more but i broke that promise  please  forgive me — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Charlie had barely read the last few words on the page when his vision completely blacked out.

Everything felt wrong.

The last thing Charlie remembered was reading another one of the bloody notes—please forgive me—and then blacking out on the floor. His head hurt and his mouth tasted metallic, a hand coming up to messily wipe some blood leaking out of his mouth as he tried to sit up and figure out what was going on around him.

“Shit, my head—!” Charlie glanced around with half-opened eyes, shaking his head and looking around frantically for his friend only to realize he was alone in the hallway. “What… oh god, Ranboo? Ranboo?!”

Forcing his nauseous body to his knees, he felt his stomach roil and force a line of bile up his throat from the movement, trying hard to swallow it back only for the metallic taste in his mouth to grow stronger.

“What the fuck is—?” He asked, cutting himself off to spit out a thick wad of blood that was building up in his mouth, the contents landing in an oddly gloopy pile on the wood between his knees. He spat again, the blood a little thinner but still strange as he recoiled from it and toppled over backwards. “Shit, what the fuck…?”

Finally looking up and getting his vision to focus, Charlie wished he could fall back unconscious as he realized he wasn’t technically alone—but the only company he now had was his friend’s unmoving body.

An extreme amount of blood had soaked into the wood flooring beneath Ranboo’s still form, his throat torn open and windpipe crushed, his neck missing a large chunk of jagged flesh from the middle that had already stopped oozing. His mouth and eyes were wide open, the once lively gray now faded, glassy, and frozen in a kind of terror that made Charlie sick to his stomach all over again. The muscles on his upper arms had been torn clean off, white bone sticky with what was left of the crimson tendons and blood missing from his limp arms—one of his elbows bent all the way up the wrong way. His legs weren’t nearly as torn as his arms, but they were ripped by what looked like teeth marks from the knees all the way down to his shoes, pants shredded by the unnatural strength of whatever had attacked and left his mangled body in the middle of the hallway.

“What did… what?” Charlie scrambled back up to his hands and knees to crawl up to Ranboo’s body, afraid to touch him as he realized his hands were already slick with the same blood that formed dried drips on the front of his shirt—and was very likely Ranboo’s. “Oh god, no… no no no, this some twisted fucking joke, there’s no way I would’ve… oh fuck…” Metallic twinged bile threatened to rise up his throat again, Charlie only managing to turn his head at the last minute before the vomit could soil Ranboo’s already desecrated corpse. “Blood… everywhere and… no… no, please…”

Sitting innocently next to the body was a scrap of paper that managed to avoid the worst of the spilled bodily fluids, Charlie reaching for it with shaking hands as he recognized Ranboo’s scrawled handwriting.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — It’s okay, Charlie. I know this wasn’t you. Only the school and that black mist are to blame. If you ever come back to your senses and read this… I’m sorry I couldn’t stop you. I hope you make it out. - Ran — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

The rest of the note trailed off into a thick coating of blood, Charlie’s eyes going unfocused with hot tears that gathered in the corners and threatened to stream down his already messy face. “There’s no way I… I did this…?” Charlie asked aloud, his strangely half-full stomach feeling infinitely heavier as he frantically tried to spit or even throw up more of the flesh and blood coating the inside of his throat. “I… oh god…”

Another retch had vomit with chunks of barely digested muscle landing in front of Charlie, his eyes blurry with now freely flowing tears and an odd faded black tint around the edges that creeped in with a cool chill. One hand went up to claw at his throat as the other braced him against the floor, overwhelmed with a self-loathing so strong it was only rivaled by the innate disgust that stung in his mouth like his stomach acid, him clinging desperately onto the awful feelings as they started to slowly slip away from his conscious grasp into the dark void that gave him a sense of deja-vu to when he’d finished reading the last of the bloody notes. 

Charlie was tired and anguished and suddenly overwhelmingly… hungry. He just couldn’t fight it anymore. The hunger ate away at his feelings greedily, him collapsing to the floor as the dark haze re-took over his vision—leaving him in an empty heap of despair lying on the bloodsoaked wood next to Ranboo’s unmoving body.

[masschase]

“#gooh is in my top 5 “i question writing this into my hc” things gonna be honest” i would honestly LOVE to know what things you hesitate to include in your canon? one thing i really love and respect about your work is your dedication to sticking to the actual canon so i’m super curious to hear what things you actually don’t consider part of it. or at least the ones you go back and forth on.

OK firstly, thank you, that means a lot to me 😊

There probably isn't anything that isn't a part of it at all unless I forgot about it which does happen pretty often! Things I go back and forth on is definitely the best description of it.  Like, almost all have led me to write some moments I really like and yeah I am proud of making the canon (at least the bits I didn't forget!) fit, but I feel like when I started writing I didn't even think about just *not* sticking to canon. This list is not ordered or exhaustive, it's just the stuff I could think of off the top of my head.

1. GOOH. This is actually a kind of minor one, bc the pros outweigh the cons massively but it's been on my mind today bc of the chapter I've been writing.

Pros: a very sweet Matt/Boss moment and Matt/Boss/Johnny friendship moment after they return from hell, throwing in Jezebel as a character, and obviously the new planet ending is sort of essential to my "they tried to save the earth but couldn't so now they need somewhere new" thing. Plenty of smaller jokes and again some other good parts that factor in.

Cons: so this is actually stuff that just canonises monotheistic religious views that my characters wouldn't normally hold that makes me feel... weird... idk. I feel like they have enough time between GOOH and my fanfic to process that but I was thinking about it today and it bothered me. GOOH also canonizes Matt and Asha sleeping together in some capacity... ok that's not so bad, it adds some depth to the storyline and stops them having unresolved sexual/romantic tension as implied in SRIV. But at times I worry I'm portraying one or both of them as pretty dickish.

2. All SRIV romance options

Pros: I mean, Casey probably would fuck all her friends if it was the only option. And I hc SRIV as taking place over 2-3 months. After that time-travel ONSs were an option. And her whole one time rule has its place in the plot.

Cons: Kind of forces everyone into bi/pan/other mspec apart from Ben and Keith. I would have highly considered making Pierce gay. Maybe Asha would've got thrown token straight lol. Plus who says everyone (again, except Ben, who... seemed like he would say yes to whatever she was about to ask... and Keith) would fuck her? Seems a tad Mary-Sueish. 🤔 Also doesn't gel well with her and Johnny having a primarily brother/sister relationship but I think I've mostly explained that with her having a false romantic epiphany and the fact that he struggles to connect 'hot 30ishyo woman who I massively respect' with 'that kid i knew back in Stilwater' after the 6 year gap. Plus... romance options aren't really true canon, I definitely could have left some out! But considering I did use them all, I could've said better things about the Casey/Pierce time bc that was a culmination of a lot of UST.

3. Cyrus Temple plastic surgery disguise thing.

Pros: definitive 'end date' for Casey getting plastic surgery for scars etc.; it put her off. One amusing joke.

Cons: Idk I just hate it hate it hate it. I think because a lot of game mechanics are easily explainable e.g. forgive&forget and notoriety wipe being bribes, an advanced alien race COULD have time travel etc. whereas this is something that's pretty batshit by SR3 standards but mostly at the expense of like two moments I COULD'VE JUST NOT MENTIONED IT. So if this list was in order I suspect this would be #1 😂

4. The destruction of Earth; or more specifically that they don't/can't undo the destruction of Earth despite having time travel.

Pros: I mean it's inkeeping with the Saints for me. Some people do just die and don't come back. The idea that the new planet thing is moving on from something irretrievable. A new beginning.

Cons: It just feels like a cop out using the 'oh they have time travel but can't use it to save the world bc that's a paradox' thing?

5. Matt and Casey's age gap.

Pros: The millenial/zoomer dynamic, parallels being drawn i.e. joining/creating gangs at 15, Casey being 24 when they met and Matt being 24 when the story begins. I guess relationships where the woman is older are also underepresented compared to the reverse, and being able to give Matt a "coma years don't count" line.

Cons: Idk just on a personal level obviously I'd just prefer them NOT to have a 7.5 year gap. I make it clear that she wasn't ever attracted to him until he was 22 and that the spaceship changes things in terms of life stages but still.

Bonus of some things that were my own decision that I go back and forth on: the name Casey Clark at times (there is a whole thing of 'bc she is secretly a nerd like Matt/Kinzie but she's an analog nerd' but still), Matt being (at least based on his own history) heteroromantic (ok supports split model of attraction but at the same time... Matt to me reads as a canonically bisexual character which we don't often get, why not make him bi/panromantic too?), Casey and Johnny's brother/sister thing in general (idk if that was trying too hard to make them platonic bc generally I rather like GatBoss), writing in accents, not giving enough focus to the secondary pairings esp the more visibly queer ones all bc I originally wanted to keep secondary pairings up in the air for the reader, Casey's SR3 look at times, POSTING HER NAME ALL OVER FUCKING TUMBLR. I could go on 😅

This all seems more negative than I'm meaning it to be bc I put pros first. I love working in the canon and the way plot points have blossomed from it. In fact I put something at the end of my last chapter about how things for this often just fall into place and just leave me 😲.

I will probably make a second list at some point when I think of more 😅

[scandalsavagefanfic]

Hello! I am a huge fan of ur writing. I've loved everything I've read of yours. I've read alot of what you've posted, except for a couple of the tags that are squicky for me (so I'm very thankful you tag very thoroughly). No judgement for the squick, it's just not for me. & when I'm having a bad day, I usually just go thru ur ao3 and find something to reread. I think about Therapy's Bruce & Jason every damn day. While I obvs appreciate ur darker more "problematic" content (I really vibe with some of the themes you write about bc of my own trauma, & so it's very cathartic to read about in a fictional setting), I am truly a sucker for ur more happy content. The Happily Ever After verse also lives in my head rent free. Idk more wholesome stuff just seems more special when you write it. Anyways. I would die for you. But the point of this ask is cause I'm curious as to why you don't like Urban Legends? I'm sorry if you already talked about it here or on twitter and I missed it. I was just wondering because I really enjoy your take on things and would love to hear why you dislike it. I've been enjoying it so far personally, but I am always open to DC comics criticism.

Aw thank you so much! I'm so flattered by everything you just said. You're so sweet ❤❤❤❤❤

I haven't talked about Urban Legends here or twitter (I haven't been very active in either place lately. Just a lot going on and no energy 😔) but I'm happy to do it here.

Before I start though, I just want to add a standard disclaimer and make it clear that if you like it, there's nothing wrong with that and you don't have to let me ruin it for you lol. Like what you like.

That said, since you asked...

I said this when I was talking about it on discord, that there is a difference between hope and expectation. I always hope that a new story centered on Jason (or anyone really, but things have been especially egregious for Jay for 15 years) will be good or at least treat the character with a minimal level of respect (to be honest, the bar is super fucking low). But my expectations always temper my hope, to keep it from getting unrealistic. Because my expectations are based on experience.

The long history of Jason Todd, since even before his resurrection, has been one of retroactively trying to make him "a bad seed" in order to absolve Bruce of any responsibility in his death.

I don't even expect DC or their writers to start honoring the fact that Jason was not an angry, reckless Robin (and less of the later than Dick or Tim and definitely Damian). There plenty of ways that retcon can be folded into his history and be compelling and sympathetic. And if they're going to stick with that retcon, I'm only asking that they do it in one of those compelling and sympathetic ways because Jason was 15 when he died, heroically, in one of the most selfless acts in comics, to save a woman who literally handed him over to be brutally murdered. He was 12 when Bruce plucked him off the streets, he'd been homeless and fending for himself for at least two years. I personally think that Jason's story hits harder for him and Bruce if their original, canon relationship, of Jason as starry-eyed and eager to learn and absolutely devoted to Bruce and Bruce to Jason, is preserved. But Jason's origins does leave room for a meaningful interpretation of him as angry and frustrated at the lack of meaningful results of Bruce's methods.

And that's really where my irritation at stories like Batman: Urban Legends, Cheer and Batman The Adventure Continues has it's roots.

Every time one of these stories comes out, I think (or hope, rather) that this will be the one that remembers and respects the origins of the Jason and the Red Hood, that takes into account the changed sensibilities of comics readers in the 30 years since Jason's death and the subtle, 20 year, retroactive campaign to make him the "bad Robin". The "born bad" trope is played out and literally no one likes the message it implies. That some kids are just bad eggs and there's nothing parents or the adults around them can do. Especially when it's played as the kid's fault. If Jason's time as Robin is going to be characterized by anger, then it should be rooted in anger at the social injustices he witnessed as he grew up in an impoverished, crime-ridden, area and the horrors he faced raising himself when every day was a battle for survival. There are topical, meaningful, stories to tell with that backdrop.

But those are never the stories we get.

⚠⚠ Spoilers for Batman: Urban Legends, Cheer ⚠⚠

I'm particularly disappointed in Urban Legends because for the first issue, it looked like that was the kind of story we were going to get. I was put off by the first flashback of Jason being mesmerized by Bruce's guns, and I got that feeling in my gut that it was a bad sign. Jason depicted as impatient and overconfident and the scene with the guns is heavy-handed foreshadowing that got my spidey-sense tingling. I had a inkling then (in the first three pages) of how this story was going to play out, but it was early and I could still see many narrative paths that could lead to a satisfying story. My concerns were soothed somewhat and the little flame of my hope fanned, with the flashback of Alfred scolding Bruce, with Barbara's concern for Jason. A bit of worry returned with the way Jason ruthlessly pursued an addict who didn't appear to be a dealer and with the ending of the issue. The stuff with the addict sat wrong with me but the ending was tempered some by how despicable Tyler's dad was written. The scene was clearly set so that the reader could sympathize with Jason's decision and the scene with the addict could be brushed aside as a side-effect of comics over-the-top need for constant action, so I still held hope.

Issue 2 made me uncomfortable and it's where my hope starts to take a backseat to my expectations. I can dismiss Jason's self-deprecating internal monologue as unreliable narration, except that the flashback reinforces his thought process to explicitly show that it's not unreliable narration, and should be taken at face value. Jason faces physical abuse at the hands of his mother's drug dealer and when the flashback continues later, Jason kills the drug dealer. To be clear, this is a pre-Bruce Jason. His mom is still alive. He's like... 10. He kills this guy for shoving his head into a wall and implying Jason's mother paid for her drugs with sex. This is a scene that serves a single purpose. To show that Jason has always been prone to violence.

In the spirit of full disclosure, there is the small chance the drug dealer might not be dead. But the story obviously wants the reader to think he is, and it hasn't done anything to change that yet.

Starlin already did this story with The Diplomat’s Son in 1988 and he did it infinitely better. AND that’s still technically canon. So now I’m supposed to believe that Jason lost his cool bad enough to kill two douche bags before his sweet 16? Like it’s totally normal for abused kids raised in poverty, who’ve led hard and heartbreaking lives to just... haul off and kill people? That’s bullshit, and when taken with the Jason in the third issue, who is little more than an idiot thug, this story is really doubling down on some fucked up stereotypes.

Which brings us to the most recent issue. I went into this installment with very low expectations. I thought this story was going to be about Jason, through this experience with Tyler, a young boy with a similar background to Jason's, coming to the realization that Bruce's way is the best way and that Bruce did his best by Jason.

That would be annoying (in no small part because it takes increasingly absurd levels of plot armor to keep Bruce's no kill rule relevant, let alone irrefutably right). But I can probably live with that, if only because maybe if Jason officially falls back into line with the Bats crusade, maybe I'll get stories that treat him with respect, stories that don't relegate him to comic relief, dumb brute, or a background body with no lines in a story about the Joker burning Gotham (like Jason would just fucking stand there quietly for that).

And that may still be where the story is going, Jason realizing Bruce is right.

But holy shit do I not have the right words to describe how fucking insulting and gross issue three is.

From start to finish--including the flashback--Jason is written as cruel and fucking stupid. Like straight up dumb.

The entire issue is Bruce explaining the fucking basics to Jason like it's his first day. And Jason flies off the fucking handle and terrorizes a doctor he knows isn't a part of making the Cheerdrops, beats the shit out of some random addicts, and finally, when he can't accomplish anything on his own because he's a dumb brute he calls Barbara for help and rushes in with no information where he's promptly incapacitated and must now wait to be rescued by Batman.

This panel is the least of the issues sins but I can’t screenshot the entire story but it’s representative of the tone for the whole issue (and retroactively tainted the prior two issues).

This is beyond insulting. The only conclusions Jason comes to in this issue are the ones Bruce leads him to by talking to him like he can’t make the simplest connections. And like... in this story Jason can’t make the simplest connections.

This (and the Jason throughout the entirety of this issue) is a far cry from the Jason we fell in love with in Under the Red Hood, who was competent and strategic and intelligent enough to seize control of Gotham’s underworld from Black Mask (who’s no fucking slouch, he’s the first and only person to unify organized crime in Gotham) AND elude and manipulate Bruce until the time and place of his choosing.

This is a far cry from even the Red Hood and the Outlaws Jason who is competent enough to fight the League of Shadows and Ra’s al Ghul (among very dangerous and skilled others) and smart enough to create antidotes for mind control nanotech viruses.

As he should be, by the way. Jason Todd is one of the best, most comprehensively trained fighters in DC’s stable of non powered vigilantes. He’s not irrational or hot headed. He’s pragmatic, tactically minded, and patient. He’s a detective. Right now. Has been since he was 12. Bruce doesn’t have to make him one because he already is. 

Jason is not a stupid thug who uses his fists because his brain doesn’t work. And I can’t tell you how so very exhausted I am by this narrative. 

This is actually the most egregious example of Jason’s skills and intelligence being not just undermined but dismissed entirely. Even Morrison’s Jason had some degree of competency. 

The one, single redeeming factor of this story is the art. It’s beautiful. And Marcus To is a godsend he seems to be one of only a couple of artists who remember that Jason was a child when he was Robin and I’m literally only buying this book because of him. 

Anyway, I’m sorry. I didn’t want that to come out so... um... passionately lol. I’m just very very tired. My intention with this isn’t to ruin it for you, if you like it, that’s fine. 

But this issue shot this story to the top of my "Vehemently Despise” list. 1) Batman: Urban Legends (Cheer), 2) Battle for the Cowl/Morrison’s Batman and Robin, 3) Batman The Adventure Continues.

I hope the next issues somehow salvage this dumpster fire. But I’m not expecting it.

(Damnit. That sounded harsh again. To reiterate, I’m not trying to judge anyone who enjoys it, I just personally hate it and you asked me why lol 😅)

[flowercrown-bard]

I've had a thought that I'm not going to write, but I still want to share: Immortal!Jaskier goes to a modern first year medieval music history lecture to hear the prof teach about him (because he’s a vain bastard). Unfortunately the prof has the audacity to claim that there were no women working as bards during that time period. Jaskier refuses to let Priscilla and Essi’s memories be disrespected like that and corrects the professor. Loudly.

Yes!!! I love that so much!! The professor insists that the sources all say the singers were exclusively male and after an hours long argument Jaskier realises that for once he won't get far with dramatic declarations. So he's on for the long game. He collects all of the sources the prof mentions and at the end of the semester he hands in an incredibly detailed essay about why the professor is wrong and how his beloved friends Essi and Pris were amongst the most renown and brilliant bards of their time.

Also, I actually had a couple of lectures about (German) minstrels and here's some stuff I learned that I think Jaskier would have interesting reactions to:

1. Minstrels mercilessly roasting each other

My professor read us a song that one minstrel wrote about their rival and it went a little something like this:

"[name of rival] is the best there is!

You can ask anyone, I insist!

Ask cousins and brothere

and sisters and mothers

- as long as you make sure they are all /his/ relatives."

(implying that his relatives' statements would be meaningless bc they are obligated to lie and say that the minstrel is good even if he's actually terrible.) idk it was funnier in the original. My point is that is totally something Jaskier would have written about Valdo Marx

2. Profanities

Oh boy, medieval stories and songs were full of them. There is a story "Das Nonnenturnier" (the nuns' tournament) about a dick that somehow got detached from the guy it belongs to and wandered around aimlessly until it was found by some nuns and... Uh. Yeah. You can imagine the rest. And that sounds like something Jaskier would write about the temple of Melitele just to rile up Nenneke.

And then there was a song for a Fastnachtspiel (yeah no I have no idea how to translate that) sung by a woman that went something like this:

"I have a big chest,

two round ass cheeks

And a quiver.

An arrow thrusts in

And puts a baby there. "

I don't remember the rest but that part was very memorable. And it's about as sophisticated as Jaskier's "You think you're safe". The original German text uses the word "Arschebacken" and that's just delightful

3. "Das Minneparadox"

(Minne was the german word for the form of courtly love that was sung about) basically, the singer loves the lady because she's so virtuous. But! She mustn't ever give her love in return, for if she does, she immediately loses all virtue and if that happened the singer wouldn't be in love with her anymore. So the singer is forced to suffer the lady's cruelty for not feeling as he wants her to despite the fact that he's singing songs her her (so... minstrels were Nice Guys I guess?) and the lady has to suffer having a guy sing about her all the time despite her not liking him (but then again, she does gain virtue by his praises somehow so it's useful to her that he sings of her) Now I can imagine that Jaskier would hear of that concept and be totally enraged because charming people with his songs and making them fall in love with him with his poetry is one of his proudest achievement. Also Jaskier, who is not a womanizer but someone who falls a little in love with everyone he meets, would be so mad at people suggesting that women would lose their value by wanting to have sex

[harry-sussex]

You're lovely, and I enjoy seeing your blog on my dashboard. I'm sorry this has been such a difficult thing to process. It's always really difficult to rework an image of someone you once thought you knew. However I'd like to just put it out there - sometimes (I think the large majority of the time) news is presented in the most sensationalist way, such that nowadays I make a point of de-sensationalizing any news I read in my head. In the case of the whole Harry's memoir thing- I can sympathize with Harry as a person possibly just wanting to take back some control of the narrative for himself. Not just in the most recent events with family (that I tend to think are less horrifying than the fandom/Twitter sussex squad discusses it anyway), but in all aspects of his life. I do not at all think he's going to put his family on blast. I can easily imagine Meghan reigning that dialogue in; she has the tendency to think before she speaks that he seems to lack. And he loves his family. Similar to The Interview promos, I imagine the publishing house knew to increase the interest by implying it to be a tell all memoir. I think he's just done a lot of growing up that he didn't know he had to do over a short period of time, esp re: implicit bias/racism in the setting of media's blatant attack on someone he loves, and is disappointed by the institution's and his family's response to it. I think he's emerged a more introspective and aware human, albeit a disillusioned one. Yes it breaks my heart to think that Meghan won't get a break from the tabloids any time soon. If I were him I'd counsel him to write it & sit on it for a few yrs. But I don't want to give the media the power to destroy Meghan in my mind, and I pray she & Harry won't either. I think she'll be okay. She's a strong one, and I think he's able to draw that same link for himself and be thoughtful about what he does. No one likes being misunderstood/misinterpreted, and I wouldn't be surprised if Harry's especially triggered by that given his history with the press. Maybe this idea emerged from therapy, idk. I can empathize with that, even if I wouldn't do it myself. I hope and pray Meghan gets the support she needs from him and her loved ones in the meantime. I'm honestly not going to read it. I think the less attention I give the BRF the better off they are, unless they're doing something immoral/illegal (see: Woking pizza alibi). And I think at the end of the day, people will unfairly judge other people, especially public figures that have tragic pasts and are publically fighting with the media. A lot of it is going to be noise and I'm not going to give my energy into figuring it out. I like to think I've got a good sense of who they are as people - flawed but ultimately well meaning and earnest. I'm a huge admirer of Meghan and think Harry got really lucky with this one and I'm proud of him for choosing her in more ways than one. I believe Harry and Meghan are lovely people, and I 100% believe their interview. I believe that there are people in the palace with a lot of unchecked power who deliberately uncovered her and Archie from BRF protection for reasons of believed superiority over Meg & Arch. And they're figuring out how to deal with that as a couple and a family. And it's none of my business past that imo. I pray for them and hope it'll eventually end in peace for them all. Just wanted to add another perspective, and hopefully some levity. xx M

Hi, dear. First thing’s first, I really appreciate that this is off anon lol. I love it when people own their opinions, and it says a lot that you did. So thank you for that.

Second of all, I really appreciate the nuance and perspective that is in this message. I agree that the news is sensationalist, and my initial reaction was based off of that. I did watch the promotional clips of the interview and I believe it did sour my expectations going into it when I watched it nearly a week after it aired. I did my best to stay away from Tumblr because I didn’t want that to hinder my view, but it was impossible to separate the promotions that presented the information one way from what it actually was, and thank you for bringing that up with respect to the memoir because I hadn’t considered it. I will say that my knee jerk reaction is pretty on par with the way I still feel about it 24 hours later, especially since I got the news directly, not from Tumblr or Twitter or anywhere else, but you’re right that it could have soured my view from the very start.

I appreciate that he wants to take back some of the narrative but I think that ship has sailed, tbh. He did that with the interview and now I just think it feels like information overload. At some point, people are going to get tired of hearing the wealthy, privileged, powerful Prince complain about his life while more than 4 million people have died due to a global pandemic in less than 2 years. Not to say that he doesn’t struggle - in the words of Roxane Gay, there is no oppression Olympics (and that can be extended to struggle Olympics) - but people view it that way and will get tired of it, if they haven’t already.

I also agree that Harry’s past with the press has tarnished the way he has handled the media and the public post-exit, when he’s finally in a position to strike back without being somewhat obliged to them as part of the circumstances of his birth. I understand and sympathize with him but I just don’t think the public does, and the public matters much, much more than the perspective of one single American fan, to whom he’s never been obliged, and I simply do not think the public will afford him that same understanding, sympathy, and leniency. The public and the media are critical to his humanitarian work - his mother never realized that towards the end of her life, and I truly don’t think she would have been the martyr/saint she is perceived to be now if she had lived, because she did not know how to meet the media in the middle and eventually that started to piss people off. He’s starting to piss people off now and if it doesn’t bother him personally (which it definitely does), I don’t want it to affect his causes. The Invictus Games, Sentebale, Walking with the Wounded, WellChild, Mayhew, Smartworks, Archewell, etc. deserve better than to suffer the wrath of the media and an apathetic public because their patrons simply will not shut up lol.

I guess my point is that they will be unfairly judged (regardless, but especially due to the way they’re handling things), and I think it would suit them better in the long run if they adopted a different strategy. I really sympathize with the fact that he feels frustrated with the narrative that has been manufactured but I really, really think the narrative will only get worse and worse as he continues to go on and on about how badly his life sucks, basically. Again, I don’t deny that he struggles - we all do, some more than others, especially when there are mental health issues - but the public, to me, simply does not care. My own therapist has told me to simply stop caring about the things that I discuss with him. Not to say that they’re not relevant, important, or worthy of discussion - they absolutely are - but his point is that you cannot change people and you are wasting your energy and struggling yourself because you want to change them so, so, so badly that you’re neglecting your own self care in the process. I hate that I do it to myself and I also hate that he appears to be doing it to himself. I’m sure a lot of this conversation has been brought up in his own therapy, and I’m no professional, but I’m doing my best to heed the advice of my own therapist - which is the opposite of what Harry is doing - and it’s done wonders for me, when I actually can do it.

If there’s anything I know from this whole thing, it’s that Harry is absolutely punching above his weight, love him as I may, and that he adores, adores, adores his wife. He has chosen her from the very second she came into his life and I couldn’t want anything more for him or from her. I’m not going to lie, I would have been in this thing for any wife that Harry chose, because I was here long before Meghan specifically came into his life. However, I am glad every day that he chose her, that he loves her, that he wants to protect her, that she loves him back, that he lives the life with her that he’s wanted as long as I (and I’m sure he) can remember. I love her because he loves her, and I would have no matter what, because at the end of the day, it’s his happiness and comfort that matters to me, that has mattered to me since I discovered him and how wonderful he can be more than 7 years ago. What more could I ask of Meghan? What more, as his fan to the end (annoy me as he may), could I want for him? Who could say anything about her in that regard? If there’s anything that has come of this mess, to me, it’s that Harry loves, loves, loves his wife. I will always be happy for him and I will always be proud of him for choosing her, even if I don’t always agree with the way he goes about it.

I’m looking forward to peace, too. I cannot wait for things to just die out, for them to work things out as a couple and as a family, and for everyone to move on. The family will still do their thing and the Sussexes can do theirs, but I cannot deal with this back and forth, tit for tat, petty nonsense anymore. They’re wonderful and flawed, like the rest of them (except Andrew), and I just hope that they can all come to some kind of agreement or terms that lets this die down. It’s exhausting for everyone - themselves included. If I’m this tired, I can only imagine how tired they all are.

Thanks for stopping by, and sorry for the essay (essays, these past 24 hours lol). I really appreciate your kindness in this message, your presence in my notifications (I do see them!), your nuanced perspective and like I said before, I really, really appreciate that you own it!

[icharchivist]

I was rewatching DGM hallow and I remembered that Lavi and Bookman occasionally engage in telepathic conversations. How come I've never seen this talked about more in all the years I've been in this fandom? This is really weird. Even most of the Noahs think it's weird/creepy when someone reads their thoughts/talks in their head. The more I think about the Bookman the creepier they get. I'm not implying they're evil. Just really weird. 1) Telepathic w/each other. 2) Not only against attachments-

2 but against having a heart (not even the past Jedi at their most radical taught padawans to not feel anything). 3) If Bookman and Lavi are the standard then they either think they're above humanity or hate humans or or just indifferent. 4) they have SO many secrets that they keep to themselves no matter what. 5) they will never feel loyalty for anyone/thing that doesn't further their own ambition and even then they can easily drop you like you mean nothing to them. 5) They routinely erase-

3 each other's minds and none of them remember their birth names. 6) they swap identities so many times their own growth as individuals is trivial. 7) Ever single (possible) bookman we have met has either exhibited creepy or hostile behaviour. 8) they take to neutrality so strongly you can question if they even think to care what will happen to them if the Earl's plans succeed. 9) Are they even self aware? I'm not expecting a complete disaster. But I am expecting the bookman to weird me out.

Okay so for the telepathy i will have to come back to it when i will re-read it bc i don’t really remember it in Hallow and I think the scene I think should be that one??? Is the fact that ii’m almost certain i remember it being confirmed that Lavi and Bookman talk a whole other language. Apparently the Bookmen would have had their own language and I think i remember that in the manga it was translated by having weird bubbles to specify they were talking in that language (and it is possible that, due to the fact the anime couldn’t just pull a new language that was a work around to still have one of their Bookmen conversation being visible using telepathy).

But i really don’t remember the scene in question in details so i will have to check that out again but I THINK it is Bookman Language related more than telepathy and that the telepathy was a way for the anime to translate it

THAT SAID if the idea of Telepathy is a thing (which tbh could still be??? Bookmen already messes with minds a lot with the whole deleting memories thing who knows the hell they can do) it could explain also a lot of much more silent looks that we kinda justified so far by “they know something we don’t”. It might have been conversations we missed. 

Still unsure though i’ll get back to that when i will properly have re-read those parts bc this is really intruiguing me now

I know the fandom had talked about the Bookman’s language though but i’ve never heard of telepathy before now?? Idk 

And yeah like you say this is very weird bc putting them on the same level as Wisely is... very weird. Besides considering how much Lavi still struggles to get people around him i am fairly certain that if telepathy there are it i between the Bookmen only, not all knowing as Wisely.

But yeah aside from that, mood. The Bookmen are seriously a creepy brunch. Not in a bad way, but in a “this is extremely shady and I get you’re doing that to be neutral but i’m not sure those means are actually legally or morally applicable”

I agree with all your points. 

and i’ll elaborate under cut bc i might have gone carried away,

well 1) i just discussed it there, either Telepathy which would be a whole new can of worm, or a whole other language that would still applies that they have a special language to keep secrets in. And tbh it would also make sense that they would write down records in a secret language since they don’t actually let people Read their reccordings: Bookman specify that it comes with the part to “chat a lot”, they won’t share the written reccords (which they MUST HAVE for the the survival of the clan), so “Secret Language no one else in the world know” rings as shady to me.

4) NOT TO MENTION we know that Bookman also keeps secrets from Lavi (when meeting Cross’s altered akuma, Bookman specifies it was only something he (and Cross) knew about.). And it’s not to mention secrets that the Bookman in charge keeps from the rest of the Clan (see again, how Lavi’s eye is only known by Bookman Sr, not anyone else in the clan seems aware of that)

6) Apparently about their switching identities, something very creepy that came out of the latest Komui corner too is that the name they have during a war is the name that the recording will officially get. Meaning it’s not even that “Lavi” calls himself like that for the people around him, it’s that even after Jr would have moved on or died or anything, the Records of the Holy War would still be called “Lavi”. And we know that the names picked seems to have meaning that applies to each wars (as Wisely smugly smile realizing Lavi’s name’s meaning, but doesn’t tell people). So even more of a disconnect with their sense of humanity since they have to be distanced from their own names, as their names become history as it goes. Which makes Jr’s identity crisis over how “Lavi” is “him” even more creepy tbh, bc it extends that “Lavi” isn’t just a reccord name anymore, it is not just the Holy War anymore, it is part of Jr as a BEING. And to me that’s even creepier that it’s even something Lavi has to worry about.

8) this is honestly one of my biggest questions. If the Earl’s plans work, all humanity will die. Or at least there had been no mention so far of any “saved people that would go through the Ark”. (there had been speculations about the real purpose of the Akuma and how its evolution process would be perhaps a part in creating supperior beings to salvage during the Flood like the original Ark did, and i’ll need to get back to the chapters tha thints that there are more secrets to the Dark Matter than it just reversing the innocence, BUT personally I have issues with this theory because of how easily the Noah do torture and kill the Akuma at times and seem to look down on them. But I would agree there seems to be a bigger purpose to the Akuma and the Dark Matter that we cannot even imagine.)Regardless, I don’t see anyway for the Bookmen Clan to survive, else the Noah would have found way to keep them on their sides and not torture them like they do now and exclude them. Yet we know at some points the Bookmen were “on the Noah’s side”. So what the hell do the Bookmen expect to happen with the Flood? Is their neutrality so important that they are ready to litteraly go down with this ship when the end of the world come? Yet we know they have some self preservating instinct it seems, so why? It just enerves me so much!

9) Yeah same, basically.

One last thing i will add: How the HELL did Bookman manage to find himself and Lavi innocences he knew they would be accomodator to when they decided to join the Order? Bc the Corner mentions that Bookman decided to set them into the Order to watch BEFORE they even got in contact with the innocences, and Lavi mentions that “Gramps just knew we’ll find innocences we would be compatible with” and how????? How the hell??? You can’t just make it that easy for the two of them to randomly connect with two random innocences (and we know they’re the one who have shown the least actual connection with the innocence) after arcs and arcs proving that the innocence is picky and sentient, that its own personality affects who they end up picking, that even the synch can change depending of how the innocence feel to their acomodator, and Especially, that the Order had DECADES of experimentations that were basic human rights violation due to how desperate they were to not be able to have enough people synchronizing with the innocence.

You  cannot have a full arc of telling us the Order did an entiere experiment about bringing fallen exorcists’s brains back in new bodies in hope the innocence would synch with said bodies, while letting those bodies decay under the pain of the innocence, for the sLIGHT CHANCE an innocence could be compatible again, only to then tell us “oh yeah we wanted to join the order so we ended up finding two innocences that we could connect to.”

For exemple: Take the Crows. it’s obvious the Crows want to help the holy war, as the Third Exorcist project proved a whole brunch of people were ready to put Dark Matter in their body to fight back the Akuma. And from all those Crows, from all the experiments we know the Order have carried on, somehow, as long as we don’t know of a “Former Crow Exorcist”, it means it’s not that easy. Not when you have a whole military branch who would be willing to be God’s apostles. And it’s not even counting how others Orders’s soldiers like the Finders would or not jump on the occasion.

So how the hell did they do that? How the hell did Bookman find those? bc even if they don’t connect to their innocence on an emotional level, they seem like proper innocence. Else Allen would have commented about how the souls don’t disappear like planned, like when he saw how the Third Exorcists killed the Akuma. Besides, we also know Bookman fears Lavi’s innocence could turn into a crystal type, so it confirms this is legit innocence, and that Bookman doesn’t have full controle over it.

How could Bookman be so sure they will become accomodator BEFORE finding any innocences? It raises seriously worrying implications considering all we know about the innocence and how hard it is to find accomodators for it this far in the saga. 

*take s a deep breath* anyway that said,

tbh part of me understand the feeling of “wanting to disconnect your feelings” when you watch history happens, because history is goddamn overwhelming. For having studied history for a few years i’ve personally had a few breakdown just over thinking about the amounts of horrors you read about one year after the other, so to have to remember all those horrors AND reccord current horrors, I understand in principle the thought that shutting those emotions down is the easiest way to record it. 

In principle.

Because in practice this is (a lot like you compared) nearly impossible witout losing their humanity and even losing perhaps an important part of how to understand and translate human experiences through emotional lenses. That’s the major issue with this logic.

had they done that for so long they don’t even question it? Or are they perfectly aware that it’s exactly why they cannot afford emotions? what are their view on the world and it coming to an end? How far are they willing to go in order to keep their own secrecy and status squo? Do they even realize the possible irony of them “not meedling with history” while the only fact that they are meddling by taking the dispositions they do to remain hidden/uninvolved? Not to mention that wanting it or not, Bookman and Lavi had meddled in the Holy War. Would they remain fully neutral, Bookman wouldn’t have had to tell everything he knew about the Noah to Komui in his first appearance for exemple. 

Lately it seems like they seem more interested in the Noah losing (self preservation kicking in) but that does raise the question of how far they are willing to share the secret history and how much is considered “medding with history”? Because this “secret knowledge no one should have” IS changing the course of history by being shared.

Do they even realize or do they really see themselves as walking books who can deliver information if pressed a the condition it doesn’t require to dig in their secrets? Where do they draw the lines?

I have HUNDREDS of questions about the Bookmen and it drives me insane. I won’t exclude that i might be overthinking it bc man, gotta wait between chapters huh, and that perhaps it won’t be that complicated or deep, but the more you get to see how shady the Bookmen are the more you wonder how and why?

Anyway that fascinates me. Bookmen pls unlock your secrets,,