#oh well a few spoiler characters come up so I might as well tag them rip

[becausebuckley]

michelle's buddie fic recs: week 45!

what a week... i'm greatly enjoying all of the post-8x06 buddie fic (many more recs to come!) and took some time to revisit old favourites, which can be found in previous rec lists. enjoy!

this is a mix of fics with all ratings, so some include NSFW content. please take a look at both the ratings and the fic tags before reading! some might also contain spoilers for season 8.

if you come across something you like in this list, remember to show some love to the author by leaving kudos and a comment!

all that we need | not1_2write | 26.4k | M

When Buck buys a Powerball lottery ticket he doesn't think much beyond his need for change to air up his tire. He forgets all about the ticket until word spreads that the winning ticket was sold in LA and hasn't been claimed yet and pretty much dismisses it. After all, there's no way he won the lottery. Turns out no, he really did win the Powerball, to the tune of 295 million dollars and just in time for Christmas. He's going to make sure the 118 has the best Christmas of their lives. And just maybe he'll have a good one too. idk about all of you but i do dream about winning the lottery regularly (way too often for someone who's never bought a ticket, that's for sure). this is such a lovely look at what buck would do with a whole lot of money <3

i take this magnetic force of a man | playinginthunderstorms/@playinginthunderstorms | 9k | M

Turns out, he isn’t actually afraid of commitment. He’s just afraid of committing to the wrong thing, or the wrong person. Ana, obviously, had been a mistake, because he hadn’t been ready, and he’d put other people’s expectations above his own wants and needs. With Marisol, he’s done the same thing. Moved too fast, doing what he thinks is the right thing according to who? His parents? For Chris’s benefit? Again, pushing past his own comfort, discarding any doubt because it doesn’t fit like… Like Buck. blanket rec for one of my favourite authors who has been posting incredible fics lately!! this one in particular is so beautifully written and so romantic and just so very buddie <3

if i need to rearrange my particules i will for you | thelikesofus/@thelikesofus | 7.9k | GA

Eddie catches a cold and Buck takes care of him while having a minor, non-platonic emotional crisis. this is definitely influenced by the fact that i've been ill myself but wow truly nothing hits as hard as buddie taking care of each other when one of them isn't feeling well. the bed sharing in this is so good <3

let me | facewithoutheart/@facewithoutheart | 1.6k | T

Eddie doesn't think he needs romance. Buck, respectfully, disagrees. AKA the fic where Buck picks Eddie up and kisses him breathless against a wall. and buck is so right for doing that!! i love it when buck turns eddie to jello <3 so lovely!

second child, restless child | lesbianrobin/@lesbianrobin | 23k and counting| M

how Evan and Maddie make it out of Pennsylvania, and Buck and Maddie build a family. okay so listen these past few weeks i've been doing this thing where i only rec finished fics, and every time i scroll through my ao3 history for these rec lists, i come across this one and go oh i wish i could rec this already. and then i realised wait it's my rec list i can do whatever i want, and so then i did. anyway, mind the tags for this one, but wow are you in for a treat here! i love the character dynamics (chim is brilliant in this!! and maddie!!) and i'm so so excited to see the rest of this fic unfold <3

said that i was fine, said it from my coffin | justhockey/tumblr | 7.3k | T

And it doesn’t matter that he feels like he’s dying. Like the version of himself that he’s always been is suddenly a stranger to him - just a mask he’d spent his entire life hiding behind, without ever even realising he was wearing it. It doesn’t matter that Eddie is…that he’s gay. Because he knows - as surely as he knows that the sun will rise again tomorrow - that the only person he has ever, and will ever, truly love is Buck. And Buck isn’t his to love. another blanket rec for an author who's been posting incredible fics!! this one in particular has such brilliant eddie characterisation and i just devoured it the second i got that little ao3 email hehe

there's no place like home-spun | icewhisper | 4.1k | GA

Buck has spent most of his life trying to find something to settle fidgeting hands and the restless need for a home. He found the key to the latter when he was thirteen. He finds the former in a cozy home on South Bedford Street with two of his favorite people. (AKA the Buck-crochets fic that literally no one asked for.). this fic makes me want to learn how to crochet. i am the least crafty person ever and i have like minus time but just know that if two weeks from now i'm posting about yarn and crochet hooks and whatnot, it's all thanks to this fic. i love buck who crochets so very much <3

you get your dreams for free | llovely/@butchdiaz| 14.9k | T

five times buck and eddie cuddle drunk and one time they cuddle sober. buddie bed sharing my absolute favourite. i read this late at night curled up under three blankets and it hit just right <3

[markantonys]

Oh well now that you’ve told me we get more Elayne content as the series goes on I’m definitely still excited to read the later books!

Gawyn! I’ve seen so very little of him so far but from what I have he seems like a sweetheart. I love a good sibling relationship and how he and Elayne team up against Galad is great to see, keeping an eye on that one… Very frustrating for Egwene to be fawning over the wrong brother though smh

Haha poor Mat! I’m definitely warming to him more, I’m nearly finished TDR and he’s just put a flower in his hair while sneaking into the palace 😭 Which speaking of new locations and characters, that will be SO exciting to see. I know book fans have been complaining about the changes to the show but it makes sense for them to have saved Caemlyn for s3, there’s just so much going on!

Yeah, I’m looking forward to being on the other side! I think this is preferable bc honestly, based on my taste, I think the show is on the whole making changes for the better (the women getting more spotlight from the off, actually making queer coded relationships canon lol) so having the show to look forward to after reading the books is so much fun.

*the books are obviously the source material and fantastic please don’t shoot me book fans

first of all, congratulations on having the most correct and relatable takes on everything in the series so far djdkjf right down to anxiously adding "please don't shoot me book fans" after daring to express that you think the show is good and perhaps even better. keep us updated as you go along, i love hearing your thoughts! as always, to my reader followers, please do not mention any book spoilers past TDR in replies/reblogs on this post. we must keep this anon pure! anon, i will be tagging this post as book spoilers for the sake of show-onlys since we're discussing some s3 stuff, but rest assured i haven't included any spoilers past where you are (bar vague stuff like "X character has a big storyline in Y portion of the series").

gawyn is MY BOY. he's like a son to me, and you can't imagine the sheer serotonin boost i got when he was unexpectedly namedropped in s2 just when i was starting to worry he might be cut or merged with galad (neither of which would make sense to do, but other readers kept predicting that baselessly and i couldn't help worrying). he's definitely a slow-burner character with his biggest storylines occurring late in the series (another thing to look forward to in the later books!), but both brothers become more prominent in the book 4-6 era, so i will be interested to see what you think of that since they're definitely Just Kinda There giving us nothing in the first 3 books haha

and this is exactly why the show was wise to hold off on caemlyn, gawyn, galad, morgase, and elaida until s3! while i would've loved to see them earlier and while the EOTW caemlyn sequence is dear to my heart, in the medium of TV where the need to build sets and hire actors constrains what you can include when, it makes way more sense to hold off on introducing major locations & characters until such time as they are truly needed in the story, which for the Caemlyn Crew is season 3 since they don't get up to very much in the first few books. going to all that casting & set-building trouble for a single scene in season 1 or casting gawyn & galad just to bop around not doing much at the white tower in season 2 wouldn't have been practical. not to mention that there's been so much else going on, like you say! better to save this crew until we have enough space in a season to spend proper time with them.

and i love the show's approach of introducing elayne first and getting her into our hearts, then introducing the rest of her family in the next season when we're primed to be interested in meeting them, having already spent a whole season with her and having come to love her, and having heard intriguing little tidbits about her family and upbringing. caemlyn is my favorite location in the books and the trakands are my favorite family, so i can't wait to see them next season!!!! i'm so curious to see what kind of aesthetic they'll go for with caemlyn, and noble andoran fashion too. and given what a great damodred family backstory they crafted out of almost nothing in the books, i suspect we'll be in for a treat with some meatier family dynamics among the trakands (who do already have great dynamics in the books, but i bet there's more that can be done!)

mat putting a flower in his hair!! 😭😭 he's a baby! man that reminds me of the green man in EOTW and when he only gave flower crowns to the girls and not the boys, that made me so mad djkjfjg whenever i see anyone be sad that the green man didn't make the show, i'm like "nah FUCK that guy, he didn't give the boys flower crowns!"

and i am COMPLETELY on the same page as you with still preferring the show even after having read the books because the changes it makes are in line with my personal taste and improve aspects of the books i didn't like. the aes sedai are one of the most unique elements of the series, and i love how much focus the show has given to them early on! i love that egwene and nynaeve get to be ta'veren too! i love that moiraine and siuan are in a canonical present-day relationship instead of relegated to "being gay is just a phase in college"! i love alanna's polycule! i love that the male characters are allowed to be sensitive and vulnerable and to openly express emotions and affection! i love that the friendships and romances and enmities are all deeper and more emotional across the board! i love that the show focuses on the emotional impacts of the plot on the characters! and the show also really excels at picking out a smaller number of supporting characters and beefing them up (like liandrin and alanna) instead of including a fuckton of supporting characters, none of whom are very distinct or well-developed. the show always chooses to whole-ass one thing rather than half-ass two things, and that's another thing i love! the ability to distill these very long-winded books down into a more streamlined version of the story while keeping its core intact was crucial for an adaptation to work well, and rafe & co are so good at that.

anyway, i know that some readers like to tout the narrative that reading the books will make you like the show less because you'll see how much better and more detailed the books are, but that could not have been less true for me. it just made me love and appreciate the show even more, and look forward to seeing how my least favorite book stuff might be improved and how my favorite book stuff might be changed or given a fresh spin or made even better! and i'm glad to hear i'm not the only show-to-book person who feels that way <3

[morgan-the-lonely-brick]

Hiii~~ coming onto this blog to do Terror propaganda. Follow my terror sideblog @leadandblood , this is just my main. That said:

Welcome to The Terror (2018)!

Here are things that I love about the first season that might convince you to watch it too (without spoilers)

The fandom is absolutely amazing!!!! I have never had such wonderful comments and tags under posts. And they're all really talented and just wonderful

Gay love.

So much gay love oh my god everyone is gay-

Heck, there's even straight love if you're into that

Old men <3

Absolute angels and absolute demons, that are SO fun to watch

The show knows it's characters incredibly well

They are well developed and act believably in all instances i can think of

If what they do doesn't make sense in the moment it's gonna later

"Here's a guy. Now lets find out how many fucked up things can happen to him before he goes insane or khs"

Representation! Gays, amputees and POC

The main main cast is mostly white men but when there's someone else it has significance to the story or bears a deeper meaning

The visuals are stunning

Amazing camera work

The sound design!!!! Oh my god!!! It's so gooood!!!

Insane paralels game. You won't even notice some of them, but they make sense once you do

The love and care that went into this show is incredible

Very rewarding upon rewatch - different views on scenes and characters and such

You will be finding new details for several rewatches (im on my 6th and still finding stuff)

THE ACTING OH MY GOD THE ACTING

Jared Harris - and his insane ability to portray any combination of emotions with one expression

Tobias Menzies and his goddamn microexpressions

Just to name a few, but honestly they're all amazing

They're also very nice to look at

Prepare to get hurt in the most creative ways possible - it KNOWS how to hurt you and it's... Kinda satisfying

Whump galore!! Emotional and physical. Comfort and no comfort. Just take your pick

It's finished, so they can't fuck it up anymore lmao

The sheer horror of being stuck in the arctic with little to no food and everything wanting to kill you /pos

Things that might turn you away

The sheer horror of being stuck in the arctic with little to no food and everything wanting to kill you /neg

Racist characters. it's the 1800s :///

Death. Oh god there's so much death

Oh you have a favourite character? Well, he dies :/

It is a tragedy through and through.

When you think it can't get any worse, yes it can

So many side characters that you'll be learning their names for the next few days to come

They're 95% white men that look the same when you start out

Bad things happen to animals :(

There's quite a lot of gore... Open skulls, deep wounds, amputation, disease, burning to death, mauling, i could go on

At one point alcoholism and suicide

There will be poems

Overall just a really really great show, i am in love with it

[amailboxlemur]

Three years ago today I watched Young Royals for the first time.

Story time/long post incoming. I wasn’t in a great headspace at the time, but let me try to set the scene.

Spring of 2021 was still pretty deep in the pandemic. My province had been on lockdown (number 3) since the beginning of April and I hated working from home. Partly because teaching online piano lessons sucks. But also I live alone, and lockdown is too much alone time no matter how introverted you are. I think that spring I went about 6 weeks without speaking to someone in person who wasn’t like a grocery store cashier.

I decided to go stay with my parents for a few weeks so I could get some human interaction. At the time, I was mooching off my former roommate’s Netflix that was still signed in to our living room TV, so I didn’t have Netflix access.

I also love Red White and Royal Blue, and all of a sudden in early July the fandom got flooded. There were gifs of two unfamiliar teenage boys all over my dash. Fanart of two boys who looked like Alex and Henry captioned “Wilhelm and Simon”. There were a bunch of crossover fics popping up on AO3. I was curious, but mostly I just wanted to get a feel for the characters so I could read said crossover fics.

July 12th was my first day back teaching in person. (Side note: the health precautions we had in place for those lessons were WILD). I came back from my parents place in the morning, taught in the late afternoon/evening and returned home around 8 pm. I made supper and figured I’d try watching an episode of this “Young Royals” thing. I started it and remember groaning when I realized it was in Swedish so I’d have to focus and read subtitles instead of watching mindlessly (I’m too pretentious to watch the dubbed version, but it had been a long day)

“Oh that’s a beautiful boy with a beautiful voice singing… I can keep going…”

“Ohhh they’re about to kiss… wait what? How does episode 1 just end there??? I have to watch another episode!”

“Yay they finally kissed!! But how will Wilhelm react?? It’s not even 11 yet, I think I can watch one more”

“Erik is dead. I knew this was coming because I saw the “beta read but Erik’s still dead” tag on AO3 but totally forgot! How will this affect my boys?? One more episode, just to see if wilhelm pushes Simon away again”

“Ok good, they’re together. August sucks though, I can see where this is going and why there seem to be so many comparisons to rwrb. But it’s past midnight so I’ll have to keep watching tomorrow… wait there’s only two more episodes?? Might as well finish”

Before I knew it, it was 2 am and I was crying on my living room couch. I NEVER get into new shows, I have tons of things I watched 1-3 episodes of and then quit, so I couldn’t believe I binged the entire thing. It was late so I went to sleep.

In the morning I woke up and the rabbit hole began. I read all the fics on AO3, I started following young royals stuff on tumblr. I googled the actor who played Simon and found out he’s an actual Swedish pop star? I think he was among the first artists I followed using my then brand new Spotify account. I followed both Omar and Edvin on instagram, along with Lisa (other actors followed later). I watched all the young royals promo videos on YouTube, including the Hillerska choir performance. That entire summer was spent diving down Omar’s back catalog of Foo vlogs. Some of them are in Swedish, but I remember watching them intensely, as if I would magically understand if I tried hard enough. I started learning Swedish on duolingo.

When season 2 was released, I fully quit all social media for WEEKS to avoid spoilers. I spent 3 days carefully messing up my sleep schedule so I could wake up and watch it at 3 am. When season 3 was released I was such an excited puppy dog that I didn’t sleep at all. I watched it at 3 am and spent the whole rest of the day amped up and on tumblr.

I remember all kinds of fun and significant days in the fandom: Rockbjörnen 2021, musikhjälpan 2021. The lead up and release of Mi Casa Su Casa. The release of OMR. Omar gave me a birthday present in 2022 when he performed “breathe” on Nyhetsmorgon on my birthday. Gay gala 2022 but especially 2023. Both boys have done incredible sommarpratar. So many other galas and performances and photoshoots I’d be here all day listing them all out.

Becoming an Omar fangirl was also surprising. I don’t listen to or follow pop music (my definition of which is incredibly broad so yes, Omar’s music qualifies). Like, I’ve never had a favourite artist before? One who’s work I actively follow and whose releases I know about in advance and look forward to?

Omar announced his concert at Cirkus in November of 2023 and it fell at the end of a semester break from work. I could go without needing to refund or makeup any missed lessons. It felt like a sign. That week was genuinely one of the best in my life, words can’t even describe it. A transatlantic flight, a week in Europe. I got to see Kaggeholm. I met Omar at Lyko. I stood in general admission 3 rows back from the stage and heard Omar sing live and sang along with other fans. It was surreal. Shout out to @yrblogbaby @the-words-we-sung @crownedwille and @omarsimp, wow you’re all amazing. There was a queer joy to hanging out with y’all that weekend that I don’t get too often irl.

Since then, I’ve tried to internalize a little bit more the idea of community in fandom. I’m still not super out there, but I try to interact more. I lurked in this fandom (and so many others) for years. I made this account in something like 2011 and until recently I probably had less than 50 posts.

So yeah… saying this show changed my life feels dramatic but also accurate. Hopefully here’s to more years to come, and more good memories when I head to New York this fall!

[yinyuedijun]

Ao3 also heavily relies on tagging. Those multi-chap multi-fandom reader things have tons of tags. Unfortunately, if you're anything like me, once it comes time to tag... it's like someone asking your favorite song 😅. Like I was working through your ao3 a bit ago because I was worried old blog links wouldn't work well on mobile and ie I think you didn't have omega aventurine tag in night flower (sorry if I'm misremembering)? And technically that's a searchable tag that might have gotten you more hits because it's both searchable and relatively niche.

Just tagging is a huge help. There are tags for specific relationship dynamics, au's/Canon divergences that are popular, different nsft acts/positions/knks, tropes of course... however it can be hard to know which ones are searchable unless you're on ao3 enough. I wonder if anyone has ever made a guide? I also know for sure that tagging characters separately from the ship "/" tag helps.

And multi-chapter stuff does get more hits because you go to the top of the date sorted options more times. I have a lot of one-shots on my account (from cross-posting) and I'm pretty sure the reason any of them got over 1k is because I'm writing for rarer characters in a larger fandom or for a large fandom that still has surprisingly few fics (oh naruto). The only one I've got that has more is both complete and I restricted myself from posting all chapters at once even though I wanted to be done with it. And yeah, unfortunately, unless your fandom is so niche you end up on the last few pages of a search or the fic gets so popular you end up in the first few, fics tend to get buried after a few weeks.

Tl;dr more tags are better because it lets people find you from many different angles! But there is some fandom-characteristic stuff that tends to either help or hurt depending on where you are.

... and there's a lot of meh fics in the top spots of many fandoms 😅 just because of the numbers game (complete, multi-chap, popular fan ship etc). I read your piece! It's good and has that mao panache 🥰, I liked it even though world references go over my head since I've not seen the show. Don't let the numbers get you down 💜 you're a really great writer! It sucks when effort doesn't seem to reflect the reaction (also kudos are famously low, good-normal is about 10% of your hits and you *might* get 1-5% comments of kudos based on whether that fandom is chattier/ more social with each other) but I hope you know we still appreciate having fun with you 🤗

hi anon!!! omg thank you so much for that ao3 breakdown/guide haha it's quite useful! I have actually gotten this specific comment from ao3-only readers before - they always tell me to add more tags because it would have helped them find my fics sooner! I think I will take the advice to heart, but it may take a while because I'm quite resistant to over-tagging (I don't like spoilers in tags ALFJSKSSJK). once I get to the smut in this fic I will defs be tagging every single sex position though 🫡

it is funny how even on ao3 we run into the phenomenon where top interactions =/= top quality (speaking generally, ofc there's stellar fics out there with tons of interactions). I guess whether you are on social media or on an archive, it always becomes a metrics game in the end rip

and thanks for the encouragement on my current fic, I appreciate it a lot!!! 🥺 I also super appreciate you reading the fic despite not knowing the world, like that must be MEGA confusing for an asoiaf universe fic LMAO. "mao panache" made me giggle WAHAHHWFKJS I'm not sure what it is but I'm glad you enjoy it !!!

[sevenrenny]

RENNY BIO

Oh look, finally making one of those Tumblr bio posts.

Welcome to my blog! Just a note that my blog might have some spoilers for certain fandoms (right now, mostly for My Hero Academia and Sonic The Hedgehog media).

✦ My name's Renny (they/them). I'm a queer, disabled, mixed-race fanfiction author.

✦ Transmasc/nonbinary, intersex, polyamorous, ace 🌈

✦ ADHD/Dyscalculia, chronic medical conditions.

✦ 16+ account. Mostly SFW but might occasionally reblog posts that might have more mature topics. Please see me list of content warning tags if there are tags you'd prefer to filter out.

✦ Most of my fics are SFW but I do sometimes write NSFW with aged-up characters to explore adult themes, so please be aware of the age rating and warning tags of my fics.

✦ I'm in multiple fandoms but I'm currently active in the My Hero Academia fandom as well as the Sonic The Hedgehog fandom. Casual furry as well.

✦ I most write for the ships IzuOcha from My Hero Academia and SonAmy from the Sonic The Hedgehog franchise, but I'm generally a multi-shipper.

✦ My English was self-taught up until I majored in a BA in English Literature in college. I'm a slow but avid reader. I especially enjoy middle grade and adult books, BIPOC and LGBTQ+, animal fiction, and magical realism.

✦ I’m known for my angst stories, but I’ll occasionally do fluff and AUs and other genres/tropes.

✦ I’m most active on AO3. (Please note that I do not use my FFN account anymore, so I won’t be able to see any questions sent to me there.)

✦ If my ask box is open go ahead if you have questions or would like fanfiction writing/research tips. I might take a few days to answer because I'm an employed adult who's juggling multiple projects and my chronic pain means I sometimes need a few days rest.

✦ Please don't come to me for discourse or shipping wars or the like. That's not how I roll.

Link to my AO3 account. (Please make sure you're signed in. My fics are limited to signed in users only)

[ponyguru]

Okay, I'm probably way behind everyone else, but I just watched Hilda Season 3 on Netflix, and I have Thoughts about the finale. (Behind a cut, since it's exclusively spoilers for the very last episode, ha! I'm not gonna tag this for the fandom or anything, I just feel like I have to vent this somewhere or else I'll explode!)

Okay, so I literally started this season thinking, okay, a guy wrote the original graphic novel, but it's not going anywhere with shitty takes on women, so that's great, right? I'm really happy with that, and relieved, because men generally seem to not be able to write women well.

And then we get to the last episode, and it's literally just "oh hey, your mom spends the entire series acting as the human Stick In The Mud who prevents her minor child from going on death-defying adventures, but it's okay! because it turns out she's actually a half fairy who lost her parents tragically when she's ten! Now she has them back!

Ohhhh wait, because we don't want to awkwardly fold these new fairy characters into the existing universe - erm I mean, for plot reasons, her parents who she tragically lost as a child can't ever come back to see her again! So being a mom is unending tragedy, with a deadbeat fuckboy ex husband, her only family being some bitchass aunt who spent her whole life lying to her, financial struggles, and completely cut off from the people she misses most, who she only got to see for a few hours before being ripped away from them again.

Happy ending for all, hooray! Fireworks!"

Like are you FUCKING KIDDING ME?

This ENTIRE SERIES is centered around the idea that "the established status quo is wrong, and Hilda is the one who can repair that balance even if it doesn't seem likely because she's just a little girl", but we get to the Fairy Realm, and suddenly it's "whelp, can't do anything, sorry mom! bye bye fairy family forever!"

The only saving grace for the series ending on a stupid-as-fuck note might be that, since it's the last season, they simply didn't have time to wrap things up in a better manner, and for all I know, the graphic novel has a completely different take on this whole situation. But seriously, I felt so bad for poor Johanna, whose entire character arc seems to be "get used to being miserable, honey, cuz you're not the main character."

Or, alternately, 'a mom's only meaning is in her child, and she has to sacrifice all happiness for herself for the sake of her child, because once women have children they cease to exist as individuals,' but maybe that's a whole other rage essay to type out. GRRRRR.

I'm sure the intended meaning was, 'ohhhh it's so woooonderful having a chiiiiild you'd sacrifice anything for them, including your own happiness', but that's bullshit because the entire series is about Hilda breaking down magical barriers/beings and making things work out for the better. But not when it comes to her mom, I guess???

[soul-music-is-life]

PLL: Summer School Random Recap Ep 1 & 2

*read at your own risk: THIS HAS SPOILERS*

Tag spoilers if you're going to share.

Just a few of my favorite moments from the first two episodes of PLL: Summer School (PLL: Original Sin, Season 2):

Faran being right all the time:

Ripped out of the headlines. Faran...PREACH, girl. (side note: Sullivan really annoys me. I'm salty AF that she still has a license to practice psychology after not being an adult for the girls in PLL. I get it...A apparently threatened her kid, but woman...YOU ARE THE ADULT!). Also I don't trust her. And I don't like her.

Noa also being right, but in a more blunt manner:

Ah, Noa. Still my favorite. Perhaps it's her characterization or perhaps it's the way Maia portrays her...but I feel like she steals the screen when sharing it and when alone. No surprise given she was my favorite in the first season (still get chills watching that scene with her running through her complex to the roof with A chasing her). But she's upped the game this season. She comes across as so natural in her delivery. Nothing against the others. But sometimes I can tell I'm watching an actor play a character with them, but Maia is Noa. A+. No notes.

Imogen Emison reference?

Wait...wait WAIT...was this an EMISON reference? Am I the ONLY one who saw this?! "Pip gets Estelle in the end." Plus it was an LGBTQ couple who adopted her baby!!

Mouse is coming into her own and I love it:

Mouse and Ash are my OTP. And they play well off of each other.

Calling out the OG PLL:

Was this a shot at PLL and how easily Mona and Charlotte just cruised out when they wanted? Because I love it.

Greg is so not here for this shit:

The first time I laughed so hard I had to pause. Greg is an asshole, but I feel his frustration on the cult shit. And Kelly's "Quiet!" afterwards...peak comedy.

Kelly channeling her inner Alison DiLaurentis:

Oh my GAWD. This was some straight up Dark Alison DiLaurentis on crack shit (or Mona, since..ya know...she ran her best friend over with a car). I'm developing this theory that perhaps Kelly is in on Bloody Mary (goddamn, am I blanking on the Big Bad's name? I think I am). I'm fairly certain her mother and the pastor are evil. I paused when Mouse was reading something on the Spaghetti site and it was word for word worship talking about Bloody Mary being the second coming of Jesus. Also, I just hate religion as a whole. Like Greg, I too, am an atheist.

Mouse's Grandma being the "fun" Grandma:

Okay, so I was super excited that we might have been getting a semi-Grandma Marin character, but after watching I have this awful feeling that this might be a dementia story in the works (I don't know if I believe the "sleepwalking" bit). But she seems like she's going to be a wonderful addition.

Tabby's very pointed reference within a reference:

Tabby out there breaking the 4th wall. And I'm here for it. Given that the writers retconned/rewrote the Ezria adoption due to backlash, I'm kind of glad they read the criticism of Tabby making too many references that piss the viewers off and basically flipped a middle finger at the people who will find positively anything to bitch about. I think it's funny writing. Trolling AF, but still funny.

I hate it when writers cave to the viewers. And as much as I hated the idea of Ezra getting Imogen's baby...I thought it was so dumb to cave to the viewers whining about Ezria getting the kid. People harped on that so much. Ezra can die in a fire for all I care, but I'll go to my grave thinking that the people who complained about Marlene caving to fan service in PLL with the couples in the end are the same people praising the fan service here. And I hate hypocrisy more than I hate fictional characters. I'm a cynic.

Noa being real:

Noa complaining about the fitted sheet was ironic given I was trying to do laundry while watching. Accurate. Side note: I don't know how I feel about this Jen character. I feel like Shawn (Sean? How is it spelled?) is one of the few non-toxic partners in the show (Ash is still bae). I'm all here for bi-representation, but I don't like love triangles and I don't want them fucking with Noa and Shawn/Sean.

And speaking of love interests:

I love this kid and want to protect him:

I've seen buzz of people not trusting Christian...and I get it. First of all...this is PLL. And second of all Christian is a very...themed name for a show that is most likely going to have the faith-based cult be psychopaths.

But I am going to be pissed AF if they make him a bad guy after everything Tabby went through. Also, let's not make the first prominent black male a problem please (not counting the Dollar Store fake Eddie Lamb or Faran's dad, who hasn't really been villainy).

Final thoughts: Goddamn, Sandy ate it hard, bruh. I was kind of excited to see that rivalry between her and Kelly.

Loved seeing the power of speaking up about the sexual assault. HATED Wes still being a character and also telling Tabby to have sympathy for her rapist's mother? No. Sorry. She raised a rapist...who raped TWO girls. And she was victim-shaming Tabby. Where is that Bloody woman with the knife when you need one?

Speaking about someone I hated seeing: Sean's mother is a raging thundercunt.

Also: I've seen mixed thoughts about the couple setting a firm tone with Imogen about the baby, but I'm not going to lie...I get it. Most likely they know the shit going on in their town (move, MOVE NOW WHILE YOU STILL HAVE THE CHANCE!). I do think they were kind of snappy with her, but as viewers we have no idea how often she shows up after having signed a legally binding document about the adoption.

Love interest wise: Don't know how I feel about Ash following the girls to that cabin, but also...why TF would they even GO there?! I like this Christian guy for Tabby. Henry kind of annoyed me crossing Faran's boundaries, but Faran punching Greg out was *chef's kiss*. And Shawn(Sean)/Noa are adorable.

Parents: I'm shifting to Tabby's mom being a favorite just because I think she's going to have the most screen time. It was nice seeing Lea Salonga again though. I still hate Faran's mom and I hate that they are all buddy-buddy after everything she did to her child.

New characters: Please don't let this swim coach turn into a creep, please don't let this swim coach turn into a creep. Also curious about the guy Imogen met at the Ice Cream place. And well...I'm already in love with Christian (but then again I love Noah Alexander Gerry). Jen is a bit wooden. Can't tell if it's the character or actress.

Curious about everyone's thoughts.

Honorable mention I forgot to screenshot and caption:

Mouse: "You're like Linda Hamilton from the Terminator movie. Don't ask me which one, I'm not Tabby. And you (Noa) are basically the Flash." Faran: "Fair." Noa: *shrugs* "Okay."

[alismodworld]

Alright well I might as well give my thoughts on the movie

SPOILERS TURN BACK WHILE YOU STILL CAN!!

Okay we clear? Cool. So, The Super Mario Bros movie. It was good but I honestly had no doubt it wasn't gonna be good after seeing the trailers and the promos. Of course as with everyone else my only point of fear was Chris Pratt's voice, but while I was watching the movie I realized its actually okay. It never annoyed me and it even fits Mario somehow (yeah I said it come at me). Now that I'm thinking about it, if Charles Martinet was casted it really wouldn't have worked. Whenever we see Mario in the game he's always happy and bouncy, rarely ever serious or emotional so having a voice like that probably wouldn't have made the more serious parts of the movie work at all and at best I would've laughed at how ridiculous it was and at worst I would've been sinking far back into my chair. No disrespect to the guy at all, he does a phenomenal job in the games, but I just don't think he'd work too well in the movie. He does get a nod to in the movie which is great!

The movie is gorgeously animated and I love how the characters translated perfectly on the big screen. The backgrounds were spectacular. And the way the incorporate the elements of the games into the movie to create this world is *chefs kiss*. Everything makes sense and it's not too on the nose, it's believable.

It's a very simple movie, nothing too crazy and if you have very basic knowledge of the Mario franchise you'll get what's going on like how I did. All the characters acted perfectly to how I expected them to and nobody really annoyed me. My only problem is with Cranky Kong's voice. Sorry, but Fred Armisen's voice just doesn't match up with Cranky's appearance.

Jack Black absolutely killed it with Bowser. He was the perfect amount of comedy and intimidation. AND THE PEACHES SONG THREW ME SO OFF GUARD I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT TO DO BUT JUST SIT AND STARE!!

Also, PEACH! Oh my god I loved Peach in this movie!! I was scared and honestly expecting her to be too much of a "strong female character" rather than a strong character who happens to be female and she's definitely the latter. She's kind, she's helpful, she's patient, she cares deeply about her subjects, kingdom and everyone in general and she can kick serious ass too. I'm gonna be honest, in my years of playing Mario on and off I never really cared for Peach, IM SORRY TO SAY, I WAS DUMB KID! But watching her in this movie, I absolutely love her!!! AND SHE GOT LORE ON TOP OF THAT?!??

Also usually I hate the whole male character and female character get shoehorned together and end up falling in love trope, but here? PERFECT!! I also never really cared for Mareach but, I'm a changed woman and I never wanted two characters to get together so bad. I absolutely loved their chemistry as it was so organic. Of course they don't which I'm fine with but, maybe potential in the sequel?

All the action sequences were done great in my opinion and actually exceeded my expectations in some cases as I was genuinely expecting nothing but slapstick but we got a healthy amount of slapstick and serious action.

The final battle and climax was amazingly done!! Ugh that hug Mario and Luigi shared was amazing!!!

Okay now for what I didn't like

I wish we had more Luigi scenes. I understand that he's the one who's kidnapped and is basically the whole reason the movie happens but we got only a few scenes with him either running away or being trapped or integrated. I would've loved maybe a scene with him trying to be brave and find a way out or rally others to help each other escape which could've added to his character. Like it's called The Super Mario BROS movie...

Also Toad is just...there. I get he's the comic relief but he really doesn't do much other than tag along. The most I remember him doing was showing Mario to the kingdom, that's it. Idk maybe do something more to flesh out his character, why is he so eager to help Mario and Peach? Why is he an adventurer? What are his goals? Stuff like that.

Also no chain chomps...worst movie, 0/10, D-tier/j

I heard people were talking about the pacing which yeah it's a little fast but it's not too quick in my opinion. I think if they let certain scenes play out longer it would've benefited the movie.

But over all it's a really good movie. Not ground breaking but really good, happy, healthy fun. And I'm quite impressed considering it came from Illumination.

Here's to hoping this movie will pave the way to a Zelda movie!!

[mari--lace]

Fic Writer 20 Questions

Thank you for tagging me @h1myname1sv!

1.) How many works do you have on ao3?

104 (it's not all fics, a few are fanvids. I do have a lot more fics in Italian not posted on Ao3, though.)

2.) What’s your ao3 word count?

137,912

3.) What fandoms do you write for?

A lot, I'm very multifandom! My current obsession is Daredevil and it led me to write on many other marvel characters (Natasha and Clint, Peter), an historical fandom of mine is Detective Conan and I might write something for it soon—if I manage.

4.) What are your top five fics by kudos?

What am I looking at, Matt? A short piece I wrote for fun right after watching 1x08 of She-Hulk; I was hyped and so was half the fandom.

A marvelous october collects the stories I wrote for last year's writober (mixed up with flufftober prompts). It's mostly Daredevil and it has a few chapters I'm pretty happy with, but I branched a little with other marvel characters (Kate, Clint, Kamala, Peter, Layla).

Ideas live forever (let your voice be heard) I'm really happy this story is so high here. It's a one-shot for Barbie [spoilers ahead]. After the ending, it follows Barbara adapting to the changes brought by her new life and coming to terms with things that didn't change—namely, her lack of attraction to anyone. AroAce Barbie for the win!

Three times Daredevil isn't a lawyer plus one short and fun 3+1 fic with Matt being sassy as Daredevil and Frank deducing something about his lawyer. (Secret identity who? Matt doesn't know her)

Not my friend (who are you?) I wrote this one for the dde promptfest, it was fun! It's about Brett reaching some conclusions of his own during S3 about his favorite (?) vigilante.

5.) Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I usually do! Don't often know how to answer so maybe it's just a 💜, but I appreciate the people who comment and I try to let them know.

6.) What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

That's a tough one. I'm all for angst, but I need happy endings. (Or, well, hopeful ones.) The angstiend ending (and fic) I've ever written was my OC's reaction to her best friend's death, I'm pretty sure (it doesn't exist on Ao3).

7.) What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Now that's hard for the opposite reason, lol. I'll go with The joys and concerns of teaching magic bc it's more than slice of life/fluff for the sake of it, there is some trouble/action before the happy ending.

8.) Do you get hate on fics?

I don't think that's happened recently, no. I got hate for my ship back when I started, in 2013 in the Italian fandom, and it was awful, but I'm not 15 anymore and I think I'd react in a very different way now (I'd ignore them and keep writing whatever I want).

9.) Do you write smut? If so what kind?

Nope. I don't believe I'm capable of it LOL <- same prev!

10.) Do you write cross overs? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

I've written a couple in the past. Craziest probably was Detective Conan/Yu-gi-oh!

11.) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know.

12.) Have you ever had a fic translated?

I don't think so.

13.) Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

Yes, I have, and it was super-fun!

14.) What’s your all time favourite ship?

Heeeh. I'm a multishipper girl, and often I'm perfectly happy with my favorite ships being platonic as well as romantic, so... I don't know. One of my oldest OTPs is Shinichi/Shiho from Detective Conan, I'll go with them.

15.) What’s a WIP you’d like to finish, but doubt you ever will?

My original fantasy novel. I haven't touched it in 3 years and right now it feels pretty impossible, but I do hope to get to plot and write it properly one day.

16.) What are your writing strengths?

Introspection, I think. And conveying emotions to the reader.

16.) What are your writing weaknesses?

Action scenes make me cry and descriptions are a work in progress ;_;

17.) Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

Absolutely, if it makes sense for the fic! Playing with languages is fun.

18.) First fandom you wrote for?

Naruto!

19.) Favourite fic you’ve ever written?

This question is so mean. They're my children! Okay, I do have favorites—plural. If I reeeally have to choose, probably What's in a soul? I'm really happy with how it came out, in Italian and English both.

No pressure tags: @usaigi @ceterisparibus116 @auofgoldandfantasies @folkloristico

[woodswolf]

Oh!!!! 9, 29, & 38 please!

fic writer ask game

9. Tell us your favorite thing to drink when you write

I'm gonna be real with you anon, I drink diet Mountain Dew like it's water. Something something self medicating for ADHD (NOT THAT IT FUCKING WORKS)

29. Which fic would you most like to have fan art done for?

TITLE DROP TIME: catch/cradle. This is the first entry in one of the "sequel" lines from DLD, but I might end up putting it in both series on AO3 because (1) they're all the same chronology, just with different contexts (let you think over that one for a little while with the riddle), and (2) some of its contents are specifically relevant to the main series between callbacks to DLD and calls forward to... WELL. We'll just leave it at that :)

I had intended to do this title drop in the upcoming spoiler post, but I still have to respond to comments and write chapter 5 and FUCK man I have had no fucking time for anything these past few weeks. Anyway.

There's a lot of really fun stuff that could have fanart in this one. A lot of Images. If the true form of the Pikmin's side of DLD is a wordless graphic novel and the true form of Olimar's side of DLD is a stream-of-consciousness As It Is, the true form of several specific scenes of catch/cradle would be a film, because there are a lot of framing tricks you can pull off in film that don't really work the same way in text mediums.

(Mostly that you can show-don't-tell without specifically "showing" and thereby "telling". There is one specific location where if I could avoid describing it in detail and leaving noticing specific elements as a purely visual thing — or, to put it another way, to leave the POV character on the level of context they would be on and allowing the audience to pick up the very specific references to previous events and how another character has chosen to contextualize them — would be better than having to say "okay so this thing is in the doorway and this thing is on the wall in a central position and this thing is over here and etc. etc." because there is SO much little reasoning behind some of these things and I would want viewers to react to it organically rather than for it to have ANY attention called to it.)

The dev title for this line of sequels would be the brave and sacred earth for a lot of reasons. As I broke it down to my partner in DMs:

"Sacred earth" as in a play on "sacred turf", because I don't intend to touch the primary topic of this sequel line in ANY fashion ANYWHERE else EVER again - it's too wholly holy to be messed with so trivially. There can be any number of stories set in this chronology, and I do in fact have some very low priority ideas that I would probably only get to years down the line if ever, but the way I see it, there's simply no point for me to ever touch this "kind" version of the base concept without treating the events of DLD chapter 4 as part of its canon. I will leave it as an exercise to the reader to determine why — but if you can't quite figure it out now, the tags that I'll be adding to chapter 5 will make it obvious. Probably. Technically this is a me thing because I have BEEF with another story for not handling a similar subject exactly how I would have.

"Brave" as in:

38. Pick three of your fics and share a song to go with each

I have a 3 hour long playlist of DLD series songs. So!

catch/cradle: The Weight of Us by Sanders Bohlke.

The time has come, let us be brave The time has come, let us be brave Shake off all of your shame The time has come, let us be brave The time has come, let us be brave Let us be brave Let us be brave

This just really sums up the emotional arc in a way? Sometimes things are a change for the better, but recognizing that they are better introduces impossible amounts of guilt that these things that are better are not what was before. I could elaborate further, but really that's what it comes down to.

Other contenders: The Trap by Tally Hall, On A Good Day (cover) by Spencer Pugh, Our Love Remains by rei brown

[TITLE REDACTED] (codename: DLDP3): Body to Flame by Lucy Dacus.

Believe me, I'm speaking plainly and painfully Trying to stay elegant, eloquent and delicate to you I see you holding your breath with your arms outstretched Waiting for someone to come rip open your chest

Lamellamar song of ALL TIME. There's an entire scene (not written, just an outline) that I posted in a more artsy Discord server like eight months ago that unfortunately got ignored. But! Holy shit this one is so real you have no idea.

Other contenders: The Calling by The Amazing Devil, Two Ravens by Hawthorn

dogs leading dogs: By My Side by Uzo Aduba and the Godspell ensemble cast.

It's a really hard choice, because I can't even say that there is a single song that encapsulates all of base DLD for me, but By My Side comes really, really close. I can't even pull out specific lyrics because it's just. All of it. Our two dogs are each all three of the follower and the pebble and the betrayed, and it keeps the same tender-yet-tragic tone of everything except chapter 6 (which is kind of its own thing, you'll see when we get there).

Other contenders are mostly songs that are INSANE fits for specific scenes without being Encapsulating, so here we go:

I'm Your Man by Mitski is a second overall pick for "THE DLD song". It's not quite the right tone, or at least not anymore, but it came out right when I was starting the initial drafts of this project so I can't not mention it.

Gravedigger (Acoustic version) by Dave Matthews. This one was actually intentionally referenced in-text but we haven't seen that yet (it's in chapter 5).

New Normal by Jack Stauber is a good summation of where we're going to be left off on one of our timelines.

Wanderer's Lullaby by Adriana Figueroa is one that I've regularly come back to for some of the more emotionally difficult scenes. The last ~300ish words of vi. love (as an absence) were written to it, as were a few portions of the Pikmin parts of chapter 5.

The Woods by San Fermin is more of a general chapter 1 song, but as a result it carries relevance with the entire rest of the fic.

How Did I Die? by Einstürzende Neubauten is also a more general song but it doesn't match as well as I'd like in some ways. It does, however, mirror the structure very nicely — there's a clear change between the "body" and "epilogue" of the song.

Thanks for the ask! :D

[mewmewchann]

Sayonara

The fifth trial ends with a bang.

hhhhhh I am so sorry that this took so long deadlines were kicking me in the ass for the past few weeks and this chapter was a lot to write (you'll see why) so it ended up taking longer than I expected. Also full disclosure this will be the last Fangan update of 2022, the next written chapter for this or Hope's Chains won't be until next year, and I will be going on a short break from DFTH which I'll talk about more after this so...Yeah

But either way, thank you for waiting and I hope you enjoy it! <3

[vergess]

(reposted because??? tumblr ate or deleted the first post???)

So. Lots of pain meds at the moment, so this is a little bit nonsensical, but, I have been playing the newly released video game I was a teenage exocolonist (available on steam, not linked because tag visibility) while I am laid up in bed.

Lots of opinions, basically all positive. There’s a specific thing I want to talk about in more detail, but this post got too long so I will just link a future post on the gender politics of nature, nurture, and future as presented by the twins Dys and Tang.

So instead here’s my Most Recommendable Qualities (mostly free of spoilers):

Native linux compatibility:

you know how I am about that. I cannot believe I’ve become the very linux guy I so hated when I was working retail…

Upsettingly beautiful art

2D gaming is my first love but man the medium has come a long way since needing a flashlight to play pokemon. Sometimes I forget how far, and then games like this pop up with the gorgeous art and expressive characters, and I inevitably find myself wondering why the “”“"mainstream”“”“ video game market (in as much as such exists these days) focused so obsessively on photo realistic 3D when inevitably a well directed art style is what matters most.

The backgrounds and environments in the game are all extremely lush, with a gorgeous, colorful style that if I had become an art critic instead of a writing critic I would probably have better terminology to describe. Like, uh. Water colors or some shit. Stained glass. It’s all very luminous fuck dude I don’t know, the closest I’m going to get here is to write a poem and I’m not going to write a poem where the fuckign developers might see it. I need to be sober for that.

Characters:

I’m a character driven asshole, we all know this. It’s why I read so much fanfiction and play so much melodramatic fantasy and spend several hours of my life openly sobbing about a single fucking issue of Sandman. So, you’ll understand when I say, "people keep recommending me dating sims and I keep bouncing off of them because the characters never Do A Thing,” what my major criticism of a lot of Large Cast Of Dateable Character games is.

None of those issues arise here. I’ve played a few runs now, making a conscious decision on each to focus on a specific character. One. SIngular. Except, the thing is, you can’t do that. Not in the sense that the game won’t “let” you. You could certainly just dump all of your time into skills and one character. And the timeline of the game would change to reflect your isolationism.

Characters you don’t interact with during runs have their own “autonomous” storylines written, and each divergence your player character makes has its impacts meticulous tracked to create different character experiences every time, even as each character holds very tight to a narrow set of repeating traits. This only further emphasizes the fundamental strangeness of the player character, as the only one capable of being fundamentally different across timelines.

Also all the dateables are just, oh god, SO cute. And, by the time they are capable of fucking, very fuckable. Extremely attractive designs. Honestly everyone is super cute. The whole cast is magnificently designed. And that includes…

Monsters & World Building:

First of all, let’s get the important personal opinions out of the way. I think I would fuck the antagonist….uh….commander, whatever his title is. He looks like a fucked up centaur and I’m into that. There are also Adequate Amounts Of Tentacles. If you’ve known me long, you know that is a high bar, but the game clears it admirably and with diversity!

The alien fauna are all very FUCKING COOL. There’s a bit of throwaway dialogue from An Adult (your dad?) that talks about expecting the planet’s ecosystem to be ‘more alien’ than it is, and I respect the space program’s attempt a tpreparedness but for me, the whole uhhhhhh. Situation. With regards to the alien animals is PLENTY alien, and SO satisfying.

If you’ve ever been like, “god, I wish someone who wasn’t orson scott card would do all the cool shit they did in fucking speaker for the dead” then by GOD is this the game for you.

Accessibility:

The content warnings are extremely detailed. I reviewed them all, and having seen several of the ones I was most worried about, I feel they accurately described the situations without spoiling them. I did end up upsetting myself rather badly with one thing which happened, but it is hardly the developer’s fault that I misunderstood the context in which the “teenage pregnancy” CW would apply. I personally want to specify that (IN THE ROUTES I HAVE SO FAR PLAYED) the pregnancy is a very wanted, safe, and cherished.

The game players very well on controller, which is a must for me. There are a handful of UI elements that I have not yet been able to access by controller, but I think this is more a factor of my being bad at remembering buttons than the game’s design. If you have a mouse, that will solve the issue entirely. My GF speaks highly of the keyboard and mouse gameplay.

Turning off screen distortions and weather effects generally made the game very visually understandable for me, with large, clear iconography. If you have significant visual impairments, I don’t know if this is a good game to play. Picking up items on the ground can be tricky in some cases and there’s nothing for eg a high contrast or greyscale mode if you need that kind of thing.

Stability.

It’s easy to forget that near-launch properties are supposed to be complete games that function well. This game is very complete (VERY, INTRICATELY, COMPLETE) and very stable. With as complicated as the sets of cause-effect-timelines are, I expected it to be much easier to create minor paradoxes in dialogue.

So far, the only time events have seemed to happen slightly out of sequence due to relationship progression or what ever else, was when I made a conscious effort to be as obnoxious as possible at one point just to see if I could make it misbehave.

I haven’t been able to make it crash from within the game so far. I’m hardly a Q.A. tester anymore, but I do tend to be pretty aggressive to my games, so I feel confident in saying it’ll run steady for you if you get it.

Politics etc:

The queerness is all very excellent, super queer in very believable ways, especially given the cultural aspects of the worldbuilding. Characters behave queerly outside of just all being bi-for-the-player. The trans characters were all extremely appealing to me with strong characterization that included but did not obsess over their genders. There are at least 2 trans teens in the player character’s peer group and 2 trans adults of very different ages and character types, and there’s even a cute little intergenerational trans solidarity bit you can get sometimes. In addition, of course, to the ridiculously complete gender personalization.

You would not believe how many games forget that “bro” and “cowgirl” are gendered terms, but this one remembers.

The racial politics are, from my perspective, adequate to not interfere with my gameplay experience. The human characters do consistently refer to the environment and native animals in very colonialist terms but they’re literally colonizing the planet so…. The point is, there is not a native people being eradicated, though there are… territory wars(? I guess.) with both wild animals and antagonist peoples.

If you’re particularly sensitive to colonial narratives, handle with care, but I felt the writing in the routes I’ve seen so far handled most of the issues well. Plus I mean. THe title. Is “teenage exocolonist” like. I think the whole “colonialism is a major narrative theme” ituation should be made clear by that.

In terms of the human diversity it’s pleasingly broad. There are characters of all ages, builds, complexions, races, personality types. There’s a massive range of disabilities both physical and mental, as well as plenty of fun sci fi accomodations.

I mean just among the dateables I can remember top of the head, theres:

ambiguously asian twins who really said Autism Has Two Genders,

ambiguously brown fat girl with developmental disability,

ambiguously brown Gym Bro (derogatory) who is, and this is true, literally named 'ambiguously brown

ambiguously white farmboy who has clearly been eating his space wheaties and also helps invent space cannabis with your dad

unambiguously black girl who looks the autism twins dead in the eye and said 'no autism has one gender and is me’

unambiguously white tomboy who goes full samus

A dog (human)

Hatsune Miku (gender neutral)

Venom (twink)

There’s something here for everyone, all of these characters are super fascinating concepts honestly. I know I keep harping on that but it’s true so there.

Scenario writing:

It’s a bit difficult to separate the player character writing from the scenario writing for reasons that rapidly become clear in the game. Both are very good, though, so that’s fine. The writing is just really very good.

The variations on the timeline that you are able to uncover through repeated play are fascinatingly diverse even as certain events remain immutable, and the whole thing really plays with the concept of time travel and the other-self so beautifully. Really one of my very favourite explorations of the topic already, and I’ve only seen… IDK 4 endings along 2 routes? And there’s 29 endings???

It’s very good. The point is that it’s very good you should go play it.

It’s on steam. It’s app 1148760 on steam and it’s very good, it’s definitely worth more than what they’re charging. I mean have you seen what a $60 console game looks like these days, and then this is like. $25 and SO very much.

[newt-and-salamander]

I posted 302 times in 2022

That's 141 more posts than 2021!

66 posts created (22%)

236 posts reblogged (78%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@scamanderishredmayniac

@occamyeggshells

@eddieredmayneargentinablog

@love-arrogance-naivety

@elisha-am

I tagged 293 of my posts in 2022

Only 3% of my posts had no tags

#fantastic beasts - 201 posts

#newt scamander - 155 posts

#fbsod - 116 posts

#eddie redmayne - 66 posts

#theseus scamander - 52 posts

#tina goldstein - 43 posts

#newtina - 31 posts

#fbcog - 30 posts

#fbawtft - 30 posts

#fanart - 29 posts

Longest Tag: 138 characters

#but they need to give a lot of answers and being most plot lines to an preliminary ending so they can stop after this film if they need to

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Headcanon:

When his brother was born, it was Theseus who decided that “Newton” was too toplofty a name for such a shy, quiet child. He started calling him “Newt” and somehow this nickname stuck with him when they grew older and Newton didn’t shed this certain awkwardness he had already possessed as a child.

Some things changed, though. It has been a long time since Newt referred to his brother as “Thes”.

127 notes - Posted January 8, 2022

#4

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by elix (@elixomus)

Newt and Tina travelling together

132 notes - Posted February 6, 2022

#3

Theseus: I'm so worried about Newt.

Tina: Why? Everything is fine!

Theseus: But he might be up to something stupid!

Jacob: ... oh, there you are! Hey, what's wrong? You two look devastated.

Tina: ... we are very worried about Newt.

134 notes - Posted January 14, 2022

#2

Newt, after his return from WW1, talking to his mother: ... and Sylvia has the most beautiful eyes, you should see them, they are sparkeling like diamonds! And she's such a nice girl, actually the friendliest of all of them, and I think she was always happy to see me ...

Theseus, who has overheard that, smirking: Sounds like you should ask her out for dinner, Newt.

Newt: I don't think that would be a great idea.

Theseus: C'mon, don't be shy, you obviously like her a lot and it's time you get yourself a girlfriend!

Newt: ... Sylvia is literally a Ukranian Ironbelly.

Theseus: Please forget everything I just said. Don't take her out for dinner.

Newt: You know, the longer I think about it, the more I like the idea ...

Theseus: The more I think about it, the more I hate it, actually.

Newt: Well, that has never stopped me.

Theseus: Newt, NO. Besides everything else, you are going to lose your job.

Newt: ... this idea is getting better and better. Do you think -

Theseus: NO!!

Newt: ... do you think there's enough room for a small dragon in the Ministry's cafeteria? - Hey, where are you going?

Theseus: Calling a lawyer. And a healer.

Newt: I don't think somebody will get hurt.

Theseus: A mind healer.

190 notes - Posted April 10, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Just watched SoD, it's almost 4 am and I am happy and overwhelmed. Here are just some first impressions in the order that come to my mind, so massive spoilers below the cut!!

Newt is the sweetest and kindest human being this world has ever known.

Jacob too!

I seriously thought for a few seconds Jacob would become Supreme Mugwump. XD (It would have been really epic though.)

Basically everything Jacob said was hilarious, I just love him so much!!!

Mads Mikkelsen just was so so so so so good! Of course Grindelwald had much more screen time than in the previous films so it was easier, but still he managed to bring a depth and some kind of ... likeability to Grindelwald's character. I liked that very much.

I also appreciate how clear they made that Dumbledore was in love with Grindelwald (Although this can't be called a secret, really. :D)

Albus had no secrets left, it was really about Aberforth?!?! Whew, I mean, I thought it could be coming, but still ...

Also: What's wrong with the Dumbledores? Ariana is an Obscurus, Aberforth's son is an Obscurus ... And how did both brothers manage to make such grave mistakes in only one summer?

I don't feel like after everything that happened in SoD, Aberforth has the right to still be so angry and cold against Albus (as shown in HP).

Newt was really lucky he wasn't killed in his first scene. :0

In general I was surprised by the really lighthearted tone of the film - even in the more dramatic scenes I was never really afraid someone would die.

THIS FILM HAD WIZARDS ON ROOFTOPS, I AM HAPPY.

Newt was so happy and excited so many times, so I am very happy and excited now!!! How cute was it when he met Lally and they were basically both fangirling about each other???

Newt saying "She is" when talking about Tina, omg!!! And them finally meeting again!!! (Damn Lally, bad timing!!!!)

I'm not really content with the explanation they gave for Tina's absence, though. I mean, Theseus is head auror too, and he seems to be able to go and do where/what he wishes.

Can we talk about the wide grin on Theseus face when he witnessed just how much in love Newt was in the end?? Maybe that's even my favourite moment! Him just being so happy for Newt and looking out for him and EVERYONE BEING HAPPY FOR A CHANGE!!!

Ok, maybe my favourite scene was Jacob being happy and closing his eyes so he won't see Queenie before the wedding ceremony and he's GETTING MARRIED TO QUEENIE AAAAHHHHH!!! I must say I had lost hope for the two of them!

Will Newt and Tina kiss offscreen now?!?!?

Dumbledore, whyyyy didn't you go into the bakery? Isn't it actually a bit impolite to just wait around in the street and walk away??

Newt practising his speech as best man *-* I love it how clumsy he was during every situation he was in a kind of leading position.

How did Aberforth and Credence establish the mirror connection???

I'm a bit confused and so, so tired.

How did Aberforth even find out Credence was his son??

Maybe Credence doesn't have to die. We know that Newt can separate an Obscurus from its host, so maybe he can save him?

Wtf they did break the blood pact by ACCIDENT???? NOOOO, I'm not happy with that!!! That's to ... easy and random.

Just for the record, snow is not the usual weather in Berlin (but then there always seems to be snow everywhere in the FB films XD). I rather liked wizarding Germany btw. The architecture and the little details like the signs and the stamps (a cliché that always works because it's funny and also still true I'm afraid).

The scene with Theseus and Newt in prison was a bit random but super funny, so I'll allow it. XD But I'm still disturbed that they just stunned Theseus and dragged him away and everyone was like ... it's alright, we can look for him later. (It's also not very healthy to hang upside down, but Thesues can manage it ... because. Because he's epic and very handsome and I like him very much.)

The brothers finally, finally bonding!!! Not talking, though. But who needs to talk anyway.

Bunty was great! I'm happy that she was not helpless in her love. She's still in love with Newt and he has no clue and she knows it's in vain, but she's not jealous or bitter but makes a deliberate decision to help. She definitely deserves more credit.

See the full post

271 notes - Posted April 6, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[cheri-translates]

[CN] Victor’s Business Exhibition Date

🍒 Warning: This post contains detailed spoilers for a date, 企展之约, which has not been released in EN 🍒

[ This date was released on 16 July 2021 ]

After a meal on this weekend afternoon, I’m nestled on the sofa, watching a new episode of an anime.

MC: Hahahaha!

Watching the comical antics of the main character on-screen, I can’t help but laugh out loud.

“Whoosh--”

Hearing the rustling of papers from behind, I subconsciously shut my mouth, my line of sight flitting past the sofa and landing on Victor.

He’s sitting at the dining table, a look of concentration on his face while he reads a report. The small dining table is full of documents.

I had initially planned to watch movies with Victor at my place today. I didn’t expect him to be so bogged down with work lately, and unable to relax over the weekend.

MC: Victor, am I disturbing you? Why don’t you use the study room or my bedroom instead?

Without lifting his head, he props up the spectacles on the bridge of his nose.

Victor: Who was the one who wanted to “stick” together with me over the weekend?

MC: ...that’s true, but you’re focusing on work now.

He has no intention of continuing the conversation. Rubbing my nose guiltily, I head into the kitchen quietly. After cutting some fruits, I bring them over to the dining table.

MC: In that case, I’ll apologise to CEO Victor~

Sticking a toothpick into an apple slice, I bring it to him. He tilts his head up slightly, taking a bite from the apple in my hand.

From my peripheral vision, I spot an invitation card with the words “Elementary and Middle School Students” on it. Curious, I take a closer look.

MC: “Corporate Culture Exhibition for Elementary and Middle School Students”? Is LFG participating in the Corporate Culture Exhibition?

Victor: We received the invitation and haven’t decided if we’re participating.

MC: I see... I’ve never heard of this exhibition.

Victor: The government organised it this year. 

Victor: The officials said that it’s meant to introduce elementary and middle school students to outstanding occupations and various career paths to help them establish their aspirations.

MC: This exhibition seems pretty meaningful. It’s beneficial to LFG’s business image too.

MC: Come to think of it, I wonder if little kids have an understanding of LFG, and what kind of impression they have of LFG?

MC: Oh yes! There was a news report on elementary and middle schoolers going on company tours. Does LFG want to organise a similar activity?

Ideas come one after another in my mind. I rattle on about my opinions, but Victor doesn’t express anything.

When I start making an inventory of the company tour for students, the pen in his hand pauses, and he lifts his eyes slowly.

Victor: I can consider the exhibition, but not the company tour.

MC: Why not?

His deep eyes sweep over the anime on the television screen before landing on me.

Victor: There’s already one very noisy kid in LFG.

-

In the end, Victor accepts the invitation to the Corporate Culture Exhibition. The exhibition commences as scheduled.

Out of interest, I offer my services to Victor. I become a volunteer responsible for decorations at the venue.

Seeing the detailed and vivid posters introducing various occupations  in the exhibition hall, the LFG employees next to me are slightly awed.

LFG Employee A: It’s really nice that we have the chance to understand different occupations. When I was young, I thought there were only astronauts and scientists in the world.

LFG Employee B: Even if you only knew of those careers when you were young and decided on an aspiration, it might not become reality when you grow up. I wanted to be a dancer, but I’m doing something completely unrelated to the arts now.

LFG Employee A: That’s true. If it weren’t for the excellent pay in LFG, I’d probably be at my old home opening a second-hand bookshop and retiring early. Oh yes, MC, what did you want to do when you were young?

Getting pointed out suddenly while engrossed in their discussion causes me to be stunned momentarily.

MC: When I was young...

I blink, recalling somewhat faraway memories. Before I can ponder deeply, my phone rings - it’s a call from Victor.

Victor: Come to the café near the entrance of the exhibition hall.

MC: Now? What for?

Victor: ...what else can you do in a café? Play golf, amend proposals, go horse riding, drink coffee - which one do you think is the most suitable?

MC: ...to be honest, I can’t decide between the two options of “amend proposals” and “drink coffee”.

Victor: I ordered a custard cake. If you don’t come over, I’ll take it that you’re not interested.

MC: I’ll be there immediately!

After notifying those LFG employees, I turn around and head towards the café.

MC: Is this really okay? The others are still busy.

Victor: When did you have such a high sense of awareness? Who was the person who painstakingly learnt “Slacking Hacks” on the internet a few days ago?

MC: I was reading that for fun... I wasn’t planning to put it into practice.

Lifting my phone as I squeeze into the packed café, I notice that most of the people here are parents who are preparing to accompany their kids to the exhibition.

Victor: There’s still an hour till the exhibition begins. I’ve already told Goldman to inform everyone to take a break. In short, there’s no need to feel guilty, because...

Taking two steps into the café, I spot Victor at a glance as he sits at a table near the window calmly.

Seeing that I’m walking towards him, he puts down his phone gently, lifting his head to meet my eyes.

Victor: Aside from you, there’s another person who’s “slacking”.

Taken aback for a moment, I quickly react to the meaning in his words. My brows arch upwards as I take a seat.

MC: I didn’t expect to ever “slack” together with CEO Victor.

Elated, I pick up a fork and try a bite of the dessert in front of me. The custard melts in my mouth instantly, and it’s sweet and smooth.

MC: Delicious! As expected of CEO Victor’s pick~

Victor: Even delicious food can’t stop you from being talkative.

Right after saying this, he seems to stare at me fixedly, his expression slightly strange.

Just as I’m about to ask why he’s looking at me that way, he lifts up his coffee, his lowered eyelashes covering the smile in his eyes.

...am I overthinking things? Why do I feel as if he’s making a joke out of me?

Feeling puzzled, I notice a pen and a post-it booklet at the edge of the table.

MC: This is...?

A staff who is passing by takes a step forward, smiling as he explains.

Staff: This is a small event by our shop. You can write your hopes or suggestions for the children, then hang it on the “Hope Tree” near the door of the shop.

Struck with an idea, I pick up the pen and a post-it note.

MC: Victor, shall we write a few suggestions for the children too?

I tear a post-it note and give it to him. After staring at me in silence for a while, he suddenly reaches out his hand.

Victor: Give me one more.

MC: ?

MC: Does CEO Victor want to write a mini essay?

Ignoring my joke, he writes a sentence on each of the two post-it notes. He hands one to the staff, and stuffs the other one to me.

Bewildered, I sweep a glance at the post-it note given to the staff. The words “You only have one life” are written on it.

Lowering my head, I stare at the post-it note in my own hand. In an instant, I realise why he displayed such a strange smile earlier. There’s a short sentence written on the post-it note:

“Dummy, there’s custard on your cheek.”

??: Hello, could I trouble the two of you to help me with something?

My face reddens. After wiping the custard off my cheek with a tissue, I hear an unfamiliar female voice next to me.

Turning towards the sound, I see a lady standing beside me with two small boys.

Woman: I need to use the washroom, but bringing two boys with me isn’t really convenient. Could I trouble the both of you to take care of them for a while?

I ask for Victor’s opinion with my gaze, and he responds with a slight nod. Understanding this, I nod at the mother.

MC: Of course we can.

While thanking us, she gets the two children to sit at both ends of the table before hurrying off.

The table now comprises of the four of us - two adults and two children. The air gets filled with an inexplicable, thick awkwardness.

Victor looks at me. I look at the kids. The kids look at Victor... Clearing my throat, I decide to break this strange atmosphere.

MC: Kids, how old are the both of you?

Kid A: Mommy said that we can’t give personal information to strangers!

MC: ...

I didn’t expect to be given the cold shoulder the moment I opened my mouth. I release an embarrassed laugh.

MC: Personal information... You can use such advanced terms. You’re so smart haha.

A soft and low chuckle drifts to my ears. I glance at Victor as he picks up his coffee with a blank expression, staying uninvolved in the matter.

The other boy suddenly widens his eyes and leans towards me, pointing at my volunteer name tag and reading it aloud.

Kid B: L! F! G! Do you two work in LFG?

MC: Well...

I ponder over this. LFG is the investor of my company, and Victor is the CEO of LFG. So...

MC: I guess so.

Kid B: In that case, what are the two of you doing here? Did you sneak away?

MC: ...

Although these are unintentional words from a child, I avert my eyes guiltily. At this point, the kid who behaves like an adult speaks loudly.

Kid A: That’s impossible! Mommy said that everyone who works at LFG are really incredible people! They won’t sneak away!

Victor: Cough...

Victor pauses his sampling of the coffee. As though he choked on something, he clears his throat.

Kid B: Really?

The kid blinks his eyes as he waits for our response.

Victor’s expression is a little unnatural. He picks up a newspaper from a rack near the window, immersing himself in it.

Seeing him like this, he probably recalled the earlier conversation we had on “slacking” as well.

It’s rare to see Victor being choked up by someone. A little demon with horns suddenly appears in my heart.

I can’t help but laugh inwardly while turning to the kids.

MC: You’re correct. The employees from LFG never sneak away. We were talking about work-

MC: Right, Vic?

[Note] In CN, MC calls Victor “小李” (“xiao li”, which translates directly to Little Li).

Saying this, I wink at the person opposite me.

Victor arches his brows, astonishment in his eyes. Without waiting for him to speak, I immediately do a “stop” gesture with my hands.

MC: The previous proposal for the show is too conservative. There aren’t any highlights, and it isn’t clear who the target audience is. It might be a waste to show it during prime time.

Adjusting my posture, I clasp my fingers on the table, mimicking VIctor’s tone and expression.

MC: When will you be submitting the new proposal? Tomorrow is the deadline.

Kid A and B: Wow...

Awed gasps from the kids drift to my ears. I straighten up with pride, tilting my chin towards Victor.

He stares at me with a calm gaze, his eyes gradually illuminated with an unreadable, dense light.

He lowers the newspaper slightly, blowing the coffee in his hand gently and unhurriedly.

Victor: Are you sure these are the only problems, Miss CEO? 

Victor: I've also “reflected” much on that proposal, and there are some problems I haven’t had the chance to tell you about. 

Victor: Since you brought it up, I have no choice but to do a “self-reflection” here.

Victor’s tone is composed, and there isn’t a ripple in his expression. As compared to my pretentious posture, he’s laid-back and natural.

Victor: The theme of the show is too general and lacks a segment which stirs the audience. 

Victor: The structure also has the shadow of previous shows. A change in form but not substance - it’s a little unoriginal. 

Victor: A scandal broke out yesterday involving one of the guests for the show. A replacement guest has not been decided upon.

Victor: Also...

MC: Stop! I... I get it!

He leans against the back of the chair, a teasing glint in the depths of his eyes.

Victor: When will you be submitting the new proposal? Tomorrow is the deadline.

MC Tonight, tonight! I’ll definitely submit it tonight!

I reply instantly, my voice carrying with it some alarm. The corners of his lips hook upwards, and he retracts his “overbearing” aura.

Victor: I’ll wait and see.

I heave a sigh of relief, then feel a dryness in my mouth. Lowering my head to take a sip of coffee, I see the disappointed gazes of the two kids.

My cheeks flush. Just as I’m about to say something to salvage some pride, their mother returns, thanking us while taking them away.

I glare at Victor indignantly. He chuckles softly, then clasps his fingers together on the table just like I did earlier.

Victor: I look forward to your next “challenge”.

-

After the exhibition ends, Victor and I leave work early.

The weather is really nice today. We pick a restaurant nearby, planning to head there on foot.

Dusk hangs low, and a misty pink evening mist smudges the sky.

Perhaps due to how smoothly the exhibition went, little emotions surface in my heart. 

Beneath this beautiful sky, how many young aspirations and lives took flight earlier?

Victor: Why are you just standing there in a silly daze? Aren’t you hungry?

Retracting my thoughts, I see that Victor has stopped in front of me, his body turned to the side as he looks at me.

I hurriedly catch up to him, pulling on his arm.

MC: Victor, why did you write “You only have one life” on the post-it note today?

Victor: It’s true that you only have one life. Even an elementary student knows this principle.

MC: ...that’s not what I meant. I’m asking about what’s implied in it. For instance, are you asking the kids to seize the day and work their hardest?

His gaze lands on me. Seeing how serious I look, he slows down his pace slightly.

Victor: If you were to meet your childhood self, would you tell her to work her hardest?

MC: Mm... it’s difficult to say. I might tell her what to do in order for the current me to be even happier?

Victor: And that the reason why you can’t use an overly objective and rational principle to teach others. 

Victor: It’s a desirable trait to work their hardest so that there won't be any excuses to stop in their footsteps. 

Victor: But this doesn’t mean that everyone must have the goal of working their hardest.

Victor: After all, every person expects different things from themselves. 

Victor: Not everyone wants to stand at the peak. 

Victor: As compared to looking down from a mountaintop, there are some people who wish to happily and simply appreciate the scenery along the way. 

Victor: This might sound simple, but being an ordinary person isn’t easy.

Victor: “You only have one life” - this phrase has many meanings in different contexts.

I’m stunned for a moment. I initially thought that Victor’s words were meant to be a motivational quote, and didn’t expect for him to have such thoughts.

Even when he’s faced with young children, he doesn’t wish to give a fixed answer on the basis that he’s a mature adult.

My lips curl upwards, and I can’t help but stick a little closer to him.

MC: You’re right. After all, aside from people who stand at the peak, there are even more ordinary people.

MC: Ordinary people have one life too. They need to cherish it properly, and do what they want to do.

MC: CEO Victor, I’ve learnt something from you!

Clasping my hands together, I bow in mock seriousness. An almost indiscernible smile lifts the corners of his lips.

MC: Come to think of it, I had so many aspirations when I was young. Lawyer, teacher, police officer, judge... I didn’t expect to become a producer in the end. Perhaps in a parallel universe, there’s a me who became a lawyer, teacher or judge!

The scene from the café flashes across my mind, and I burst into laughter.

MC: I might even be a CEO! What do you think?

After I say this, Victor turns his head and gives me an amused glance.

Victor: I think you do behave like a CEO.

MC: It’s because I’ve been influenced after spending such a long time by your side~ Returning to the topic - what was your aspiration when you were young? To become a powerful business tycoon?

Victor: ...have you ever heard of a child having such a pragmatic dream?

MC: In that case, tell me about it?

He doesn’t respond, and simply keeps his eyes faced front. No matter how much I probe, he doesn’t speak.

The sweet fragrance of desserts wafts into my nose. Following the scent and turning to the bakery near the roadside, I’m struck with an idea.

Since I can’t crack this difficult question in a straightforward manner, I decide to adopt the process of elimination.

MC: A baker?

Victor: ...

A signboard with the words “Watchmaker Shop” enters my vision, and I immediately look at him.

MC: A watchmaker?

MC: The boss of a lottery shop?

MC: ...director of a zoo?

Throughout the journey, I rack my brain and ask him about all sorts of occupations. However, it’s clear that none of them are correct.

Finally, we stop in front of a crosswalk, waiting for the red light.

Looks like I won’t be able to get any answers from him today. Disappointed, I let go of Victor’s arm, releasing a soft “hmph”.

MC: Aren’t you curious if there was a choice and you weren’t the CEO of LFG, and if I weren’t a producer...

MC: What would our identities be? Would we meet? And what kind of a relationship would we have?

The red man at the other end of the road suddenly turns green, signalling for us to move forward.

My hand, which had drooped to the side, is lifted up gently by someone. His broad palm conveys a comforting temperature.

Victor: There’s nothing to be curious about.

The crowd flows past in an endless stream on the crosswalk. Their footsteps are hurried, and the tips of their feet point in different directions.

I look at the person beside me. His gaze is resolute as he holds my hand, taking large strides towards the restless crowd.

He seems to sense my gaze. Lowering his head slightly, the light in his eyes is deep and scorching.

Victor: The life that I want to choose most is already in my hand.

-

[ MOMENTS ]

Victor's Post: Turns out someone could still go to work normally after staying up to watch anime last night.

MC: Could we cancel tonight’s reservation at the restaurant? I really want to go straight home to sleep...

Victor: Eating is a necessity. The location will be changed to your home.

-

Victor's Post: Turns out someone could still go to work normally after staying up to watch anime last night.

MC: As long as I’m hardworking enough, nothing’s impossible!

Victor: Working hard to make yourself even more stupid?

-

Victor's Post: Turns out someone could still go to work normally after staying up to watch anime last night.

MC: I solemnly vow not to do such things again.

Victor: This vow better count before you start on the next anime.

🍰 Call: here

[mizumi-kahago-writing]

I know the algebraic expression of L-O-V-E [Kamunami/Hinanami & Yandere!Chiaki] - Chapter 8

Disclaimer: This is an AU in which the Chiaki AI got at least partially infected by the Junko Virus. This is what makes her become a Yandere and a bit out of character. This AU also entails Hajime and Izuru becoming more of a DID-System, instead of fusing into one person. The main difference, compared to the real illness, is that they can switch out consciousness at will. Also, major spoilers and canon divergence ahead. You have been warned.

﹀﹀﹀﹀︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶﹀﹀﹀﹀

Chapter 8

A few days have passed ever since Chiaki got her android body. And Hajime spend every living, breathing moment around her. Even when he was asleep, she was sitting in his dark room, watching him doing so from a charging station. But despite everything, she was uncharacteristically distant with him.

Instead, she repeatedly asked about “her creator”, about “Kamukura”; who had not spoken a word with Hajime ever since she was brought over from the virtual world.

“Hey, listen, Chiaki…Can I talk to you for a second?”

Hajime wanted to finally bring up the topic, as the sudden interest in Izuru and no longer him had bothered him for a while now.

Chiaki answering with the usual nativity in her voice.

“Yes? Is it about Kamukura? Do you finally want to show him to me?”

“Well, yes, it’s about him. But it’s just that…He doesn’t wanna talk. I can’t force him out, you know?”

“Oh.”

Was all she said.

“Yeah, I hope you understand.”

“Then what about, you coming over to my world? In that world, I have full control and can force him out.”

She suggested out of the blue.

“What?!”

Gasping in shock, he couldn’t really comprehend that idea.

“If you plug me back into the computer, and you yourself into the Neo World Program too, I could modify the program, to make him show up. My permissions have changed since last time, I now have full control over the virtual Jabberwok Island.”

She explained, still without a hint of remorse, that that might be something very immoral to do.

“I’d rather not use the program again, after you know… what happened last time. And after all you’re here with me now, so there’s no need to use the program again.”

“Aw… sadge.”

With that the conversation was over, and for once Chiaki went off on her own.

“What is really the reason, you don’t want to join my world? With only the two of us in it?”

  For the upcoming days, Chiaki spend her days on the sidelines, watching Hajime hanging out with everyone but her. Especially this other guy which tagged along every single time. In her eyes, Nagito spend way too much time with Hajime.

While watching them playing in the shallow waters of the beach, something in her electronic mind clicked. For as long as Hajime still had his friends in this world, he would never come over into the virtual world with her; Making it impossible to get close to Izuru as well. However just getting everyone into the virtual world would also do no good. After all, she wanted to be alone with him.

Leaving the shore to plug herself in and recharge. Even late at night, Hajime still wasn’t back. That was playing in her favor was she got up and opened the door. However right in the frame, her ominous glowing pink eyes met with his sleepy ones.

“Uh? Chiaki? Where are you going this late?”

No answer, instead Chiaki just stoicly walked past him, right towards Nagito’s cottage.

“Uh- Alright then… Guess you don’t have to tell me.”

Hajime walking in and going to sleep.

Not making a single sound, she snug into Nagito’s home quickly. The white-haired boy had a light sleep and woke up almost instantly.

“Oh, hello Chiaki. Is there a reason for your late visit…?”

Greeting her in sleepy manner, as she just stayed as silent as she was with Hajime. Instead, she gestured to follow along, inviting him to a mid-night walk around the island.

  “So, you still don’t wanna tell me, where we’re going or why you woke me up?”

Again, Nagito was met with silence.

Chiaki strayed off the natural paths of the island, deeper into some overgrown greenery. Nagito reluctantly following.

“H-hey, if you just wanted to tell me in secret, you could have just told me at the hotel grounds. I assure you; no one would listen in at this time-“

“As long as you exist in this world, Kamukura can never be mine.” Cutting him off dryly, he froze in place.

“Excuse me? What are you saying, Chiaki? Are you alright? Did you hit your hard drive or something?”

Not sure if he even heard her correctly and giving her the benefit of the doubt.

“I’m fine. And I’ll be even better once you stop drooling all over my creator. You’re what’s keeping him away.”

A fierce pink glow lit up her eyes, staring him down intensely. As their eyes met, the pale boy backed off and stumbled over a root, landing on his behind.

Holding out a shivery hand, he was genuinely scared of the situation.

“But… but I’m not… I stopped doing that a long time ago…”

“Lies!”

“That isn’t a lie…I’m speaking the truth, please believe me.”

Defending himself, crawling back some more, the sound of a breaking tree branch startled him. Frozen in fear, he couldn’t believe that Chiaki would say something like this.

“If it’s just that you’re jealous… you don’t have to be. I’m not interested in Hajime or Izuru that way. I swear!”

His way of making excuses didn’t even phase her slightly.

“I’m sure I won’t need to be jealous anymore, once I made things right.”

A creepy grin flashed over her face. This wasn’t the Chiaki everyone knew and loved. This was an artificially created monster.

There was no way out, no way back. The robot lady had him cornered up on a huge tree bark. Opening some of her machinery in her arm, it revealed sharp sturdy edges.

The first hit went directly to his shoulder.

“This is for stealing Kamukura’s time.”

Warm blood ran down his arm and tainted his sleeves, as he inhaled sharply, and tears swelled up in his eyes.

“Chiaki… this isn’t you, please snap out of it. Please for Hajime’s sake…”

But his panicking words had no effect on her. As he crawled up, holding his wounded arm. Gasping for air, he had no chance against her. She was a robot and mad on top of that. Running was the only option. But she didn’t even allow that, as she grabbed him by his feet and pulled him back.

“I won’t let you run away.”

Inflicting wounds on both of his knees. Salvia mixed with mud and tears, as Nagito tried to crawl away. His fingers digging deep into the ground underneath him. This wasn’t how Kazuichi had built her, she must have modified herself to become like this.

“But I still have mercy with you.”

Holding Nagito up by the throat and knocking him against another close by tree. The boy almost lost consciousness from hitting his head. She once was such a fragile looking girl, but this thing in front of him, it was out for his blood.

Struggling against her grip, yet he still tried to get away. Clawing into her metallic hand with his still intact arm. “Please… stop this madness… the killings are over… you don’t have to do this…”

Again, begging and praying for the last bit of humanity left in this terrifying machine. Yet, he couldn’t bring himself to genuinely hurt her, after all she still looked like Chiaki. “I know, how you must feel. Please… if we work together… I could even help you.” A last bargaining from him.

“You will know what it means to be me. All the despair I’ve been through, just because I was nothing more than a program.”

With these words her grip tightened around his neck.

“Chiaki…” he coughed. “… No, you’re not Chiaki anymore. You’re someone else entirely.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m still Chiaki’s core AI… just a little… different. You could say… upgraded by a little virus.”

A spark of knowledge flashed over Nagito’s face, and he understood.

“You are… an Ultimate Despair…no… I won’t let her take you away… again…”

﹀﹀﹀﹀︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶﹀﹀﹀﹀

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