#my first interaction with a great fairy was getting dragged into the depths and having no idea what the fuck was happening and it shows

[captain-krow-drozdov]

Your Standard Linked Universe The Chain Meets Wild Fic, But! The Chain Recently Got Teleported To Botw Hyrule, And They're All Still Pretty Disoriented To Be Fair, But They're Like 90% Sure That They Just Watched A Great Fairy Snatch A Kid Up Like A Ragdoll And Drag Them Into The Fairy Fountain...

[jxsterr]

In that Depths post, you mentioned Link taking Zelda to Cotera to max out her gear. I feel like the Great Fairies are a little mini adventure for Zelink. Zelda's curiosity, Link's protective instincts and war flashbacks, plus my theory about how their magic works (acts of affection only) and I can't help but wonder how Zelink's initial and subsequent interactions with Great Fairies go. Do you have enough thoughts on that to put into a post?

WAIT UR SO RIGHT i hadnt even thought that much about how the great fairies worked until you mentioned it omgg

see the one thing thats up for debate is if zelda had ever interacted with the great fairies between botw and totk, i’d probably say she hasnt?? cuz it seems like the number of monsters we see in the games is Unusual so technically there wouldn’t be much need for her stuff to be upgraded, plus she literally has a guard dog LMAO

but i could imagine it being SUCH an emotional rollercoaster for zelda, we all know damn well she’s been starved of affection. i hope ive done this thought justice HAHA

- zelda is 100% spending the first 5 minutes there taking photos from every angle and link just has to stand there and wait while she’s like “i just need one more!!” (she’s said that 5 times now)

- i like to think that they’d be able to find things like fairies and blupees near the great fairies

- a further 10 minutes is spent with zelda on her hands and knees, purah pad in hands, trying to sneak close enough to a blupee to get a clear photo

- same thing with the fairies. she tries to catch one for science but fails miserably

- link catches one for her and she spends another minute just turning the jar in her hands. he can quite literally see the stars in her eyes

- “do you suppose we have a jar big enough to make a terrarium?” “i think so.” “hmm.. although, that may raise some concerns over fairy ethics..”

- totk has already shown us zelda has a thirst for keeping any funky creature she finds

- link waves and greets cotera nonchalantly. zelda can’t help but stare, wide-eyed and absolutely encapsulated by her beauty

- “my, and who’s this little wildflower you’ve brought along with you?”

- she’s surprised at how easily cotera’s flirty remarks wash over link. the most he ever does is smile

- it’s zelda’s turn to endure the incessant cooing of the great fairies. she’s bright red and struggles to reply without stammering

- link watches her with a grin and even laughs when she stutters enough that she’s incomprehensible

- she swats at his arm, it only makes him giggle more

- link explains what happens at each upgrade to save throwing her in blindly. zelda’s a little hesitant but he reassures her and the encouragement from him fills her with courage

- she handles the first upgrade easily. she’s grinning and relishes in the sparkles that linger around her

- link’s too busy admiring how pretty she looks when she’s given a confidence boost

- cotera’s looking at him knowingly but keeps her words to herself

- the second upgrade flusters her but she’s giggling

- “not to brag, princess, but my magic has worked wonders on you. you look wonderful!” “oh! you needn’t say such lovely things, cotera, really..”

- link’s already grinning before the third upgrade. zelda somehow doesn’t feel comforted

- cotera decides to show a little bit of mercy given how obvious it is that zelda has very little experience w affection so she kisses her head instead. it still stuns her

- link’s stepping back before the final upgrade. zelda has enough time to make a noise of surprise before she’s been scooped up and dragged to the very depths of the fountain

- link’s laughing when he helps steady her once she’s put back down. she feels positively ready to burst from all this affection. she’s still speechless

- he spends time talking to cotera about their plans to traverse the depths while zelda recovers

- link finds himself asking if cotera’s sure being fully upgraded will keep her safe and for a moment a look of understanding washes over her

- she’s seen firsthand the stages of grief trying to find the princess again put him through. she’d seen the exhaustion in his eyes, repairing some of his clothes as she upgraded them from all the battles he’d endured in his search for her

- zelda’s touched by his worry, but also equally worried about his own wellbeing. being so anxious about her couldnt be good for him. she felt guilty sometimes

- “thank you so much for your blessings, cotera. you have been very kind.” “with a face like yours, princess, i should be thanking you.” “oh..!”

- cotera asks to speak with link alone for a bit and zelda obliges, busying herself with making notes on the whole experience

- “link, please tell me you’ve been looking after yourself?” “it’s.. a work in progress.” “please, find time for yourself to heal. even if that time is while you’re next to her, don’t lose yourself to what plagues you.” “mm..”

- zelda leaves feeling like it’s not only her clothes that have been upgraded but her confidence too. link wishes he had the courage to continue where cotera left off

- both of them feel as though theyve just witnessed some personal growth from zelda, link makes sure to tell her that confidence is a good look on her

- his compliment has by far the biggest impact on her

[aranarumei]

your fairy tail posts got me into it, so I gotta ask: favorite ships?

um. my condolences? well i'm joking—despite my critiques of it i still love the thing dearly and am extremely fond of a lot of the characters. I hope you’ve had fun with it too! as for ships... my tastes have changed over the years while also not? i've become really into like. friendships lately, yknow, or things where the dynamic between the two is more important than it being strictly platonic of romantic. so I would say i'm open to a lot of them. as for the ones i tend to go for, they tend to be like. super conventional. whatever i was into years ago, but now i just have a lot of extra headcanons about it. the thing for me is that a lot of the "big" fairy tail ships have like. really good setup, and shoddy execution. also this got long bc I rambled. sorry

i like natsu & lucy because i want them to be best friends and sometimes being best friends is a romance as well... and that starts out really strong in canon until it gets dragged on into just. bad fanservice. like i dont need natsu to see lucy when she's naked. i want them to have an emotional conversation or just work together as a team.

i like gray & juvia a lot, which i know is contentious, but i think they have a genuinely great setup (juvia's someone who's got wild ideas about love, and immediately falls for this guy, who's not into her at all but is also just a better person than any romantic attachments she's had before, and then she's figuring out herself and her place in fairy tail over time. the first two big juvia moments the show has after her fight is when she does a unison raid with lucy and when she refuses to fight cana. her initial feelings towards gray are also... quite shy? like she definitely does follow him around a bit but i think half of that is bc she wants to join fairy tail) and then it just doesn’t resolve well (over time she gets more pushy in a way that reads as jokey but is also uncomfortable, and her character kind of stops being about anything but gray) I’d love to see a version of gray & juvia where gray’s non-interest in her is actually beneficial for her, because she’s not rushing into something with high, perhaps fragile emotions, and she gets to grow as someone outside of gray, and juvia’s protectiveness of gray is done in a way where she’s not pushing him to like her, but rather protecting him just because that’s what someone who loves him would do. this is great for juvia, and also great for gray, who probably could use having someone to check in on him every once in a while. bring them into being seriously friends without pushing romance, and then we could maybe try a romance. it would be slow burn as hell. it would be delightful and entirely to my taste. I have so many wips abt this.

related to that, I like juvia a lot so gajeel & juvia’s relationship as well as lucy & juvia’s relationship is really fun to me. gajeel and juvia especially I would loveeee to dive into their friendship. I think they have a shared experience in phantom lord but also weren’t friends at the time and had a lot of different things going on, so it’s neat that they are still like. looking out for each other because of that past.

jellal & erza have great setup, it’s amazing drama and I think it just. works. completely. after the 7-year timeskip I think it loses some steam, and then it never really recovers in terms of having a sense of weight and depth. I am nonetheless fond of it.

what else… I am really into sting/rogue, I’ve got a fic for that one, and I like freed/laxus a lot, too. I’ll be the first to admit that in canon, freed & laxus don’t have that many meaningful interactions (freed is obsessed with him in a sort of like. comical unrequited crush way bc haha, gay people) and laxus cares for everyone in the raijinshuu pretty equally it feels. However. the initial arc? the fantasia arc? I think the raijinshuu are at their best there, and I wish they had gotten developed into smthing more interesting. once again I have a lot of headcanons.

i think gajeel & levy probably has the smoothest execution of any relationship, but kind of wish levy's character had a bit... More to her? like she's very smart but lucy also tends to do a lot of the smart stuff, and she knows runes but freed is clearly the runes guy, and i just wish we could've gotten more than that? I’ve been messing around with headcanons relating to her recently…

that’s the thing with a lot of fairy tail ships. I think a lot of the character relationships have really interesting ways of looking at them bc there’s just so many characters I like. like I think gray & erza’s relationship is really neat. I wish we’d gotten to see more of gray & cana as friends… it’s so cool that gray & loke are friends to the point that he’s the guy he picks for S-class trials… I like lucy & loke’s relationship a lot (like, the fact he joins gray for those trials is a display of how free he is even while she has his key, and also the loke mini-arc is one of my all time favs). I love the deal with the whole strauss siblings and would’ve been interested in seeing freed & mira interact some more. I don’t really care about it in canon but I think elfman & evergreen is actually a really interesting setup, since they’ve both got this sense of… vanity about them? (evergreen wants to be titania, queen of the fairies, and elfman valorizes manliness. there’s interesting places to take that!). raijinshuu friendship, I’m really into that, like, laxus feels like such a Solo guy and yet he willingly carts around a team with him, and also everyone in that team have kind of freaky eye powers, as far as I can tell. what’s that about. did u upturn your nose at fairy tail’s misfit guild while hanging with a misfit crew? it's a team that characterizes laxus well… I know he’s technically not Part of the raijinshuu team but Cmon he literally is.

all that to say. you could probably sell me on a lot of ships. but natsu/lucy, gray/juvia, sting/rogue, and freed/laxus are probablyyyy the ones I think about most and actively write for (and don’t publish LOL. I need to actually finish one of these things, but the issue is I’ve built so many headcanons I feel weird abt it sometimes. I would loveeee to talk abt them sometime tho)

but even saying that, a lot of the stuff I write reads very ambiguously platonic, so like. if I got sold on something, I’d probably get into it.

anyways anon ty for the question! i love chatting

[ofdetonation]

wishlist of things i’d love to do someday:

katsuki and endeavor just. talking. about endeavor’s younger years, about his training during the agency arc, etc. he doesn’t exactly like endeavor but he respects him and any advice he gives as a mentor.

katsuki and ALL MIGHT. they talk about izuku in canon and all might often watches them spar between one another, but i just want more interactions focusing on the two of them specifically. build on that lowkey regret that katsuki never took the chance to ask all might for his signature on his card.

ok honestly any interactions with the teachers / pro heroes.

any of class 1a finding out about katsuki’s recurrent nightmares that only get worse post-war, but they find out indirectly because katsuki refuses to talk about them + show weakness. by extension, i think anyone from 1b learning about this would be plausible too!

to extend on the previous point, katsuki learning how his classmates are dealing with the knowledge he died and came back. hard to forget when he has a scar to show for it + some of them saw it, and it’s likely the business course caught the moment on camera while documenting. i wonder just how many people find out about how he died… and how many more found out how he came back.

actually i have to mention this one too: katsuki and aizawa. my main thought is aizawa helping katsuki through his survivor’s guilt (working on the assumption that aizawa has a similar experience with shirakumo, and katsuki is dealing with all might’s retirement + edgeshot later on)… but anything with aizawa being a decent role model will make me happy.

bakusquad shenanigans. i don’t care what they are because katsuki probably got dragged into them anyway, but i think it’d be fun.

big three interactions inside and outside of ua. i feel like post-war, katsuki has unending respect for the big three considering they were all there at the floating ua and did everything to help. i just wanna see them talk more.

generalisation, could apply to anything: katsuki getting ANGRY. he’s in a perpetual state of annoyance for the most part (when i write him at least), and sometimes it escalates to different degrees of frustration depending on the interaction, but i would like to write when he gets genuinely pissed off more… he tends to dig his heels and bare his teeth, and refuses to budge even when he knows the other person might actually be right.

give him more reasons to smile and laugh. i love his stupid dorky laugh from the mr smiley ova, come on.

i’m usually nervous about tackling anything pre-ua, but i also wanna write more young bkg shenanigans. as in, baby. (not too sure about middle school yet.) i also know he hasn’t met anyone from ua besides izuku when they were super young, but shh. i don’t care. gimme.

ON THAT THOUGHT: any of katsuki’s friends (they’re his friends whether he likes it or not lbr) meeting mitsuki and masaru for the first time. they kind of float around as guest appearances on here sometimes, and i have a very specific dynamic in mind when it comes to the bakugou household, n while i don’t think katsuki often brings people home… when he does, i’m inclined to believe mitsuki and masaru really like his friends. (bring them around more often, katsuki!)

pro hero moments with team-ups. angsty, goofy, i don’t care, gimme. have fun (and good luck) with great explosion murder god dynamight.

i’m also terrible and know very little about a lot of anime (the only ones i could accurately delve into are fairy tail and of course bnha, why tf would i be here otherwise), and i haven’t even seen pretty much any of the big names bc i’m a sham, but !! even if i don’t know the depths of where your muse is from, i’d love to have a chance to have crossover interactions. katsuki is a little bastard. he will likely throw hands though (and for so many cases he will lose so hilariously bad, rip his confidence).

[animebw]

Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Series Reflection

Sometimes, I find it funny when people talk about not getting into this or that franchise because they’re too intimidated by its size. Yes, sitting down to watch hundreds of episodes or tons of interconnected movies is a pretty big commitment, but what matters most is whether you end up liking it enough to stick with it to the end. If I, say started watching Fairy Tail, gave it 20 episodes or so, and decided it wasn’t for me, I could drop it right there and more on without giving it a second thought. And if I ended up liking it? Well, that means I’d have over 300 episodes and plenty of side stories of something I liked to look forward to. The risk/reward ratio of giving a big franchise a shot is so weighted in reward’s favor, it almost seems silly to shrink away from it. If I was scared of starting long-running series, I never would have discovered Hunter x Hunter, One Piece, Monogatari, Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, Cardcaptor Sakura, Fate/Stay Night, and, of course, Gintama. I would have missed out on some of the best that anime has to offer, all because they had episode counts over 50. Some of the greatest stories need that kind of scope to be as good as they are; as long as you’re willing to meet them on their level, you’ve got nothing to be scared of.

That said, if there’s one series where I do understand why people are so intimidated by it, it’s Legend of the Galactic Heroes.

That’s not to say that this show is the longest or most complex anime I’ve watched; far from it, in fact. Gintama’s first season alone is almost double its length and contains even more plot-essential named characters. Legend of the Galactic Heroes is definitely big, but it’s not size that makes it so imposing from the outside. It’s weight. This show is cast as the pinnacle of anime, an epic of such depth and importance that watching it will ruin you for all other anime. It’s presented as not just an exceptionally well-told realistic space opera war drama, but as the peak of what storytelling can accomplish, with a level of maturity, intellectualism, and philosophical power that your everyday plebian Chinese cartoons can only dream of measuring up to. More than any other anime, with the possible exception of Evangelion, LOTGH’s reputation puts it on such a high pedestal that engaging with it at all takes on an almost divine significance. And frankly, that's not to its benefit. I’m certain there are plenty of people who want to watch this show, and will enjoy it if they do, but turn away with the sense that it’s just too Herculean a task. I know I dragged my heels on checking it out for precisely that reason. We should be encouraging more people to watch it, not scaring them off by making it seem like the simple act of checking out a long-form complex war story is some kind of grand endeavor.

Perhaps I’m exaggerating a bit for effect here, but can you blame me? Lest we forget, this show is explicitly about the need to deconstruct and overcome delusions of grandeur that lead people astray. It’s ironic that its fanbase seems to have taken the opposite message to heart and builds it up as the most grandiose thing ever. But Legend of the Galactic Heroes isn’t good because it’s huge and imposing and a superhuman storytelling feat. It’s good because, well, it’s good. It’s got a huge, evolving world that goes through many significant changes over the course of its narrative, characters who grow and die and affect the course of events even after they’re gone. It’s got fantastic battle animation and a great sense of tactics and environment that makes every skirmish, on land and in the stars, a truly thrilling affair. It’s quite possibly the most politically savvy anime out there, accurately portraying how different kinds of societies and structures rise, fall, interact, evolve, influence and are influenced by the people caught within them. It understands the importance not just of the figures remembered by history, but the everyday citizens caught in the middle of their grand designs, just struggling to get by. This show gets humanity on a grand scale in a way that few pieces of fiction even come close to, and it imparts that knowledge to its audience with relentless clarity even in its slowest moments. Those are all perfectly understandable selling points that don’t need to be gussied up with grandstanding for someone to get why LOTGH is worth their time. That kind of hagiography only makes it harder to talk about what actually makes it good... as well as the areas where it falls short.

Because make no mistake, despite the hagiography surrounding it, this show has many flaws. It’s incredibly dry and slow-moving, an intentional aesthetic choice that nevertheless makes it difficult to emotionally engage with at times. It sometimes slips into outright melodrama, breaking the realism of its world with groan-inducing contrivances and half-baked romantic subplots. It spends so much time using its characters to talk politics at you that many of them don’t really get the chance to come off as, well, characters. I can talk about the complexities of important players like Yang, Reinhard, Julian, and Oberstein until I’m blue in the face, but go just a couple rungs down into the supporting cast and suddenly there’s a lot less recognizable humanity to latch onto. And this sadly goes double for the women; every single important female character is made to play second fiddle to the man in their life, whether romantically or as a family member. For a show as forward thinking as this one, it sure doesn’t walk the walk nearly as well as it talks the talk. I feel like some fans give these flaws a pass because it presents itself as more serious and adult, a Serious War Drama for Serious People that you must take Very Seriously. But just because it so perfectly nails the aesthetic of hard, politically minded sci-fi doesn’t mean it’s more valuable than other, more fantastical war stories. I’ll take FMA Brotherhood and Attack on Titan over this any day.

And yet.

For all I could criticize and nitpick and complain about, Legend of the Galactic Heroes is good. Maybe not perfect, maybe not as flawless as some would like to believe, but god damn if it isn’t impressive to behold. The sheer depth of its narrative, the breadth and complexity of its political themes, the way it pulls apart so many aspects of history, culture, psychology, society, and what lessons we can learn from those who have come before us... I’ve never seen another show or movie that so perfectly nails that sense of history unfolding in front of you. It feels less like a traditional show and more like a fictional social studies lesson, at limes even literally so. It’s a treatise on a fake universe that seeks to impart helpful, meaningful wisdom to apply to our own universe and where it should go from here. It asks you to think about how to keep democracy’s flame alive and resist the allure of autocracy, how to stay a good man in a world slipping into darkness, how to balance a just cause against the sacrifices necessary to support it. It doesn’t offer any easy answers, but it gives you the tools to start working towards those answers yourself, one difficult step at a time. It’s easy to understand why this show’s reputation has become so outsized, despite how much I lambasted it earlier. It’s the kind of story that genuinely makes you smarter by the end, more aware of the interconnected pieces of humanity’s evolution on a grand scale and your own place in the broad sweep of history. And any show that can accomplish that is well worth celebrating.

Legend of the Galactic Heroes certainly won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. It’s very slow, very dry, and very stuffy, and if you don’t have the patience for hours of people standing around and talking about political philosophy, you will be bored to tears. But if you have the patience to let it sink its claws into you, then I can’t recommend it highly enough. I may respect it more than I like it at times, but I know I won’t find anything else like it anytime soon. So at the end of the day, I give it a score of:

7/10

And with that, we really have reached the end. Thank you all for joining me for the last show of my binge-watching career. If you’ve enjoyed my analysis and want more of me once I’m semi-retired, be sure to ask for an invite to my Discord where you can hang out and chat with me and a bunch of fellow anime fans. And I hope you’ll stick around for the final stretch before I bid this blog goodbye. See you all next time for the Evangelion Rebuilds!

[bentforkent]

earth-shattering, red roses

penelope garcia x gender neutral!reader

a/n: here is my very hesitant, very obscure, and very late submission for @veraiconcos​ fic challenge. is there a market for penelope x reader fics? dunno, but there should be. penelope rights. 

tagging sweet @gaystevie​ 

content warnings: none - this is half fluff, half angst :) 

word count: 1842

in which you’re penelope’s online friend and she develops a crush on you. 

“and then i just,” penelope pauses to hold up a pair of campy earrings to the camera, “pick out some earrings, and i’m good to go!” after putting the jewelry on, she turns her face to model. her hair is pulled back into a bun, adorned with some fluffy hot pink hair accessory. 

“looks cute, pen,” you muse, watching her pose on your tiny phone screen. penelope looks at you with a wide smile. there’s a piece of your hair sticking up and out of place, and she desperately wants to reach out and smooth it out. her thumb twitches.

 “alright my sweet soulmate,” she starts with a smile. you know what’s coming.  “it’s time for me to head to work.” 

you pout at her pixelated face. “already?”

“unfortunately, dear,” she says, but despite feeling reluctant to hang up, her words come out as cheery as ever. 

“alright, penny. have fun at work,” you say, and as soon as she acknowledges your farewell and offers her own, the screen goes black with nothing but a tri-tone to signal the end of the call. 

 you and penelope met seven months ago on some new, groundbreaking virtual world game. penelope’s character was a fairy, with wings that glowed so much she had to have paid extra to have them. (she hadn’t. she just hacked into the fairly new and easy-to-bypass code and given her character the virtual wardrobe of her dreams.) she made a point to keep true to herself, even through her tiny computer alter-ego.

 the two of you often floated in the same circles as you played the game. you were funny, always typing something witty into the chat, and she quickly found herself very fond of you. she let her fingers hover over her keyboard before typing out her first message to you. after the whole “fisher king” fiasco, she respectfully refrained from contacting people on the internet, resigning herself to admiring from afar. but you were different. you had interacted with penelope already, exchanging compliments and working together to solve quests in the game. you knew her, and she knew you, but direct message felt like a new realm. it felt...intimate. 

when you replied to her first message, a simple “hi penelope!” with a butterfly emoji attached for good measure, penelope nearly flew out of her desk chair; she was so excited.  she quickly typed back to you, punctuating with approximately two million exclamation points and a link to her own personal social media. you smiled widely to yourself watching penelope’s chat appear on your computer screen. 

over the next months, you and penelope had become practically inseparable. well...virtually, at least. you lived much too far from penelope, and penelope much too far from you.  your distance spanned one timezone and a handful of states, but with how often you two talked, you always felt close. you learned her favorite color, her favorite movie, her favorite tv shows. she learned your guilty pleasure snack, your nighttime routine, and your favorite song to drive to. after 12am, you’d whisper into the phone receiver about your day, telling her about everything that bothered you or brought you joy. penelope revelled in these chats. listening to you was the best part of her day. this was your friendship, and it was good. 

 but recently things had been ever-so-slightly different. penelope lingers on a phone call even though she is exhausted, just to hear your voice. she proof-reads her text messages multiple times before sending them out--who does that? the red heart emoji is fast becoming her most used, taking the place of the pink one. the pink one is platonic, it’s always been platonic, and the red one is romantic. how is this happening? often, penelope lies in bed, imagining you’re laying against each other with your hands entangled. she reaches and rests her hand on the other side of the bed, where you would lie if you were there. sometimes, when she’s really tired, she believes she can feel you.

when thinking about this, penelope’s chest feels tight in the most exhilarating way. she’s confused, naturally. the last time she felt this way was when she thought she had real feelings for derek. (she’d buried whatever feeling that was way deep down in the depths of her brain.)

 could it be love if you had never touched? no. no, penelope is a romantic, but she’s also a realist. this can’t be love, not yet. but...a crush. the realization of the word seeps into her bloodstream, setting each cell in her body on fire. it’s a nice fire, a warm fire, a fire that flickers in pink flames. penelope spins around a few times in her work desk chair. 

gee, how lucky is she that she’s got her own little cave here? no one to interrupt her private moment of reckoning...although, now that she thinks of it, it’s not much of a “moment” from the outside. it’s not like her cheeks are stained red and there’s a sign on her forehead that reads “i have a crush!” any one of her coworkers could walk in right now and have no clue anything is any different. (penelope forgets that she’s terrible at hiding things and that she works with trained behavioral profilers.) she pauses a minute, staring at the door, half-expecting hotch to walk in and chew her out for not looking up white males in nebraska, or something. 

 penelope smoothly rolls her chair over to where her cell phone rests. she really shouldn’t be making a personal call at work, she thinks, but she also really shouldn’t have hacked into reid’s work computer and changed everything in english into tagalog last week. penelope can’t remember the last time she genuinely cared about the FBI’s rules. (in her defense, it took spencer like--half of a second to figure out what the unfamiliar language was, and a whole work day to understand it. she was teaching him!) 

 she picks up the phone, grinning as she swipes through recent text notifications of you updating penelope on your day. she finds the “call” button quickly, and waits as it begins to ring.

“penelope?” you question upon answering. “i’m at work, i can’t really talk right now.” you sound happy, despite the intrusion penelope knows she’s providing.

 “no, i know,” penelope replies, twirling a pen in her free hand. she taps her foot quickly. “which is why i’ll make this super quick.” she drags out the word ‘super’ like it tastes like candy.  “i have a crush on you. an earth-shattering, red roses, big crush on you.”

“oh,” you gasp, surprised. “oh! yeah!” you shake your head quickly, as if trying to wake yourself from a dream. all penelope can hear on the other line is the swooshing of air. “yeah, penny, me too. definitely me too. by that i mean, i have a crush on you too.” you’re stumbling, tripping over the words in your haste to get them out, but neither one of you seem to notice. all you can tell is the grin on your face is starting to hurt your cheeks, and all penelope can tell is that if she pulls her knees any closer to her chest she might squish herself. 

 “okay, cool,” penelope says through a smile. 

 you give a breathy laugh. “i really do have to go, though. i’ll definitely talk to you later, though. bye, penny,” you say, and hang up before giving penelope the chance to quip a witty goodbye. 

 you like her back, penelope thinks, the harps playing in her head making her feel like a juvenile pining after someone on the playground. her stomach flutters. the angelic voices in her head are singing, something that sounds like a warbled, choral version of “i wanna dance with somebody” by whitney houston. she closes her eyes, and relishes in it. 

after a second, the stark silence in penelope’s office startles her into reality. 

what is this?

what is she doing?

 oh, fuck, she thinks. tears well in her eyes. what is she doing? this is so unrealistic, penelope thinks, berating herself. you’re far away, only connected to her through a phone screen. it’s a great sentiment to have this sweet crush, yeah, but it’s not practical. not real. it’s not like penelope would ever be in a position to pack up and fly to you, and after hearing you gush about your job just the night prior, she knows you certainly feel the same.

 and then she feels like shit for even calling, for even telling you that she felt this way. it would cause nothing but problems. penelope pauses, in her brain. no, it wouldn’t even cause problems! being with you is so incredibly far-fetched that there isn’t even a “will they, won’t they” debate. any problem is solved with a simple “won’t they.” no, this wouldn’t cause problems, but it would cause heartache, and she should’ve known better. penelope thinks she’s feeling a bit of that heartache now. she sniffles, toying with a tiny plush pig she keeps perched on her desk. sometimes penelope just gets blinded by the butterflies. it’s her best trait and most fatal flaw.

 there’s a knock at her door. derek. 

 “hey babygirl,” he says, pushing open the door and leaning into the doorframe. “what are you doing for lunch?” 

 with her back turned to him, she rubs at her eyes delicately, trying very hard not to mess up her makeup. “uh, i brought my thermos. soup,” she says, clawing desperately at the bubbly personality she can feel slipping away from her for today. she’s just down in the dumps. 

 “hey, what’s wrong?” derek asks, instantly picking up on her sour mood. he steps into her office and closes the door behind him. 

 penelope turns to him, eyes rimmed in red, and gives him a half smile. derek, sweet derek, always so in tune with penelope, is looking at her intently, worry written in every crease of his face. penelope always feels lucky to have him, but especially in this moment. in a rush of emotion, she stands, flings her arms around his neck and pulls him in to a tight hug. 

 derek chuckles. “i love you too.” 

 penelope pulls away with a half-hearted chuckle, swatting the air as if to get rid of the negative emotions plaguing her office. “you come in here with your big muscles and your pretty face and somehow you’ve got me crying in your arms.” she laughs again, slightly more enthusiastic this time. 

 derek pulls her to his chest again, holding her there without words. penelope lets out a deep sigh, releasing every single emotion she just ran through. 

she could deal with those later. she could deal with her royal mess with you later. right now, it didn’t matter. what mattered now was her office, her lunch, and derek morgan.

“derek?” she asks, voice small. he turns to her, prompting her to speak again. “if i asked you to stay, would you?”

[punchdrunkdoc]

Updated K-drama list (4)

This list is getting looooong,  because I’m well and truly addicted to these shows and can’t stop watching them. 

I think its because each show is so self-contained - one series, 16-20 episodes and its done. A clear beginning, middle and a satisfying end. That, together with all the tropes in play (SO MANY TROPES!!) makes each show feel like a novel come to life. And when I start a good novel, I have to finish it in one go. This usually results in me staying up till 2am because I NEED TO KNOW HOW IT ENDS. And it’s the same with these shows. I’m getting very little sleep, but I’m having a hell of a good time!

FAVOURITES

1. Crash Landing on You

He’s from North Korea. She’s from South Korea. They never should have met, but they’ll change each other’s lives.

This was my first K-drama, and its still my favourite. The full cast of characters is great, the lead romance is ANGSTALICIOUS and its genuinely, laugh out loud funny (when its not making you cry or swoon).

Male lead: Officially the best boyfriend ever. With added dimples.

Tear-jerk factor: 4/5

2. Healer

The lives, and pasts, of a hot shot reporter, a spunky young tabloid journalist and a mysterious thief-for-hire intersect.

This was so addictive - the plot was tight and engaging, and this is one of the few shows I’ve watched where there didn’t seem to be a lot of filler. I loved the central 3 characters, and the romance was amazing. I especially loved that the male lead started off such a brooding loner, but he became super-affectionate as soon as he admitted his feelings. So many good hugs and lots of face-cradling in this one.

Male lead: Effortlessly beats up 2 henchmen while comforting his girl over the phone. What more do you need?

Tear-jerk factor: 1/5

3. Itaewon Class

A young man’s life is forever altered when he runs afoul of a powerful family.

This felt like a big step up in quality from everything else in this list, in terms of the production, soundtrack (which was brilliant), the lack of annoying sound effects, and just the overall ‘real world’ feel of the show. All of the characters were fleshed out and 3-dimensional, and they all had their ‘moment’ to shine. The story itself was gripping and so well done - some of the twists and reveals had me gasping! And what can I say about the 2 leads? I love them, both separately, and together. He is so wise beyond his years, and his journey will break your heart and inspire you. She is borderline sociopathic, but I adore her.

Male lead: Tenacious, principled, kind, innocent, caring, driven, loyal…and he can cook!

Tear-jerk factor: 2/5

4. Descendants of the Sun

A special forces Captain meets a capable and beautiful trauma surgeon. They feel an instant bond, but their jobs and philosophy on life get in the way, threatening to tear them apart.

Halfway through this show, I seriously thought this might overtake CLOY as my No. 1 fav. I absolutely LOVE the male lead character, and the romance was beautiful…but it didn’t quite nail the angst and the last minute was a bit twee which dropped it down the rankings a bit.

Male lead: A cocky, charming, absolute BADASS with the most adorable, cheeky smile.

Tear-jerk factor: 2/5

5. Love in the Moonlight / Moonlight Drawn by Clouds

A young woman poses as a eunuch in the Royal Palace and falls in love with the Crown Prince

I wanted to try something different so I opted for this period piece and OH MY GOD am I glad I did. The start had a really light comedic tone (and a lot of modern anachronisms - high fives everywhere!) and I loved all the identity-concealing hi-jinks. But then the romance kicked into gear and the DELICIOUS angst started flowing, and I became obsessed with it. It's like loads of bits of my favourite regency historical romances were mashed up and transported to the Joseon Dynasty. I loved it so much!

Male lead: Manages to look amazingly handsome despite all the period headgear, kicks ass with a sword, and doesn't allow himself to be manipulated by the corrupt officials surrounding him, which was refreshing. Also acts like an adorable goofball when he's in love.

Tear-jerk factor: 2/5

6. My Holo Love

A lonely woman falls for a holographic AI and then meets his creator...

I love the concept of this show (I’m a big sci-fi nerd), and it was beautifully shot. The lead relationship is well developed and it doesnt fall into a typical love triangle. I’ve come to realise it utilises a lot of K-drama tropes (face-blindness! shared childhood trauma!), but it does it really well, imho.

Male lead: Tortured loner genius. My catnip.

Tear-jerk factor: 2/5

7. Goblin

A 900yr old immortal guardian finally meets the ‘bride’ who will end his existence

Once I got over the slight ick-factor of the age difference between the two characters at the beginning, I really fell for this show and it’s world. It had me in tears. And I especially loved the secondary character of the Grim Reaper.

Male lead: Surprising innocent and funny for a 900 year old

Tear-Jerk factor: 5/5

8. What’s Wrong with Secretary Kim

An personal assistant decides to quits her job in order to get a life. Her boss has other ideas.

I loved the female lead in this - I’m a sucker for uber-competent people, and the actress is STUNNING. Her boss is self-centred, entitled and vain...but over time, somehow that just becomes endearing! Possibly because he’s played by Park Seo Joon, who can do no wrong in my book! The central romance is super cute - I can rewatch their scenes again and again. 

Male lead: Like I said, somehow makes vanity and narcissism endearing. Also not afraid to get his shirt off and flash his 6-pack. Bonus.

Tear-Jerk factor: 0/5

9. Legend of the Blue Sea

A mermaid comes onto land to find the man she loves

The (literal) fish-out-of-water scenes in the first half of this show were hilarious - the actress is a comic genius! The romance was nicely done, and there wasn’t a lot of extraneous plot or too many characters. I couldn’t stop watching this one!

Male lead: Cocky, arrogant conman with a soft mushy centre

Tear-Jerk factor: 1/5

10. Fight for my Way

Two life-long friends decide to go after their dreams

I fast-forwarded large chunks of this (I wasn’t interested in the secondary couple at all), but it still made my favourite list because I love the leads - both as separate characters and as a couple. This is one of the best friends-to-lovers stories I’ve seen, mainly because you truly buy that these 2 have known each other their entire lives (their  bickering and teasing feels so natural). And then when they take the next step, they’re so affectionate and refreshingly open with their feelings.

Male lead: The third Park Seo Joon character on this list! I love his contradictions. He’s goofy and childish…but can really turn on the sexy charm; he’s a badass MMA fighter…who loves when his girlfriend sticks up for him and protects him.

Tear-jerk factor: 0.5/5

11. Suspicious Partner

A young, hardworking lawyer has her life turned upside down when she is put on trial for murder.

This has been officially bumped up to my favourites list - partly because I’m now a massive Ji Chang Wook fan, and partly because I’ve rewatched scenes with better subtitles and its made it 10x better. Its still overly long, but the serial killer plot had some nice twists and it was central to the story, so it didn’t feel extraneous like some of these types of plots do. I really enjoyed the central romance - the 2 characters sparked off each other well and I loved their evolution from sort-of enemies to lovers. This is another show where I can endlessly rewatch their scenes together.

Male lead: Its Ji Chang Wook! He’s so good at playing serious guys who are secretly big dorks.

Tear Jerk factor: 0.5/5

NOTABLE MENTIONS

These are shows which I completed and really enjoyed but they had flaws which kept them out of the favourites list.

1. The K2

An ex-mercenary takes a job as a bodyguard protecting the illegitimate daughter of a politician. A sort-of Snow White retelling.

This started off really well, with some amazing fight sequences (hello, shower room scene!). However, the back half became too bogged down in double crosses and manipulations, and it focussed too much on the politicians. The writers did well to give these characters some layers, but they were all essentially doing bad things for the wrong reasons, and I just didn’t care about them. The show was much better when it was following K2’s journey. The romance also started off well, but was a bit underdeveloped (mainly because they barely interacted).

2. I Am Not a Robot

A man who is allergic to human contact finds companionship with a robot…or does he?

I honestly thought I wouldn’t make it passed a couple of episodes of this - the concept was just too ridiculous. But I’m glad I persevered, because it developed some real depth and some proper good angst towards the end and I LOVED the central relationship.

3. Extraordinary You

A high school student discovers she's a supporting character in a comic book

The plot of this was so unique, and the way the comic story played out interspersed with the characters 'real lives' was really well done. Plus the central couple were so adorable. It dragged in the middle section (several versions of the same conversations were had, and the same exposition was spelled out multiple ways for no apparent reason) which kept it out of my favourite list, but it redeemed itself with some good angst at the end, and it had a really lovely ‘epilogue'.

4. My Love from the Star

Alien stranded on earth meets an actress soon before he’s due to be rescued.

I finally gave this another chance, and I’m glad I did. The female lead got a LOT less irritating, and I enjoyed the present-day romance and all the flashes back to the past. However, the ending was really abrupt and disappointing (which kept it out of my favourite list). There should have been 1 less filler episode in the middle, and a decent, fleshed out finale instead.

5. Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok-Joo

A young talented weightlifter experiences first love

Honestly, I wasn’t sold on this at first; the female lead was a bit much (lot of gurning and over-acting) and there was a weird disconnect between how she was described (big, overweight, manly, unfeminine) and how she actually looked (thin and beautiful!). But the back half of this show saved it; her relationship with Joon-Hyung was sooooo cute. He is adorable, and they were both so supportive of each other’s dreams. I finished this with a big smile on my face.

6. Because this is my First Life

A rational-to-a-fault software designer and an aspiring screenwriter come up with an unconventional way to solve their housing problem

When I started this, I thought it was going to be all light and fluffy (the main character's job in the beginning was to insert the product placement in Korean dramas - hello, Red Ginseng! - which I found hilarious and meta) but it had a surprisingly melancholic tone throughout and touched on issues of workplace harassment and gender roles. I didn't warm to the male lead until right at the end (which was probably partly intentional - he's very remote and closed off) but overall I found the story quite lovely. Plus it had a really great central female friendship and their conversations actually passed the Bechdel test!

7. Strong Girl Bong-Soon

A woman with inherited super-strength gets a job as a bodyguard for an eccentric young CEO

The lead couple in this are AD-OR-ABLE and I loved their relationship. But there was a weird tone issue in this show. The romance is super cute...but there’s a whole dark sub plot involving multiple women being held captive by a psychopath. I ended up fast forwarding most of that, and just concentrated on the romance.

THE OTHERS...

I finished these shows and liked parts of them, but they ultimately didn’t set my world on fire.

1. Her Private Life

A talented art curator tries to keep her professional persona separate from her fangirl obsession with a pop idol.

This was cute and I loved the central relationship - he was so supportive of her, and their interactions were refreshingly mature and their banter felt really natural. Ultimately, it was a bit forgettable (I’m not dying to rewatch any of it), and the last minute tacked-on childhood trauma subplot was really unnecessary.

2. Touch Your Heart

Star actress rocked by scandal works at a law firm to prepare for her comeback role

This starred the secondary couple from Goblin and I really like them, even though they are playing very different characters in this (more opposites attract, than doomed lovers). At first I found this too ‘cutesy’, but I’ve since realised the sound effects/graphics are a K-drama thing and not unique to this show, so I’m not as down on it as I was. I still had to fast forward a lot of the secondary romances which I wasn’t invested in.

3. Hyde, Jekyll and Me

A woman becomes involved in the lives of 2 men, who share one body

This stars Hyun Bin from CLOY and he is sooo watchable, especially as the slick-haired, glasses-wearing, uptight Seo-Jin. And the show started well...but quickly went off the rails into a convoluted, dragged-out revenge plot.

4. Melting Me Softly

Two people are accidentally cryogenically frozen for 20 years. They have to navigate the modern world and their new lives together.

Another good concept, but it ultimately descended into little more than a light work-place romance. Had a couple of good kissing scenes, but it was overall a bit forgettable.

And the DNF:

My Secret Romance

I started watching this because I was looking for something a little less PG - the characters have a one night stand in the first episode! But I couldn’t get passed the bad acting and cheap production.

Master’s Sun

I liked the premise but the 2 leads weren’t very attractive (at least in comparison to the insanely beautiful actors/actresses in the shows listed above). Call me superficial, but I couldn’t see myself spending 17 hours watching them and willing them to kiss.

[darkpoisonouslove]

Until Color

Summary: An encounter with the most dangerous creature of all bled color into Faragonda’s world. Now temptation calls her away from the limited existence of an angel. Is there a choice between goodness and happiness or are things not at all the way an angel perceives them?

I wrote this about a month ago and I thought it would be on time for Femslash February. Hehe! Funny, funny. My brain vetoed that so it only comes now. The first three sentences are a prompt I got from tumblr and saw lying around in my notes. I thought of subverting every damn concept in them, though. Enjoy this torrid love affair!

"Mine," the siren murmured, dragging her lover into the ocean and ever deeper.

That was the day the angels learned their own could be tempted. Tempted and devoured like any other creature the sirens got their claws into. That was the day the full story got thrown down in the dark depths of the sirens' minds for only them to remember it once heaven turned away from the two writing it and history never bothered to even learn their names.

"Are you sure you want to come down with me?" Griffin didn't offer a hand along with the words to let Faragonda relax in the undisturbed waves around them. She couldn't have taken it when she knew what came flooding in with the touch of the siren's skin. She'd seen enough of it.

She nodded before looking up to the sky, more to make sure it wasn't descending upon her to snatch her out of the ocean and keep her suspended in a cold trap midair rather than to catch a last glimpse of it. It looked just like the sea. Colorless. Just like Griffin. All the difference came from the siren swimming in the excited waters while the weightless mass above remained silent and unmoved.

"You're sure no one will suffer from my choice?" Her insides lurched in all possible directions as if to rip themselves apart at the idea.

"I am sure all of the angels you left behind won't be pleased," Griffin's lips curled in the shape of a fishhook to pierce through her willingness to be the bait for the rest of her kind to follow her downfall, "but since angels can't suffer..." Griffin drove a finger through her own hair brutally but the only drops of water on her skin still carried just the salt of the sea. "You can't feel much at all, can you?"

"No humans will be sacrificed in this, you promised." The calmness of her voice was like bile bubbling up from inside her but nothing came out. Was there even anything inside her or was she hollow? Yet another question without answer when she couldn't let herself ask the creature in front of her. She'd already asked enough of her.

Griffin rolled her eyes, a huff falling from her lips to steer the water around them. "There's only one soul I can give you."

The sweetness of her voice lured Faragonda closer to taste it from her lips unlike all the fruit the flavor of which was lost on her tongue in her ethereal nature. Sirens didn't have that problem but she'd seen Griffin turn erratic at the smell of blood at the other end of the ocean.

"Mine," the word dripped more power than that of the sea from all the defiance packed into the meaning of it being uttered. "Follow me."

The waves swirled around them into a funnel to hide them from the world above and open a passage to the depths. Faragonda was caught in the water pressing against her in a way her own magic never touched her when she used it to help others. Her wings fluttered weakly like a folded leaf twirled by a hurricane and she felt no lighter. No heavier either. Always the same. Her old self.

She let her imagination run free further than she could reach into the abyss she'd avoided despite her immunity to most of its threats. With no drowning soul to rescue there was only colorless vastness in her sight to tint in the only blue she'd ever seen at the brush of Griffin's hand against hers. It had been a moment that had never died, her immortality along with Griffin's taking them through centuries at an arm's length. She didn't know the precise amount of time for it to be revealed to her if she opened her mouth and asked Griffin. Just the thought of the action caused pain deep inside her and not in her jaw with her limited knowledge of the world and her limited feelings on the paradox Griffin was.

She'd plunged in the ocean after the screams of a drowning man only to be hit with silence on the way there. She'd been late. She'd barely had the words, or the feelings, for the unprecedented occurrence. That had been before she'd seen the siren.

No human carried themselves like that in the water despite the lack of differences Faragonda's eyes could spot in the forms of the two species. The fast pace and unmistakable intent in the shape approaching her had gripped her mind and body with opposing impulses. The heavens had hissed in her head to remove herself from danger's path but the calm waters around had lulled her reflexes to sleep as she'd watched the familiar body of an unfamiliar but infamous creature close in on her. Just as colorless as all the rest of existence to raise no alarm. Until she'd opened her mouth to see Faragonda bolting towards the surface, her wings struggling against the density of the foreign realm.

The siren hadn't caught her but she'd caught a feel of her hand, the warmth of skin ripping through her like fire in a way it never did with humans through whom her fingers almost passed. Color had bled in to plunge her world in blue–like she'd heard people call the sea–as she'd shot out of the water. And underneath her – two eyes in faint gold–the color of a dying sunset–and a whiff of the purple Griffin's hair was woven from. Wisteria.

She'd crossed a line when she'd lingered behind after her job had been done, the powder from her wings already having healed the stab wound gaping in the wholeness of the body in front of her. The color had risen in her mind again stinging her eyes with the inability to see it and she'd let it wash the blood out of the head of the man she'd helped and drown out any other thought. He'd walked for miles until he'd found the answer to the impulse she'd infected him with. A tree with blossoms still appearing colorless to her but the shape of which had seared into her mind for her to color them in the shade she remembered every time she saw them. Or Griffin. Wisteria. The name of her ache.

It had been at first, when she'd blamed the siren for planting temptation in her heart. Until she'd touched her again and more color had bled in – an angry sun and dark amethyst. Griffin wasn't the source of the yearning in the center of her being. It was the ability to see colors that she didn't have, the nature of being something other than an angel that wasn't hers to have. Griffin was the solution. And the betrayal to her self and all her kind was all hers.

They reached a bottom that was supposed to be dark but to her was all the same. To any angel it would be if they dared enter the sirens' domain. It was almost an instinct–much like rushing to a suffering soul they couldn't avoid hearing scream for help–to evade sirens. Saving drowning people was done with swiftness and caution – not just for the person, but also for minimizing the chances of contact. The chances of a siren's voice latching on to them like a trap springing.

"After the kiss is over, we'll both be human," Griffin explained, her voice as alluring as it'd been the first time and during any other interaction, normal. Faragonda couldn't help the pull of the knowledge Griffin shared freely. And to think a kiss held such power. "We won't be able to breathe underwater and I'll have to get us back to the surface as soon as possible. You have to hold on all the way through. Especially at the end. Understand?"

Faragonda nodded, her lips moving of their own will. "Why me?" Was she after Griffin's voice or her own? They had both agreed to sacrifice everything they were so why stall now? "Was it because I am the only angel you could tempt down here?"

Griffin looked at her with emotion she couldn't decipher when all she saw were the contours of it, not the colors and intricacies. "I haven't done a thing to tempt you. I couldn't." The words came out forceful, like they always did when Faragonda asked questions about the world. Yet, Griffin answered them anyway. She was the only one who did. "Sirens can't tempt angels. We don't have that kind of power."

The wings fluttered on Faragonda's back like an angry wasp's in demand of an explanation. Not from Griffin, but Griffin was the only one that would give it to her. If it were all lies, heaven sure was putting her to the test. She couldn't blame herself for falling.

"In the beginning of the world there were no angels or sirens," Griffin filled the void her silence had carved in the water around them. "There were just people and some of them were blessed with magic by the Great Dragon. There were different kinda of magic users but the most prominent one were fairies. Their fairy dust could heal wounds and abolish darkness." Like the powder of her wings.

She'd heard fairies were the human equivalent of angels. They had magic and wings and while their fairy dust was a weaker version of her powder, they were tangible beings. They could touch and see in color, and be seen, the warmth of a smile not unfamiliar to them just like the warmth of a hand. Of happiness.

"Then the fairies rebelled against the exploitation of their abilities to cleanse everyone's souls from darkness while people put little to no effort in doing it for themselves. Their fairy dust had limits. It was bound to their life force and they had only so much of it." An unfamiliar concept when her powder was as plentiful as the colorless horizon in front of her was vast every time she looked at the world. "Seven fairies who became known as the Ancestral Fairies gathered resources and magic to create a safe haven for all fairies like them who had had enough of being exploited."

"Did they make it?" It was her own voice she was looking for. To make sure she hadn't lost it. Hadn't had it stolen by just a story of the pain and horror of what had transpired... and lived in Griffin's mind.

"They were captured," Griffin's voice didn't tempt but burned now – through her eyes as if to burn the images in them. "And so were all of their followers, to be brought to a place called Light Rock where the darkness was drained out of them via the shine of the Water Stars to leave behind only the bright flames of the Dragon Fire. Their essence was reduced until they lost their tangibility and any sight as they themselves were made of light."

Faragonda clenched her eyes shut. "Angels." They'd lost their ability to cry as well. To feel anything but positive emotions. But how are you to tell you're happy when that's all you've ever been? To her it was all the same – every day and every feeling. Until the yearning for wisteria had exploded in her to leave her aching.

"The Water Stars were obscured in darkness and cast away into the ocean they'd created." The harshness of the words stood out even more in contrast with Griffin's melodic voice making Faragonda look to make sure it hadn't cut her in half. "As if they weren't the opposite of the Dragon Fire in power and element. They shed the darkness for it to spread over the bottom of the ocean that had once been lit by the stars in the sky and make it impossible to see in the deep instead. That was where the sirens were born from the stardust of the Water Stars mixing with the darkness." Griffin blinked as if the abyss staring right at her had won. "The colors we see are so intense. They stab through our minds and burrow themselves there to never be washed away. So do smells and tastes, touch, all sorts of information we can never forget. We hold it inside our minds like the darkness of space holds the stars and the planets, and all the life on them."

Her questions. They reminded Griffin of the vessel she'd been made. "What about sounds?" She had to know. She couldn't stay blind anymore.

"Sounds are the worst," Griffin's voice trembled like a string pulled too hard and wailing for mercy. Faragonda had always heard similar cries from musical instruments and nature – not human souls but touched by them and left with more than just fingerprints smudged over them. She was there to listen at least if not offer the power to grant the plea. "Sounds always remind us of our own screams that everyone not only ignores but calls beautiful."

No!

"Hypnotizing even."

She couldn't have missed it.

"Tempting."

"Your song." How had she not heard it? Had she been so wrapped up in herself that she'd missed the suffering of another soul? Had she gone rogue because she'd always been a bad angel? "I'm sorry. I didn't know."

"Sorry is no good coming from an angel." Griffin swallowed as if the words were harder to say than to hear. "Tell me again when you're no longer one."

Faragonda nodded. The first promise she was giving. It dug inside her mind like no blessing had ever stayed with her. She always forgot the faces, never even knew the lives she saved. This time she knew the colors of the future she breathed life into.

"Siren voices don't work on angels because the species used to be one. Sirens were the darkness of the soul of which angels were the light. Light that was forced to shine. It will never hear the cries of the darkness it was made to obliterate." Yet, the words were coming out in a downpour now. "That's why sirens sing to humans. We couldn't leave the depths of the ocean but even the darkness pierces our perception with excessive details and the blood of killed fish makes us sick. Ships are a moving hell bustling with life that offers a chance at escape."

Griffin's eyes were looking through her and for the first time it hurt in a different way. It hurt that she couldn't block the pain from clouding Griffin's gaze.

"When we touch someone, they feel what we feel, and when we kiss them, all our feelings and the sensations we experience pass into them."

Bright blue. Deep gold and dripping purple. A warm hand. Salt in the air making its way down her lungs. Griffin's life had flown in her and she'd been jealous. Now all she wanted was to give her some of her calm.

"Humans provide but a brief relief as they're already a mix of light and darkness and don't live nearly as long as we do. The only way to complete the process is for an angel to mix their light with a siren's darkness."

A kiss. Soft lips. Warm lips. Red she hadn't seen and couldn't imagine. A taste of fullness. A taste of peace. A promise to keep.

"Siren's don't go after angels, though," Griffin wasn't finished unburdening her heart yet. "Humans jump off of ships lured by the bountifulness our voices let them touch themselves to. But angels are too pure. All an angel cares about is goodness and a siren has none of that, only the self-serving interest of relief, peace, calmness. You can't hear our song so no siren bothers luring what is out of reach to break their own heart." Griffin looked down at her, a deep crease running through her forehead like a crack.

Sinking? She was sinking. Another thing an angel couldn't do. She had to be the worst of them and gold bled into the thought to elicit a smile. "Will you try it for me?" her wings shuddered as she forced them to line her up with Griffin once again. "Maybe we were meant to meet if you never tried to lure me closer." It wasn't that she hadn't heard her. Griffin had never sang. "Maybe I can hear you."

Griffin looked right into her this time carving deeper than Faragonda had ever managed to reach inside herself. Carving through something inside her. She had to be. Otherwise, how could she feel the path of Griffin's gaze in her being?

Whatever was filling out the hollowness inside her she'd feared was enough for Griffin. She opened her mouth and what came out of there was less a song and more a single sound of bubbling intensity. There was so much of it, in it, that Faragonda could drown in it herself as it filled her up to overflowing, to sensation, to... pain. There was a sharp pulsing inside her caught in the rhythm of Griffin's anguish. Perhaps not a heart–not in the traditional sense–but she wasn't empty. She wasn't cold. She could feel for someone else.

Griffin's mouth hung open even as the sound died. "You can hear it." No question. Just rapid blinking. Tears, from a siren. Impact of a positive emotion slicing through all of her pain.

"Do you know why I looked for you?" No pause for thinking. "Not because of all the things I could see and feel with you." A temptation like none before but she could have resisted if it came from outside. Just some colors she would've gotten used to the same way she no longer noticed her colorless existence. Smells and tastes she would've familiarized herself with until they only ever evoked memories inside her instead of creating new ones. Feelings as constant in duration and content that she would've confused them with her own after a certain point. But it had been Griffin's outside world that had resonated with her inner one to bring it to life. "You never told me what I could and couldn't do." It was the first time the words formed in front of her eyes without her mind sweeping them away like dust before she could say them. She'd become a complementary part–not a missing one, for any other siren could give her what Griffin could, yet, she had been the only one who had approached her–and together they'd done the impossible. An angel hurting and a siren crying.

"I was always close by when you were at sea or near the shore," the huskier sound of Griffin's voice stabbed her with the rawness of the words, of speaking at all after their miracle had cut through who they were down to the bone. "Not because of the limited touches we shared. I could get more relief from a human drowned in my kiss." All those humans Faragonda hadn't saved in her fear of corruption as temptation had lingered under her skin long after Griffin had been out of reach. "I hadn't had many close encounters with angels before–you're all conditioned to run from sirens–but you were different. A good soul instead of a good angel."

What did Griffin know of goodness as she killed for a drop of relief that only left her yearning for more? "I've thrown away everything that makes an angel."

"Exactly!" Griffin grabbed fistfuls of the water around them in her fieriness. "You're not just good because it is all you can be. There's at least a touch of darkness inside you, a free will, but your first thought is always protecting people."

People. She'd be a human but how much could she do for them?

"Trust me, they'll be safer with a siren out of the way," Griffin said as if reading her thoughts. Unless they were written over her–still impossible to read in her own colorlessness–then Griffin understood. She had good in her, too. "And you can still help even if you do it through other means. We both can."

"Kiss me."

The siren's lips on hers were starved for the contact as if she was the one who couldn't taste and her fervor only grew as her perception flowed into Faragonda. There was the salt again, already familiar but much stronger now, almost burning her taste buds after the drought they'd been subjected to. The warmth of Griffin's body pressed into her sent shivers swimming over her spine like a school of fish making the water tingle as it splashed over her skin, but that was the heat spilling over her. Purple imbued her vision–violet, the word popping into her mind from another flow she'd almost missed–as Griffin's hair was the first thing she saw sprawling around like the threads of a net.

She ran a hand through it to absorb the intense shade while the siren's–was she still clinging to her previous self?–eyes were closed. The color of her own skin caught her eye as it grew richer and in her wonder she tugged on the purple strands. A bursting moan flooded her senses to break through her fascination with the process but Griffin's grip on her tightened. Her tongue was more insistent in Faragonda's mouth to explore every corner of it.

A pleasant heaviness set inside her as her heart pounded in her ears overshadowing the gentle whimpers leaving Griffin's throat. They were weaker in volume but grew steady in consistency as Griffin's skin glowed with blinding lightness. A sight to die for had Faragonda gotten to see the gold of her eyes as well. But without it the burning in her lungs unsettled the magical atmosphere to send her kicking her feet, her wings not responding.

Her fingers dug into Griffin's shoulders to bruising but she didn't let go until they were swimming towards the light above. All the blue flooding her vision relaxed her grip but she held on. She wasn't letting go of Griffin unless she asked her to. She herself had no more questions for... the other woman.

They were human. The stinging in her lungs as the first gulps of breath pierced through them when the liplock broke and the vibrant colors she was squinting at told her that much. But there was more. There was a breeze on her face and water drops sliding down her skin, cold and warmth enveloping her from the water and Griffin, wet hair sticking to her back and swollen lips to scream of the kiss that had fogged her mind.

"I'm sorry." The kept promise tasted even sweeter than when she'd given it to leave her senses overwhelmed and craving the salt on Griffin's breath once again.

Griffin's eyes shined on her with a mellow light in the sun's stead as it had yet to climb on the sky and blind her with its rays. But for now she was met with wisteria and rich honey while Griffin's even breaths brushed over her wet skin.

She reached out to stroke the purple strands, the feeling of them between her fingers perfectly new. She missed the golden brown when Griffin closed her eyes but the purring that filled its absence occupied her attention as well. Right until she remembered Griffin's hair wasn't the one she was seeing or touching for the first time.

She ran a hand through her own hair, the same softness startling when it came from herself, before gingerly catching a lock to look at. "Chestnut."

"Chestnut," Griffin repeated while consuming the sight in front of her, a small smile stretching her lips in recognition as she reached out to touch the brown strands herself.

She ran her fingers through them gently, never once tugging on the tangled wet mess. What stroked a shudder over Faragonda's spine was the meaning attached to the gesture. They were both free of their longing for what the other could give them, yet touching was even more natural now. Like they longed for each other.

Her stomach fluttered with countless butterflies to cut her with the stillness from her back. Her wings weren't responding, only bending slightly under the rule of the breeze. They were dead on her back. Reaching behind, she couldn't even touch them. All she could ever feel in them again was the elements. Why leave them strapped to her back then?

A finger traced over them in tact with Griffin's chest pressing against hers to set her whole body alive with sensation. A ticklish touch on her wings that pulled a gasp out of her as she flung herself forward and further into Griffin's warm, naked body against her.

"I'm afraid they'll never move with your will again," Griffin's voice was higher, lighter, unburdened and even more alluring than before. "They are transparent now, no powder in them anymore. That is all in me. But they can still bring you sensation. You should be careful with them. It could be a very painful experience." So that was what they were for. To remind her she had wanted to feel it all.

"I wish I could look at my eyes," the sentence slipped from her lips so easily. No strings for it to get tangled into now that she was free of her duty as angel. Only the somber realization that she still didn't know the color of her own eyes.

"You are," Griffin pointed to the far end of the sky where black was just making room for the deepest blue. Blue that got to touch wisteria.

"I most certainly am not," she locked eyes with Griffin, the honey enveloping her mind plentiful and sweet. And so were Griffin's lips when she met her for a kiss.

That was the day two people learned what happiness was and changed the world refusing to acknowledge them.

[hamliet]

The Untamed is Damn Good

MDZS’s Live Action review!

My hopes for live action adaptations of my favorite stories are exceedingly low. That’s actually putting it mildly. However, for the most part, The Untamed has amazed me with just how damn good it is as an adaptation.

The acting is phenomenal. Wei WuXian’s actor perfectly embodies the character and his emotions to the point where he basically is WWX at this point to me (meaning, I can’t see anybody else as Wei WuXian). Jin GuangYao’s actor is perfectly sympathetic as our sneaky boy, Jiang Cheng and Jiang YanLi’s actors give a ton of depth to every single one of their scenes, and Xue Yang’s actor absolutely steals every scene he’s in. Lan WangJi’s actor, though, deserves an extra special shout-out for his portrayal of Lan WangJi, an extremely emotional character who shows very minimal emotions and often none at all. I’m not the first to say this, but the actor is truly stunning in how well he portrays the character. Every twitch in his face, every look in his eyes, reflects some important part of the character and what he’s feeling in a particular scene, but is so understated that you don’t blame the others characters for missing it. Get the dude an award. 

Like I said, it’s an adaptation, so there are some changes from the novel, many of which I think are great additions for the particular medium in which it’s being adapted, and some of which I’m less a fan of. For changes I liked, I love that Jiang YanLi has an expanded role and travels around learning to cultivate with her brothers. I love that Wen Qing and Wen Ning also came to the Cloud Recesses, and that the timeline was altered to introduce the audience to Xue Yang, Xiao XingChen, Song Lan, Nie MingJue, Meng Yao, and others far sooner. The weaving of the Yi City Arc’s characters in with the story’s earlier arcs was really well done, imo, and a smart decision, as was having Meng Yao as a cultivator in the Nie Sect. This results in the war scenes not dragging on, and allows us to focus on the Wei WuXian drama of the war.

It also focuses on building empathy for every character, even the ones we don’t like. At first I thought that the Wen Sect’s darker framing from the get-go would lead us to a more black-and-white world, and to some degree that’s true. However, every character still comes across as three-dimensional with complex motivations and relationships. And whoever wrote the script definitely had a thing for the more antagonistic characters (bless #oneofus) From the very beginning, you get the impression that Xue Yang and Jin GuangYao are complex characters, and you even root for Jin GuangYao for a long time. 

In many interactions, you can tell exactly what Jin GuangYao’s motivation is without him having to say it directly. When Lan XiChen tells him not to take Nie MingJue’s disapproval to heart because he’s so rigid and “abhors evil,” Jin GuangYao’s face looks stricken and he remarks “Evil? ... is that what I am?” before then assuring LXC he doesn’t take it to heart and it’s fine. Still, the viewer can tell how desperately he wants NMJ’s approval--and the more NMJ doesn’t give it, the more JGY looks for it with his father. And again, the script and actors show us that his father is using him by dangling a promise of love he never intends to give. He praises JGY in scene after scene of just the two of them, and then pours wine down JGY’s clothes publicly when something outside of JGY’s control happens. When he holds a baby Jin Ling and JGY plays with the baby, grinning and asking to hod him, he tells him he cannot and even tells the wet nurses not to let JGY hold the baby (implication being that he’s unclean for being the son of a prostitute). He doesn’t have to say: I want my father’s love and approval, I want my surrogate father’s love and approval, and I want the cultivation world to accept me despite my birth. We can see it. (Plus, the writers and actors aren’t subtle with XiYao.) 

For changes I didn’t like, I’ve talked about this before, but I miss Wen Qing’s feisty personality. The Wen Qing in The Untamed is not at all the same character as the Wen Qing of the novel/donghua/audio drama. She is equally a strong survivor as that character, but she’s much more.... docile. I did, however, enjoy the cute romance she had with Jiang Cheng--I just think it would have been even more enjoyable if she was still her snarky self. 

I also didn’t love the Wen Sect as the original founders of demonic cultivation, as it removed a lovely gray aspect of the story. I also felt sad that Jin GuangYao ultimately killed Wen RouHan to save Wei WuXian, whereas in the novel he does it to save Nie MingJue, which tells you he did in fact care for NMJ at one point. My biggest complaint though thus far is the changing of Jin GuangYao’s timeline and the Qin Su pregnancy, as I feel that was a very vital part of both JGY and Qin Su’s characters in breeding his resentment in comparing RuSong and Jin Ling. I’m also not sure exactly how much this is changed. We will see. 

Also, ignore the special effects. Obviously. The costumes still look great, the music is phenomenal (where can I get that soundtrack), and it is so blatant about the romance that it isn’t even subtext despite the lack of physicality and romantic declarations. It’s not really that censored, and hats off to the team who made this. 

Also: Fairy

she is a chonk and we stan a doggo

[claraeuterpebaudry]

A Playlist for a Friend: Peri and Alana 

  @alana-the-badbitch & @frostskader 

Invisible Chains - Lauren Jauregui

I've been trapped in a cage Sorrow said I should stay But I found beauty in this pain Gave me strength to break these Invisible chains

Starting off the bat with the love of my life, Ms. Jauregui. This song is literally what’s written on the tin, breaking the invisible chains that have been placed upon someone. I know I haven’t been here for as long as either of these characters, but getting to read their interactions together, and with other characters (like Peri’s lovely fairy crew at Pixie’s and Alana with her sisters or with Charlie!) they have both been through some major stuff. But they’ve both been able to break away from those things and get to a better place for themselves. Running a business, getting through college, maintaining relationships that are good and supportive. Including one another! 

That Bitch - Bea Miller

I cash in my words like I'm a billionaire But I don't have food to eat And I keep talkin' like I'm taller than the trees But my eyes never see much higher than five feet

Another thing I love about this pair is that they both seem to give off the vibe of Pretty Girl, but if someone picked a fight with them it would be the wrong move. They seem like the kind of girls that have enough self respect to call out someone out for not acting like a respectable human being. If someone ever came for the people they cared about it would be game over. They would be That Bitch. So, to me, this song fits their relationship because if anyone ever came for them or someone they consider to be in their circle, it would be game over. Especially if they came together to take them down.

Bad behavior - Mabel 

You can't contain me Every time I'm up I'm all around you You know you can't keep up With my bad behavior

This song is all about not giving any fucks about going out and having a good time no matter what people are saying about it. Another thing I love about Alana and Peri is how they go out to go out! They can throw back some drinks and dance! And that’s not a bad thing! They aren’t there to care about how other people perceive them or their choices on how they want to have a good time, they are there to Party. 

Welcome to Lady Hell - Dirt Poor Robins 

Though there's a crowd in her cell Everyone's preoccupied with everyone else She can never ever edge a word in herself 'Cause no one will listen to her in lady hell

Not only does my interpretation apply to these two, I also think that the sound of it is very Peri and Alana because while it’s up beat and something you can tap your foot to, the lyrics of it are really sad. Which I think fits for the pair of them because they’ve been through so much and on the inside they have so much more depth and darkness in there, on the outside anyone could look at them for a club owner and a makeup artist and write them off as a shallow pool. But yes, I love this song for them because I think two woman who are killing the game with Alana being in STEM with her makeup line and Peri running a successful business and employing everyone from the Hollow while being a talented tattoo artist, they probably still have to deal with the sexism that comes with being a woman. And yet they don’t let it bring them down. 

Dukes - Repartee

No matter how I fight this You've showed me that you're worth it So let's start a war 'Cause you're worth fighting for

I would argue that a song about being willing to fight for the relationship is entirely relevant to them. From what I’ve gathered, I think they’re both two people who are very protective of the people they have, so they will go to the mat for them. Including one another and their friendship because their relationship it worth it. Or, again, they’re willing to fight against the world and anyone else trying to mess with what they have. 

Avalanche - Fletcher

So you're scared, you don't think you're ready yet We'll take it slow, I'll walk with you on the edge Paint the colors on top of the sunset I can do this all for you

This one is all about being the willingness to be vulnerable around someone and knowing that they’re going to get you through those times when you just break apart. It’s really hard to let yourself be vulnerable in front of someone else! Especially if you aren’t used to having someone trustworthy around to be able to rely on. And this is that person promising that they’re going to do all they can to stick it out with them and to be there to see the worst of it. Even if it’s as bad as an avalanche. Both of these girls have been through a lot and I think having another woman to lean on is such a lovely thing. And they’re kind of a new friendship, so I think this song about asking for trust and promises of trust is reflective of them starting on this relationship between them.

Lawrence - Make A Move

Oh, hello there, would it be okay if I asked you your name? Or should I be ashamed if I asked you your name? 'Cause I heard it's ugly to be forward but cute to be lame That's the rules of the game, but I don't wanna be lame

This song is straight up just about the girl making the first move but not really knowing if that’s socially acceptable? But why shouldn’t it be? Like I’ve said with several of these songs, I think both of these girls are the kind of girl who people can pin down wrong at first glance. And they do have that internal struggle within themselves, but they’re also not going to let society drag them down! Also, I think if put into the context of their relationship, it’s like? Do I talk to my ex’s ex? Can I do that? Can we be friends? And then they did! And it’s great!! 

Drunk Girls Don't Cry - Maren Morris

What you do with trash? You take it out So why are you letting him hang around? Girl, you gotta know when to clean house And throw his shit out in the yard

I love this song, it’s just this woman telling her friend to get rid of the trash in her life and stop lying to herself. Which I think, should either one of these girls ever enter into a relationship or situation that isn’t treating them properly, they would come to one another and give it to them straight. That’s the kind of friendship I think comes of two woman like this, being able to tell one another that they deserve better and are better! 

Switch Off - EVAN GIIA

You can scream louda, you won’t break the silence You won't admit it but you can hear sirens You try to kill it but this is a virus Work for it, work for it!

Another one that’s just about lifting someone up when you can tell they aren’t in the greatest of head space. It’s just picking them up off the floor and getting to shake off whatever it was that was putting them into the funk. Peri and Alana give off those vibes to me, they’re the ones with the hand wipes in their purse fixing strangers’ make up in the bathroom and listening to their sorrows and giving them a little pep talk to get back out there. And they can be that for one another. Taking care of one another and making sure to be there for them to just wave goodbye to all the evil vibes and reigning in the better ones. 

Bird in a Cage - SPELLES

Out of the darkness into the light I shine like the stars burning holes in the sky Oh I always dreamed Of being released

Book ending with another song about pulling free of the things that were keeping them in a cage and taking to the sky to go off and live their best lives. Not getting caught back between those bars because they’re thriving! 

[kaito-yuki]

Shout Out Thank Yous!

Alrighty I can already tell that this is going to be a long ass post, so I’m just going to say general things here first. I will then address each mun under the Read More (there’s 20+ of you!), so search for your blog mentioned to find my message to you! 

This Fairy Tail OC blog is my 3rd most popular blog by follower count, just under my Vegeta (DBZ) blog which is popular because of the muse itself over the RPing. Kaito is the opposite, which is why I especially find it important to address and thank each and every mun who’s interacted with me through this blog. For actual posts made it is only second to my personal, which just affirms  that this blog has earned its popularity (and bronze medal) here in my opinion. 

I put in my all and beyond to this blog especially, how it’s navigated, organizing the threads and tags as much as I can so me (and you) can read back on things whenever we want, will use it as a template for my other muses/blogs too haha. Kaito (and my other OCs) have grown as characters thanks to the interactions here, especially when it comes to ships! I also have done the most mun/muse vs muse posts here (Shiro has his own tag FFS lmao), which I’m pleased that many of you are a fan of (the posts, not Shiro!) 

To all my followers, thank you for following and sticking with me, esp those from the beginning! To the other RP blogs I haven’t interacted with yet, I’d love to, especially you OCs! I want to also use this blog to advocate for other similar (OC) blogs, that they can also be great and relevant as canon ones with enough hard work!  Now onto the special thanks!

@crystaldragonslayer: Oh looks like the Queen Pixie has returned, the timing couldn’t have been better with your RP comeback! You are just one of the best RP partners out there, I am very grateful for the time and effort we combined together on our RPs/ships. Vivienne is just awesome and probably the main reason why Kaito is too, creating a OTP that deserves it’s own paragraph gdi!

+KaiVi: Kaito & Vivienne have a total of 69 threads by my count atm (I hope I miscounted lmao). I just love this OTP of ours to bits, it is a pleasure and honour working with you on them so far. I can’t wait to start exploring the next stage of their lives and beyond! You know what they say, ’First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes-”-mouth gets frozen by Kaito coz spoilers!- I’m so happy that KaVi has got at least a couple of fans too! Then there’s the AUs, and interactions with them with/and our other muses, so much to look forward to! It’s just really fun to just crossover this ship with others, with other muses ours and our RP partners! Highlights: Battle of Fairy Tail (Thread) | Song | Promo | Wedding (Art)

@starlightxveins​: I usually ship Kaito with Lucy romantically, I never would have thought they’d be the BrOTP too! Your Lucy is a delight and fun to interact with, crossing over the KaiVi, ShiroAqua, GraLu, JerZa and WendyCookies ships is just fabulous and I look forward to more of them (crack) [group] interactions lmao. Can’t wait to start on the other ships we discussed as well!

@celestial-weirdo-lucy: We may only have one thread on here, but I love it! Your Lucy is great, and it’s awesome I get to make a spin on KaiLu by having Kaito have a crush on her already lmao. Then there’s our other ships that I’m excited to develop too! Our KaiLu bodyguard AU is probably my favorite AUs which I look forward to sharing, I’m excited for our other  AUs too (like Gods and Bleach) and ships with our other muses, damn there’s lots to RP!

@celestial-keys-princess​: The Lucy that started it all, Ava you are first mun I approached in the FT RP community and became my guide to others. KaiLu is awesome and I thank you for going through plots and headcanons with me for them! Look forward to continuing their interactions when we do! 

I appreciate you also helping me expand Kaito’s Sabertooth verse with Minerva. Kaito’s ship verse with Tori is still the only one where it’s Shiro and the female teaming up against Kaito, which is so hilarious that I will keep it there lmao. Then there’s our other interactions/ships I’d be happy to get into again like Rukia/Aizen, Laxus/Tori, GraLu (with modern band AU) and Lucy/Jackal, who is atm growling at Lucy behind me because of and/or for her ear rubs lmao Highlights:  A Prayer in the Rain (Thread) | Song | KaiLu (Art/Promo)

@pitchblacksteel: Akira I just love your Gajeel, especially your ships with Lucy and Mira! I look forward to more interactions with him and muses on your multi (like Natsu and Erza!) Kaito still feels bad over the crap Shiro has dragged Gajeel (and Natsu) into lmao.

@poisonouslightslayer: Your Sting is the Sting me (and Kaito) think of whenever Sting is mentioned, you portray him with such depth, it’s really nice to read the posts I see from you! Our interactions also helped inspire me to add a Guild Master addon/verse for Kaito, would love to explore that too!

@itashiro-hitsuchiha​: Thank you for helping me expand Kaito’s Sabertooth and Kingdom Hearts verses, I look forward to continuing our threads with Harumi and Perix!

@dxvilishgrin: Our Kaiio/Mira ship started on Discord, so I’m happy we could also expand upon on it on Tumblr too! Also enjoyed the interactions with your other muses, canons and OCs alike!

@stellcrblossom: Rin I appreciate you and your OCs so much, you gave Kaito a [adoptive] daughter (Ember) and sister (Kamui), and pretty much helped extend his family and my OCs too. Also this helped me branch into going through the next generation of FT, got me working on my other ship’s children too which is appreciated! Can’t wait to RP as Issei (KaiVi’s son) when I’m done with his info! +SakuEm: Sakurai x Ember is one of my favourites and is awesome to see them upgraded to an OTP, and that we created a whole plot/saga/arc/war around Ember’s kidnapping. Can’t wait to continue that and crossover it with my other ships, it’s going to be awesome! Don’t get me started on our AUs, excited for them too! Highlights: Ember Fading (Thread) | Asterius Arc Promo & Graphic

@gureixfurubasuta: Your Gray is great, and I just love their brotherly (gay according to Shiro lmao) bond esp with their shared ties to Ul. Thank you for inspiring me to start my own Gray blog, even though it’s just so I don’t force anyone (like you) to RP Gray for Kaito, and look how that turned out haha. Your Gray (and Juvia) will always by my main for Kaito, and my Gray’s more angsty twin lmao. I’d be happy to interact more through our other muses too!

@sky-dragon-slayer-wendy: Your Wendy is so precious (and a rebel GDI lmao), I loved our thread together and would be happy to continue interactions when you’re free enough again! 

@broken-memories-and-silent-tears: Alice is great and I’m happy to crossover this with our Gralice ship, Kaito and Alice have a great sibling bond with my Gray (and Shiro) between them haha. I’d be happy to add Alice into my fan game as we discussed before way back too, esp now things are better on my end!

@imaginaryserver: Me and (my muses) miss you and your Mavis! Our Cards Against Humanity game is still a memorable time for me from way back, I’m still waiting for an artist to draw it!

@shrimps-variety-garden: I just adore your Levy and her ship with Kaito, the modern AU is especially interesting since it’s based on song lyrics haha. Looking forward to us RPing though to the endgame! Our ship also has helped me develop a more antagonistic version of my Gajeel which is awesome too.

@scythe-rps: Hiroshi is a better guy (and muse) thanks to his best friend Gyrain! it’s good that we can bring more focus onto the usually underappreciated Blue Pegasus! I look forward to when Lyon & Gyrain finally clear the air about their relationship lmao, and thanks for helping me develop Masaru more through their interactions! 

@sunaarashii: Thank you for interacting with Hiroshi, his ship with Cari is just precious with the thread we have currently, can’t wait to RP out what comes next!

@bunnysmultimuse: The thread with Sorano was fun, so I’d like to continue interactions (esp with the headcanons discussed) if you’re still up for it! That goes for Jellal with Meredy too!

@ultecr: Still have your post in my drafts, I know you said to take my time but even I know taking months is ridiculous lmao. I look forward to starting the Kaito/Ultear ship once I do reply, love your portrayal of Mavis too!

@herhorns:  I love seeing your Mira on my dash, especially her ships with Gajeel and Gray! Looking forward to interacting with Ravyn when we get to it, your art is awesome too!

@angelsoffiore: Welcome back man! Mizumi is a great OC and is why I approached you in the first place, so appreciate you still continuing our thread after so long. Hope to interact more with Mizumi, your other OCs, and your Laxus too!

[captain-krow-drozdov]

✨ Pictures Taken Moments Before Disaster ✨

Local Feral Amnesiac Quite Literally Gets Spirited Away! More News At 6.

Why Must The Great Fairies Pick Me Up Like A Ragdoll And Drag Me Into The Bloody Feywild? I Just Wanted To Upgrade My Champions Tunic Man...

[pyropsychiccollector]

So, to explain - this is the Danganronpa characters from Trigger Happy Havoc, listed from my favorite to least favorite. I'll go ahead and explain my rationale, a bit.

Starting with the F rank, Hagakure.... He's just useless as hell. A comic relief character that somehow managed to make it out of that shitstorm alive, and he's just not a very deep, amazing character. He's easy to panic and confuse - hell, at the start, he was so convinced the school was pulling an elaborate prank on them... despite all the signs to the contrary. And his talent of fortunetelling.... even the average of his predictions being right (30% at most, 20% at least) is pretty piss poor. Celes set him up as her scapegoat, and while that is kinda sad for him, it kinda loses its effect when you consider he begged for you (Naegi) to donate your organs on the cheap so that he could sell them on the black market so that he wouldn't need to dip into his own life savings to pay off a debt to the yakuza.

.... Like I said, not that great of a character, and I'm super annoyed out of everyone, he was one of the survivors. XD

Moving onto E rank... Fukawa's a little better off than Hagakure. She's a super downer to talk to, and will not hesitate to insult you to your face (unless you're Togami), but she's a learned girl and she made some contributions to the story, though they be few and far in-between, in my opinion. Her obsession with Togami is annoying, though, and like Hagakure she dragged out the trials at times because of her insistence on certain culprits (like Naegi, in trial 1).But.... still better than Hagakure, honestly. Her talent's hell of a lot more useful than Hagakure's, too - not to mention her growth in later games and anime.

Rank D.... Yamada just seemed so flat (an otaku to the bone), and Leon just didn't have much time for you to get to know him. You could tell he was a lady's man, a skirt chaser, and he let the life-or-death situation with Maizono get to him... But Leon did show, at least marginally, that he did have a love for his talent; he just didn't care for all the formal, traditional stuff like shaving his hair off. And Yamada... Well, he was used and thrown away by Celes; what sets him apart from Hagakure is he was actually stabbed in the back by her, and he didn't try harvesting your organs to repay a debt that was totally and completely on him for scamming the wrong people.

.... So yeah, Yamada and Leon are somewhat more sympathetic characters, but they're either flat or just didn't have enough time to flesh out.

Rank C... Ishimaru kinda started out boring with his by-the-books attitude and obsession with studying, but you could appreciate his struggle with effort vs genius - geniuses have to work, too, but in some respects they can make it look pretty easy. Having to work from the bottom up is admirable. Plus, you kinda felt bad for how he lost his best friend in trial 2.... On the surface that looked a bit fast for a friendship to blossom between two people of seeming clashing personalities, but when you consider they all had their memories wiped.... It's not that crazy; on an instinctual level, they were still probably pretty good friends, which is why they gravitated to one another again (that's just my thoughts; we don't know a lot about the time they spent at Hope's Peak pre-Tragedy).

Togami started as a prick and elite snob.... Not to mention how he toyed with trial 2 for kicks. It was nice seeing him eat humble pie in trial 4...And though he sent you to your death in trial 5, he had some development toward the end of the game. .... A little. What probably raised him to C for me was his characterization in the second game and the Danganronpa 3 anime.... Still a bit stuck-up, but he'd bonded with everyone in his own way~

Fujisaki.... You just gotta feel sorry for the kid. Had a weakling complex for much of his life, and it only seemed to get better when he got in high school.... A nice, loyal friend, and inventor of Alter Ego, who survived into the second game.... Bummer that he was the fourth one to die.

B rank... I suppose Genocider/Genocide Jill was just a fun, kooky character. No qualms about murdering, and she had a loyalty streak in her (not just for Togami, but Komaru, too). Plus, it was kinda neat her memories of the Tragedy were used to help solve the last trial of the first game. That's just me.

Asahina.... She was a chirpy, sappy, loyal girl. Bit of an airhead at times, but she made contributions to the story. She'd probably be higher if she didn't try to screw everyone over in trial 4, but that was mostly Monokuma's fault for the planted fake suicide note, so not too many demerits against her.

Kyoko... definitely one of the most useful characters, had a backstory, and all-around nice girl, if not a tad awkward because of not interacting with others much. Similar to Asahina, she'd probably be higher up there if it wasn't for how she screwed Naegi over, in trial 5... I get the desperation of surviving no matter what (to solve all the mysteries), and it being a setup from Monokuma again, but her betrayal still kinda chafed. If Alter Ego hadn't saved Naegi, I probably would have downright hated her.... XD I suppose she loses a few more points for being mostly reserved and stuck in her detective work.... But overall, she's a cool character.  

A rank... Junko surpasses Kyoko merely because she's a Joker-esque character. You still gotta hate her for being the root cause of all the misery, but the cray-cray kinda softens the blow. .... It's kind of like how the executions in Danganronpa can be funny, yet dark when you really think about them. And if you didn't have Junko, well, there wouldn't be any Monokuma.... and he can be even more Joker-esque, despite "just" being a mascot. XD

S rank.... Mondo was a meathead, and a jerk for punching your lights out in the first chapter, but he could be a real softie and loyal as hell. His guilt for causing his brother's death makes him easy to sympathize with, and his character flaw of easily losing his temper makes him pretty human. He didn't like murdering Fujisaki, and he was man enough to try and conceal Fujisaki's gender because it was something Fujisaki confided to him in good faith. A tragic character overall, but you're not annoyed by all the tragedy, like you can be with some characters (leers at Jellal from Fairy Tail).

Sakura is in a similar state. She's more level-headed than Mondo, but she can still get angry, and she had strong enough willpower to take her own life rather than murder one of her friends - and do it in a way that can make it clear so that the class trial doesn't drag on. Monokuma threw a wrench into that, of course, but it was still her intent to make it easy for her friends to live on. Her backstory with the man she loves, someone she acknowledges as stronger than her in spite of him currently fighting an illness, was pretty interesting, too.

SS rank.... Makoto's a pretty great protagonist - probably my favorite in the Dangan series. The "I'm ordinary to the cliché degree" routine can be off-putting, but he's got a strong spirit, and.... he's just a nice guy. Probably to the point of being TOO nice, and I guess that makes him a human character I can relate with... If he had even one selfish bone in his body, he probably could have gotten Sayaka to outright say she loves him, in the game. But because of circumstances, and because he thinks Sayaka is too high register for him (even though she's "interested" in him), he doesn't take the initiative and confess to her. Naegi just keeps bouncing back despite getting betrayed again and again.... Hagakure, Sayaka, Leon, Mondo, Celes, Asahina, Kyoko.... Naegi just keeps bouncing back~

And considering how I've talked about betrayals so far, you'd probably be surprised Celes is so high up there. But still, I find her to be a pretty down-to-earth character, a Queen of Liars, and a dreamer of dreams. She can be bratty, like when Yamada didn't make her "royal" milk tea, but I find her rage-induced states to be funny.... She's shrewd and cunning (save for trial 3), and I just kinda like how Naegi wormed his way into her heart, being the first of their classmates to reach "C-rank" in her hierarchy. Hell, she even joked about being pregnant with Naegi's child in that last free time with her.... You don't see any other girl doin' that in the series. XD

And finally, SSS rank.... the heavenly tier~

Mukuro's a badass and an adorable waifu rolled into one. Danganronpa 3 didn't do her much favor with her obsession to please Junko, but I do think she was loyal to a fault in that regard - otherwise, Junko wouldn't have done nearly as much damage as she had. The Danganronpa IF storyline, while fanmade, did a nice job of showing how Makoto could have affected her, and fleshed out her character pretty nicely. I still like her being a bit of a goober, being flustered at times, but I also like the badass side of her.... Not to mention her potential fierce loyalty to Naegi, if they'd had more time to interact....

And Sayaka, well.... XD I know a lot of people don't like her, but I definitely think she has more depth to her than most people give her credit for. I mean, think about how much emotion she showed in that first chapter - showed especially to Naegi of all people. If she wanted to hide her distress, her fears, why confide in him at all? If she was really plotting murder all along, why'd it take until the motive videos to "see" that potential for murder in her? She remarked how not talking to Naegi in middle school was one of her biggest regrets.... And isn't that a bit risqué for an idol to do? To reveal she has regrets at all? Japanese idols are supposed to be bubbly and love everybody, but she was pretty candid with Naegi in regards to what she thought about Mondo, after he volunteered Naegi to go find Monokuma's "motive". Sayaka betrayed Naegi, that's a fact; but it wasn't from the onset, and she most certainly didn't do it easily and without an ounce of regret in her heart. I suppose one thing for me that makes Sayaka's betrayal different from Celes and Kirigiri's betrayals is the fact she left behind evidence to absolve Naegi, to point to who really killed her (she even remembered what Naegi said about how to open his bathroom door). And what's more, she was conflicted enough that it led to her death at all. Kirigiri showed remorse over throwing Naegi under the bus, but only after the fact, and only made reparations after Alter Ego miraculously saved him. Sayaka's heart hadn't completely been in it when she betrayed Naegi, and that's something I liked; because it showed that, despite doing such a horrible thing, she cared about him. She betrayed him in a way that wouldn't physically hurt or kill him, and she hadn't intended dying on him, either; she didn't know about the class trial, and therefore didn't know she was endangering all of her classmates, including Naegi. It's very likely that had she succeeded in her murder of Leon, she would have confessed right away so that Naegi could live. For Sayaka, Makoto was a precious friend that reminded her that people can do nice things for others without any intent of getting anything in return. She loved his kindness, and was flattered he saw her as an idol worthy of worship.... despite how she confessed she'd done "bad things" to reach the top of the industry. Who knows what occurred back in their pre-Tragedy days.... The possibility for a relationship was quite high, considering how close they got to each other in chapter 1. That's just my thoughts, though.

[100wordanime]

This might seem like an odd choice for a list but I’m going to be honest, going into Summer 2017 there were only a few shows that on reading the synopsis made me want to try them and then most of those were unavailable to me. I did get to watch Elegant Yokai Apartment Life and it had the opposite problem of the write up makes it sound more fun that it is. So instead I got to just randomly sample shows that I went into expecting not to really like them very much and in some cases the results have been pleasantly surprising. That’s not to say these are the best shows I’m watching or the best on offer, only that they are actually more fun than I initially thought they would be.

Anyway, I’d love to know if there’s a show that has surprised you this Summer season by not being dreadful.

Please note: Probably only limited spoilers below.

Honourable mention this week to Princess Principal. Not only is it one of my favourite shows of the season, it is one that from the short synopsis I read and the character designs I was pretty positive I was going to drop, not because it sounded bad, but because it just didn’t sound or look like something I would enjoy. So glad I watched the first episode because it was great fun.

Number 5: 18if

After going to sleep like normal, Haruto Tsukishiro wakes up to discover something unbelievable—he’s stuck in dream world! Here, witches plague the dreamscape and are more than dreamy figments—they’re the trapped souls of young women who’ve rejected reality and are afflicted by the “Sleeping Beauty Syndrome.”

The above is the Crunchyroll synopsis and reading that it just screams that this is something to be avoided. Stuck in a dream world? Okay, here’s another chance for a writer to just be totally random for no reason. Oh, there are witches who are actually the trapped souls of young women? Suffering from a syndrome named after a fairy tale character. It all just seemed far too much like a desperate cry for attention and to be honest with each episode featuring a unique art style and tone you could be forgiven for thinking this entire story is just a project being made by an over-zealous art class full of students that all just want their turn at creating someone for Haruto to rescue. Despite that, it actually hasn’t been a bad watch. There’s been quite a bit of heart in some of the stories and there’s been enough cohesion with Haruto to carry us from story to story without too much confusion. Admittedly, this could still end very badly or not at all if they don’t bother to get to some sort of more definitive point before the season draws to a close.

Number 4: Gamers

“Would you like to be with me… in the Gamers Club?” Amano Keita is a perfectly mediocre loner with no particular distinguishing features other than his love for games. One day, his school’s prettiest girl and Gamer Club President Tendo Karen suddenly calls out to him. That moment changes Keita’s life forever, as he now finds himself in the midst of a romcom with beautiful girl gamers… or, well, that’s how it usually goes. Not with him, however.

As much as I like games and gaming, this anime didn’t exactly scream that it was something I wanted to watch. Everything about the synopsis is cliché and high school, club anime about loner boy getting targeted by the school’s ‘prettiest girl’ to join a club just didn’t seem like something I was going to get into. And the first episode more or less confirmed those fears and then it didn’t. Gamers managed to turn the trite and overused scenario on its head and admittedly it has marched us through a lot of tropes and clichés the way it manages to continue to defy audience expectations while remaining watchable is pretty amazing. The narrative is completely shot at this point because of all the twists they keep building in but it doesn’t really matter because I’m just caught up with these odd characters and their odd but charming interactions.

Number 3: Fastest Finger First

Bunzou High School is welcoming its new first-year students. One of them, Koshiyama Shiki, is chosen to participate against his will in an impromptu fast-buzzing quiz meet by the president of the Quiz Bowl Circle. As a quiet boy who loves reading and doesn’t want to stand out, Shiki is overwhelmed, but his classmate, Fukami Mari, is able to hit the buzzer and answer questions before the full question is given.

Once again, high school club with quiet boy getting dragged into things. What actually drew me to this one is that it was about quizzes and I really enjoy them so I ignored all my trepidations and took on the first episode. While I can’t say that this has truly defied any of my expectations, it is really quite watchable and mostly that is because of Koshiyama as the protagonist. He might be a quiet kid who doesn’t like standing out but there’s more to him than just that and he’s actually proving to be a reasonably well rounded protagonist. Does that make the show particularly good? Not really. Unless you like quizzes there really isn’t a lot to get into with the story. However, given what my initial thoughts were when reading that synopsis I’ve ended up finding this fairly okay.

Number 2: Clean Freak Aoyama-Kun

Aoyama kun is a hot, young soccer prodigy who plays midfielder for the National U-16 Soccer Team. But he’s also an extreme germaphobe! The TV anime adaptation of “Keppeki Danshi! Aoyama kun!” (Clean Freak!! Aoyama kun) portrays the friendships he forms and the challenges he overcomes in a “spotless” coming-of-age story!

Seriously? It is a story about a ‘hot’ soccer player who is a germaphobe and in case that isn’t enough to make your eyes roll right out your head at the sheer gimmicky nature of that match up we then get an incredibly tacky pun dropped into the synopsis just for fun. There was absolutely nothing about that write up that made this seem like it would appeal and to be honest, there’s nothing about the show that really should given its basically an episodic comedy that has a cast of overly zany characters that each seem to get one episode in the spotlight where their extreme dysfunction takes centre stage as we circle around Aoyama and then we move on. Despite that, I’ve been finding this anime oddly charming. Not every joke is a winner and some episodes are more tiresome than others, but overall, Aoyama has been kind of interesting and part of that is probably because despite the cheap jokes and gimmicks, for the most part it seems to respect people with conditions. There are a lot of tacky jokes in the series but Aoyama’s need to clean has for the most part been treated as a setting rather than the target of the humour.

Number 1: In Another World With My Smartphone

After dying as a result of God’s mistake, the main character finds himself in a parallel world, where he begins his second life. His only possessions are the body that God gave back to him and a smartphone that works even in this new world. As he meets all kinds of new people and forges new friendships, he ends up learning the secret to this world. He inherits the legacy of an ancient civilization and works together with the kings of some very laid-back countries on his carefree travels through this new world.

Right from the title you know what this show is giving you. It is another self-aware isekai story about an overpowered protagonist trapped in another world. Gimmick to throw in is he gets to take his phone with him and somehow it works. There’s really no reason at all this anime should have appealed to me and yet there’s just something about how it delivers its tropes that manages to entertain. It seldom crosses into overly cringe worthy territory and even though the last couple of episodes have started to become a little repetitive, due to Touya being all but an unstoppable force of nature at this point, there’s still plenty to make me smile about this show. Nope, it has no depth and it isn’t trying to actually make itself distinct or a satire on the genre or anything else. What it does is simply remember why these clichés became cliches and what makes them fun. It delivers lines that in most shows would all but be followed with a nudge to the audience to let us know that they are aware it is an overused line in an absolutely serious manner. Just as it delivers cloth dissolving slimes without a hint of shame. All and all, of all the shows I tried without really expecting anything from them, this one is the one I’ve ended up having the most fun with. Again, not exactly the best anime of the season but nowhere near as terrible as it could have been from that synopsis.

Over to you, which show this Summer did you find to be oddly not terrible after reading a synopsis that kind of made you wonder why you were even pressing play?

Thanks for reading.

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Thanks,

Karandi James.

Tuesday’s Top 5: Shows of Summer 2017 That Weren’t As Bad As Their Synopsis Made Them Sound This might seem like an odd choice for a list but I'm going to be honest, going into Summer 2017 there were only a few shows that on reading the synopsis made me want to try them and then most of those were unavailable to me.