#now that i have some more free time i can Finally get to the bigass backlog of wips n drafts left behind jdspfsdf

[dreiiton]

an ode to the beasts

that live in my brain at all times

[zooophagous]

So why do you hate the advertising industry?

Hokay so.

Let me preface this with some personal history. It's not relevant to the sins of the advertising industry perse but it illustrates how I started to grow to hate it.

I wanted to be a veterinarian growing up, but to be a vet you basically have to be good enough to get into medical school. I do not have the math chops or discipline to make it in medical school. I went into art instead, and in a desperate attempt to find some commercial viability that didn't involve moving to California, I went into graphic design.

I've been a graphic designer for about seven or eight years now and I've worn a lot of hats. One of them was working in a print shop. Now, the print shop had a lot of corporate customers who had various ad campaigns. One of them was Gate City Bank, which had a bigass stack of postcards ordered every couple months to mail to their customers.

Now, paper comes from Dakota Paper, and they make their paper the usual way. Somewhere far, far from our treeless plain there is a forest of tall trees. These trees are cut down and put on big fossil fuel burning trucks and hauled to a paper mill that turns them into pulp while spewing the most fowl odors imaginable over the neighboring town and loads the pulp up with bleach to give it a nice white color.

Then the paper is put on yet another big truck and hauled off to the local paper depot, then put on another big truck and delivered to my print shop, where I turned the paper into postcards telling people to go even deeper into debt to buy a boat because it's almost summer. The inks used are a type of nasty heat sensitive plastic that is melted to the surface of the paper with heat. Then the postcards are put on yet ANOTHER truck and sent to the bank, which puts them on ANOTHER truck and finally into the hands of their customers, who open their mail and take one look at the post card and immediately discard it.

Heaps and heaps and literal hundreds of pounds of literal garbage created at the whim of the marketing team several times a year. And thats just one bank in one city.

I came to realize very quickly that graphic design was the delicate art of turning trees into junk mail.

And wouldn't you know it there are a TON of companies that basically only do junk mail. Many of them operate under the guise of a "charity," sending you pictures of suffering children or animals and begging for handouts and when they get those handouts the executives take a nice fat cut, give some small token amount to whatever cause they pay lip service to, and then put the rest of the cash right back into making more mailers. "Direct mail marketing" they call it.

Oh but maybe it's not so bad, you can advertise online after all. Now that there's decent ad blocker out there and better anti-virus ads usually don't destroy your computer anymore just by existing.

Except now when I search for the exact business I want on Google it's buried under three or four different "promoted search items" tricking me into clicking on them only to shoot themselves in the foot because I searched for the specific result I wanted for a reason and couldn't use those other websites even if I felt like it.

And now we have advertising on YouTube and on every streaming service, forcing more and more eyes onto the ad for the brand new Buick Envision that parks itself because you're too stupid to do it on your own.

Oh thats ok maybe I'll get Spotify premium and go ad free and listen to some podcasts- SIKE we have the hosts of your show doing the song and dance now. Are you depressed and paranoid from listening to my true crime podcast about murdered and mutilated teenagers? That's ok, my sponsor Better Help can keep you sane enough to stay alive and spend more money.

It's gotten so terrible that now you have content farms, huge hubs of shell companies that crank out video after video to get more and more precious clicks. Which if the videos were innocuous maybe that wouldn't be so awful except now you have cooking hacks that can actually burn your house down and craft hacks that can electrocute you being flung into your eyes at the speed of mach fuck so some slimy internet clickbait jockey doesn't need to get a real job.

It of course goes without saying that animals are also relentlessly exploited by clickbait companies that will put them in compromising situations on purpose to create a fake fishing hack video or even just straight up killing them for sport by feeding small animals to a pufferfish that rips them apart for the camera.

And all of this, ALL of this doesn't even touch how adveritising is the death of art in general. Queer topics, any kind of interesting art, any kind of sex or substance use topics are scrubbed clean and hidden at the behest of advertisers.

Sex education, a nude statue, topics such as racism or sexism or bigotry in general have tags purged or hidden from search, even life saving information about SDTs or drug use, because if someone saw that and complained then Verizon might sell fewer tablets and we can't fucking have that.

Conservative talking heads often bitch and moan that they're being censored on social media. The stupid part is, they're right! They are being censored! But it's not by a woke mob, it's by ATT and Coca Cola not wanting their adspace sharing screen time with their stupid fucking opinions.

However, they won't ever figure that out, because the talking heads they get their marching orders from like Tucker and Jones ALSO rely on the sweet milk flowing from the sponsorship teat and they aren't about to turn on their meal ticket so they have to come up with even stupider shit to say for the train to continue rolling.

I managed to rant this far without even getting into the ads I see for the beauty industry. The other day a botox ad described wrinkles as "moderate to severe crows feet" as if wrinkles are a symptom of a fucking serious disease! Like having a flaw in your skin is a medical problem that you need thousands of dollars of literal botulism toxin to fix! I was incandescent with anger.

Advertising is a polluting, censoring, anti educational and anti art industry at it's very core. It destroys human connections, suppresses human thought and makes us hate our own bodies. It ads no value, actively detracts from value, and serves no real purpose and I believe it should be almost if not entirely banned.

[larcenywrites]

Since Tony's birthday is near (May 29th), could we get some headcanons for celebrating birthdays with him? Maybe waking him up with breakfast in bed and birthday cupcakes, just something small and intimate, just the two of you before y'all gotta go to his official birthday party with like half of the town in it or maybe a bigass birthday party his parents are throwing for him if it's young!Tony?! Young!Tony or regular Tony, whatever you prefer. Fluffy (and smutty if you want heheh birthday boy also deserves some bday sex)

EEEE, I knew I should do something for it today, but didn't have the time or energy to plan out any good one-shots or anything! And I do wanna do both :3

Warnings: sexual references

Celebrating His Birthday

young!Tony Stark

💠Tony takes any excuse to party! So your first thought is that you may have to chain him to a tree to keep him from going too crazy when his birthday comes around! Wait... when is his birthday? You still don't know even after you've been together after quite a few months. Hopefully you haven't missed it :( but when you ask, he whines grumpily and rolls over, but not because you missed.

💠"May 29th," he finally grumbles after you poke around (and poke him) a little. His obvious dip in mood has you deflated, lying limply over him. Tony hates his birthday. He'll tell you outright, but he won't really give you a reason. "So you don't do anything?" College is out, so he can't even go to some party or throw one, his one friend isn't from around here, and you weren't around until recently, soooooo the answer to that question is no.

💠His parents can hardly get him to eat dinner with them, and for once he doesn't want Things or Stuff. Because of this, it's just another day that Howard and Tony fight over, but Tony's been called ungrateful and an asshole many many times, so it's not going to phase him today any more than another. Well, obviously something is phasing him a little more today than any other day, but you can really only infer from context clues. He will never tell.

💠Even with you, he doesn’t want it to be a big deal. He’d prefer to lay around in bed all day tbh. Tony’s energy levels aren’t necessarily high to begin with, but he’s pretty low today :( don’t make him do too much too fast, don’t go crazy. In fact, let him sleep in for as long as he wants! Well, maybe not too late. He will sleep until the next day if you let him 😅 If you're feeling brave, slide under the covers to wake him up with a blowjob 😏 buuut he might go back to sleep when you're done... Maybe save it for later...

💠Instead, wake him up a little more gently that afternoon! Even he can't help but smile when you're kissing over his cheeks and playing with his hair 😘 Lie down on top of him and you'll probably be tempted to join him in bed, after all, but- no! Today isn't a day to be moping around!

💠But... wait. What do you get for the man that has pretty much everything and has done pretty much everything? Honestly, don't think about it too hard. Even if he's done it a thousand times, what makes him happy? Anything is better that letting his thoughts eat him alive in bed all day :(

💠If he's turning 21, even though he's already had his fair share of alcohol, be a bit of a dork and make him order a drink at a restaurant or go to a uncrowded bar. He can get it legally now! Amazing! He may even get a free one or two because it's his birthday! But it's also 2 in the afternoon, and his parents still want to do something later, so keep an eye on him and don't let him drink too much... or do and laugh your ass off when he's stumbling through the park, but you might get the cops on your ass 😒

💠You could take him to a liquor store, but those guys haven't been IDing for years 🙄 But you can make him try some weird shit like birthday cake flavored vodka or banana pudding moonshine! You can't exactly try it out now, but just because everyone else goes to bed doesn't mean you two will!

💠It may sound boring to you, but if you can find some thrift-like store that is just full of vinyl records and such, he'll be like a kid in a candy shop! Or maybe closer to a bull in in a china shop. How did he not know this was so nearby? He always pays for everything, so you could try to be nice and repay that this time, but be aware, Tony can rack up quite a big bill 🤧 Either way, he'll be pretty excited! If you can, try to get an album he likes that has limited addition cover art or maybe the record itself is a special color. His eyes will light up when you suddenly hand it to him to add to his pile, and you'll get a nice kiss right there in the shop 🥰 Tony might even find a way to hang it up or display it, he'll be so happy!

💠Hopefully you aren't tired of it, because somehow Tony is never tired of the aquarium! The penguin show? He's front row. The touch tanks? He's having more fun than the kids. The sea lions? Still scared of them. The reef sharks? Somehow knows another random fact about them. Get into one of those behind-the-scenes tours where they show off the water pumps and vet centers. He's never considered it before, and he'll be all over the machines back there! He's never been one for the gift shop, but get him a shark plushie this time 🥺 he'll act like he's too grown for that, but he'll be petting it the entire time he's holding it 😌

💠Head back home and, regardless of all the previous not-so-happy birthdays, Maria still tries to do something, bless her. She probably told you to bring him back by a certain time, too. She does a lot, but manages to keep it simple at the same time because she knows Tony will feel less weird about it 🥺 Probably just makes his favorite meal. Tony doesn't have much of a sweet tooth, and prefers fruitier flavors compared to chocolatey, so instead of a cake it's probably an arrangement of fruit-garnished cupcakes with a simple candle on the one in the middle :) that he really doesn't want to blow out because it makes him feel a bit weird and kinda gross :( but, fine, he'll do it for you guys 🙄

💠And of course she got a gift or two! Not much because she knows Tony will feel bad, but a few nice shirts for you to steal later and maybe another high-end watch that he needed another color in (or maybe matches these new shirts better than his other would 💅). If he's turned 21, she probably also got him some kind of high-end whiskey even though he literally drinks wine with them at home and stuff, so it's not a big deal... but it's all in good fun! Maria will even do a shot or two with him (and you if you join in) with whatever she bought 🤭

💠She's also cheesy and sentimental, and always takes a picture of Tony on his birthday even knowing he can't stand it 🤧 But this time, you get to be in the picture, and his smile is much more genuine and happy this time 🥺 That is, until she gets out the pictures from every other birthday to show you- including one taken only an hour after he was born! Tiny Tony!

💠Considering you both woke up late, it's definitely not sleepy time, even after all the fun, but those drinks will definitely make Tony a bit loud... Grand idea: sneak out to go to the beach and watch the sunset! With drinks in tow, of course! And maybe a cupcake or two.

💠There's a section for "kids," but who's to say you aren't allowed to use the swings too?? Force him to sit on the seesaw with you!

💠"This is stupid."

💠"Tony, we always do something stupid."

💠He'll gripe, but he'll have fun 😌 And by fun, he'll probably end up keeping you in the air while he's busy licking lemon icing off of a cupcake. Honestly, it's not a bad view, but pout about it just so he'll smile up at you 💘

💠Sit on the swings and cough in disgust at the cake flavored vodka, even though Tony will keep drinking it anyway and complain about how gross it is each time 🙄 You may need to cut him off before he falls out of the seat, but he's just as leaned over down in the sand, too. On you, of course! He's really not that bad off, just a little giggly 😆 His tolerance isn't as high as you'd think.

💠He's more interested in splashing you with water than the setting sun, but he better not get salty sea water on your cupcake! Give him a little kiss to calm him right down ;) and he'll just rest a cheek on your shoulder instead, and barely rest his fingers over yours like he's suddenly shy to hold your hand for the first time. Just cozy up to him and let him sober up a little more as the stars come out, and watch him still manage to point out planets and constellations despite the inebriation.

💠"I don't really know what it means, but mom said I'm a Gemini," he mumbles, pointing at a starry cluster. "I don't have a twin, though."

💠"I don't think that's what that means, Tony."

💠It's getting cold and late, so pack him into the car and sneak back into his room through the window, and he's already undressing before you can even close it behind you!

💠"Was it okay?" You, rightfully so, ask nervously. He hums thoughtfully, but the arms pulling you into him answer your question.

💠"It was much better than okay," he responds quietly, shyly smiling and looking down. Only your hands on his face and kiss on his nose can make him look back up at you. His nose crinkles, but his smiles does get bigger :) Too big actually...

💠"But I know a way you could make it better."

Tony Stark

💠One might say that every day must be Tony's birthday. He always gets what he wants, he's always going places, he throws parties every other weekend and half the time he doesn't even show up

💠But the day of his actual birthday? Oh, you'll know when it is, but he still might not even make it to his own party 😅

💠But the craziness doesn't happen 'til sunset, or maybe just not until the weekend if his b-day is on a weekday. If it is, he always takes the day off even if he does literally nothing. He's entitled to the day, he says. I still haven't recovered from being born, so I need the time off.

💠No matter the excuse, you could never say no to having him in bed into the late mornings, nor to pampering him even though he's always spoiled af 😌

💠You should probably let a terminally exhausted man sleep, but he won't be mad at the tickling kisses to his neck, or the tongue trailing down his stomach... it's not very often you get the chance to wake up before him, so you're both more than happy with a little morning blowjob 😏 Coddle him and cuddle him when he finishes, wrap your arms around his neck and plant your lips in his hair. Let him lay in bed for a while longer 😌 Possibly into the afternoon because he'll return the favor and it's his b-day, you gotta let him have as much of his favorite treat as he wants 😘

💠But once you do finally get out of bed, it's mostly a relaxed day. Surprising, right? Sure, his party this weekend is going to be wild, but just in the house with you should be a little more intimate and loving.

💠It's rare that he can or wants to do actual cooking with you! Probably something easy, though, like waffles or pancakes. And he probably wants to make smiley faces in the batter out of blueberries or raspberries or something 🥺 And you know what? Who cares about eating in bed today! He still does a little, but- it's fine it can be washed if something does get dropped but please try not to

💠Make a few cupcakes just for fun! He wants to put on the icing, though! Beautiful might not be the word you'd use to describe them, but Tony doesn't seem to mind 😅 He might also terrorize you with the bag of icing, or wipe it off on you when it gets on his hands. You could compete with him if you want, but if yours look better he'll simply steal them instead! And swipe that bit of icing off his nose while you’re at it 🥺

💠The house probably already has gifts piled up in the living room, even from business and CEOs from the other side of the world! They're mostly complimentary things, though. Just cards or native plants, maybe a charm or two that are supposed to carry fortune and luck. It's fun to just go through them all! But you could quite literally spend hours doing it, and he'll likely have even more by the weekend! Honestly... most of it gets thrown out anyway, so don't feel bad about your own gifts 😌

💠In fact, you really don't need to get him anything. As much as he likes to get gifts just to feel ooed and awed and all, he has everything he could ever want right here, and that's fine! If anything, maybe get him a cologne that you really liked in the store 😏 or just get him a silly looking tie or boxers with fish on them or something lmao

💠Absolutely make DUM-E wear a party hat and make JARVIS sing happy birthday 🥳 While your at it, put a hat on Tony too! But if you want to light a candle on a cake or something, make sure no nearby robotic arms can attempt to put it out 🤧 Tony will not be very amused, but it does make a funny picture!

💠Have JARVIS design a card, and sign his name somewhere when he prints it! Maybe a simple but sweet message in the center, with love, from us, or something 💛 DUM-E will draw a very very beautiful heart that takes up an entire side of the card :) it’s a little jagged and lopsided, but it’s a lot better than last year’s! Sure, there’s probably a big guest book at his party that tons of people will sign, but this is different. These are the ones that actually know and love him, and can write personal messages alongside their names because there’s so few, and in their own favorite colors! DUM-E and U also sign their names right inside that heart, just as beautiful 😌 Tony will never admit it, but every year it still makes him want to tear up a little 🥲

💠Sit on the balcony at night and light the fire pit, cuddle in the fake grass with some shitty takeout like McDonalds or something. He can still point out every constellation, and he still doesn't really know much why it matters that he's Gemini or whatever. He doesn't even have a twin??

💠You may want to keep up his mother's tradition and add another photo to the album. Tony won't mind, and may not be paying attention anyway, but honestly today isn't the day that he wants to look back through it. It's probably been years, but one day he will. And, boy, he'll probably be shocked at how much he's changed 🥹

💠End the night with a nice bath, with vanilla scented bath bombs and maybe splashing water over the side of the edge of the tub and all over the tile floor... get him ready for another workday or two 😔

💠But with the weekend comes the day of the party! Which is probably now at some grand ballroom or hall after an incident at the house a while back 😒

💠Probably just me being a service sub, but dress him up for his party 🥺 wash his hair, get out that cologne you bought for him. Maybe he'll put his favored necklace on you, with a little kiss to the back of your neck 🥺 and this is exactly why he doesn't make it to his parties half the time...

💠Be prepared to drag a drunken Tony up a flight of stairs and into bed later! Just stay nearby to make sure he doesn't get into anything he shouldn't! Especially that tower of glasses full of champagne 😬But let yourself have some fun, too, if drinking is your thing, but you still probably won't be able to outdrink him!

💠He is going to want to cut the first piece of that very tall marbled cake. Hopefully it's done earlier in the night when he's not as drunk and properly wield a big knife. Otherwise, you might need to help him out 😅 Or just get Happy to do it because you might be a little under the table yourself. Tony might be pouty about not being the first to cut it, though >:(

💠Did someone say fireworks? Yep, a whole show of 'em! Any shape and color you can think of! But you both may be too busy making out in a nearby bathroom to catch it... ah, who cares? he can shoot fireworks over the ocean from the balcony anytime he wants!

💠You won't know most of the people. Tony might know about 40% of them. Why is this person congratulating you? Why is some asshole trying to strike a business deal with Tony-- and his drunk ass is agreeing?? Well thank god this isn't at your house this time because the people on the roof are not your problem 🤨

💠When Tony is more sober again by the end of the night, AKA 1am, he might ask you to dance with him ❤ He might still be a bit clumsy on his feet, but let him have his moment 🥺 and a few kisses!

💠He's going to be pretty damn tired when you finally get home, but you probably are too. And whether you like it or not, you might have to help him undress or else he will just fall asleep as is. Shoes and all! But no matter how tired he is, it won't stop him from trying to get a little frisky when you start unbuttoning his shirt 😉

💠And eventually, that grand cake will be a small array of red and yellow cupcakes, raspberry and lemon if you must know! And eventually those party guest filter more and more into a smaller group that you'll finally know and actually be able to trust. Tony isn't too keen on the crowds anymore, anyway. Or the noise, or the drink. Plenty of gifts still pile up in the living room, but by now he hardly cares to look through them unless its from his small social circle. Besides, he probably has a much better gift in his arms that needs to be attended to first 😌

[waheelawhisperer]

It's finally here... my review of the final episode of RWBY Volume 9. Criticism under the cut. Don't like it, keep scrolling.

Yang and Ruby still got bigass heads

I'll immediately digress for a moment to talk about how funny I find the discrepancy in head sizes between the characters in this show

Winter got that Megamind-lookin-ass head

No but for real every female character in RWBY seems to have a significantly wider skull than the men it's so funny to me

Winter's brain has infinite wrinkles

So the first thing we see Summer do after putting the kids to bed is, potentially, lie to her husband (Qrow mentioned that even Ozpin was in the dark about Summer’s final mission, and I’m assuming that we’re seeing that mission here). Seems like she wasn’t quite the paragon everyone in-universe seems to believe.

The Summer/Tai scene was kind of cute I guess

Raven what the fuck are you doing did you just hang out in a tree so you could make a dramatic entrance to impress a girl

Fucking loser-ass bird

Okay, so I was right and Summer is definitely lying out her ass, and Raven’s in on the deception.

I’m guessing whatever this is is what broke Raven, maybe? She's evidently already left her team and probably the fight, but maybe this is what utterly destroyed her hope?

Lmao Raven you’re such a fucking dork you have no rizz like mother like daughter I guess

Not that you had any right to claim Yang as your daughter even before she turned into Yuck

Damn, Summer, throw some shade. Raven deserves it tho, fuck her.

At least Raven’s well aware of her failings as a parent.

Summer just walked through her just like Yang did at Haven iirc like mother like daughter 2.0

I’d care more about this bit of Summer lore if she was an actual character instead of a Macguffin that had barely received any definition over 9 Volumes despite supposedly being important

Looks like Ruby has to come to terms with the fact that her mother wasn’t a perfect paragon after all, which is what actually matters right now, inasmuch as anything that happens this Volume actually matters

I’m vaguely curious about what her mission actually was but frankly at this point it’s too late to get me invested in Summer. If the writers wanted me to care about Team STRQ as an entity or any members other than Qrow and maybe Raven, we needed to learn a lot more about them a lot sooner.

Great. Back to Jaune. It appears Weiss failed to adequately remove him from the narrative. Try harder next time, Weiss.

You love seeing Weiss and Yang working together. Here’s how Freezerburn can still win...

Brilliant. We free Neo with the power of magic marijuana. Can this Volume get any stupider? Can we get a decent action scene at any point? Find out next time on JauneyBall Z

The weed made the Cat stronger lol. Stupidest villain of all time.

Lmao get wrecked Jaune.

Again.

Hooray, Ruby’s learned an important lesson about how she’s actually enough and doesn’t have to constantly struggle to meet everyone else’s expectations of her. If only she’d learned that in a way that didn’t involve killing herself and then getting magic tree therapy.

At least the reprise of her theme is decent I guess

No hesitation left about taking up her scythe at this point, but then that magically disappeared 2 episodes ago

Ruby looks competent in a fight against something more intelligent than your average Grimm for the first time in literal years, we love to see it

Team RWBY really is so much stronger when they work together than when they try to fight alone. At least we managed to be consistent with a theme here.

Fight was anticlimactic as hell. Would’ve been fine as a mid-Volume skirmish, but not as the capstone fight that’s supposed to serve as the pinnacle of the Volume.

RWBY’s fights have been pretty lackluster since the end of Volume 7, but Volume 9 was especially bad about it. I can barely even remember that this Volume had fights in it, much less name any that were actually compelling. For a show that built itself on badass fight scenes, RWBY has really fallen far.

“Weak… confused… incomplete…” Are you talking about humans or yourself, buddy? (It's both)

And of course Ruby’s teammates place her right back up on a pedestal because the entire theme of this Volume seems to be “learn as little as possible”

Like seriously way to instantly undermine your own theme with zero self-awareness. Really makes WBY seem like they understand and care about Ruby.

Like was the whole point of the Volume not Ruby grappling with the fact that she was, in fact, those things her team said she wasn’t?

Wow okay having the Cat be messily devoured by a bunch of Jabberwalkers was certainly a choice. 2 major nonbinary characters in this show and both of them are a) animals and b) violently killed. Wonderful. Rooster Teeth’s progressive storytelling strikes again.

Now that Ruby’s looking back at Neo I bet we get a fucking redemption arc I fucking hate it here

At least Neo’s too exhausted to pose a threat while everyone else hugs it out. You’d think they’d be a little more wary of her given her track record but whatever, I don’t even care anymore, I just want this to be done with.

Roman's new voice still bothers me. It's not annoying or flamboyant enough to fit the expectations set by the old one

WHAT IS WITH THIS SHOW AND PORTRAYING SUICIDE AS THE SOLUTION WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK WHO ON THE WRITING TEAM HAS A SUICIDE FETISH

It can’t be Miles or Kerry because this shit only started showing up in, like, Volume 8, so it has to be Eddy or Kiersi.

Why are we even wasting time on Neo she’s done absolutely nothing to deserve sympathy at this point

Boo hoo she has a sad backstory that we don't even learn in the show proper, doesn’t give her carte blanche to be a sadistic little cunt every time she’s on the screen

I’m sure that if this show ever gets that far she’ll show up as an ally later on. Fucking Christ.

Yes, Blake, I do think you made things worse, but also I don’t care because the Ever After sucks. Please just walk through the door so we can finally be done with it.

If you did any good, Ruby, I can’t name it.

Great, the mouse is back. Woohoo.

Guess it was Little’s mask the Blacksmith was forging after all

Oh look Ascension does wipe your memory

Almost like going through with it would’ve resulted in a death of personality for Ruby, but hey, it’s just magic tree therapy, right? This is a good thing, yeah? Fuck you MKEK.

Finally.

They’re back in the Tree. I had hoped we were done with this shit.

Looks like a carving of the hawk guy on the table, so I guess he’ll be okay

Damn, are those carvings of the Brother Gods? It’s already been implied that they’re connected to the Tree somehow, but I’m starting to think maybe it predates them.

Okay didn’t take long to confirm that lmao

So they’re the first beings born from the Tree, huh? Can’t imagine the tree is proud of its kids

No wonder the Ever After is so strictly regimented and has so many things mashed together, it’s Baby’s First World

Of course they immediately dump the problems on the Cat lmao

God there really is nothing likable about the Brother Gods for real

Oh look the God of Light is bitching about balance again. Good to know he’s consistent, at least

Aaaand Jaune is young again. I knew they’d never have the balls to make it permanent. Characters might have to grapple with the implications of the changes if they did, and RWBY doesn’t like grappling with the implications of anything

Are we gonna have bullshit time travel shenanigans after all this too

So we get our first glimpse of Vacuo (with the Mexico filter applied at full power) and it looks like somehow the people still on Remnant managed to fix up Amity Colosseum and get what’s left of Atlas’s air fleet to Vacuo. Interestingly, I think I can see aircraft designs from Mistral/Vale, which doesn’t make a ton of sense when Volume 7 established that telling the world about Salem would cause mass panic and we know both of those Kingdoms are currently struggling to survive as it is (Vale has to deal with the impact of the Fall of Beacon, Mistral lost a bunch of Huntsmen because Lionheart sent them out to get killed), but whatever. I’ve given up on this show giving a shit about consequences or consistency.

What even was the point of this Volume? Anything remotely relevant could've happened in an hour-and-a-half movie instead of wasting resources on that dumbass Justice League crossover no one wanted or asked for

Hell, all of it could've been trimmed down to like 2 episodes if you just drop them into the Tree with the Blacksmith, have them confront their insecurities and shit, and then send them back to Remnant

Honestly, literally all of it except maybe the stupid-ass lore dump could've happened in fucking Vacuo instead of this dumbass knockoff Alice in Wonderland crap. The Bees could've confessed there and done it organically instead of being forced to admit their feelings by a rogue weather condition. Ruby could've had her breakdown there. Idek what else of relevance even happened besides Jaune's manpain and frankly at this point I don't care about that. Even the loredump could've been worked in somehow with a little effort tbh

Instead we get this stupid fucking mess that doesn't even give us any reusable assets lmfao great allocation of the budget when your company is already struggling financially and all your hopes are pinned on this dogass show specifically

Anyway I hope Volume 10 never manifests. Not only is Rooster Teeth shitty and bigoted and deserving of a violent death as a company, these writers are painfully incompetent and actively promote harmful messages like “suicide is the solution to your problems” and “minorities can be equated to animals for comedic effect”. This shit does not deserve to continue, and neither does the company that makes it.

I'm pretty much done RWBYposting at this point. Just gotta clear out 2 or 3 asks and then I can finally be free of this hell

[formerheroeswhoquittoolate]

I'm being brave about it. have a kid cable as rider-waite the fool. I'm learning how to digital so it could be better and I'll redo it eventually. explanation of Why It's Like This under the cut.

anyway so.

the fool. the card of innocence and naivete and the beginning of journeys. very kid cable coded. even jonathan hickman thinks so, and I'm not gonna argue with him. there's this one great line in x of swords where cable's talking to his parents and he says "I should have been the other guy for this." (referencing the future cable he will become eventually) and I bring it up because. he is naive he is young he is stumbling around. he is at the start of his hero's journey, he has just now entered the unknown world.

also I think symbology is fascinating! hence why I started this project (yes it's a project, no I probably won't post all of them unless for some reason everyone really wants to see the others? it's just for me to learn symbology and get less bad at digital art). and according to the several sites of various levels of credibility I cross-referenced with wikipedia and my roommate who knows a weird amount about tarot for being a neuropsychology major, there are two major pieces of iconography in the original (rider-waite) tarot card -- the bindle (the bag on a stick) in the fool's right hand and the white flower in his left.

the bindle signifies the start of the journey (it theoretically carries his belongings and whatnot that he's taking on the journey), but as a Symbol, it represents "untapped collective knowledge." (wikipedia's words). while aforementioned sites do not agree on what "untapped collective knowledge" could theoretically mean, that doesn't super matter! because jonathan hickman did the work for me and I love him. anyway I replaced the bindle with cable's sword / the light of galador. it's got a massive amount of space energy and also zetabytes of untapped information. and in the comics where that's discussed there's this line about how "cable has refused to be separated from the sword long enough to find out." which is like. peak untapped collective knowledge. there's also this great bit at the end of x of swords that will live rent-free in my head forever! cause cable gets his Ass Handed To Him in the contest and is basically like. out of commission for the giant final battle. and I would keep explaining it but I realize it would be significantly more efficient to just. find the page and show it to you

[x of swords: destruction, jonathan hickman and tini howard, pepe larraz]

anyway. the sword is the key to winning the fight. but not because it's a sword, so he doesn't realize it. and that's very the fool. the fool thinks the bindle is just. his stuff. he doesn't realize that "his stuff" is also the collective history and knowledge of the place it comes from.

on to the left hand! in the original rider-waite card, the white flower represents... a lot of things depending on who you ask. innocence? purity? naivete? the folly of youth? someone with more Tarot Knowledge will probably read this and go "???" and help me in the comments or something and I'll either be right or horribly horribly wrong but anyway. as you can see he is Not holding a flower. he's holding this wonky string of beads.

which you can see the real version of in the top left panel in the comic and I'm realizing I like this version much better so I'm going to use it instead of phil noto's version next time! sorry phil but anyway kid cable and old cable have very similar costumes. the bandolier the boots the thigh pouches the bigass shoulder pauldrons etc. in fact there are really only two huge differences between their costumes! one, the brown cloak thing, and two, the beads.

the cloak thing (poncho? everyone draws it different) is just to keep kid cable like. hooded in the shadows for the several issues of x-termination where we aren't supposed to know who he is and then to sweep dramatically around him when he's being Emo™ in his brief x-force run (and also because dylan burnett said so). and anyway old cable has had a version of it? (and so has hope I think). it's not special.

but the beads are! in the future, cable doesn't have them. in fact, kid cable doesn't have them when he goes back to his own time. he gives them to esme before he leaves. (esme technically? has them in the future? but also I thought she was dead in the future cable came from? I don't know. I blame gerry duggan.) we never get a huge explanation about what they are or where they came from. in fact, I don't think we get any explanation, cause I don't actually know how he got them, and I have read everything with him in it I can find (if it wasn't already obvious he's one of my favorites). but kid cable always has the beads. except when he gives them to esme before he goes back to his time.

and him going back to his time is a huge deal because he's just. giving up what he has on krakoa. girlfriends (or a girlfriend I guess. see earlier monologues), friends, a cool sword, all of that, but also. his sister. his parents. literally, an entire chance at a childhood. he returns to his own time and leaves all of that behind to go back to being a soldier. and he's a different soldier when he returns. he's learned from his parents and illyana and wolverine and his future self. he's lost a lot of that innocence and childishness. the only real childishness he has when he returns in the fall of x is belligerence and impulsiveness. but no innocence.

even when he was in x-force, he had the beads. and kid cable in x-force is still a child -- an extremely tactically adept, massive-gun-wielding, insurrection-leading child, but a child nonetheless. and you see that. you see it in his attachment to deathlok, in his desperation when he's trapped with the TO virus running free in his system, in his drive to save his sister no matter how many other members of x-force he's going to have to piss off and/or fight to do it. he knows nothing about being a father (he hasn't been one yet) but he leverages it talking to cannonball anyway. you can see he's a leader and a tactitian, but there are also places where it's painfully obvious that he's like seventeen. he's just a kid. and he gives all that up to go back to his time. like look at these.

[x-force (2018), ed brisson, dylan burnett]

HE'S LITERALLY JUST A KID WHO WANTS HIS BIG SISTER BACK. also the fact that warpath is literally holding him in the third panel for no reason other than the fact that he is small and in a massive amount of pain. like they would never have done that to old cable. but this one is a child.

so me in my infinite love of symbols and my infinite hatred of Doing Things That Make No Sense For The Bit When There Are Better Albeit More Complicated Options, I'm using his beads to represent that sort of innocence/youth/childhood. it distinguishes him from his older self.

oh my god this is so long i'm so sorry. but thank you for reading all that if you did! and if I don't understand the card please tell me. or if I did understand the card and you think it's cool. I don't know what I'm doing but I'm certainly having a lot of fun about it!

[ssiggss]

I made a whole AU in my head yesterday and I'm debating whether or not to invest in it but chances are, knowing me, I'm gonna do it anyway-

Please ignore the absolute MESS that this is- it is completely disorganized 😭🖐

So basically I replaced the Arcane Order with my own OC I literally just made for this specific reason as the villain.

His name is Pyelan, (pronounced PIE-LAN) and he's an old god of peace- very powerful and ancient. However, he's grown corrupted and angry at humanity for the amount of needless war and death in their history.

He sees the pollution of Earth and the sickness, and takes it upon himself to fix it, having gone mad after the eons he spent alone.

The humans stopped worshipping him, that is why they have no peace, they've destroyed everything, in his mind the only option is to create a whole new Earth with a new species that would do better.

He seeks The Arcane Order, knowing who they are (having once been friends in ancient times) and means to have them open the genesis seals and wipe out humanity forever.

(I'm taking what Tobias said in the interrogation scene in ROTT and running- the bit abt The Arcane Order being the creators of everything.)

(Also, I like to think each of them had a hand in different species, Bellroc creating trolls and changelings, Skrael creating humans and goblins and Nari creating the animals of the Earth- with input from eachother of course. Though I'm still hammering out the details)

In this AU, The Arcane Order do not hate humanity, are more so disappointed and eager to fix the imbalance so humanity and all beings could return to their lives.

They understood his plight, but told him that because they created humans, they would find a way to restore balance without killing them off.

This throws him into a vengeful rage- could they not see that their humans have failed them? Could they not see the damage humanity has done to their planet?

If the gods who created this world were too stupid to see the truth and fix it themselves, then he would do it.

During an opportune moment, Pyelan steals Nari away and holds her hostage- this is where The Arcane Order enlists the help of their old friend's apprentice, Hisirdoux Casperan.

Douxie involves the Trollhunter and his merry band of armored children and various peoples, and there ensues many scenes of Bellroc and Skrael interacting with everyone.

So Pyelan pretends to be remorseful, tells them to meet them at the roundhouse to return Nari to them.

Obviously its a trick, but he still manages to gain control over all three of them and releases the titans- now its up to Jim and everyone else to save creation, and the creators.

Steve does NOT get pregnant but instead, the 'seventh kiss' is an engagement, meaning he would become king- a huge responsibility he's not sure he can fulfill. (Possible subplot about Steve gaining true confidence in himself and a tear-jerking scene where he looks up at the sky and hopes his mentor is proud of him after the final battle.)

Claire, Douxie, Archie, his father and Blinky still go to find the Khronosphere- it was Bellroc who told them to find it this time, their last words before they succumbed to Pyelan's mind control.

Archie chooses to stay with Douxie, there would be a heart wrenching scene where he and his father says quick goodbyes as the wall seals.

"Take care of eachother," he says, "I love you, son."

Varvatos still comes down in the bigass robot, but this time he has a co-pilot and its Zadra.

They actually manage to take Bellroc down, and Jim insists on going up and talking to Bellroc in hopes of breaking Pyelan's control.

"Is this what you truly want? C'mon!" he says as he battles against them upon crumbling molten rock. "You are who you make yourself, don't let him think for you!"

Bellroc is freed from Pyelan's control, discovers that they had been tricked by Pyelan and that Skrael and Nari were still in danger- they go ballistic.

Zoe's called in by Douxie to aid them, and she and Krel pair up as the designated tech nerds and they get a whole scene with some crazy cool akiridion tech/mechromancer wizard shit that frees Skrael from Pyelan's control- two down, one to go.

Claire is ofc a badass, portals Bellroc's titan to Arcadia and then shit really hits the fan.

In this AU, Toby and Steve fight alongside Jim against Pyelan, Strickler doesn't die but instead tends to a severely wounded Nomura with Barbara.

Pyelan uses Nari and her titan against the other two, Bellroc and Skrael are trying desperately to not hurt her too badly, but its not going so well.

Varvatos and Zadra's robot goes down against Pyelan, who ends up fighting Jim, Toby and Steve directly.

Instead of Toby dying, Jim sacrifices himself one last time as the Trollhunter, defeating Pyelan but taking himself along in the process.

This prompts everyone else to make a unanimous decision to use the Khronoshpere to save Jim.

The Trollhunter has saved countless lives, and now its their turn to save the Trollhunter.

Rewinding back to when Pyelan first set the trap for Bellroc and Skrael, they defeat him much much quicker this time.

Everyone knows what his next move will be as they all retained their memories, and Jim is safe.

The balance is slowly but surely fixing itself as time goes on, The Arcane Order are dedicated and often visit Arcadia to take breaks or to enlist help for certain missions.

Steve becomes king, ruling alongside Aja and later in their adulthood, they have children. (with much better designs)

Barbara and Strickler get married, and later so do Claire and Jim, and when I tell you that wedding was a sight to behold.

Toby is much more confident in himself, and is known all throughout Arcadia as a hero, The Trollhunters partner- Keeper of Peace.

"I'll do a much better job than the last guy, trust me."

All in all theres lots of things I gotta figure out for this AU, but its purely for self-indulgence because I can't stand the ending of ROTT. And also I was told all headcanons are canon now so I am doing what I must

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 296: Ngl, This One Pissed Me Off

Previously on BnHA: Deku was all, “p.s. I actually activated yet another quirk several chapters ago when Kacchan got stabbed.” Compress was all, “[gets captured and passes out].” Spinner was all “[rifles through Tomura’s pockets and slaps a random Charbroiled Hand onto his friend’s unconscious face].” Tomura was all, “SOMEHOW THAT ACTUALLY WORKED” and woke up again, except it wasn’t really him, it was everyone’s favorite Final Villain, AFO. AFO was all, “time to escape finally” and summoned a bunch of Noumu and Absconded with Spinner and the DabiMarble in tow. Skeptic was all, “Horikoshi forgot I existed, but I’m actually Absconding in marble-form as well.” Deku was all, “ATTENTION WORLD, I WOULD LIKE TO ANNOUNCE THAT I OFFICIALLY WANT TO SAVE SHIGARAKI TOMURA.” And then the arc just sort of ended lol.

Today on BnHA: Horikoshi is all, “but when you think about it, do we really need literally any female teachers at U.A. at all?” and for whatever reason doesn’t stop to wait for an answer. Midnight, who absolutely did not need to die, Dies, and I’m pissed about it. Ochako wanders the ruins of Jakku for what feels like hours, rescuing small children while her adult hero compatriots fall to pieces around her, because apparently the U.A. kids really are the only people who have their shit together. The citizens of Japan are all “damn that’s wild, wonder how fucked we are now,” but are actually super casual and chill about it which is oddly realistic. The chapter ends with AFO in Tartarus being all “lol time for the prison break arc,” without giving us so much as a chance to catch our breath, like holy shit. Are we on the clock or something now, goddamn.

lmao it’s like 7pm on a Sunday night and this is out already. this is like the worst possible timing lol. there goes my nice, relaxed evening. unless of course this turns out to be a nice, restful, soothing chapter, as chapters coming on the heels of traumatic, earth-shattering battles so often are. yeah, break out the Pina Colada song and the little drink umbrellas, I got a good feeling about this one

(ETA: I mean, I was obviously being sarcastic here but damn, Horikoshi.)

-- fff why did I laugh

it’s the crumbling city ruins in the background that really does it, I think. JUST LOOK AT THIS MESS THAT YOU HAVE MADE, EVERYONE. FOR SHAME

also, the title is dramatic af and I am so fucking excited you guys, like holy shit. BnHA’s In-Between arcs have always been my favorite part of the series, because it’s when all the character development and angst and/or catharsis happens. just, those little breathing spaces in between the action when everyone gathers to recuperate and compartmentalize their fresh new traumas lmao. bring on that angst!! but also, let’s please have some Comfort to offset all of this Hurt too, please and thanks

blah blah blah so the survivors were evacuated, good good, can you actually show us though?

AHHHHHHH

PIXIE BOB SURVIVED!!!! WASH IS STILL ALIVE LMAO HOW. THIRTEEN’S FACE, OMG SHOULD I LOOK AWAY. IS IT LIKE MANDALORIAN RULES. IDK HOW IT WORKS

HOW THE FUCK ARE THEY ALIVE. LOLS ANYWAY I’M HERE FOR IT. FEEL FREE NOT TO KILL ANYONE ELSE HERE HORIKOSHI, I THINK WE’RE GOOD

(ETA: it’s like talking to a brick wall.)

oh my god do we really need exposition about how the heroes tried to stop TomurAFO from escaping and OF COURSE failed completely because they suck lmao. oh my god I am shocked, that is such shocking news

wow they only managed to defeat three of the Noumus. holy shit. again, all of the Not-Kid Heroes are only slightly more useful than cardboard cutouts of heroes at this point, MORE AT ELEVEN

so Tomura may have lost the PLF, but he still more or less has an army then, huh. I really don’t know how anyone could expect a timeskip with that threat looming over everyone’s heads

oh nvm lol there are only seven Noumus left. wait so you’re telling me there were only ten Nearly High Ends in that last chapter?? felt more like fifty but whatever lol I’ll take your word for it

COMPRESS YAY YOU’RE ALIVE TOO

MAYBE THEY CAN EVEN REATTACH HIS ASS. I’M SERIOUS LOL, BECAUSE HE STILL HAS IT, DOESN���T HE? OR IF NOT, THEY CAN REBUILD HIM WITH A PROSTHETIC ASS. he’ll be more powerful than ever

WHAAAAAAT YEAH BOIIIII

WOOO, EDGESHOT, WOOOOO. THAT’S HIS WAY OF THE NINJA

YEAHHHHH SUCK IT, PLF

(ETA: for the record I don’t think Cementoss is dead here, just badly wounded. if he had died he would have been included in the forthcoming In Memoriam page along with the others.)

GET BENT LOL. TRUMPET I FOR REAL FORGOT YOU EVEN EXISTED. I NEVER WANT TO SEE ANY OF YOU LOSERS AGAIN PLEASE. ONLY INTERESTING CHARACTERS MAY PROCEED PAST THIS POINT

dsflksaldkh;l

that’s... holy shit. that’s a bigass mansion, that’s what that is. also so does this mean there are still eighty thousand PLF members still at large, because that’s a plot line I very much do not care about in any way whatsoever lol. can’t we just retcon to say that Re-Destro was exaggerating? I mean hell, a CEO criminal pulling some Enron-type bullshit is pretty believable, isn’t it? those poor bamboozled shareholders

“makeste, here’s an idea, what if you scrolled down to read the rest of the page” lol gtfo of here with your logic and your sense

well those 132 people have made it onto my enemies list, but at least it sounds like they more or less took care of the rest. good riddance

and Toga escaped, as we knew already, and is now on the lam. hopefully she reunites with the League again at some point. although her doing her own thing could also be very interesting. idk what I want lol

anyway so there’s another big panel showing how fucked up the city is, just in case it hadn’t already been hammered into our skulls yet. there’s a car dangling off a roof somehow. how does that even happen. did Machia pick it up and put it there or

NOOO OMG RANDOM SMALL CHILDREN IN PERIL WHAT IS THIS

OCHAKO PLEASE SAVE THEM OMG

“if it falls on me, I want you to have my Endeavor pouch” OH MY STARS. HIS MOST PRECIOUS POSSESSION. NO MY CHILD YOU CAN’T GIVE UP HOPE YET

LMAO

“FOR THE LAST TIME NOBODY CARES ABOUT YOUR DUSTY-ASS POUCH, KYLE” fffff these children are dying and I am cracking up so hard my eyes are tearing up what is wrong with me

YAY THEY SAVED THEM

but listen. not that I don’t love seeing the girls kick ass, because you know I do. but I also really, REALLY need to know what’s going down with the Musketeers, and I’m not looking forward to waiting three whole weeks for that so please Horikoshi. please hurry this along so we can get to them

goddamn it Tsuyu is saying she’ll take the boy to the shelter to get first aid, and I was all “okay great because that’s probably where Kacchan and the others are too”, but now someone else is shouting for help and Ochako’s all “I’ll go” and it’s like OKAY BUT PLEASE? this chapter is already more than half over omfg. ‘bout to start wringing some hands here

oh my god

is this Toga again??? WHAT THE HELL, THIS CREEPYASS HALF-DEAD DUDE BETTER BE LEADING UP TO SOMETHING INTERESTING, I AM REALLY GETTING IMPATIENT

OR, I GUESS, WE COULD DO THIS INSTEAD

“SO AS IT TURNS OUT, NOT EVERY CHARACTER WHO NEEDS HELP SAVING THEIR SPOUSE FROM FALLEN RUBBLE IS ACTUALLY TOGA IN DISGUISE” HUH, OKAY. DULY NOTED. FILED AWAY FOR FUTURE REFERENCE

but fucking... okay, look. I love Ochako, I do. but I like her a whole lot more when she’s interacting with other characters I actually care about, as opposed to running around in the rubble rescuing random people while the fate of my other children is still up in the air. like okay, I get it, shit’s bad, now if you don’t mind we really don’t have to spend all day here though

...anyways but nope, we’re still staying with her. she’s bouncing around rescuing all of these other people. omg. I literally have no patience here at all and it’s terrible, I know, but oh my god

omg finally something interesting is happening!!

look at that, an adult hero standing around being useless while the kids are busy getting shit done. why is this becoming a recurring theme

MY DUDE, THIS IS SERIOUSLY NOT THE TIME THOUGH

I GET THAT IT’S OVERWHELMING AND THAT YOU’RE TRAUMATIZED AND SHIT, BUT GUESS WHAT, SO IS EVERYONE ELSE. THAT’S WHAT YOU SIGNED UP FOR. JUST LOOK AT OCHAKO! SHE’S SO EXHAUSTED HER HAIR HAS EVEN LOST ITS FLOOF, AND YET SHE’S STILL OUT HERE DOING HER BEST. ONE SAVE AT A TIME MY MAN. GET IT DONE. LITERALLY A SMALL CHILD IN THE BOTTOM RIGHT CALLING FOR THEIR MOMMY AND YOU’RE JUST STANDING THERE ALL “WAHH IT’S TOO MUCH” LIKE COULD YOU PLEASE POSTPONE YOUR CRISIS UNTIL AFTER YOU SAVE THEM PLEASE

OH MY GOD

MAYBE YOU SHOULD!! oh my god I really cannot, like wow. oh no I actually have to save people and do my job, god forbid. jesus christ, at least the other heroes tried. but Moping Hero: Bellyache here is just throwing in the towel and fuck everyone who still needs his help I guess. you are like the anti-Deku my dude

OH MY GOD OH MY GOD NO OH FUCK

THAT’S MIDNIGHT’S HAND OH FU -- SHE BETTER NOT -- HORIKOSHI I SWEAR TO GOD --

I’M GONNA LOSE IT I REALLY AM!!!!

HOLY SHIT HOW INTENSE OF A RAGE DO I NEED TO BRACE MYSELF TO BE FEELING HERE. THIS CHAPTER WAS ALREADY TRENDING TOWARDS DISAPPOINTMENT, DO WE REALLY NEED TO GO AND COMPOUND THAT

WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON

you’re telling me Tomura wasn’t brought back by that electric shock, but by his “fuck you” attitude? why are you explaining this to us now, again??

......

HEY, SO UM, FUCK ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS, THOUGH. (: OH MAN. OHHHHHH MAN. I HAVE... I HAVE GOT A LOT OF WORDS FOR THIS AND HERE ARE SOME OF THEM

FUCK

THINGS THAT SHOULD BE IN THE DICTIONARY NEXT TO “SOME BULLSHIT”: THIS

FUCK

GET FUCKED HORIKOSHI

AND ALSO PLEASE FUCK RIGHT OFF!!

AND SERIOUSLY THOUGH FUCK YOU

NO BUT YOU KNOW WHAT THOUGH!! YOU COULD HAVE KILLED OFF ANYONE. LITERALLY ANY CHARACTER. YOU HAD TWELVE FEMALE PROS. TWELVE. YOU COULD HAVE MADE MORE OF THEM. PROBABLY, IF THERE ACTUALLY WERE SUPERHEROES IN REAL LIFE, THERE WOULD BE MORE THAN TWELVE OF THEM IN AN ENTIRE NATION. BUT NO, YOU WERE ALL “TWELVE IS MORE THAN ENOUGH.” AND THEN WHEN IT CAME TIME TO KILL PEOPLE OFF, YOU WERE ALL “WELL ALL RIGHT THEN, LET’S SEE, I PICK... THESE 18 RANDOM SIDE CHARACTERS WITH LITTLE TO NO DIALOGUE, PLUS THE ONE SINGLE FEMALE U.A. STAFF MEMBER WE ACTUALLY HAD. YEAH THAT OUGHTA DO IT”

AND BY THE WAY, HORIKOSHI, I PICKED SOMETHING UP FOR YOU ON MY WAY HOME, HERE IT IS, ┌П┐(��＿・) do you like it it was on sale. I saw it and was like, “Horikoshi would really like that.” so there you go. sorry it wasn’t gift-wrapped

p.s. I hope y’all can tell that that’s supposed to be a middle finger and not... something else lmao. er. anyway

(ETA: so I got a few asks from people who were really put off by this part of the reaction post, and so I’m just adding an extra note here to make it clear that I do not actually wish harm on Horikoshi in any way or even particularly dislike him. I wasn’t happy about Midnight’s death and I wanted to convey that, and so I went with my usual LOUD CAPSLOCK REACTION tone, but looking back on it I can see that it’s kind of a lot, lol. 

so just to be clear, the “fuck you” stuff is almost entirely tongue-in-cheek. that’s on me, I forget sometimes that there are people who share these sentiments unironically and so I didn’t think to make sure my intended meaning here was clear. anyways, killing Midnight was still a really problematic decision for numerous reasons but it is what it is. Horikoshi is not perfect, the story isn’t perfect, and I’m not gonna pretend like it is, but again just to be clear, I don’t harbor any actual ill will toward Horikoshi here.)

shit. and wow this man really went and killed off fucking Mystic too on top of that. have you ever seen a character fail so spectacularly at living up to their hype. r.i.p. Mystic you were like the Star Wars sequel of characters

(ETA: I have no fucking idea why I keep thinking Majestic’s name is Mystic lol. rest in peace you old scarecrowy bastard.)

and poor Momo, though. fuck. lost two mentors in a single day. and do not even get me started on Aizawa holy shit

so now we’re cutting to some random townspeople who are gossiping about the Todoroki drama. this is actually interesting in spite of my newfound determination to hate this chapter lol

ngl I am kind of heartened to see that not everyone fell for Dabi’s bs hook line and sinker though. Jeanist returning from the dead literally two seconds after Dabi was all “I SWEAR ON MY HONOR AS A VILLAIN THAT HAWKS MURDERED HIM” probably helped with that a bit! but there will doubtless be many other people who do believe him, or are at least still inclined to side-eye the heroes in general either way given how much they sucked in this arc. very, very interesting

so it seems though that even more than the whole Endeavor reveal, at the end of the day it’s going to be the heroes failing to live up to their end of the “put your faith in us and let us use our quirks and in return we’ll protect everyone and keep them safe” implied social contract that’s going to have the biggest impact on people’s opinions moving forward. basically this was always going to be a disaster no matter what

OH MY GOD FINALLY AHHHHH

Horikoshi really tapped into some of the real-life political energy of the past few years huh. Fuck Him Still for killing off Midnight, but I will admit that so far this is hella intriguing and I am really, really curious to see where things go from here

OH MY GOD THE LITTLE KIDS FROM THE BABYSITTING ARC

“FIVE PEEPEE MAN WOULDN’T LIE TO US” YES CHILDREN YOU’RE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT. at least the little ones still have faith

UM

 ( •̀ へ •́  )

that’s great. that’s really keen. all we need right now, amirite

GOOD FOR YOU, YOU PIECE OF SHIT

let’s just wait for him to explain what he feels. you know he likes to drag it out

is that Dabi crouched down there next to Spinner? looks like they got him out of the marble after all. but why has his hair changed colors again lol what

anyways. your turn to what??

:’) excuse me what

hahahaha are you fucking kidding me. and that’s where we’re going to end the chapter then. lol okay

so let’s recap. Midnight died. we spent ten hours watching Ochako dig people out of rubble for no apparent reason and were then introduced to my new least favorite character, and because Ochako is so nice she didn’t even punch him in the face even though she really should have. we did not get any Kacchan or Shouto. we got one panel of Deku, who is Finally Asleep. and the chapter ended with AFO ordering his Noumus to go set free, AND I QUOTE, HIS “MAIN BODY.” and now I gotta wait an entire week for Caleb’s translation to confirm that last part. omg

but it sounds like a prison break is imminent, which is very, very interesting. ...and actually, is it weird that I’m actually rooting for it to be a success? I have no idea what this guy is planning, but I do know that as long as the main part of his soul is still residing in Tomura’s body, Tomura’s chance of surviving the series is close to zero. and villain though he may be, I’m still rooting for his redemption (nice to have Deku on my side now too), and so yeah. so like if AFO feels like using some latent Exorcism Quirk or something that he’s been saving for just such an occasion, be my guest lol

meanwhile this doesn’t bode well for All Might though. or anyone else aside from Tomura, really. shiiiit

anyway. [slaps roof of chapter] this baby can fit so much bullshit in it

[ozbian]

Here’s a full transcript of that final scene in Episode 103  : )

including sidetalk and end of game chat - hope you guys enjoy it or find it useful for referencing, I’m loving all the post e103 fic

[VOD timestamps 3:25:47 to 3:42:10]

Veth: *Sighs*

Veth: “Well, should we go, go further in to the orange glow and check it out?”

Jester: “I'm afraid that's going to take us into it's ...”

Veth: “Oh.”

Caduceus: “The water that was, that was in the cave was fresh water.”

Fjord: “Let me get, let me go closer and see.”

Fjord: ‘I’ll dive down and get closer to see what it is and if it's magma, a doorway.’

(continues under the cut)

Beau: “Yeah.”

You swim close, you know the murky depths of the water, you head towards it, and you can see at the bottom the interior of the cavern which is about 40 feet deep, so a little bit more shallow compared to the exterior, and it rises and falls in place, and as you get to the edge you can look and the glow resembles the torchbloom, the faintly orange glowing plant-like seaweed flowers and such that currently - or last time you saw guided you towards the lair of Vokodo

Fjord: ‘I'll come back up.’

Fjord: “Uh, Caleb? Where's Caleb.”

Caleb: *inquisitive look*

Fjord: Do you have Frumpkin as a cat right now?”

Caleb: “He is a bird, and if you want him to be able to swim I need an, over an hour.”

Fjord: “It seems to be-”

Jester: “Well-”

Fjord: “I’d say it's the same sort of growth that led us there.”

Jester: “If we're going to go in and actually for real think about ... fighting? Today? Yeah? Then-”

Caduceus: “I don't think this is ... I think this is something else. I don't think this is a path to him.”

Fjord: “You don't think so?”

Beau: “I think he's right.”

Jester: “But those are the torchblooms, that's what leads to him.”

Beau: “But ...”

Caduceus: ‘I'm going to do something. I'm gonna-’

Beau: “Maybe, maybe he just resides. Maybe the volcano is just a little slice of the Fire Plane and maybe this is spillage from the Fire Plane.”

Caduceus: ‘I'm going to uh dive - well not dive, I'm going to do that thing where you exhale and allow yourself to sink down a little bit. I'm heading ahead to about 30ft away, 25ft away from it. I’m gonna get kind of-’

Matt: Okay

Travis: You can breathe underwater

Tal: Hmm?

Travis: You can breathe underwater

Tal: Oh I know, I'm just -

Travis: Oh.

Caduceus: ‘Gently, paying attention to where I'm at, I'm going to cast detect magic’

Matt: Okay.

You go ahead and cast detect magic. You don't sense the plants themselves are magic but there's a faint magical aura kind of in the water around you and just in general.

Matt: If you don't mind, Caduceus.

Sam: Uh oh

Tal: Never.

Sam: Uh oh

Matt: Could you go ahead and-

Travis: Swim up and join his friends?

Sam: Roll a death save?

*laughter*

Matt: I need you to make a wisdom saving throw for me if you don't mind.

Laura: Uh oh.

Tal: 13.

Matt: *sigh*

You sense this thing ... you look at the torchbloom and this kind of urge overtakes you.

Laura: Oh no

Travis: Oh no

This leads somewhere. This leads somewhere and will answer all your questions. You have to know where this goes. You have to know. You have to know right now.

So you swim towards it, and you watch as the torchbloom opens up.

Laura: *gasp*

Fjord: ‘Where the fuck is he going?’

Fjord: *I go after him.*

Matt: You were watching him?

Travis: No, I go after him.

Matt: Right

Laura: But you were watching him?

Travis: *nods* *coughs into fist* Yeah.

Matt: Alright

You go after him.

Fjord: Mmhmm

You watch as Caduceus just swims into a tunnel

Fjord: ‘I can catch him, can't I?’

He's far enough away from you.

Matt: I’ll say that 

You can get there right about the time.

Matt: also make a wisdom saving throw for me

Travis: Okay

Laura: Oh god

Sam: Oh boy

Marisha: Uh ohs

Ashley: This was like with the ...

Travis 20. 17+3

Matt: Okay.

You resist the urge.

But since you kind of come up, and he kind of went off and did his own thing, you were probably kind of keeping a little back to watch.

You get to the entrance of this tunnel whereas he is partially in there.

You could probably catch up to him if you want to.

Liam: You’re super fast

Travis: Yeah I am faster

Matt: Yeah you are faster with the armor

Tal: Way faster.

Fjord: ‘I’m gonna try.’

Fjord: *I’m calling out to him through, through the water.*

Fjord: ‘But, yeah. I’ll try.’

You hear it, Caduceus, but like, you'll get to that.

Caduceus: ‘Yeah.’

You'll get to that.

Caduceus: ‘Yeah.’

This is important. This is more important, Caduceus.

He's not stopping, Fjord.

Fjord: ‘Okay. I'm going to cast ...command -’

Matt: Okay.

Sam, impressed: Command

Fjord: '-at Caduceus. And I'll say...’

Fjord: “Stop.”

Matt: And that's a wisdom saving throw?

Travis: Yes.

Matt: Go ahead and make a wisdom saving throw

Tal: This is going to be the first one I make, isn't it.

Marisha: I know, that's what i was just thinking.

Tal: Oh thank god. Thirteen?

Travis: Seventeen.

Matt: Seventeen.

Laura: *relieved gasp*

Tal: I’m rolling real bad today

Marisha: *clicky fingers, relieved laughter*

You stop, Caduceus. 

You used your action to do so, Fjord, so you can move, you can catch up to him.

But Caduceus has listened to you and stopped, and kinda looks back for a second towards you.

Fjord: “What the fuck are you doing?”(gently exasperated)

Caduceus: “I have to go that way.”

Fjord: “I - “

Caduceus: “It’s very important.”

Fjord: “I -”

He starts going again, Fjord.

Fjord: “I rem-  STOP.”

Fjord: “I-” *splutters*

Fjord: *I just grab onto him. I hold him.*

Fjord: “Stop. Wait. Wait!”

Fjord: “Every- will SOMEONE come fucking help me?”

They can’t hear you. You’re far underwater, and they’re currently looking at the ships and inspecting the walls

Fjord: ‘Oh good. Good.’

Veth: “This one’s got TWO cannons!”

Matt: I need you guys-

*general laughter*

Matt: I need you guys to make contested strength checks to -

See if you can grapple and keep him at bay

Fjord: ‘Oh shit, you bigass firbolg.’

Travis: … twelve.

Tal: Seven.

General: *Oooooh!*

Tal: I’m not very strong.

Travis: Well me neither *laughs*

You have him.

Sam: eeee. eeee.

Sam, Marisha, Travis, Liam: *feeble wrestling gestures*

*general laughter*

You have him currently held, Fjord, and thankfully the torchbloom is not close enough to the point.

The water is warm here, and right now you can sense something about it, while you’re holding him, while you can breathe underwater, you can breathe the water, the water itself seems to shift from salty to fresh as you guys are kinda struggling

Sam: hmm

Tal: *nods*

Marisha: Yes. It is a pathway then.

Fjord: 'We need to get out of here.’

Laura: Yah

Caleb: Yeah Matthew 

Laura: Matthew. Yeah it was gonna move it was gonna lead it straight to the

Liam: yeah man

Marisha: thought it was different

Travis: Can I take an action?

Matt: Yes you can

Fjord: ‘Okay. I’m going to cast...’

Fjord: ‘Fuck it. We gotta get the fuck outta here.’

Matt: Well actually before you can take an action,

Caduceus, he’s holding you back.

He doesn’t understand.

You know, he means well. He means well.

Sam: kill him

Matt & Travis: *laughs*

... but you’re probably going to try and break free.

Caduceus: ‘Yeah. What’ve I got.’

Sam: Blindness

Travis: I remember this. I remember this very …

Tal: Yeah this is a rough one. Uh

Ashley: Wait, in the last tunnels who was the one, me and

Travis *raises hand*

Laura: Me and *points*

Ashley: We swam

Travis: Yeah we were

Ashley: There were a bunch of

Laura: No but not you *points at Travis* we swam past you

Ashley: So this is one of...

Travis *raises hand* I was going to

Tal: What’ve I got.

Caduceus: ‘Yeah. I’m gonna...’

Caduceus: ‘I’m not gonna hurt him or anything, but let’s ...’

Liam: Not too bad

Tal: ‘Do I need ... I can do everything? I’ve got verbal, I’ve got all the everything I need right for casting a spell?

Matt: Yeah

Caduceus: *I’m going to cast blindness.*

Sam: Oh

Matt: Okay

Sam: Jeez

Caduceus: *And then try to break free.*

Matt: What’s the saving throw on that?

Sam: Good one

Tal: That’s a constitution 17

Matt: Make a constitution saving throw

Fjord: *I’ll counterspell it.*

*General impressed noises*

Liam: Yeah

Sam: We’re wasting all of our spells

Ashley: All the spells.

Matt: Alright here’s my question. Counterspell does it have somatic components? Coz you’re currently holding Caduceus

Travis: it does say ‘s’

Matt: Yeah so you’ll not be able to counterspell while you’re grappling him.

Travis: Okay.

Matt: So if you could- If you want to let go and counter the spell or keep holding and go blind or attempt to make the save at least. Your call.

Travis: What are the component?

Matt Verbal, somatic and material

Travis: Right and somatic means...

Sam: Movement

Matt: Means you gotta be able to *flail*

Everyone: *various arm flailing*

Tal: your hands

Matt: hands and fingers

Tal: it’s a hand thing

Liam: well it is for counterspell

Fjord: *I let go.*

Okay so you let go and counter the spell

Fjord: ‘Yeah.’

So the spell does nothing, Caduceus, but you’re free of Fjord

Caduceus: *I’ll head on my way.*

So you continue swimming, Caduceus.

So he’s still trying to get away from you, Fjord 

Fjord: ‘I’ll go catch his bitch ass again.’

Matt: Okay, make another contested strength check.

You can keep up with him. Yeah. You can-

Jester: and none of us know

Yasha: I can. Do we notice at some point that they’re missing or are we thinking

Matt: You will eventually!

Yasha: Okay

Matt: But this is all happening very quickly.

Caleb: “Alright, Frumpkin! We are going to make you an octopus.”

Travis: ...14 ?

Tal: 7.

*general laughter*

You grab him again, Fjord.

Fjord: “Why are you doing this?! This is ridiculous!” (frustrated exasperation)

Caduceus: “I’ve gotta go there.”

Fjord: “Nothing but danger lies ahead. Stop fighting me!”

Caduceus: “I’ve gotta go there.”

Fjord: *sighs*

Sam: Burn a couple more spells

Travis: I’m. I’m. I’m gonna.

Ashley: So how long

Laura: Can you pull him back? Can you just try to pull him back?

Fjord: ‘I think I’m just able to stop him, right?’

Laura: uh uh

Matt: I mean, you can use half your movement and drag him back I’d say, which for you is a full movement because of the water

Fjord: ‘How far into this tunnel are we?’

You’re probably no more than 15 feet maybe

Fjord: ‘Oh yeah, I’d love to do that. I’ll try that.’

Matt: oh it’d be about 30 feet at this point because you went in after him and you moved your double speed to get there which would have been 15

Tal: Well I had to use the action to cast the spell

Matt: correct that was the round after that so you’d be 30 feet so you can pull him back to the entrance with a double move

Matt: then you now take your turn to try and

Caduceus: ‘Alright, let’s try something a little more…’

Caduceus: ‘... I can’t do that. Um. Um, no, that’s not good.’

It’s not so much that you want to hurt him, it’s just he doesn’t understand and this is very ...

Caduceus: ‘I know. I’m trying not to hurt him. I’m trying to be nice.’

Caduceus: ‘Lets … fuck it, it worked last time.’

Caduceus: *finger-snap*

Caduceus: *Blindness again.*

Fjord: “Fuck.”

Caduceus: “Fuck off.”

Travis, Liam, everyone: *laughter*

Liam: No contagion?

Tal: I mean no?

Matt: Make a constitution saving throw

Tal: It’s Christmas

Marisha: Come on

Laura: you can do it Fjord

Travis: 12

Tal: uh constitution save of 17

Yeah so you go blind, Fjord. Your eyes just go completely dark and you can see nothing.

Fjord: ‘Well. This sucks.’

You’re still holding him, Fjord, so you have him at the entrance. You loose sight, he took his action which means he hasn’t broken from your grasp.

And next turn he can try and he’ll put you at disadvantage to continue to try and hold him.

Marisha: Swimmers’ instincts

Liam: Grapple him

So, what are you going to do.

Fjord: ‘I’m gonna try and I will cast my last thing.’

Fjord: *I’ll cast command again.*

Matt: Does command have a-

Travis: Wisdom save

Matt: Somatic?

Travis: Oh yeah. ‘I’ll let go of him.’

Laura: *worried noise*

Travis: it is, no it’s verbal

Matt: Okay yeah you can

What do you command him to do, Fjord?

Fjord: “Swim back to our group.”

Matt: It’s a single word

Travis: Oh.

Fjord: “... Retreat?”

Matt: Okay

Tal: Yeah that would that would work

Matt: Sure go ahead and make a wisdom saving throw

Tal: Keep rolling bad. Nope that’s yeah I fine. I finally rolled a 26.

*laughter*

So the command’s not breaking through, Fjord.

You still have your movement. You can move him fifteen feet in what you think is the backward direction.

Tal: uh is it 30 because it’s half his movement right?

Matt: Well it’s half his movement to do it but

Tal: He can move 30 feet in wate.

Matt: Correct.

Tal: Alright

Matt: So for him it’s half speed to pull you back

Tal: Yeah

You now pull him a little bit away from the entrance. You’re gaining on him, Fjord.

Unless he is able to break away from you, you gather you can probably drag him back.

You just don’t really know which direction’s back and you’re kind of hoping ...

Fjord: ‘Yeah. I also don’t want to touch that firebloom shit.’

Travis: Right?

Matt: Correct.

You aren’t certain where you are, Fjord.

Fjord: ‘Yeah.’

Fjord: ‘Bitch?!’

What are you doing, Caduceus?

Caduceus: ‘Um.’

Fjord: ‘How long does blindless last?’

Tal: As long as ah you don’t know

Travis: *laughs*

Matt: It’s a minute right?

Tal: Yeah it’s a minute

Travis: He’s gonna try divine smiting next 

Sam: *laughs*

Caduceus: ‘I’m gonna just try and break free.’

Caduceus: *He’s gonna try break free. He’s a nice boy.*

Matt: make a contested-

Tal: And I have advantage

Matt: you do because he’s blinded

Tal: Contested strength check. One of them is a natural one but the other one was 15.

Travis: Five.

Matt: Five.

*General disappointment*

Caduceus kicks out of your grip, Fjord, and you’re blinded. You’re not sure where he is.

You continue to use the rest of your movement to go back into the entrance of the tunnel, Caduceus

Sam: Ooohh shit

Matt: So Fjord it’s your turn

You have no vision, Fjord. You know that Caduceus is somewhere, probably in front of you. What are you doing?

Fjord: *Going backwards.*

You’re going backwards.

Laura: Oh my god

Liam: You tried

Fjord: ‘I can’t see what’s in front of me. What can I do?’

Liam: You tried so hard. (I saw that face Liam O’Brien)

Matt: Alright

Fjord: ‘I’m right near the entrance to the thing, right?’

Yeah youre about 15 feet away

Fjord: *I’m just gonna do three big like reverse-breaststrokes and then just go straight up and start screaming.*

Matt: Okay. You guys

Tal: Do I ever get a wisdom saving throw or no

Matt: No.

Tal: Okay.

So you guys, you hear pshhhhh, the breaking of the water surface

Fjord, what are you?

Fjord: “Caduceus is going forward!”

Jester: “What?”

Fjord: “He’s being pulled! GET IN HERE!”

Veth: “What?”

Jester: “What?”

Veth: “What?”

Jester: “What?”

Beau: ‘Are we-’

Caleb: “Everybody in the pool.”

Beau: “Okay…”

Veth: “Ohh … okay.”

Fjord: “NOW!”

Beau: *sploosh*

Veth: “Okay, okay.”

Jester: “We’re going!”

Caleb: *I dive off whatever boat we’re on.*

Alright you guys all immediately splssh sploosh start diving in the water.

Fjord, You are-

Fjord: “BLIND.”

Yup.

Marisha: *laughs*

So you guys, as you all begin to gather towards where Fjord is, you can see that Fjord is, you know treading water, but is kind of just-

Fjord: “I. I can’t see. He’s- he went down. Through the tunnel. *slight stutter* Someone go get him I’m … useless.”

Jester: “Oh god.”

Beau: ‘Alright I’m gonna go for it.’

Vilya’s going to go ahead and use a spell slot-

Fjord: “He blinded me!”

-to cast lesser restoration.

Sam: Oh!

Jester: ‘Oh that’s good because I don’t have that one prepared.’

Tal: yeah I think that does it

Vilya: “Pretty sure I’ve got lesser restoration here … "

Yeah you have your vision back

Fjord: “Oh. Good.”

Vilya: “But Caduce-”

Fjord: “Can you give me my spell slots back?”

Veth: *laughs*

Vilya: “I’m .. afraid I cannot.”

Fjord: “Okay.”

Marisha *laughs*

Jester: *swimming motions*

Beau: ‘I uh I’m gonna go for it.’

Jester: ‘Yeah same’

Beau: ‘Yeah’

Matt: alright

Yasha: ‘Yup.’

Matt: So you all make

Beau: *I’m with the girls*

You all dive in

Laura: oh god

beneath the surface

Jester: “We’re gonna get...”

Beau: “We’re gonna go for it I guess.”

Yasha: “Gonna go for it.”

Veth: “Yeah, me too.”

head towards the orange glow where the torchbloom plants ring-

Marisha: oh shit.

Marisha: oh no shit

-the interior of the tunnel sequence

Marisha: he’s winding up

Where Caduceus is, from your current position, nowhere to be seen

Laura: He’s winding down

While Caduceus, you have to get there.

Tal: Fuck, man

There’s something... Something important.

Sam: Fuuuck

Ashley: Don’t you do it

And nothing will stop you.

And as you thrash your way, somehow knowing the path through these now continuously branching odd tunnels

Tal: Oh no.

We’re gonna go ahead and continue next week

Everyone: *Nooo*

Ashley: Dang it

Sam: What a terrible end

Travis: Fucking totally empty

Tal: I’m not cool with this.

Travis: Oh

TaL: I’m not cool with this at all

Ashley: Shit. *foot stamp*

Liam: It was like a happy and sleepy content midpoint, and now just

Marisha: Now, my heartrate’s just

Laura: I was seriously like we should all sit down and have a hero’s feast before we do anything and then

Sam: *laughs*

Travis: *schlorp? sound*

Laura: Got sucked in

Marisha: Oh he’s really sucked in

Matt: Well the good news is, he’s swimming at half speed. All of you are swimming at half speed unless you take other forms. Fjord swims at full speed and while you are behind there is an opportunity to possibly catch up.

Tal: Yeah

Matt: But we’ll see what that possibly looks like next week

Matt: Cause now it’s a now it’s a chase for your own party member who is being compelled and to see if you can

Marisha: what is it

Matt: Follow him through a network of tunnels that he knows the way

Liam: Oooh

Laura: oh jeez

Liam: And no prep time for possibly going to knock on Avocodo’s door.

Sam: Oh man

Laura: And no spell slots either

Sam: it’s DND

Matt: Yeyah!

Marisha: Whoo.

Travis: DNDBYOND

Marisha: *laughs*

Matt: So

Laura: *extended fart noise* Oh my god

Travis: Boy

Tal: love you guys 

Liam: I love DND. Love it

Matt: Love you guys

Sam: So great

Matt: I wasn’t expecting that to happen

Marisha: Yeah

Matt: That was

Sam: So great

Matt: That was exciting. Alright cool. We’re gonna pick up there next week to see where this goes um in the meantime  everyone take time to tell everyone you care about you love them every chance you get and on that same note we love you all very much. Have a wonderful week, we’ll see you soon, and is it Thursday yet? Goodnight

Marisha: Wheeew

Travis: *pained whale noises*

Matt: *blows a kiss*

[theladyofdeath]

Alone in the Ashes {19}

A Court of Thorns and Roses fanfction, characters belong to Sarah J Maas. Modern au. Revolves around Nesta x Cassian, Feyre x Rhysand, and Elain x Azriel. Other characters appear throughout. Based on multiple prompts sent in by anons tbr below.

Warning: Mature content. Alcohol abuse, verbal abuse, drugs, sex, language, eating disorders.

For summary & chapter index, click >  Alone in the Ashes {Acotar}

Word Count: 2.9k

A/N: This one is actually pretty fluffy, friends. You’re welcome.

“It's a rare person to face who they are and not run from it - not be broken by it.” ― Sarah J. Maas, A Court of Wings and Ruin

“What do you think of an October wedding?”

Rhysand was flipping pancakes in the skillet - it was breakfast for dinner night. He’d already made a plate piled high with bacon. “Sounds nice.”

“This October,” Feyre clarified, scrolling through her newsfeed on her phone from the barstool behind the island.

Rhysand glanced over his shoulder. “As in...three months from now?”

“Yeah,” Feyre said, smiling. “Why not?”

“Don’t weddings take ten years to plan?” Rhysand asked, turning off the stove top burner. 

“Usually, but I don’t want anything big,” she said, setting down her phone. “And, I always wanted a fall wedding. Early October will allow us to do it outside before it starts getting too cold...and I don’t want to wait a whole year and a half to become your wife.”

Rhysand turned around and leaned against the opposite side of the island. “Tell me when and where, and I’ll be there, waiting for you at the end of the aisle.” 

Her grin widened. “Good answer.”

Rhysand winked. “See? I’m making a good husband already.”

“I never doubted that you were husband material,” Feyre said, eyes softening. “I have to tell the girls. Oh, fuck, there’s so much to do in three months time. Okay. I need a notepad.”

“A notepad?” Rhysand chuckled.

“Yes,” she said, giving him a pointed look as she dug through a few junk drawers before finding a small notepad and a pen. “Alright. I need a dress. I need bridesmaids...they also need dresses. We need to pick out wedding bands. Oh, and an actual band to play at our reception. Food. We need food. A place to get married. A priest. Oh, Mila will be the flower girl, of course. What else….alcohol! We must have wine.”

Rhysand stared as she listed off item after item after item.

“You realize all this needs to be done in three months, right?” he asked. “If you must get married this October.”

Feyre nodded, slowly, looking uncertain as she looked through her final pages that made up her list.

“Hey,” Rhysand said, quietly. “We can wait.”

“No,” she said, setting the list down and looking up at him. “Rhys, I wanna be your wife, and I don’t wanna have to wait. You asked me to marry you, I said yes, now we’re going to get married. And I don’t want to wait. As much as I love calling you my fiance, I’m already ready to call you my husband.”

Rhysand huffed a laugh. “Alright. Give me the notepad, then.”

Feyre slid the notepad and pen across the island, along with her ridiculously long list. Rhysand starting writing out a new one, and when he was done, he handed two sheets to Feyre and kept two for himself.

She raised her brows. “What’s this?”

“I split it in half. You and the girls take care of what’s on that list, me and Cassian and Az will take care of what’s on mine. You wanna get married in October, then we’ll be ready to get married in October.”

A small smile appeared on Feyre’s lips. “I constantly wonder how I became so lucky.”

“As you should,” Rhysand muttered. “I’m fucking awesome.”

With a roll of her eyes, Feyre stood from the barstool and ran around the island, into Rhysand’s arms. She kissed him, long and slowly, before grabbing a plate off the counter and loading it up with food. They ate on the couch, watching a ridiculous, old rom-com. 

Feyre thought that if this was a preview of the rest of her life, she was, truly, one lucky woman.

~~~~~

Mila was playing with Elain’s new kitten in her living room while Azriel sat with Elain in the kitchen.

They had spent the last few hours clearing out Elain’s guest room, which they had just unpacked the week before. Nesta would be moving in for a while. Elain had offered, and Nesta had jumped on the opportunity.

“It sounds like she’s doing well,” Azriel said. “All things considering.”

“She will be,” Elain said, nodding. 

Azriel moved his chair closer to hers. “And how are you doing? Still okay?”

Elain nodded, pressing a kiss to his cheek.

The first week after she stopped her diet pills was hard on her body. She woke up every morning, feeling sick, starving for the first time in ages. She had tried to get on a regulated, healthy eating schedule, but her body was adjusting.

As time went on, though, it grew easier. 

“Lain!” Mila called from the living room. “Can I watch t.v.?”

Elain looked at Azriel, who nodded. When she left to help Mila turn it on, Azriel stood from where he was sitting and wandered around the kitchen. There was a picture she had put onto her fridge of her, Feyre, and Nesta in high school.

Not much had changed.

In the picture, Elain wore her cheerleading uniform, Nesta was wearing a black cropped top and jeans, and Feyre was wearing Rhysand’s Letterman jacket. It was after a basketball game, taken outside among the falling Autumn leaves. He wished he would have known Elain, then. Wished he would have found her sooner.

“Admiring me in my cheer uniform?” Elain asked, coming up behind him. When he turned and wrapped his arms around her, he was grinning.

“If you still have it, I wouldn’t be mad if you put it on.”

Elain laughed, shoving him in the chest. “Keep dreaming. I remember watching you play. Basketball. You were good.”

“I loved it,” Azriel said. “Smoked too much pot, though, to ever make anything of myself playing. At least, that’s what coach used to say.”

Elain chuckled. “Well, little did he know you would turn into such an amazing man.”

“You think too highly of me,” he mumbled, leaning down to capture her lips with his. The kiss was soft, but it lasted a while, Elain melting into his touch, Azriel’s arms tightening around her waist. 

He lifted her up and set her on the edge of the counter. Her slim legs immediately wrapped around his body, pulling him closer to her. His tongue swept between her lips, and he only hesitated when he heard Mila laughing at something on the t.v.

He’d forgotten she was there.

Azriel jerked back, feeling guilty for melting into their own little world, but Elain was laughing, quietly. 

“I suppose we should keep off each other while the little one is awake,” she whispered.

Azriel nodded, then kissed her forehead, her nose, her lips, one final time. “Maybe so.”

“But when she goes to sleep…” Elain trailed off, running her fingers down his chest.

Azriel grinned, eyes lighting up as he said, “Tease.”

“Only for you,” Elain muttered, wrapping her arms around him in an innocent embrace.

Even though innocent it was, Mila thought it was horrifying.

“Ewwww, I’m right here!” she yelled, standing in the doorway with her hands on her hips.

Azriel laughed as he spun around, narrowed his eyes, and started running toward Mila. She yelled and started running the other way, but Azriel’s legs were just a little bit longer. He caught her and threw her over his shoulder. 

“Let me down!” she giggled.

“Never!” Azriel cried, but he threw her down onto the couch before tickling her tummy. 

Elain stood in the doorway, watching the sight with a full heart.

~~~~~

Cassian had just gotten home from work when he saw Nesta, coming out of her apartment, struggling with a bigass box.

It had been almost two weeks since Feyre had spent the night at her sister’s apartment and Cassian had been trying to keep his distance. He had noticed, too, that Nesta hadn’t been home much. She had either been with Feyre or Elain. She couldn’t trust herself to be alone.

“Need help?” he asked.

She stopped, and although he couldn’t see her over the box, he assumed he was the last person she wanted to see.

“No, it’s okay.” There was nothing hard in her voice, just exhaustion. Feyre said she was detoxing - which, judging by the amount of drugs she had pulled out of Nesta’s apartment days before, Cassian wasn’t surprised.

“I don’t mind,” he said, taking the box from her before she could protest. “Moving?”

She sighed, finally able to meet his eye once she was free of the box. She grabbed another one, a smaller one, from just inside of her doorway. “Going to live with Elain. She has an extra room.”

Cassian nodded, surprised, and a small, selfish part of him was upset she was leaving the apartment across from his.

“Well, I can help you carry some of this down to your car. And, if you need more room, I don’t mind helping,” he said. “I do have a truck.” 

She smiled, softly. “Thanks.”

Nesta closed her door and started walking toward the staircase, Cassian close behind. When they made it to her car, Cassian shoved the giant box into her trunk.

As they began to walk back up the stairs, she cleared her throat. “Cassian…I’ve been meaning to come by-”

“It’s okay,” he said, cutting her off. “You don’t have to-”

“I’m sorry,” she breathed. She stopped in front of her apartment door to meet his gaze. 

Cassian said nothing. He just leaned against the brick building with his hands in his pockets.

“What I did to you wasn’t fair, and I know that, but I just want you to know that it had nothing to do with you.”

It’s not you, it’s me. It was the oldest line in the book; but, for once, Cassian knew it to be true. Even if it did make him feel guilty.

“I should have been there for you,” he said, then. “I’m sorry that I wasn’t.”

Her eyes grew wide. “Are you fucking kidding? I pushed you away. You had every right to react as you did. I wanted you to react as you did. I wanted you to hate me. And I was glad when you did.”

Cassian cocked his head to the side. “Why?”

She shook her head. “It’s not important.”

“It is to me,” Cassian whispered.

Nesta nodded, and leaned against the wall opposite of him. She blew out a long, slow, unsteady breath. “It’s easier when people don’t like you.”

Cassian thought of all the times he had told Nesta how he felt about her. Not once did she tell him that she liked him back; and when he had told her that he loved her, she wouldn’t even let him finish. 

“Maybe so,” he agreed. “But it’s lonely.”

“I’ve always been lonely,” she said, simply. 

Cassian nodded. “You don’t have to be, though. Start letting people in, Nesta. You’ll find it’s a hell of a lot nicer that way.”

She huffed a laugh and looked out at the parking lot, where the sun was setting. “Maybe I’ll give it a try.” 

“Good,” Cassian muttered, and when she looked back at him, he was already watching her. “Need help packing up?”

“You just got home from work,” she said. “You should go relax.” 

“I never relax,” he countered. “I’ve got nothing to do. Amren is out walking Bryaxis. Last offer.”

Nesta’s eyes narrowed, but there was a small smile on her mouth. “Okay. Sure. Thanks.”

He nodded before following her into her apartment. She had already packed quite a bit up. Boxes of all shapes and sizes sat around the living room and the kitchen.

“All I really have left is my bedroom and the bathroom.”

“Boxes?”

“At the end of the hallway. A Sharpie is there, too.”

“Right,” Cassian said. “And if I forget to label a box?”

“I’ll know it was you who forgot and I’ll kick your ass.”

Cassian laughed. “Holy fuck, Nesta Archeron made a joke.”

She looked over her shoulder as she padded down the hallway. Her eyes were bright. Weary, but bright “It wasn’t a joke.”

Humored, Cassian walked after her and into her bedroom. “Where do you want me to start?”

“You’re tall,” she began, “mind getting all the stuff from the top of my closet?”

Cassian nodded, grabbed a box from the hallway and taped up the bottom before getting to work. 

“So, how are you feeling?”

She didn’t answer for a minute, and as another minute passed, Cassian thought he had pissed her off. But, then she answered, “Decent. Thankfully, Feyre found the hard stuff before I could really get into it. Most of what I took were those pain pills...Last week was hell. I was miserable. But the last couple days…” she shrugged. “The last couple days have been decent. I’m really fucking tired, but my head is clear...Even though my thoughts run a little more wild with a clear head. I’ve got a long road ahead of me, and I’ll have to fight for myself, every day, but, for the first time, I look forward to that.”

“That’s good,” he said, and when Nesta gave him a curious look he said, “Not about being tired and feeling like hell, about...you know. You just...You look good.”

She gave him another curious look.

“Not in like a sexual sense. I mean - you look good that way, too, but, I meant...you know. You look….hydrated.”

Nesta laughed, quietly. “Hydrated. Thank you.”

“Yeah,” Cassian said, then quickly faced her closet to stop whatever words were wanting to come out of his mouth before he could think better of it.

Just when he thought Nesta couldn’t have any more books than the ones that had been displayed in her living room, he pulled down stack after stack from the shelf at the top of her closet. There were also photo albums, which she refused to let him look through, and old CDs. There was one thing that really surprised him, though, that he found in the back of the closet. 

“You play the violin?”

Nesta stopped what she was doing by her desk. “You sound surprised.”

He looked at her, from the top of her head to her socks that were covered in black cats. “I just….never saw you as the violin type. Or, you know, the musical type in general.”

Nesta rolled her eyes. “I haven’t played in years. My mom gave that to me, though, when I played nearly every day. Can’t get rid of it. Maybe I’ll pick it up again some day.”

Cassian unhooked the case and looked inside. It was made of a red wood, the bow was well worn. With a smile, he shut it safely inside and placed it in the top of his box. “You should. Pick it up again.” 

“Do you play anything?” Nesta asked, her back turned to him, once more.

“No,” Cassian answered. “I sang in choir in high school though.”

Nesta’s shoulders shook with laughter. “Seriously?”

“Yeah.”

“You can sing?”

“Fuck no,” Cassian said. “I was horrible.” 

As Nesta’s laughter filled the room, Cassian taped the box shut and wrote in big, obnoxious letters, Top Closet Shit. He underlined it three times before putting the lid back on the marker and tossing it on her bed. 

She watched him, brows raised.

He shrugged. “At least I labelled.” 

Cassian stayed with her all night, helping pack the rest of her belongings. He did most of the work as she ordered him around, which Cassian was happy to do because he could tell she was exhausted. She seemed to be doing well, though. But every now and then when he looked at her, when she didn’t know it, her eyes were distant, heavy. But when she smiled at him, it was true. Genuine. And when she spoke, he knew she meant the words coming out of her mouth. For once, she seemed excited at the thought of going to live with her sister.

As midnight rolled around, everything Nesta owned was packed away in a box. She walked Cassian to her front door.

“Thank you for helping,” she said, eyes still bright from their night of talking about useless shit and laughing about nothing, even though that exhaustion lingered. “Truly. You didn’t have to do that.”

“I care about you, Nesta,” he said, voice quiet. “And I’m proud of you.”

Her smile faded, and she nodded, blue eyes shining. “Thanks.”

“I’ll be here in the morning to load the back of my truck up,” he promised.

“Great,” she whispered, smiling once more.

Cassian turned to leave, but when he opened the door, Nesta called his name.

He turned around and she had taken a step closer to him.

She shook her head as she said, “I was falling in love with you, too. For whatever it’s worth.”

Cassian froze before closing the distance between them and pressing his mouth to the top of her head. 

After one last smile, he left, and let himself into his own apartment.

Amren watched as he closed the door and leaned against it.

She asked him a question, but he didn’t hear it.

Nesta’s words were replaying in his mind, over and over and over again.

I was falling in love with you, too.

Cassian smiled.

When she said it, her eyes were clear, her voice sturdy. 

She was sober.

Nesta was sober.

Friends may be all that they remained, but that confession would stay with him.

For whatever it’s worth.

It was worth everything.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

tag List (to be tagged, comment or send me an ask!)

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@empress-ofbloodshed​  @starkovsnesta​ @nickjgoodsell​

Prompts:

{ “I’m gonna fuck you so hard that you forget you ever met that asshole” - Feysand } -anonymous

{ “How about Nessian needing to fake date when they go home for the holidays?!” } - anonymous

{ “could u pls do like an elriel fic where azriel is like this mysterious bad boy and elain is a goody two shoes lik aaaaa i cant get that image out of my head” } - anonymous

[def-initely-soul]

Hey bootiful, can I get the hooking up with a stranger and then looking for the person with that costume + that person being the cop that (on another year) interrupts the party and OC makes inappropriate comments thinking it's a costume with sexy yuta? 😘

one sexy yuta coming right up! ;)

pairing: yuta from NCT x reader (f.)

prompts: strangers who hooked up at a party while in costume but tbh i might be in love with you so i’m gonna walk this earth looking for the right woodland nymph & you’re a cop here to break up the party but i thought it was a costume and may have made some inappropriate suggestions regarding your handcuffs

genre: humour; slice of life

warnings: mature language; suggestive themes; sexual content; drunking; weapon mention

words: 1.4k

“Y/N? Y/N?”

…

“Y/N!!”

You jump in your spot, finally hearing your best friend yelling into your ear from next to you. “Huh, what, what?!” you yell as well, taken aback as the Annabelle next to you narrows her eyes at you. And that would’ve been completely creepy if you didn’t know your friend was behind the costume.

“You’re still looking for him, aren’t you?” she remarks, crossing her arms on her chest and your eyes widen.

“AHahhahaHa, what?! Nooooo,” you rush to reply. Even though you both know you don’t sound at all convincing.

Your friend takes a breath, letting her arms fall down, eyes following the crowd. “If we both search, maybe we’ll find him faster.”

You give her an appreciative smile. Last year, on your friend’s, Doyoung, Halloween party you hooked up with a handsome stranger dressed as Legolas from The Lord of the Rings trilogy and it was possibly the best sex you’ve ever had in your life. He somehow knew exactly what to do to make you putty in his hands and to be honest you’d connected in both a physical and emotional level. You’re pretty sure if you had another chance with him you could hit it off. 

The only problem is you don’t know his name. Truth is you were a bit too preoccupied fucking to share each other’s names last time, a mistake you’ll make sure won’t repeat itself this year.

Hence why now at another one of Doyoung’s famous Halloween parties, you’re searching for the boy with the long blond hair.

“What does he look like?” your friend brings you back from your reverie and you quickly describe him to her, even though you’ve done so a thousand times before.

You spend more than half the party scanning over the crowd for the mysterious stranger, although you don’t spot him anywhere, and Doyoung is too preoccupied in his spot as the host (or just too fucking drunk) to give you any useful information.

The sensible thing for you to do would be forgetting about him and hook up with someone else; you had the choice if you wanted to. Your costume as a sexy nun had a lot of people walking your way and asking for your name.

But you weren’t feeling it. You were still stuck to the blond elf that knew how to push your buttons right.

You sigh in remembrance of that night, that helped you get through many lonely nights of your own.

The way he held you close, full of passion and intensity, the way his hips drove into you as he choked you, making you lose any sense of self in that time spent together, it all came back all the time, making you wish you’d at least learned his name before you’d left.

At that moment, the music stops suddenly, drunken people confusedly staring at each other at the sudden halt. Your friend looks over to the door to see Doyoung talking animatedly to someone dressed as a cop. You follow her line of vision only to stop in your track when you realise who it is.

It’s him! It’s the guy you’ve been looking for, the guy who rocked your world.

You nudge your friend in shock. “That’s him! Oh my god, he came! Fucking finally!” you exclaim before walking towards him, ignoring your friend who for some reason sounds too panicked.

As you approach Doyoung and the elf, now dressed a cop, you hear his deep voice addressing Doyoung. 

“...I’m sorry buddy, I’m just checkin’...” he says, somehow remorseful as another guy dressed as a cop next to him scans the house as the music comes back on.

“Well, well, look who’s here…” you announce your appearance with a teasing smile on your lips, making sure to sway your hips just enough to entice him. And you’re indeed successful judging by the way his eyes widen and his mouth drops open. 

Last time he saw you, you were dressed as an undead cheerleader, your legs were bare, free for him to marvel upon and enticing enough to draw him in. While this time, even though the dress is ankle-length and long-sleeved, there’s a slit on the fabric, just below your panties, revealing one leg and a bigass large keyhole neckline revealing the top of your breasts. You’re pretty sure he’s done for.

He, in turn, is dressed in a pretty standard cop outfit, dark blue uniform that fits him just right, tight around his chest and thighs and you feel your mouth salivating. There’s even a gun on his holster and a pair of handcuffs hanging from his belt.

Which gives you an idea.

“I, Uhm- H-hey!” he stumbles to reply, visibly affected by you and you internally gloat at the fact. The other guy next to him raises an eyebrow that for some reason doesn’t sit right with you. So you ignore him in favour of the fine piece of ass in front of you.

“I was wondering where you were, you know…” you whisper lowly as you smile seductively at him, dragging your finger down his chest.

The handsome stranger gulps under your ministrations, somehow too flustered to answer you and the guy next to him presses his lips together as if to conceal a laugh.

His presence next to the two of you makes you self-conscious but you decide to pay him no mind.

As your hand lowers down his body, your fingers meet cold metal and you glance down to see you’re touching his handcuffs. You smile.

“Came here prepared, did we?” you bite your lip as you stand at your tiptoes to get closer to him and whisper against his ear. The guy next to him finally looks somewhere else and your confidence returns tenfold when the handsome stranger lets out an affected breath.

“I’ll let you use them on me if you give me your name…” you propose and lean back to find him completely red, not at all as you remembered him from last time and when you’re about to ask what wrong, there’s a noise coming from his pocket.

“Officer Nakamoto, report your status, over.” comes the muffled sound from his pocket and he rushes to grasp the walkie talkie hiding in it.

“All clear here, sir, over,” he responds immediately at the walkie talkie and your eyes widen when the realization hits you.

He’s not wearing a costume.

“Shit…” you mumble quietly to yourself as the guy next to him who’s probably his partner is barely keeping it together. Or at least until their superior signs off and the walkie talkie goes silent.

Then the guy bursts into laughter, holding his belly as he literally shakes from his giggles and you stare elsewhere completely embarrassed.

“I’m sorry I didn’t know, I’ll leave know…” you say in utter shame as you turn around to leave, cursing yourself for your carelessness when a hand wraps around your wrist.

“No, wait…” you turn to see the object of your affections pleading you with his eyes before he turns to his partner. “For fuck’s sake, Taeyong, just of wait in the car,” he reprimands him and the other guy walks away with his hands raised in defeat. Although you can still hear his chuckles as he walks out of the house

Then your handsome stranger turns once more towards you and realizing he’s still holding your wrist, he lets his hand fall. 

“I’m sorry about him, he’s an idiot…” he chuckles quietly as if it’s something only for the two of you and you feel your heartbeat rising at the small bit of intimacy.

“And I’m sorry about all of… that,” you say making a motion with your hands to gesture at the whole of you as the cause of the previous awkwardness. But he simply smiles.

Then he takes a step closer and when your eyes meet his, you see once more that predatory glint in them that became familiar with last years.

“I’ll tell you my name if you give me your number…?” he asks expectantly, pushing his unlocked phone to your direction and you bite your lip to suppress a smile. Not very successfully though.

You take the phone from his hands and punch in your number while adding your name in the contact as well. You give it back with a lopsided smile and he’s quick to read over your name with a smirk.

You cross your arms on your chest. “Now for my reward?”

His smirk grows. He leans in, his cologne infiltrating your lungs, hypnotizing you as his breath fans over your ear.

“You can call me Yuta.”

[practicingmedicine]

Practicing Medicine: Chapter One

(+)1

It was eight o'clock in the morning, and Sheriff McBain had just been shot.

There weren’t no lights, no sirens. No outward signs of urgency anywhere, save for the frantic telephone call I’d received just seconds ago and my own bounding heart rate.

It didn’t take me long to pull on my pants or step into my boots. Even with my shaking body, I moved with a sense of purpose, each action a step in a subconscious routine.

Buckle up my pants, lace my boots, grab my glasses, disconnect my Pip-Boy from the outlet, clip that bad-mama on and get it running…

The black screen turned a vibrant green color as I clicked the power button, lighting up my dark room. These were the words on the screen:

PIP-OS(R) v1.0.3

COPYRIGHT 2075 ROBCO(R)

LOADER V1. 1

EXEC VERSION 41.10

32K RAM SYSTEM

16811 BYTES FREE

HOLLOWTAPE LOADED: “THE-SCIENCE-OF-UNCERTAINTY”

INITIALISING….

SUCCESS!

> STATUS

Battery Level: 100%

Wireless Signal: (?)

Operating Temperature: 90F

> HEALTH

BP: 150/120

SPO2: 100%

Temp: 98.5F

RR: 25

HR: 160

> TIME

Day: 25 September 2279

Time: 08:01

> CLIMATE

Current Temperature: 78F

Atmospheric Pressure: 753 mm

Background Radiation: 0.231 RAD

---

I couldn’t read much, so I wasn’t sure exactly what each of them meant, but I got the gist- I knew exactly what I needed to know. I threw open my door and strode into the hallway, grabbing my father’s white coat off of a hook along the way. I slipped it on over my shoulders as I strode up to the front door, where my faded orange doctor’s-bag lay on its side. Before I threw the strap over my shoulder, I made sure to quickly button my coat and pull my green tie tight around my shirt collar, because my father told me that a doctor should always look his best. I hefted my bag up with one hand and pushed the door open with the other.

The morning sun was bright in my eyes. It was hot outside, about 97 Fahrenheit if my pip-boy was telling me the truth. Not that it mattered- I was used to the heat, and my patient was inside the air-conditioned Bison Steve’s Hotel. I didn’t give it much space in my head.

I started to sprint, skirting the corner of my neighbor’s house and running out into the main square, heavy bag swinging wildly in my aching right hand. As much as I wanted to have time to process all this, to stride up all slow and confident like father had taught me, I didn’t have the time. It could be a matter of seconds deciding whether or not the Sheriff survived.

I was starting to feel kind of dizzy, like you do when you’re fixing to vomit. The Hotel was just up ahead now. The big “Bison Steve’s” sign flickered eerily as I walked up to the double wooden doors, which I pulled on at least three times before I remembered that they were push doors. A rush of cool air washed over my skin as I stepped into the building, and tried to regain my composure. I cleared my throat.

“Alright- Alright y’all, listen up: My name is Isaac Saller, and I am a medic! ” I shouted. There was silence. “‘I’m empty holstered, so please don’t shoot!”

That may have been a bad idea, in retrospect, but it was all that I had planned for an active-shooter type deal. I didn’t deal well with confrontation.

The front hall and the reception desk were abandoned, but the lights were on. I stepped through the next set of propped-open doors and into a dark hallway, where a pretty blonde woman was cowering, holding onto a wall-mounted telephone. Her red face glistened with sweat.

That would be Mrs. McBain.

“Oh my god, Isaac! Come here, quickly- I think my husband is dying!” I power-walked to catch up with her, then tried to keep up a comparable walking pace. Which was kind of hard, given my height; I was still, “between hay and grass ,” my father would have said.

“Could you tell me what happened?” I asked. The words felt so strange to say out loud. I’d practiced what I’d do in a real emergency, but now that it was actually happening, I couldn’t believe that I was actually falling into my routine, just like I did for everything else. Must not have seen any other option.

“Well, the boys- Beagle and my husband, right, they were doing firing drills! But then the shooting stopped and my husband started airing his lungs, just shouting something awful. And when I ran in to see what happened, I saw that Beagle had shot him in the leg!”

And, there was the story. I let out a sigh of relief; here I was worried that I might be dealing with some crazy psychopath! Though, the more I let myself think on it, an idiot like Beagle with a gun started to seem just as dangerous.

“Does he still got the gun?” I asked, approaching one of the four doors to what had to be the firing range. The familiar scent of gunpowder stung my nose as I cracked open the rightmost door, and peered into the massive, open room. I didn’t see nobody, but then again, my vision was so awful that my patient could’ve been right in front of me. Mrs. McBain brushed through the doors.

“No, I made him put it down!” I nodded and entered the room.

As I stepped through the doorway, another smell drifted in after the first- a sharp, metallic smell that hung in the air like some sort of leaking gas. Subtle, and not quite so intimately familiar, but I recognized it right away; the acrid smell of blood rubbed on skin.

“Hey Doc, come on in--the Sheriff is lying over here,” said Deputy Beagle, waving his iron about. I flinched.

“Holster that!” I shouted back, “I’m not going to do anything until-“

“Beagle! You put that thing down right now or I’ll shoot you myself!” Shouted Mrs. McBain. Beagle made a dramatic sigh.

“Fine. But, you know it was an accident, and it ain’t like I’m gonna do it again.” He tossed the gun aside. The cocked, loaded, cold-steel weapon hit the ground hammer-first.

The ensuing, “BANG!” was, no kidding, the second loudest thing I’d ever heard.

“Goddammit!” Beagle shouted, and Mrs. McBain screamed and dropped to a crouch. I just sat, stunned, staring at the gun and trying to think again. It was like my mind was a Television set, and someone had just thrown a brick through the screen; An all-encompassing static crept over my senses.

“Isaac? Isaac, are you alright sweetie ?” asked Mrs. McBain, over the loud ringing in my ears. I nodded.

“I’m okay ,” I lied. I kept nodding.  “I’m okay, I’m okay, I’m okay…”

“You sure don’t look okay,” said Beagle. He was too close to me, way too close. I took a deep breath and pushed him back a little bit.

“I’m good! Where’s the Sheriff?!” I looked around warily. My eardrums were still bubbling, but I was starting to be able to hear myself think again. I had apparently dropped my medical bag on the floor, but it hadn’t opened up or spilled.

“Jesus kid, can you not turn your head on your neck? Over there, sitting against the support beam!” snapped Beagle, motioning towards the wounded Sheriff with his whole upper body. I felt like yelling back but I didn’t. I just gave him a quick nod and stumbled over to the fallen Sheriff.  

The bright red pool beneath Sheriff McBain’s thigh had already begun to clot into ketchup-like clumps. As I got closer, I could hear him muttering to himself, though I couldn’t understand what about. I dropped to a crouch beside him, opened my bag and rooted through it til I found myself a pair of gloves. I had to work to get them on with how sweaty my hands were.

“Hello, Sheriff! Can you understand me?” I asked. He smiled up at me.

“Hey! You’re Isaac, the um, the Gambling-Place owner’s son. Uh, Casino! Yeah…” He trailed off. In my head, I started going over my ABCs, because apparently my mind was too overwhelmed to do anything but stick to its beaten-path routines.

He could speak, so his Airway was patent. I didn’t have time to properly test his Breathing, but it sounded fast and a little shallow. That was par for the course, which left me with the real problem, his Circulation- that’d be the bleeding.

“Alright, Sheriff, I’m going to take your pants off. Tell me if it hurts much,” I said, unbuttoning and unzipping his trousers. They got snagged up on his shoes, so I started pulling harder. He just laughed as I pulled them off.

“Actually, I don’t feel much of anything in this leg! Just like I got punched, and now it’s burnin’, sorta.”

That was good. It meant that the bone probably hadn’t been fractured, and I wouldn’t need any med-x. I always kept an emergency syringe of the stuff, but I was reluctant to actually use it on anyone.

Once I’d gotten his pants off, I touched his leg. It was cold and wet. I’d assumed shock, based on the bigass blood pool, but I could be dramatic like that; This was solid confirmation. I was going to have to work fast!

As I searched around in my bag for a tourniquet with one hand, I held up the Sheriff’s leg up with my other, so that I could see the wound in the dimly lit firing range. The hole wasn’t big. At least, not the entry- just a red, penny-sized oval near the base of his thigh, surrounded by bruised skin and seeping out blood. Like a bloody little volcano.

The exit wound, on the other hand, was massive . A jagged hole right under his ass with flaps of skin hanging loose around it, spitting out a torrential amount of bright red blood with each beat of his bounding heart. Based on the color of the blood and the way that it was coming out, I knew that the bullet had nicked or severed his femoral artery. I also knew that I probably couldn’t repair that with forceps and bandages alone. The best thing I could do would be to stem the bleeding, and get a stimpack as quick as possible.

Of course, that presented a little bit of a problem: See, stimpacks are awful expensive, so carrying them around wasn’t always an option for a man like myself. As of now, I didn’t actually have any of them-things in my jump-bag. Some places ‘round here had one in a box on the wall, but I didn’t see none in here, and I’d have noticed one in the hall if there’d been one. I cursed under my breath.

“Go and get me a stimpack!” I ordered. I had finally found where I kept my tourniquets without actually looking into the bag, though if I had any sort of presence of mind, I would have been embarrassed at how long it had taken me. I pulled his shoe off, and slipped the tourniquet on over his leg.

“I’ll fetch one from the kitchen!” replied Mrs. McBain, and I nodded to let her know I’d heard. Now that I had a stimpack on the way, all I had to do was keep the Sheriff from kickin it until I could apply the damn thing.

Easier said than done.

“Why are you squeezing me? You taking my blood numbers or something?” The Sheriff asked, as I pulled the premade tourniquet tight and started cranking on it. I tried to smile.

“I’m not taking your blood pressure, sir, I’m putting on a tourniquet. It’ll hurt, but you’ll bleed a lot less.” When I couldn’t tighten it anymore, I took out another tourniquet, and fastened it right above the first one, against the base of his thigh. It was a good thing that the Sheriff was thin, or I’d be having some issues about now.

“What are you doing? He could lose his leg that way!” shouted Beagle. When I kept on tightening the second tourniquet, he hit me in the back of the head- not so much to hurt me as to get a reaction out of me. I didn’t give him one. “Hey, are you blind and deaf? I��m talking to you!”

“Stop it Beagle! Isaac is a good… he’s a good kid,” insisted the Sheriff, his voice growing weak. I finished cranking the tourniquet, and touched the Sheriff’s ashen forehead. He looked like he’d stuck his head in a drinking fountain, with how much he was sweating...

“Could you try and talk with me, Sheriff? I’m gonna try some more stuff, try to keep you from going into decompensated shock.”

The Sheriff looked confused. He squinted up at me with teary eyes.

“Shock? You mean, the reason why it don’t hurt? I’m pretty sure I’m already in shock, but I ain’t- I ain’t shocked, you know. Like, I know what’s happened. I got my mind about me ,” he grumbled, tapping his head conspiratorially. I removed a few packets of gauze from my bag and tore them open.

“No, I mean when your organs stop working cause your blood-pressure drops and they ain’t getting enough blood!” Finally, I finished packing the exit wound tight with gauze. I started putting pressure on it.

“Oh. Huh. Well, you doctors ought to stop having so many words that mean- that mean all different things,” the Sheriff replied, his breath passing his lips so quietly that I was worried he might have fallen unconscious. I stopped moving.

“Sheriff?” I asked. When he didn’t respond, I reached into my coat with my free hand, and pulled out a small metal tinderbox full of a reddish powder. I waved it under his nose.

“Wake up, Sheriff!” I shouted. He started coughing and looking around wildly.

“Ah, Jesus Christ, what the hell is that smell?” I slipped the box back in my coat.

“N-H-Four, sir! It’s supposed to keep you awake!”

Of course, it wasn’t doing a very good job at it! Before I was even done speaking, the sheriff had puked all over himself and slumped forward. I grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him vigorously.

“Keep them eyes open Sheriff! Stay with me here!” His eyes fluttered.

“You know, I like your voice! It’s like, you talk like a teacher, but then you got your daddy’s cowboy-thing going on, so it’s sort of funny…” he muttered. His head hung limp on his neck. I let him drop to his side, and focused on applying pressure to the wound again.

“Um, Isaac?” I looked over my shoulder. Deputy Beagle was standing above me again, clasping his hands together. I wasn’t so good at reading emotions, but I’d seen enough pre-vomit patients to know that he was feeling sick. He had spoken so quietly, which was strange considering how loud he’d been before. “Isaac, Is he gonna die? I thought that getting shot in the leg didn’t kill people. Why’s he acting like that?” I sighed.

“I sure hope not. But, there’s a big red-pipe in your leg, and if it gets hit, you bleed a lot. I don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to do if I don’t get a stimpack soon!”

As if on cue, Mrs. McBain came rushing into the room, her dress all bunched up and full of miscellaneous medical supplies. Among the heaps of things I didn’t need, I could see a stimpack poking up.

“Isaac! I brought a bunch of things, I don’t know what’ll help and what won’t, but-”

Suddenly, Mrs. McBain stumbled, and her makeshift pouch came unfurled as she threw out one hand to catch herself.

Aw shit! I dropped everything and ran towards Mrs. McBain, interposing myself between the unsecured, falling medical supplies and the floor. Packaged Band-Aids, bottles of pills and ointments, a pair of scissors- it all went tumbling over me and I didn’t care, until suddenly I saw the fragile old stimpack teetering on the edge. By now, Mrs. McBain was trying to recover, but she was only making matters worse. The supplies were spilling out both sides now, and she was getting dangerously close to just dumping it all on top of me.

The stimpack. That was the focus. I shot out my hand to try to grab it, but I only succeeded in tipping it off it’s balance point, causing it to tumble back into the pouch.

I sat up, and all the supplies that had landed on me spilled back onto the floor.

“Don’t-“ I started, but she had already slipped and let go of the other side of the pouch. I cried out as it all went spilling on the ground.

“The stimpack!” I looked down, and found that through some unchecked reflex, I had caught it on my outstretched thigh. I blinked.

“Huh,” I said, and snatched the needle off my leg. I rushed back over to the Sheriff, who was unconscious and drooling. Beagle was sitting beside him, pressing hard on the entrance with his bloodstained hands and muttering to himself.

“Kurt, you can’t die- I’m, I’m just a deputy, if you die I’ll have to handle this whole town myself, and you know I can’t do that! Please, please don’t you die, please-“ I took a knee beside Beagle and his brother, stimpack in hand. Beagle was crying.

“Am I- am I doing this right?” He asked. I nodded.

“You are doing just stupendously! Just keep doing that!” I replied. I lifted up the sheriff’s leg, tore out all the gauze and probed around with the needle for a minute, until I’d found the deflated husk of his split femoral artery among all of the slick yellow fat and ground-beef looking shit in his leg. I didn’t have much light to work with and it was pretty well buried beneath the gory chaos of the exit, but I knew it when I saw it- despite the tourniquet, the top end was still spritzing out bright red blood with each passing heartbeat. I took my forceps out of my bag, which already had some fishing-line and a hook wrapped around them, and got to suturing the split ends together. The artery kept on pulsing out blood around the edges as I passed my hook and line through it’s thick middle layer.

‘Moment of truth, Isaac,’ I thought, as I squared off my suture. I picked up the stimpack again, prepped the needle with my shaking hands. I took a deep breath.

In the dim light of the firing range, I stuck the pipe.

The freezing cold from the reaction chilled my gloved fingers halfway to the bone. Had it worked? Would it hold? I had no idea. It wasn’t squirting blood no more, so I snipped off the end of the suture and pulled all the fishing line out, then started suturing up his ragged exit-wound, so that the ends of the skin were facing upwards. I didn’t even bother squaring off the end before running a stimpack along the seam. Once his thigh had sewed up along an ugly white line, I pulled all the fishing string out, because otherwise I was just asking for it to get infected. I still had a little stimpack-juice left, so I moved Beagle aside and shot the rest of it into the tiny-little entry wound, to sort out any of the leftover internal damage.

More time passed in silence. I knew it wouldn’t matter, but I loosened and removed the tourniquets to feel like I was doing something. My ears were ringing, blood was soaking into my pants like syrup, but I barely noticed- all that mattered now was if he was going to live, or if he was going to die. I was just going to have to have faith now.

“Is it working?” asked Mrs. McBain. I checked the Sheriff’s pulses, noticed that some warmth had returned to his skin...

Pulse is already stronger , and I can actually get a femoral. I sighed with relief. “It’s working. Pressure’s up.” A few more seconds passed. “I doubt he stopped perfusing to his brain for long, so his head should be fine, if you’re worried about that. He’s gonna need a ton of fluid, though, and he might need some more help with that leg-“ I started, but then Mrs. McBain wrapped her arms around me and pulled me into a tight hug. Once I was over the initial shock, I hugged her back.

“Thanks,” I murmured. Mrs. McBain laughed.

“You saved my husband, Isaac! You saved his life!”

I nodded and tried to free myself from the asphyxiating hug. Unfortunately, Mrs. McBain was a teensy bit stronger than me. “I don’t even know how to thank you. Do you want caps? We- well, you know we aren’t rich, but we have a tin of caps hidden away under the floorboards!” Still struggling in vain to free myself, I shook my head.

“No- no, Mrs. McBain, I don’t want no caps! I just need you to work with me here for these next couple weeks to get your husband healthy again. I mean, he just caught a bullet, he’s gonna need some help getting back to normal...” I was lying about the caps. I would have loved caps, considering how much I was hurting for supplies. But I also wanted to establish that I didn’t charge for my services, and Mrs. McBain had a way of inadvertently spreading that sort of information.

“Oh, but I can’t just let you go back to work like that- look at you, you’re all filthy!” she said, finally releasing me from the hug. I stumbled back and fell onto my rear. “Why don’t you come over to our house- You can get those clothes washed, and I’ll get you some lunch. And a shower too, what would Penny say if she saw you like this?”

Well, I couldn’t disagree with her on that count. Just hugging Mrs. Mcbain, I’d gotten spots of blood all over her dress. Momma had already had to warn me about tracking blood in the house before...

“Alright,” I said. The ringing in my ears was tolerable now. I was starting to be able to think straight again, even if I was still shaking and sweating like hell. I noticed that Beagle had offered me his hand.

“Um- yes!” I said, pulling off my glove and allowing him to haul me up to my feet. He held on real tight to my hand and looked at me with an expression that I couldn’t parse.

“I owe you one, Isaac. I know that this is my fault, and that I’m not always nice to you, but I- I really do appreciate this. I don’t know what I’d have done without my brother.” I tried out a smile. Beagle smiled back at me, and it almost made me forget how much of a prick he’d been when I was a kid. Almost.

“Water under the bridge, Beagle,” I replied. I thought about winking, but I once made a girl run away from me when I tried to wink at her, so I held off.

“Isaac, sweetie-“ I turned around. Mrs. McBain was standing in the doorway. “The door’s unlocked, why don’t you come back to the house first? We can lay my husband down while you wash up.”

I considered. The sheriff seemed stable enough for that proposal, but no one else seemed to quite understand the extent of what he’d just suffered, or the long road that lay ahead for him. I mean, hell, he’d had his leg blown open, lost a third of his blood, and then had a stimpack injected right into a central artery! There were some things I wanted to take care of before I attended to myself.

“I like that idea, but can I borrow one of you to help me finish sorting out Beagle first?” I asked. Mrs. McBain looked at Beagle.

“Beagle, seeing as how you’re the one who shot him…” she started. Beagle put his hands above his head.

“I’ll handle it, ma’am. What should I do?” I raised my hand.

“We’re gonna try to get him on a mattress, if we can. Start him on some Saline and get him drinking water when he wakes up, the stimpack and his body will sorta work together to replace all that blood he lost. He’s going to be in a lot of pain, so we’ll have to give him morphine when he wakes up. I’ve got powder and IV’s with me,” I said, trying my best to cover all my bases without over-explaining. Mrs. McBain started to walk away.

“Alright! You two do what you have to, I'll be getting the house ready for him.” she said, and disappeared through the doorway. I looked at Beagle.

“He didn’t hurt his back none, right?” I asked. Beagle shook his head. “Good. I’m gonna grab his legs then, you grab his arms- let’s get him on one of them cots over there, then move him from there.”

He nodded. We grabbed a hold of the Sheriff’s limbs.

“Alright. Three, two, one-”

[+]

[nightcoremoon]

weird opinion but christians aren't religious.

ok so like, jews generally follow god's rules, muslims follow allah's rules, hindus probably follow their gods rules, so on and so forth. and overall they do it out of faith; they do it because they want to honor the deity who loves them rather than because society forces them to.

granted the zionists and the radical extremists and the zealots do exist but as loud minorities and thus are statistical outliers & don't matter.

christians are... a different breed.

"if you aren't x branch and dont obey y rules you'll go to hell so we'll fucking murder you" is pretty much the main driving force behind a significant portion of christianity in history. the catholics, the protestants, the orthodoxy, all are built on a foundation of fear, anger, and hatred. it's shaped the way society developed; in the 4 nations that did the most genocidal imperialist colonialism- England, France, Spain, and Italy- a combination of convenient coastal locations, naval prowess, military tendency, christianity, and ultranationalism lead them down a path of missionaries, holding bibles in one hand and bloodstained knives in the other. the religion is inseparable from the culture and inseparable from the horrible things done in the name of their god, and the resulting cancers of society we feel today from the campaigns of slaughter. xenophobia. capitalism. savage barbarism via sensationalized capitol punishment. misogyny. queerphobia. gender fascism. classism. racism. all of these issues in the "civilized world" stem predominantly from those four nations and the disease ridden pestilent filth some call pilgrims.

here's something interesting:

there are less than 1 million rastafari in the world.

there are less than 5 million shinto in the world.

there are less than 25 million jews in the world.

there are less than 30 million sikhs in the world.

there are roughly 100 million african cultural religious adherents in the world.

there are less than 400 million chinese cultural religious adherents in the world.

there are about 500 million buddhists in the world.

there are about 1.1 billion hindus in the world.

there are about 1.2 billion nonreligious people in the world.

there are 1.6 billion muslims in the world.

and one final statistic

there are over 2.1 billion christians in the world.

the jewish count is a highball, rounded up, and includes several different definitions of jewish including people who are only one quarter. so for every single person who is even remotely jewish, there are more than 8 christians. for every hindu, there are 4 christians. for every atheist, agnostic, or "other", 2 christians. this frightening statistic should set off warning bells for everyone who is involved in a discussion about religion. and anyone who knows BASIC world history and can correlate data at all can probably piece together what I'm putting down.

now, I may be slightly biased here considering my eclectic religious beliefs. now, I personally believe that there is some primary force of energy that may or may not manifest itself as a humanoid being, that engineered the most basic laws of physics in the universe: atomic magnetism. as can be inferred by planck's constant and its implications, our universe is digital, written in binary. an electron either moves or doesn't move. there are no other options. so I genuinely believe in some form of intelligent design; whether it's a bearded guy on a cloud, some dude with six arms and an elephant for a face, just a big swirling pool of ectoplasm, or a big ol' plate of spaghetti and meatballs, something is out there that we are physically incapable of contacting from our plane of existence, just as a drawing on a piece of paper cannot reach out to interact with the world: a gif will move on its own but it will never acknowledge our existence, even if it could think by itself. and all the different mythologies of the world- egyptian, greek, norse, shinto, whatever- very well could be the agents of that unknown "god". perhaps anubis, ra, and bastet are just angels with animal heads that all of the peoples of ancient egypt saw and were like oh I guess this must be a god. maybe zeus and loki were the same person with a magic dick who fucked a bunch of animals in both greece and the scandinavian countries and spawned all of the horrible half-animal monstrosities that, idk, made vishnu think "well I have to kill that" and caused the biblical flood or something. maybe the jewish god gifted wisdom to siddhartha for sitting under a fig tree for 6 years through the angel pomona [roman goddess of fruit, had to google that one], so buddha gets his wisdom from demeter and is in nirvana right now right a step up from hades on yggdrasil the world tree keeping an eye on his charge persephone. any theory could theoretically be true but we ants of humans will never fucking know because we can't just point a telescope at the magellanic clouds and say "look, there's amaterasu with russell's teapot, and she's having tea with... *rubs eyes* lemmy kilmister??? wow I guess gods are real after all!" it's impossible to know the secrets of our universe because of the very restrictive nature of the universe itself. is it a circle? is it a donut? WE DONT FUCKIN KNOW.

we cannot know what religion is truthful.

""anyone who says that any one religion is more or less true than any other is a fucking moron, and if they're suggesting that White Western European Colonial Imperialist Protestantism is the one true faith, they're probably a fucking racist colonizer who beats his wife/sister and burns gays at the stake. and considering how that exact demographic is typically the one that murdered people for not converting to their religion, I don't think they have the intellectual non-deranged ability to make those logical connections.

again, I'm not saying that there AREN'T a lot of people of every religion who are evil assholes who contributed to mass genocide. israelites killed palestinians. shiites killed sunnis. hutus killed tutsis. danes killed geats. turks killed armenians. the ottoman empire has as much blood on its hands as the holy roman empire. germans who called themselves aryans but weren't actually aryan killed jews. but all of these tragedies were isolated incidents rather than repeated patterns over the course of two thousand years. not like christianity was and is.

just look at the United States, Canada, Mexico, Hong Kong, South Africa, Australia, & India's British Raj. Britain, France, Spain, and Italy, by extension Protestantism and Catholicism, are the shared factor between the long and bloody history fraught with massacring indigenous populations who wouldn't convert religions. native americans, indigenous canadians, latin americans but predominantly mexicans, the eastern chinese, coastal africans, aborigine aussies, indians- coastal coastal coastal. true the western chinese and the mongols/hunnu and xinjiang muslims haven't exactly been on civil terms and the silk road has always been a battleground and the middle east was already tenuous before murrica bombed them for oil but those happened in such a spread out area among asia which is FUCKING HUGE, MIND YOU! but also that's three high traffic places with massive diversity, it's human nature to have conflict, but not nearly to the same level as all of the shit christianity has done to the world. it's impossible to separate the religion from the cultures; victorian england without protestantism is just dirty people who die at 15 from having their 3rd child. italy without the catholicism is just grass and cheese. france and spain without religion are just kingdoms that fought wars with england for forever and now just make food that's one part delicious and three parts horrifying. religion is directly responsible for a significant portion of the evils those countries committed. one religion in particular.

they don't practice religion the same way as the rest do. they aren't faithful to their god. they don't follow his rules out of love but out of fear. they execute dissenters without a second thought, heresy they cry. they execute women and little girls for being free thinking or having sickness associated with mercury poisoning in the water, witch they cry. they slaughter men women and kids alike in the name of cramming their beliefs down the natives throats, we're chasing out the snakes they cry, we're bringing god to your godless people they cry, we're just civilizing you they cry. they shit in the streets and proudly display rotting corpses and leave the impoverished disabled and starving to die alone and whip their slaves and rape teenage girls and scrap in the streets while sopping wet with spilled ale over insignificant insults and stab people to death in the night and never even fucking BATHE, and they have the nerve to say the natives were uncivilized. the nerve. because hey. they read a magic book they stole from a culture who stole from another culture who stole from another culture, mistranslating each time from hebrew to greek to italian to english, and they think they're better because their skin is white.

christians never evolved. their mentalities have stayed the same. all thatms advanced has been technology. that's it. they're still the same evil disgusting degenerate bastards they always were. they just have the money they stole to buy stained glass windows, rosary beads, giant tacky metal statues, bigass robes, leather, and printing presses. and as time passed they used the money they continued to steal to buy cars and websites and radio stations and commit felony tax evasion and secretly molest children and line the pockets of the politicians.

all of their holidays are stolen from pagans anyway.

so fuck christmas. fuck easter. fuck lent. fuck the golden calf christian holidays that the tiny minded fragile snowflake conservatives lose their collective shit over because the pandemic response common sense stipulations won't let them buy the shit they can't afford with money they shouldn't have for people they don't even LIKE, all in the name of tradition, tradition! the rituals that worship something so much worse than satan or baphomet or pan or whatever: the dollar. they buy all the new shiny shit they can, at the expense of the chinese kids that the corporate pigs outsource to, buy the pine trees and the coca cola vunderbar and the fake mint corn syrup Js and watch the same shitty cookie cutter white supremacist hallmark fash movies and stuff their kids full of enough sugar to go into a goddamn coma when the african slaves who pick the cocoa beans will never get to know what actually being a kid will ever feel like because they're gonna die from falling into a combine harvester and be eternally forgotten to history and no christian will ever give a shit because they don't fucking care about what they don't see on their safe space news or hear on their safe space radio or read on their safe space social media. they think their worst sin is eating cheeseburgers so instead they'll go eat a mcchicken or chick fil a or an arby's chicken sandwich instead but not at popeyes because "that place is sketchy" and by that they mean they don't wanna eat where black people eat, that's why cracker barrel was so popular for so many white christians for so long because it had racially segregated seating until barely 20 years ago.

they don't love jesus. they love a paper doll they shove into their back pockets until every other sunday where they go to a fucking mall with a baptism waterslide and raise their hands like a bunch of dumbass weirdos and away to adult contemporary indie schlock with the word jesus pasted into a boring-ass hetero romance song, pat themselves on the back, then go to starbucks to scream slurs and misgenderings at 14 year old starbucks baristas who give them a cappamochalattechino instead of a fucking carmamochalattechino because you mumbled under the mask you didn't even fucking cover your nose with because you don't give a shit about the virus beyond how it inconveniences you.

they are horrible people who pretend to be good. until you suggest the slightest infinitely small inconvenience to them that would alter their holiday plans even the littlest smidge. then they would kill you if not for the police. don't get me started on them because you know by now what I'd say about those fuckers. but they'll gladly wear shirts about how they'll kill you. how they'll go back 200 years. how they'll murder you and watch you slowly suffer because their primate brains shoot a million endorphins when they watch things die by their hands because they never evolved a sense of empathy, compassion, or morality beyond how wearing a cross necklace will remove any of the consequences they will face in their afterlife.

they are horrible people who pretend to be good. unless you're gay or black or trans or Not Christian™ or mexican or disagree with them about politics economics sociology science technology music or movies. assimilate or die. assimilate or die. assimilate or die.

they don't deserve special treatment for their false idols.

they aren't better than jews or muslims.

they're worse.

so much worse.

and they should be stopped.""

-Nightingale Quietioca

save as draft arch draft bookmark draft where did I put my keys contra code kontra kode I need to remember this and copy it buzzwords keywords find it later please god tumblr don't bork on me this is good stream of consciousness repackage repackage change the words this is a great character study if I do say so myself thanks 3am me you're welcome 3am me

[nadiineross]

so this is spiderbyte wip which i cannot be bothered to finish but i thought it would be cute n funny if sombra makes them go on a legal vacay together like they go on tripadvisor and dress up like tourists and theyre using their sick days or smth not that i think talon would give either of them sick days since its a terrorist organization.. lol ANYWAY hv fun :)

Widow has no idea how Sombra pulled it off, but she’s hardly surprised since doing unthinkable, and unthinkably stupid, things is sort of Sombra’s schtick. So, here she is, standing in a commercial airport with a neck pillow wedged around her peach-painted elbow and two 4-wheel suitcases at her hip, waiting for her girlfriend to finish taking a piss.

She is, on some level, excited for this actually legal, Talon-cleared weekend-long vacation. It’s not that she thinks she’ll get bored or hate it—after all, Sombra had organized everything and Sombra is one among maybe three people who give a fuck about what Widow thinks about things—but she wonders, sometimes, about the genuineness of her own emotions. She experiences them shallowly. Like they’re dialed down. On occasion, experiences them like a choice; a matter of whether or not she wants to expend energy on reacting to something.

Because of this, she wonders if she fakes them and does it so well, she’s fooled herself. But then what difference would that make?

Yes, she’s happy to spend time with Sombra. Always. It just doesn’t matter to her at all the how and when of it. Doesn’t feel like there’s anything significant about going to a different country with Sombra, partake in new activities with her.

To Sombra, it’s different. She’s been giddy about this for a week, constantly nudging Widow so she’ll lean over and look at whatever part of the travel plan Sombra’s putting together. Sombra feels the urge to see new places and do new things with people she likes to spend time with.

Widow’s okay with sitting in Sombra’s room, with the hip LED strip lights she sees in the “tick tocks” Sombra shows her, doing nothing in between messing around on the bed. Widow’s okay with flying to ass nowhere, Europe, to watch Sombra’s back and shoot people. That’s going somewhere new; that’s doing something new. It’s all the same to her.

But then again, Sombra wants this, so it’s automatically different.

And that’s the extent of Widow’s feelings about this.

Sombra comes bounding out the airport bathroom just as Widow considers going in to check. As soon as she spots Widow, she scowls and moves the pillow from Widow’s arm to her neck. Again.

“You promised,” she reminds Widow.

Widow looks at her impassively. Considers it.

She promised she would “get in the holiday spirit,” but that was before she had known about Sombra’s ridiculous definition of holiday spirit. Still, a promise is a promise. Besides, this was Widow’s gift to Sombra. Specifically, Widow had told Sombra that she gets one do-stupid-things free pass, happy anniversary, chérie, come back to bed.

One occasion where Sombra can drag Widow into something and Widow will comply without complaint, all within reason, of course. And Sombra picks a vacation.

Sombra, who has become a master at staring contests with Widow, having dated her for a year and a handful of weeks now, waits her out. Finally, Widow sighs and reaches up to button the donut pillow at her throat.

“Looks great, babe,” Sombra says brightly, and begins to wheel her suitcase towards the departure hall proper.

Widow sighs again and follows after her.

“Does this even count as a legal vacation if we are using fake documents?”

“Say it louder,” Sombra grumbles, “I don’t think airport security got that.”

Widow tries not to smile. She takes in a deep breath and, indeed, louder, says: “Does this even c—”

“I hate that you think you’re funny now,” Sombra huffs. “Dating me is such an ego boost for people.”

“People?” Widow muses. Sombra ignores that. Whatever. She changes tracks to something she’s actually curious about. “What’s the name on your passport?”

“Sombra,” says Sombra.

Widow squints at her. “Sombra what? You don’t have a last name.”

“Spider,” Sombra deadpans, “Obviously, it doesn’t say Sombra. Why the hell would I put that on my passport? That’s dumb. I’m very good at being a criminal, you know?”

“Yes, baby,” says Widow, “the best.”

Sombra rolls her eyes but the edges of her mouth twitch up before she can control it. Widow can’t help but smile herself. “It’s Jane Smith.”

“That… is so boring.” She wrinkles her nose. “And so American.”

“What? You don’t think I look exactly like a Jane Smith?” Sombra asks.

Widow stares at her.

“Whatever.” Sombra sniffs, snootily, and rubs a hand over the buzzed side of her head. It’s grown out a bit—Widow will shave it for her soon.

“You are terrible with aliases.”

Sombra had given her a fake passport earlier today, back at base. Widow’s now May Parker, a Canadian national since Sombra didn’t have faith in Widow’s fake accent skills and told her, quite condescendingly, to stick to French. The name was a reference to something, Widow’s not sure what, just thankful that Sombra hadn’t ended up printing the name of the first French historical figure that came to mind. Napoleon Bonaparte probably wouldn’t have gone over too well with airport authorities.

At check-in, the woman barely bats an eye at their too-nondescript names. It’s likely not that rare for people to come through airports with fake names in this day and age anyway. Probably, it’s quite rare to have terrorists doing it for vacation, but Widow has to admit their outfits don’t quite match up with that image.

Sombra picks their seats as Widow hauls their suitcases onto the belt. When all’s said and done, Sombra loops their arms together and pulls them towards security.

Sombra keeps glancing up at Widow’s face while they wait in line. It’s her only tell that she’s nervous and Widow can guess why. The sunscreen-like balm they’d smeared all over her, to make her look normal, should hold up for the duration of their flight. Though, she didn’t trust Talon scientists, she could trust their science, so she’s not worried about it.

Anyway, it wasn’t the 20th century. Most body mods were socially acceptable now. Sombra, in all her cyborg glory, shuffles past security with no problem.

It’s another half hour wait at their gate before they finally board. Sombra takes the middle seat, leaving Widow with the window. The aisle seat is, thankfully, empty. She’s not sure if Sombra did that on purpose, but she doesn’t particularly care either way, so she doesn’t ask.

Sombra reaches over and taps both of their mini-TV screens at the same time. A moment later, The Room (2003) begins playing on their screens simultaneously. Sombra makes a triumphant little sound and cuddles into Widow’s side.

Widow drapes her arm around Sombra and sighs.

//

A brief shitty movie marathon later, they’re touching down in Hokkaido, Japan, and Sombra’s tugging her gangly girlfriend out her seat. Widow’s vaguely tired and has already made Sombra promise they’re calling in a favour from Akande for a Talon plane back home after this. It takes a lot of brain power for her to keep up with Sombra sometimes, especially when it comes to silly things like enjoying bad movies.

(Sombra tells her it isn’t brain power that she is expending; rather, it’s called the emotional labour of loving someone.)

By the time they get to their lodging, Widow’s just about ready to pass out.

She pushes the first door she sees and falls into bed. Outside, she hears the rapid padding of Sombra’s footsteps as she explores every nook and cranny in the cabin.

She’s not sure how long she’s been lying down, but next she opens her eyes, the sky is dark blue and Sombra’s face is alarmingly close to hers.

Sombra grins and touches her cheeks. “Hey, you should get up.”

Widow blinks lazily at her. Then: “No.” She rolls around and closes her eyes again. “We’re on vacation.”

“We have to wipe that shit off you,” Sombra says, a note of affection colouring her tone.

She allows herself a few more seconds before she sits up with a huff and follows Sombra into the en suite. It’s a nice bathroom: a big tub, classy tiling, and there’s a big window facing a snowy mountainside, framed by gnarly trees.

note: and like i had this idea that sombra had her own agenda picking japan like mayb to hack into some mountain base but mostly i wanted to write widows skiing skin:) and they do stupid shit in the snow and eat good food and roll around in the sheets in their cozy lil cabin during a snowstorm and at the end these two who hv j been like. a pair of random tourists roll outta there in a bigass talon plane, guns equipped on the outside and everything, everyone else is alarmed, shitting themselves, but sombras j chilling in widows lap as they head back to base, blissfully unaware

[chromaji]

Chelle coming out is so exciting honestly, I was convinced that we wouldn’t ever see the siblings as playable characters considering a lot of the galas recently have been their dragons and not them. It makes me wonder how the others will be introduced. Will they also be welfare?

Hmmm now that Chelle’s the reward and not Leonidas like I was thinking, I’m starting to realize that Leonidas felt too “important & independent” to have his first playable form be a welfare.

Hell, even Leif got the gala treatment and he still doesn’t have a welfare form deapite being part of the Euden’s team in the main story (Sarisse isnt truly a part of the story so I can excuse her getting a gala first... Also she was literally the first gala gjfh)

Well, out of the royal siblings, I can see Leonidas and Phares being Gala units before they become playable. Leonidas due to his importance (both in-story and as a person), and Phares due to probably remaining “antagonistic” for a long long time. Can’t see a scenario where Euden would let him into the team anytime soon lol.

I could see Valyx having a welfare version due to like, some story scenario where Euden and the gang finally rescues him and he joins them to repay the debt (and he’d also recognize Euden’s strength and see him as a leader worth fighting for? Something like that heheh 😅)

And I could see Emile being free AT THE MOMENT due to his sort of... lack of presense in the main story and the way that he’s kinda being made into a “forgotten comic relief guy” type of character...

...Which I hope cygames tones that archetype down before long. I’m going with it for now, but its clear that Emile’s got a bigass superiority complex and other issues that I hope they treat more seriously in the future.

Anyway, at this point in the story, I could see cygames having Emile force his way into the team in an “You should consider yourselves grateful that I’m joining the likes of you.” way. Also a “Euden is too nice to say no” way.

Basically, this:

Well, I’m sure that every sibling will get a Gala at some point, but the only ones I feel like are truly gonna get gala’s anytime soon are Leonidas (Leogundas) and Chelle (not only the fact that they didnt give her free form a gun even tho she’s the one who rediscovered them, but just... You know she’s gonna get a Gala real quick just like Zena. cmon now.)

[originlist]

bron thots and hcs 99% harvested from rambling i sent to charri and didnt wanna retype yet

thinking about avicebrons workshop as i write. it is... a nice place to be i think. in my terms of nice. avicebron keeps it comfortably warm bc he likes it better that way. it smells like earth. warmly lit. there are various comfortable chairs because he used to just have one or two for himself and then he realized people kept coming by so hes just [sighs and adds another good chair and someone else drags in a bean bag or some shit]. hes got a bookshelf full of things. theres clutter but its an interesting kind of clutter and he knows where everything is anyways and the floor is cleared so ur not gonna trip over anything except maybe a golems whos keeping it tidy. its a chill place to read a book and if u ask nicely u can use some of the clay he keeps to makes lil figures with for fun. thonk bron: im going to make a place i like being in as a workshop narrator: this means other people will also like being there and sometimes hang out with you, which means you will be forced to acknowledge The Existence Of Other People bron: fuck. ive played myself

one day i will reread my source on kabbalah and itll be the end for everyone bc ive been interested in it since freshman year but its hard to find sources. and i have Thots about his golems but ill properly phrase them once im able to look thru my other primary source, for now i just ramble but basically his current golems except Adam arent like True Golems and even Adam is iffy because its moved past what a golem is

so proper golems are entities made thru certain specific magical rituals, and they are beings created generally by rabbis with a background in mysticism in order to help the community. a proper golem is highly autonomous and able to think on (almost) human level on its own, somewhat similar to a homunculus in proper homunculus lore but also, not. dont worry about it. i dont have the time to get into it. but one day. thats a threat. the final piece to animating them is writing on either them or an amulet they are given, which they can be returned back to earth by erasing the first letter they are, specifically, made to either help or protect which is why the reactor core thing is [singsong] bullshiiiiiiit

avicebrons golems are quickly made things that are more like basic familiars, as they possess a lower level of thought and dont follow ritual, the handoff of being less autonomy in exchange for being able to make a lot of them very quickly and easily so he doesnt count them as Proper Golems but he also classes them as More Useful For Our Situation Than A Proper Golem they can do chores and they will keep u safe but they also dissolve after a few hits

look the man’s disabled and he uses golems to make up for the fact, he doesnt need them to be durable or fully sapient he just needs them to do chores when he cant move his arms all the way and his back hurts

adam however (his NP) is a Proper Golem Plus Some. im ignoring the part where its like 'in fgo he also would need a mage or high level reactor to be its core' because thats stupid a proper golem doesnt need a core it just needs mystic words and some other stuff, but in exchange ill say he writes life into it using some part of his own magic plus whats drawn from his master, and the rest of Adam's unique reality marble ability is that it can pull mana from the earth directly quickly made familiars have mineral cores in order to like..... cores are the equivalent of when u pull back a ball on those clacker desk toys, where they keep going back and forth for longer than they should? the core jump starts the mana conversion procedure allowing it to create energy to move bc gems in fate are a good prana conduit

he can still do the thing of like. fuck i forget the word for it. earthbending. like he does in apoc where he just kinda draws shapes out of soil, but its only for various kinds of dirt. cant rly fuck with gems or metal but hes got bigass clay jars in his workshop full of dirt and clay and Various Rocks to make stuff ut of that he can control with a hand wave. it makes his life easier. bron vc do i LOOK like i can lift anything. i thought not.

uuhhhh other random bron infodumps bc i made other posts and then deleted them

no legge, prosthetics start at the hip ball-and-socket joint. arms yes. the second pair of arms is removable and attached to a thin plate that he can attach under his shoulders. the secondary shoulder joint is technically hypermobile and its easier to dematerialize/rematierialize them instead of putting them on and off. theyre usually not out unless he needs them for something. he is ambidextrious with all four of them and will show off in the name of efficient multitasking.

got a lotta facial scars from having acne as a young adult. pockmarks and the like. on top of his whole body being fucky.

does not like the cold!! makes both his physical and prosthetic joints feel stiff. will not mention it but will just [slowly recedes further into his cloak]

his hair is not as fun as it looks (to me). he hates having a body in general and so he will intentionally refuse to care for any non-prosthetic part of himself properly for it until it gets bad, so his hair is generally kinda dry and messy. its not Bad bad but its not great.

he takes better care of his fake legs than he does the parts of his body he cant replace and u should yell at him for it.

his cloak is also not as heavy as it looks like it should be. its carefully balanced. he can and will however bonk you with the pointy bits if you stand too close to him. forcibly mandated 4-ft personal bubble.

THIS MAN CLICK CLACKS WHEN HE MOVES AND I DONT CARE WHAT APOCS LACK OF SOUND EFFECTS TRIES TO IMPLY. this man WILL go click clack between his feet and the metal decoration thingies on his cloak bonking each other.

people who know shit about golem lore feel free to tell me all my books are packed but thoughts ping like ping-pongs

actually just tell me about folklore in general from any of u i like legends and mysticism 

if u have read this far tell me about some of ur folklore

[makeste]

BnHA 6th Popularity Poll Reaction Post - Risky Spoiler-Dodging Edition

hey guys, so seeing as the results from the 6th popularity poll were leaked today, I figured I would do a separate reaction + analysis post this year, rather than piling it in as an extra on top of the chapter reaction post tomorrow. I figure this makes more sense anyway, since they’re really two completely different things. also this way I can write as much as I want lol.

also, just fyi, I am still completely unspoiled for chapter 293. and probably the smart thing to do to keep it that way would be to log off tumblr and hold off posting this until tomorrow, but I apparently have no impulse control today so oh well. anyway, so I’m hoping you guys will keep this spoiler-free if you don’t mind! as always, I would prefer to just jump right in completely unaware tomorrow like Troy returning to the study room with the pizza boxes lol.

okay so this first part is just going to be my predictions. fyi I am writing this part on Wednesday night, and then I’ll add on the results part on Thursday or Friday (ETA: Thursday, apparently, since I am impatient.)

okay so first of all, just as a refresher, this poll was open to Japanese voters from Aug 3 to Sep 30. meaning chapters 279 through 285. meanwhile last year’s poll took place around the tail end of the MVA arc. so between then and now we had Heroes Rising, the Endeavor Agency arc, and the War arc up to the part where the 1-A kids took on Gigantomachia in Gunga, and started battling Tomura in Jakku. so technically only a couple of arcs, but a LOT of stuff going down in them. oh and season 4 of the anime as well

so! firstly, I predict that my truculent africanized honeybee son will hold on to his crown at #1, coming off a year in which he did some internship-boosted soul searching, borrowed OFA in movie canon, and finished out the voting period as the my-body-moved-on-its-own character development MVP. like CALL ME CRAZY lol, but I’m pretty sure his title is safe. and then after him will be Deku and Shouto as usual

Aizawa should hopefully also have a strong showing because the dude had a banner fucking year. reunited with his old dead friend, took on Tomura with his hopelessly inept hero pals, and then chopped his fucking leg off. he had better be in the top 10. his fucking leg died for this, idk what else he has to do

Endeavor also stands a decent chance of doing well given the internship arc and the final episode of season 4. which I’m sure will go down just swimmingly if that does happen lmao. especially if he somehow manages to rank higher than...

Dabi, which I don’t think he will btw, but you never know. anyways though, but I’m thinking Dabi’s going to have a stronger showing than in past years (in the last poll he only got 367 votes and was ranked 19th). mostly because of his fight in the Gunga mansion, and his cheekily censored name reveal to...

Hawks, who is also going to rank pretty high here, I think. might be he loses some points for killing off Twice, but his back was basically to the wall there. and he has always been very popular, and I think season 4 will also give him a boost, along with his heavy involvement in the first half of the War arc

Tomura was already in 6th place last year and I think he cracks the top 5 this year. he’s gotten exponentially more popular since the MVA arc, and got a boost in the last poll even though his flashback had only just barely happened, and he hadn’t finished Awakening yet and all that stuff. anyway, so he’s only gotten cooler and more tragic since then so I think he makes a big play here

Kirishima, Momo, Tokoyami, and Mina should also hopefully do well, since the poll opened right in the middle of all that Gigantomachia action, and Toko had just got done being an absolute badass and protecting his birb dad. I don’t think he’ll quite make it to the top ten, but he should

and last but not least, I’m hoping that Mirko will come out and take the polls by storm, although I have no clue how popular she is in Japan lol. she’s clearly Horikoshi’s favorite though. she SHOULD be everyone’s favorite, but I mean, we’ll see how it goes

anyway that’s it as far as predictions! and so now, through the magic of writing stuff at different times, we will fast-forward to the part where we actually find out the results!

OH MY GOD YES, STEAMPUNK KHLKSLLKL. HERE FOR IT. JOLLY GOOD SHOW. 5 STARS

Kacchan looks SO COCKY and SO HAPPY and SO ADORABLE, YES I SAID IT. he is adorable as FUCK. I don’t quite know what it is about this particular Kacchan that just screams “LOOK HOW FUCKING CUTE MY STUPID, LOUD SON IS WITH HIS BIZARRE WINDOWPANE-LOOKING CONVERTIBLE SUNGLASS GOGGLES and his POORLY TIED CRAVAT”, but I think it’s because he looks like if a Digimon character and a FMA character had a baby

anyway, so it looks like most of the people present here are more or less who we expected to see. except that I can’t tell for sure if that’s Dabi or Shindou, and if it’s Shindou I’m going to punch somebody in the face so you will have to excuse me

Iida wearing a TRENCHCOAT and a TOP HAT with ENGINE EXHAUST GOGGLE ACCENTS is my new favorite Iida of all time. take note how there is no possible way he can wear those goggles with them sitting on top of his hat like that. plus he’s already got glasses on. these are just purely for aesthetic and IF THAT AIN’T JUST THE STEAMPUNK WAY

Deku out here speaking softly and carrying a lead pipe. Kacchan you best look out. seems like he’s done watching you take first place year after year while he languishes in the number two spot. your only hope is that he trips while attacking you because his boots are unbuckled

Shouto’s standing over there with the rest of the non-first-and-second-place characters, but what are the odds his results are actually within spitting distance of Deku’s same as always. anyway he doesn’t mind, though. also his outfit is by far the most sensible one here, but if you look closely he’s got some sort of fire extinguisher/jet pack thing strapped to his back that’s got a control switch on his belt. Shouto are you jetpacking or putting out fires

Kirishima out here all “I’m not sure what steampunk is so I’m just going to take off my shirt and pose”

AIZAWA WITH THE EYEPATCH SKLKSDLKFJLSKJLDFKJSLDFFJLDKSJFL:KS. SIR. SIR. also, lowkey furious that Horikoshi refuses to show us the automail leg that he is clearly sporting here but which we just can’t see, SHOUTO MOVE GODDAMMIT

Endeavor has TWO fire extinguisher-slash-jetpacks. THE BETTER TO... WHATEVER. look at you here in the top ten again. you really live for that controversy

HAWKS OUT HERE WITH HIS STEAMPUNK BEATS BY DRE AND HIS WEARING A RING ON EVERY FINGER. nice to see you’ve still got your wings there, kiddo. then again Deku still has both of his arms too so who even knows what is going on

BUT SERIOUSLY THOUGH, IS THIS DABI OR SHINDOU. as if I don’t know the truth deep down in my heart. y’all I am gonna flip lmao. it’s not that I dislike Shindou, strictly speaking. but just... I can’t explain what it is, but if you put him and AFO next to each other and told me “you can only punch one”, I would be having a serious crisis. just, THIS FUCKING GUY, idek. STOP SMILING

Tomura looks like he just wandered onto the set here by mistake and has no idea where he is or what is going on. it’s because you’re wearing a bigass severed hand that’s blocking your entire view, Tomura. just take the hand off your face my sweet murder dumpling

anyway! so I managed to also find a link to the full poll results while somehow managing to avoid spoilers, and then I wanted to compare the results to last year’s poll, and so I made... this

hopefully you can all see this. if you’re on desktop you might be screwed, but on mobile you should be able to click and enlarge it. I mean, assuming you actually give a fuck about boring poll analysis spreadsheets lmao

anyway, so there were actually 13k fewer votes cast this year which is a bit of a surprise. is the series not still growing in popularity? do people apparently have better things to do during their quarantine lol

anyways but despite this, and despite getting 8k fewer votes overall, Kacchan still managed almost twice as many as his closest competitor. well fought, Deku. please put down that pipe

I somehow always underestimate the power of ship popularity to influence these things. but for example, it looks like Present Mic got that Vigilantes Trio bump. ride that wave for all it’s worth my man! hell, you got me on board

Iida fucking Tenya somehow got some sort of POWER BOOST out of NOWHERE which I can’t explain at all lmao, but I’m here for it. NOT BAD FOR AN OLD MAN

Sero managed to get the exact same number of votes in both 2019 and 2020. clearly the most loyal fans in the business

Mirko being all the way down at #20 is, of course, a travesty, and I hereby nominate her to be the one to punch Shindou in the face

ngl though, the lack of a single female character in the top ten hurts just a bit. it’s not overly surprising, but still. the worst part of it is that even if you kicked Shindou to the curb and moved everyone else up one slot, it would still be all dudes since Mic beat out Momo by a margin of a little more than a hundred votes. hard to stay mad at Mic for too long, though. ah well

Tomura actually lost a bunch of votes which is a genuine surprise to me. I know the villain standom isn’t as dominant in Japan as it is in Western fandom, but still. you can go ahead and punch Shindou too I guess

Tokoyami lowkey doubled his vote count over the past year while hiding down there at #18. he is slowly becoming more powerful. biding his time

anyway so I think that’s it! I mean not really, but I’m getting kind of tired lol. so just, you know, insert the usual gripes at Overhaul’s ranking here, although we can be happy about Magne making her way onto the list (r.i.p.), and Mineta and AFO taking a very satisfying slide down (all the way out, in AFO’s case; good riddance you bum). Hadou also got a huge boost which is awesome. Mustard’s persistent ownership of the #36 spot will forever remain a mystery to me, but oh well

anyways, this was fun. and I really do feel like everyone is looking away on purpose so that when Deku brains Kacchan with that pipe in about two seconds from now, there will be no witnesses, oh my fucking god