#it has been pointed out I should also tag

[street-smarts00]

With All My Heart

Bucky Barnes x Fem!Reader

Summary: You never thought Bucky was the sentimental type, until you found something hidden under his bed.

WC: 3.3k

Tags/Warnings: super fluffy, established relationship, Post Thunderbolts*,Not Beta Read 

A/N: I’ve had this idea for weeks and finally did it. Fun fact, the Polaroids may or may not be inspired by real pictures I took of my best friend and her boyf. Also, yes I have been to the rest stop I mentioned. Sadly I live far away from them and I NEED to go back!

You felt like an idiot looking at your wrist and realizing your watch wasn’t there. 

“Shit,” you mumbled.

“What’s wrong?” Bucky asked you with concern. 

You shook your head, “It’s nothing, I forgot my watch.”

He paused, pondering while he put on his leather jacket. “I think you left it on my nightstand when you took it off last night,” he answered, pointing down the hall. “Do you want to go get it before we leave?” 

You hesitated, “You sure you don’t mind waiting?” 

Bucky shook his head and held out his hand to hold your jacket and purse for you. “Not at all.”

You smiled, handed him your things, and left a kiss on his cheek. “Thanks, be right back.” 

As you walked away the corners of his lips turned up into a soft smile. 

You hurried to Bucky’s room and upon entering a frustrated groan left you. There the nightstand was, with no watch. You searched the drawers in the nightstand and the top of his dresser, still no luck. 

After staring at the nightstand, you wondered if you really did leave it there but maybe it fell. You kneeled down next to the bed and turned on your phone flashlight. A quick scan finally revealed the missing watch. With a relieved sigh you reached for it, when something caught your eye. 

A box. 

A box with your name written on the side of it. 

Your own name was staring back at you as you grabbed the watch. With a careful hand you reached for the box and dragged it out from the bed. 

The box sat in your lap, unopened, unbothered. It was a dark brown cardboard shoe box from one of his pairs of boots. Your name was written in black marker on the side and next to it a tiny messy heart. 

Your gut is telling you not to open it. It might have been hidden for a reason. You have no right to be digging and snooping around Bucky’s things. Finding something he didn’t want found. 

But another part of you was desperate to know what was inside. That small but loud part of your brain that was screaming at you to open it. The voice kept echoing in your ears. Reminding you that your name was on it. 

Why did he have a box with your name on it?

Maybe it wasn’t supposed to be hidden. You kept things under your bed not because you wanted to hide them, but because of storage and safekeeping. Maybe this was like that. 

Maybe. 

God the anticipation was going to kill you. 

Maybe it was a present he put in there for your next anniversary, birthday, or some other reason. 

Well then you should really not open it. Don’t want to ruin any possible surprise he has for you. 

You really shouldn’t open it. You shouldn’t open it. Don’t open it. Don’t open it. Don’t open it. Don’t open it. Open it. Open it. Open it…

Your hands moved on their own. Your fingers peeled back the lid of the box and set it down on the floor next to you. 

You peered inside at the contents of the box with confused curiosity. At first glance it didn’t look like much. It definitely wasn’t a present. There were a bunch of random items, mostly paper ones. 

The first thing that caught your attention was the small plastic wristband. It was at the top of the pile. You picked it up and read the words on the side “Luna Park: Coney Island.” Realization dawned on you that it was Bucky’s wristband from your first date. When he asked you out, there was no specific place in mind yet. But when he told you an old story about him and Steve at Coney Island and you said you had never been there before, he knew where he wanted to take you. 

It was a perfect first date. The weather was clear and warm but not too hot to be uncomfortable, no doubt because of the cool ocean breeze. You went on rides, you played games. And of course Bucky spent 40 bucks to win you a blue stuffed penguin you fawned over and called cute. He was a man on a mission. And now that penguin sat on a chair in your bedroom. 

With a smile you placed the wristband back in the box and picked at the other things inside. 

Your heart swelled at the realization that most of the items were from your old dates with Bucky. There were tickets from your trips to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Natural History and one from The New York Aquarium. There had to be at least 5 movie stubs and 3 dinner receipts from dates you went on with him. There was the playbill from the broadway show he took you to for your birthday a few months ago. He surprised you with orchestra seats. 

You dug around more and found a strip of photos from a photo booth you took with Bucky. His eyes shined as he told you about how common they were back in the 30s and how he used to always stop at them with his friends. When you both sat down he stared with wide eyes at the inflated price. 

“Ten dollars? This used to cost a quarter!” 

You giggled at his complaint, “You sound so old when you say stuff like that.” You reached for your purse to grab a ten when he stopped you with a hand on your arm and pulled out his wallet from his pocket. 

“I’m still not going to let you pay for it,” he returned with a sly grin. 

You smiled looking down at the strip of pictures in your hand. The top photo was simple, both you and Bucky smiling at the camera with his arm around you. It was sweet, peaceful. In the second photo you placed a hand under his chin and kissed his cheek. His eyes were closed with wrinkles around them from his smile. His cheeks were more rosy than in the last photo. In the third photo Bucky now had his hand on your neck as he kissed you. The fourth and final photo was of you looking at the camera, mid laugh, while Bucky had a hand on your face and pressed a kiss to your cheek. 

The machine gave you two copies of the pictures. Yours was pinned to a cork board in your room next to other photos. 

You moved on from the photo strip and continued digging through the memory box, throwing caution to the wind. 

As you flipped through the other items a shell fell from behind something, landing in the corner of the box. It was the seashell from when you walked and talked on the beach for what felt like hours because you were so engrossed in conversation with him. The water carried a small shell onto the shore. You picked it out from the water and stared at it in awe. You had asked Bucky to hold onto it because your clutch was full and your outfit didn’t have any pockets. Later that night you forgot about it. 

In fact, you forgot about it until now, weeks later. Your jaw dropped as you ran your fingertips over the ridges of the shell's surface, reminiscing your walk on the beach. His hand in yours and the

The next thing you found were the birthday cards you gave Bucky from his last two birthdays. One card was from a birthday before you started dating, and the other one was after. 

The two year old card was more basic, like you got it from the generic section of the birthday card aisle (because you did). You opened up the old card and read your own handwriting. 

Happy Birthday Bucky

I know you don’t like making a big deal out of your birthday but you still deserve a card :) 

You’re so important to this team and your effort doesn’t go unnoticed. We’re lucky to have you around. I hope you have a great day and that 109 treats you well. (Even though you’re technically not 109 haha) 

You closed it and set it back down in the box before grabbing the one you gave him on his most recent birthday. This one was less generic. You picked out one that had more design and personality. 

Happy Birthday my Love 

I am so grateful to have you by my side. You’re one of the best things to have ever happened to me. I hope you know you are so important and appreciated. I can’t imagine my life or this team without you. 

Happy 110th you old man ;)

I love you with all my heart

Hidden behind the birthday cards was a stack of post-it notes all stuck together. Some of them were old with barely any stickiness left and crinkled edges. Some were new and almost in pristine condition. But all of them were notes from you. You flipped through the stack of sticky notes and saw more of your own handwriting. 

Good morning <3

You make me smile :)

Meet me in the lounge later I have a surprise!

I know you stole my last Pepsi >:( prepare for war

I’m so proud of you 

Have a great day!

And at least 7 more that just say I love you 

Bucky must have saved every single note you left for him.

Your heart almost gave out but thankfully it lasted to see the last few items in the box. 

There were more photos. Two to be exact. Two Polaroids taken from Yelena's camera. 

One of the Polaroids was taken a few months ago. You knew it was taken because you posed for it. It was on your birthday. The team celebrated at the tower with you after the show Bucky surprised you with. You wanted to keep out of the public eye for the rest of your birthday. Spend the night with just friends. And your boyfriend of course. 

Yelena was a few drinks in, wasting her camera film throughout the night. She had a pile of photos on the coffee table that was getting thicker as time went on. Most of them included you. 

This one was of you and Bucky. Everyone was sitting on the couches playing a drinking game. You and Bob returned from the bar with new drinks. A Long Island iced tea for you and a regular iced tea for him. You plopped back down on the couch next to your boyfriend, giggling at whatever outlandish thing Alexei said. After you placed your drink down Bucky wrapped an arm around you and placed a gentle kiss to your cheek. 

“Awe! Wait, that was adorable, do that again!” Yelena exclaimed as she grabbed her camera. 

You rolled your eyes, with no real malice of course. “Yelena,” you laughed. 

“Come on, it’s sweet!” She turned the camera on and looked through the viewfinder. 

“Kiss!” Alexei shouted. 

“Pucker up Barnes!” Ava yelled from the other couch. 

The corners of Bucky’s lips turned up into a grin as he shook his head. A gasp left you as Bucky grabbed your hips and pulled you into his lap. He tightened his arm around you and placed a kiss on your cheek. Your face turned bright red as an airy giggle left your lungs. 

Yelena snapped the image in front of her. Forever frozen in time.

The memory of that night now sat in your hands as you stared down at it. There was a phantom feeling of his lips on your skin as you set the Polaroid back down in the box. 

You picked the other photo up, immediately recognizing when it was taken. Except, you don’t remember it being taken. 

This picture was taken a few short weeks before Bucky asked you out. You knew that because your hair was slightly shorter. It was more grown out now. 

The photo was of you and Bucky on the couch, taken from behind. Your back was to the camera, resting against the couch. Bucky was sitting next to you. Your attention was pulled away somewhere off camera. But Bucky, he looked right at you. 

The thing that really stuck with you was his eyes. His eyes were soft. The kind of soft that people didn't see often from him. His eyes are normally like stone. His stare, usually hard, like rock. It pierces into you. But this look on him was different. He looked at you like you were a work of art. Like he was trying to take in all of you with just his eyes. 

You've seen that look before many times. But didn’t notice it before you started dating. You didn’t realize just how head over heels he was in the weeks leading up to your first date. 

You cautiously placed the pictures back in the box, like they were delicate and fragile. 

Something else you didn’t remember was a napkin with little doodles on it. You recognized it as a napkin from a bar the team occasionally visited. But you can’t remember when you drew flowers and vines on this napkin. 

Bucky seemed to remember it. He kept it and cherished it in his memory box like it was a masterpiece you created and not some drunk sketch. 

Your heart rate slowly grew in speed as your eyes moved to a keychain at the bottom of the box. It was a small, yellow, metal keychain in the shape of Texas with a cartoon beaver on it. 

It was in the middle of the night after a short mission in Texas. You and Ava stopped at the largest rest stop you’d ever seen in your life. The rest stop had a beaver for its mascot and aisles of merch. But what made you buy the keychain for him was the name of the rest stop. Buc-ee’s. 

You almost didn’t buy it for him. This was long before you started dating and you weren’t sure how he would appreciate a random gag gift. 

“I found something for you in Texas.” 

He turned to you and hummed with curiosity. You dug the keychain from your jeans pocket and handed it to him. 

“We found this rest stop called Buc-ee’s and they have this little beaver as their mascot,” you explained, fidgeting with the loops in your jeans. “He’s literally your twin, you're both named Bucky,” you ended with a chuckle, trying to make this one sided conversation any less awkward. 

He continued to silently examine it, his right, flesh hand running over the painted metal. 

“I know it’s stupid, you don’t have to keep it,” you nervously mumbled. You reached forward to grab it back from him, 

He pulled his hand back, not willing to give up the present. “No, it’s not stupid. It’s cute,” he reassured.  

Your cheeks heated up in real time just like they did when he said that. 

He kept it. 

He kept the gag gift you got him. This silly little keychain was so important he kept it in a special keepsake box.

You almost couldn’t believe what you found. All the memories, all the stuff you gave him, all the things he cherished because they reminded him of you. It seemed like this box that sat in your lap held his very own heart and all his love for you. 

You shuffled the items back to how they were in the box when you found it. You assumed that was all there was to find in there. Until three candy wrappers fell out from between the various papers. 

Jolly Ranchers. Your favorite candy. 

You always had them on you. Kinda like an old lady that carries around hard candy. John always jokes that you’re an old woman when you grab a jolly rancher from your pocket or purse. He says you and Bucky are perfect for each other because you both have old person tendencies. 

Speaking of Bucky, because you often had candy on you, you always offered some to him. He always said yes. Here in his shoe box you saw one cherry and two green apple wrappers. 

You froze, staring at the candy wrappers. Even in the silence of his room you couldn’t hear the footsteps approaching. For a moment all you heard was your own heart pounding in your ears. 

The door creaked open. “Hey, you’ve been gone for a while. Did you find your watch?” Bucky asked, walking in the room. 

He stopped a few feet away from you. Your back was to him, the box hidden in your lap. But he knew you had it because he saw the lid on the floor next to you. 

You raised your hand and shook your wrist to show him the watch. “Yeah, I found it,” your voice sounded more hoarse than you expected. You quickly blinked away the tears that collected at your waterline right before he waked in.

Bucky took a few steps closer, and crouched down next to you. He brushed a piece of hair behind your ear. Now that he was close to you, he noticed how glassy your eyes were. 

He held your face in his hand, his thumb stroking your cheek. Your eyes fluttered close. 

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. My watch was under the bed and I found this,” you started rambling. “I saw my name. I know I shouldn’t have opened it-“ 

“Hey, hey it’s okay,” he soothed in a quiet voice. He turned your face towards his. “I’m not mad.” 

You nodded to confirm you understood. You sniffled and glanced between him and the box. 

“You kept all this.”  

“I did.” 

“Why?” 

It was a dumb question and you knew it. Yet the word still flew out of your mouth. 

He took a pause, breathing in. 

“This stuff means a lot to me. You mean a lot to me,” he answered like it was the easiest thing to say in the world. 

“After HYDRA, after all the-” he hesitated- “issues with my memory I started keeping stuff like this. To remember.”

With his free hand he grabbed the other side of your face. Bucky leaned closer, his bright blue eyes stared into yours and bore into your soul. You could’ve sworn they looked a little glassy.

“I want to make sure I remember you.” 

You lip quivered. Bucky leaned forward and captured your lips in a brief, gentle kiss. He rested his forehead against yours. 

“Can I ask about something in the box?”

“Anything.” 

“The napkin. I don’t remember it,” you confessed, voice quiet and curious. “Why did you save it?” 

“It was the team's first time at that bar. You were drunk and bored because they weren’t playing songs you liked. Someone left a pen on the bar and you sat there drawing on a napkin for twenty minutes.” Bucky paused as his lips curled into a smile. “You were so concentrated. The bar, the team, they were all so loud and distracting. But all your attention was on these little drawings. Like you were painting the Mona Lisa.”

He licked his lips, “that night I realized I have feelings for you.” 

A giddy smile snuck its way on your face before you kissed him. Slow and passionate. You poured all your love into that kiss to try and match the amount of devotion and love he had on display for you.

You pulled away, but not too far away. Your lips hovered over his. “I love you with all my heart. You know that right?” 

He lightly chuckled, “I know.” 

Bucky wiped away a stray tear that you didn’t know escaped and ran down your cheek. 

“I love you with all of mine,” he whispered, his voice soft with adoration.

[rainnydayzz]

Some cute fluff and then not so cute angst cause it’s way too easy with these fools >:)

Mostly unfinished stuff cause it was like 1 in the morning when I rushed these out.

About the whole s*lf h@rm thing with shadow, I do have a small splurge abt that

On a similar vein, here’s a scenario:

Sonic sees Shadow return from a GUN mission one day and he looks rough. Like Sonic has never seen him in that bad a shape before. Quills stuck out at odd angles, blood was matted in several spots of his fur, and his clothes were torn. Sonic approaches and asks what happened and if there was anything he could do. Shadow dismisses him as he expected, but Sonic noticed something odd. Neither of Shadow’s wrists had an inhibitor ring, or his ankles for that matter. Sonic asks where his rings were and Shadow grumbles something to which Sonic wasn’t sure he heard correctly. Shadow repeats himself, louder and angrier, shouting that he lost them. Okay so he did hear that right. Sonic didn’t think that was even a possibility. In fact, he recalls a conversation between the two from awhile back where Shadow explained he physically cannot “lose” the rings without removing them himself. Sonic calls bullshit and Shadow is none too pleased. They yell back and forth with Sonic asking where they were and what the reason was. Finally Shadow summons enough strength to chaos control out, but not without a noticeably louder *crack* than usual, and a brighter glow. He was unstable and Sonic knew that, but he didn’t know how to help. The best he can do is ask Rouge to talk to him.

Another time after this, it’s been a good several days since Shadow had apparently locked himself in his room. When Sonic finds out he races over to the house and meets Rouge at the door. She’s surprised to see him but assumes he’s here for Shadow. She says good luck, he gets like this from time to time, but Sonic pays her little mind. He goes to Shadow’s door and knocks loudly, calling out for him, and telling him he was there and coming in. The door was locked of course and Rouge shakes her head with an "I told you so." Sonic doesn’t take this for an answer and busts the door down genuinely surprising Rouge who yells at him. Shadow is on his bed, hardly having flinched and Sonic walks up to him. He’s shaking and electricity is crackling around him as he’s curled away from the door and Sonic. Sonic gives an "I knew it" and looks at the bedside table before pulling it open and seeing the two pair of golden cuffs Shadow typically adorned. Sonic reaches out to Shadow and gets essentially burned, even through the gloves.

“Damn, right through the glove, so much for those. You hear that Shadow? You owe me new gloves.”

Sonic tries to get Shadow to cooperate but he keeps resisting. It gets to where Sonic is wrestling on the cuffs to each wrist, his gloves ruined and burned through by now. Rouge kinda just watches in shock. (Also she feels terrible about all of this and blames herself for letting things get this bad. She should have checked on him, she should have done something. Sonic tells her it's not her fault, Shadow is responsible for himself, it's not her job to babysit him.) Anyway, Sonic eventually gets the cuffs on Shadow, he having calmed down more every time a cuff is attatched. Well that was more of a workout than Sonic was expecting. He tries to talk to Shadow but with varying success. It's not until Sonic tells Shadow that he knows he's hurting, but hurting himself isn't going to help. It doesn't cancel it out or make anything better, he would know. This catches Shadow's attention. So yeah a little trauma bonding moment I guess. Bittersweet. The next day Sonic finds a small package outside his door, and upon opening it he sees it's a new pair of gloves and burn cream. There's no tag or anything but Sonic knows. Tails is a little confused but honestly has learned not to try and understand whatever the hell Sonic gets up too in his own time.

Anyway you get the point.

[jadewritesficshere]

Sorta Mean!Steve x female!reader thought

Steve can be mean. Be a bit bitchy. And listen, he tries not to. Except you get all flustered when he does. Noticed how you reacted when he bitched about customers or gave Robin sass. Then he does it to you and-

You get all cute and avoid his eyes. Shift ever so slightly and clench your thighs together, fuck, he hopes it turns you on. He's had to hide how hard it makes him for awhile now.

It really is like what his mom said, about a boy pulling a girl's pigtails meaning he liked them. Steve likes how you like it. He's never mean mean, he never wants to hurt you or push you away he just...

Steve will pull your bra strap and let it snap back against your shoulder. Or wrap his arm around your shoulder and mess up you hair,, giving you a noogie. Rolls his eyes and scoffs at you. One time, when you bent just slightly over and he saw the hem of your underwear peaking out, well of course he had to tug on it. Not hard, just enough to startle you. Make you swat at him and push him away, hiding your face in your hands. Sometimes, he'll say something so bitchy and degrading and immediately go to apologize but you bite your lip. Your lashes flutter as you look away.

He realizes he basically is doing all the stuff he did back in school. Well, all the stuff Tommy and the guys did that he let happen. But he doesn't like it when it happens to others. Someone says something mean to Robin? Steve's ready to jump over the counter and fight the person. Someone pushes Dustin? He's pushing that person to the ground. He hates seeing couples in public get pushed around or mean to one another, makes him feel sick to his stomach. It's only you.

And today, coming home from work and it's hot as balls, he heard your music playing from his pool. Steve's tired but he feels a thrill run through him at the thought of seeing you, maybe pushing you in the pool (if you can swim, you can swim right?). After he changes into swimming trunks he goes outside.

And you're lounging on a float in the pool, eyes closed. You look asleep, mouth open ever so slightly. You're wearing a red bikini that makes him want to drool. He could stand for hours just watching you.

Except he forces himself to jump in the pool. The wave of his splash causes water to spray on you. You let out a startled shriek as you flail, flipping the float over and disappearing under the water. Steve grabs your arm and hoists you up, you gasping for air.

"Shit, you ok?" Steve asks, brow furrowed. "What the fuck Steve!" You slap at his arm as you swipe water out of your face. "I just thought- i mean- you weren't supposed to fall off!" Steve frowns slightly. He genuinely didn't mean for you to get scared and fall in the water, just to spray you with it.

You sigh and pout lightly at him," it's fine, I needed to cool off anyways." "You sure?" "I'm sure."

A moment of silence grows between you. It's soft and sweet, causing Steve's stomach to turn. The smile you give him, its adorable. It's too close to what if you were his- he can't think of that. Won't. Because deep down he wonders if he even deserves you since he's a bitch. So he does what he does best- pokes at you.

Steve goes to tug your strap, just like he would a bra, acting on instinct. Except this isn't a bra. This is a bikini. One that ties. And Steve was absolutely not expecting it to come undone. He sees a flash of skin, just a tad more then normal as the top falls.

Then you're both shrieking. Steve flails, immediately letting go of the top and covering his eyes. He isn't sure what you do, probably cover your bare- fuck he shouldn't think of that. "I'M SORRY I'M SORRY!" Steve keeps repeating it back to back.

"Steve," is all you get and he's just rambling, " I am so fucking sorry, I thought it would be like your bra and just snap back and fuck I didn't mean to just expose you oh my god I'm so sorry jesus-" "Steve." "Fuck, I'm sorry this is so bad oh-"

A hand on his wrist causes him to pause. He peeks through his fingers at you. Your top is in place and you don't appear upset. "It's okay. It was an accident. Just maybe don't do that?"

Steve's nodding," Yeah- for sure." Another moment of silence for about a few seconds. "Well did they look good?" You ask cheekily. Steve groans and covers his face again

[cait-sith]

Hey what if Starscream repainted himself post-canon

Unnecessarily long thoughts and ramblings (mostly about Starscream) under the cut.

This was originally in the tags but then it became an actual wall of text so. Keep Reading be upon ye.

So in IDW Till All Are One 12 Windblade shows Starscream his “true” form quote unquote and it's like this blue-white-and-red colour scheme. And while I don't really know how to feel about that; got some implications vis-a-vis transgender stuff, Starscream clearly took it as something that was taken from him, something that defined him, something that would have made him different (more likeable, more successful, unclear). On the other hand, I also think that Starscream sort of clings to that idea, because it's more painful to believe that he couldn't have changed anything, that it might just be a flaw in him. Something external to blame, y'know.

Windblade kinda points that out, it wasn't really the point of showing him that, but maybe that's just my personal interpretation. “I could have been so much more had I just been allowed to be born as I was meant”. Missing Windblade's point that he is still the same person in his spark, regardless of frame, it is ultimately up to him who he is. His actions define him, not his appearance. BUT. I feel like that kinda misinterpretation would be in-character for him, and so maybe in post-canon he'd... well really I think he'd reframe but maybe as like an attempt to reclaim what he thinks he should have been (even if he doesn't need to, even if he was perfectly capable of changing who he was without that). He frequently sabotages himself, because he doesn't believe in trust and he's so used to being in adverse relationships where he cannot rely on anyone being on his side. So then he gets everything he ever wanted, and it's.. not really what he wanted. Metalhawk, Wheeljack, Windblade and Bumblebee all sorta get under his plating, in different ways, and he admits to liking them, but can't bring himself to trust them. He's constantly at loggerheads with Metalhawk and Bee at the start, but Metalhawk tries and gets murdered for his troubles.

Wheeljack, well, he's just kinda mostly nice and willing to forgive and help, even while he's wary. In a way, I think Starscream gets attached to him because he's safe to get attached to, because Wheeljack doesn't take the shot when he's vulnerable, offers to help, to be on his side. From a distance. He doesn't really... actually initiate much of a friendship, but he talks about the idea.

Windblade, I think that relationship is a bit more fraught. They end up working together a lot by necessity, given their positions, and Windblade frequently has to fix or contend with Starscream's messes, and she has none of the prejudices of the others, but again, she's a threat to his power, to what he wants, can't really look past that. She tries, though, and I think he does sort of like her as time goes on. It just doesn't stop him from doing what he always does. No trust and all that. As for Bee. Bee. While he's alive, he's much like Metalhawk and Windblade: A threat to Starscream's power, with the added issues of being a major enemy and an autobot, with all the prejudices that brings. They don't make friends. Only Bee "dying" changes that, and only because Starscream is utterly convinced he is a ghost. In his own mind, he's *almost* okay with admitting to his flaws, his worries. Bee's ghost becomes his conscience, his confidante and companion, and because he's fictional, a fragment of Starscream's mind (or so he thinks), he's safe. Safe in ways none of the others are. And Bee tries, he has nothing really left to gain, no power to hold onto. For all intents and purposes, he *is* a ghost.

That was probably terrifying when Bee turned out to not be dead. Someone who saw all of Starscream's vulnerabilities, with so much power to hurt him. He can't help himself. He does have moments, though. Rare choices where he does trust, sometimes for lack of better options but still. And by the Unicron-finale, he's, well, still not friends, but he admits to everything, he comes clean, kind of.

So. We're going to ignore that he dies for the sake of this. <3 Just temporarily. In a hypothetical post-canon, I think he'd try to get a bit of agency back, try and follow that dream of his better self. And I think Windblade, Wheeljack and Bumblebee are the closest thing to friends he's had since his trine. And Metalhawk, technically, but he's kinda dead and also with the dead universe revival wasn't too happy with Starscream lmao. Perhaps Bee's the most comfortable, after that, if he ever gets over himself, because he's already spilled his guts to him, if accidentally. I don't think Starscream would ever be *easy* to get along with, and Bumblebee doesn't really take shit, but I'd like them to be friends. Squabbly-bantery friends, but still. Wheeljack seems a bit gentler, while Windblade's a bit more professional, she's kind but responsible.

Point being: this is Bee helping him repaint himself to leave the past behind.

Thanks for listening lmao

[brucebocchi]

Spring 2025 anime, Pt. 1: Ongoing/returning anime and mixed bags

hey, this post is also available on my ko-fi, so please check it out and consider tipping/donating as this is a labor of love. all of my seasonal reviews and end-of-year rankings are on my ko-fi and under my anime reviews tag, mixed in with my occasional musings. thanks!

Holy shit, I actually got one of these out on time!

Spring was an absolute banger of a season for anime, and I wound up watching way more than I expected. Before I get into the absolute gold, though, let's start off with the familiar stuff as well as the stuff that was... not as great.

As always, OP linked in the show title.

Ikuzo!

Continuing & returning anime

​​The Apothecary Diaries, season 2, second cour

One of the decade’s best anime continued into the spring season in much the same way as it did in the second half of its debut season by rewarding keen eyes and revealing mysteries that had been mounting for weeks, if not months. The Apothecary Diaries’ ability to build momentum as it connects its disparate dots is unmatched, and once again the payoff is building at mach speed.

The seeds planted in the second season’s first cour, and even a couple from the first season, are bearing fruit, and some have even cross-pollinated in unexpected ways. The previous emperor’s crimes were laid out pretty starkly in the first half of this season, and he continues to haunt the narrative as it unfolds. This season can easily be summed up by the old card that “hurt people hurt people,” and his crimes are reverberating in the actions of his survivors. It doesn’t help that some of the older ones see him in Jinshi’s beautiful face (who knows what that could mean!), and the attack on him towards the end of the first cour is starting to look like part of a much grander machination.

Maomao, meanwhile, is closer to the gears of that machine than she realizes at first, and an inconvenient but surprisingly friendly kidnapping throws her right in the middle of it. Identity and playing a role are major throughlines of the second season, and more people than just Jinshi were hiding in plain sight in Maomao’s orbit. She’s always preferred keeping to herself, but simply intuiting the truth has never been enough to prevent it from blowing up in her face. Palace intrigue was never her game, but she’s far too close to too many parts of it for it to not be her problem for much longer.

The Apothecary Diaries has been a tough show to write about following its first cour, mostly because I don’t like spoiling stuff, but also because everything I’ve been saying since its debut has held true: The cast is tremendous, the setting is enthralling, and every last little detail matters in ways you can rarely predict. It’s a wonderful soap opera, period piece, and mystery series all in one, and it’s been appointment television for me for over a year and a half now. It’s been enough of a hit that it’s being represented at Universal Studios Japan now, and it deserves every last bit of its success.

It’s also apparent that the anime adaptation has just about caught up to what the manga has adapted up to this point. Guess I’m gonna have to just go ahead and read the novels now.

Go! Go! Loser Ranger, season 2

I was pretty let down by this series’ first season, in part because my patience with its absurdly sporadic pacing never felt like it was properly rewarded. I’d anticipated more episodes than we’d gotten in 2024’s spring season, and as a result I declared a year ago that I’d reserve judgment on Loser Ranger until its second season. I went in with an open mind and reasonable expectations, and I was let down all over again. This show is a goddamn mess.

Having passed the Ranger exams in his Hibiki Sakurama disguise, Fighter D is conscripted alongside Angel into the Green squadron, much to his consternation, under the watchful eye of the temperamental, sukeban-ish Kanon Hisui. Green Keeper’s forte is stealth, which D should be ecstatic about, but it’s gonna be that much harder for him to take out Red from over there. Hisui, along with her new underlings and mercurial informant Chidori, investigate a high school that seems to be the epicenter of a string of disappearances. Instead of the truth, however, they find themselves in a Groundhog’s Day situation, trapped in a loop of an endlessly-repeating day of high school. D has to try to find a way out without divulging his true identity.

Shit completely hits the fan after this arc, in terms of both plot events and how atrociously they are portrayed. It became clear midway through the season that the studio realized there wasn’t going to be a third, so they opted to rush through dozens of chapters’ worth of material in the span of just a few episodes. The problem with this is that what we ended up with was a series of world-shattering events happening in the span of just a few minutes at a time, with zero gravity given to anything going on. The real Hibiki is back. There are kaiju everywhere now. There’s a monster liberation movement and they’re stepping in on D’s territory by threatening to expose the Dragon Keepers. D’s identity is basically out in the open now and half of the cast is just cool with it. Major character deaths, massive twists, double-crosses, a complete upending of the world as we knew it, sure why not, throw it all on the pile. We gotta get to that big epic ending somehow.

Loser Ranger’s first season already had an infuriating pacing problem, and it’s made that much more flabbergasting that this whiplash-inducing string of events comes after we’d spent basically a season’s worth of consecutive episodes between a parking garage and a high school. Major characters are relegated to side plots while others pop up at the very end like “hey remember us? We’re here too.” I stopped bothering with trying to keep up or even follow the plot, because it was clear that the people slapping this shit together did too. Everything was piled on with the purpose of giving the show some semblance of a climactic ending, which was fine, but then it had the gall to keep the door open just a crack, if only to remind us that it’s based on an ongoing manga series. The only thing that hasn’t completely scared me off from someday picking up the source material is the knowledge (or hope, call it what you want) that no manga as incompetently slapped together as Loser Ranger’s second season would have ever been successful enough to warrant an anime adaptation.

I’m not fully letting the source material off the hook, though; I do take issue with the concept of an ostensible liberation movement acting as a Trojan horse threatening to wipe out humanity; that can be read in the worst possible faith as a disgusting analogue for real-world liberation movements trying to end actual atrocities in the present day. It doesn’t help either that our protagonist jumps in and goes “hey, I think BOTH sides are bad and crazy!” Maybe it’s not something the mangaka gave much real thought to, or hey, maybe this adaptation is just so incompetent it accidentally made it look much worse than it actually is. I’m at the point where I don’t really care to find out for myself anymore.

What a letdown. I was intrigued by Loser Ranger’s premise when it debuted last year, but if I’d known going in that it would be such a slog to actually watch, I’d have saved myself the nine hours I wasted on this show. At least the OP and ED are good again.

Wind Breaker, season 2

One of 2024’s more surprising shonen hits came back with a bang this spring season, picking up exactly where the debut season bafflingly left off. The boys are back in town, and it’s time to beat some ass.

Wind Breaker’s second season picks up with Haruka and the Bofurin boys infiltrating a rival gang’s hideout to rescue a classmate’s friend who’s been extorted. He’s kicking butt like normal, but something new is holding him back: He’s starting to get hung up on the idea of his allies getting hurt. Wind Breaker has largely been the story of Haruka learning to accept that he’s wanted and cared for unconditionally, and though he’s a far cry from the angry loner he was at the start of the serie, he’s still grappling with this acceptance just as much as he would any street tough. Helping him along his journey is a senpai who has mastered the art of self-actualization: Tasuku Tsubakino, one of the school’s vaunted Four Kings and an avid fan of makeup and cute, feminine clothing. Haruka, as you can imagine, is frequently flustered.

An early Tsubaki appearance in the first season piqued my interest, but here in the second they immediately became one of my favorite things about Wind Breaker (Tsubaki’s gender identity isn’t addressed head-on; they attend an all-boys school but use the very feminine “atashi” first-person pronoun, so rather than typecast I will refer to them with gender-neutral pronouns). They are an absolute delight of a character, and far from a slouch in a fistfight. Their own journey to self-acceptance, as depicted in this season’s masterful sixth episode, runs wonderfully parallel to Haruka learning to recover from his own ostracization, even if the latter doesn’t involve lipstick and heels. If Tsubaki can become their true self by loving what they see in the mirror, surely Haruka can become what he’s meant to be by simply accepting that the people around him actually want him there.

Another unfortunate parallel to Haruka, however, rears his head towards the end of the season in the form of what looks to be the Big Bad for the foreseeable future, Yamato Endo, an ex-Bofurin ronin of sorts who takes an interest in the first-year after fanning the flames of a massive street brawl in what looks an awful lot like Kabukicho. Endo left Bofurin to pursue his own self-interests, and he recommends Haruka do the same. Though Haruka’s commitment is tested, anyone who knows him by now knows that he’s never been the type to back down. Hell, he had to be dragged kicking and screaming away from like three other fights right before that. Once again, a season ends on a “welp, here’s the new bad guy” reveal, but this season’s ending feels more like an intriguing teaser than the debut just ending at the start of the next arc for some reason.

Pacing was already an issue in Wind Breaker’s first season, and the second takes a surprisingly leisurely pace for a while. And just like the first season, the back half of this season is monopolized by an arc that lasted probably an episode too long. While the fight animation is typically great, there was enough time spent outside of fisticuffs that I started doubting whether the show’s animation was as good as I remembered it. It doesn’t help that some crowd scenes are rendered in low-quality CGI just distracting enough to remind me that this is the same studio that botched the 3D effects in the otherwise eye-popping Elusive Samurai last year. Overall, though? Can’t complain. Everyone still looks adorable, especially when they get all blobby for gag purposes, and I was just happy to spend more time with my punchy boys.

Another uneven but eminently enjoyable season for Wind Breaker is in the bag, and I’ll wait around patiently for another. This season’s lesson? Dudes don’t always have to look like dudes in order to rock.

Mixed Bags

Catch Me at the Ballpark!

I recognize that if you’re reading this far into several thousands of words’ worth of anime reviews, you likely don’t care much for sports. Maybe you only care about sports through the lens of anime; there’s plenty of great series that revolve around basketball, volleyball, boxing, and the like. I happen to love baseball a whole lot, and I love anime a whole lot, but I’m yet to find a baseball anime that really caught my eye. I bounced off of last spring’s Oblivion Battery after just a couple episodes, partly because I’d already had too many other shows to write about, and I’m yet to find one that really grabs me.

I’m not happy to report that Catch Me at the Ballpark hasn’t broken that streak, but I did like that it took a more casual approach to sports anime, and in a way that reaffirms what I love about baseball. Most sports anime tends to focus on the drama and camaraderie innate to competition, but baseball is a slower-paced spectator sport. There’s a lot of downtime, and much of the act of attending a baseball game is secondary to the on-field product. It’s more of a picnic with a few thousand friends, and I love seeing that atmosphere cross cultures. In this regard (and unfortunately just in this regard), Catch Me at the Ballpark gets it. 

It’s an ensemble slice-of-life that largely eschews the on-field action and drama in favor of the goings-on around the stadium, spanning dozens of segments following the fans, vendors, stadium workers, reporters, WAGS, mascot, and yes, the players. The fictional Chiba MotorSuns are an historically futile club with a dedicated fanbase, one of whom being the dead-eyed young salaryman Kotaro Murata, who finds refuge at the ballpark after long days of fucking up and apologizing for it. His relaxation is tempered a bit when he orders a beer from one of the roaming vendors, the rowdy gyaru Ruriko, who takes the opportunity to push his buttons. We’re left assuming this is the start of some bog-standard romcom shit, but it turns out Ruriko is just excited that she managed to talk to a customer without blowing it.

Setting us up with a ballpark Nagatoro situation is not a great start to the series, but the focus fortunately hops around to various parts of the stadium from there, showing us the ecosystem of disparate elements that come together to bring us the experience of every baseball game. Catch Me is a lovely cross-section of all the little things going on to make the day-to-day of baseball what it is, and the ways they interact with one another: The security guards help a lost child to ensure her memories of the ballpark are good ones, Ruriko advises the stadium announcer on quirky calls, and the devastatingly attractive 40-something clubhouse cook makes sure a younger player feels included and is fed properly. Sun-Shiro, the adorably plump salamander mascot, not only engages the fans but helps out just about everyone in the park with written words of encouragement, professional pointers, and sick wrestling moves. A ballpark is ultimately a community, and Catch Me’s portrayal exhibited just enough charm to keep me watching.

Although not much of the show is dedicated to the on-field action, plenty of time is spent with the players, and the ones that get more focus are pretty darn likable. The aging veteran slugger Kojiro gets a lot of screen time as a hometown hero, as well as his wife who learns to love baseball through the adoration of the Chiba crowds. My favorite is easily Dennis Young, the beefy gaijin trying not to slum it in his exile overseas after flaming out in the American majors. He’s a Chicago native wearing #34 and an ex-Cub, so I have no choice but to stan. There’s a small running subplot surrounding his commitment to the team, but I don’t care about that nearly as much as I care about him peppering his inner monologue with over-enunciated English (a gag I will always love) and horribly pronouncing basic Japanese in an awful American accent. Hell yeah, get our asses.

The moribund MotorSuns are making a push for their first-ever playoff appearance in the background of all this, and the Chiba faithful are catching that baseball fever. In addition to Kojiro’s wife, we’re watching plenty of people get swept up in the hype of the suddenly ascendant team, including a middle-school musician finding community in the cheer section, a reporter whose assigned hit piece turns into fluff, and of course Ruriko herself, who began the season not knowing shit about the sport. There are life lessons to be learned from baseball, especially in the hopeless optimism and perseverance you learn from rooting for a historically middling team, and the playoff push towards the end of the season does a solid job of portraying this. Though it may sound insane from the outside, there is genuine community to be found in a futile fandom, and it makes the eventual successes feel that much more rapturous. Again, I would know, I’m a Cubs fan.

Here’s the part where I undermine all my poetic waxing about baseball: This show just plain isn’t very good. It looks like an equally-cheap anime from 15 years ago, the voice cast is largely wasted, and the pacing is often brutal. I liked Ruriko just fine, but every segment with her and Murata was like nails on a chalkboard; they have negative chemistry and he is the biggest drip imaginable. It’s a wonder that this is from the same studio that nailed Train to the End of the World a year ago. The most praise I can heap upon any one part of Catch Me at the Ballpark unfortunately damns the rest of it, by which I mean that the ED is easily the best part of the show. “Ballpark de Shake! Don’t Shake!” is a blast of a song, if standard anime fare (I’m a sucker for opening and ending themes performed by the show’s cast, especially when Fairouz Ai is involved), and the presentation is the most eye-catching thing in the whole series. The vendor girls’ dances in front of the foamy, bubbly beer background make economic use of a limited color palette and smear frames, bringing an irresistible amount of personality that the rest of the show was sorely lacking. It looks like it was animated in Flipnote in the best of ways. It’s a shame that nothing from the preceding 22 minutes could match this energy.

So no, this isn’t the best show, but I can’t help but be romantic about baseball. I firmly maintain that beer and baseball are two of mankind’s greatest creations, and I’m pretty high on anime as well, so it’s a shame that a melding of the three didn’t quite reach the potential it could have. I do still have a soft spot for this one, but much like Heineken, the Toronto Blue Jays, and Catch Me at the Ballpark, wonderful things can still be sadly mediocre.

Lazarus

By all accounts, this should’ve broken Adult Swim’s streak of original anime misfires. All of the right pieces were in place: The programming block’s run of Cowboy Bebop during its early days cemented the series’ legendary status among western anime fans, so running it back with a shiny new Shinichiro Watanabe original was a no brainer. MAPPA, the prestige anime studio, was tabbed to produce it, with Gainax and Trigger veterans among the animation directors. Contemporary jazz stalwart Kamasi Washington (best known for playing saxophone on Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly) joined electronic producers Floating Points and Bonobo for the soundtrack. Hell, they got John Wick director and former stuntman Chad Stahelski to supervise the action sequences! This had to be a slam dunk, right?

Welp.

In the not-too-distant future of 2052, three years after introducing a miracle painkiller and dropping off the face of the earth, Dr. Deniz Skinner resurfaces in a recording to confess that the drug has an unforeseen drawback: Everyone who took it will die three years after the first dose, and thanks to its popularity, humanity suddenly faces certain extinction. A mysterious woman assembles a suicide squad of sorts to track down Skinner and try to schmooze him for a cure, front and center being wisecracking prison escape artist Axel Gilberto. He and the rest of the crew of ne’er-do-wells, assigned the name Lazarus, have only 30 days to track down the reclusive doctor before the first dominoes start to fall, and they do so in an extremely roundabout way, hopping to abandoned labs, nightclubs, cult compounds, and oil rigs, en route to way too many dead ends.

Unfortunately, that synopsis makes Lazarus sound way more cohesive than it is in practice. This is Watanabe’s first show since the passing of frequent collaborator and scriptwriter Keiko Nobumoto, and her absence is groan-inducingly palpable. Lazarus exhibits some of the same freewheeling, episodic feel that helped make Bebop a classic, but at the expense of the actual overarching plot. We’re thrown to all corners of the earth for a new wacky adventure every week, but each one is a dead end on the quest to, apparently, save all of humanity in just a month. I cannot believe how much time this show wastes fucking around. If it weren’t for the “X days until extinction” card at the end of every episode, it’d be pretty easy to forget that this show is supposed to be a race against the clock.

Seriously, it doesn’t feel like anything actually happens in Lazarus, even though I saw stuff happen with my own eyes across 13 episodes. It seems to trade entirely in vibes, and while the vibes are lovely, it seems to be the only thing this show has going for it. Everyone is well-designed, the animation is gorgeous, the action scenes are (mostly) exceptionally choreographed, and the soundtrack is lovely, but all of it feels like it’s in service of precisely nothing. Watanabe’s never been for a lack of Something to Say, and he’s been open about the story’s conception being rooted in the opioid crisis in the US, but everything seems to be lip service with little if any actual thought put in. Little things peppered throughout like crypto traders being accurately portrayed as sleazy dirtbags, AI fanatics being in a literal cult, nods to the human cost of climate change, and the matter-of-fact inclusion of a trans character are all things designed to make a lefty sicko like me go “hell yeah” (and I did), and nothing more. I gave Lazarus the benefit of the doubt that maybe this was all headed somewhere, that all these dead ends and red herrings were placed intentionally to lead us to a sensible conclusion, and it turns out I gave it way too much credit. Every attempt at pathos and meaningful character beats falls flat because these characters do not fundamentally exist outside of their names and faces. I was completely stone-faced by the finale. Lazarus is a whole lot of beautiful nothing.

Ordinarily, I wouldn’t mind that only the English dub was available each time a new episode dropped, but I wasn’t crazy about this dub in particular. I wasn’t immediately familiar with any of the names in the dub cast, but they had more anime chops than I’d initially realized. There’s a good amount of Oshi no Ko, My Hero Academia, and even the rebooted Urusei Yatsura in there. I also didn’t realize that Chris’ voice actress, Luci Christian, voices Nami in One Piece and Yukari in Azumanga Daioh. I owe you an apology, queen, I was not familiar with your game. None of this really matters, though, because the voice direction is no bueno. Everyone speaks in a disaffected, languid tone, like they were purposely directed to emulate the old Bebop dub. Combined with the laid-back pacing, the vibey soundtrack, and the weirdly staccato rhythm of the dialogue to match the animated lip flaps, the aural element of the English-dubbed version threatens to turn Lazarus into televised Ambien. The real shame of it is that the Japanese cast is exceptional (Mamoru Miyano, Maaya Uchida, Makoto Furukawa? Say less), but I have no desire to go back and sit through this nonsense again just to hear it.

If there is one area where I have to give Jason DeMarco credit as an anime producer, it’s that he frequently nails the musical aspects of the otherwise mediocre series he manifests (Mori Calliope in last year’s Suicide Squad Isekai notwithstanding). If you can’t get Yoko Kanno back for a spiritual follow-up to Cowboy Bebop, you can do several orders of magnitude worse than Kamasi Washington. But a jazz virtuoso isn’t enough to save Lazarus from the growing heap of disappointing crap bearing DeMarco’s name, and we can’t keep blaming it all on Zaslav. I praised last year’s Metallic Rouge by comparing it positively to Watanabe’s work before promptly ripping it to shreds for being an overwrought nothingburger of a series, and here I am 15 months later calling an actual Watanabe work the same thing. I think I would have enjoyed this show more if it flat-out sucked.

Maybe it’s on me for biting on another lousy Adult Swim original anime for the third year in a row. Bring me my Fell For It Again Award. I look forward to doing this again in 2026.

Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX

I probably shouldn’t have tasked myself with reviewing this one. I’m the dreaded new-gen Gundam fan who’s only seen G-Witch. I promised myself I’d watch the old ‘79 series (or at least the compilation movies), but I followed a baker’s dozen series this season and work full time. So here I am, up shit creek with naught but a dunce cap, trying to write about a series that expects me to be intimately familiar with Universal Century canon.

Set in an alternate UC 0085 where Zeon won the One Year War thanks to Char Aznable finding the OG White Gundam first and then disappearing, GQuuuuuuX largely follows disaffected high schooler Amate, who stumbles upon a prototype Gundam (guess what it’s called!) in the middle of a Zeon hunt for Char’s suddenly-resurfaced Gundam, and commandeers it. You can probably guess that she’s a Newtype and thus able to pilot it perfectly, but this gets her caught up with a group of junkers who decide to use her talents and newfangled machinery in an illegal mech fighting ring. She befriends the guarded war refugee Nyaan and mysterious pilot Shuji, who seems to have a deep metaphysical connection with Char’s Gundam, and takes part in these battles alongside Shuji, while the very-much-alive (and now much handsomer) Challia Bull keeps a close eye on their team in his search for the Red Comet.

Sooooo, this one is kind of all over the place. There was plenty of classic Gundam stuff packed into here with the clear intention of making longtime fans point at the screen like Rick Dalton, so maybe it’s on me for going into this for the original story. I like Amate and Nyaan just fine, and there is a decent dynamic between them that threatens to complicate future proceedings when shit inevitably hits the fan (my condolences to everyone who got yuri-baited), but for a show ostensibly about them, GQuuuuuuX isn’t exactly about them. I was of the understanding that Gundam’s strength was always in its character writing and interpersonal drama, and while it doesn’t exactly go all “Wow! Cool robot!” on us instead, I get the feeling that this show isn’t about much more than Gundam itself.

I knew going in that I probably needed to know more about the UC, and I would’ve probably skipped it ordinarily, but GQuuuuuuX is a pretty special production: Sunrise teamed up with Hideaki Anno’s Studio Khara for this production, tapped Diebuster and FLCL director Kazuya Tsurumaki to run the show, grabbed Evangelion mech designer Ikuto Yamashita to design the new Gundams, and even had Anno himself contribute some scripts and a storyboard. Having Take, the character designer for the last three generations of Pokémon games, design the new characters didn’t hurt either (some of them straight up look like Pokémon characters, and in motion they almost looked like they were ripped right out of Gurren Lagann). This is a wealth of talent with a ton of obvious love for the Gundam franchise, and it shows: It looks and sounds terrific at nearly every turn (save for the overdesigned CGI mechs, which would look right at home in the Eva Rebuilds), and just about every part of this series that deals with legacy Gundam, particularly in flashbacks, looks ripped right out of the ‘79 series, right down to the pink-and-yellow explosions. With the exception of the suddenly silver-fox-y Challia Bull, the classic Zeon characters themselves look on-model from their original designs too, which is a wild departure from Take’s rounded, colorful designs.

This contrast is neat, and it goes a long way towards underscoring the talent and love that went into this production, but it also exemplifies my main issue with it: I think GQuuuuuuX has an identity crisis. I’d say it’s caught between the past and the present, but as it went further along it struck me that it’s so fixated on the past that the present suffered as a result. Why am I supposed to care about these teenagers when the show makes it clearer and clearer that it’s pretty much all about Char, Zeon, and the OYW? In what universe does the love triangle matter when Shuji barely qualifies as a character? The common criticism of G-Witch was that it would have benefited from a longer runtime, and while the 13 episodes GQuuuuuuX got is especially short for a Gundam series, I don’t know how much it would’ve helped for there to be more of it. No matter how much more focus the series could’ve given to Amate, Nyaan, or even Shuji, all roads led back to the UC. Getting a better feel for the new characters would’ve only made the bonkers climax feel even more jarring and further disconnected from them.

I don’t know if going into this as a Gundam casual makes my observations fairer or just worse-informed, but it felt to me what it was probably like to watch the last hour of Avengers Endgame having only seen a few MCU movies up to that point. I was hoping this would be an interesting on-ramp to the larger Gu​ndam canon, as some people insisted it would be, but I just felt left out a lot of the time. I didn’t want nor expect to be spoonfed a half-century’s worth of lore, but to the uninitiated, GQuuuuuuX’s over-the-top degree of fanservice largely feels masturbatory, like walking in on a circlejerk I wasn’t invited to. I’m sure this reads completely differently if you’re a UC stan, just as sure as I am that there’s an alternate dimension out there somewhere where I’m unambiguously gushing over this show. I can see this one being a huge inflection point for longtime fans.

Either way, I’m still probably gonna buy a GQuuuuuuX Gunpla when it comes out. Cool robot.

[chevelleneech]

I say this with full sincerity,

but I genuinely think JM, JK, and Jikook antis are worried they might be wrong. And not in a, “These best friends are actually best friends.” way. I think a chunk of them have gotten real scared that Jikook are an actual couple, because the the tweets I’ve been seeing aren’t run of the mill anti rhetoric.

Number one is from a supposed Jungkook fan, who is mad he’s with Jimin instead of working on solo content. Two is from someone who is mad at someone else for reposting the same exact videos everyone else is of Jikook at Jin’s show, and are claiming they excluded Yoongi on purpose to push the Jikook agenda. The third is about how AYS is blatant fan service that JM and JK are being paid to do, because otherwise it would include all the members.

This one is one of many, where Tkkrs, JM antis, and JK solos are dogpiling a Jungkook focused account who allegedly retweeted a JK anti, was in a JK anti chat, and follows Jikookers. I don’t know if any of it is true. Some are saying no, and the account user said the chats were faked. I’m not able to discern what is or isn’t fake, so my main focus on bringing them up is how people are responding.

Tkkrs and antis are slamming them possibly rightfully so, but not because they’re a supposed secret JK anti. The overwhelming amount of “Report this person!” “Block this account!” tweets include a reason… which is, “I knew you were a secret Joker!” “They focused on Jikook too much, what did y’all expect?” “They post pigman, of course they’re a shipper.”

Their replies and quotes are filled with hate about Jikook and Jimin. Here’s one in particular that stood out to me, because talk about hypocrisy.

This person is pissed that the user is apparently a JK anti, but them being a supposed shipper and fan of Jimin is tweeted before their complaints about supposedly not promoting Jungkook’s music!

And these handful of tweets aren’t even the majority of what I’ve read just now. I didn’t screenshot more, because a lot of them came with much longer threads and such, but holy hell. This last month essentially, has turned a tide, which I don’t say lightly.

I’ve been army for a little while now and a Jikooker almost as long, and even at the peak of me being slammed with insults and message upon message of why TK is the real ship, I can’t recall a time when I saw it this bad. People have always viewed them as fan service and believed their friendship is fake, but not to the point of being enraged.

Not to the point of no one, not even JK focused accounts being unable to mention Jimin in a positive way. And trust me, I know people have hated him specifically for a long time. This time though, it seems like mentioning JM and JK in the same post in any way is getting people harassed.

And no one is saying anything about it! The entire Jikook tag on Twitter is filled with antis and JK solos demanding people stop talking about and posting Jikook or that the account in question above should be blocked and reported. That anyone who posts about Jimin and JK should formally announce themselves as a Jikooker. That anyone with any variation of JK and JM’s names on their account must claim being a Jikooker. That following both JM and JK accounts or Jikook biased accounts makes you a Jikooker.

It’s honestly batshit crazy, and it’s made all the more obvious that only Jikook interacting is a problem, because one of the accounts leading the charge against the above JK centered account is a JK centered report account, who is also a self-proclaimed TK shipper. Yet people are agreeing with them that the alleged JK anti is just a shipper in disguise.

It does not make a single bit of sense how fast this fandom moves to banish anyone “accused” of being a Jikook shipper, even if the accuser is a shipper too. It also makes no sense that no one cares about the fact that Jikook biased fans are being constantly harassed lately. Yes, it happens in waves usually, but this is a big wave because Jimin and Jungkook have been hanging out a lot more this month. And we know everybody online, because everybody watching Jin’s shows.

So I know people see Jimin and Jungkook’s bond being belittled and disrespected. I know people see accounts being reported for posting Jikook, but not Yoonmin or any other paring. I can see people retweeting posts about JK having two boyfriends in Jimin and Yoongi, and about Yoonminkook arriving together, but ignoring posts about Jimin being JK’s boyfriend or them leaving as a duo.

The pushback on Jikook interacting, as of today, has gotten so bad. They are genuinely fandom enemy number one, and the only reason that makes sense to me is: their antis are the loudest/largest. Ot7 accounts ignore their interactions, yet also don’t defend them against hate. Army (at least on social media where being anonymous is possible) does not like them, and the uptick in rage is because Jimin and Jungkook are happy together. They’ve not given anyone a reason to dislike them as a duo, and have actually gone about the last three years of their lives reinforcing their bond.

They traveled together before enlistment. They chose to enlist together, and be subjected to 18 months of hip-to-hip work. They were discharged and immediately chose to travel together again. And with their travels presumably over, they are still being seen together.

For those who hate seeing them as a them, this is a worst case scenario, and now they’re all lashing out an any and everyone who tweets about JM and JK. No matter what. It’s unbelievable.

[almostempty]

Sorry if you've already answered this. But what's wrong with the dbf fics? I understand and agree with what you're saying about the way people are writing ppcu characters and needing cultural context and how important it is. But I'm lost about the dbf fics. And I was curious how you feel about the large age gap fics too and if you feel that plays a part at all. Those are my favorite tropes, so I'm just trying to understand. TY!

hi, ty for asking, i tried to write a concise answer and add some links, but my unedited extended edition answer is under the 'keep reading'

in one sentence: I think the trope has become shorthand for the popular fics that often romanticize fetishized roles (white-coded young reader x hypersexualized but otherwise flattened joel) without awareness or intention 

-> tl;dr (the bullet points--i really tried to be brief):

the tropes aren’t inherently harmful, there are often patterns in those fics that reinforce patriarchal, settler colonial white supremacist values (e.g. ‘taboo’ nature of the dbf trope is rooted in patriarchal father/daughter purity/women as property/purity as value) 

the dbf tag often goes hand in hand with white-coded reader inserts (not a crime, but not inclusive) and hypersexualized ppcu characters (fetishization of pp as a latino disguised as a trope) 

popular narratives reinforce systems of power—even when unintentional 

personally, i enjoy tropes that also can often reinforce/romanticize stereotypes, and i have written them too. i want to be an anti-racist ally and do better 

critiquing issues in tropes isn’t a call for censorship or an interpersonal conflict—it is part of being anti-racist and decolonizing internalized beliefs and being aware of the impact of storytelling

-> some links to consider for building your own critical media literacy:

i encourage folks to read from/look up videos of bell hooks, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Angela Davis, Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí, and other BIPOC activists, thinkers, civil rights activists, philosophers, etc. to develop a critical, intersectional feminist lens for yourself

Race didn’t exist until European colonization introduced racism

for more fanfic specific related info (not about dbf but relevant to recurring discourse):

On Fanfiction, Fandom, and Why Criticism Is Healthy

What Fandom Racism Looks Like: Fandom Wank

fandom racism 101: feeling fragile

fandom racism 101: clocking and closing the empathy gap

the long answer: 

(i hope this answers the question. i’ve never been concise in my life. and i wrote this half on my phone and half on my laptop. gonna just send tweet now before i hyperfixate on this for days and write 50 pages of thoughts you didn’t ask for <3)

I wanna preface by clarifying that for most of my rants i am not saying ‘in my opinion these tropes are bad and nobody should write or read them’ but that from a macro/zoomed out view of the fandom there are patterns that that reinforce racialized stereotypes or fetishize characters or idolize colonial/patriarchal values that have systemically been used to prop up structural racism from the bottom up. A dbf fic isn’t inherently racist or a microaggression; neither is an age gap or noncon or whatever trope. There is, however, a pervasive pattern where the dbf trope often goes hand in hand with factors that do reinforce white-coded reader inserts as young/pure/valuable and pp characters as flattened/fetishized, or rough/stoic without depth, or pervy/sleazy. These narratives can reinforce the white supremacist ideology/propaganda of' latino man = dangerous and rough' and 'white (coded) girl = pure/good' …and often the catalyst for his character development centers her reactions bc that ideology doesn’t accept a brown man having growth/redemption/softness without centering the white girl. Over time those fics become the most popular/praised and set the cultural tone in the fandom. A culture that puts white-coded reader x dbf joel fics on a pedestal—which doesn’t just appeal to more white readers but also tells BIPOC readers they aren’t being pictured, considered, or embraced. Repetition and emphasis of cultural narratives can reproduce and keep dominant ideologies in power–-even unintentionally. And the fics aren’t being read in a vacuum, we all exist within the context of a society built on power, privilege, and oppression. 

In my completely personal opinion I’m not drawn to dbf tropes bc the ‘risk’ associated with getting caught by reader’s dad or betraying dad isn’t something that resonates with me as relatable—but that is only my opinion and I wouldn’t tell other people not to read or write dbf fics just because they aren’t my favorite. I do encourage the writers and readers in the fandom that if they want to shift the cultural norm in this fandom to a more diverse and inclusive environment, they need to be critical of the fics they read/write/share, bc liking or disliking the tropes is an opinion---but the presence of patriarchal values and racial fetishization that serves white supremacy is just a fact. it's there in the power dynamics of the stories. and it's a fact that patriarchal values are historically interlinked with white supremacy. these values and stereotypes exist in other forms of popular media, not just fics--but it's in fanfic that we have more control over what is written and shared.

if you don't have internalized shame around sex and don't subscribe to patriarchal gender power roles, purity culture, property-based father-daughter relationships... there is nothing specifically taboo about fucking your dad's best friend. but in the context of our socially constructed norms it's a risque pairing that sets up a forbidden relationship that moves the story along and raises the suspense. and the characters themselves are usually written with those cultural values that portray the daughter's sexuality as reflecting on her father's honor even if you don't have those beliefs yourself. – like let's reaaaally consider why it’s taboo to fuck or date dad’s best friend���

or why it’s a cultural norm that dad’s get bent out of shape about who their daughters fuck…

or why virginity is treated like it reflects on a woman’s value….

why purity ceremonies exist…. 

we know that historically women have been treated as the patriarch’s property (dad or husband)... now dad has been betrayed by his best friend bc (following the patriarchy/property logic) he lowered his daughters value …his daughter betrayed his loyalty/disobeyed etc etc. 

and sure, maybe it’s not that deep to folks reading and writing and it’s just another drop in the bucket along with movies and tv shows and jokes about dad’s with shotguns on their porch and girls being shamed for being sexual while boys are praised…but it also continues to normalize those ideas by repeating them over and over

...so now we can see that the dbf trope in itself is rooted in patriarchal values which are intertwined with puritanical christian values that were spread (enforced) by settler colonization (to societies that had different beliefs and kinship models and gender roles etc.). 

and it’s not that christian values are racist, but that the historical context we live in—where puritanical patriarchal values are politicized and weaponized against marginalized folks like BIPOC, queer, disabled, etc.—means some of those values still prop up structural racism today

the dbf story model is starting from a foundation based on those values---and again, it’s not illegal to write that and it requires education and deconstruction work to see these patterns.

and it requires dedication to interrogate the beliefs they instill in us as individuals and our values—but if people want to change the narrative in a creative space where WE have creative control over the stories, then it’s worth:

1) considering for yourself what you’re reading and how it characterizes the characters and their dynamics

2) having empathy for BIPOC creators that continue to engage and write and share stories in this space even while systems that reinforce white supremacy are being idolized—intentionally or not. 

PERSONALLY i don’t care for big age gap fics bc I feel like the trope can easily reinforce the capitalist and colonial fetishization of youth = beauty and virginity = value/something for men to conquer

i don't find that trope personally relatable whether it's traditionally aligned with the values or somehow subverting or satirizing them but you can still learn from reading things you don't relate to and by reading those fics and being confused by the appeal i was inspired to think more critically about the underlying message and why they're so popular

i imagine there is appeal in controlling those dynamics by writing them for yourself or reading them in a way that highlights or frames the benefits for the reader

i'm sure some are written with intention and read with awareness and i also believe some are consumed without critical consideration for the messages being internalized -- and like.. i really don't care if you're into the kink of age gap or dbf -- i'm into masochism and degradation which obviously can perpetuate stereotypes and fetishization and colonial gender framework too

it's not about what women 'should' be able to write and read... it's just calling awareness to the fact that it goes beyond the power dynamics on the surface. i don't believe women should be shamed for whatever kink they have and at the same time when the pervasive kink being praised stems from patriarchal or colonial values that historically oppressed folks with different beliefs, features, gender roles, etc. then it's also valid for folks to critique the harm that might come from continuing to support those stories without uplifting any other viewpoints or narratives.. like if dbf joel x white coded reader was popular and at the same time soft joel x latine reader or black reader or desi reader or east asian reader or any other framework that intentionally doesn't center a white reader were also popular and all over the dash, then it wouldn't be as concerning. if the fandom was full of diverse stories and different value systems and gender roles then it wouldn't be as important to critique.

but one narrative reigns supreme in so many of the tropes bc the patriarchal/colonial values are ubiquitous bc colonizers did their job and the system reinforces itself as it was intended to

it's popular bc it's familiar and relatable to white people and keeps white people centered and comfortable

and if you're comfortable you're less likely to advocate for change

and if you're centered you're more susceptible to seeing non-white people or non-western values as 'other' and 'other' is the first step to dehumanizing people that don't look like you or believe in the same things as you, and it's easier to stay complacent when bad things only happen to 'other's or people you could consider 'less than human' dehumanizing others was historically the foundation for oppressing BIPOC and is being used as rhetoric TODAY (e.g. with conservative ideology in the US branding immigrants as 'others' to placate white folks into being unfazed when immigrants or brown citizens even have their rights violated or worse). aka there are real world consequences to accepting one narrative and upholding it. you don't have to come to tumblr and be an advocate and an ally-- but if you care about BIPOC and marginalized people and it's a part of your value system to be an ally or to be anti-racist then it's worth being critical of what you consume, create, and promote

as another thought experiment, walk with me: 

imagine if instead of the most popular fics being reader x joel (hbo joel) imagine if the most popular fics were AUs with joel x sarah’s mom (hbo sarah)... imagine what the fandom would feel like if the most popular pairing was joel and a Black woman?… how might white folks feel? how might BIPOC readers feel? imagine if instead of reader x javier peña being popular… imagine if there were AUs with javi x helena everywhere; or Dave York x carol or Clint Flood x Grace, OR imagine even if they weren’t even canon pairings but javi was most commonly written with a latine coded reader that could speak spanish with him? how would your dash be different? 

…i’m not saying those ideas should be the goal.. just maybe imagine what a space would feel like if it weren’t centered on white-coded women as the lovable and fuckable mc and sit with that hypothetical for a while… (and no it still wouldn’t be just flipping the system bc Black and brown folks still don’t have the systemic power and privilege in or out of the fandom) again… it’s not that people are writing these stereotypes or reinforcing hegemony intentionally and that’s because the system is working! it’s keeping the people in power in power by continuing to oppress non-white people (and queer folks and disabled folks and non-christian folks etc) from so many ‘drops in a bucket’ that the oppressed are drowning in an ocean and the white folks are floating on pool floaties and can’t even see how deep the water is.. like white people don’t have to think about a world where the ‘blank slate’ isn’t relatable to them bc it doesn’t exist in western culture and folks write what they know and learn from society and popular media and other fics.. so of course folks are rewriting and enjoying these tropes and they aren’t doing it with malicious intent and there are likely BIPOC folks who are used to the same narratives and find ways to relate or enjoy what they can… but there are also folks who have been faced with these systems of oppression so overtly, for so long they can’t unsee it… anyway, changing what tropes are popular won’t solve structural racism 

At the same time, giving folks a safe space to be in community, to share knowledge and learn together, and to be a space that doesn’t uphold white supremacy would make a difference for some folks and would be a drop into a new bucket so to speak. 

and, what we consume DOES impact our beliefs and values; and our values shape the relationships we build irl, and the way we vote, and the causes we fight for, and the passions we dedicate our lives to. so maybe on the surface it doesn’t seem that deep to praise a dbf one shot but it also doesn’t take a herculean effort to make a dbf one shot where the reader isn’t white coded, there isn’t a white girl in the moodboard, and where the ppcu character is more than a fetishized projection. even just start with one of those three.  i know it’s exhausting to have to do the work (reflecting and making critical choices) to consider the ethics of fanfic, but it’s exhausting for BIPOC folks to live in a world where they still are oppressed and microaggressed and targeted daily… and I, PERSONALLY, want to be someone that contributes to positive change i don’t mean you can’t have your favorite tropes, i just encourage you that if you’d like to be an anti-racist ally consider promoting/writing/reading any trope with intention and even interrogating your own beliefs as an exercise for your own personal growth (and maybe you still love those tropes and personally relate or enjoy them in a way that matters to you and that’s okay, we can all like different things) for example, i like infidelity fics—i get why a lot of people hate them and i think they can reinforce racialized narratives and colonial/patriarchal hegemony, too. i still enjoy the taboo of the dynamic and i’ve tried to write that trope with intention so that my characters are whole people not just a ‘dangerous latino’ that doesn’t stay faithful and writing a reader that is equally culpable in instigating and doesn’t just melt into his arms but talks back and has empowered sexuality and confidence etc. etc. those are things i think help to combat the basic racialized narrative and add something more complex even if it’s just small references to their inner emotions or lives or whatever else makes them more than a cardboard cutout.

and, i also fuck up. 

i love a toxic/fuckboy/emotionally constipated man trope (is there a better name for that? probably) which could easily fall into the same issues of the brown man being overly sexualized/fetishized, ‘dangerous’, ‘stoic’, etc. and i think i am guilty of reproducing these stereotypes in my fuckboy joel fic bc he’s flattened and sexualized and the dynamic is entrenched in the same narrative romanticizing coercion and helpless submission. I didn’t give him much depth or the reader a lot of overt internal conflict or awareness or obvious consent/willingness.. so i have just as much work to do in dismantling my own writing and desires tbh.

and like, i want to list a million excuses to defend it—’it was my first fic’, or ‘well, at least fuckboy joel isn’t the popular trope in the fandom’ but i know i would actually love it if that were the popular trope! 

i love that dynamic of the toxic/we shouldn’t but we can’t help it/but we’re not gonna communicate about this effectively/but maybe we’ll process our emotions through sex type of story, yep. i love emotionally avoidant disasters (bc they are relatable to me!). 

BUT those tropes without depth and/or with white-coded sexually submissive reader inserts.. it’s just as harmful as dbf fics with fetishized joel’s and fragile young reader inserts that are written without intention or examination. in fact, the longer i think about it, i should add an edit to my fuckboy joel fics and point out my own critique and maybe edit them (maybe then i’ll even figure out the end of the story bc it would probably help if i DID give joel more depth the whole time). I’m sure there’s more i can reflect on too. so anyway, i’ll repeat myself again: i don’t think structural racism and power, privilege, and oppression are systems that people are individually responsible for… but i do think that in this specific niche hobby where we are in control of what we create… we have an opportunity to uplift different narratives than traditional media and we have the power to be more diverse and inclusive than any network or editor would allow.. so, consume and produce whatever you want; reading a fic doesn’t make you a bad person. 

and at the same time, if you want to be an anti-racist ally then be critical of what you consume and promote and listen when BIPOC folk speak out about their concerns. 

I’m not great at simplifying concepts the way some folks are. I think dbf and age gaps often go hand in hand with white-coded readers and fetishized Joel’s which from a zoomed out perspective shows that people most enjoy reading those dynamics so more people keep writing them. But white-coded readers aren’t inclusive and perpetuate the ideas that women should be soft, fragile, aka the angel of the house (an ideology that says women are ‘naturally’ submissive and domestic) and fetishize Joel (a Latino character—when referring to the version played by pedro) by flattening him into a deviant or dangerous man controlled by lust. Maybe there are many dbf fics that have more nuance and interrogation of these stereotypes, but that isn’t clear from the copious moodboards of small white woman ankles and hands ya know? 

Hope some of this helps, feel free to make your own decisions and form your own opinions about what you want to read and write  someone accused me of hiding behind academic jargon and i'm aware that i'm not great at breaking down complex topics so if you have questions i can try again

[fy0lin]

i saw some mizi hate in the alnst tags and im??

the main gist of it was that she was selfish for exploding the stage and that she was a bad person for not acknowledging suas plans to lose, along with saying she was a bad person for beating up luka,,.

and like?? no shit she was being selfish?? we are shown starting in ruler of my heart that she isnt doing well mentally, and it's extremely obvious that she was struggling with suas death and that she wasnt coping very well. how did they want her to react? should she have been acting cheerful, and told the other resistance members "oh well, we'll get em next time guys!!"??

her last living friend from anakt 'died', and then hyuna died immediately after by an avoidable accident caused by luka's selfishness in wanting to see hyuna. she was already extremely shaken to the point of being unresponsive by till 'dying' just as she reached him, and then hyuna died by a misfire almost immediately after.

she has gotten the hope that she could save one of her friends, and then he 'died' in front of her and so did hyuna. there is no scenario where she does not react negatively to this, of course she acted drastically and severely.

and then, saying she was a bad person for not acknowledging suas plans, what was she meant to do there?? she had planned with sua to tie, so she was probably already aware sua didnt find it likely it would happen. even if she didnt already know that much, what would her saying something have achieved?

sua already had the idea in her head, mizi was sure her plan would work. even if it didnt, its not like they could back out of alien stage. one of the patreon comics shows that she went to anakt planning on entering alien stage, and there was no way she could convince the caretakers to pull sua out anyways, and she still wanted to compete and tie with sua.

then they say she is a bad person for beating up luka for 'no reason' and like?? what do you mean, no reason? hyuna died because of his hasty actions. sure, he didnt shoot the gun, but the gun wouldn't've been shot if he hadnt gone to her. hyuna made the decision to jump in front of the bullet, and someone else made the decision to shoot the gun, but that doesn't change that hyuna died.

mizi was already in an extremely bad mental state, and for hyuna to die to someone who had already caused her to black out and beat up once before, was it really all that surprising that she went to beat him up? im not saying it was okay, but it didnt come from nowhere and it makes sense when you look at mizi's actions so far anyways.

on top of all of that, mizi didnt do any of these things and then claim she was a good person from it. in the patreon comic and in the beginning of KARMA itself, she shows that she feels that she is a bad person. you dont need to read the patreon comic to know how she feels about it, it's the first thing said in KARMA.

specifically in KARMA, she says "stop pretending to be righteous, neither you nor i deserve to be saved." she was clearly projecting onto him her feelings about herself, she knows what she is doing is wrong, and says it out loud even. i cant even imagine how you could watch KARMA and think she did all that feeling like she was a good person.

she likely bombed the stadium and all the beings inside it because of that belief that none of them deserved to be saved or continue living after all that happened. all the aliens and human pets that watched, the person that shot hyuna, luka for causing the bullet to be shot, mizi herself for being too late to save till, none of them are in the right. none of them are righteous.

it doesnt take a lot of analysis to see that mizi wasnt acting in her right mind or that she did those things knowing that it wasnt right. as far as i see it, its even clearly stated (if not in exact words) and shown to us viewers that she isnt righteous or stable, her deterioration starting from the end of my clematis, even.

unrelated to mizi, the poster also said that it didnt make sense that there was so much media coverage over the explosion and that it was called a tragedy by the aliens when the human deaths were half the point of alien stage, and im just?? the stadium blew up?? we had 3 slow-mo shots of aliens being pelted in the head by falling debris and dying?? it obviously wasnt called a tragedy because of the human deaths??

im gonna finish this by going back to the beginning where mizi was called selfish, and im just gonna say that in alien stage, it is shown over snd over again that the characters are acting selfishly, and hating on mizi for her actions makes no sense (esp when ops favorite is luka??)

sua is selfish for deciding shed rather die than participate honestly and risk mizis death (and then for hiding this from mizi, even tho she found out lol), ivan is selfish for sacrificing himself for till, for barely giving his first opponent time to sing, and for admonishing suas similar decision, till is selfish for his sabotage against his opponent in r2, luka is selfish for his manipulation of the other contestants and his want for monopolization of hyuna, and hyuna is selfish for her decision to die and haunt luka.

tldr: alien stage shows us characters being selfish over and over again, mizi isnt some big bad evil mistress for being selfish, her actions weren't made with her feeling that she was a saint, and she even said herself that she wasnt righteous.

[phaideis-chimeras]

Chimeras

Tags: Just silly, fluffy fluff; Castorice & Mydei (platonically); set very shortly after Mydei first joined the Chrysos Heirs

Word count: 1.2k

Notes: I recently discovered the 3.0 livestream chimera animation by Mydei and I've been obsessed with it ever since... I like to think it was Cas who inspired him to start drawing himself and his friends as chimeras like that 🥹 Also in my mind this is how their friendship first started

Castorice is hunched over at a desk, sighing. She never would have agreed to help lady Aglaea with paperwork if she had known just how boring it would be.

She keeps shifting in her seat, as if that's going to make the papers in front of her any more interesting, but it's not helping.

Her thoughts constantly slip away elsewhere and she absentmindedly starts scribbling into her notebook. Making adjustments to her recent design of her very own chimera-sona seems much more entertaining than boring paperwork right now. Maybe she’ll draw for just a little bit to refocus and then she can return to-

"What's this?" A deep voice behind her suddenly asks. Castorice jumps, turning around only to find Mydei standing behind her, glancing over her shoulder. The newest addition to the Chrysos Heirs seems to have a talent for appearing out of nowhere when she least expects it.

She quickly scrambles to try and cover the drawing with her arms, but stops when he gives her a questioning look. She sighs. It's too late, he's already seen it. This is bad.

"Lord Mydei, you startled me," she laughs nervously. "I didn't expect you here. You really snuck up on me."

Mydei tilts his head and gives her a confused look. "I knocked and announced myself when I entered. Are there any Okhema customs for entering a room I don't know about?"

Castorice's face falls a little.

“No, no, you're fine… It seems I just didn't notice. My apologies.”

She was so engulfed in her scribbles that she didn't even hear him. She really shouldn't be slacking off with her work like this, lest she'll get in trouble.

Luckily, Mydei seems much more interested in her drawings than the fact she clearly should be doing paperwork instead.

"This looks cute," he notes, pointing at the drawing peeking out from underneath Castorice's arm. "What is it?"

She sighs in defeat. There's no use in trying to hide it from him, so she removes her arm, letting him view the full page. "It's a chimera," she explains.

Mydei inspects the drawing, slowly nodding. "Is it one from around here? I don't believe I have ever seen that fur pattern before..." He seems to be mentally going through all the chimeras he's met. She'll have no choice but to explain it to him now, otherwise he might actually go looking for the mysterious chimera that looks like this.

Castorice clears her throat and tries to avert her eyes. "It's not one of the chimeras around here," she says, before very quietly adding "It's actually... My chimera-sona." She feels the heat rise into her cheeks. She wants to sink into the ground immediately.

Mydei blinks at her a few times. "What's that?"

There's only few conversation topics more embarrassing than explaining what a chimera-sona is to someone else... But Castorice has brought this upon herself.

"It's when you imagine yourself... As a chimera," she explains. "This... This one is supposed to be me." She's met with silence. Oh, this is horrible. This is one of the first interactions she has with Mydei in private and she can already feel herself messing up.

"I know, it's quite silly-"

"That is brilliant," Mydei cuts in. He glances between the paper and Castorice, his eyes widening. "Its fur has your hair colour!" He seems amazed at the realization. "It really does look like you!"

Castorice let's out an awkward chuckle. "That's very nice of you to say-"

Mydei pulls over a chair and sits down across from her, leaning in just a little to talk to her. "Could you show me how to make my own?"

Castorice looks at him in astonishment. He must be joking, right?

Although, judging by their past interactions, Mydei doesn't seem like the type to make jokes like that. He's usually very direct with what he's saying, not really one for sarcasm.

That makes her feel a little better. At least that means he genuinely likes it, then. Maybe this whole situation isn't as bad as she first thought.

"Well," she says, quickly flipping through her sketchbook until she finds the correct page. "I actually... Tried to draw all of you as chimeras already." She pushes her sketchbook over to him. She usually never lets anyone else look at it, but in this case, it should be okay. Mydei doesn't appear to have any bad intentions.

He takes it and looks at the drawing with amazement. "They really look like everyone... Aglaea with golden horns, Tribbie with a flower..." He lets out a small chuckle. "And that one is clearly the deliverer." He points at the chimera Castorice drew for Phainon with an amused twinkle in his eyes, smiling at it for a few moments before moving on.

"And that one must be me!" He closely inspects the small orange chimera. Castorice hadn't been too sure what to do with Mydei's chimera design yet, so she wasn't sure if he'd be distinguished enough. She had planned to get to know him a little better first before expanding on his design. But judging by the look of amazement on Mydei's face, the design seems to be good enough already.

There's a small smile on his face. "Cute."

Castorice feels an instant sense of relief. "So you like it?"

He looks back up at her. "It looks adorable."

He hesitates for a moment, before adding "Could you teach me how to draw these myself?"

Castorice can't recall ever having seen Mydei show this much enthusiasm about something outside of sparring. She didn't think he'd enjoy something like this at all… But maybe this can serve as a good bonding moment.

She smiles. "Of course, just grab a pen and I'll show you step by step."

He quickly takes one of the nearby pencils and eagerly looks at Castorice, awaiting her instructions.

He seems so excited, Castorice can't help but let out a small giggle.

Mydei gives her a questioning look.

She laughs. "I'm so sorry, lord Mydei... I didn't mean to laugh at you, I just think it's very sweet how excited you are about this. I never expected you to be the type to care about something cute and silly like a chimera-sona."

It's Mydei's turn to be embarrassed now, a tint of red immediately blooming across his cheeks. He clears his throat.

"I just think they look nice... And the chimeras are very cute… I like the idea of imagining what we would look like if we were one of them."

Castorice chuckles. "I know, I understand. It's not a bad thing, really. I just wasn't expecting it, but I think it's great. And I'll be more than happy to teach you.”

To Castorice's surprise, Mydei is quite talented at drawing. He's able to draw not only his, but everyone's chimera-sonas in no time.

“These look amazing, lord Mydei,” she says, taking in all his little scribbles.  “You're really great at this.”

She points at a particularly expressionate version of Tribbie that immediately catches her eye. “This one looks just like lady Tribbie. You captured her perfectly.” She laughs.

Mydei lets out a low chuckle along with her. “This is really fun,” he finally says with a small smile. “Thank you for teaching me.”

Castorice smiles back. “Thank you for allowing me to witness this side of you. I'll gladly draw with you whenever you like.”

[dumbfilmschoolkid]

​hope this doesn’t reawaken anything in me!

[arolesbianism]

Oh god is that a comicfrin drawing where they have whimsy quick someone throw that guy into a decades long timeloop

[oh-no-its-bird]

On top of everything else that's happened in the last month or so

(girlfriend breaking up with me / me running off in the night w the friend I was supposed to be maid of honor with bc her (now ex) fiance came home drunk and scared us, while ofc we also both were in swimsuits and had like NO money or even shoes due to incredibly poor timing / Getting stuck in Dallas for TWO MONTHS longer than I meant to be due to bullshit work transfer systems (and admitedly my own inability to remember that deadlines exist) / that same friend going BACK to her shit boyfriend alone to a city 4 hours away from anyone she may call for help if things go wrong / me now no longer having a place in dallas to stay for these next 2 months bc I was SUPPOSED to stay with that friend but her bastard boyfriend doesn't want me in his house anymore bc he knows I'd tell his girlfriend to dump his ass)

I have now lost my fucking house keys.

Anyways I may or may not be way less active for a bit so this is the formal apology and explanation for that. Sorry guys, we are NOT going back to ur normally scheduled rapid fire ninja content as promised for like. A minute. Possibly. We'll see. Sometimes my own motivation wave surprises me.

Tbh it's my own fault for daring to become a fanfic author tbh. Should have known the "sorry I didn't update, my house burned down teehee <3" curse would come for my ass

[quibbs126]

I’m thinking about it, and I think Optimus banishing Megatron from Iacon with the High Guard was probably one of the worst decisions he could have made to deal with this situation

Because Optimus pretty much left him alone, outside of his home and I’m fairly certain the only remaining city on Cybertron, so to live out in the wilds of the surface, with a bunch of complete strangers whom they literally call nut-jobs and have a strong belief of “strength of one bot over another”, and are also much older and more experienced than him

And in leaving him with the High Guard, he’s likely isolated Megatron even more than if he was banished alone. Because while Optimus and the others have friends they can be vulnerable with and be comfortable talk about their feelings, Megatron does not know these people, and they don’t know him. But he’s now their leader in a group that values strength above all else, and emotions are usually considered a weakness in these sorts of settings. So not only does he have no one to talk to, he has to bottle up his very strong and raw emotions to appear stronger and worthy of his position, thus making them far worse and probably leading to unhealthy coping mechanisms

This could end up not being the case, and the High Guard are very considerate of his emotions. But it’s also very possible the case that they aren’t, or Megatron believes he can’t be vulnerable around them. They (the quartet I mean) don’t know these people, and they’ve really only seen them be violent and aggressive, and Megatron knows he’s an outsider to them. It’s a more likely scenario that they’ll be harmful to Megatron’s mental state rather than helpful

And again, they’re a lot older than him too, and they probably all know this, at least on some level. And thus, he’s far more likely to be influenced by the High Guard’s mentality and beliefs, which we already know aren’t great (even if it’s somewhat justified why they’re the way they are by this point). And assuming they’re pissed at Optimus as well, they could very well try to have Megatron distance himself from his old friends, and it be more successful than if he was alone

But moving away from the High Guard, there’s the fact that Optimus banished him from his home and left him to fend for himself, which Megatron would absolutely take personally just on its own. He was clearly not in a mentally stable place at that point and I think he thinks what he’s doing is right, he’s the one not being like Sentinel while Optimus is. It definitely isn’t right, but he thinks he is. And the banishment to him could not only be Optimus/Orion standing against him, but essentially him saying he’s given up on Megatron, making him leave his home. And I mean, Sentinel did kind of do this to the High Guard 50 cycles ago, so yet another parallel to be made between Optimus and Sentinel

But note that when I say all this, I don’t mean it as a criticism of the movie, that this is a flaw of the plot. I’m fairly certain this was 100% intentional by the writers. It wasn’t just Megatron that created Megatron and led to the war, it was Optimus too, even if he didn’t intend to

Optimus probably thought at the time that this was the best solution in dealing with him. He doesn’t agree with Megatron’s actions but he understands where it all comes from, and he was someone very important to him. So he probably doesn’t want to arrest him, punishing him for what he thought was right and making himself more like Sentinel, oppressing those who were supposed to be on his side. But he still has to be punished for his actions. So by banishment, he is punished while still being allowed to essentially be free, just not in Iacon, and maybe in turn he’ll see his wrongdoings and come back better. And even if the High Guard aren’t ideal, they did help Optimus and Elita rescue their friends, and maybe he thought at least with them he wouldn’t be alone in his thoughts. Also they agreed with Megatron’s ideals and probably shouldn’t be allowed to just roam free in Iacon, especially in this politically fragile state it is right now

But in doing so, Optimus essentially threw Megatron to the wolves and created the perfect environment for his anger and pain to fester and cause him to become more like the Megatron we know in the future

I’m not sure what the actual best solution would have been to this issue though. Maybe it would have been just jailing Megatron? Granted in the short term, it’d probably sting even worse for Megatron, that his own friend would lock him up, and it’d probably make him even more resentful. But at least there, he’d still be in Iacon, with his friends and people who want to help him, and with Optimus and Elita at the helm, they can probably see that he gets treated well and has access to people that can really help him work through it all and see what he did was wrong

But that’s not what happened

[wonder-worker]

Wild how we know that Elizabeth Woodville was officially appointed to royal councils in her own right during her husband’s reign and fortified the Tower of London in preparation of a siege while 8-months pregnant and had forces gathering at Westminster “in the queen’s name” in 1483 – only for NONE of these things to be even included, let alone explored, in the vast majority of scholarship and historical novels involving her.

[artarete]

trying to figure out relationships between the bishops and disciples (and the lamb) lmao. teeny tiny text under the cut, clockwise starting from Narinder

Narinder -> chained (hate) -> Kallamar Kallamar -> misses (like) -> Narinder

Narinder -> chained (hate) -> Shamura Shamura -> loves all their sibs (love) -> Narinder

Narinder <- creepy (neutral) -> Sozo

Narinder <- completely devoted but will never, ever admit it (lie) (love) -> Lambert

Narinder -> normal (like) -> Mabel Mabel -> politely avoids (neutral) -> Narinder

Narinder <- don't know how to interact in new context (neutral) -> Anja

Kallamar -> scared (like) -> Shamura Shamura -> loves all their sibs (love) -> Kallamar

Kallamar -> smart (like) -> Sozo Sozo -> unnerved (neutral) -> Kallamar

Kallamar -> wary (neutral) -> Lambert Lambert -> killed me but pathetic (neutral) -> Kallamar

Kallamar -> listens to infodumps (like) -> Anja Anja -> pathetic wet lump of a man (like) -> Kallamar

Kallamar <- annoying brother (like) -> Leshy

Shamura <- good chat (like) -> Sozo

Shamura <- killed me (hate) -> Lambert

Shamura -> doesn't know she exists (neutral) -> Mabel Mabel -> loyal to Anja (hate) -> Shamura

Shamura -> on sight (hate) -> Anja Anja -> wants knowledge (neutral) -> Shamura

Sozo -> coworker (neutral) -> Mabel Mabel -> kinda weird (neutral) -> Sozo

Sozo <- good chat (like) -> Anja

Sozo <- beefing over mushrooms (hate) -> Heket

(the text next to Gretygre says "he has friends, I swear")

Gretygre -> adores (love) -> Lambert Lambert -> not making that mistake again (neutral) -> Gretygre

Gretygre -> cute (like) -> Mabel Mabel -> he's fine (neutral) -> Gretygre

Gretygre <- coworkers (neutral) -> Anja

Lambert <- killed me (hate) -> Leshy

Lambert <- killed me (hate) -> Heket

Mabel <- BFFs (literally) (like) -> Anja

Mabel <- forced proximity due to Anja (neutral) -> Leshy

Mabel -> responsibility (neutral) -> Heket Heket -> just needs to grow a spine (like) -> Mabel

Anja -> needed a shake-up (like) -> Leshy Leshy -> gleefully corrupting influence (love) -> Anja

Anja <- tolerating for Leshy's sake (hate) -> Heket

I think that's everyone!

[they-didnt-last]

anyone interested in talking about the iconic 2000's middle-grade-bordering-on-ya book series gallagher girls??