#most of these r old but whatever!!!!!!!!!!!!(i just didnt have them saved until now :3)

[moltinglobster]

CUTTLETAVIO!!!!!!!!!!!!! and cuttlefis w/ his children (THE AGENTS!!!!!!!!!)

[samanthadalton]

So we meet again part 3 (finale)

pairings: Poppy x Bea

the last part of the series! hope you guys enjoy this❤️(also i marked parts as flashbacks in case it gets confusing, also i didnt read over it thoroughly so i apologise for any mistakes) 

NSFW, bit of swearing 

taglist: @cloud9in @somewillwin @alleycat97 @baexpoppy @save-me-the-last-dance @helpconfusedpersonhere @dopeyouth @iamsimpforpoppy @alexlabhont @thedaft1 @veenast @cloakanddaggerthings @crazzyplays 

wordcount: 3.5k (a nice long ending ig) 

part 1 and part 2 is available in case you need a refresher Part 1 Part 2

*Flashback* 

After the Christmas Party, the lines between Poppy’s rules had been beginning to blur, with the two women meeting up more often and Poppy would even sneak over to Bea’s dorm, granted if Zoey wasn’t there. Poppy would let Bea stay for cuddling, for they would skip sex and go straight to just holding each other in either comfortable silence or talk about anything and everything.  

“So where’s new money?” Poppy takes the hood of her coat, as she enters the dorm, conspicuously glancing around the apartment. 

“She’s gone to LA for a bit to be with her mom. Come let’s go to my room.” Bea nods towards the strawberry blonde, and Poppy saunters past her, already on her way to the room. Bea follows, a wolfish grin on her face as she pushes Poppy against her bedroom door, placing her lips against hers, for a long kiss. 

“Eager are we Farmsville?” Poppy breaks the kiss, her eyes burning into Bea’s, her eyes gleaming with amusement. Bea answers with a kiss, her fingers gripping at Poppy’s sides, as her eyes burn with desire. Bea leads her to the bed, pushing the strawberry blonde onto the bed before covering her body with hers, already locked in a passionate embrace.

“Bea…” Poppy moans out, as Bea scrapes her teeth against her neck, before softly biting down. Bea smiles against her neck, kissing up to her jaw, her eyes meet Poppy’s, full of admiration. She leans down, nipping at Poppy’s lips as her hands find her way under her clothes, stroking the junctures of her hips eliciting goosebumps. She makes quick word of stripping Poppy of her clothes, before taking off her own, wildly throwing them around the bedroom as she kisses Poppy with great intensity. Bea presses her knee between Poppy’s legs, as Poppy slowly rocks her hips against it, deepening the friction. “God!” Poppy screams out, as Bea begins alternating between kissing and biting as she moves down her body, until her head lies between the strawberry blonde’s legs. 

Bea slowly rubs Poppy’s thighs, slowly pulling them apart as she gives a teasing lick to her inner thigh, evoking a sharp intake of breath from Poppy. “Do you like that?” Poppy violently nods her head, her fingers intertwining in Bea’s hair, pulling her head closer. Bea begins sucking lightly at Poppy’s button, her fingers teasing Poppy’s entrance before dipping inside, pumping in and out. Poppy’s toes curl as she lets out a loud moan, her head thrown back. 

The room is quiet, excluding the heavy panting of the two women, as Bea moves up onto the bed, her arm snaking around Poppy’s waist, pulling her closer. Poppy subconsciously begins drawing lazy shapes against Bea’s stomach, lost in thought. 

“You okay?”

“Hmm?” 

“Are you okay?” 

Poppy shudders, moving closer to Bea, “just a little cold.” 

“I can fix that,” Bea shuffles off her bed, moving towards her closet before pulling a hoodie off a hanger before throwing it at the strawberry blonde, “here.” 

“I’m not wearing that.” 

“Fine stay cold.” Bea nonchalantly shrugs before getting back into the bed. 

Poppy stares at the hoodie, contemplative for a few moments, before sighing heavily, before sliding off the bed, putting the hoodie on. She pulls down at the hem slightly, the size of the hoodie making her seem smaller than usual. 

Bea’s eyes languidly roams Poppy’s body, “see, fit for a queen.” 

*Present* 

Over the next couple of months, Bea and Poppy had been going on more dates, enjoying each other’s company and reigniting their past passion while exploring the new depths of their relationship. However it wasn’t always good, old habits die hard and with Poppy and Bea, they had a lot of bad habits. 

“I just don’t get why it’s such a big deal!” Bea runs a tired hand over her face, clearly drained from the argument. 

Poppy huffs, standing a little straighter, anger written all over her face, “because it is! Excuse me if I don’t want my personal life advertised to the world.” 

“You do that everyday on your Picta. Just admit it, you don’t want people to know we’re dating, just like in college.” 

“God can you let that go? We were different people back in college, it’s not the same thing.” Poppy clenches her jaw, balling her fists up as she stares down Bea, not willing to back down. 

Bea holds eye contact for a few more moments before breaking it, training her eyes to the ground. “I don’t want to keep fighting,” she mumbles out before stalking towards the front door, opening it. 

“Where are you going?” Poppy asks, her voice quiet. 

Bea sighs, her body visibly deflating, “I just need some air.” She walks through the door, closing it behind her, not waiting to hear Poppy’s response. She walks through the streets of New York until she finds herself standing in front of Zoey’s apartment, and after some slight hesitation, she knocks. After a few seconds, the door opens and Zoey looks over at Bea, her brows creased in confusion. 

“Hey girl, is everything okay?” 

Bea blinks back a couple of tears, her voice breaking, “can I come in?” 

“Yes of course,” Zoey moves out of the way, allowing Bea to come in, and gestures towards the couch before sitting on it. “Jesus Bea you look like hell, what happened?” 

“Things with Poppy have been rough to say the least.” Zoey momentarily winces at the mention of Poppy but she quickly masks her loathing. 

“What happened?” 

“I wanted to post this cute picture of us on Picta but she started a fight saying she doesn’t want me to post it because she’s saying she’s not ready but we've been together for 5 months now.” Bea cradles her head in her arms, obviously tired. Zoey slides closer to her, rubbing comforting circles on her back. 

“Hey, it’s okay,” Zoey speaks softly, her voice lulling Bea back into safety as she wraps her arms around her pulling her into a hug. “Look, I don’t want to say I told you so…” Bea groans, evoking a laugh from Zoey. “Come on, I told you this would happen, it’s just like college.” 

*Flashback* 

Bea knocks on Poppy’s bedroom door and a few seconds later the strawberry blonde opens it, a stunned look on her face. 

“Hughes? What are you doing here?” 

Bea walks into the room, her smile on her face, so broad as she turns to look at Poppy, “I was thinking-” 

“About?” 

“About us.” Poppy raises an eyebrow, the rest of her facial expression stoic. “Be my date to the end of year gala.” 

Poppy lets out a humourless laugh, “it’s official, you’ve gone crazy.” 

Bea moves forward taking Poppy’s hands in hers, “just hear me out.” Bea takes a deep breath, before her eyes meet Poppy’s, “we have this thing going on between us and it’s been amazing but to take the next step. I want Belvoire to know that I’m with the most beautiful girl.” 

Poppy slips her hands out of Bea’s hands, crossing them over her chest, “there’s no us.” 

Bea’s facial expression falters, the wide smile transforming into a disappointed frown, “I don’t understand.” 

Poppy feels a pang in her heart as she watches Bea’s face fall, but she finds a tiny strand of anger in her body and she holds onto it, attempting to make this encounter easier for her to bear. “There isn’t an us, what’s hard to understand Farmsville?” Poppy makes her voice as blunt and monotone as possible as she shoots daggers into Bea’s eyes. 

“What about the last year? What about everything we’ve gone through?” 

“Stop using words like us and we!” Poppy shouts, wildly throwing around her arms, “it was literally sex, it doesn’t mean anything.” 

Bea bites down on her bottom lip, “just sex huh? I don’t believe it. What about the nights you asked me to stay, or the nights we talked. You’re saying they meant nothing to you?” Poppy sees the sadness swimming in Bea’s eyes, forcing her to turn away from the girl, her eyes trained on the ground. 

“It didn’t mean anything to me,” Poppy mumbles out. 

“Bullshit! I don’t believe that Pops.” 

“Don’t call me that! We aren’t anything, Farmsville and I certainly don’t want to be your stupid date to the gala.” 

“I don’t believe you, look me in my eyes Poppy and tell me that it never meant anything and I swear-” Bea swallows heavily, tears brimming in her eyes, “I swear I’ll walk out right now and I won’t ever bother you again.” Bea steps in front of Poppy, her head levels with hers as Poppy meets her eyes. “So?” 

Poppy trembles slightly, as her fingers toys with the hem of her top, “it meant nothing to me.” 

Bea nods in understanding, acceptance written on her face “okay.” She sniffles, wiping away the tears from her eyes, “have a nice life Poppy.” Bea walks out of the room, not bothering to look back. 

*Present*

“That was different Zo.” 

“How so?” Zoey raises an eyebrow. 

“That was when we were all worried about rankings and sabotage and all those petty things.” 

“Are you sure she still doesn’t care about things?” Bea playfully nudges Zoey, laughing slightly.

“Yes I’m sure. It’s just I don’t get what the problem is this time. I mean college was a tough time for us both but now, I don’t get why she’s so hesitant.”

“Commitment issues?” 

Bea shakes her head, “she seems pretty committed to me, she just doesn’t like being open.” 

“Whatever it is I know you’ll guys will work it out, and if you don’t then at least you can move on.” Bea stares off into the distance, silent. “Bea, hey I was kidding.” 

Bea gives a small smile that doesn’t reach her eyes, “yeah I know. Anyway enough about my problems, are you excited for your album coming out.” 

Zoey squeals, jumping up and down in her spot, “yes! Oh my god I can’t believe it’s out in a week. How’s the release party looking?” 

“I got us a great place at a club.” 

“VIP?”

“VIP treatment baby!” Bea cheers, pulling Zoey into a hug. 

…..

Slightly buzzed, the group make their way to the club, all in high spirits as they skip the line after showing their IDs and making their way to the VIP section. Bea sidles up to the bar, ordering shots for the entire team as they gather around the woman of the hour at the other side of the club. 

Once the tray of shots is delivered, Bea hands them out, before taking the last one, raising it in the air, “Let’s all raise our glasses for this incredible woman, who’s hours away from releasing her first ever album worldwide,” Bea gestures for everyone to lift their glasses, a wide smile on her face, “here’s to you Zoey Wade.” The group throws back the shot and begins cheering for Zoey. “Speech, speech, speech” Bea chants as the rest of the group follows suit, their attention focused on Zoey as they clap and cheer.

Zoey awkwardly smiles, clearly bashful. “I never really thought I would be able to make a name for myself outside of my mom and I’m just thankful and grateful for my amazing team who helped me get my feelings out and make incredible songs out of them.” The group laughs whole heartedly, and Zoey raises her drink in toast. “So this isn’t only a celebration for me, but a celebration for us all, so let’s party it up.” She throws back the shot, and everyone follows suit cheering as they do. 

“You didn’t have to do all of this Bea,” Zoey says sheepishly. 

“Ummmmm of course I did, my best friend is releasing an album! I know how hard you’ve worked on it Zo, if anyone deserves to celebrate it’s you.” Bea pulls Zoey in for a hug. 

“This club is great, how did you find it?” 

“Poppy owns it.” Zoey's face falls, “Hey, she offered to the party to be held here, a way to say sorry for everything at college.”

“So where is the queen b right now?” 

“Right here.” Poppy walks over to the girls, taking her place next to Bea. “I’m really happy for you Zoey, if anyone deserves this, it’s you.” 

“Thanks.” 

Bea looks between the girls, sensing the awkward tension between the girls augmenting. “Hey why don’t I get us some drinks?” 

“Sure.” Poppy gives a small smile as Bea walks over to the bar before awkwardly turning to face Zoey. The pulsating music from the club causes Zoey to lean closer to Poppy.

“Whatever you have going on with Bea, you better not break her heart.” 

“I won’t,” Poppy replies, “I care about her a lot.” 

“Sure you do, but we’re not at Belvoire anymore. No more games Poppy, I won’t let you hurt her again.” 

“Trust me when I say that’s the last thing I want.” 

Before Zoey can reply, Bea saunters back holding out shot glasses for Zoey and Poppy to take. The women throw back the shot before Bea turns to Poppy whispering in her ear, “dance with me?” 

Poppy looks at Zoey in the corner of her eye before replying, “sure.” Bea leads her into the middle of the crowded dance floor, pulling the strawberry blonde close to her body, wrapping her arms around her waist while Poppy’s hang around her neck. 

Bea lets out a small laugh, “what’s so funny?” Poppy inquires, raising a brow. 

“Nothing, just looking at how far we’ve come. You remember the first time we were in this club together?” 

Poppy hums in content, “I recruited you to help me take down Chloe.” 

Bea leans down to whisper in Poppy’s ear, “and then you dragged me onto the dance floor. Practically couldn’t keep your hands off me.” 

“If I’m remembering correctly, you slept with me so you could backstab me.” 

Bea’s grip on Poppy tightens, “mmh, I did want to get revenge yes, but I’m pretty sure you were the one who suggested sex in the first place.” 

Poppy laughs, “you might be remembering that wrong.” 

“Pretty sure I’m not,” Bea leans in to give Poppy a sweet kiss, until Poppy abruptly pulls away, pressing her lips together in a thin line. 

“Bea we’re in public.” 

“So? We don’t know anyone here.” 

“I invited Veronica and Chloe to be here tonight, they could be anywhere.” Poppy pulls herself away from Bea, “I’m going to get a drink, do you want one?” 

“Nah I’m good you go ahead without me.” Poppy heads over to the bar as Bea makes her way back to the VIP section, seeing a small group forming. “Hey what’s going on here?” 

“Bea!” Veronica aims her phone at Bea, a wide smile on her face. 

“Hey V,” Bea gives the ombre-haired girl a one armed hug, “how’s everything been?” 

Veronica turns off her phone, a tired look on her face, “Good, tired but life has been good.” 

“How’s life been for you Farmsville?” 

“It’s been great, I’m still waiting on you to do your review on my new restaurant.” 

“Ah so the truth comes out, you only wanted me in New York for clout.” 

“Hey Poppy invited you here to celebrate Zoey, and get some clout of her own for her club.” 

“Hey Farmsville!” Chloe stumbles towards the girls, pulling Veronica and Bea into a strong hug slightly spilling her drink on Bea as she does. 

“Chloe! You seem drunk,” Bea swipes at her shoulder, cleaning off the liquor. 

“Yeah these drinks are awesome,” Chloe hangs her tongue open, fumbling with the straw until it’s in her mouth. “Hey where’s new money? I think she has been avoiding me since I sent her over my newest clothing line.” 

“Hey Chloe? Did you ever think to become a dance choreographer? I mean you practically lead the Zeta girls back in college, why not do it now.” 

Chloe stares at Bea, deep in thought, “maybe you’re not full of bad ideas.” 

Chloe saunters off deep in thought as Zoey lumbers into the group, carefully looking around, “is she gone?” 

Veronica snorts, “yeah yeah, she’s gone now. Hey there’s Poppy.” Veronica waves her over and Poppy walks over to the group, her eyes conspicuously trying to not look at Bea. 

“Hey V, remember to get good shots of the dance floor and on the bar.” 

Veronica rolls her eyes, “yeah, yeah,” her eyes dart between Poppy and Bea, watching as the two girls try not to look at each other. She then looks over Zoey, silently gesturing between the girls. Zoey gives a subtle nod, and Veronica grins. “I need a drink, Poppy join me?” 

“Sure.” 

The girls move towards the bar where Veronica turns towards the strawberry blonde, a sly smirk on her face, “So. You seeing anyone?” 

Poppy huffs, “here and there. I like to keep my options open.” 

“So the fact that Bea is staring right at us, has nothing to do with anything?” 

Poppy freezes as Veronica grins at her, “I don't know what you’re talking about.” 

“Come on don’t lie to me. I know you guys were screwing each other during senior year.” 

“What? No we weren’t.” 

“Let's cut all of the false bullshit, come on, what’s going on with you guys?” 

Poppy sighs defeatedly, “Fine, we’ve been seeing each other for the last couple of months but it’s like I’m destined to screw up my own life.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Bea is amazing, I just sometimes don’t think I deserve her.” 

“Nah, nah, nah, none of that depressing crap P. You deserve to find someone who makes you happy and I’ve been here what five minutes? I can practically sense the love already, go and talk to her and fix whatever you messed up.” 

“How do you know I’m the one who messed it up?” 

“Because if it was Bea she would’ve fixed it already, now go.” 

Veronica shoos Poppy away as the strawberry blonde sidles up to Bea, whispering in her ear, “come somewhere quiet with me?” Bea nods as she follows Poppy to the back office, muffling the sounds of the music. 

“So what’s up?” Bea crosses her arms together, looking expectedly at Poppy.

“I don’t like this rift between us, and I know it’s my fault I just-” she sighs heavily, hanging her head in defeat, “i haven’t ever properly done the whole relationship thing and I don’t want to mess it up but it seems like that’s all I’m doing.” 

Bea uncrosses her arms, reaching out to place her hand against Poppy’s cheek, “you’re not messing up anything. We just need better communication.” 

“Bea, I know in the past I treated you like crap and I don’t even know why you want to be with me.” Bea opens her mouth to retort but Poppy shushes her, “let me finish. I don’t know why you still want to be with me but I’m so grateful that you do. I have something to admit to you.” 

“What is it?” 

“When I went to your restaurant, it wasn’t a coincidence.” Poppy takes a slow steadying breath, before her eyes meet Bea’s, “Veronica dropped that you asked her to give your restaurant a review so I subtly told Darren’s best friend about it so he could recommend it to Darren and I could come and see you.” Bea looks at Poppy in surprise, her mouth hanging slightly open. “I tried acting all cold and distant but in reality I was happy to see you and when you kissed me I was surprised. I didn’t expect you to still have feelings for me, so I got my father to hire your company last minute for the dinner.” 

Bea lets out a small huff, “once a schemer huh?” 

Poppy nervously chews on her lips, worry etched on her face, “the reason why I’ve been acting so weird is because I love you Bea Hughes, I always have. And for the first time, I’m not scared of admitting that I-” Bea silences Poppy with a deep kiss, tangling their tongues together as Bea’s hand snakes around Poppy’s throat, squeezing slightly as she kisses her harder. 

“I love you too.” Bea continues kissing Poppy, with great intensity but Poppy pulls away resting her forehead against Bea’s. 

“Do you have your phone?” 

“Uhh yeah.” 

Bea takes her phone out of her purse and Poppy takes it out of her hand, swiping to the camera, “smile,” Poppy presses her lips against Bea’s cheek, taking a series of photos before swiping through them looking for the best one. “This one.” 

“What do you want me to do with it?” Bea replies, confused. 

“Post it on picta, duh. I want the world to know I’m dating the most incredible girl.” Bea feels a warmth in her chest as she uploads the photo before taking Poppy’s hand re-entering the club. 

“I saw the picta post, I guess congrats are in order.” Veronica smiles at the girls while Poppy looks around and locks eyes with Zoey who gives her a small nod, content. Poppy pulls Bea in for a kiss, a smile on her lips. 

“I love you Bea Hughes.” 

“And I love you Poppy Min Sinclair.” 

Chloe stalks up to the group, waving her phone in her hand, “you’re dating Bea? Seriously?” 

Poppy looks up at Bea, warmth in her eyes, “Yep I sure am.”

[alphaketoglutaricacid]

@onehithero said: also we know theres at least some actual animals besides gadoll liek the scorpion n cows tht show up for a sec in ep 1 so tankers hav tht going for them re: food sources ..SORRY FOR RAMBLING SO MUCH deca dence essay got sleeper agent activated

onehithero said: i rly like what usaid abt kabu from natsumes pov too but i cannot form a half cohernet thought abt tht one

onehithero said: ALSO ALSO i think its interesting how the ep 8 conversation w minato is i think the only time kabu talks abt being jealous of humans being able to choose their own paths

onehithero said: also how minatos convinced hes like a good lil cog in the machine yet hes done 50 things tht wuld get him labeled as a bug but he just ignores all tht. the both of them can be so disconnected w reality

onehithero said: like minato didnt know abt 1)natsume 2) how the system has made kabu so severely depressed n he culdnt put up w it anymore.n minato continues pushing the just go along w the system shit he doesnt understand tht he was contributing to kabus misery.. n bc of tht kabu doesnt trust minato enough to tell him abt natsume for so long but then he goes n asks smth so big of him as go against the system

onehithero said: thinks abt how kabu n minato r obviously so important to each other but minato understands him less n less over time & kabu kinda already knew its risky to confide in minato like minato did know abt pipe which was a long time ago but he didnt know abt natsume til kabu was already sacrifing himself for her sake. n yet kabu then goes n tries to get him on his side anyway cuz he wants tht so badly..

onehithero said: OMG OMG CHEWS THESE WORDS SLOWLY N THROUGHLY SO DELICIOUS THANK U THANK U u get it u understand i love reading n writing essay lengh responses abt deca dence & again u just hit the nail on the head w this

Please let me know if this @ u 8 times and sorry if it did.  I will reply under this readmore but i love this enthusiasm! I like discussing this stuff so if u want keep it coming. I wanna understand deca dence better and i think i will by sharing ideas w other ppl. 

I think kabu and minatos relationship  is as good as it is because theres clearly a lot of mutual love and respect between them even when they don’t understand each other and thats why minato still runs after him when he hears kabu going suicide mission lets go baby. I think its interesting that minato was like ready to lie down and accept getting mass scrapped until he hears kabu go im about to be hilarious and hes like actually living and staying alive sounds great actually forget what i said about it being over.   you are so right about kabu and trust and natsume. I will always cherish episode 5 where kabu gives this big rousing speech about how natsume inspired him and saved his life and minatos there like ..who? ..what?? I think they may not be used to hiding things from each other. Also I think them drifting apart mirrors natsume and feis drifting apart tho I think while feis the instigator on that side kabus more on his side and minato like natsume is like wondering what in da world is going on. I think someone else wrote about this better than I can.

I do think minato does know kabus severely depressed because theres this line in ep 4 where he puts his hand on kabu and says like you’ve toiled enough at that awful job. and also in episode 11 when he and kabu talk and kabu says he was in a similar place as minato now in that he was waiting every day to be scrapped minato has no reaction until kabu says but that bug saved me. I think he knows kabus very depressed but he does not know how to address it cuz the system never gives either of them the tools or options for it. Though also I feel the system discourages meaningful relationships between the cyborgs so I think what minato and kabu have is likely pretty rare. Kabu donetello and turkey also fought together for a long time but turkey turns on donetello in a second even tho they fought together, he was his number two, and they were in prison together, and were pretty much all they got and donetello kills him in turn. I also think minato probably knew because he’s empathetic. Like I’m not sure about compassion but he’s very good at understanding where other ppl are and how to meet them in the middle so both parties get something they want. That’s how he got all the gamers to collect the old deca dence parts. Not by cashing in on ppl doing the right thing but by framing it as the final mission. He gets his lgbt community center coworkers for fight with him one last time by appealing to their sense of duty. He got the system to put kabu in jail instead of getting scrapped when Mikey got scrapped for a lesser offense. The list goes on. A tangent but I think the fact he acknowledges the living conditions of the humans are gonna get worse if nothing’s done even tho he’s apathetic at best towards them shows even when the system tries to mold the cyborgs into the roles it wants, sometimes the traits they have just keep on going despite themselves. I’m gonna stop myself before I go into jill and this theme but I’m gonna talk about it someday. So I think its more likely than not he knew but he didn’t know how to navigate around it also because it’s heavily implied he’s going thru the same thing and I think kabu might genuinely have no idea Bc kabu lacks empathy but his heart... is huge. When he hears minato express his feelings of not knowing what he wants he instantly tries to reach out and explain minatos not alone in what he feels. This is why they’re good foils. while kabu moves past where he was in the start where he states he does not intend to oppose the system and his compliance while also trying to do the bare minimum drives him to suicide, and finds the willpower and a reason to live and rebel against the system through his connection to other people (first natsume , he hangs out w kurenai sometimes too, and then with the jail robots). Meanwhile minato whos stuck in his literal ivory tower (it’s a Metaphor) never makes any of these connections. It’s the irony of kabu working at a armor repair job giving him some ability to connect w others vs minatos higher position isolating him from everyone else. I think kabu living amongst the ppl he harmed drove him to give up on life quicker, while minato being far apart shielded him from rlly having to see the effects of his actions I think he was headed a lil slower in the same direction. I think we’re led to believe minatos okay where he is but I think towards the end it’s clear minato has spent most of the series also in a bad place. I think he views things very similarly to kabu in that he wants to use what power he does have to protect the ppl he cares about similar to how initially kabu tried to just convince natsume to quit several times and he was like whatever at the rest of the humans who are natsumes comrades dying but he chooses to put it all on the line and try for some systemic change when he sees natsumes determination to fight. Also I think minato holds very little loyalty to the system cuz he doesn’t only like breaks 1000 rules for kabu (the hypocrisy) but he also looks the other way a lot. For example, when he overheard the top rankers talk about limiters he’s like I’ll pretend I don’t hear it also turn on private mode next time and he doesn’t berate them for considering cheating. Also donetello has been using an illegal avatar to climb to S rank again (isn’t it interesting that even after the ranked system is abolished something similar took its place). And his avatar looks the same as it did when minato worked with the guy. There’s probably like not that many ppl in s rank. And he calls himself donetello. Minato knows he’s supposed to be in jail but does he tell anyone? He’s like well.. that looks like someone else’s problem if they notice *goes and vapes* it’s so funny how little minato cares but it’s also not funny Bc some of minatos cruelest actions and things he’s complicit in are born not outta malice but apathy to everything. I think it shows (tangent number 4?) how the systems use of excessive force is counter productive cuz neither minato nor kabu are willing to report anything to disrupt the order Bc neither of them think the level of punishment is warranted. I also think that minato is probably the first person kabu really opens up to about why on a personal level he feels the system needs to be destroyed after Ep 7 is really interesting. It really speaks to how deep their [mutual and not platonic relationship I don’t know how to label ] is. I also think that he admits to minato that he envies human is rlly interesting and would like to hear what u have to think! I think it’s interesting that what really sets minato off is kabu saying he wants to choose for himself and also wants other cyborgs to have that freedom and I think it’s one of the few times we see minato get genuinely angry and have it not stem from worry. Tangent 5 I’m really extrapolating here but I think it’s very likely given how high up minato is that he likely knows of several cyborgs that rebelled against the system for similar reasons as kabu and knows how it ends and I think it probably feeds into his defeatist attitude. I think his role in the system must really kill whatever grasp of whatever minato has cuz he constantly has to act like it’s almost the end of the world and he’s strapped for resources all the time for like decades and decades of having to fake that type of desperation to entertain ur player base and cuz ur also on tv to entertain the general populace to distract them from their soul sucking jobs. I think that’s gotta mess with his perception of himself and also his ability to see that struggle as real and genuine. I think that’s also gotta be hard cuz he seems like out of his whole fuck we r under attack persona he seems like he’s a lil closed off but generally chill and somewhat upbeat to ppl who know him and he just wants to be isabella from animal crossing. I got really off track here. I think what really gets me is their relationship is built on knowing each other so well and so long , and how it’s managed to survive and persist through all this tragedy. They really mutually respect and love each other and that’s why kabu let’s minato walk away from his revolution even tho it compromises everything he works for. It’s why minato ultimently accepts kabus willingness to die for a tanker even tho he really doesn’t get it at all and it means it’s goodbye forever. But it’s still not enough to save either of them. Minato can’t save kabu from trying to passively starving himself to death and I’m not sure if kabu even knows where minato is at mentally. Sometimes no matter how close u are to someone there r things u miss and things u can’t help each other with. Even tho the two resolve to fight and then die together cuz this seems like the best choice Bc the system they were born into offers no alternatives, the deca dence doesn’t even activate without the help of other ppl. I think it shows one relationship cant support all that weight. In the end it is through their bonds with other ppl that gets them to an ending where they both survive when they decided alone their only option is death. Also u are so right about the other animals existing I totally forgot ty I cannot believe I forgot about the scorpion which calls to natsumes hairstyle which is a visual gag on how natsumes a bug and how like a scorpion, although unassuming, and fucking kill u, just like how her trying to get her boss to open up eventually leads to the whole thing toppling down. I also have a lot of thoughts about natsume but I’m still thinking of them and thinking hard Bc sometimes she becomes kabus inspiration Pinterest board and I don’t like that. When she shines she really shines but it starts getting sloppy towards the end so I have to think a lil longer about it. Okay I’m done. Also it’s kinda hard for me to look like I’m agreeing to ur points and nodding in this format but I really appreciate ur thoughts and will try to convey this. Maybe by formatting as a response to each of ur replies next time

[ngame989]

“Brew” - TGG SVTFOE Fanfic Collection Ch. 6

Writing: @ngame989​

Art: @toxicpsychox​

Editing: @toxicpsychox​, @seddm​, an IRL friend

Alternate fic links - FFnet, AO3

Summary: After close to a year on Earthni, Tom's been dragged back into the princely life, and it's a lot less exciting than he'd expected. With Star and Marco away on urgent business, can Janna help him turn a boring errand into a fun adventure?

Comic Page

Masterpost

This one’s a nice change of pace from the last two chapters, I think. TGG’s still a Starco-focused work, expect these to be the exception not the norm, but I think it’s important to strike a balance. See below for the text, hope you enjoy!

“No results.” Huh? Three eyes narrowed at the screen in frustration. Maybe a different search term? “No results.” Alright Tom, no big deal, man. Maybe you just spelled something wrong. Annnnnd… there. “No results.” How could there be nothing?

Tom leaned back in the chair and sighed, exercising restraint over the little anger demons inside him as he’d trained himself to do. In the past he’d needed a physical bunny to pet if he wanted even a hope of keeping his cool, but at this point suppressing the urge was such reflex that most would think he just had a regular Mewman quick temper and nothing more in all but the most extreme of conditions, but he was getting pretty close to that point now. Grandpa Relicor’s study had everything, or so he thought, but this was the first time he could ever remember being here where it come up short. He’d checked every shelf, everything he could think in the computer, had even fireblasted a few of the shelves just to see if there were any hidden switches or anything. Even Relicor had been at a loss and had been screeching in distress on the floor for long enough that Tom’s brain had graciously tuned it out. What could be so important about this book his mom needed? He hadn’t even had time to change his casual graphic tee from a cartoon he liked, simply tossing his maroon jacket over it before heading out at his mother’s behest. He wasn’t one to say no to her, but it had been hours since he’d shown up here and he was no closer to figuring this out than he had been this morning.

Suddenly his phone buzzed, displaying the familiar beaming face of his ex-girlfriend close up to the camera. A toothy grin erupted as he picked it up, holding the phone up for a video feed. “Heya, Starship.”

“Hey, Tom!” Star beamed into the camera. “How’s it hanging? Long time no see. So,” she rambled out in one breath, “I may have a teensie weensie wittle problem.” She backed up to reveal her hair in complete disarray, sans horns, and black marks all over her light blue dress. Before Tom could even ask the question, her other hand held up charred fragments of her headband. “Someone still hasn’t learned how to use an Earth oven properly!” she forced out through gritted teeth.

“Look, gurl, I said I was like, so sorry! All the Cloud Kingdom kitchens are powered by glitter and horn blasts, like that’s just how ovens are supposed to be, that is all I am saying here,” Ponyhead’s indignant voice chimed in from behind, punctuated by a snort.

“Anyway, we just finished putting out the fires and I need a new headband and their website says they’re almost out of stock and I’ve wanted to show Marco around the Underworld for a while and- wait, is that screeching in the background? Where are you?”

Tom shuffled away from the elder demon still writhing on the floor and cleared his throat. “Just in Grandpa’s study trying to find something for my mom, she really wants it today. I don’t know if I can go- but I can still send the carriage for you guys, if you want.”

“Do you need help with that?” Marco inquired as he peeked his head into the frame, casually wrapping an arm around Star.

“Naaaah, no big deal,” Tom shrugged. “You two should go, though! I can just fly over whenever I finish this.”

Star and Marco looked at each other hesitantly. “Alright,” she said. “Carriage to our house in maybe five minutes?” A fire alarm went off behind her followed by a scream from Ponyhead and an even girlier one from Marco. “Maybe ten,” Star sighed, burying her face in her free hand.

“You got it,” Tom chuckled.

“OK, bye!” Star said with relief before hanging up. He rolled his shoulders from inside his jacket and ran his hands through his hair before stepping into the main foyer, taking advantage of the space to summon the carriage and its horses, the incantations coming effortlessly to him. Demons had been fortunate enough to retain their powers on Earthni, but the location underground and the relative lack of portaling methods available left them even more isolated than previously. While most of the other kingdoms had dissolved or integrated into a loose coalition of government covering all of the Echo Creek area, the Underworld had been content to stay completely under the banner of Lord and Lady Lucitor, and Tom found himself pitching in more and more in his role as Prince. In truth, he would have appreciated the company his friends were offering, but he knew how much it had meant to Star to be able to give this life up, and he didn’t want to drag her - either of them, really, considering Marco had earned an official title on Mewni himself - back into the boring thick of regal errands. Was Prince Thomas Draconius Lucitor really going to let some stuffy old book collection get the best of him? Hah, as if.

With a flick of his wrist, the half-demon shuttled the carriage to the surface in a pillar of flame, barely looking and instead pulling out his new phone. He was still getting the hang of the new and improved Reflectacorp’s Earth tech integration, but he’d at least learned how to open yesterday’s text conversation thread from its new message notification.

Janna: anti-gravity potion attempt 4 failed. affected bottle glass itself and launched into sky. note to self: work under roof. star and marco’s suggestions didnt work either. not all bad though, it went towards cloud kingdom lol

Tom: careful, don’t hit pony’s ego and make it fly even higher ·;) btw pony + starco are going shopping in underworld soon. im stuck working for mom though.

Janna: stores r lame. even in underworld. and srsly dude u gotta stop using starfans dumb name for them. otoh it bugs them so actually nvm go 4 it

Tom: it was mine first >·:( it saves letters when they’re together!

Janna: which is always

Tom: exactly. speaking of which, they’re here ttyl

Star stepped out of the carriage in a nice white polka dotted green dress, quickly followed by Marco, the pair’s fingers remaining intertwined until they gave him a hello hug, and Tom honestly wasn’t sure they’d stopped holding hands even then. Ponyhead burst out a moment later with her phone floating in front of her pointed at herself, and she was in the middle of a monologue to no one in particular.

“-so yeah anyway as you all can see we have now arrived in the Underwoooorld. So yeah this is, like, basically the best place on all of Earthni to go shopping as I’ll be showing you today. Oh yeah, I guess some demon boys live here too. Oh my goodness, say hello you guuuys,” she rolled her eyes as she butted in between Star and Tom, side-eyeing him for a split second before grinning back into the camera. After all this time Pony still hadn’t dropped the passive aggression over his and Star’s messy history; Tom had to admit it was a bit understandable, but did she really have to keep it up in such an annoying way? He rolled his eyes - it was Ponyhead he was thinking about here. “OK, the Ponyhead Experience will be taking a short break. Tune back in soon! Love y’all, buhbye!” She snapped the phone shut and caught it with her tongue. “Ugh, why do all of my vlogs with you dorks get like ten times as many viewers? Tom, you were in the shot for like three seconds and do you know what happened? 2000 more people tuned in! What the heck! It’s like, just because I have one less horn and one less eye I’m not exciting to you? But I can’t stay mad at my adooooring fans.”

“Must be the Lucitor charm.” He flashed a toothy smile and a pair of finger guns at her, accidentally flinging his phone across the room in the process. “Totally planned,” he blurted out with a much less authentic grin. Marco chuckled and picked it up, handing it back and patting him mock-sympathetically on the shoulder while holding back a smirk.

Star giggled but tapped her foot impatiently, looking around the room nervously. “OK, great catching up, but on the way here I checked the website and the headband shop is almost out of stock! We have to go, now! Let’s move it, people! Tom, can we borrow the carriage for the day?”

He shrugged nonchalantly. “Fine by me.”

“Thankyouthankyouthankyou, you’re the best!”

“You sure you don’t need anything?” Marco inquired again.

“You heard the girl, Marco, my audience wants to see us get our shop on!”

Tom blew a raspberry, pushing them towards the carriage. “Relax, it’s nothing. I’m practically done already! Tooootally almost done!”

Marco finally relented, nodding his assent. Star was bouncing up and down so much that she looked ready to launch around the room. He giggled as she wrapped both her arms around his middle and kissed his cheek before hauling him the rest of the way into the carriage. “C’mon boo, mama needs a new pair of horns. Plus we can get whatever you need, too! I saw a few things in the catalog that would look preeeetty good on you,” she sing-songed, walking two fingers up his chest to boop his nose after they plopped down onto the seat together. Ponyhead mimed vomiting at Tom, who silently laughed in response; they were so engrossed with each other that Tom was fairly certain they wouldn’t have noticed even if he’d shouted his laughter, though. He blankly stared at the spot the carriage had been for a few seconds after it exited in a blaze.

“Pretty gross, right?” Tom started and launched a fireball in the direction of the voice, hovering away from the intruder. A split second after, his vision caught up with his instincts and saw Janna in her usual green shirt and beanie and yellow skirt, sans jacket, nonchalantly sidestep the flame. “You do the same thing every time, you really need to work on that,” she chided with her arms crossed and a devious smirk on her face.

He rubbed his temple and gestured at her in sullen disbelief. “How did you-”

“Roof of the carriage.”

“Huh.” An eyebrow up in surprise, studying her expression. “You never usually, you know, answer that.”

She shrugged, kicking a boot into the hard stone floor. “Whatever, guess I’m just bored. Besides, half the reason I do that is to get a rise out of Marco,” she slyly snickered, and Tom couldn’t help but join in. “Alright, demon boy, what adventure are we going on today?”

Tom crossed his arms apprehensively. “Just trying to find a book for my mom, not really much of an adventure.”

“Like I said, dude, I’m bored and shopping is dumb. I don’t mind hanging out here for a study session or whatever, your family’s got great taste in decor.” She picked a skull off the ground and tossed it back and forth between her hands. He grinned back at her, grateful for the company. “So what kind of creepy curses are in this book?”

The pair started walking back into the study as their conversation continued. “Don’t think there are any. It’s called ‘Historia Homewnum’, according to my mom, so it’s probably a history book but that’s all I know.”

“Darn. Demon history’s bound to be pretty cool, though.”

“You’d be surprised how little actually happens down here, it’s just a lot of maintenance. Last month the most important thing I did was a ribbon-cutting ceremony at a new boba cornshake shop, it’s really caught on here since the Cleaving. But man is it good! Marco was right, the little pearls are just so tasty, I like the creamed corn version best.”

“What is it with you and corn, seriously...” Janna shuddered.

“Don’t knock it ‘till you try it.” He knew he’d gotten distracted thinking about the delicious creamy beverage, but that didn’t seem like an adequate reason to look so horrified, especially coming from Janna. Not able to figure out any other reason she might be disgusted by his comments, he got his thoughts back on track. “Really don’t know why she wants this thing so much. Anyway, I already checked the entire study for it, and the search archives don’t have anything either. Oh well, what can you do, might as well just give up and-”

“Found something,” Janna piped up, somehow already in the computer chair with her feet on the desk.

“Really? How?” he asked incredulously, throwing his hands in the air for emphasis.

“OK, I didn’t actually find the book, but maybe we should check this place out.” He leaned into the screen to see a Mewgle search for ‘how to find weird book in underworld’ on the screen.

“I already tried that, Janna!”

“Yeah, but your antivirus was blocking this link to some place called the ‘Librarinth’.”

Tom slammed his palm into his forehead. “Of course, the Librarinth! How could I not think to look there, that’s where all the oldest books are. Why was it getting blocked?”

She clicked on the link and both recoiled at the sight: an abhorrent patterned background with almost unreadable randomly colored text and low quality cartoon images scattered all around the page. “Yeah, it’s awful,” she said in response to his obvious horror. “Seriously, whoever must made this website must be, like, a thousand years old.”

“Probably , yeah, but why does that have anything to do with-” His eyes widened in realization as he clapped his hands together in contemplation. “Right, humans and their lifespans. Go on.”

“Look.”

She scrolled past the despondent, blurry faces of demons of all shapes and sizes in the staff section until she arrived at the catalog, folding her arms triumphantly. Tom excitedly butted in, typing into the search box and being greeted with a loading wheel. “Uh, Janna? It’s not working.”

“Pfft, yeah, I might actually be dead by the time the search finishes. But that doesn’t matter because they have our book. It’s the header image for the whole catalog.” He squinted and brought his face closer to the monitor, and to his surprise the title was clear as day on the cover of the book, although all the other information was too difficult to make out. “Alright, let’s go. Main page says the Librarinth is on Floor 216.”

With a snap of his fingers, the demon elevator was summoned into a bookshelf much as it had been the day they had dealt with the Blood Moon. Relicor’s shrieking, which had slowed to a whimper since they’d left, resumed in full; fortunately they began descending, which quickly put them out of earshot. Tom awkwardly stretched his arms, unsure what exactly to say. She was his friend, yes, but he was never the best at small talk, and Janna being Janna didn’t make that any easier. After long, messy years of broken hearts and misguided feelings, he finally felt comfortable forging friendships, but even though they got along quite well there was something about Janna that made that vibe a lot less effortless than with Marco or even Star. Thoughts of his other friends reminded him of something. “Uh, by the way… how did you even know about the carriage earlier?”

“A girl’s gotta keep some secrets.”

“Pony was posting about it every 15 seconds,” he guessed, calling Janna’s bluff.

“Touché. Every 10, though,” she coolly responded. “Ha, now she’s just flipping out because Star and Marco have way more likes than her selfies.”

“Figured you’d have him bugged or something,” Tom chuckled as he scooted over to get a look at Janna’s screen, and sure enough there was a picture collage of Star sitting in Marco’s lap with tens of thousands of likes and comments already. They were laughing their butts off at themselves in a mirror in front of them with novelty sunglasses, fake mustaches, goofy props, and even a few absurd full-body costumes; Ponyhead joined the fun for a few but just as often butt in trying to take over the mirror by herself.

“Ew, no, I disabled it all months ago. Boyfriend Tom was already too cutesy for me, and you two just had a little flirty fling. Do you think I’d really want to see or hear whatever Star and Marco have going on? They’re, like, deeply in love, or whatever, and it’s gotten even worse in the last few weeks.”

He murmured in tacit agreement. Now that he thought about it, they had seemed even more affectionate than usual, but he wasn’t too keen on uncovering why that might be. The ding of the elevator saved him from any further speculation, and he and Janna stepped out of the elevator into the lobby, which was empty with cobwebs coating most of the weathered stone walls. Janna looked at him with a quizzical expression. “Anyway, so the Librarinth is basically a combination of a library and a labyrinth-”

“Right, I got that,” she curtly retorted.

“The legends say that some ancient librarian demons wanted to challenge any who sought knowledge, so they hid all the books in a giant maze that only the worthy could navigate. But everyone who made it still decided to organize it thoroughly for some reason, and you still had to check out the books and bring them back and all that.”

She ran a finger over the dust on the front counter, and the surface of the desk sizzled in response, causing her to pull her hand back before poking the bubbles that formed with a curious smile. “So why is it completely empty?”

Tom rubbed the back of his neck. “Weeeeeeell, after a few people went missing or insane, everyone realized it really wasn’t a great way to, you know, run a library. Grandpa actually started collecting books to try and get them away from this place. No one really knows what goes on in there, but as far as I know it’s still maintained even though no one uses it. The kingdom stopped staffing the lobby but they could never just shut it down because anyone who tried, well-”

“Went missing or insane. Sounds cool, I’m in.”

“You sure?”

“Dude, you brought me to a wicked hell maze filled with psychotic demon nerds. Maybe there’ll be bottomless pits or a wicked dungeon boss. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re flirting with me, Mr. Lucitor,” she purred, running a finger up his chest and flicking his nose.

“Haha, very funny. And it’s Prince Lucitor,” he sarcastically chided, poking her arm in response before crossing the room with her following, but he couldn’t help but hide that he was flustered. Seeing Star and Marco’s relationship in the past year had reinforced his already-firm convictions about romance: he wanted someone with whom he could be life partners in all ways, not just handholding and rooftop picnics. Otherwise, what would be the point? He’d made that mistake enough times, and even just a light jab at the notion of him casually flirting struck made him feel self-conscious about that past. Finally his reflection was halted when he found what he sought: a large wrought iron door furnished with ornate demonic symbols and various carvings of mythological creatures dwarfed them both. With a soft, steady flame for light, he brought his hand up and ran it over the rusty engravings. He jumped back with a gasp as the fire spread into the lines of the door, lighting up the patterns on it and causing it to creak as it slowly opened.

“Nice,” Janna muttered in awe before strolling inside, with Tom hesitantly following. She was the most eager of their little group to dive headfirst into the unknown, even more than Star most of the time, but he trusted her gut.

They started walking down the long, cramped hallways, hearing only the sound of their own footsteps on the cold floor. Janna peeked her head into a small doorway that appeared to their left, earning herself an explosive blast to the face and getting knocked onto her butt. Tom slammed the door shut and leaned in to read an inscription next to it. “Incinerator for any books too damaged or damaging for further use. Probably not the right place.”

Janna huffed, brushing herself off and finding scraps of paper among the char. “I can see that. Seriously, what kind of labyrinth labels its doors?”

“Maybe one run by book nerds,” Tom offered, gripping her hand to help her up.

“So it’s just as bad at being a labyrinth as it is a library. Neat. Great adventure.”

Tom pressed on, keeping his focus ahead of them. “Hey, I’m just here to help my mom. You’re the one that said you were fine with anything.”

“Fine, fine. Just saying, I could be working on my potions or something.” She pulled a glass bottle full of purple liquid from her skirt pocket and casually tossed it at a wall. Janna snickered at Tom’s yelp when it shattered, but found herself joining him in backing away when a chunk of stone quickly deteriorated and slammed into the ground at incredible speed. She went over and carefully kicked a pebble, finding it impossible to even budge. “See, this was just a stupid pro-gravity potion. Worthless.”

He leaned against the stable wall opposite the hole, sighing. “I’m sure there has to be something interesting here. What if we, I dunno, make it a competition or something?” His frustration with both the situation and Janna were there, yes, but he still wanted to try and get something fun out of the day.

“Go on,” Janna said, eyes flickering up from the bottle that she was tossing between her hands nonchalantly.

OK, maybe he should have thought further ahead. His arms flailed as he scrambled to come up with an idea. “OK, so, uh, whoever finds the weirdest thing in this place in the next hour wins. Just call them out if you think you found something. Or whoever finds the book, whichever comes first, yeah. Mom still needs it.”

“Momma’s boy. I respect that. You’re on, Tom.” Janna cocked an eyebrow, staring at him for a second before pushing off the wall into a sprint, opening the first door she could find. “Empty. Another empty. Three empties, dammit.”

Tom used his flight to travel more smoothly from door to door on his side of the corridor, but still found himself losing ground as he took the time to read the sign posted by each threshold. The ‘Demonic Studies’ room had a very ornately ghoulish aesthetic, with macabre skeletal models throughout. Definitely something to show Janna on the way out just for the aesthetic, and it’d have been weird for most humans, but it wasn’t any more abnormal than what the two of them were used to as a daily routine. Another room for astronomy had an exquisite planetarium dome, but it turned out to be rather useless as the Underworld did not, in fact, contain any stars since it was underground. There was, however, a plentiful selection of guides to stalactites stocked on the shelves. The next four whole sections were devoted to anger management self-help books, which only made him waste precious seconds cringing at old memories.

His pace picked up as he kept going from door to door finding nothing but normal library fare, although he had to admit it was certainly well-maintained. On any other day he might actually enjoy some of the things here, but today he was on a mission to get out of here so they could actually have fun elsewhere.

‘Bookworms’... now that had potential. What sorts of hybrid creatures could lurk behind the inches of wood? “I think I might have found something!” he shouted, throwing open the door only to receive a harsh shushing. Within were only elderly demons in cozy sweaters reading by candlelight, all now glaring at him with an intensity that reminded him of his mom’s own rare reprimands. “Never mind,” he loud-whispered back out into the hall as he gently closed the door and found Janna in a nearby corridor. “Ugh, why is there nothing interesting here?” Sparks trailed behind him from his mounting anger as he paced.

“Tell me about it, even ‘Wormbooks’ was just a bunch of regular novels, somehow,” she sighed. “I was hoping for a big long chain of open books slithering around on the ground, now there’s a party.” She slumped down against the wall next to the streak of flame he’d left on the ground, idly stamping it out with her boot until Tom sat down beside her.

“Wouldn’t a wormbook be the opposite? A big fat worm in the shape of a book?”

“Nah, it’d totally be a book made of a bunch of little flatworms all working together, duh. Still pretty lame.”

OK, now he knew something was up with her. “Janna, is- is something wrong?”

Her body slouched further down until she was almost horizontal on the cold floor, staring ahead of her like a zombie. “Being weird has just felt so pointless lately. Everything’s weird now, all the time! I’m wasting all my time trying to brew potions when there’s a shop that sells them on every corner. I got so bored that I even passed that same dumb test Marco did and now I’m done with high school, like, for real this time.”

“Hey, don’t be so hard on yourself, that’s pretty impressive.”

“It’s easy if you know who to blackmail.” Tom blinked a few times, not sure why he’d expected anything different. “Everyone else is moving on with their lives, but I’m still feeding the same old possums and picking up the same old tennis balls. The whole point of my routine is that it’s different, it’s me, it’s my Jannanigans or whatever Star calls it, but it’s just not the same. I’m still into all that stuff, and Earthni’s actually really cool, but… ugh.” With that, her head fully sunk to the ground.

Tom brought his palms together over her head, opening and shutting his hands while wiggling his fingers around. “It’s a wormbook,” he said hesitantly, not really sure what he was doing. It was silly amusement, but perhaps that was just what she needed right now. Janna frowned and rolled her eyes, so he snapped at her arm with his hand puppet wormbook a few times.

“Alright, I get it,” she barked out, but her sullen demeanor slowly cracked under the onslaught of frivolity as she sat back up with an unusually ponderous look at him.

“Remember that time you took me bootsledding?” She nodded. “You told me that I needed to find a life outside of Star, and- and it was really great advice. Didn’t mean I still couldn’t like spending time with Star or anything, heck, I still do! But I just needed to get out of that rut of depending on it. Maybe you just need to do that, too. If doing your weirdness by yourself is normal, then adding something normal might be kinda weird.”

“That’s it.” Janna leapt to her feet, looking very suddenly invigorated. “That’s it!”

“Well, uh, glad you liked it. It was nothing, really, just trying to be a good pal-”

“Yeah, yeah, that too,” she waved dismissively, and he couldn’t help but feel a bit scorned. “If weird is normal then normal is weird. We were looking for the craziest things we could find here, but everything that should have been weird was normal, so we should be looking for the most painfully boring room here!” All three of Tom’s eyes blinked a few times as her words sunk in. Could it be…? “Tom, over here!” He hustled over to a particularly plain wooden door. Janna pointed at the plaque on the wall, which was far more faded than the others had been. “Look. ‘Government Records’.”

A burst of energy coursed through Tom’s blood, sparking life in him once more, and he could see the same reflected in Janna’s determined brown eyes. “And the book Mom wanted has something to do with history. Maybe it’s political history! Janna, you might be a genius!”

“Pfft, ‘might’. Now we just gotta…” She grabbed his arm, aiming it at the door, and he looked at her incredulously. “C’mon, dude, who knows what’s behind there. We’re gonna bust in with a demon blast, duh. Pew-pew!”

He rolled his eyes, but the corner of his lip turning up in a begrudging smile gave away his agreement. The pair aimed at the door and blew it off its hinges before charging in through the smoke.

“I see you two have finally solved the grand riddle of the Librarinth!” A deep, booming voice greeted them from the smoke. “Janna Ordonia, Thomas Lucitor, you certainly took your time. I expected you to book it here much more quickly. No matter, for this room shall be your tome!”

“How do you know my-” Janna stammered.

“Uh, don’t you mean tomb-” Tom started at the same time before realizing the wordplay and groaning in misery. Wait a second… Epic threats, an obvious personality quirk…

“Dungeon boss!” the teens cheered together, glancing back and forth between each other and the remainder of the room in front of them obscured by shadow.

“It is I, the bookkeeper of this place. I guard the most sacred treasure of all… knowledge!” Paper rustled loudly, echoed throughout the cavernous space, far taller and wider than Tom had noticed when they first entered with a massive array of bookshelves many times taller than him in a single row near the back wall. The ground beneath them began to shake and Tom tossed a puff of light in front of him, exposing the wide chasm that had just opened up in the ground, swallowing all the shelving in the room. Neither were prepared for the sight that greeted them: a coiled mass unfurled from the abyss and slithering with purpose along the ground, finally raising itself up to stand at fifteen feet tall, swaying back and forth with enough force to create an artificial wind within the space. A closer look showed that the body was made of some peculiar segments of… books, of all shapes and sizes. The volume at the top of the chain was much larger and far more ornately embossed than the others, and on the blood red surface of the cover Tom could make out a set of eyes. As the picture became more and more clear, he could finally see what they were up against. Now THIS is a bookworm.

“Aren’t libraries supposed to be, like, public and free?” Janna blithely inquired.

“You are correct, child, but perhaps try reporting that to your friend there! The Lucitor family is the sworn enemy of this great Librarinth! That fiend Relicor pilfered our collection for his own use for millennia, and the rest tried to shut this place down for good. But worst of all, in the most egregious display of contempt I have witnessed since the dawn of writing itself… Prince Lucitor and his ilk have amassed twenty-six dollars in unpaid fees!”

The tension in the room nearly evaporated in a heartbeat as Tom and Janna paused momentarily before bursting out into raucous laughter.

“Seriously, dude? I could just, like, repay it.” He fumbled in his pockets for his wallet for a moment before being interrupted once more.

“Do not condescend to me, children! It is far too late to make up for these sins with mere currency. Revenge is my fee most overdue, now prepare to meet… Overdoom! I shall harness the power of the written word to spell your demise!”

Books were hurled from the depths of the crevice en masse. Tom stepped in front of Janna to blast them away, but they had taken on a life of their own and homed in on him, covers flapping in the air like wings. Behind Tom, Janna snatched one out of the air to thwart a flank attack. She grabbed his left arm and pointed it up, tapping his elbow frantically. He spared a glance and saw the paper tornado coalescing, and understood her intention. Demon flames surged out of both hands with Janna calling the shots for the left side and Tom focusing on his right. They used the opportunity to back up to a wall, letting them cover every attack vector but creating a stalemate they were sure to lose in time as the seemingly endless offense droned on. Overdoom for the time being simply floated out of the abyss, glaring harshly at them as more and more papers kept emerging.

“Wait, Tom, look…” Still using his hand, she pointed to a shelf that had fallen at an odd angle and hadn’t collapsed into the abyss. There was a large, torn-up poster on which he could barely make out the word “Historia”.

“That might be it,” he breathed out, starting to feel the burn from minutes of nonstop vigilant defensive demon blasts. Oddly, none of the books in that corner were joining the assault. Almost as if...

“It’s making them magical in the chasm.” Tom’s heart leapt up in his chest at the revelation, hope and adrenaline mixing in his veins to keep him fully alert. But charging in was a suicide mission and they clearly couldn’t win on raw firepower.

“Have you had enough? Are you children yet ready to come scrawling on your hands and knees to a-tome for the sins of your forefathers?” the imposing figure growled, bristling impatiently.

“Did it seriously just use the tome pun again?” Janna griped, running her hands past her eyes and down her cheeks in disgust. “For a word nerd, that’s just awful.”

“Yeah…” Tom absent-mindedly responded. He knew she was right, though. Book, tome, scrawl… even if the creature’s summoning powers were off the charts, and it wielded them with calculated ease, its cocky wordplay taunts left something to be desired. It struck him then: what if they’d been approaching this all wrong? If the battle couldn’t be won by blows, then they had to find another option, and Tom was ready to put his plan into action.

He quickly shook off Janna’s rather tight grip on his arm and stepped forward, mustering up a confident expression masking any fears he still had left. “Nice try, Overdoom. Your words aren’t scaring us. Learn to read the room!”

Its “body” immediately began wiggling violently in the air as it crawled a bit forward towards them. Tom paid careful attention to its back end, which had climbed a few feet out of the ground in the move. “How dare you! Petulant brats!” Literary fire and brimstone rained down upon them with more fury than ever, and the two backed up into a corner which was the best they could do in a room largely devoid of any cover.

“What the hell-” Janna whispered through gritted teeth. Tom wriggled his tail out and waved it in front of Janna’s face momentarily. “Now is not the time to-” She was cut off when a barrage of index cards launched at them with enough force to somehow chip the stone behind them on impact. Tom forcefully nodded his head towards the worm’s tail, waggling his own once again. Her eyes lit up much like his had and she nodded in understanding.

“Come on, is that the best you got? I’ve heard them all before, at least give us something novel!”

Janna stood beside him, and her grimace even managed to spook Tom a bit. “I’d alphabet you couldn’t do better even if you tried!” Not what he would’ve gone with, but hey, if it helped tick Overdoom off then who was he to say no?

“You can talk up a storm all you want, but no matter what volume of air you blow, all I feel is a not-so-rough draft!”

“ENOUGH!” Overdoom’s tail launched out of the chasm faster than either could follow, crossing the room in a heartbeat. Tom shoved Janna out of the way before it wrapped itself around him, dragging him much more slowly towards the abyss. His jacket and jeans mercifully protected the paper edges pressing into him, but it was still a painfully tight squeeze that left him gasping for air. His arms were uselessly pinned inside the embrace as he was dragged headfirst, but their hypothesis had been proven correct as all the books around them had dropped to the ground lifeless.

“Tom!” Janna called out. He strained his head to see she’d removed her beanie and had something purple in her hand that she lobbed at that moment. Through the haze of pain he recognized it as another of her potions. The arc was due to miss until he summoned his energy reserves and redirected it with a weak burst of flame from his boot. Though the glass was durable enough to not melt or shatter, the demonic heat changed the potion into a bubbling olive green milliseconds before it contacted a random segment of the behemoth they were fighting. All at once, its hold on Tom and the rest of its body went limp as it began floating lazily into the air before bouncing off the ceiling a few times like a balloon. Janna ran over and helped Tom up as Overdoom screamed inarticulately from many feet above. They traversed the chaotic mess towards the pile they’d spotted previous. After some digging around, he found ‘Historia Homewnum’ miraculously unscathed and protected by a large, sturdy slab of mahogany that had fallen flat on top of it. “I got it!”

“Cool, potion is wearing off. We need to go.” Janna calmly stated. Twin jets of fire erupted from his feet as he swiftly passed the book to Janna and scooped her up in his arms, carrying them across the room towards the door. After setting Janna down, he hesitated for a moment as she stood in the doorway.

“Do you think I should still pay the late fee? I feel kinda bad and-”

“TODAY MAY HAVE BEEN YOUR VICTORY, BUT TOME-ORROW WILL-”

Tom sighed in resignation with a very unimpressed expression. “OK, yeah, never mind.” And with a quick slam of the door, they were both out scot-free. They didn’t stop running until they arrived back at the elevator. Once inside, they slumped down onto the ground as they began the journey back up to the main surface of the Underworld.

“Woo!” Tom was caught off guard by Janna expressing visible joy, and it was immediately infectious. “Now that’s an adventure. Of course, demon fire is what makes the potions work. Makes a lot more sense. Stupid ink smudge, I burned all those lemons for nothing.” He belly laughed, falling over to the floor and clutching his gut as Janna kicked him in the arm.

“Sorry, sorry, couldn’t help it.”

Her foot backed off after one last good hit. “So now you just have to give that book to your mom?”

“Yeah, should only take a minute. Want to come with?”

“Dude, she’s half a story tall and cries lava. I’d be honored. Oh crud, Pony’s current stream title is ‘WHY Y’ALL CARE MORE ABOUT EARTH TURD AND B-FLY THAN ME?!?!’” Janna showed him the notification on her phone. “That can’t be good.”

Tom pulled out his phone and called to see what was up. Pony picked up after only one ring and didn’t even bother with a greeting as she screamed so loudly that he lost hearing for a moment in his right ear. Her voice carried through the elevator car even without being put on speakerphone. “Yo Tom, why do all my Pony Pals just want to watch those two idiots kiss and cuddle? What is up with that? I even gave my fanbase a stupid nickname, they eat that stuff up, so why won’t they looooove meeeeee?” Business as usual with Pony, it seemed. “An-y-way, this whole shopping spree was amaaaazing, I am all kinds of extra fabulous now. B-Fly and Earth Turd took over the stream cuz the viewers, like, wanted a Q&A sesh but I’m only giving them twenty minutes! Hmph!”

“Might as well just make a whole show about them,” Janna chimed in, rolling her eyes a few times for good measure.

“Wait, demon boy, is Janna there? What the heck have you two been getting up to? Don’t tell me you too are getting your freak on too, I could not handle that T.M.I.-”

Yeah, there was nothing more to gain from that conversation. Tom flipped his compact shut, disconnecting the call. Wait, ‘too’? Did she mean- he shuddered involuntarily. You know what, nope, just not going to think about that one.

“So glad I turned off the cameras,” Janna mumbled, curling up into a ball on the floor, clearly not wanting to touch that whole situation either.

He opted to make contact with the other group via Marco instead - why he hadn’t just done that in the first place, he’d never know - and sent a quick text. “Marco wants to get dinner at the Waterfolk Kingdom in, like, an hour and a half. Apparently Star found some earrings she wanted at the last minute, and Pony got arrested for shoplifting three seconds after I hung up.”

Janna cackled in response. “Let’s just meet them there. My jacket got ripped to shreds by the possums last week, might as well get a new one while I’m down here. Been thinking about changing it up. I kinda like that style.” She lifted up his arm and poked at a button on the sleeve of his own.

“Uh, yeah, sure, I can show you where I got it.” He stumbled over his words, still caught off guard by this new normal-person-Janna. The elevator dinged and the teens began their trek through the Lucitor castle in search of the queen. “So, the Librarinth... we’re definitely going back there at some point, right?”

“Totally, bet’s still not over. We should do this more often, you’re not so bad a friend.”

“You too, and yeah, we should.” Looking back on the day, it had honestly been one some of the most fun he’d had in a while, despite almost dying at least once. Tom still wasn’t sure what to make of this friendship brewing between them, but if it meant more days like this to look forward to? Maybe he could get used to that.

[insertdisc5]

Yet Another Zelda Roleswap (the masterpost)

✨what's this AU?

Check THIS POST I DID that started it all and also the AU’s tag

✨in this au, the previous legends about the triforce are the same, aka “zeldas are princesses links are heroes and ganon/ganondorf is always the same guy and the big bad”! BUT THIS TIME DESTINY DID AN OOPSIE and ganondorf forgot all about his previous lives while link is the one who remembers them all!!! zelda just wants to travel and read cool legends and didnt expect to be part of one

✨ZELDA STUFF

-trans girl, found the name zelda in very very very old royal records

-she's like 16 or something

-seventh heir to the throne who wants to prove herself, so she goes on an adventure to save the world!!!!

-adventurous and impulsive and naive

-main weapon is bows, she also knows magic and sheikah techniques

-has six siblings who dont really pay attention to her. shes probably the youngest

-her point of view is very black and white at first

-even when she gets in the middle of link and ganon’s story she still doesn’t believe she is The Zelda of legend

-how could she she’s just a zelda, one among many, just a kid playing at being a princess

-(she IS the zelda)

-she gets a bird AND a white horse!!!!

-if she sees a weird cave she WILL go into it 

-would probably eat moss if dared

✨LINK STUFF

-genderfluid, uses he/they

-hes in his early twenties

-a man zelda meets during her travels, who seems to know a lot about old legends

-he can see koroks and fairies, who can’t be seen by most people

-gets all his past lives' memories after he gets the master sword, over a period of a day or two

-maybe link does remember his past deaths along with his past lives, but past deaths are maybe more muted…. less like he experienced them and more like someone told him about it. still fucks him up tho

-i feel like he’d be pretty nice and sleepy all the time, until you mention something that has to do with his memories (aka, ganondorf, but also like “oh ive heard some hero in the legends went back to being a kid to save the world or whatever) and he’d get this super serious, focused look… something like that, little things that would make zelda go :^?

-he just really wants to kill ganondorf ya dig

-SO MANY BOSS FORMS probably one per main title (kinda like xant’s battle in TP) (strongest/hardest to fight is majora’s mask link), and final form is definitely some twisted looking fierce deity

-as for his past selves he has all of their memories and its kind of… they’re not him, he’s him, they’re just memories that he has, but when he is very very stressed its “memories become actual personalities for a sec” time. 99% of the time its just him and then ganondorf is there and its like WILL EVERYONE SHUT UP IM TRYING TO MAKE A MURDER HERE

-he’s not controlled by malice or anything because it would feel like a deus ex machina to me

-in the end he doesnt die and he gets redemption because he didnt hurt anyone he just tried to kill ganondorf a few times hes good, and also zelda is his friend and an heir to the throne he’s got immunity. poor guy just needs help processing all those lives and needs a cabin in the woods with some fairies!!!

-re: his past lives, oot link SUPER HATES ganondorf while ww link is more sympathetic. links who havent fought ganondorf are ambivalent about him

-endgame ship is either with ganondorf OR beedle. beedle is the secret ending

-will eat moss

✨GANONDORF STUFF

-he's in his twenties i promise he just has resting old man face

-zelda’s old childhood friend

-doesn’t remember anything about his past lives

-gerudo king, very serious but fairly well loved

-lets not talk about malice it either doesnt exist/this ganondorf doesnt have any/this ganondorf knows how to control it. either way its not gonna affect the story

-”what are you wearing today king” “oh, just whatever” (its not whatever he spent hours finding the day’s outfit)

-found out about his past lives while reading a very very very old book, probably read it and stayed in his room for a week and then promised himself to never ever ever turn out like that

-genuinely a good person

-would never eat moss

✨RELATIONSHIPS STUFF

-zelda and ganondorf actually knew each other as kids! Both being royalty and all. legends do talk about a hero a princess a beast or whatever but don’t use link or ganondorf’s names since it’s been so long- it takes zelda and ganondorf both finding old, old books on their own to be like “AH OOPS”!!! Ganondorf learns about his past lives much earlier than zelda, who finds out during her adventures, and she goes from seeing ganondorf as a dear friend to being like “…but what if he’s really bad though”

they’re old childhood friends, you know, the kind that were best friends before and then grew up and saw each other less often (different kingdoms and all) so they kinda grew apart, and then zelda starting her quest made them reconnect again! Ganondorf is a little older than zelda so he always saw her more as his little sister who just jumps into mud because she totally saw a sword there i promise, and zelda sees ganondorf as her cool older brother who actually pays attention to her, unlike her actual siblings

-when link and zelda meet, zelda’s like “weird dude but probably harmless” and link is like “weird girl but probably harmless” and then she’s like “oh my name is zelda” and link goes “ah just likeWAIT” and he kinda observes her to�� gauge her abilities? My Zeldas Were Better kinda thing. i guess during their final battle he’s like “you’re really a zelda, after all” and its bittersweet

the second zelda figures out link is also part of those legends she goes full hero worship mode, which makes link’s fall from grace… really… hard on her. ive been admiring you and wanting to be a hero like you all this time, turns out you’re not a hero and also Not Okay

-re ganondorf and link, after everything that happened uuuh

human brain: it probably takes them both a long while to get used to each other, given that one was almost killed by the other and the other has vivid memories of having their world(s) destroyed by the one, but after a while they probably bond over their shared uuuuh memories i guess. link visits gerudo city once in a while and they catch up and become friends and

lizard brain: after 100k words they DATE

no i wont write how it happens you will NOT make me embarrass myself in front of everyone because i earnestly wrote about how link visits ganondorf every time he’s in gerudo country and at first link just passes by to give ganondorf news about how zelda is faring as queen and news about the world, and as time goes and years go by  they start talking about their lives and struggles and just taking walks across the desert together and having sand seal races and everyone in ganondorf’s court is like “so when’s that little voe coming back” and ganondorf is like “i neither know nor care that its been three months since his last visit” and everyone’s like (smirk) “okay” and when has he even started to look forward to link’s visits anyway how did this happen and then link comes back and smiles gently and shows ganondorf this cool rock he found that looks like ganondorf’s face and ganondorf is smitten

takes them both Y E A R S to realize their feelings and then date tho. slow burn or bust

✨WORLD STUFF

-takes place in a time where the games’ adventures are only known as legends where they didnt even write down ganondorf’s and link’s names

-now that im thinking about it it wouldnt happen like THOUSANDS OF YEARS after any game because then ganon and link wouldnt be that worried about their destiny??? so maybe like 100-200 years after a game??? and the ppl writing down the legends were just terrible bookkeepers who couldnt even think write down link and ganon’s name

-(smash voice) EVERYONE IS HERE!!!!!!!! tingle and agitha the bug princess and sidon and especially groose who is uuuuum zelda’s rival who is totally not in love with her

-i think in botw its implied koroks are only seen by people like link and zelda??? so id say only people with uuuuh magical power??? can see them???? so koroks are just doin their thing, playing pranks, helping people without them knowing, and, in the case of makar, playing romantic music around couples

[hey-hamlet]

BNHA AU Ideas : The villain’s little hero

Also on AO3! 

TL;DR:  All Might, Japan's number 1 villain has a successor. The problem? His successor is a hero hopeful. All Might will stop at nothing to make sure his kid gets to live his dream.

au where all might is a villain raising izuku to be a hero!

quirkless izuku, his backstory is mostly the same

all might decided that hero work had too much red tape. if he was going to take down afo, he needed the freedom to do whatever he had to and he wasnt getting that working within the law

so hes a,,, viilllaaaiinnn?? like. stain. but less murdery, would also save civilians if they were in danger

he has 0 qualms about crippling fake heroes but hes not a fan of murder

nighteye is still his sidekick, he doesnt use his quirk on allmight bc all might h a t e s it

hes kinda on board with "the future is only set in stone because you've seen it now" so he wants the freedom to break fate. but its very useful to get info, so nighteye just uses it on other people

hero to the people villain to literally everyone else

allmights villain costume is reallll similar to his hero costume. just less eye bleeding

he has longer grey hair too.

all mights bronze age costume is basically his villain costume thanks for listening

david shield is still in this story

david agrees w all might and like,,, sneaks him stuff on the downlow

all might told him ab. his quirk because who on earth is gonna believe that one america man about japans worst supervillain?

also melissa is a Soft Young Woman and she is all mights favourite person on this fucking planet until he meets izuku

all might went to ua, only defected after completing his hero training because he wanted to be trained by the people he was going to screw over

izuku has always kinda been a big fan of all might. not openly because hes legally a villain and very much paints himself as one, but his quirk is one of the most amazing things izuku has ever seen

when he looks closer, all might has never let a civilian get hurt once hes been on scene. hes taken hits to protect housing, hes pulled heroes from the line of fire

izuku watches his sports festivals and wonders why? why did all might, the man who happily told the world he'd stop at nothing to keep them safe, suddenly flip sides like that for no reason?

izuku doesnt buy it

izuku's big yellow backpack is a big red one in this universe, hes had it so long its gone pink but he still loves it

the sludge villain

all might saves him and izuku is crying. allmight thinks its because hes scared but izuku just turns to him with this big weepy eye smile and gives him the most genuine thanks he thinks hes ever been given

(its honestly the shock of that that makes him deflate into small might, which has izuku scrambling to find tissues and called an ambulance before he thinks better of calling emergency services for All Might)

izuku is like "Im SO SORRY SIR ARE YOU oK"

and all might is like ",,, b  oy"

izuku softly asking

"can,, can i still be someone with out a quirk? can i still make a difference?"

all might doesnt get the chance to anser because there is a massive explosion in the distance

its bakugo!! hes dying

the sludge villain got away bc izuku and all might were chatting a little

izuku hears it and he feels this terrible realization, because its probably not bakugo? but its definitely bakugo because izuku's life is falling to pieces

he sprints towards him and katsuki will n e v e r admit it but he feels hope in that moment because some one is trying to help. even if its just izuku, he wasnt totally left for dead

all might sees this tiny, nervous, quirkless kid run straight up to a villain that almost killed him seconds before to save someone what looks like they'd rather die

and he thinks

"no one deserves one for all more than him"

and allmight, the most wanted villain in japan, maybe the world, jumps in

the heroes look at him and they are scared. if they couldnt take the sludge villain, what is all might going to do to them? but the scariest man in japan, the person parents tell their kids about to stop them from going out at night, blows the sludge villain to tiny pieces and carefully, gently, places the two boys by the heroes

before he vanishes before they can call for backup or even ask why

izuku gets yelled at by the heroes because the heroes are scared and angry they couldnt stop either of the villains and izuku is so overwhelmed that hes crying and he can hardly breathe

bakugo doesnt even yell at him because hes so dazed about everything that happened and he cant make himself yell at this sobbing kid that used to be his friend

(bakugo is holding izukus hand like hes going to crush it but its the only thing keeping izuku present)

izuku is walking home and hes still hicuping and crying because he almost died and the heroes hate him and he feels a hand on his shoulder, and a soft :"its ok now my boy"

he knows its all might but he cant help but hide his face in his shirt and sob

all might gets down so he can look izuku in the eye

"you asked me if you could be someone with out a quirk and i didnt get the chance to answer. my answer? you already are someone. you are someone that inspired me, a villain, to save the day. you are going to be amazing"

and looks him dead in the eye "you'll do amazing things, even with out a quirk. but, you of all people deserve one, and no matter what you chose to do with it, it can be yours. hero, villain or someone in between"

izuku looks at this villain

this painfully thin villain, who just saved his life and who has unimaginable strength

and he throws his arms around his waist and sobs

inko isnt a great mum in this au and she likes to basically pretend izuku doesnt exist

izuku trains a lot and has to make his own food bc his mum just ignores him

he sneaks out at night to clear trash and sneaks back in before dawn to clean the sand from his hair

he smells like saltwater and rust, and he hasnt slept more than 4 hours a night in weeks and katsuki is worried

all might sees him crumbling with a smile stuck on his face and he wants to stop him from self-destructing, but the kid will never learn his lesson until he feels his body give up under what hes doing to it. if all might steps in he'll do it again and again until no one stops him and hes never learnt his limit.

so he waits and he watches while he pretends he cant see the bags under his eyes and pretends that everytime izuku sways on his feet he doesnt feel a jolt of deep panic

did he do this? if he the reason izuku looks like hes falling apart before his eyes?

the kid passes the fuck out and all might tells him off in a soft dad way and izuku cries bc why does this villain care more than his mum does

and all might catches the end of that little mumble, and feels terrible so he pretends he didnt hear and takes him for lunch

they go to a cafe and all might buys izuku the cutest slice of cake and a big ass bowl of katsudon and some fancy fucking tea and covers the kids eyes every time he tries to look at the prices

izuku looks at all might and asks

"are you buying me katsudon with crime money"

and all might looks sheepish and izuku giggles like an idiot and says "dont tell me ill feel bad!!!"

all might grins bc this kid is honestly the only reason he hasnt stabbed a pro hero in a few months bc hes so fucking sweet

he has to carry izuku half the way home bc the kid could barely lift his chopsticks and almost fell asleep in the booth after he finished eating

and allmight, skinny and kinda scary is giving his 15 year old a piggy back and someone says "you're such a good dad!" and he almost coughs up his last lung

izuku mumbles sleepily and hes has the biggest warm and fuzzy feeling and hes going to yell bc hes All Might the No. 1 Villain and this fucking kid is drooling on his sweater but he would die for him

some random stranger on the street commenting on how it was rly fortunate that izuku inherited his adorable smile from his father

all might, abt to burst into tears: whack

allmight is easily flustered even when hes killed a man

he comes home and inko isnt there so he has to like, wake up izuku to get him to open the door and he feels bad bc izuku is a Sleepy Man

izuku mumbles that he cant ever tell if shes at home or not because nothing changes and all might feels a wave of "wait my son isnt being parented enough"

so he makes izuku a cup of tea and tucks him into bed after he has a shower because izuku is His Son Now Inko

hes like

sitting in the living room reading the paper and he hears inko's car and hes like ",,, fuck it im walking out the front door im no coward"

she doesnt even notice and hes going to scream because does she have a brain

inko, spaced out, tired and terrible: oh is the tall man here for izuku :))) thats great :)))

all might is screaming bc"" do you get let weird men into see your tiny son>???? what the fuck???

hes so small inko??? and you?? let random men in?????

all might would yeet her into the sun if he could but his boy needs an actual family member to make going to ua easier

inko is kinda mentally ill. she is depressed and often forgets she has izuku. like shes not always being terrible she just sometimes forget to do basic things

one time she locked izuku out of the house for 10 hours and he had to sleep next to the front door

one month she didnt buy any food so by the end of it he was starving and out of his own money and there was n o t h i n g in the house, but inko would go out to eat every night and lunch and not take her son

allmight is upset bc izuku didnt tell him but izuku is embarrassed. embarrassed that he was forgotten by his own mum, that he couldnt do anything to help her or himself and honestly mad he was so hungry all might noticed bc he didnt want to bug him

it was getting to the point that katsuki actually slipped some change into his bag with a candy bar

[absolutiions]

´   ･   .   ✶   ⧼    madchen   amick,   non   binary,   she   &   they   /   fucked   my   way   to   the   top   by   lana   del   rey   +   eyes   the   color   crimson   and   hands   stained   in   crimson,   too.   victim   of   the   underworld,   you   are   not.   you   came,   not   to   sit   silent   at   his   side   as   dutiful   wives   do,   but   to   whisper   in   his   ear.   pouted   lips   smeared   ruby   stoke   the   flames   of   his   darkest   impulses   and   his   deepest   desires.   you   are   the   conqueror.   you   are   the   queen.   and   may   god   have   mercy   upon   anyone   who   underestimates   this   :   because   you   will   not.    ⧽   ━━   don’t   look   now,   but   that’s   ATHENODORA.   the   TWO   THOUSAND,   FIVE   HUNDRED   &   TWENTY   TWO  (   varying   physical   )   year   old   GIFTED   VAMPIRE   has   been   here   in   seattle   for   three   minutes,   and   is   considered   a   member   of   the   VOLTURI.   they’ve   always   been   MACHIAVELLIAN   &   INDOMITABLE,   but   i   guess   this   town   just   brings   out   the   worst   in people   ;   apparently,   they’ve   been   way   more  INSOUCIANT   &   SUPERCILIOUS   than   usual.   it   wouldn’t   surprise   me   if   they   knew   what   was   going   on.   click   HERE   to   check   out   her   stats.

they   told   you   that   you   were   a   nobody,      so   you   became   the   QUEEN.   (   now   everybody   knows   your   name   )

SECTION ONE OF THREE : background / human era. trigger warnings for talk of pregnancy, death, abuse

born circa 502 bc, in a little village that has no lasting name nor impact in ancient greece. 

five of the children born to her parents survived to adulthood, and since she was the last one... it is almost like, her whole life, she has been suffering from younger child syndrome. who knew !

she very literally grew up in a diff time, so when i say she wasn’t rly close to any of her siblings, i don’t mean it in a like... horrible way. it’s not a reflection of character. they just didn’t have a tight sibling bond, though she loved them greatly. 

same w her parents. they were unexceptional people who lived unexceptional lives, and though she was grateful for, u know... their creation of her - they were not close. they did not, in laymans terms, have the lorelai and rory gilmore dynamic. 

her whole family were content to live their dismal lives, and... tho athenodora did not vibe, she, again - grew up in a diff time. of course she dreamt of more. of course she prayed to the gods for something better. but she was achingly aware of the fact that no such future would ever exist for her. such is life in 400 whatever bc, bumfuck, greece.

she was just barely eighteen when she was married to athanasios, to secure land, or smth, because those were the times. of course it was something like that. 

he was... fine, at first. a little small minded ( that wasn’t the ONLY thing that was small, haha ). he, like everyone, was content to live the same old life, and athenodora just... wasn’t. she had been raised on stories of grandeur, and her parents had thought she would settle for the regular - it should not have been a surprise that she didn’t want to, but gods, did she try.

she never loved him, she can safely say ; but she wished that she did. for a long while, athenodora thought it would be easier, and thought that she could do a lot worse. unfortunately... she cld not.

their lives were meant to follow a certain pattern. they had gotten married, and now he would work all day, make them money, tend their land. she would stay home. cook. clean. raise the children that they were sure to have. athenodora was capable of almost everything expected of her, except for the most important part - she couldn’t seem to give him children. not strong sons. not beautiful daughters. 

at first, he told her that it was fine. 

after a year or so, he still told her that it was fine, but she could see in his eyes that it wasn’t.

two years after this, he called her the ancient greek version of defective for the very first time - and things only got worse from there.

he had always been a perfectly fine husband, until he was not, and athenodora had always wanted to love him, until she did not. she prayed to the gods every morning and night, to give her what her husband so desired. to give her that which would make her life better, even if she knew it would not heal the wounds already caused.

sometimes the gods r not dicks. a miracle! she becomes pregnant, aged twenty four ( i kno it sounded like she was a crone but again please remember the times ). she always thought it was just what was best n only athanasios would care, but , wow... suddenly. she cares. she has never felt this level of love with anything, until now.

but, tragedy :// straight white men ( idk, i just feel like her husband was the root of all evil ) are not so easily satisfied. who wld have guessed he wld continue to be an abusive asshole even after his wife succeeded in getting pregnant? i bet i shocked u all. who wld have guessed that a huge part of his problem wld end up being that suddenly, athenodora clearly cares abt something - and it isn’t him. again. got you all!

over the course of her pregnancy, he becomes, for the first time, a real threat to her - or maybe, athenodora simply never took him seriously until there is another person to think of. either way, she TRULY fears him and what he’s capable of by the time she gives birth, and after he makes some passing remark abt their baby, she yeets the FUCK out of there in the middle of the night, eirene ( baby ) only a handful of days old. she takes what she can carry and nothing more, and she... makes it pretty far, thanks to the kindness of strangers. you love to see it.

she settles somewhere ( she considers to be ) far away, and she makes up a good story : her husband died in a war ( there were probably a lot of time, i dont know ) and she was widowed, left to care for their young daughter alone. i know. its really original. they didnt have tv shows back then to rip stories from though.

stays in a hovel on the edge of their village. think the shittiest home you’ve ever seen and then make it shittier. there are rumors about her being a witch, and she kind of appreciates them, because it keeps kids out of her yard. and shock of all shock : in spite of being... u know. a woman. and not very skilled. she finds a very hot ticket job - working for the very wealthy volturi family who live on the other ( opposite ) outside of town, but like, in a considerably better home, obviously. 

honestly, i don’t kno what the ancient greek equivalent of that secretary in new moon is, but that’s the vibe we’re going for, here. she’s like, a chambermaid or smth. and she makes a tidy little sum. doesn’t question her weirdo bosses that much. doesn’t know what anemia is because im p sure it wasnt discovered by then, but presumes they have it.

and maybe, just maybe, it’s the finesse of the century : or maybe, just maybe, it is destiny. in no time at all, she has caught the eye of the volturi’s most eligible bachelor(tm) : caius volturi. many another worker is made upset by this fact, as athenodora is very quickly alotted VERY special treatment as the apple of his eye, which includes, i don’t know... hand delivered baskets of pomegranates, a nicer home and in due time, the simple pleasures of the flesh.

so that’s pretty neat. and life’s pretty fine. she feels like an ancient greek sugar baby, and honestly, isn’t that all she’s ever deserved? she’s got some nice digs ( i don’t think she’d have called them that ) and a man who worships the ground she walks on and who spoils her with pretty things, and most importantly : she is taking care of her daughter, who i absolutely didn’t forget about. eirene is the literal light of athenodora’s life, and everybody knows it. if i say jean valjean and cosette vibes, can we all pretend we get it?

and then it goes to shit. as things do.

her daughter is fourteen years old, when her father finds them ; and she doesn’t know, she never knows, if he was seeking them out or whether it was all DUMB luck. regardless of it all, he is stood inside her home, his breath coming in angry half pants, and athenodora is convinced that this is it. that her end has come. that her freedom is over. she dies, she thinks, or she returns back to the house that was not her home with him. these are her options. 

she tells her daughter to leave. she stops him from following. when she is shoved and her head hits the table, she is aware of the option he has chosen for them more than all else - but the gods, or perhaps, just one - intervenes.

until this night, athenodora had never known the truth of the volturi. but when her beloved saves her from athanasios, she sees him for what he is. she UNDERSTANDS. and she isn’t frightened. she should be, for sure, she should be running as fast as she can - but all she can think in that moment is that she is free now in all the ways she has never been... and caius, her love, is something so much larger than this life. 

for the first time, the godhood that athenodora has always dreamt of is within her grasp. she makes him promise that once eirene comes of age, he will make her into the same creature that he IS. she makes him swear a solemn oath, and he who has been so infatuated by her for so long cannot argue.

four years. this is all it takes, and then eirene is eighteen - capable of standing upon her own two feet. athenodora leaves her everything - all the gifts she has ever been given, all the wealth accumulated, the home. everything she will not need, once she is gone. and she says a final goodbye.

caius turns her himself. the greatest gift he could ever give her.

and reborn, athenodora is MORE than everyone in her life could ever dream of being. she is the queen of the underworld, the goddess of death. she is all of this, and more. at his side, she finds GREATNESS. and once she had it, athenodora decided she would never again be without. 

SECTION TWO OF THREE : volturi era.

became cool. became powerful. very emma frost of her, rly 

didnt rly care for the rest of the coven outside of caius but sometimes u gotta hang w scrubs 

didyme dies sometime after her turning, and that kind of fucks everybody up

not so much her bc like i said she didnt rly care but... caius b frightened of losing her, i guess

kind of throws a spanner in the works 

she spends a lot of time ‘locked away’. not , like, literally ( bc that’s gross! ) but... caius takes over protective to the extreme

uses this time to harness her power and fuck

not always in that order

also spends a lot of time telling him he deserves to b leader

deserves to b the new aro

who needs powers?

not u, caius

go kick their ass baby i got ur flower-

( he doesn’t go kick their ass but man she wishes he wld )

she’s genuinely devoted to him, however, as much as it sometimes seems as if she’s using him as a means to an end

she DOES do that with a LOT of people, but caius... that’s her baby! her darling! her sweetie pie! fuck everybody else in this house caius, she respects YOU ! 

she jus wants to see him be the best there ever was, and he’s.... p... happy to giv her everything she wants, so their dynamic is actually p equal 

we love to see it

anyway lots of years happened and now she’s here

seattle sucks -athenodora’s official review

but she’s fucking SICK of aro’s shit and thinks her 2020 birthday wld be the best time for an official change of pace

obviously aro can read minds so he knows athenodora has high aspirations but he has learned his fucking lesson w killing ppls mates, i guess

lucky for her!

that’s all i got

hehe

SECTION THREE OF THREE : power.

athenodora is an ungifted vampire in twilight canon, but to that i say : fuck ya chicken strips. in equinox, she be special. her power is life force manipulation, in a pretty unique ( and dare i say ) way.

she was a forty two year old woman, when she was turned. she had lived a life, and she had the MARKS to show for it. but the very first time that she drank human blood from the vein, athenodora realized that she was not as unexceptional as she had always been lead to believe she was. vampires do not change. they’re frozen in time, like statues, portraits, photographs... and yet, before caius’ very eyes - athenodora did what no other vampire could. mere seconds passed, and suddenly ; she was stood before her beloved, decades younger. it lasted as long as her thirst was sated, with her age returning to her as her eyes darkened once more. and it happened all over again, when next she fed. 

over time, she’s come to understand it well enough. she has a particular love of younger humans ; those in their twenties, and thus, physical primes. she thinks that is, in part, down to her gift ; she seeks these out to drink from because when she feeds, she’s not simply drinking their blood, but also, their life force. she’s taking theirs to add to her own.

like many gifted vampires, she has spent time learning what she can of her gift, and learning whether there is some other way to apply it. it took almost two thousand years, but eventually - athenodora discovered that with a touch, her fingertips to their skin ( and a great deal of focus ), she could render another changed, also. it lasts for only a short amount of time - an hour, maybe a little longer, depending on how strong she is. but it works. and it makes her think that, in all her unlimited time : she might just be able to do even more. be a danger. manipulate life force in a way that can DESTROY. she’ll keep on working on that for as long as she lives. 

[fearsbellsarchived]

[me? Thinking about a gf fairytales au instead of being productive? More likely than u think!!! think ou.at buT BETTER and w/o the real world dimension hopping part. under the cut bc i just copy/pasted my tags from forever ago to put them in one place

mabel and dipper are hansel and gretal

paz is sleeping beauty 

bill is maleficient 

if we’re gonna get disney about it wendy as merida 

i LOVE the idea of tambry as rapunzel??? 

mabel can also be like...eric from the little mermaid 

so mermando can be ariel 

gIDEON AS URSULA/VANESSA IN THAT VEIN THO 

bill is also rumplestilskin 

stan can be the huntsman (idk from which story cause theres a fEW BUT)

ford is the sorcerer from fanstasia 

ford is teaching dipper magic....and instead of a true love’s kiss that’s how he wakes paz (maybe?)

the northwests made a deal w bill like in the most famous version of rumplestilskin but instead of wanting paz for himself he just wanted to steal her body at 16

so when they lose the deal they ask for help from ford and ford’s like “yo i can maybe change the deal??? a little bit???” so instead of bill taking her over when he goes to she falls asleep ​

so dipper wasnt supposed to wake her up but he found her and fords notes and he and mabel went on an adventure

bill is all the villains 

billains 

so stan has to leave mabel and dipper in the woods (idk y it wasnt for long the twins are just impatient) so stan disappears and the twins are like “lETS EXPLORE THE WOODS”

they come across some creepy old house w a lot of spiderwebs (can u guess the villain yet?)

an older woman comes out and is like “why are you guys lost in the forest?”

mabel points to the glitter trail “we’re not lost”

dipper looks behind them ‘mabel!!! where’s all the glitter?!”

(ACTUALLY MAYBE ITS YARN???) 

so they lose the trail 

meanwhile stan is losing his fucking mind

he follows the stray glitter but it’s blown all over

he feels “LOST IN THE WOOOOODDDS!!!”

so the old lady offers for them to stay the night bc its getting late

dipper is SUPER sus but he plays it cool surprisingly

mabel is So In!

long short...stan eventually saves them from darlene’s trap

usually shes just a maneater but look

when u live in the woods u do what u can

so stan hauls them back to their cottage

dipper knew there was weird shit out there but he wants MORE

he starts going through his great-uncle’s journals (*cue the dipper squee*)

he reads about bill and his deal w paz’s parents

he’s like....’maybe we should rescue her?’

ford wont tell him why they cant

so dipper and mabel sneak out

they steal the grunkles’ boat

mabel falls over board???

dipper tries like HELL to save her

but then he sees mermando save her

SO MABEL IS SAVED BY MERMANDO!!! 

gideon (who had long-loved mabel from afar) finds out

he visits the merman to trick him

all mabel remembers is his voice

so YES mermando trades his voice for legs just like the movie

sue me okay w his distinct accent it makes sense!!!

so the twins get sidetracked bc mermando shows up out of nowhere

they dock on a small island for a pit stop and thats when ‘kiss the girl’ happens

they dont kiss so they move on

they dock on another stretch of land the next day

AND GIDEON APPEARS

the twins have only heard about him from their grunkles so mabel hears his voice and goes *heart eyes*

mermando is Distressed

dipper is Focused on getting to this sleeping princess

mabel makes fun of him for liking her

SO GIDEON HAS MERMANDOS VOICE!

at one point dipper catches him w/o the amulet that makes him sound like mermando

and he tells mabel and its kinda like “the hand that rocks the mabel” or whatever the ep was called

it takes dipper and mermando being threatened (and gideons voice slipping) for her to catch on and she breaks up w him

dipper wants to throw him overboard

they just leave him on the next inhabited island they find

mermando got his kiss but decides to go back to the ocean anyway

he promises to write

mabel is Sad

SO BACK TO OUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED ADVENTURE!

the twins come across a land near the one paz is on and decide to stop for food and to stretch their legs and other hygiene things

they find out there’s some archery thing going on and mabel is like ’ooooh can we try?!’

turns out its for neighboring kingdoms’ princes to win a princess

mabel and dipper think this is RIDICULOUS so they crash it

mabel steps up to shoot and everyone’s like ‘wHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?’

then dipper steps up beside her. neither of them have shot a bow before

they shoot at the same time. mabel’s like thisclose to the bullseye. dippers too far right

THEN!!! PRINCESS WENDY COMES OUT OF NOWHERE

DIPPER AND MABEL ARE IN AWE OF THIS VALKYRIE. THEYRE BOTH READY FOR HER TO KILL THEM BC THEY THINK ITLL BE AWESOME

but wendy is like ‘ACTUALLY ILL SHOOT FOR MYSELF THANKS’ and splits like three arrows down the middle w her accuracy

she looks at mabel and dipper and is like ‘u dudes look fun! ive never seen u before who are u???’

and they’re like ‘WELL!’ and launch into detail about their adventure w overlapping voices and sound affects and VAST description

anyways. i cant decide how old people are rn okay 

so wendy is like “hey dad??? im going on an adventure w these guys!” and her dad is like “unusual but u DID just win ur own hand. so ill allow it”

“YES! can i take soos too?!” 

“sure!”

sO THEYRE OFF AGAIN!!! lemme tell u the ship is filling faST!!!

they get to paz’s land. and the first thing they find is a girl in a tower with long purple hair.

everyone is pretty much just making ‘wtf’ faces for like....ten minutes.

finally wendy calls up the tower like “YO! WHATS W ALL THE HAIR?!”

tambry leans out the window w a bored expression and goes “its mine. im tambry. who r u?”

they introduce themselves and are like “u wanna come on our adventure?”

then....ROBBIE APPEARS!

and he knows where the princess is!!!

”oh yeah. her. shes also in a tower. its got a door but its guarded by gnomes.”

then robbie climbs tambrys hair pecks her cheek and ducks in the tower

they decide to head for the tower robbie directed them to. but they have to pass the castle. Northwest Castle

robbie warned them about the northwests. said that the princess was one and before she disappeared she was the snottiest brat hed ever met

so they became friends despite the fact that he plays music for a living (and not very well either)

her parents told her of the spell when she was twelve

so robbie’s like “they are not nice people and neither was she??? most of the townsfolk are glad shes asleep tbh”

but dammit! dipper came here for an adventure!!! he wasnt going to stop just bc the princess wasnt what he expected!

so they continue on!

mabel is like “maybe she doesnt KNOW how to be nice!”

and soos is just excited to be there!

and wendy is just...u kno...chill

they start to get close to the castle and they feel like they’re being watched

and then soos notices the PEACOCKS!

they assume theyre spies for the king and queen. which is half true?

they can also warn bill if someone is near pacifica

oh damn imagine that

being stuck asleep w a DREAM DEMON in ur head

sorry for the accidental psychological torture paz

WHICH IS THE ONLY TORTURE SHES HAD!

i think to make up for risking her life as a baby ther parents were like “we’re just gonna spoil u rotten and PRETEND u do no wrong eVERYTHING IS FINE”

so dipper is reading the journal and he FINALLY gets to the true loves kiss part of the deal

and he looks around at the party like “oh shit true love what do we do???”

mabel suggests he at least try and everyone agrees that yeah okay thats the back up plan

but dipper wants to use a SPELL!!!

so the king and queen see him w the journal and remember ford having the same one

so everyone is brought to the king and queen

theyre like “pRINCESS GWENDOLYN?!”

bc this is MY STORY and if i wanna give wendy a more princess-y name thEN I WILL

i say as i continue to refer to mason as DIPPER!!!

SO THEYRE MEETING THE NORTHWESTS!!!

wendys like “yes that is me the princess” and then everyone else introduces themselves...w dipper introducing himself as mason bc it just sounds more fairytale-y

soos is jesus (hey zeus! not jee sus)

soos is like....wendys bff/personal servant but mostly bff

so they explain their adventure to the northwests as quickly as possible

preston is no patient man and he’s is like “tbh its probably important she be here for her 18th bday soooo??? as long as she wakes up by next year why not???”

but only bc dipper was like “i wANNA USE MAGIC I DONT WANNA KISS HER THATS PLAN B!!!”

plus u kno...even if he DOES whats the guarantee itll work???

the guarantee is me being a filthy shipper tHATS WHAT!!!

so they continue to the tower!

there is probably a sidequest thingy with giffany bc i liked that episode

also soos needs more screentime im sorry

SO THEN!!! FINALLY!!!! THEY MAKE IT TO THE TOWER!!!

WHICH IS!!!

IN FACT!!!

GUARDED

BY

GNOMES!]

also theres a manotaur/multi-bear sidequest i just thought of bc i like THAT episode!!!

is this gf, a fairytale, sk.yrim, or a d.n.d campaign now??? WHO KNOWS!!! ITS NOT ME!!!

SO THEY GOTTA GET PAST THE GNOMES!

first they offer safe passage in exchange for mabel as their queen

after thats declined theyre like “or the redhead. well take her!”

this is also declined

finally jeff tells them to attack

at first the party tries to fight them off and they do okay

uNTIL SOME GNOME WEAPONIZED SCHMEBULOCKS RAINBOW PUKE!!! (i think it’s toxic tbh but i dONT REMEMBER)

finally mabel just pulls out her trusty crosSbow (aka “GRAPPLING HOOK!”) and they just make a tightrope to the window above the door

wendy goes first and NAILS it

then everyone else follows

soos almost falls and gets left to the gnomes but everyone helps him balance and they all make it through the window

coincidentally. the window leads to the princess’s room

OH MAN WHY DIDNT I USE THE PTERODACTYL?!

oh well. anyways.

everyone is looking around the room and like...taking it all in

dipper takes a moment...then walks over to the princess

he isnt sure if waking her will also wake the demon

crossover even more w my old paciphera au??? idk probably not

so dipper tries the spells he narrowed it down to

none of them work

all his friends have returned to the princess’s room and mabel is like “u gotta kiss her brobro!”

so dipper...poor poor dipper...just leans forward and kisses her

paz pretty much snaps her eyes open when dipper is a half inch from her face while he’s pulling back 

and even tho she was forewarned she wasnt expecting DIPPER so she SCREAMS

dippers ears are ringing

she shuts her eyes and stills her breathing and sits up.

AND SEES EVERYONE ELSE AND SCREAMS AGAIN

“i dIDNT EXPECT U TO BRING *FRIENDS*!”

so once shes a little more calm they explain the whole adventure to her

paz feels a little honored they came all this way just for her

also since True Love beats everything bill is like.....back in his home dimension. also paz has been fighting him for like....over a year.

so paz is like....ready to Go. u kno. just wants to go HOME.

they get pazs shit together and exit the tower through the door

she says goodbye to the gnomes. all by name.

“oh yeah mom and dad made them my personal guard when i was like...eight. theyve been prepping for this my whole life. they’ll meet me back at the castle.” so then she starts telling them about herself and her last like 

two years of being asleep w a DREAM DEMON

“sometimes i got the weirdest nightmares??? and they never ended. but when i woke up i couldnt remember anything specific.”

she and dipper talk away from the group. he tells her about how hes her true love and everything “okay well. we’ll have to lie to my parents and say it was a spell. bc they will NOT approve of us being true loves and if they hurt you...”

“then they hurt *you* too!” dipper finishes (idk maybe a combo w a soulmate au thing?)

meanwhile mabel is like...whining about boy problems??? and wendy is like “this is y boys r dumb.”

soos is like...wandering off. I WANNA INCORPORATE MELODY BUT WHO SHOULD SHE BE?!

paz and dipper start like....arguing about how to deal w her parents

apparently they actually ARENT that nice. if she doesnt marry a prince they’ll give her over to bill completely...or something idk

SO theyre nearing the castle!!!

theyve written theyre grunkles okay no worries. also mermando.

thats y mabels complaing about boys.

mermando and that manatee wife of his!!!

paz is not exactly ready to face her parents so she convinces the party (roll for charisma) to go the long way

which is actually just circles

anyways

we run back in to melody and soos and the party is like ‘wHOOPS WE DIDNT EVEN NOTICE GLAD U DIDNT GET EATEN BY A SPIDER LADY!

maybe melody is like....a fairy???

something light and ‘childish’ bc thatd fit her personality

soos is like “ive BEEN here. u dudes have been going in circles.” and everyone glares at paz.

“im sorry!!! i just dont want to go back!!!”

“ur dad made us promise to have u back for ur 18th bday.” says dipper while he tries to stay mad at his future wife

paz is like “YEAH SO HE CAN MARRY ME OFF TO A PRINCE!!!”

idk why paz and dips are being better at being soulmates here okay i was like....sleep-drunk when i first wrote this

so the party has a choice to make.

take paz back home where she wont be able to be w her TL (which in some cases has probably led to death) OR!!!

sneak her out and take her home w them?!

wendys probably gotta go back to her own kingdom tho.

and soos wants to stay w melody

U KNOW WHAT I JUST REALIZED?!

sTAN NEVER GOT TO BE SOOS’S DAD!!!!

SORRY SOOS!!!

so anyways

mabel and dipper decide to help her sneak out

luckily she knows all the blindspots

it takes longer but they finally make it back to their ship

they say theyre goodbyes to soos and melody and paz wishes them well in her kingdom. she promises to return when shes ready to rule

they load the ship and sail to wendys kingdom next

they stay a few days to recuperate

paz has trouble sleeping bc when she does the nightmares come back.

cue a kat.niss/pee.ta thing where paz sleeps next to dips bc it keeps the nightmares away

wendy has to explain why soos isnt w them to her dad who kinda shrugs it off?

“u proved u can protect urself.” or something.

after like.....a whole fucking year the twins are heading home.

paz and dipper sleep together on the ship too bc its just fucking easier

paz is nervous to meet the grunks

she and dipper arent exactly....dating??? its def more like soulmate au

where theyre AWARE theyre supposed to be together but they dont even rly know if they WANT to be together.

paz is p much “i dont rly wanna be w anyone else. ill let u kno if that changes.” and dips is like “tbh same.”

mabel is already planning a big royal wedding.

iDK Y BUT I WANT THEM TO FIND OUT THEYVE BEEN ROYALTY ALL THIS TIME??? probably just bc i LOVE that trope!!! but theyre not so its whateves.

so they FINALLY get home. mabel has been writing letters this whole time. to mermanso. to soos and melody. to wendy.

shes the captain of the dip.ifica ship and shes gotta keep her crewmembers in the know!!!

the twins also wrote to the grunks the whole time so!!!! no worries!!!

paz tries writing to her parents...but she can never find the right words.

meeting the grunks isnt as bad as she thought???

stan loves her off the bat. partially bc shes rich and bc she doesnt take shit

ford is pleased to meet the girl he saved and shes v v thankful to him for saving her life as best he could.

it takes her like a YEAR to write the letter.

she promises her parents she’ll return. AFTER shes married.

at this point she and dipper ARE together. they figured all theyre confusion out and are just living the good life!

mabel and wendy are doing the long distance thing. shes still friends w mermando.

robbie and tambry found paz and they write back and forth.

u CAN TAKE ROBBIE AND PAZ SIBLINGS FROM MY DECOMPOSING HANDS!!!

everything is as happily ever after as it can get.

and then dipper proposes despite knowing what it means.

BUT THATS A WHOLE OTHER ADVENTURE!!!!

*end credits roll. an epic theme song starts playing*

[weareallfallengods]

Survival

Writing prompt:

If you’re over 25 and haven’t done something remarkable, you are hunted down and killed. Some people invent things. Some make cures for diseases. Others become established members of their community. You’re pushing 30, and somehow not dead yet, even though you cant think of a single thing you’ve done thats remarkable in any way. Why aren’t you dead?

I write for adults about adult themes with adult language. I try to tag possible triggers (but I know I'm not going to get all of them), so if violence or implied death or cussing bothers you, you'll probably want to find a different author.

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

Somehow, that date came up again. Not quite sure how, but somehow, the number circled on my shitty wall calendar with the coffee splatter on it managed to be today. Again. It's been doing that for 5 years now.

At first I wanted to be a surgeon- save people's lives, make a difference, all that shit. Yeah, I was caught up in the hype for a while too. Just like everyone. Thought I'd make some ground-breaking discovery and change the world. Just like everyone. And then, at 22, I flunked out of med school. That was it. Dream over, kaput, fin.

When I opened my termination letter, it was like reading a death sentence. 10 years of prep and study down the drain. 3 years left. 3 years, and no idea what to do. No clue what I could do to save my own life after all those years learning how to save others.I drank for a solid month. I dont even remember that month now. My only memento from it is an entire skip of liquor bottles. It's a miracle I didn't die from alcohol poisoning. Not that I didn't try.

See, I was afraid. Scared, actually. Terrified would be more accurate, if I'm honest. I knew I only had 3 years left until they came for me. Unless I managed to do something extraordinary within the next 3 years, they'd come for me, and the only thing that would remain is a 2 paragraph obituary in the local paper, followed by a vacancy announcement. When you're suddenly forced to confront your own imminent demise, and see every dream, hope and aspiration you'd had evaporate, right in front of your eyes, its perfectly natural to drown that in a swimming pool of vodka.

But then, after a month of drowning, and a week of curing a hangover that would make Satan shudder, I got angry. Like Bruce Banner angry. As I was leaving an all night diner, the notice board caught my eye. Having nothing better to do with my life, I stood there for a while just reading every single card in detail, every single lost cat, every used car, every 5k charity run. And then I saw it. And I thought, "You know what? Fuck it, why not. I've spent all this time trying to do one thing that I've never actually done just whatever I feel like, had hobbies, anything really. Why the fuck not."

And that's how I ended up 2 days later in some shity warehouse district, rolling around on a mat with some dude I didnt even know, sweating and swearing profusely and having the time of my life. "Sasha's Self Defense" it said on the small, weathered and rusted sign on the brick wall out front, next to a door that looked like it had been transported straight from the proverbial gulag.

I'd naively thought this was going to be one of those Karate Kid knock offs for some reason when I first arrived. Sasha soon disabused me of that notion. In fact, when he saw I'd brought a new gi in a duffle bag, he laughed so hard he had to slap his ass down on a rickety folding chair just to keep breathing. Once he calmed his mirth at my expense, he let me know in a no-nonsense, 'I'm an old-timer and seen some shit in my day' heavily accented tone that this would be a class that focused on survival at all costs. "No bullshit wax on-wax off," were his exact words I believe.

And boy was he right. When I told him I'd set aside my year's tuition for lesson payments, well, wouldn't you know it, I became his most prized pupil; I quickly learned this was not a good thing. It meant 14 hours a day of the most humiliatingly punishing activity ever dreamed up by Moscow's Finest. I couldnt even move the morning after my first day. But somehow I limped my battered frame down to the bus stop and was only an hour late. Ha, only. Sasha seemed to take it as a personal insult. The only thing he hated less than sloppiness was tardiness it seemed. Apparently the 10th Circle of Hell was reserved for those who dared be late. And he made you earn your way out of that circle.

His only saving grace was fairness. If I had to suffer, at least I wasnt alone. Well, at first anyway. The few other students that suffered his wrath along side me doing slavic folk dances with wrist and ankle weights very quickly learned that this wasn't the type of class they had thought it was and soon I was alone with Sasha.

On the days I did well, I got treated to pierogies. Oh man, I lived for those pierogies. They were made by angels and served by someone I can only describe as if Jesus came back as a woman. Who was Russian. And spoke even less english than Sasha, if that was possible. His sister was as completely opposite to that sadistic maniac as it was possible to be and still be a human being. Where he was loud, she was soft. Where he was tough, she was gentle. Where he was strict, she was generous, even indulgent. Blonde to his brunette. Slim to his barrel chest. Cousin by marriage, I think they said. Well, relatives of some kind anyway. And she was the only one who could make him laugh. And when he laughed, the whole block knew! He was just that loud, that boisterous, with everything he did.

But I loved his little Anya. Just like everyone. But like in a wholesome, mom-ish kind of way. I loved her because I got to sit for an hour when she was around. Because she"d always tuck a to-go container of pierogies into my bag. Because she'd chide Sasha for pushing me too hard. In short, she was an angel.

But I have to hand it Sasha- in 4 months, he took a scrawny bookworm into someone who could pose for Men's Health. In 6 months, I could beat Ivan, his partner, in 5/10 sparring matches. In 7 months, I ran a marathon. In 9, he had me enter a triathalon. And I made it into the top 50 out of 500 entrants. Not too bad if I say so myself. In 12 months, I was beating Ivan almost every time.

And that's when the other Ivan showed up. After a year, Sasha decided it was time I learned weaponry. After all, no real fight was fair, he said. And Ivan (another cousin? Sasha had one heck of an extended family) instructed me on everything from broken beer bottles, to knives and pool cues. And my medical training paid off, because more often than not, I was the one stitching myself up if training got a little rough that day.

Eventually, I moved into the gym. Not sure how it happened, but I think I just got too tired to leave one day and never really left. Sasha didnt seem to mind since it meant I wasnt ever late again. Plus the coffee he imported was the best thing ever. Like it was so good that's probably the Extraordinary Thing he did to live as long as he had.

The days just melted together, into one long symphony of beautiful exhaustion and physical torment, as I poured myself into the first activity I could remember doing purely because I wanted to, something that numbed the dread of the finality of my life expectancy.

But then one day, one specific day, the one I'd been dreading in the back of my mind for a year came around.

They found me.

I guess they were a little slow in finding me, not surprising since I'd basically just disappeared from my old life, no forwarding address type thing. It wasnt intentional, it just sort of happened, what with me diving head first into something purely for me, without the thought of doing it for someone else. But they found me. Just like they find everybody.

See, it doesnt matter if you try to run, if you move, or change your name. They always find you eventually. I just hadn't thought about it in a long while. That year was the first time since I was probably 14 that I'm hadn't thought about the Gardeners. I guess that's why it surprised me so much.

Yeah, Gardeners. I dont know who came up with the name, in guess some misguided attempt at a positive PR spin bullshit to pass off squads of government assassins who's only job was to track down the NCs of the world and eliminate them. Sorry, NCs- Non-Contributors; the people who hit their expiration date without doing something noteworthy, something that was deemed to "advance or bolster the Human Condition" to borrow a phrase from the civics classes we had to take every fucking year of school. A cutesy sounding name that was supposed to make the government sound like a benevolent old couple pulling weeds from their garden of humanity. The worst lies always sound the sweetest, dont they?

And I was now 25.

It happened a few weeks after my birthday. Just another routine day for me, going for a light 5k run after my soak in a mineral bath. Light rain, most of the streetlights out, the few lights on in the warehouse district reflected beautifully off the streets. That's why I ran at night, all the colors changed that normally bleak neighborhood into something beautiful. It was just one little thing to balance out the harshness of reality, and I reveled in it.

I don't actually remember what happened exactly. I do recall seeing a suspiciously conspicuous homeless guy huddled under a loading dock awning, and then just a flash of movement from the corner of my eye. I think it happened really quickly; at least that's what Sasha said the next morning as he was making arrangements for me to visit another cousin of his "back in the old country". It could have been. God, after seeing the bodies around me in the aftermath, I hope, for their sake, that it was fast. 5 bodies. All still. I still remember my breath turning to blue fog, blurring the details of them. Helping me to be able to pretend I didn't see the blood mixing with the rain and oil, spreading out over the concrete like a macabre inversion of the cloudy sky above.

I'm glad they wore masks. It's bad enough having that scene burned into my brain forever, without specific people's faces being etched there as well. I'm glad I dont see their faces in my mind every time I close my eyes. I just wish I could still enjoy the rain. They managed to take that from me, even if I'm still breathing, so I guess they didnt completely fail. They just killed a part of my soul instead. But hey, there's plenty of people that don't like the rain, right? But I bet they don't smell blood when it does though.

And that was pretty much it. No sirens, no manhunt, nothing. Before I could process what was happening, I was on a bus, headed for "the old country", which, as near as I could tell, looked an awful lot like Pittsburg. Sasha's 'cousin' met me at the bus depot there, a man of very few words. Not as loud as his cousin, Zhena tended to communicate with looks, grunts and shrugs mostly. Same work ethic though.

And then the cycle repeated- 14 months this time before they caught up with me. Too bad that Zhena got caught up in it, he was a great guy. He and I didn't really become close or buddies or anything, but it still hurt to see what happened to him. To what was left of him anyway. The Gardeners definitely were trying to send a message with that. To quote an old wise man, "I didnt want to know, but now I do, and I'm telling you, you dont want to know." And that's coming from someone who was training to become a surgeon, so just trust me on this one.

This time, they were waiting for me. I think they'd planned on Zhena being enough of a distraction that they'd be able to take me out easily, but since since I woke up the next day on the floor of the sparring ring in a too large pool of blood that wasnt my own, I'd say they failed. The difference this time was I was on my own. No 'cousins' to call in favors from. No family I could call because I didnt want them getting a visit from the Gardeners either. I was alone this time.

Weirdly, I was actually OK with that. I'd been surrounded by family, teachers, advisors, tutors for so long that solitude was actually kind of nice. I could hear myself think my own thoughts for the first time in what seemed like forever.

I'm not ashamed to say that I took what little of value there was from Zhena's gym (I knew him well enough to know that Sasha was his only family) so that I could get a seedy hotel for a while. I did at least have the decency to let Sasha know, and that that would be the last he ever heard from me, to keep him out of trouble. Bad enough that 10 people were already dead, I didn't want Sasha or Anya's name added to that list because of me.

And so I vanished. Completely. Sure I travelled, kept studying and training like I had been, but never staying longer than a few months, never using the same name, copying other random people's habits and patterns so I didnt have one of my own for them to track down. Yeah it was cliche, but hey, I figured my dad watching all those spy flicks when I was young had to be good for something, right?

Sometimes I was a baker, sometimes a delivery driver, even a dock hand. Whatever it took to make a buck so I could eat.

I got really good at other things too. Like disposing of bodies. Not really a skill I ever thought I'd want or need, but Necessity is a harsh and demanding teacher. Sadly, my skill as a surgeon came in handy- bodies are easier to get rid of when they're in smaller pieces. And people are easier to turn into bodies when you know how they're put together intimately. Not what I had in mind for my life, but since it was the choice between this or dying, well, I guess I can put up with it.

I suppose that catches us all up to the present, more or less. OK yeah theres a lot that's gone down between Pittsburg and now, but it was all pretty much the same: lather, rinse, repeat. Literally sometimes. Those were the days it felt like there wasnt enough soap in the world to get all the blood off.

So here I am, I'm my single room in Kandahar, staring at the date that had somehow come up again. Every year, they send someone. Usually a team. And I survive. No matter how they come at me, or when or how many. I survive.

And I'm sitting here, staring at the calendar, steaming cup of espresso, just staring, as a light breeze fluttered the corner of the calendar page, sending the orchids dancing in the vase next to it. All I could think is, "How? How does this keep happening? I'm not even supposed to be here, not supposed to be alive."

As I raised my cup of espresso, something slid under my door. "OK that's weird," I said aloud as I stood.

The chair made an ungodly screech as I pushed it back and made my way over to where a small, cream colored envelope sat on the floor, a couple inches from the bottom of the door. It was heavy for it's size, but not because anything was in it, just the paper was that thick. Probably hand-made. It's odd the little things you notice in times of stress. Heavy, rough paper, no postmark, nothing written on the outside, just the flap tucked in, not even sealed. Reminded me of how my mother used to give out birthday cards. I always thought that was a little weird, but it was just one of her quirks that made her even more endearing to everyone.

I sat down a little heavier than I had planned and felt the chair crack a little. There was a single sheet of paper inside, folded in half; I was right- handmade paper. But that wasnt important, what was important was the heavy, blocky hand-written message it contained.

"We've been looking for you for a long time. It has come to my attention that you may have something unique to contribute after all. We may have been too hasty in judging your Ability to be a Contributor. I believe you do actually have a remarkable Ability to Survive. I'd like to speak to you this afternoon in the plaza outside the Blue Mosque. I will be alone, and you can approach me, so as to allay your justifiable suspicions. I will have a silver coffee set on the table in front of me.

I believe we can help each other, if you're willing to listen to my proposition.

-Soon,

Baddar"

Well, this is interesting.

[asexualzoro]

list of reasons I find zoro ridiculous

after my similarly titled mihawk post took off I decided to make a zoro post, since he’s my second favorite character and also arguably the most ridiculous character in all of One Piece. here we go

- I know what you’re all thinking. i’m gonna open this list with how he wields three swords, right? no. no, Zoro has done so much ridiculous bullshit, this doesn’t even seem weird anymore. i don’t even bat my eye at this. this is nothing. now that i’ve got that out of the way, let’s begin

- this dude has like, an obsession with cutting off his own limbs? and MAYBE i can understand trying to cut his feet off when they were stuck in wax—you’re trying to save your friends, i get it—but what about when he was sword shopping in loguetown? who’s first response when buying a cursed sword and testing if it’s really cursed is “i’ll toss it in the air n see if I get amputated lol.” plus there’s that old filler where luffy gets his finger stuck in a bottle and, when he asks zoro for help getting it out, zoro tries to CUT IT OFF. im convinced he lost that left eye of his bc he got dust or something in it and then tried to stab it out

- there’s like, several occasions where Zoro has been directed to head up a staircase and gone some other direction. it happened in enies lobby and in dressrosa? like, what’s the dude got against stai—... oh, wait

- his reintroduction post timeskip. get on the wrong boat? just cut it in half! who even cares! how’d you even end up on the wrong boat? you had to walk towards that boat, which means looking at the boat. that boat looked nothing like the sunny, wouldn’t zoro have noticed that? he also has to make an effort to climb on, which means, you guessed it, looking at the boat! he probably sees the crew members, maybe even gets helped up by one or a few. how did he not at any point in time notice that wasn’t his boat?

- also when they landed on sabaody the first time and zoro was like “i’m gonna go take a walk!” and both Sanji and Usopp tried to stop him, talking to him like concerned parents of a troublemaking toddler, like “Zoro you can’t go out there you’ll get lost!” to which Zoro replies “yeah but the grottos are numbered, I can find my way back if I just remember the number!” and Sanji and Usopp are like “okay, solid logic, even YOURE not dumb enough to mess that up” and what does Zoro do? what does he fucking do?

- I want to emphasize he messes it up because a bubble covers the 4 in “Grotto 41” so he thinks it’s grotto 1. BUBBLES. ARE. TRANSPARENT

- “sorry, I don’t pray to god” fuckin edgelord

- Zoro’s epithet is “Pirate Hunter” and it’s super lame. he could’ve been “Demon of the East Blue” but they went with pirate hunter, even though he became a pirate. even Chopper’s is better than his lbr

- THERES A SCENE WHERE SANJI THREATENS TO PUT RAZOR BLADES IN ZOROS FOOD N ZOROS LIKE “do it u won’t” SO SANJI DOES AND ZORO JUST EATS THEM? ODA EVEN GOT ASKED ABOUT IT IN AN SBS AND CONFIRMED YES, ZORO DID IN FACT EAT RAZOR BLADES. THIS 2EDGY4U BITCH JUST. STRAIGHT UP. ATE RAZOR BLADES

- in film gold he wears that black jacket under the white one. mind you he had no way of knowing he would be trapped in gold by tesoro or that they’d all have a dramatic coordinated outfit change once he was free so what the fuck was he doing? why did he wear that? who wears two jackets for no reason?

- “if i’m gonna be a statue I want it to be in this pose” “i’m glad I struck a pose”

- remember when zoro fought mr. 1 in alabasta and mr. 1 dropped a stone building on him and he was just like “this is a rocky day” or smth equally awful? i hate him

- the tarzan yell in skypiea

- actually, the goggles too.

- didn’t he try to convince someone he was fighting they were sunglasses bc they had some blinding light-based attack? I feel like he did but I don’t remember skypiea well enough to be sure

- Zoro vs the bird in skypiea. spent a fair amount of the damn arc running around skypiea getting messed w by a bird (which, according to Luffy, was more evolved than Zoro bc it had developed a sense of direction. burned by ur own captain)

- when asked why Zoro was able to speak with a sword in his mouth, oda said “IT’S HIS HEART SPEAKING”

- that colorspread Zoro where he reads a book about weightlifting while balancing a weight on top

- when Zoro fights that masochist guy in film gold (I think his name was dice?) and said some cocky ass one liner after the guy fell unconscious that went something like “What's wrong? Didn't it feel good? Aren't you gonna scream in pleasure?" awful

- Zoro almost gets murdered by Mihawk and then, later that day, tries to take on fishmen underwater. others r like “you cannot handle this, you will literally die” and Zoro doesn’t even care bc Luffy is in trouble

- he was sailing bc he left home to find mihawk and then couldn’t figure out how to get back

- remember that filler where Zoro taught Luffy how to skate but then forgot to teach him how to turn. I love both that this happened and the implication that Zoro is a person who knows how to roller skate and therefore has spent time roller skating. Zoro roller skating backstory when?

- when Zoro was fighting oz, a 500 year old corpse, he licked his sword. now, on top of licking his sword being ridiculous as hell because, listen, there’s NOTHING cool about licking your sword. you just look like a loser. but a sword that just came out of a 500 year old corpse? really? i know it was preserved by the cold and all but there’s no way it didn’t rot at all. that’s a rotted, frozen corpse. Zoro what in the HELL were you thinking. I hope you get sick

- i’m sure it probably wasn’t even the first time he licked his sword in a fight but I will say with absolute confidence he looked like a loser every single time

- I feel like he licked his sword while facing mr 1 but I can’t remember. if he did, that’s honestly iconic. stare down a dude that’s made of swords while licking yours? power move. only decent time to kick your sword

- Zoro, joining Luffy: “if you stand in the way of my dream i’ll kill you!” Zoro, a day later: “of course i’ll carry my captain in this heavy cage on my back to safety. oh this gaping wound in my side? nothing. who cares about bleeding to death, my captain needs me!”

- all those big weights he’s got. all of them.

- especially that time he was lifting weights post thriller bark after barely surviving kuma, still heavily injuries, complaining about how weak he is. buddy...

- that time in drum island where he decided to train by going swimming in the freezing ice-country water, then when he got out he got lost in the snowy mountains until he wandered into a random battle and took out some guy just to steal his coat

- this isn’t the only time he steals some random dude’s coat

- the chimney.

- that filler in smiles lobby where he gets, like, abducted by a bunch of children for a day and integrated into their family?

- Roronoa Zoro went fursuiting in dressrosa and that’s a canon fact you all must acknowledge

- speaking of being a furry anyone remember mugiwara theater?

- THE FUCKING MUGIWARA THEATER NAMES. mugiwara theater is a gift, alright? here’s some: nakamura hanzorou. zobear. ZOROMILK

- I FORGOT TO MENTION. THAT TIME ZORO N USOPP WERE HANDCUFFED TOGETHER AND ZORO TRIED TO CONVINCE USOPP TO PLAY ROCK PAPER SCISSORS WITH HIM TO SEE WHICH ONE OF THEM WOULD HAVE TO CUT THEIR HAND OFF

- also the fact that his logic was “it’ll be fine cuz chopper can just sew it back on”

- can we also talk abt how later that fight he uses Usopp as a sword because holy shit Zoro

- this isn’t technically zoro’s fault but the guy who sold him his sword to him in loguetown has a giant version of bounty image up above his bath, which........

- barto asked for zoro’s autograph and Zoro just wrote “sword”

- the grave of the rumbar pirates was finished right around when Zoro woke up from his coma post thriller bark and Zoro decided to walk over while Brook is sitting there mourning almost everyone he ever loved and just. plops his sword—an inanimate object—in the dirt by the grave of BROOKS ENTIRE CREW like “hey i’m gonna bury this here u don’t mind tho right? cool”

- he’s lucky Brook is such a cool dude cuz if I was mourning the death of MY crew and some fuck decided to plant a rusty sword there i’d just fuckin kill em

- in Zou they were talking abt whatever and Luffy mentioned how Sanji was as strong as one thousand men and Zoro, clearly jealous that Sanji got praised by Luffy, butt in with a stuttery objection on how HE was stronger than Sanji and worth TWO THOUSAND men, which luffy ignored, and Nami had to reassure him that yes, Zoro, we know you’re strong. toddler

- this is also not technically zoro’s fault but one time someone asked oda in an sbs which strawhats would eat ice in their drink and oda answered who would n wouldn’t (Luffy, Chopper, Brook, Usopp, and Robin would, if ur wondering). Zoro was on the wouldn’t list, and some fan sent oda a letter informing him of a panel where Zoro was shown eating ice to disprove this. someone pulled zoro ice eating receipts on oda and that’s a fact we all have to live with

- the first time Zoro meets mihawk—the strongest man in the world, the man he wants to defeat someday, and incredibly powerful and impressive dude—he cries like a baby

- zoro’s been crucified like 4 times now. once in his introduction than in three movies (6, gold, nebulandia). idk why this keeps happening but honestly? keep it up

- when Brook joined the crew, Zoro said he was sorry for Brooks bad luck as if one of the first things Brook ever saw Zoro do wasn’t to try and die for the crew via Giant Paw Ball of Pain

- speaking of, i’m pretty sure half the reason zoro DIDNT die in thriller bark is because if he died via smth as silly as a giant paw ball his injured pride would kill him again

- I was going to make fun of Zoro for wearing only a suit and a fake mustache in dressrosa as a disguise but then I realized, like, given how absolutely shredded Zoro was in Punk Hazard and how that suit somehow managed to squish it all down without zoro ripping the sleeves off? solid disguise

- when merry was burning and everyone’s bawling and remembering great memories on the ship and Zoro was standing there, 100% stoic, remembering a nap

- Zoro saw marines (Garp) coming to Water 7 while Luffy was still unconscious and ran off to warn the others but couldn’t find his way back to the hotel

- that G8 filler where he falls off a cliff in pursuit of his swords

- speaking of fillers, remember that amnesia one? (ha). highlights include Zoro trying to physically fight a small sea horse (plus Usopp doing a bad lip-syncing) and Zoro swimming through the Grand Line with his swords tied to his head by his bandana

- meets a dragon, eats the dragon

- it got mentioned once that Sanji and Nami canonly help Zoro and the other guys get dressed. so every time Zoro wears something absolutely ridiculous (which is often), it’s probably Sanjis doing

- “I can’t believe I cut a freaking booger!!”

- speaking of, remember that time Luffy flicked a booger into Zoro’s drink at the Baratie and Zoro tried to force him to drink it?? remember that?? I hate them both

- that time Zoro was trying to find the Right Eye in Skypiea, said that (though the path to get there was STRAIGHT AHEAD) all he had to do to find the right eye was just keep going right (even though that would just lead him in circles!). and then after that do you know what direction he went?? do you know?? he fucking went left

- the time Zoro got lost walking on a straight path in a filler.

- Zoro lost to a guy in a fight and just fucking let the dude cut him in half. like, yes, the baratie scene was all cool as all hell and I love it but Zoro did in fact basically invite a dude to cut him in half

- when they were hit by negative hollows and everyone else said stuff that was kinda funny but Zoro went straight up “I don’t deserve to exist” please honey talk to someone

- he was fighting Kaku and kept engaging in Kaku’s devil fruit bs and then berating himself for being uncool as if he wasn’t already fighting a giant giraffe

- to end this list, I want to get to Zoro’s absolute worst offense. remember when Zoro fought Kaku and he did that asura form thing? where he straight up grew four extra arms and two extra heads, all wielding swords? what the FUCK was that? and don’t tell me “fighting spirit” alright. that’s bull. people don’t just GROW EXTRA SWORD-WIELDING BODY PARTS because they’re just REALLY INTO a FIGHT. like I know this is One Piece and shit’s ridiculous all this time but this? this is too much. even for One Piece this is too much. this is so ridiculous. there has to be a line, even in One Piece, with what these guys are allowed to get away with. I can accept haki so good you can see the future. I can accept spinning so fast you set your leg on fire. I can accept being made of springs. I can accept booger bombs. I can accept all that and more, but this? this is where i take my stand. Roronoa Zoro cannot keep getting away with this! fighting spirit is just not an explanation. and the worst part? the absolute worst part?

- Zoro makes four extra limbs and two extra heads, all armed with swords, MATERIALIZE out of THIN AIR with absolutely NO REAL EXPLANATION and then pretty much NEVER DOES IT AGAIN! he did it once in sabaody (and once in strong world) and then hasn’t done it since! everyone else uses the power ups they got in enies lobby all the time but Zoro, somewhere out there, knows how fuckin sick this attack is (bc yeah it’s ridiculous as hell but like I still enjoy it) and he just won’t do it again. not once post timeskip has he used it at all. Roronoa Zoro knows what he’s doing and he is out there, right now, laughing

- roronoa zoro is one of my top three favorite one piece characters and I make this list entirely out of love. (feel free to add on more moments I may have missed and i’ll add them)

[dammitjameskirk]

well its holiday time!! that means so many families will have more free time and theyll think going to the movies is a great time had by all!! this might be true for anybody actually going, but its definitely not true for anybody WORKING THERE THIS TIME OF YEAR.

so here are a couple notes from somebody who works in the theatre business and i am so gotdamn exhausted by the hundreds of thousands of families i see walk through the doors of my building

THE END OF YEAR HOLIDAYS FROM NOVEMBER TO EARLY JANUARY ARE THE BUSIEST TIME OF YEAR FOR ANY MOVIE THEATRE, HANDS DOWN. EVERYONE HAS TIME OFF AND COMES TO THE MOVIES, YOU ARE NOT SPECIAL AND MILLIONS OF OTHERS ARE GOING TO THE MOVIES JUST LIKE YOU. REMEMBER THIS WHEN YOU LEAVE THE HOUSE LATE OR BUY YOUR TICKETS AT THE DOOR INSTEAD OF AHEAD OF TIME.

everyone makes minimum wage or less (minors dont have to be paid minimum wage, PLUS theres no such thing as overtime or holiday pay in the movie business); youre yelling at literal children almost 100% of the time and quite frankly they have no control over any of it and you throwing a hissy fit will help literally no one, not even yourself

the movies cost mega money if you dont come prepared; eat beforehand if you dont want to spend anything extra. tell your children no if you have to, theres no reason to spend 5$ on m+ms if you cant spare the money. we understand and feel just as badly when we have to tell you the total

if you bring your own snacks, none of us care as long as we dont see it. take it in undetected and you better throw it out afterward as well; if youre not buying any of our concessions then youre not paying for us to clean up after you

(yeah, the concessions cost so much bc thats what pays our paychecks. the theatres do not get any money from ticket sales, save for MAYBE 10%, depends on how long the movie’s been out but most of the time the max amount of money made from ticket sales is about 50 cents. concessions pay for employee paychecks and the building running costs)

BRING YOUR ID IF YOU ARE SEEING AN R-RATED FILM. ALL R-RATED FILM TICKET PURCHASES ARE LIKELY TO BE ID’D AND IF YOU DON’T HAVE IT THEN YOU’RE SHIT OUTTA LUCK. policy for most theatres: you have to be at least 17+ to see an r-rated film WITH A VALID ID (school ids do NOT count), OR be 21+ WITH A VALID ID to take in any more people without an id themselves. no exceptions. this is a firable offense, on the spot, if the cashier or ticket taker is caught allowing underage kids into r-rated films. take this into consideration the next time you want to go see a movie bc there are no exceptions!! fuck you if you dont bring your id but then get mad bc we wont let you in to see the movie!! its your own fault!!!!

understand that there are physically not enough people working in the building to keep the place spotless as hordes of people run around and make a shitty mess everywhere. like, im sorry, but the movie theatre business SUCKS and theres nothing we can do about it other than try and sweep up the popcorn as fast as we can. you complaining to management will not suddenly materialise a new person to come out of the employee breakroom, ready to sweep up whatever it is youre complaining about. patience is KEY bc we quite simply do not have the staff or the staff allowance to provide a perfect atmosphere. it wont happen no matter how much you squall. like, im sorry it sucks, i know it does, im trying to make it run as smoothly as possible but theres just not enough employees allowed for us to do any better. bring your own trash bag and your own napkins if youre that concerned, i promise we wont look at you sideways

ENUNCIATE YOUR ORDER AT THE CONCESSION STAND. the more communicative you are the faster you can be served, i promise, thats EXACTLY how it works and its not taking too long bc the employee is bad its bc youre not speaking up or youre not actually defining what you want. be better, get done faster

try to be more on time when it comes to getting to the theatre. doing everything late makes you angrier and it means we dont have as much time to fix whatever problems you may be having. we cant fix what you need if theres no time because you didnt think youd have to show up to your movie until 20 minutes after it started!!

be mindful of when the locations you visit actually close; we’re not a 24/7 business, and concessions and ticketing sales usually close before midnight, depending on the time of the last show and that building’s policies. at that point, the only thing youre doing is renting space on our premises. take care of everything you need, money-wise, before that time passes or else youre out of luck, just like any other business

dont.... dont bring babies to the movies please. this is more personal than like, actual tips or tricks about the movies or like backalley knowledge or whatever, this is like, this is from a health and courtesy standpoint. movies are LOUD. movies are SCARY. babies shouldnt... be going through that experience. i cant stand whenever i see newborns being carried around as if their ears arent so sensitive and that theyre likely to cry and be generally uncomfortable bc a movie theatre is NOT A PLACE FOR BABIES. find a sitter, or stay home. thats what you sign up for when you become a parent, taking care of your child to the best of your ability. and if that includes taking them with you to the movies... youre a bad parent and theres nothing you can do to convince me otherwise. (also 6 and under cant see r-rated films past a certain time and i rly dont understand why so many folks dont understand that or think its a new rule?? its not a new rule, every movie chain i have been to has had that rule its not new and not specific to just one place cmon now get out of here)

also if you leave garbage in the theatre under the impression that Somebody Gets Paid To Do That, just know that we know and we also hate you passionately bc youre the worst type of person. if you have family like this, correct them. we get paid very little to do much more than you could possibly expect

happy holidays!!! dont take this as a Dont Come To The Movies post, take this as a Come To The Movies Prepared post instead. just dont be a dick, its the holidays, and these are mostly children youre upset with. like, youre yelling at 15 + 16 yr olds. just be nice. if you have a problem with the business itself, take it to corporate, thats the only way youll get anything changed.

[rosameiwhitley]

About Me (unfinished)

Hi, my name is Rosa, and I'm just a girl trying to relive her childhood and document it all to make the memories last. Perhaps I should tell you a little bit about myself and my history with this franchise first. I admit it's probably a huge risk to show so much information to people online, but hopefully very few people will end up reading this blog anyways, considering that I made it exclusively for my friends and more importantly, myself. Also most of this will be heavily edited from the original for safety’s sake.

My love of Pokemon began during gen 4, I want to say it was around 2009? (The year will forever remain a mystery because my trainer card on my old save file read June 20, 2000 since I was again, very young.) I saw a commercial for Pokemon platinum on TV, and I was totally enamored by Turtwig, who I chose as my starter and has remained one of my favorites ever since. I was like, obsessed with turtles as a kid.

I no longer remember which store it was exactly, maybe Toys R Us, but I walked into the store, and walked out with a Dark Blue Nintendo DS Lite, my first ever game system, and a copy of Pokemon Platinum, the first game I ever played. And later that Christmas, I ended up receiving a turtwig plushie! It's admitedly, not a toy that I have cherished much until as of late, where it seems I'm increasingly yearning to romanticize and dwell upon my childhood, but hey, at least it's still in serviceable condition after 12 or so years.

ALSO for Christmas, I got copies of Leafgreen, Red Rescue Team and Ruby for my DS' GBA slot. Since this is back when Gamestop actually sold GBA games for nongouged prices... I wanna say I got them the same year as that Turtwig doll? I would assume I got them before the release of SoulSilver anyways. Since I was a dumbass kid, I just wiped over whatever save files the previous owners had on these games, and in the case of Rescue team, I'm pretty sure the save file got corrupted or something. I also never really got far in any of these games when I was really young, I at most just used them as transfer fodder to send starters over to my SoulSilver copy.

Now then because I was quite young at the time, I was pretty much flying blind that first playthrough. In fact, it took me all of 260 or so hours  over the span of...I wanna say four years? In order to finally finish this game. Yeah, I literally took 4 years to beat this game. And you know the crazy part? I beat several other pokemon games in the 4 year interval. Hell, I even beat fossil fighters (another franchise I have fond nostalgia for, as the idea of a turn based monster game with dinosaurs appealed so strongly to little me). It's also the only time besides sword (where i was intentionally playing with an underleveled team anyways) where i ever managed to actually lose a trainer battle. Except unlike sword here i didnt reset the game right as i lost so i ended up having to black out and lose my cash money. Heartbreaking. Think I might have even lost to Roark. I definitely did fail against Cynthia during my playthrough, but I had saved right before her so instead I chose to just suck it up and use my tms and candies.

Anyways, with that said, I do have memories of my first time playing through Platinum, foggy as they are. I remember when my turtwig first evolved into grotle. I was so shocked! I'd never before known about the concept of evolution, and so one of my family friends, who was like several years older than me, ended up having to explain the concept to me in full. I was honestly quite surprised and even a bit displeased by the fact that my beloved turtwig had transformed into something as decidedly un-turtle-like as grotle.

Funny thing is, when I was a kid, I assumed Dawn's Piplup from the anime was a girl, solely based on the fact that Dawn was a girl, and Piplup sounded feminine. In truth, her piplup is a male. Anyways, for some reason, my stupid kid brain had assumed that by the logic of me thinking Dawn's Piplup was a girl (I was the type of kid to think Samus was a girl when I saw her armored form in Brawl) that, clearly, the Pokemon games were programmed so that your starter will be the same gender as the protagonist! So, I reset my diamond profile to pick the girl, and sent a piplup to my platinum version. This is...probably not the most worthwhile anecdote for me to bring up, frankly I'm more than impressed with myself for the fact that I actually remembered it all these years later, but I swear on my life, this one fact will be important later for very good reason.

Anyways I ended up spending a fuckton of my time just derping around in Sinnoh. Fucking loved Amity Square, and I also quite enjoyed that one activity where you show some dude your Pokemon's foot, oh and I gave my torterra a fuckton of poffins. In fact, now that I think about it, Torterra definitiely got powerleveled to hell and back. Dude was like, maybe 20 or 30 levels higher than the rest of my team when I got to the end. Also for reasons I'll never understand, I taught it sleep talk. Anyways I played up until... I wanna say around Candice, before I dropped the game for a long while, picked it up again in.... I don't remember, probably close to when gen 6 was finally dropping (most likely because I felt that I needed to resolve this unfinished business of an unbeaten pokemon game) and played thru the rest of the game. Natch, I panicked and threw my one masterball at Giratina because I'm a bimbo.

Oh, speaking of Candice, yes! I did indeed fall into the same pratfall as most other kids did, and traded a Medicham for her infamous Haunter, Gaspar. And like, no joke, I cried after it happened. And you know... it wouldn't have stung nearly as much, if it weren't for the fact that I literally CAPTURED A MEDITITE WHO WAS ONLY LIKE PROBABLY LEVEL 16, LIKE MY GOD, WHAT WAS I THINKING, AND GRINDED IT FOR HOURS ON LOW LEVEL FODDER TO GET IT TO EVOLVE INTO MEDICHAM JUST TO TRADE IT TO MINDY. And yeaaaaa I know I could've CAUGHT a medicham but again I was like, a total dumbass as a kid.

Some PokeTubers I used to watch in the day were like, Marillland, Tamashii, JWittz, The Dex and SuperSkarmory (got remember this old shit?). actually, one quick tangent but, god, I SWEAR ON MY LIFE I remember there being this old TyranitarTube video where he somehow modded the following Pokemon mechanic into BW2 (or was it BW1?????) and hell I had a person even confirm to me that yes, it was planned!!!! So fuck me, there is just, god, somewhere deep in the bw2 files is the single damn thing that could've transformed these games into being like, from 10/10 to 11/10. Buuuuuuuuuuuut I digress. Maybe it was some other PokeTuber. Point is that video is lost to time and I don't have the time to swamp thru the crap to find it.

Also I did watch some old videos on like, guides and also rom hacks. Stuff like Ash Grey version and other things. The one that creeped me out most was this old video about a romhack that put MewThree into FRLG. Like, idk why, but I swear, that was so creepy when I was younger.

The first new Pokemon game, and the first game I ever preordered, is probably Pokemon SoulSilver, which I actually went to my local gamestop in-person to pick up. Cause it was a preorder, I also got that sweet Lugia figure which I still have to this day. Sadly, my original packaging has been thrown away because, AGAIN, I was a kid. Now then...god, truth be told, I am a fake Pokemon fan. For you see, I never actually BEAT SoulSilver, persay. Instead, what I did was I asked someone else to just play thru the entire game for me. So I.... really don't have that much nostalgic bias towards it as other people do? Like yeah I myself played thru all the Kanto stuff but the Johto stuff was all on him. At least, that is how I REMEMBER it going. Again, I don't want to make up memories that were never real. I didn't really use the Pokewalker since I was a very sedentary kid, I just shook it around and stuff. My only really notable memory would be when my dumbass wasted a masterball on a machop of all things, just because I really liked how machop had a tail. (Speaking of which, why DOES Machop have a tail???????????) I didn't even beat the Red battle until I sweeped thru it with an action replay that also kinda broke the game when I activated the cheat code. For fucking shame on my part. That said, Ampharos is definitely one of my favorites due to this game! I love my little wittle sheepy so much. Surprisingly despite having far more memories attached to platinum due to actually, yknow, PLAYING the main game of that one (still have not touched the postgame that much and due to recent affairs I kinda chose to hold it off even longer. Not that it even matters since for the longest time I had my platinum team sans the lucario brought into bw2 and needed pkhex plus homebrew to resolve that.) i somehow got 291 and a half hours clocked onto soulsilver. funny that. For some godforsaken reason my save says i begun on dec 21, which, good god how tf is that true if i have the lugia preorder figure to argue otherwise? Then again maybe it was a gaffe. That all said I do think HGSS had a bevy of great features, just. Bah, whatever I guess. Anyways alongside my preorder, I also picked up a strategy guide, and hoo boy, that thing's seen better days. That said the strategy guide is a load of bull since it omits THE ENTIRETY OF THE POSTGAME. yeah, you don't get a single fucking guide to Kanto. Yeah cool.

I.... never really bothered with any sort of events or mythicals. I remember seeing them mention regigigas on the old pokemon platinum website. But like, the process of going to a Toys R Us just to get Regigigas to get the other regis to get a 2nd regigigas is kinda, dumb?

I never could get into the anime, frankly.

In terms of spinoffs from this generation that caught my eye, it was mostly Pokemon Ranger. I have never played the original Pokemon Ranger, but I did buy both of the sequels. I remember being quite excited for Guardian signs when I saw an ad for it in a copy of National Geographic Kids in my school library. I ended up getting the game as a gift on my birthday after a trip to party city. Freaking loved those games, loved riding different legendaries, and most of all I really enjoyed Ukelele Pichu. It was so amusing seeing late-stage gen IV shilling for the little baby. Some of the missions really tick me off though. I still never beat the stupid sidequest where Murph (least I REMEMBER it being him!) asks me to catch a bunch of bird Pokemon, because that damn Togekiss always flew away before I ever got to it. So I sadly have yet to 100% that game. Oh well. I also was pretty freaking bad at one Shadows of Almia quest which required the player to swim thru currents underwater in order to chase some Pokemon that kept fleeing. It got so bad that, I shit you not, I ended up just deciding to take my copy of the game to gamestop and asking the gamestop cashier of all people to beat it for me. I was... a hopeless poor sap as a kid, I'll admit, still kinda am tbh. But hey, at least I got some forgettable rangernet upgrade from the whole ordeal. Personally I am more a fan of Guardian Signs than I am of Shadows of Almia, and I daresay I clocked an ungodly amount of time into Guardian Signs, more than is normal for any spinoff that isn't Mystery Dungeon.

This will probably be a hot take I'm only making because I'm blinded by obliviousness rather than nostalgia, but frankly I do not care much for Mystery Dungeon. Yeah, that's right, I said it. I tried getting into the games as a kid but my dumbass kept mashing the A button to perform the basic attack instead of actually doing something smart. The farthest I ever got in Explorers of Sky was Mt. Bristle, where I could never get past Drowzee. I eventually for god knows what reason decided to buy a second copy preowned just so I could play thru a completed file to get thru the shaymin stuff. And god even knows why I thought buying explorers of dark was a bright idea. Again, I was a stupid kid. Maybe if I weren't a literal child at the time, I could've learned to love PMD by playing it properly, but instead, I'm... well, i'm probably in the minority of people who played mystery dungeon as a kid and didn't come to worship it.

Considering I'm the person who took 4 years to beat Platinum.... I am so good at video games!

One of the oddest ducks from around this time, and one of the few games on the Wii I actually cared about, was PokePark Wii:Pikachu's Adventure.

Truth be told, I've always been more of a handheld gamer than a console player.I usually was more focused on the DS than the Wii or GameCube. I did sometimes buy Wii games that interested me, like Skylanders or Sonic Colors, but I generally sticked to the DS.

It also doesn't help that the Wii was kinda.... eh? A bit of a wagglefest? Plus given that I was a really small kid and some other stuff we will get into later, I probably just tended to focus more on Pokemon, especially with my crap reaction time back then and the jank of late aughts motion controls.

Also as a kid my dumbass just assumed disc based games saved to the disc itself the way pre-switch handheld games worked by saving to the cartridge. So yeah, sue me.

I mostly was interested in PokePark Wii because I was just so enamored with the idea of playing a game with 3D Pokemon battles where you could control Pikachu. Sadly... what I got instead was a game primarily about doing other pokemon's errands by playing wagglefest party games. Though that wasn't the only really unsettling thing about the game.

Yeah see much like Metroid Other M, PokePark commits the questionable act of making you play a fully 3D game with a sideways wii mote, and no option for nunchuk. I have zero idea why Nintendo was okay with the control scheme, honestly. Though admittedly considering the fact that PokePark was almost definitely designed with the minigames in mind, I guess it's not the biggest sin.

Most of the minigames were fine I guess, but the one with the spinning beyblade tops and the motion controls made me cry. I was also a bit disappointed since I was expecting a realtime 3D Pokemon action rpg and instead I got an overblown party game story mode.

So.... yeah, I would assume that wraps up my history with gen 4! Before we move onto Gen 5, I suppose I should talk about some other games and stuff that I was into around this age. I was definitely into cartoons, and it's about what you might expect someone like me to have enjoyed back then. In hindsight if my younger self had known Garfield would be appearing in Smash clone alongside SpongeBob I would have lost my shit. I mean I did buy that one Cartoon Network smash clone they made for the Wii and 3DS. But that's another story. I also had a bunch of garbage licensed games based on those shows which I snagged off of eBay. They're not that great, to be frank. Frankly besides Pokemon, Fossil Fighters and Sonic, most of the games I played as a kid during this era were licensed shovelware titles. And even then, it's not like I actually beat most of them. I sucked at video games when I was a kid, and I still suck at them now.

Ah, well, point aside, I would say that Sonic was definitely another fixation of mine when I was a kid. Which is actually rather odd now that I think about it, given most of the notable Sonic games out at the time were on HD consoles. I did get some of the handheld games, but frankly I am garbage at all of them. I still haven't beaten Sonic Rush or Sonic Chronicles (for some reason I brought that game with me on a family vacation one time). Of course, I did have a wii, so my dumbass played Sonic a lot in Smash Bros, and also I decided to buy Sonic and the Secret Rings, a game which I regrettably have sunk a brickton of hours of my life into when I was a kid. Oh, and My adoration for Sonic is obviously way weaker now but it was rather strong back then, which, given some stuff I know about myself now, it kinda checks out.

I also was... really obsessed with Sonic Unleashed back then. Frankly while I liked how the HD versions looked, I was too much of a Nintendrone as a kid to ever consider buying a 360. Also this was way before I got into any genre that wasn't "rpg" or "platformer". Anyways I watched a brickton of videos about the game online, and I definitely let it live rent free in my head for a while. Did you know that Sonic Unleashed had a JAVA MOBILE GAME?

Speaking of Java, remember when Sega used to release watered down ports of classic games onto phones? I mean, they still do, but at least now the screen isn't as much of an eyesore. Anyways, I remember downloading the mobile version of Sonic Spinball onto an old cherry red flipphone, and playing that for a while. To be frank, Sonic Spinball is such an odd duck of a game. Mostly because of the way Sonic can occasionally get out of the pinball table and there he plays kind of like you would expect? Except way worse physics. The controls sucked since you had to use the number pad instead of a controller, but hey, I'd still say it's more responsive than the touch controls you get on say, Sonic CD for most modern devices (I'm still impressed I made it to the Metal Sonic level in that game on my phone before I got a single game over). But I digress.

Pretty sure the only reason why I even bought Secret Rings is because I deluded myself into thinking it was "close enough" to Sonic Unleashed because again I was a stupid kid.

Okay, enough of the dillydallying, let's move on to talking about gen 5! Hopefully I can edit these blogspot posts later anyways.

I hated gen 5 when it first came out. Okay I admit that was a bit of an exagerration, but yeah, point is, despite having literally only been a Pokemon fan for all of like, one year, I immidiately decided I wasn't a fan of BW1 because they didn't have any of the old Pokemon in it (ironically, that seems to be one of the things everyone praises that game for doing nowadays, the Zorua events notwithstanding), and so I didn't buy it, sticking with my other Pokemon games. And, to this day, Pokemon Black and White 1 remain the only main series games released after I became a Pokemon fan, which I have never played through to completion (though SoulSilver remains a dubious 2nd option since I more or less asked someone else to beat the majority of that game for me). I will likely pass on BDSP, but since the games are still so freshly new, that's not set in stone yet. If I do, I'll probably pick up a preowned copy before the early order bonus ends.

That all changed when the animated trailer for Pokemon Black and White 2 came out.

Oh my god, that trailer, I don't think any other trailer has ever gotten me as hyped for a new game as the trailer released for Pokemon Black and White 2 has. It was freaking epic, and I was all the more excited at finding out that old Pokemon were returning! Including Lucario and Ampharos, who're still some of my favorite Pokemon to this very day. The best part about the trailer was just seeing how cool Nate looked, he ended up becoming my favorite male protagonist, and honestly the trailer really did a good job playing up his coolness. I didn't really have many thoughts on the many thoughts on the scene from the trailer with Rosa and Serperior though, which, to be frank seems rather ironic given what I know now. I really enjoyed that scene where Nate fights alongside Hugh and Cheren on the airship and how it transitions into his chase against Shadow Triad alongside his Lucario.

I ended up preordering the Black 2 version as soon as I could (Zekrom's just cooler looking than Reshiram, y'know?), and got it on it’s release day in the west alongside the strategy guide (I used to be a scrub okay?) from (at least I remember it being) GameStop. It was also very close to my 10th birthday, which, to be frank, is kinda fitting.

Sidenote but, while my memory of this is definitely super hazy, I somewhat recall picking the game up from the same gamestop where I got Explorers of Sky, PokePark Wii, and maybe even a few of my gba games? But anyways, the interesting thing about that GameStop, was the fact that it was directly connected to a Barnes & Noble. Yeah, funny thing is, Barnes and Noble used to own GameStop, from 1999 to 2004. So like, this store was directly connected to the Barnes and Noble, like, they straight-up had an archway inside of the building leading from GameStop to Barnes and Noble, my god. Granted, I bought Black 2 in 2012, however it is possible that this location simply kept the setup from the time when they were under Barnes and Nobles. The location did eventually close, and, rather disappointingly, I think it got converted into some kind of album store? It's also now fully integrated into the Barnes and Noble, no longer a separate store like it was before. Granted, I might just be manufacturing false memories, it could've been a GameStop next to my house. But I am almost certain that it was a GameStop, if only because the strategy guide still has that gamestop sticker plastered over it, and I'm sure that if I tried to remove it now, it would permanently damage the book. I used that strategy guide a lot when I first played the game, embarassingly so. I even ended up following their specific instructions for Coballion, right down to the moveset they recommended. Honestly, why would you ever teach a fighting type volt switch?

So anyways, I booted up Black 2, pretty sure it was on the car ride home from Gamestop, in fact! And started up my new game. Unfortunately, because I was a dumb kid at the time, I ended up picking Nate as my player character instead of Rosa. I really enjoyed the game, it was core to my childhood, and it's a game near and dear to my heart.

To be frank, I really liked Nate as a character, he felt so cool looking, and I kinda think that, as a kid, I sorta identified with him, or rather, I wanted to identify as him, because of how cool he was in the trailers and how cool he was in the game. I definitely had a lot more imagination back then than I do now. I guess you could say that I used to wish I could be Nate (which frankly given my current identity, feels like extremely ironic/hilarious foreshadowing in hindsight). This actually leads into my next point, and it's

one of my favorite games of all time. Would still be my #1 if it weren't for my changing tastes, and the fact that I generally don't replay a Pokemon game after I beat it; I just derp around in the postgame areas to my heart's content.

Hi, Rosa here. If you're reading this, then it's because this blogpost is very, very incomplete and im calling a raincheck for the holidays. I think tumblr lets me edit posts so I really hope I don't regret it

[rbbtrd]

I Love Healing

i wrote this when i was tryin to vent but i have no idea how to fuckin vent so instead i. tried to write out healings entire bg lmao a lot of brain stuff was goin on so it might not b. the best piece of literature uve ever read

some misc facts and other htings might b missing bc (points at how fucked my brain was and also how fuckin VAST healings character is and how much development he has)

//warnin theres kinda crass and sensitive language or whatever and there will b mentions of diff kinds of abuse in his story and other not good things under cut so my bad but i wasnt in a good state of mind and tryin to tag n warn u abt it all is skjncfdvav plus this was a vent post for me originally anyways lmao

//another warning lmao under the cut is a Wall Of Text there is a LOT of stuff under cut like 6000+ words so like. warned ya my pals

healing is my favorite fuckin oc and p much. why i fuckin stay alive sknfsef he means so so much to me and has so much meaning to me and is very very very very very very very important to me i fucking Love healing okay i project a lot (i.e All Of Myself) onto healing so he is p much almost quite literally me and vice versa but also not rlly??? its weird and complicated lmao i Love this man tho no one will ever love him more than i do i will fuckin Fight you hes so improtant to me

he is 57 yrs old, his birthday is march 17 but also dec 5th (its complicated) but mostly march 17, his favorite color is red not only bc im projecting but his first loves fav color was also red, he is 5″7 ft tall, hes very silly and kooky and tries his best to become happy and heal and learn and atone for what hes done and expereinced, he LOVES the sea and the ocean and anything relating them like the sea/ocean is very very very important to him for multiple reasons, also loves rabbits and goats and has 2 pet goats (i like to call em his service animals lol)

healing was born to both pure blood tiefling parents, his mother was a servant/slave that belonged on a ship and his father basically just knocked her up, he never met or knew anything about his father other than that he was a tiefling and misc stuff his mom/other servants had told him. his dad is mordecai ahkrah and hes chaotic evil and genuinely a very fucking awful person, his mom is ariarei kallies and is just?? kinda a chatoic neutral, maybe more of a lawful evil, but she has a very bad selfish personality and nasty. she holds no maternal feelings for healing and only sees him as a nuisance and only takes care of him (taking care of him means. The Bare Minimum. i.e- makin sure hes just Not Dead) bc she has to and kinda forcced to. healing does not see ariarei as his mother, but “as the woman who birthed me / brought me into this world” and stuff like that and therefore holds no feelings towards her like a child would w their mother, over the years, healing considers the ocean/sea as his mother more than ariarei and is more emotionally connected to the sea

 healings mom actually never named him, he was nameless/had no name up until the age of 27-28. both his mom and the owners of the ship and whoever hired him always only ever called him “boy”, “child”, “it”, “thing”, “errand boy”, “chore boy”, and names like that bc he never had a name and no one bothered to give him one. both his mom and the owners/ppl who hired him treated him very very poorly and did abuse him frequently in many different ways and manners (lmao projects myself onto my oc) so he has a lot of feelings and experiences w lots of kinds of traumas and abuse

he most specifically received a lot of physical abuse especially from ppl and verbal abuse, some but not too much emotional abuse, and also a handful of sexual abuse. at the time, he thought it was fine and normal and did not realized he was being abused bc “this is just how life is” bc he had literally. never heard of or experienced anything else other than a shit life.

he didnt rlly think anything of the poor treatment or the abuse bc this was all he ever knew, he grew up this way, so he thought it was normal and thought everyone didnt feel anything and if they did OF COURSE theyd b negative feelings, bc thats all u (healing at the time) r capable of feeling. he doesnt get out of this mentality until hes around 18-22

he receives a handful of scars and marks from his time as a servant, he got his first scar when he was a literal Baby bc he was cryin out and his ma got mad and upset abt and scratched his face thus resulting in his lip scar. when he was like 5-7 he met this other servant kid who had The Very Opposite mindset he had and was v bright and optimistic and he dragged healing along when he played and he broke smth and healing took the cover not bc he wanted to save this kid but bc it would be less troublesome bc then the current owner would only have to punish 1 child and the other kid was well liked on the ship unlike healing so then the morale of the servants wouldnt be affected. the owner beat him up p bad but it Wasnt Enough so he smashed healings face into the wooden boards so hard it Broke The Board and also broke his right horn, this also gave his scarring above his brow and stuff up to the broken horn. another prominent scar he has that holds memory to him is the scar on his chest above his heart, where he got that from a case where he was sexually abused and his abuser threatened to tear out his heart if he kept bein a brat. he has NO SCARS on his tail tho, but thats literally bc up until he was w morgan, he was just Lucky in not havin his tail injured. from the time he met morgan and beyond, he then started to actively protect his tail from harm and from ppl touchin it bc morgan said he rlly liked his tail and how it looked and how cool it was and from then on hes liek Oh

he constantly worked when he was of age to and started w small things and worked up to doin manual labor and other things, he only stayed w his mom up until the age of 11-12, after that they were separately sold to different ships and never saw eaqch other again. from that point on, he was switched around a few different ships and buyers, but was otherwise was still  just treated as cargo and property like he had been the past few years. 

the ship he was on at the age of 17 was stopped and liberated by a man named morgan wake (also can be written as morgain), a  human sailor captain (some kind of good, leanin on neutral or chaotic) who specializes in trade, cargo, and just transportation, but also will sell his abilities to fight/go into war or battle and liberates slave ships on his free time lol morgan becomes a Very Very Very important person to healing and is ESSENTIAL to shaping healing into who he is now. healing slowly falls in love with morgan over the years, but never tells morgan abt these feelins bc 1) he doesnt kno what the FUCk hes feelin lmao this boy has only experienced negative emotions and feelings up until he met morgan and 2) he thinks morgan will think hes weird or wrong or gross or smth. healing had absolutealy NO PLACE and NO ONE to go to after he was liberated so morgan saw this and was like Hey. You Should Come Work Under Me For MY Ship. morgan is a BIG BIG BIG guy on justice and equality and stuff for ALL PEOPLE and EVERYONE so this is also a reason why he let healing onto his ship of mostly humans and half-elves and halflings and also this part abt morgan rubs off on healing so healing also becomes a big guy on justice and equality and stuff

the ship morgan owns is a Lil prejudiced againt tieflings so they arent jumpin for joy when morgan makes healing his first mate at the age of 19 bc theyre. Gently Racist over tieflings but morgan kicks their ass and makes healing his first mate and right hand man anyways. at this point, healing is still nameless bc morgan tells him “i cant give you a name, a name is really important, its your identity and what makes you YOU, its ur soul and ur dreams and ur hopes, its YOU, you hear a name and u think of that person etc etc etc” and rlly cheesy stuff like that pertaining to names so morgan is Vehemently against naming healing and instead calls him “buddy”, “pal”, “friend”, “best friend”,  “first mate”, “mate”, and other various nicknames made over the years. he was very adamant on having healing name himself and refused to call him by a name that someone else gave him bc healing told him abt his mom and how he said that his mom wasnt rlly a mother in the first place

morgan knows Everything abt healing and healing w him vice versa bc when they first met and healing was still in his Uhm Nothing Matters Ill Tell You Everything mindset, he told morgan the story abt all his scars and what has happened to him up until that point and what people have done to him. morgan is truly very genuinely heartbroken over this?? bc healing was just Born into this world of shit and awful things that he didnt deserve and also the fact that healing just spoke of his abuse so freely and casually as if it meant nothing and didnt matter and healings view on his own life and life in general due to how he has lived so far and morgan makes it his personal mission to help healing grow out of this and start to become more Alive and less :| and :/ abt life 

morgan becomes very important for and to healing bc like. he literally taught healing Emotions and how amazing and happy and good life can be. morgan taught healing how to Be Alive and Want To Be Alive and how to Feel. before when he was a servant, he was literally just a Shell and genuinely thought life was Supposed to just be inherently shitty and ur suposed to always expereince bad htings and ALWAYS feel ONLY bad negative emotions and feelings.he thought that if he died, it wouldnt matter AT ALL bc he would easily b replaced by another servant and his life had literally no meaning and he genuinely thought he would die before the age of 20 and he was Okay with that he thought it was fine he thought it was okay to not expect to live past 20-25 and etc etc etc. 

when he saved healing, morgain was already quite old-ish?? he was 30 yrs old when healing (at the time, age 17) met him. healnig didnt rlly start to fall in love until around age 19 just some time b4 morgan made him first mate. over the years that healing is on morgans ship, he becomes who he is bc of morgan and  he learns things abt himself and who he is and builds himself bc of morgan and he becomes who healing is in these very moments that he spends with morgan and rightly falls in love because of it bc morgan Saved Him from so many things. morgan took an empty husk and shell of a man that had Began as empty and put smth in it. he had breathed life into an empty bag and made music, he had taken a broken branch and carved a nice ass figure. morgan took something with nothing and gave him Everything.  healing has such a strong connection and attachment to morgan yall cant even begin to understsand it. Runs So Deep in healing, this lov and feeling and attachment he has to morgan

morgan also rlly rlly rlly Rlly likes and appreciates healing and actually also loves healing in the same way, but doesnt tell healing for the same reasons why healing wont tell morgan. they spend the next 10 yrs basically unknowingly pining over each other bc theyre too fuckin afraid to tell each other bc they think the other is gonna b homophobic and its Awful. but also like. sailors back in the day were Rlly Gay so healing and morgan have had their fair share of mutual masturbation and Very Gay Activities w each other bu they were never in the context of romance or in a relationship beyond like. Rlly Rlly Good Best Friends lmao like sex friends but better??

bc healing. was never fuckin educated lmao he doesnt kno how to read or write. over the years he spends with morgan, he BARELY understand the alphabet tbh. he can like,,,,,, understand certain words but he doesnt recognize those words as words they register kinda like symbols in his head. numbers r even WORSE for healing lmao. like he understands map terms north, east, west, south, map, longitude/latitude, etc etc but he recognizes the words as like pictures or symbols in his head that relate to object or meaning or smth, kinda how u see a lil pic of a tree and u recognize it as a tree, thats him w words. healing was morgans first mate and co-captain for 10 years, he often went with morgan to negotiations and business meetings and trades and etc etc etc healing is VERY good w his words bc of this and is actually rlly smart and intelligent and wise. he just cant read or write lol. he has a +0 intelligence on his sheet but a +3 wisdom

healing lives the next 10 yrs of his life after being liberated at the age of 17 to 27 w morgan and his ship and his crew and hes enjoying himself and livin it to the fullest and hes happy and its so good and all is well, but also keep in mind that healing, through out all of these 10 yrs, has STILL not have a name for himself yet. BUT morgan HAS given healing a seashell necklace as well as his ear piercings. he wears these items everyday and they hold like. a lot of emotional important and support for him

but then morgan dies LMAO morgan dies at the age of 40 when healing is 27 and he dies from both sickness from old age (bc sailors back then. died p early skdjfnwsndv) and also from an injury wound he had gotten when in battle earlier that month. morgans death strikes his crew very harshly but without a doubt everyone on the ship agreed that healing was the MOST hurt and affected and shaken from morgans death. morgans last words and also his will states that he wanted healing to become the new captain of the ship. healing doesnt rlly become the new captain bc hes too busy mourning over his death for the next yr.

morgan and healing NEVER tell each other abt their feelings for one another, so morgan dies with this regret of never saying anything and healing lives with the regret of never saying anything before he died. this plays into how healing chose his name

after his mourning and grieving period he starts to slowly collect himself and in this period of time, this is where he finally chooses his name. he thinks abt how morgan was never able to call him by a proper name despite how important names were to morgan, so as hes starting to heal from his death, he picks his own name for himself. he debated on choosing his name as love, bc he loved morgan but never told him despite the fact that morgan quite literally taught him how to love. but he decides on the name healing bc he also thought abt how morgan said how he wanted to help healing start to mend and heal from all the trauma and abuse hes been through and healing sort of just shoved love into that process of healing, therefore That Is His Name Now. his name is now like. an important memoir of morgan as well as like. His Name. his name now holds a very hefty important weight and meaning to him now.

when morgan dies, he makes a lot of vows to himself like how hell never love someone again and how he would keep up morgans work and how he would keep morgans policy of justice and equality and how he would never treat people the way he was treated as a servant and how he would never hurt someone on purpose. after morgans death, he starts to like. hoard items he thinks morgan would have liked and then eventually this just turns from “hoarding for morgan” to “depression coping hoarding” and he just hoards things he thinks has some use or worth of value (which is like. Everything lmao so he never throws stuff away)

the ship crew are not All That Happy that healing is their new captain, but they really did intensely respect and appreciated morgan both as a captain and an individual so they abide by his will and last words and let healing be captain despite the fact that they thought hed b bad at it. but Surprise Surprise healing is actually rlly rlly good at being a captain bc he spent 10 yrs by morgans side and he knows how to do everything rlly well and the crew r kind of surprised and apologize for sterotypin him and for being so prejudiced and not trustin him and etc etc etc and healing is happy for another long while bc now he has like?? a family?? this crew was now his family and he loved everyone on this ship and they loved him?? he was Rlly Good at what he did bc he took over morgans work of trade and also liberating ships and sellin his time to fight for ppl and he was super close to his crew and they grew closer over the yrs and they give him a seashell bracelet similar to how morgan gave him the necklace and earrings so now healing has like. a physical object to associate his emotional relationship and feelings and shit to like he did for morgan w the necklace and earrings

but ofc knowin me its time to Fuck Him Over Again lmao over the yrs while hes in his 30s hes gets like. Rlly Rlly Rlly well known for his deeds and his work and actions so he gets super popular and he has. A Lotta Sex and is Very Well Known for sex and also his dick lol and also sometimes got into. not so hot relationships. at current time right now, age of 57, healing has 5 children he isnt aware of bc he left the other person before they even Knew they were pregnant. he was rlly good with not letting his partner get pregnant but accidents happen lmao sometimes he let the fame and popularity get to his head so he was kind of a Cocky Narcissistic Dick sometimes 

a total of 5 times during his 30s he got himself into. very bad toxic abusive manipulative relationships. these 5 people were all very similar in what they did to healing and how they did it to him. in each of these 5 cases, both healing and his crew reacted the same. when u hang out w manipulative bad ppl, u kinda become manipulative and bad urself, and thats what happened w healing and his crew. these 5 ppl preyed on the fact that healing was emotionally very weak and vulnerable to romantic affection and intimacy and how he had a Rlly Rlly Big Fear of losing people he loved or cared about. they made him care abt them and threatened to leave him if he didnt do what they wanted, as well as abuse him in other different manners physically, emotionally (BIG TIME emotional abuse), verbally, and mentally. during the itme he was in these relationships w these ppl, healing was very much not like his usual self, hes a chatoic neutral but when w theswe ppl he was like?? lawful evil?? true evil?? he became Rlly Bad and did Rlly Bad things that, now in current day time he regrets deeply and feels.

when he was in these relationships, they made him break a lot of the vows he took when morgan died or else theyd do smth to him or to themself ot to his crew or smth like that and it haunts him to this very day abt how he could have done those things to those people despite the fact that the same was done to him and how he NEVER wanted to do that to other people. it dredges bad things up in his memories and in his heart and he has nightmares abt both his traumas and abuse as well as the traumas and abuse hes made others go through.  these people hurt him very deeply in his 30s and scarred him emotionally and mentally more intensely than the people that mistreated him when he was a servant

his 30s was a. Rollercoaster tbh. he went thru very intense and frequent highs and lows bc the time when he was with these people they were his Very Very Low Lows and when he wasnt with them and just doing his job w his crew and livin life he was very happy and his life took on a Very Good High. as he got a lil older at the age of 37 he was doing good and it was a high during his lifetime and that point and when he was 37 he was actually on his ship hunting down a bandit/pirate ship bc someone had bought his ships and effort to help them track down this ship

he has a lot of adventures in his 30s and goes thru so many things and and thru so many situations and so many people and encountered just. A Lot Of Stuff in General. hes experienced probs like. 2 lifetime of experiences and shit by the age of 37 lmao but he wouldnt trade any of these experiences, good or bad, for ANYTHING in the world

but sadly (bc i love makin his life so full of angst) as hes chasing this ship, a Rlly Big Storm comes by and fuckin. WRECKS his ship. absolutely obliterates it. it catches fire and tons of his crew members r jumpin off and panicking and the ship is falling apart and hes so AAAAAAAAAAAAA rn. in the future, the imagery of a sunken or turned up or just in general not normal 100% functioning ship is very unsettling to him and triggers this rlly bad memory. also Rlly Rlly Rlly BIG BIG fires unsettle him very badly and makes him Extremely Uncomfortable but it doesnt rlly trigger this bad memory as much as broken ships do

healing is knocked from the ship and passed out and when he awakes hes on the shore with the remains of wood from his ship along the shore and he is. absolutely broken. he lost his Whole Family in one night and yet he was the one who didnt die?? he assumes everyone on his crew ship died (even tho some survived but he has yet to encounter them) and he was the only one who survived and at the moment he HATED this fact. he hated that he was left to live and he reverts back to his mindset that he had when he was younger how his life didnt matter and etc etc etc

hes also??????????? SUPER upset and heartbroken that the sea was the one who did this to him. the ocean, to which he was born and raised on (he has never lived on land in the past 37 yrs of his life, hes been on land and stayed overnight at inns or smth and stuff but hes never Lived anywhere on land and thinks houses r Weird bc hes lived on a boats and ships for 37 yrs kjefnvslefv), the ocean to which he considered his real mother, the ocean that granted him so much freedom from so much of the things that hes experienced, the ocean to which he was so deeply emotionally connected to and how much the sea had meant to him. he knows he cannot control the sea and accepts that the sea had sunken his ship but that doesnt mean hes not going to still feel sad and shitty abt it lol 

he Basically has a meltdown at this shore and cursin at how he should have been the one to die in this wreck and passes out bc. exhaustion and etc lmao. and then in comes Love Interest #2, noel, a neutral good wood elf monk who, just like morgan, is a very free spirit and very kind and reminds healing just enough of morgan to make his heart start to feel something again

noel sees this tieflin dude passed out on the beach and is like. Oh. Thats Not Good. and he goes to help him out and brings him back to his campsite to patch him up and heal his wounds and take care of him and nurture him back to health a bit until healing wakes up.

healing is like HWHA and is like uhhhh thnks but i gotta Go Now bc Yet Again in this mnoment he vows a bunch of other shit like how hell live a life of solitude and never involve himself w others bc he thinks of himself as a harbinger of bad things and chaos and doom and misfortune follows him and how everyone he loves or tells them abt his life/story dies

but noel is too friendly and caring to just Let Him Go and hes just rlly interested in healing just as an individual and just also wants a companion to travel w bc hes just like a wandering monk who weaves in and out of woods and forests and villages and stuff

fast forward- after a Lot of effort and A Lot of time and A Lot of trust and such, healing slowly Very Very Slowly opens up to noel about himself and his life and what hes gone though and all of the sort of bad and good things hes experienced and grows closer to him and they fall in llove with each other and its both mutual and healing is like “wow??? being in love is so nice?? this is such a good feeling?? i love noel and he loves me back and we can kiss and hug and do stuff and both of us know we are doing this out of mutual romantic attraction??????????” and this is like. A Brand New Feeling for healing bc his relationship and love for morgan was 100% unrequited

noel basically becomes healings teacher tbh since noel is a monk he teaches healing the way of bein a monk most specifically the way of the 4 elements. noel is a master of the way of the 4 elements, but is best w earth and air, healing has such a strong attachment to the water and a close relation with fire so hes naturally like. rlly good w those 2 lmao he catches on real quick despite the fact that. only noel is teaching him and neither of them belong to a temple or have a temple to go to lmao

as time goes on both healing and noel are like. kinda famous monks that travel through the land and are well known bc healing was already previously well known as a rlly rlly cool famous captain and now he kinda dropped off the face of the earth for like 5 yrs but now hes back w noel and he looks a lil diff now bc hes older and his hairs a lil longer but ppl are aware that hes healing

its all good and healing is enjoying life real nice rn and hes happy once again and hes in love with noel and noel is in love with healing and its so good and healing is traveling again but also like. up until he was 37 yrs old he was like livin at sea on a ship. so when he goes along w noel when they travel through the woods on land its kinda Weird for him bc hes like. Never Been On Land For This Long lmao

from the moment he was stranded on that beach to right now in his current time, healing ALWAYS has smth of the sea/ocean w him ALWAYS it is a must and he has to have it for multiple reasons and most of the reasons are for like. safety reasons?? theyre like his safety items it calms him down and soothes him in multiple ways like emotionally and mentally. he ALWAYS has at LEAST 1 (one) bottle or flask or SOMETHING filled w sea water he always has some sea water on him, he also just. collects a MASSIVE amount of shells and sea glass and any other things u could find on the beach or sea he always has some of this stuff on him for comfort and stuff

like with all of the deep and intimate and important and emotional relationships in his life, noel gives healing smth that he can attach noel to emotionally and etc etrc etc. noel gives healing tattoos that are like monk tattoos and symbolize what he does best on his back i.e fire and water and also a few like. just fun lil casual tattoos to make healing and himself happy like a boat and anchor on his wrist and stuff and healing is like Oh Gee Hope Nothing Bad Happens

but smth bad does happen lol. after 10 literal yrs (healing is now 47) theyre in the woods camping out and etc etc etc and its like the dead of night and theyre sleepin in their tents and its good and all but then some bandits or smth just pass by their site and decide “hey. lets fuckin loot this place and fuck shit up” and they do and engage in combat w noel and healing and its just a series of unfortunate events and bad luck and timing and long story short these bandits do lethal and fatal damage to noel but healing manages to fend em off and they go running and now healing is kneeling over the dying body of his lover

noel literally dies in healings arms and this event triggers all of his previous mental state and mindset from before abt how hes a harbinger of bad things and how everyone he loves does and he only brings misfortune and hes liike “y do the ppl around me die???? y cant *I* be the one to die for once??? wtf????” and he feels so many emotions and is so ANGRY at himself bc This Just Keeps happening and the people he loves just keep Getting Hurt and he cries and buries noel and makes a grave and does a lot of sentimental stuff and mourns and just stays where he is in the woods for like. weeks until his supplies runs out and he finally leaves the area of the forest hes in with a heavy… Everything slkdfnvsdkfs fvhesfdnviksfd hes RLLY intensely emotionally and mentally fucked now

he makes the same kinds of vows as before again plus some but now its even STRONGER. he Will Not EVER fall in love ever again, he will never tell anyone ANYTHING abt him thats not surface level info, he takes up his old vows like never hurt ppl on purpose and never treating him the way he was treated and how he will upkeep his code of justice and equality, and how he will NEVER EVER have any deep relationships and friendships and he will keep them very surface level and how he will keep everyone at like an arms distance and a half from him

and so he mourns over his lost loved ones and is just a fuckin angsty emotionally shut and locked up traveling tiefling monk and hes alone and just. travels bc he feels like if he stays in one place too long he might bring misfortune to the ppl around him and he just. BASICALLY keeps this up for ANOTHER 10 yrs dsfkjvnsenfvedv je travels around EVERYWHERE and the first few years he tried his best to avoid rlly thick wooded areas and the sea but eventually he grew and healed a bit more and allowed himself to get on boats again and go thru forests and woods

healing chose his name bc he wanted to heal and grown and change and become a better person and try his best to just be as happy as he could be and to atone for what hes done and just. try to get thru life at this point. and make sure he leaves people better than when he meets them and to make sure everyone he encounters have AT LEAST a Not Bad impression of him. so thats basically what his goal is after noel dies and he just travels on his own and in solitude and he nevers takes along a companion and is jsut by himself and quite literally isolates himself all the time. he keeps the people he talks to at an arm and a halfs distance, he never lets them know anything below surface level info abt him, he like?? basically puts on a front and all but he is still genuinely friendly and likes to talk to ppl he just. doesnt want them to know any like Substantial Info abt him or kno him beyond surface level and stuff

after some time tho he meets a man named elias aka MAN OF THE HOUR aka my datefriends oc and he jsut?? will NOT leave healing alone he just WILL NOT go away and he basically just. is forcibly at healings side as they travel and healing just CANNOT get rid of him and elias is just with him and hes trying to pry thru healings massive amounts of layers and walls and barriers and etc etc etc and ofc he does this respectfully hes not like. forcing his way into healings life and forcing healing to tell him abt his life he just. wants to kno more abt him and is very genuinely attracted to this man in many many ways 

healing realizes he cant force elias to go away and is just like (shrugs) ok w/e guess i cant get rid of u and tries to keep his walls and his front up but he just finds himself getting rlly comfortable w elias?? he finds his presence soothing and stuff bc hes been alone for the past previous yrs and now he has a companion again and its a rlly nice feeling and they grow a lil closer bit by bit over time

more time passes on and eventually, in the middle of a mental break/meltdown, healing just. Spills Everything to elias like. All Of His Life from the moment he was born until this current faction in time where hes sobbing into elias’ arm about his whole life and he feels kind of better and its okay for a while and he just passes out in elias’ arms but then he wakes up and has a panic attack and is like AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA I TOLD THIS MAN MY ENTIRE LIFE I HAVE TO LEAVE NOW OR HELL DIE I RLLY LIKE HIM THO I DONT WANT HIM TO DIE and he faces the facts that he 1) likes elias 2) is very internally and mentally fukt 3) is internally rlly fuckin secretive and tries to hide everythin abt himself and 4) is Dyin Real Bad for multiple reasons

elias tries to reassure healing and tries to tell him everything will be fine and he wont die and etc etc etc and stuff and from this point on forward healing and elias are much closer and continue to get closer until theyre basically in a relationship and its difficult tbh bc healing rlly wants to leave elias out of his fear but elias stays w him and its a long proccess and journey for healing to learn how to properly cope w all of the things hes felt and experienced and grow and heal and etc et ect

eventually fast forward in time, at the age of 57, healing is MARRIED to elias :’’) and they r in love and everything is okay and healing has and is continuing to learn how to accept what hes done and how to properly cope and deal w things and have less walls and barriers and be better and elias is one of his MOST important relationships to him, on par w morgan and noel, and its all good and happy and healing lives the rest of his life out w elias and dies happy and etc etc etc and its all just GREAT and also their shipname is heelies bc its funny lmao 

i left out a lotta details but fuckin. whatever lmao

anyways i love healing thnk u and good night

[isaacathom]

why the fuck all these sorcerers old maes of rothbarts, huh. and whythe fuck do they always turn her into a swan. like, ok, clavius or w/e the fuck from the second movie gets a pass because it was odettes idea (and, again, i love odette, so im all for it. and it was a good plan). zelda has no excuse. did she not know about this. why would you turn her into a BIRD. WHO CAN /FLY/. why not like... a fucking turtle or smth. slow as fuck. stck in a cave in a mountain. she cant do shit. or is it that odettes just got that swan magic shit stuck on her from rothbart so its just swans all the way down. since i GUESS zelda and clavius are both weaker than rothbart, which makes them weird villains actually. like why would i give a shit about rothbarts apprentice if the one time derek met rothbart he killed him after like, idk, a 5 minute fight? yea derek nearly died but thats an average sunday for him. thats how it is. shot him once he died. this isnt complex.

also on the revive thing. that was why i didnt like the third movie. if we say the first one is ‘good’ (certainly not a bad childrens film, obvs). the second movie does enough new that its not just a retread. odette turning into a swan by her own choice, despite the risks, and her saving derek, and her not dying (tho jean bob did, which i did not remember happening, but ok). and it showed a development in the relationship. and encouraged ol dere-boy to appreciate his wife and mother sometimes. thats good. happy for the guy.

then you cut to movie three and dereks just lying to his wife despite the fact she has VERY REASONABLE objections to keeping dark magic shit lying around, given that she straight up died because of it once. she’s in the right here. derek is noble, perhaps, but an absolute idiot. then odette gets captured again, fuck me, then she gets rescued, again, and then instantly gets fucking killed by a fireball. well i mean fuck i guess. then she comes back even though she defintiely straight up died. in movie 1 you can wiggle the timing of it, held her last breath outta the power of love or whatever, but swan!odette got struck by a fireball and woulda crashed into the ground below, fucking her Right up. she straight up dead. so what the fuck gives. how the fuck is she back? which bitch is magic here. did derek fucking call upon dark magic to revive his wife? i have questions. also its just boring.

ok whats movie 4. christmas? THEIR FIRST CHRISTMAS???? youre telling me that the first three movies take place over the span of less than a year??? and season wise, probably like.. 6 months, tops? what the fuck? jesus. that paints derek in a bad fucking light, i tell ya. fucks him right up. god dammit derek. ‘chest with an r on it’ where did it come from? who put it there? ubertas castle isnt the same castle as the one derek has, since derek’s used to be rothbarts. that was a plot point. if i was gonna find some soul box of rothbarts, itd be in rothbarts old castle. so... why is it in ubertas? is my question? ok.

rothbart did you learn NOTHING from the first movie. stop turning her into a fucking swan. you fucking idiot what the fuck. god dammit. oh, so finally derek dies? took em 4 movies and 20 years. there we go. and is revived by the sprit of chr- oh my god. ok lets not worry about the christmas movie. whats the next one.

ok so i guess the reason she keeps going swan is because shes the Swan Princess. as like, an entity. she didnt become it because of rothbart, she was always it, like, spiritually? prophetically? ok. fine. shouldnt a stopped rothbart clipping her wings or whatever. and she is straight up magic? alright. fair. i buy that. it explains a lot. and the dark arts just straight up try to set her on fire? hardcore. but then you kill some random peasants instead. thats awkward.

ok honestly i think i just flat out dont understand what the 5th movie is about beyond like, prophecies, scullions (the fuck is a scullion? squirrels? ok. also the surname of an australian senator, how bout that) and like.... some shit. dunno what the fucks up with that but ok. we’ll just uh. leave that one. at least i didnt have to imagine odette and derek fucking because given how old i was when i watched the first movie im not sure i ever want to think about that (naturally now i have to. oh boy)

‘scully in ghost form’ ok we’ve gone off the rails here, i think. more fucking ghosts. but like, ghost animals. one who everyone can see? which sort of renders his death in the last film a bit moot, if he sticks around anyway. at least in the original three, people got REVIVED by like, Love or something. poor scully doesnt even get that. just has to be a ghost instead. far out.

oh piss off lads theyre like 12. no romance for the 12 year olds please.

‘uberta, still in love’ didnt uberta and rodgers confess in movie 4 or something. or did we all just sort of not deal with that. its not like they died or anything to wipe their memories. so why wouldnt they still be in love, is what im saying. im confused by this statement. oh my bad i skimmed, she fell in love with some other idiot. alright uberta. go for it i Guess. he’s probably some dark mage but alright dont worry about it.

‘count antonios submarine’ his what? his What? no straight up, his what? they have SUBMARINES????? but??? what?????? ? someone more up to date on swan princess lore, how does he have a submarine????? the tech level has been like, solid pre-victorian before this, right. like medieval english shit. where the fuck did he get a SUBMARINE. A SUBMARINE. what the fuck. ? like i know that the ‘reboot’ or 3d movies are kinda weird for the canon just in general but ? a submarine??? lads.

‘now called prince lucas’ it has not been adequately explained to me why this is. are these wikipedia pages written by children? im very confused. why would he be a prince. alise i get, she was adopted, but lucas still has parents. yea he was given up for adoption at some point, but he’s fine now. so. yknow. ? pardon. wouldnt just giving him a title like Lord or smth make more sense, narratively. like the whole thing earlier was that he felt about his status difference with alise (despite alise being an ex-peasant too? but thats fair) so wouldnt like, giving him a lord title or smth fit that without making No fucking sense. is there some other kingdom now? that he a prince of? wikipedia i need answers.

ok i saw the cover for the 8th movie and what the Fuck did they do to derek. no. my man. what the fuck.

something about that face is viscerally distressing to me. they havent put him on a over since movie 5, probably matching his uh. completely fucking irrelevance. but Oof. keep him off the cover, maybe. what the fuck. im wounded. also the fact yuri lowenthal voices reboot derek still fucks me up even though i have never heard him in the role. as you can tell. by me reading the wikipedia descriptions of all movies post original trilogy. oof.

so, Z’s huh. is that right. Z’s. ok so, first, Zorro. second, there is literally a character whose name starts with Z already part of the canon, that being Zelda from the third movie. she’s dead as fuck, but the track record here prevents nothing.

‘ghost rope’ mhm. ‘glass is the only thing that can hold a ghost’ i cant tell if this contradicts the ghost box from movie 4 or not but i feel like it does. i feel like everything i was just told about ghost mechanics contradicts the 4th movie in some way. then again the fucking rothbart box is just a ??? where did that come from. who put that there. did the fucking forbidden arts manifest it. lads? the box confuses me, still, and its been like 15 minutes since i read that page anyway, at LEAST.

so, ghost rope. and the Z’s are N’s. oh ok. cool.

ok again, the submarine. why is there a submarine. i cant handle that.

ok so what ive learnt is that the first two movies are probably the most cohesive, and at the stretch the first four are probably a decent set. basically, the first movie is fine, and you can watch any up until 4 with it still basically making sense (bar the FUcking Ghost Box???? what the fuck). decently cohesive on plot alone. the 3d jump for movie 4 is good reason to cut it out, but if you dont give a shit then thats fine, right.

everything after 4 is just a ??? ok.

a fucking submarine, REALLY

[alienvirals]

Alien: Covenants Katherine Waterston: We live in hypersexualised yet totally prudish times

The actor following in the footsteps of Sigourney Weaver has been dubbed the new Ripley

Ripley, the indomitable action hero played by Sigourney Weaver in the Alien series, may have hung up her flamethrower for good, but the franchises latest prequel, Alien: Covenant, features a convincing replacement in the form of tough cookie Daniels, played by Katherine Waterston. The 37-year-old actor got her breakthrough role as the enigmatic Shasta Fay in Paul Thomas Andersons fuzzy comic thriller Inherent Vice and was last seen sporting a cloche hat and brandishing a wand as Tina in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

In person, she cuts a jaunty, unassuming figure. She saunters into the room in white trainers and navy trousers, red socks visible in the gap between them: a black tank-top partially conceals a white T-shirt. She is tomboyish and tall, like Ally Sheedy on stilts, so that when she folds her long legs under her chair, she looks exaggeratedly S-shaped. Dealing with the weight of expectation from Alien fans hasnt been too intense, she says, nibbling on a pain aux raisins. The way I looked at it with this and Fantastic Beasts was that it was like being recruited on to a sports team. Theres a devotion from these fans who are just excited for the next game. They arent sat there thinking: Youd better not let me down, Waterston!

Alien: Covenant trailer: Ridley Scott returns with sci-fi thriller

Rumours suggested that Daniels would be Ripleys mother and, whatever the truth, there are resemblances. Both are rational women transformed by circumstance into gun-toting warriors. Both are shown at some point in singlets, or clomping around in magnetic boots, and each has a problematic relationship with a synthetic colleague. The only shortfall comes in the area of the catchphrase, where Danielss multiple efforts (including I got you, you son-of-a-bitch and Lets kill this fucker!) are no match for Ripleys emphatic: Get away from her, you bitch!

Most strikingly, the first note Waterston has to play in the new film is outright panic when technical problems wake her prematurely from hypersleep. The second is grief. Its like slamming on the brakes before anyone has the chance to buckle their seat belts. I didnt know how I would play it or how I could get there, but thats always the most appealing thing to me. The insecurity is exciting. Maybe Im also curious about testing my ability. She widens her eyes. Seeing if its still there.

Although Daniels is treading in Ripleys footsteps, or, given that Covenant is set 20-odd years before Alien, forging the path that Ripley will follow, Waterston didnt talk to Weaver about the part. But the two women have a distant connection. When Waterston was starting out as an actor, she got her first lead role in a play at The Flea, a New York theatre co-founded by Weavers husband, Jim Simpson. Sigourney came to see it and said something like: You were good. Nothing extraordinary. But when someone like her says that, you hang on to it for years. When I got this job, I thought immediately of that moment.

Waterston is big on the idea of all actors as an extended clan, perhaps unsurprisingly for someone whose siblings are in the business, and whose father is Sam Waterston, the veteran from The Killing Fields, Crimes and Misdemeanors and the TV hit Law and Order. Her mother is the former model Lynn Louisa Woodruff. Acting is a community where you come in and out of each others lives. Im slightly envious of the golden age of Hollywood. It must have been frustrating to be owned by the studio, but it was also like being in a company, working with the same people, and that appeals to me.

Working On Alien: Covenant, she was reunited with Carmen Ejogo (Fantastic Beasts) and Michael Fassbender, with whom she shared some fraught scenes in Steve Jobs, as well as her old chum Billy Crudup. At one point during our conversation, she leaps up and yanks open the door in response to voices outside. Billy Crudup, will you shut the fuck up? she hollers down the hallway. Im trying to focus!

Crudup sidles into view. What you doing for dinner tonight, he purrs. You want to join us? Me and Danny McBride? You should be so lucky! What larks. Of course, its entirely possible that she could have put on a more vivid display of her need to cultivate actorly intimacy than bounding out of the room to accost a colleague. Possible, yes, but not likely.

She first saw Crudup when she was 15 in a Broadway production of Tom Stoppards Arcadia, which she now credits with confirming in her mind her acting ambitions. It was the thing that clicked me over to that next level of curiosity. Clicked? You know when youre going up at the start of the rollercoaster and its going click-click-click towards the summit? Id had the initial idea of wanting to act but I didnt know how I could do it.

Even though her dad is an actor? I know! Isnt that weird? On a rollercoaster, theres an inevitability about whats going to happen next.

Did acting feel that way? Yes. Even though I wasnt sure how it would come about, I knew it would.

Determined to distinguish herself from her family, she eschewed performing as a teenager. Didnt appear in so much as a school play. Photography was her bag. I loved the darkroom. Its a good place for an angsty teenager. Her favourite picture is one she took while visiting her father on location in Dublin. Its of this drunk gambler at the racetrack, totally loaded, who had climbed into a tree to get a better view of the horses. She smiles sadly. I cant imagine having the guts to do that now. I wonder sometimes if Ive got in the habit of only being courageous when someone else has written the words I have to say.

Inherent Vice trailer: watch Joaquin Phoenix in the first look at Paul Thomas Andersons Thomas Pynchon adaptation

No one who gave the sort of performance that Waterston did in Inherent Vice should be in any hurry to sell herself short. Shasta Fay appears in only a couple of scenes but her presence permeates the film; she is the personification of its riddles. Attention at the time focused disproportionately on one scene in which Waterston lies naked across the lap of her ex-lover, played by Joaquin Phoenix, and invites him to spank her. One journalist asked if Joaquin left red marks on my butt, she recalls incredulously. I wish Id said: I dont remember but Ill tell you what bend over and Ill spank you as hard as I can and well see what happens.

We live in such hypersexualised yet totally prudish times. People have this expectation about everyone elses relationship to their own bodies. Surely you must have shame about your body? Surely whats scariest for you as actor would be to stand in a room naked? Believe me, Ive been in so many more terrifying situations as a performer than that. This was working with people I trusted in a scene that was rich and complex and there was so much to do there that I hardly even thought about that thing that seems to be all everyone could talk about. Theyre just hoping Ill say: Oh, I was so scared that day and then I drank a few shots of whisky and I felt better. She gives a mighty roll of the eyes.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them trailer: Eddie Redmayne in Harry Potter spinoff video

After Inherent Vice wrapped, she was convinced she would become known as the first actor to be bad in an Anderson movie. That period between finishing the film and opening night is agonising. Thats part of why actors go from job to job so they dont have to live with the anxiety in the interim.

As if to prove that, she has already shot another three pictures since Alien: Covenant, including Steven Soderberghs Logan Lucky opposite Channing Tatum, and is about to start Fantastic Beasts 2.

Having likened acting to a sports team and a rollercoaster, she saves her most conflicted analogy for last. Ive heard this is how cults brainwash people, she says. You wake up and you go to conferences that go on all day and then youre so exhausted that you sleep, and then you get up and do it again the next day. Thats what its like making movies. Youre up before dawn, you collapse at night and then you do it all over again until theres no room for anything else in your brain.

Alien: Covenant is released in Australia today, in the UK on 12 May, and the US on 19 May.

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us

The post Alien: Covenants Katherine Waterston: We live in hypersexualised yet totally prudish times appeared first on AlienVirals.com - Latest Alien & UFO News.

from AlienVirals.com – Latest Alien & UFO News http://www.alienvirals.com/alien-covenants-katherine-waterston-we-live-in-hypersexualised-yet-totally-prudish-times-2/

[alienvirals]

Alien: Covenants Katherine Waterston: We live in hypersexualised yet totally prudish times

The actor following in the footsteps of Sigourney Weaver has been dubbed the new Ripley

Ripley, the indomitable action hero played by Sigourney Weaver in the Alien series, may have hung up her flamethrower for good, but the franchises latest prequel, Alien: Covenant, features a convincing replacement in the form of tough cookie Daniels, played by Katherine Waterston. The 37-year-old actor got her breakthrough role as the enigmatic Shasta Fay in Paul Thomas Andersons fuzzy comic thriller Inherent Vice and was last seen sporting a cloche hat and brandishing a wand as Tina in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

In person, she cuts a jaunty, unassuming figure. She saunters into the room in white trainers and navy trousers, red socks visible in the gap between them: a black tank-top partially conceals a white T-shirt. She is tomboyish and tall, like Ally Sheedy on stilts, so that when she folds her long legs under her chair, she looks exaggeratedly S-shaped. Dealing with the weight of expectation from Alien fans hasnt been too intense, she says, nibbling on a pain aux raisins. The way I looked at it with this and Fantastic Beasts was that it was like being recruited on to a sports team. Theres a devotion from these fans who are just excited for the next game. They arent sat there thinking: Youd better not let me down, Waterston!

Alien: Covenant trailer: Ridley Scott returns with sci-fi thriller

Rumours suggested that Daniels would be Ripleys mother and, whatever the truth, there are resemblances. Both are rational women transformed by circumstance into gun-toting warriors. Both are shown at some point in singlets, or clomping around in magnetic boots, and each has a problematic relationship with a synthetic colleague. The only shortfall comes in the area of the catchphrase, where Danielss multiple efforts (including I got you, you son-of-a-bitch and Lets kill this fucker!) are no match for Ripleys emphatic: Get away from her, you bitch!

Most strikingly, the first note Waterston has to play in the new film is outright panic when technical problems wake her prematurely from hypersleep. The second is grief. Its like slamming on the brakes before anyone has the chance to buckle their seat belts. I didnt know how I would play it or how I could get there, but thats always the most appealing thing to me. The insecurity is exciting. Maybe Im also curious about testing my ability. She widens her eyes. Seeing if its still there.

Although Daniels is treading in Ripleys footsteps, or, given that Covenant is set 20-odd years before Alien, forging the path that Ripley will follow, Waterston didnt talk to Weaver about the part. But the two women have a distant connection. When Waterston was starting out as an actor, she got her first lead role in a play at The Flea, a New York theatre co-founded by Weavers husband, Jim Simpson. Sigourney came to see it and said something like: You were good. Nothing extraordinary. But when someone like her says that, you hang on to it for years. When I got this job, I thought immediately of that moment.

Waterston is big on the idea of all actors as an extended clan, perhaps unsurprisingly for someone whose siblings are in the business, and whose father is Sam Waterston, the veteran from The Killing Fields, Crimes and Misdemeanors and the TV hit Law and Order. Her mother is the former model Lynn Louisa Woodruff. Acting is a community where you come in and out of each others lives. Im slightly envious of the golden age of Hollywood. It must have been frustrating to be owned by the studio, but it was also like being in a company, working with the same people, and that appeals to me.

Working On Alien: Covenant, she was reunited with Carmen Ejogo (Fantastic Beasts) and Michael Fassbender, with whom she shared some fraught scenes in Steve Jobs, as well as her old chum Billy Crudup. At one point during our conversation, she leaps up and yanks open the door in response to voices outside. Billy Crudup, will you shut the fuck up? she hollers down the hallway. Im trying to focus!

Crudup sidles into view. What you doing for dinner tonight, he purrs. You want to join us? Me and Danny McBride? You should be so lucky! What larks. Of course, its entirely possible that she could have put on a more vivid display of her need to cultivate actorly intimacy than bounding out of the room to accost a colleague. Possible, yes, but not likely.

She first saw Crudup when she was 15 in a Broadway production of Tom Stoppards Arcadia, which she now credits with confirming in her mind her acting ambitions. It was the thing that clicked me over to that next level of curiosity. Clicked? You know when youre going up at the start of the rollercoaster and its going click-click-click towards the summit? Id had the initial idea of wanting to act but I didnt know how I could do it.

Even though her dad is an actor? I know! Isnt that weird? On a rollercoaster, theres an inevitability about whats going to happen next.

Did acting feel that way? Yes. Even though I wasnt sure how it would come about, I knew it would.

Determined to distinguish herself from her family, she eschewed performing as a teenager. Didnt appear in so much as a school play. Photography was her bag. I loved the darkroom. Its a good place for an angsty teenager. Her favourite picture is one she took while visiting her father on location in Dublin. Its of this drunk gambler at the racetrack, totally loaded, who had climbed into a tree to get a better view of the horses. She smiles sadly. I cant imagine having the guts to do that now. I wonder sometimes if Ive got in the habit of only being courageous when someone else has written the words I have to say.

Inherent Vice trailer: watch Joaquin Phoenix in the first look at Paul Thomas Andersons Thomas Pynchon adaptation

No one who gave the sort of performance that Waterston did in Inherent Vice should be in any hurry to sell herself short. Shasta Fay appears in only a couple of scenes but her presence permeates the film; she is the personification of its riddles. Attention at the time focused disproportionately on one scene in which Waterston lies naked across the lap of her ex-lover, played by Joaquin Phoenix, and invites him to spank her. One journalist asked if Joaquin left red marks on my butt, she recalls incredulously. I wish Id said: I dont remember but Ill tell you what bend over and Ill spank you as hard as I can and well see what happens.

We live in such hypersexualised yet totally prudish times. People have this expectation about everyone elses relationship to their own bodies. Surely you must have shame about your body? Surely whats scariest for you as actor would be to stand in a room naked? Believe me, Ive been in so many more terrifying situations as a performer than that. This was working with people I trusted in a scene that was rich and complex and there was so much to do there that I hardly even thought about that thing that seems to be all everyone could talk about. Theyre just hoping Ill say: Oh, I was so scared that day and then I drank a few shots of whisky and I felt better. She gives a mighty roll of the eyes.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them trailer: Eddie Redmayne in Harry Potter spinoff video

After Inherent Vice wrapped, she was convinced she would become known as the first actor to be bad in an Anderson movie. That period between finishing the film and opening night is agonising. Thats part of why actors go from job to job so they dont have to live with the anxiety in the interim.

As if to prove that, she has already shot another three pictures since Alien: Covenant, including Steven Soderberghs Logan Lucky opposite Channing Tatum, and is about to start Fantastic Beasts 2.

Having likened acting to a sports team and a rollercoaster, she saves her most conflicted analogy for last. Ive heard this is how cults brainwash people, she says. You wake up and you go to conferences that go on all day and then youre so exhausted that you sleep, and then you get up and do it again the next day. Thats what its like making movies. Youre up before dawn, you collapse at night and then you do it all over again until theres no room for anything else in your brain.

Alien: Covenant is released in Australia today, in the UK on 12 May, and the US on 19 May.

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us

The post Alien: Covenants Katherine Waterston: We live in hypersexualised yet totally prudish times appeared first on AlienVirals.com - Latest Alien & UFO News.

from AlienVirals.com – Latest Alien & UFO News http://www.alienvirals.com/alien-covenants-katherine-waterston-we-live-in-hypersexualised-yet-totally-prudish-times/