#or a character who looks at this particular animal and goes ''I want this bitch GONE FROM EARTH''

[a-simple-spiders-oc-dump]

love procrastinating going to bed and then suddenly thinking about how I need to give at least one of my characters VERY strong opinions on different animal species RIGHT FUCKING NOW

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

Where Will All The Martyrs Go [Chapter 3: The Ones Who Died Without A Name]

Series summary: In the midst of the zombie apocalypse, both you and Aemond (and your respective travel companions) find yourselves headed for the West Coast. It’s the 2024 version of the Oregon Trail, but with less dysentery and more undead antagonists. Watch out for snakes! 😉🐍

Series warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), violence, bodily injury, med school Aemond, character deaths, nature, drinking, smoking, drugs, Adventures With Aegon, pregnancy and childbirth, the U.S. Navy, road trip vibes, Jace is here unfortunately.

Series title is a lyric from: “Letterbomb” by Green Day.

Chapter title is a lyric from: “Holiday” by Green Day.

Word count: 6.1k

💜 All my writing can be found HERE! 💜

Let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist 🥰

The Tahoe runs out of gas just west of Ashland, Ohio, coasting to a stop along the shoulder of State Route 96, sapphire skies and cotton ball cumulus clouds, emerald fields of Swiss chard and beets slowly being nibbled bare by deer and rabbits, the inheritors of an abandoned earth.

“Well, that’s it,” Baela says, offhand, blasé, as if it’s not a disaster. You’ve sorted this out, it didn’t take long: there are people who aren’t allowed to panic. If they do, it’ll be like a dam crumbling, and the flood will burst through to drown everything, like when Noah’s wrathful God decided it was time for the world to start over. Baela can’t panic. Aemond can’t panic. And maybe you can’t either. Rio gives you a skeptical look—Are we really about to walk to Oregon?—and you slap his thigh encouragingly as you climb over him and out of the Tahoe.

“Everyone gets a gun,” Aemond says as he starts distributing them: Rugers for Rhaena, Baela, and Helaena (although she winces as she obediently takes the revolver, immediately tucking it away into her burlap messenger bag), .22s for Daeron and Aegon, Remington 12 gauges for Jace and Rio, who gives you his M9. You’re better with it anyway. Aemond’s Glock 20 is in a handmade leather holster he took from the cellar of the house back in Distant, Pennsylvania. Luke, still a potential zombie, will not be armed; but Aemond slings the strap of a .22 over his own shoulder for in case Luke recovers.

“Safeties on, right kids?” Rio goes down the line checking everyone’s gun. “Remember what we practiced, use your sights, don’t go pointing the barrel at anyone unless you’re okay with blowing a hole in them. The noise is risky, but getting bit is worse, so use your best judgment.”

“I don’t have any of that,” Aegon says, grinning.

Rio grabs Aegon’s sunburned face roughly and smacks a kiss onto his cheek. “I know, Honey Bun. Don’t you worry. Stick close and I’ll do your thinking for you.”

You spy it up the road a ways on the right, half-obscured by tree limbs: a white and orange sign, a logo shaped like a diamond. “Oh my God. It’s a Stewart’s.”

“A what?” Aemond asks, squinting at the sign. It’s late afternoon, and soon the sun will be sinking into the west like a drowning man through deep water, and like all prey animals you are restless without the promise of shelter.

“A Stewart’s Root Beer. They used to sell hot dogs and barbeque and all these neat soda flavors like key lime and black cherry. We had one where I grew up. That was the fancy place. You knew it was a good day if you ended up at Stewart’s for dinner.”

Aemond considers you, that subtle ceaseless curiosity. “We can stay the night there.”

“I thought we didn’t want to waste any daylight, Aemond,” Jace jabs as he helps Luke—miserable but presently human—out of the Tahoe. “That’s what you said when I wanted to check out that Barnes & Noble, Aemond.”

“What the hell do you need books for?” Aegon says. He’s grabbing clear CD cases out of the center console of the Tahoe. He pounds on the eject button and then punches the CD player when he realizes he won’t be getting that particular disk back. “Oh, you bitch! I had Shakira on there!”

“I would like to preserve my ability to read at higher than a fifth-grade level. I wouldn’t expect you to understand. I was going to work for Sullivan & Cromwell, you know.”

“And now you’re a jobless loser just like me. Isn’t life funny?”

“You can’t be serious,” Baela says to Aegon, his arms full of CD cases. “You’re going to carry all those to California? You don’t even have a way to listen to them.”

“I’m not leaving my mixtapes.” Aegon shoves them into a U.S. Army backpack he found at Fort Indiantown Gap and then hoists it onto his back with a grunt.

Aemond tells Jace: “We only have a few hours until the sun starts going down. We don’t know what’s up ahead. We should take advantage of a safe place to sleep if it’s available. Getting caught out in the open after dark is the worst case scenario.”

“Whatever, Aemond. It’s your call. Everything is your fucking call.” Then Jace plods out into a field of rabbit-ravaged Swiss chard to relieve himself semi-privately, his back to the Tahoe.

“Hey, Chips Ahoy,” Aegon says, taking the folded-up map out of the pocket of his shorts, mint green plaid. “Want to tell me if there are any nuclear power plants near our route so we can steer clear of them and not get irradiated?”

“Uh, well, I don’t exactly have them all memorized…” You examine the map, hoping the black-ink cities will jog your memory, trivia you catalogued years ago, snippets you’ve heard from your fellow seamen. “Perry’s in Cleveland. We won’t be anywhere near that one. Fermi is up by Detroit.” You hesitate as your fingertips skate past Chicago. “Braidwood, LaSalle, and Byron are someplace between Chicago and Peoria, but I’m not sure where. And then there are a few others around the border of Illinois and Iowa. West of that, I don’t know. Rio?”

“Cooper’s in Nebraska, dead east of Lincoln. That’s all I got.”

Aegon is nodding, making notes on his map with a glittery forest green gel pen. “Cool, cool. If I don’t end up eaten or a zombie, I can look forward to being a sterile, glow-in-the-dark mutant.”

Luke frets: “What if we accidentally drink contaminated water or something?”

“Then you die an agonizing death, kiddo,” Rio says. “Your cells dissolve and you turn into human Jello and there’s nothing anybody can do about it.”

Luke swallows noisily. “Awesome.”

“You might just get cancer if the dose is small enough,” you tell him. Luke does not seem pacified. Rhaena gives him a sip of warm Coca-Cola from a plastic bottle from the Wawa.

Jace comes trudging back to the road, zipping up his khaki chino shorts. “Alright, are we ready?”

Helaena is gazing solemnly out over the fields of green leaves, red roots that grow like arteries into the soil. “We should try to find antivenom.”

“Antivenom?” Aemond asks, distracted as he makes sure nothing of importance was left in the Tahoe. The keys are still dangling from the ignition; you won’t need them. There’s no breathing the Tahoe back to life. There’s no returning to Aemond’s house back in Boston. There is only the West, beckoning you to cross rivers and plains and mountains to join her, and to do it as people did two hundred years ago, no cars, no phones, no escape hatches. The only way out is through.

“For the snakes,” Helaena says.

Aemond stares at her. The stitches in his face are dissolving as the flesh weaves back together, jagged maroon scar tissue, beautiful savage ruins, landscapes of improbable survival. “Helaena, antivenom has to be refrigerated. Even if we miraculously found some, it wouldn’t be useable.”

She nods, eyes wide and glazed, still peering into the fields, into the earth.

~~~~~~~~~~

A hand brushing the loose strands of hair out of your face, a whisper through the dissipating indigo of sleep: “Guess what today is.”

You startle awake and yelp as you bolt from your assailant. Aegon is watching you without any shame whatsoever. People are laughing as they gather up supplies so you all can get moving again, brushing teeth, arranging hair, drinking glass bottles of Stewart’s soda found last night in crates in the storeroom, snacking on bags of Utz chips. Sunlight is streaming in through the windows; specks of dust glimmer in the air like comets through the inhospitable void of outer space.

Luke says from where he is sitting on the floor, his arms and legs tethered: “Hopefully the day when somebody’s going to untie me.”

“It’s my birthday!” Aegon announces.

You’re still blinking at him, disoriented. “What…?”

“Aegon, I told you,” Aemond says, sipping a bottle of Stewart’s key lime soda. “It’s not your birthday. It’s not the 23rd.”

“It’s the 20th, right?” Rhaena says.

Rio looks to you, bewildered. “Isn’t it like the 25th?”

“We’re still in June?” Luke says. Now Aemond is hacking through his ropes with a hunting knife from the cellar in Distant, Pennsylvania.

“Your hand is healing up. Your color is good, your temperature is normal. I guess we can officially declare you human for the foreseeable future.”

“I knew it,” Jace says, combative so no one will see the desperate relief underneath.

Aemond examines your hands next, calloused over where the heat of the transmission tower burned the skin. There is no pretext for needing to tend to them any longer, no antiseptic or ointment or gauze. Aemond nods somberly at your palms, as if he isn’t entirely happy to pronounce them cured. His hands linger on yours for slow, unnecessary seconds.

“So what are we going to do special for my birthday?” Aegon presses eagerly.

“We’re going to walk between ten and twenty miles towards California,” Baela says.

“That’s not a birthday activity!”

Daeron groans as he inspects the screws and bolts of his compound bow. “Aegon, it’s not your birthday!”

“Shut up. You can’t even apply to get a credit card.”

“No one can get a credit card now! Currency is worthless!”

Rio offers you a cherries and cream soda. You take it and say: “Aegon, how old are you? On today, your alleged birthday?”

He hesitates. “That’s not the important part.”

Aemond smiles as he tells you, mock-whispering: “He’s thirty.”

“Thirty?!” Rio exclaims. “That’s like, an actual adult age. Marriage and a mortgage, shit like that. What were you doing before everything went insane?”

Aegon gestures vaguely. “I was considering a number of opportunities.”

“He was living on my couch,” Aemond says.

Rio shakes his head, grinning. “No job? No school? No nothing?”

“I wasn’t doing nothing. I played a lot of golf.”

“He was totally doing nothing,” Jace says. “I was in my third year of law school at Harvard, Baela was getting a master’s in Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT, Rhaena just started an Anthropology PhD, Luke was getting a master’s in Screenwriting at Boston University—he was going to be very sad and very broke, but still, he had a plan—and Aegon was doing…nothing.”

“I’ve never had a real birthday party before,” Aegon tells you; and there is something in his murky blue eyes that is tremendously sad, wounded, childlike. “I might not get another chance.”

“What do you want to do?” Now people are alarmed, skittish glances and mouths open to object. You are encouraging him.

“I don’t know yet,” Aegon says. But he’s glad you bothered to ask. You can see it on his face.

It’s not until several hours later—after noon, the sun high and blazing, everyone’s unpracticed feet aching and blistering in their shoes—that Aegon experiences a revelation like the angel Gabriel appearing to the Virgin Mary or Sir Isaac Newton extrapolating gravity from an apple falling on his head. Aegon’s epiphany appears in the form of a bowling alley in Shenandoah, Ohio called Luxury Lanes. It is remarkably unluxurious, a nondescript black rectangular building with a few doors in the front, one small tinted window on each, and no other openings. To Aegon, it is an oasis in a desert.

“I want to go bowling!”

“Aegon, we’re not going bowling,” Baela says, breathing heavily but trying to hide it, her hands massaging the small of her back. Aemond is watching her worriedly. Baela is the only person not burdened with carrying any supplies beyond her hammer and shiny new Ruger—and she resisted this accommodation at first—but still, she suffers more than anyone.

“Once again, it is my birthday—”

“Aren’t bowling allies soundproofed?” Rio asks Aemond. “You know, so they don’t get noise complaints?”

“Uh, I guess so…?”

“It’s kind of a fortress, isn’t it?” Rio continues. “Not many ways in or out. We wouldn’t be seen or heard. Might be a good place to stop for the night. ”

“Yeah!” Aegon says. “Right, Aemond?”

Aemond looks at you. It takes you a moment to figure out why. “I think the bowling alley is a good idea,” you tell him. “It’ll be safe, assuming we can clear it. And Aegon can have his party.”

Aemond is skeptical. “A party?”

“Survival isn’t just about not dying. It’s also about holding onto the things that make us human.”

“Like bowling!” Rhaena says excitedly. “It’s preserving a tradition! And I used to be so good at bowling. I bowled a 250 game once.”

“I have no idea what that means,” Aegon says, still delighted to have her on his side.

“There’s a sign for a Walmart maybe half a mile up the road,” Daeron points out. “We could search it for supplies and then double back here.”

Aemond polls the audience. Everyone agrees.

Shenandoah is tiny, rural, religious, and out of the way from the major highways. The Walmart doors are chained shut with padlocks, and amazingly no one has taken that as an invitation to drive their car through them or otherwise shatter the glass yet. Rio is honored to be the first. He takes the butt of his Remington shotgun and punches through the glass of the locked doors, kicks away loose shards, whistles and shouts to lure out any zombies. A dozen of them come reeling out of the aisles and towards the doorway. Daeron shoots down most of them with his compound bow. Rio kills two with the butt of his Remington, his new favorite toy. Aegon, the birthday boy, uses his golf club to beat in the skull of a teenager who is still wearing glittery pink nail polish and fake eyelashes. According to her nametag, her friends and family once called her Raelynn.

Inside the Walmart, Jace and Aemond take one side of the store, you and Rio the other, doing a quick sweep to make sure you didn’t miss any undead employees or customers waiting for the chance to sink their teeth into you. And when that’s done, you begin shopping.

The shelves are probably two-thirds empty, but there are still treasures to be found. You push carts through the aisles and fill them with candles, lighters, Chef Boyardee, Doritos, canned soup, fruit snacks, tuna pouches, 5 gum, bottles of Snapple, socks and underwear, hair ties, t-shirts and shorts, Kleenex tissues, pads and tampons, toilet paper. Baela finds some cute maternity dresses. Helaena picks through the pharmacy for useful medications, Aemond shadowing her with a baseball bat in his hands and his Glock at his waist.

“Chips, they got Cheddar Whales!” Rio exclaims, tossing several boxes into your cart.

“I miss grocery stores,” Rhaena says as she climbs the shelves to get the last box of Teddy Grahams.

“I miss going to the mall and getting Auntie Anne’s pretzel nuggets,” Aegon commiserates. Then he stumbles upon the liquor aisle and his eyes light up like high beams. “Aemond!”

Aemond appears—perhaps a bit flustered—and deliberates for a while as he browses the selection, Aegon waiting anxiously, before he decides: “Since it is allegedly your birthday, you can drink tonight. And you can pick one other person to drink with you. But only one.”

“Rio,” Aegon says immediately.

“Come on!” Daeron whines.

Aegon is already putting bottles of Captain Morgan rum into a cart. “Sorry. Illegal. Underage.”

“I’ve helped you butcher countless zombies, but I can’t drink?!”

“Just Say No, as Nancy Reagan would tell an innocent child such as yourself.”

Jace strides over, sly and playful, gnawing on a Twizzler. “Aemond, were you over there rummaging through the medicine aisles again? What do you keep looking for? Condoms?”

There is an awkward silence, an extremely awkward silence. Aemond glares at Jace. Jace’s eyes go wide.

“Oh, I, uh…I was definitely joking. But…congrats on the possible future sex!”

“I already checked,” Luke tells Aemond apologetically. “You know condoms were the first thing to get bought up or looted everywhere.”

“Okay, great,” Aemond says quickly, willing the conversation to be over. There is blood, hot and mortified, flaring in his cheeks. He was thinking of you, he had to be; the only other single woman here is his sister, and obviously that’s not an option.

Jace takes another bite of his Twizzler. “Just pull out, man.”

Baela, incredulous, gestures to her belly. “Because that worked out super well for us.”

“I told you to stop riding me!”

“Yeah, a whole two seconds before you impregnated me with your super-swimmer Michael Phelps sperm.”

“Please don’t make me listen to this,” Luke begs. “I’m starting to wish I really was bitten.”

“Don’t you know all the tricks to not getting someone pregnant, Aemond?” Jace says. “Wasn’t that going to be your specialty? You wanted to be a vagina doctor? So don’t you know all the mysteries of the vagina, Aemond?”

“He was going to be an OB/GYN,” Baela says, unamused.

“Really?” Rio turns to Aemond. “Why would you want to do that?”

“So he gets to look at pussies all day,” Aegon says morosely, as if heartbroken that such a path is inaccessible to him.

“That’s not why,” Aemond insists, mostly to you.

You smile. “I didn’t think so. What’s the actual reason?”

“Interns do rotations in different departments so we can figure out what we enjoy and what we’re best suited for. I knew within two days of my OB/GYN rotation that that’s where I wanted to be. Giving birth is the only life-threatening trauma that is necessary for humanity to continue. I wanted to help people get through it as safely and painlessly as possible.” Then his gaze darts to Baela. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make it sound worse—”

“No, it’s okay, I’m very much aware. It hurts like hell, people die. Believe me, I’d be thinking about that even if you hadn’t said it. I think about it all the time.”

“I have an idea you’re not going to like.”

“What?” Baela says. Aemond nods to the nearest shopping cart. “No way. You’re not going to push me around in one of those.”

“I believe it’s an adequate solution until an alternative appears.”

She sighs. “I’ve lost my body, my career, my society, my parents…must I lose my dignity too?”

Aemond winks. “Only when you’re too tired to walk.”

“Alright, Aemond. I realize you’re under the impression that this is a favor. So thank you.”

“That’s what I’m here for.”

“Let me give you a favor in return.” Then Baela begins shooing everyone except you and Aemond out of the liquor aisle. “Grab anything else you want, we’re leaving in five minutes! Jace, come look at the baby clothes with me…”

When the two of you are alone, Aemond says: “I really hope that didn’t make you feel too weird. I’m not someone who gets uncomfortable about the…um…the subject matter in general. But I wouldn’t want you to think that I was trying to…I don’t know. Assume anything or pressure you into something that you weren’t already open to. Obviously I like…um…I mean, enthusiastic consent is essential, and I just…I would never try to convince anybody or…you know what, I’m just going to stop talking now. Okay?”

“Aemond, I’m fine. I didn’t think it was weird.”

“It’s a compliment,” he confesses, flushing pink again, touching his chin, perspiration gleaming at his temples.

Now you have to show interest so he knows you’re on the same page. You’ve never had to think this way before, you’ve never liked anyone enough to play the game. “So hypothetically, if someone didn’t want to get pregnant but there were no condoms, pills, etcetera…what are the options?”

He looks at you, pleasantly surprised. “Well, there’s the rhythm method. It’s not perfect, but it’s been around forever and is reasonably reliable if done correctly.”

You are only vaguely familiar. “We didn’t get a lot of sex ed down in Kentucky.”

Aemond chuckles then leans in, a mischievous curl of his lips, a craving in the crystalline river blue of his eye. He grips the shelf above your head, his arm a canopy. His voice is hushed. The front windows of the Walmart face west where the sun is setting; golden light floods in to illuminate the store. “Is your cycle regular?”

“It is, actually.” This should be embarrassing, but it’s not; it’s exhilarating. You’re imagining him seeing you, touching you, unearthing secrets you’ve never been tempted to share with anyone else.

“So if we imagine it like a circle…” He draws one on the back of your hand, invisible, mesmerizing, blue-white lightning crackling up the path of your metacarpals, wrist, ulna and radius, humerus and clavicle, descending ribs like the rungs of a ladder to jolt the sinus rhythm of your heart. “The start of your period would be Day One.”

“Okay,” you say, hypnotized as his fingerprint skates in an arc across the bumps of your knuckles.

“Ovulation doesn’t happen until around Day Fourteen. You might have noticed some increased arousal and…wetness. Clear in color, elastic consistency.”

Your eyes are trapped in his face, smooth skin, jagged scar tissue. You tease him back, stepping closer. You can hear people snickering in the next aisle as they eavesdrop. You don’t care about them, and neither does Aemond anymore. “Now that you mention it…”

“That’s nature trying to trick you into reproducing. Day Fourteen is crunch time. Once ovulation occurs, the egg is only good for up to twenty-four hours. And then the rest of the cycle you’re effectively useless, as far as making miniature humans is concerned.”

“Wait, you’re telling me people can only get pregnant one day a month?” This seems improbable. “How has the species managed to survive this long?”

“It’s a little more complicated than that,” Aemond admits. “Depending on the health of the specimens, sperm can survive up to five days inside a woman’s body. And it’s difficult to tell exactly when ovulation occurs. So, in practice, there’s basically one week a month when you’d want to avoid a man…completing the act, if you will.” He’s still smiling, taunting, famished, imagining the same scenes you are. You know this with a categorical certainty, as if you’re reading his thoughts like stark stripes of distance on a measuring tape. “And that’s also the week when your hormones are demanding you have sex, inspiring you to make all sorts of impulsive yet extremely consequential decisions.”

“Don’t I know it,” Baela laments from the next aisle, and there is a rupture of wild giggles.

“Anyway.” Aemond lifts his finger from the back of your hand and you have to stop yourself from reaching for him as he recedes from you. “There’s a basic overview.”

“It was very educational.” You follow him out of the liquor aisle.

“I’ve used the rhythm method for years,” Rhaena says as everyone makes their way towards the front of the store with their carts. “Clearly that’s just anecdotal, so don’t think I’m officially endorsing it. When I’m in my fertile week we add condoms. Well…we used to. Back when we could get them.”

“Ugh, I hate condoms,” Baela grumbles.

“We can tell,” Aegon says.

“I hate the way they feel, I hate the way they smell…”

“They’ve never bothered me,” Rhaena says. “I don’t notice that much of a difference. And it can be fun to try different kinds.”

“Are you on drugs?” Baela whirls to you. “Seriously, what is wrong with her? I’m right, aren’t I? Condoms are awful.”

Rio gives you a cautious look, uncharacteristically reticent. He’s not going to be the one to reveal it. He doesn’t know if it’s something you’re willing to share. But if anything is going to happen with Aemond—and you want it to, already you know you want him—then it’s something you think you should be honest about. You want him to know about you. You don’t want to have to create some false version of yourself to wear like a pelt, heavy, smothering, something that will inevitably need to be taken off.

“I am regretfully not qualified to say.”

“You’ve never used condoms?” Baela asks, a bit dubious.

“I’ve never done any of it.”

Everyone freezes at the defunct checkout counters and turns to gawk at you. “No sex?” Jace says. “No nothing?”

You shrug, smiling a little self-consciously. “I made out with a guy once.”

“The Marine from Corpus Christi?” Baela asks. They’re obsessed with him, they’re convinced there’s some lore to be excavated, translated, displayed like a relic in a museum. There isn’t. Sometimes people pass in and out of your life as seamlessly as shadows or sunlight, no weight, no indentations, nothing to recall or relay. He existed and then he didn’t. He was an airplane drawing contrails in the sky that faded before the blood red fire of dusk filled the horizon.

“No. Someone from home. Just a guy, not even worth mentioning.”

“Girl, you gotta fix that, soon, pronto, like yesterday.” Jace seems genuinely horrified. “You can’t die a virgin.”

“You really can’t,” Daeron adds, and Aegon pretends to be distraught over the loss of his youngest brother’s virtue.

“That’s what I’m always telling her!” Rio says.

“Not everybody wants to have sex,” Helaena murmurs as she records today’s findings in her spider notebook.

“True,” Jace concedes. “And that is totally legit. Mother Teresa, Queen Elizabeth, Jesus Christ, Buddha, Joan of Arc, Sir Isaac Newton, Nikola Tesla, the Jonas Brothers for a while, all great people. But Chips is not celibate by choice, correct?”

“Buddha had a wife and son,” Aemond says, preoccupied. He isn’t looking at you now, which is concerning; he’s peering down at where his hands grip his shopping cart, his brow creased with…what is that? Unease, disapproval, concern, thoughtfulness, fear?

“It’s not some big thing,” you backpedal. “I don’t have a hangup about it, I just never met a guy I liked enough, and enlisted men, they’re…well, a lot of them are taken, or cheaters, or idiots. Or all three.”

“Not to worry, Chipper.” Aegon claps a hand on your shoulder; and you aren’t sure if it is his purpose to break the tension, but he seems to have that effect regardless. “If you ever wish to be initiated into the art of lovemaking by a slightly below average and entirely unintimidating penis, I’d be thrilled to assist you. I love condoms. But in their absence, I am the king of pulling out. 100% success rate. Zero bastard children running around to my knowledge.”

“You should give Jace lessons,” Baela says.

And the last thing Aegon takes from the Walmart is a green battery-powered Toshiba CD player so he can blast to his mixtapes.

~~~~~~~~~~

Flickering candles lining the middle lane, drinks and snacks strewn across the tables, Rio’s Moonbeam propped up so it’s aimed at the disco ball still hanging from the ceiling from a time before the dead started devouring the living. Daeron is at the end of the lanes to reset the pins after each player’s turn. Helaena is keeping score in her notebook; Rhaena is currently in the lead by a massive 80 points. Aegon is wasted, dancing on a table and crunching Cool Ranch Doritos beneath his bare feet, his blonde hair flopping. Each time it’s his turn to bowl, Aegon has to roll the ball down the lane with two hands like a child. Rio, several shots deep but unable to feel much shy of half a bottle, is singing along with him to Cruise by Florida Georgia Line, but it’s really more like shouting, each sentence an off-key monstrosity that makes you laugh.

“Baby, you a song, you make me wanna roll my windows down and cruise!

Down a back road, blowin’ stop signs through the middle, every little farm town with you!

And this brand new Chevy with a lift kit, would look a hell of a lot better with you up in it!

So baby, you a song, you make me wanna roll my windows down and cruise!”

You cleared Luxury Lanes easily; the only difficult part was figuring out how to get into the area called the pit where, in normal times, felled pins were mechanically collected and sorted. There were two former employees roaming around back there in their tattered uniforms, snarling and drooling blood. Both were rapidly neutralized.

Someone always has to be by the front doors, watching through the small tinted windows for signs of trouble, whether from zombies or living humans. Aemond is currently on guard, nursing a Snapple. According to the bottle, the flavor is called Takes 2 To Mango. You grab your own Snapple—plain and simple Lemon Tea, no charming gimmicks—and walk over to join him.

“So now I guess it’s my turn to say I hope that conversation didn’t make you feel weird.”

He smiles politely, glancing out the window. “No, I’m completely fine.”

“Good. Because I don’t want you to look at me differently than you would any other girl, like I’m better than them, or worse than them, or like there’s anything wrong with me, because it really isn’t something I consider to be paramount to my identity, and people always seem to get all twisted up about it, but it’s a pretty boring story, I just…”

“You’ve never liked someone enough to take the risk. I get it. I don’t think you’re a freak or anything.”

“Okay. Good.” The next song on Aegon’s mixtape is Shaboozey’s A Bar Song. Jace is dancing with Baela, spinning her around as she giggles. With Rhaena’s coaching, Luke bowls his first strike. You rest your head on the door as you gaze up at Aemond, the phantom of a smile on your lips. “I might like you enough.”

And he says as if it’s the worst thing in the world, a plague, an infection, an apocalypse: “You’d fall in love with me.”

It hurts, of course it does, this flippant rejection. He burns you, he cuts you, he stitches you up with no anesthetic. You try not to show it. “You’re…confident.”

“No, I don’t mean because of anything specific I would do, it’s just…it’s natural to form a certain…attachment. To the first person you’re with. It leaves an impression.” Not an impression like a first judgment, superficial and swift; an impression like an imprint, a hollow, a prehistoric fossil that is preserved through eons. “That was already true before. And everything is more intense now, because life is so…” Aemond takes a while to settle on a word. “Precarious.”

You say like a challenge: “Are you still in love with the first girl you slept with?”

A shadow that ripples through his face, a flinching he tries to hide. You shouldn’t have asked. Still, you feel like you need to know, like you’ll run out of oxygen if you don’t. “I think I’ve gotten enough distance from it to realize that she wasn’t…wasn’t good for me in a lot of ways. It was an unconventional situation. But I still carry all these pieces of her around with me, yes. I don’t think that will ever go away.”

“Aemond,” you say gently. “Who was she?”

He is evasive, smirking. “It’s a cliché.”

“Was she a patient? That’s very Grey’s Anatomy of you.”

“No. She was my professor.”

An older woman, wise and experienced and captivating and sophisticated. He’s cut you again, a blade slicing effortlessly through veins like soft butter. “Oh. From med school?”

“Undergrad.”

“You were really young,” you say, a little startled.

He nods. “I was eighteen when it started. I was this shy, insecure, friendless freshman, she was married with two kids around my age. And it was off and on, but there was never anyone else for me, she took up too much space in my head, in my chest, like I couldn’t breathe unless I knew we were okay.”

“It went on for seven years?”

This seems to stun him, hearing how much of his existence she bottled like a terrarium. “I guess so.”

Is she dead? Missing? Safe somewhere with her husband and kids? “Is she…gone?”

His gaze drops to the floor. “Yeah.”

“Did you see it happen?”

“I was the one who killed her when she turned.”

It’s indescribably horrible; you don’t know what to say. “Aemond, I’m…I’m really sorry…”

He is abruptly nonchalant, the blue of his eye cool and dispassionate. “Look, I’m not prepared for this to be anything more than casual. And I don’t think casual is really in the cards for us. So it’s probably best to leave it alone.”

“Right,” you agree numbly, not meaning it.

“We’re headed different places, I’m going to California, you’re planning to end up in Oregon, it’s just…a bad idea to muddy the waters, I think.”

“Because I haven’t done this before.”

He shrugs ambiguously. “It’s a contributing factor.”

“Well you seemed pretty interested before you found that out, so.”

“I don’t mean to offend you.”

“You aren’t offending me. You’re disappointing me.”

Now Aemond is offended. “By trying to protect us?”

“No, by saying you don’t think I’m a freak when you clearly do, and by having some savior complex, or a whore-Madonna complex, or whatever’s going on in your head, it’s always such a mystery to everyone else.”

He downs the rest of his Snapple and shoves the bottle into the nearest trash can. You hear it thump against the bottom, no garbage bag. “Alright. This was fun.”

“Maybe you’re afraid of making a mistake, just like I always was.”

“Maybe I don’t want to have to teach you how to do everything,” Aemond snaps.

“I taught you how to shoot.”

“The fact that you don’t realize how wildly different those two situations are proves you have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Okay, bye. Sorry about your zombie girlfriend.”

Aemond glares at you, shocked, furious. “That was so fucking low.”

It was. You regret it. But you can’t bring yourself to tell him that. You flee to the far end of the bowling alley and sit alone at a table draped in shadows. After a while, Rio notices and ventures over to see what’s wrong, a bottle of Captain Morgan swinging from one hand. He’s tipsy now.

Rio sighs as he takes a seat beside you, reaching over to rub your back. His hands are large and indelicate; what he means to be comforting is more like getting manhandled. Sometimes he leaves bruises, but it’s not his fault. Nature gave Rio the body of a killer. If anyone is going to survive the zombie apocalypse, it’s him. “What’s going on, Chips?”

Your voice breaks as you say it; tears sting in your eyes. “I hate caring about people.”

He bursts out laughing. “Yeah, it’s the worst, isn’t it? But once in a while it works out.”

“Bryan.”

And now he knows you’re serious. You have his full attention, large dark eyes fixed on your face, lines etching into his brow beneath the artificial starlight of the disco ball. “What are you asking me?”

“We can’t leave them and walk to the West Coast ourselves, can we?”

“I mean, technically we could, but it would be really stupid. Everything’s so much easier with ten people. And also I think I’d have to kidnap Aegon and take him with us, I love that little dude. Why? Do you really want to leave them?”

“No.”

“I figured.” He offers you the half-empty bottle of Captain Morgan.

“I’m not drinking that.”

“Come on. It’ll take the edge off.”

You look at him. Rio looks back, smiling now.

“I’ll watch out for you,” he says. “And if you get bit I’ll shoot you dead, no hesitation, swear to God. I remember our promise. I won’t let you die alone.”

“You’re a good guy.”

“I know.” He nudges your arm with the bottle of Captain Morgan. “A few swigs won’t hurt. It’ll help you sleep.”

You take the bottle, twist off the cap, drink down amber-gold poison that burns like gasoline, like fire.

[pyropsychiccollector]

This next analysis... Well, I already did one Apphia Yu-voiced character. Might as well segway into another one of her roles, yeah? The nice thing is that this next one, she isn't a criminal, but she is an assassin~... well, an assassin-in-training.

... And a pervert. Poor Nagisa. ... Or Lucky Boy Nagisa, maybe? :3

NagiRio

So, to trim this analysis a bit in the "early" parts of the series, let's just put it this way. Rio-chan didn't become a "major" member of E-Class until about halfway through Season 1 of the anime. In the first several episodes, she was more comic relief than a girl who played any pivotal role. I think the first time we saw her on-screen for prolonged periods was during the Kyoto trip, when she first tried to peep in on Koro-sensei in the bath, and then later that night with the girls gossiping about boys and listening to Bitch-sensei tell stories of her past. Still, I suppose the "peeping" is a good way to segway into this "plot summary" portion of the analysis... because it's the first time, on-screen, that Nagisa and Rio interact, especially outside of class.

I'll try to be nice, but.... Rio-chan is honestly a shameless teenage girl. XDDD She's a good example that it's not just guys who get ecchi and dirty-minded. Sure, we learn more later why Rio-chan acts out and focuses on having a good time, but she reeeally gets into it... (๑╹ω╹๑ ) She pretends she's just scoping out their target's weaknesses, but let's be real~... She wanted to see what was under those soap suds. (๑╹ω╹๑ )(๑╹ω╹๑ )(๑╹ω╹๑ )

Still, this is a good entry level into Rio as a character. She's laidback, fun-loving, speaks her mind... And Nagisa goes with the flow better with her than some of their classmates (like Okajima, who felt she was butting in on his Pervert livelihood); the start of their friendship isn't shown, but I suppose you can say that sitting to Nagisa's right in class gave her opportunities to interact or observe him. And since we don't know the particulars of how they started out as friends, there's even room to say that Rio chose to sit next to him, or vice versa. During the girls' gossip scene, she doesn't name Nagisa as one of the boys she'd be interested in; she names Isogai and Maehara as possible candidates, but leans more toward Isogai. Now, you can take this casual gossip in one of two ways; either she's being honest like always, or she's hiding her real fledgling crushes. Given the nature of the scene, I'm inclined to believe Rio is being honest in her assessments here - Nagisa's not on her radar yet in terms of romance, and that's fine! You don't have to leap straight to the romance . If she and Nagisa are just pals for now, that's a good start.

After Kyoto, Ritsu joins the class. Then Lovro tests Irina. Then Shiro brings in Itona. Then the baseball/basketball matches... Finally, we reach Takaoka's debut. If you want my shot in the dark at when Rio started to look at Nagisa more, it's at about this time. Why would that be...? Well...

This is the first time since the failed "suicide assassination" that Nagisa has stood out amongst his class. Ever since that time, he was observing or helping on the sidelines as other classmates and assassins took their shots. He helped organize the girls' rescue in Kyoto, but Rio wasn't there for that, and Koro-sensei dished out most of the throttling. Takaoka was out of control, and Karasuma needed a champion for Takaoka to ("willingly") back down. Still, Karasuma sure knows how to pick 'em; his instincts were telling him that Nagisa was harboring an innate talent for assassination, and he was dead-on. Nagisa himself respected Karasuma for always looking him in the eye, something his own family wouldn't do, and he wanted to make Karasuma proud and help his class overthrow a tyrant. Nagisa let his own instincts take control, and impressed everyone with how nonchalantly he beat Takaoka at his own game, without seriously injuring the man. I think this public display would put Nagisa on lots of radars, and it did. Koro-sensei already had an inkling, and now Karasuma and everyone else knew Nagisa was a natural.

Rio-chan was towards the center of the crowd congratulating Nagisa. It's a bit on-the-nose for a hint, but she even puts herself between Nagisa and Kaede... which I thought was kinda cute. XDDD Maybe part of it was subconscious, but still. A later line Rio-chan gives makes me think otherwise. Again, it doesn't have to be love, or even a crush yet - for now, Nagisa's a friend, and she's proud he had a moment in the sun here.

Shiro and Itona make another attempt... And then the First Term Finals are upon them, and Koro-sensei motivates his kids with promises of tentacles, if they do better than A-Class. Isogai makes an open invitation to join him to study in the library, which E-Class normally doesn't get the chance to. Sure, anyone could've come along, but I thought this was a cool follow-up to the Takaoka debacle. Whether it's as a crush or still just as a friend, Rio is seeing Nagisa now. She enjoys hanging around him, and Kaede, Yukiko, Isogai, Okuda... But I emphasize Nagisa, because...

Honestly, as a rareshipper, you learn to take every moment you're given. XDDD This moment before the exams is cool, because Rio and Nagisa have some one-on-one, even if it's just for a pep talk... and then these jerks poke their heads out and give Nagisa the bird, like usual. .... Rio-chan isn't having that. (人◕ω◕) You can call it divine punishment~ (人◕ω◕) And she just keeps walking~...

Ah. And one other thing: Nagisa and Rio excel in English. Whether intentional or coincidental, it's neat to find similarities between these characters. Poor Nagisa misses the perfect score that Rio nabs, but at least he got 91 (more or less an A). He and Yukiko (Japanese) are among the scores that Koro-sensei announces, even if those two didn't get highest in the grade.

Then Okinawa happens~... Don't think I've missed the fact Rio-chan has invited herself onto the Kyoto group's team. (人◕ω◕) It's honestly cool how subtle she is about it. Sure, it'd be nice to see their team welcome her into the group, but.... I'll take what I can get. Maybe she was just on this squad because she can swim, but since there's no context.... well..... they didn't say it'd be a one-off deal. (人◕ω◕)

Later, after the failed group assassination, I found it a little endearing that Rio-chan wanted to try leaning on Nagisa when she wasn't feeling well because of the disease Smog infected them with. Again, no context for why she was near Nagisa... but she was. And Nagisa (and Kaede) were worried over Rio-chan as several others came down sick, too. This does, unfortunately, incapacitate Rio-chan for the Okinawa trip, but Nagisa plays a key part in defeating Takaoka again (and in an even more badass way), which allows Smog to freely confess no one's gonna die. Everyone can breathe easy~ :3

Season 2, though... Rio-chan takes a backseat again, for a while. She's there with everybody else, living the life or tackling the challenges with everyone else... She helped the class attempt to hook up Bitch-sensei and Karasuma. Was there for the summer festival. Supported Kaede's Pudding Popper plot. Helped the class save Itona and recruit him to the class formally. Helped with the sports festival, though the guys' Pole-Toppling was the main competition focused on.

Ah. One point of interest was in the daycare episode - Rio-chan was helping tutor the students, like Nagisa. It's not much, but considering some of the other E-Class members were engaging in more "fun" activities, it's a little sweet that Rio was tutoring the kids like hubby. :3

The Reaper makes his debut, tries taking out Koro-sensei by putting his students on the line...

Then comes another Nagisa-centric episode. Rio-chan doesn't make much of a showing this episode, but in the next one with the Fall Festival...

*coughs* It's not all heart-felt. (人◕ω◕);;;;;;;;; However, her talk with Nagisa just before Yuji shows up is serious and endearing. She really didn't mean to bully Nagisa or hurt him, she was just trying to have fun. ... And, well, she has fun at his expense again moments later, when Yuji comes trotting in, horny for "Nagisa-chan" as ever. (人◕ω◕);;;;;; Something to note, however. Rio-chan used her skirt to crossdress Nagisa. You can make a case, "why would she have a spare skirt on hand?" ... anime shenanigans? (人◕ω◕) Regardless, it doesn't go that way. She slides her skirt on him, and takes his pants. Don't get me wrong: This is a pretty rough moment for Rio-chan, 'cause Nagisa obviously doesn't want to do this.... I won't pretend it's all alright. At the same time, humor's infused in my blood, so while I do think Nagisa shouldn't be tortured like this, I realize it's a...gag. I grew up on cartoons that were a mesh of seriousness and silly, so I could appreciate AC's goofiness here. What's nice about this is that it's the last time crossdressing comes up save for one flashback pic, and then the girl jokes are done for Nagisa. ... So Rio giving her skirt, well... that's very avant garde for "just a friend". Moreover, she stripped them both downstairs for this.... brief clothes swap.... (人◕ω◕) Again. As a rareshipper, I seize every moment I can get. .... Rio-chan has at least an idea of what Nagisa's packing. Not even Kaede has this information. ... Yet. (人◕ω◕)(人◕ω◕)(人◕ω◕)

To give a deeper look into this crossdressing scene, however, I will say this: Rio was sincere when she apologized to Nagisa, after she heard about his mom, what a control freak and how terrible she was. Rio knows she's been pretty sadistic with the girl jokes - well, her and Karma - and she cares enough about Nagisa by now that she doesn't wanna pick on him to that extent anymore. Some of you may argue, "But she turns around and does it again not even a minute later!" And well.... it's true. Rio does go too far again, taking advantage of Yuji's crush on "Nagisa-chan" to make them money for the fall festival... Here's the thing, though: Nagisa's within his rights to refuse Rio here, to just clear up Yuji's confusion right off the bat and be angry at Rio... But he doesn't. Part of it could be he knows they need the customers and the money for the restaurant, but Nagisa puts up with Rio's games regardless. ... Well, to an extent. Refuses to get pervy ("Show him the goods!"), and eventually he does just tell Yuji that he's a guy... And Rio does respect that. Once Nagisa gives his speech, Rio doesn't embarrass Nagisa in front of Yuji anymore.

... Karma still wants to mess around, and Rio hops all over the chance because she can't help herself... But after the festival, we don't see crossdressing come up again (except for one instance from Karma a few episodes later, but Rio doesn't add onto that). That's another way we know that Rio's sincere about cutting back on that kind of teasing. She does have one last moment of weakness there, but she respects his feelings from then on. Rio could've been like Karma and kept the jokes up... but she matures.

After the festival, Rio fades into the background again. She's there for the Second Term Finals. Places in the Top 5 (Nagisa's #14). She's there when Principal Asano makes his attempt on Koro-sensei. She's there for the Drama Festival. And... she's there when Kaede reveals her true identity as Akari Yukimura, and reveals her tentacles. I'll keep bringing this up, but this habit of Rio's to have a presence in the lighthearted times, and then fade into the background when generally more serious times arise... It fits the assassin motif of the series.

Take this scene for example. Kaede's going mad because of the tentacles, and Rio's one of the people protectively holding Nagisa back. Not Karma, not Isogai... Rio. This is a pretty telling moment that Nagisa's important to Rio; she knows this is a hard time for the bluenet because he wants nothing more than to save Kaede... But she doesn't want Nagisa going in there without a plan, because he'll get hurt. Rio's not overprotective, she doesn't sit on Nagisa or think Kaede's beyond saving... She just wants him to be careful.

And then Nagisa has that moment of revelation, and he kisses Kaede to take her mind off assassination. Rio and Karma are their usual teasing selves, but it is heartwarming that Rio snaps a picture of the guy she's fond of kissing another girl... Again, she supports Nagisa, and wants him happy. ... Even if Rio is greedy and wants her man~

After the fires are put out, tentacles extracted, Rio and Karma don't waste a moment to tease Nagisa impishly... But this moment is particularly endearing, because Nagisa doesn't get flustered like this unless people are poking fun at his height or his girlish looks.... No, this time, Nagisa kissed a girl... even if it was to save her life... And it's so outside of his normal routine, for "Karasuma Jr." to get intimate like that... Of course everybody's gonna congratulate him for that. ... Even if Karma and Rio just want to fill in the void left behind by crossdressing. I wish Nagisa had more moments like this... But he is a guy that keeps his eyes straight on the target. It's just great Rio supports Nagisa in his "love life", regardless of her plans to sweep him off his feet later....

Before we get to that fluffy revelation, however... I want to touch on this moment, which happens a couple of episodes later. We've seen the foundations of Rio's "serious side". During the Nagisa-centric episode, with the career counseling sessions, Rio reveals that she has a reason for being as laidback and fun-loving as she is. She used to be a child genius, and she longed for friendships and having a good time; she didn't care how good she was with school stuff. So she put up a facade of being dumb, goofing off... and before long, it was no longer an act. But E-Class, Koro-sensei, they helped her retrieve some of what she lost. That's why she values the bond she has with the Assassination Classroom... and why she's the one that speaks out when Nagisa suggests changing what their class is about. She disagrees with Nagisa on something, and I find this a super interesting development. ... Because friends can disagree on stuff. Even when they're your crushes... you don't have to see eye-to-eye on everything. I also see this as Rio looking out for Nagisa, because he's caught up in the moment, feeling like everyone's onboard with shifting gears. Rio doesn't like bringing down the mood, butting heads with Nagisa... but this class is important to her, and she doesn't want to chicken out just because they heard about Koro-sensei's past. She knows that there's others who feel the assassination is a crucial part of their bond, and in a way, she's breaking it to Nagisa gently. Tries turning it into a discussion, instead of an immediate decision that affects everyone. ... As opposed to Karma, who takes it personally and turns it into a fight. At least Koro-sensei is open to either possibility, provided the class stays united. The class really needs that unity.

Rio plays the war smart, keeping out of the fights until the end of the war, where she can swoop in and steal the Blue Team's flag... Thing is, Nagisa was playing the game just as wisely. He outplayed Rio, outplayed Karma, and I just really loved how it was Nagisa who took Rio down... 'cause it deepened their friendship a bit. Nagisa didn't make it personal, didn't look back after tagging Rio, Terasaka, Muramatsu, and Yoshida. His eyes were forward as always. But Rio...? Well. She had no choice but to concede defeat. She even admired Nagisa for outwitting Red Team. This was yet another moment where she was truly looking at Nagisa, understanding that even if saving Koro-sensei isn't something she bought into, Nagisa was fighting for his position with all that he had. Is it so wrong to admire someone that's as serious as you? People may wonder where the heck Rio's infatuation comes from (I'll touch on that soon enough) when she legit says that one line to admit her feelings... And I'm telling ya, you gotta go back and keep an eye out. Rio's just as sneaky as Kaede with her feelings, if not sneakier. This moment is just one obvious case where her respect for Nagisa is on full display; it gets more fleshed out as Nagisa properly wins the war.

Nagisa doesn't take the easy way out and snipe Karma. He understands that for Red Team to see where he's coming from, he has to fight on Karma's terms, even if Nagisa's at a disadvantage... Nagisa turns it around after losing for much of that final fight, but Karma has the opportunity to stab him in the back. Karma decides not to, and it boils down to the same reasons: Honor. Nagisa accepted his challenge, was even trying to finish the match with a physical combat move as opposed to a knife... Karma had no way out except for that "cheap" (but very lucky) move with the knife. He concedes the match since Nagisa once said he doesn't fight, unless it's a matter of life and death... So Karma recognizes this is important to his friend, and sees no benefit in stealing the victory besides to spite Nagisa and Blue Team; he's willing to hear Nagisa out. It seems strange to give Rio a similar moment, but she helped start all this...fighting. Rio conceding to Nagisa is just as meaningful, and shows she's not singularly determined about their original class goal. Nagisa's proven himself time and again throughout the Assassination Classroom, so Rio being happy in defeat... can mean that on some level, she was secretly hoping things would turn out this way. Rio's not about winning arguments no matter what; she'll give it her all, but when the opponent works just as hard... She's flexible and open-minded.

... Plus, she's got a soft spot for Nagisa, so...

The trip to space happens, they find out Koro-sensei more or less saved himself way back with that concoction he had Okuda whip up... The danger's not completely removed, but it's severely cut down to size. It's awesome that Nagisa concedes to let the class keep trying to assassinate Koro-sensei until the deadline, because it shows that he's listening to his classmates and respecting their feelings. Red Team helped with the space mission, it's only fair he returns the courtesy. If they still fail to kill Koro-sensei by the deadline, they'll settle for a more traditional student-teacher dynamic. The ending to this arc illustrates Nagisa, Kaede, Karma, and Rio's growth spectacularly. Really, the whole class's growth... But those four have been at the forefront of the class in some capacity for a while.

... Let's wrap up the "plot summary" section, eh? Valentine's Day~... This is where it comes into focus for Kaede...and Rio. I'll keep the talk of Kaede relatively short, but basically Rio is being a wingwoman like Karma. She sees the girl that Nagisa risked his life for is harboring feelings for the little studmuffin, and Rio-chan... feels like playing Santa. (人◕ω◕);;;;;;;

Y-Yes, Santa... (人◕ω◕);;;;;;;;;;;

*ahem* It may seem strange that Rio is encouraging a rival like this, but I suppose a combination of Rio's nature to hang back and wait for her opportunity, in conjunction with the civil war stoking some competitive flames within her... Let's just say, Rio's approach makes some crazy kind of sense. (人◕ω◕);;; It's not that she wants Kaede to mess up. No, no. Rio's been observing Nagisa-kun for a while, and she knows he and Kaede are thick as thieves. Rio is genuinely giving Kaede an opportunity here to win Nagisa over... But like in the civil war, Rio's not gonna pull her punches, either. Nagisa's a great guy. Kind, compassionate, serious.... Rio and Kaede are serious girls, too. It makes too much sense they'd fall for the same guy. A serious guy deserves a serious, fair competition. (人◕ω◕)

Kaede learns to just say what she has to say in her own words, and Rio and Karma spy on her to the very end. As Kaede decides to bury her feelings for now so that she doesn't distract Nagisa, who's admirable for always looking forward, Rio concedes it'd be petty to try stealing Nagisa from a girl so noble... It's one of the most fascinating "love triangles" that I've seen to date. Japan and its people tend to have this habit of being subdued with romance, and it plays into this show of assassins so well. Nagisa's not trying to win anyone over, he's so straightforward, honest, caring... and yet Kaede and Rio like him. A lot. For both of them to keep mum about their feelings... man, it hurts, but I get it. It's a Japanese staple to do it this way. No girl ends up with the guy in this case, but by the same token there's no proof that something won't work out down the line...

So where does this leave us? Why do I subject myself to a ship where Nagisa blissfully trudges on, unaware he's wooed at least two girls in his wake? A ship where the girl gives up the chase when she feels a rival is much more deserving?

I'm intrigued by the potential these two have. Just like Kaede, just like Nagisa, Rio is an assassin at heart. It's so fascinating these three sit together, yet Rio takes a backseat so often. If I had to make a distinction between NagiKae and NagiRio, it's that Kaede definitely fell for Nagisa a lot faster (subconsciously, anyway) than Rio. Rio.... I suppose she "knew" Nagisa for longer than Kaede did, even if it was just a couple weeks. Nagisa seldom stood out, kept his head low... and while it could be fun teasing Nagisa, she wasn't given enough incentive to truly notice him until his assassination skills came to light. Not that Rio was "always" an assassin; honestly, none of these kids were like that from the beginning. They had to be groomed into it. But as pointed out, Rio was in this haze of goofing off for a while. The reward money was awfully tempting, but Rio didn't know how to get back into the swing of things in terms of getting serious again right off the bat.

I suppose reflecting on it, Nagisa got her hyped up. The first part of the year, the classroom was thick with fun, goofiness, forced bloodlust, and mystery. Rio didn't know what to say when Nagisa did that suicide assassination, wasn't involved with Sugino's assassination attempt or the group with Isogai... Karma came in as a badass, and then Koro-sensei put him in his place. Rinse and repeat for Bitch-sensei. The school assembly was the same ol', same ol', as was the First Term midterms... Kyoto was fun from Rio's perspective; she wasn't with Nagisa's group for that episode with the kidnapping. Ritsu came in, Lovro came in, Shiro and Itona... The baseball/basketball matches... If you compare Nagisa kicking Takaoka's ass to those earlier events, only the stuff with Shiro and Itona really stacked up for Rio, and she didn't know those guys. ... But she kinda knew Nagisa, and witnessing him strut his assassination stuff... It had to at least get Rio thinking about her own performance.

That's probably another reason she threw herself into the First Term Finals - she wanted to turn herself around, and hanging around Nagisa was the way to go. It wasn't love at first sight, Rio simply admired Nagisa as a fellow professional and friend. Then she kinda missed out on Okinawa, and Nagisa was a badass without her there to see it... and Rio tries finding herself in the Second Term. She observes Nagisa more, grows to like him more... The civil war only deepens their bond, at least on Rio's end of it. By Valentine's Day, we know for sure Rio has feelings for Nagisa. First Term can be likened to RIo's "practice run"; she's learning the ropes like everyone else, and Nagisa's got a leg up on her. Second Term, Rio catches up to Nagisa. She scores higher on the Finals, but Nagisa's still the better assassin, much to Rio's chagrin. One thing I'm unsure of is if Rio's content with where her friendship is at with Nagisa, by Valentine's Day... That may be another reason she hung back. 'Cause for all that she tried being serious and imitating Nagisa, when interacting with the boy she was more often than not teasing him or goofing off. She didn't have many deep, personal moments that we saw with Nagisa.

Still. For all Rio's caution and care, I think it's unmistakable Nagisa cared for Rio. Maybe not romantically, but it's like Rio said: His self-esteem's not exactly the highest. He wouldn't dare assume girls like him in that way... And moreover, he's a driven, goal-oriented guy. But even so, Nagisa cares to stand up for her and the rest of E-Class against Takaoka (twice), he probably studied alongside Rio for English, and he puts up with the teasing she and Karma put him through (even if he hates crossdressing). I'm pretty sure with a little more courage, if Rio got more serious with their friendship, keeping the goofing around but spacing it out, she would be in a better position for a relationship with Nagisa, eventually. They do have a strong foundation as friends, but seeing more of that bond would definitely help.

Rio and Nagisa are both pretty serious people, it's just that Nagisa's circumstances make him less confident. He gets better, but having Rio for a girlfriend would boost that up even more. 'Cause she wouldn't let Nagisa stay forever meek. Moreover, Rio's habit of playfulness? Nagisa needs that. He needs the hell out of that. XD It's fantastic he wants to be a teacher, and he obviously inherits Koro-sensei's spirit at the end of the series, but even Koro-sensei had someone he loved. Having a life outside the classroom will keep Nagisa refreshed and perceptive to his students' individual needs. Rio could help him reach the more rambunctious kids more easily, and she'd keep Nagisa on his toes. Nagisa would give Rio a reason to return to Japan from her job as an interpreter/diplomat, and even a prospect of becoming an English teacher like Bitch-sensei.... Alternatively, Rio's trips abroad might inspire Nagisa to go out into the world and teach Japanese for a few years. There's possibilities here. Rio keeps things fun, and Nagisa keeps them grounded and...peaceful. It's a bit telling that in the final episode of the series, neither Nagisa or Rio make it to the reunion at the old building; they, Karma, and a few others are throwing themselves into their jobs. They'd provide solace to each other from work, and they'd come running for each other in a heartbeat.... XD I get the feeling Rio would also feel guilty about all the girl jokes from before, and let Nagisa get "revenge" a little... Or she wouldn't comment on it, and just spoil him for her past behavior.

One other detail is that Rio would absolutely draw the intimacy out of Nagisa. Nooo question. (人◕ω◕) He would not remain the chaste hero type. No sir. (人◕ω◕)(人◕ω◕)(人◕ω◕) Nagisa might even be able to calm Rio down a bit... Wild, ecchi girl. Gotta love these two~...

[ask-codeearasure]

Ouija and Sarco's Master-Post for Character Design.

Struggling with character designs is a bitch, so here is a master post full of resources for you to help you bring your character designs to the next level, I shall also have some text that will elaborate on why I linked the video (and sometimes the channel) for you to understand why.

These are inspirations for Sarco and I and I wanted an excuse to share them. Okay, I wanted a huge excuse to share them.

1.) TB Skyen (Tumblr account @ohnoitstbskyen ) and his video "What's the Deal with Kindred?"

Why TB Skyen and this video in particular?

TB Skyen is a wonderful YouTuber and Artist who can look into the art of League of Legends and pick it apart and critique it in the context of being from a multi-billion dollar company, but also in the context of the story that the character is from.

His critiques can go from color scheme, body type, pose, and even animations that show you just how detailed those animations can go (watching his animation breakdowns is wonderful and hilarious at how geeky he is! If you want an excuse to have a dumb as hell smile on your face, watch his animation breakdowns and how much fun he has going in depth on it. Trust me!).

This video is my personal favorite because he goes into detail about the character's voice lines and how Lamb and Wolf talk as though they are in a play. Going very heavily into the writing of the characters because character writing is extremely important in the very design of the characters.

Every video he has on character designs shows how far you CAN push your character designs.

HOWEVER, you SHOULD NOT hold yourself to the standards of billion-dollar companies. I need to remind you, that he is actively critiquing a multi-billion dollar company and is pushing people to have higher standards for these companies.

DO NOT destroy yourself for not being able to push yourself to such standards. You should push yourself, but don't push yourself too hard. Remember, as an artist we all start somewhere, and stepping out of your comfort zones is wonderful, but you cannot do it all the time to the point of burnout.

TB Skyen doesn't even hold himself to that standard fully with his Building a Better series.

Art should also be enjoyable for the artist.

2.) Subjectively and their video "Redesigning League of Legends' Boring Champs: Zyra"

Subjectively actively have been making videos about Pokemon and League of Legends along with their ever-famous Apoctober concepts and stories.

If it's not obvious, I'm a League of Legends fan girl, and it's true. Sue me.

Subjectively, like TB Skyen, have been redesigning League of Legends champions, and critique Riot Games' shitty design philosophy when it comes to Female Champions.

With this video, you will find how sometimes character designs can go in many different directions and how you don't need to restrict yourself when it comes to being "human-like".

Yes, sex sells, but I'm honestly tired of every single female character having the same face and same body type and every female character having to be put in the "conventionally attractive seductress" box.

We should also have monster women who look monstrous. We should also have women who are buff, muscular, and terrifying.

Speaking of sex selling...

3.) NickyBoi and his video "Riot Refuses to Rework Cassiopeia... So I did it for Them."

It is no surprise that when it comes to women in the videogame industry as a whole and even in comics and movies, women are not allowed to be anything but conventionally attractive without having a reason for it. We often hear the “But why can’t women be powerful aaaaand conventionally attractive?” argument that isn’t really an argument. Being attractive should not be the ONLY part of our power fantasy.

Men can be anything from hideous monsters who can bite the head off of a motherfucker, to someone who is built like a Greek god with biceps on top of biceps with biceps as a cherry on top with 12 pack abs that you could cut a steak on.

If men can have a diverse set of power fantasies to choose from, then women should get just as much diversity with that.

Which is why I bring you to this video.

Sexuality and seduction are just as much of a power fantasy but it needs to have a purpose. So when it comes to the redesigning of this character Nickyboi had to legitimately overhaul a small chunk of her story: the fact that she was supposed to be terrifying to her fellow Noxians.

She was supposed to be considered “scary” and unworthy of civilization. But Nickyboi was not satisfied with his monstrous design for her, so he wondered that if being a seductress is supposed to be a part of her past and is supposed to get her magic from the ascended, then perhaps, he could combine both sides of the story and make her a villain that won, thus leaning into full-on fanservice.

 When designing your characters, you must take their past into consideration, and this is why Cassiopea was such a terrible design at first. Simply overhauling her story and actually taking into account the region she was born into and the one she stays in allows her new design to actually fit her as a character and keeps everything intact.

But when coming from scratch it can be hard but simply looking around and starting with the story can allow you to keep a level head and ensure that you are able to work within your means. But that means we have one last thing to address…

Character Writing:

When it comes to writing characters there are some people who want to say that there is no wrong way to write a character, but there is a VAST majority of people who will grab you by the shoulders and tell you, that there is a correct way to write a character and will give you a long list to go through to get you started.

However, I will tell you the truth: It depends on what you’re writing.

When I start creating a character I sometimes have to take a step back and prevent myself from jumping into a pit.

I am sure that you’ve noticed within mine and Sarco’s writing, especially when it comes to the Ocs, they are devastatingly dark.

But I’m going to level with you here. The majority of those characters are mine. Edelweiss, Sketch, Klezmer, Katagma, Izanagi, Occultatum, Cyberberry – they’re all mine. But we’re going to focus on one here in this exampleI am going to give you, and that’s Sketch.

Before I made Sketch, I had another character that was basically made during my childhood, and was a silent wish of mine. I didn’t want to have emotions anymore.

And there are times when I still wish that, and that is one of the reasons why Sketch is like that. He is that power fantasy. Unlike Ink, he has the ability to be completely emotionless and function as such. But when it comes to exploring that fantasy, it has its downfalls. And it is fascinating because as an adult I realized that that wish is not a wish – it is a curse. That isn’t to say that people with ASPD, or even just low-empathy are sick, or broken, or anything of the sort.

They have struggles. Real actual struggles. So when it comes to exploring such a concept is finding those struggles and figuring out how to humanize them. I had to take a step back and ask myself, “How would this be interpreted logically, with little to no emotion in it?” and I had to sit there for a fucking hour trying to answer that.

It was only after that Sarco informed me that little to no empathy is not indicative of little to no emotional basis whatsoever, so I had to start back at square one. Sketch having absolutely no emotion would not mean he has ASPD. With a complete lack of emotion, that is something else entirely. Plus, assuming those with little to no empathy have no emotional experiences at all is ableist, so I’m learning better from that. The psychology field is fucked, let me tell you that much. Each and every single mental illness can overlap with each other or trigger one another like a fucked up domino effect. But when writing Sketch, I learn more about him oddly enough, and even then I learn how he could be healed as a person while still staying the same person, not being rebooted, not just flipping a switch and making him “good” again, or “resolved”.

One of the things that truly inspired me when it comes to writing characters with mental illnesses, with “points” that don’t exactly make them good people, but people who believed that they are doing good, is Arcane.

If you haven’t watched Arcane, I highly suggest you do it. Get a Netflix subscription or find a way to pirate it. It is something that will make you think. And that is what I like to do when it comes to writing.

I want to make my readers think, even if they don’t realize that they’re thinking about it.

I have one question that I have to ask when I write Sketch, every single day I write him, even when I’m not writing him but rather coming up with future arcs that will involve him:

“How will this affect him in the future?”

And it breaks me.

It makes me sit back and realize that I’m the cruelest creature alive, and I grin like a maniacal villain who has caught the idiotic hero in a trap that was years in the making that they have no chance of escaping.

This question is there because every story beat that is supposed to be truly hard-hitting and even traumatic towards the characters is supposed to be addressed, it is supposed to be something that affects them. There is a reason that the Negativity Venom that is running through Dream’s veins in the story that Sarco and I are writing is stated to have a permanent effect on him. There is a reason that it is described as something that swings a door open and it can never be shut because that is what trauma is.

Trauma, mental illnesses, character arcs, what have you – they are things that cannot (should not) be undone.

Unlike Pandora’s Box, there is no way to put all the problems back. There is no shutting it. There is only finding a way to adapt.

When writing, you are adding a piece of yourself. You are opening yourself up and really introspecting, even if you don’t realize it. You are ripping a small chunk out of you and putting it to words. It’s one of the reasons why writing is so emotionally draining sometimes. But that is what makes good stories. They can be so incredibly human.

Or if not human, settle for alive, meaningful nonetheless. Make the characters living forces, something with a motive and a struggle. The characters don't even have to literally be alive, it’s just gotta be something that moves the reader. A lot of elements in storytelling are so impactful because some part of them was inspired by reality.

Character writing has just as much importance as visual design, because writing is just design in a different form, and there is no shame in reshaping it time and time again until the concept fits what you’re going for.

But most of all, you have to put in effort, thought, and research. I went on a rant once about how much I hate it when people do not put in effort into their designs or writing because it becomes so incredibly evident so easily. But when you put in effort. When you try your best, it becomes so incredibly obvious to all of those who have an invested interest.

Just do your best and have fun while doing it. While there are some very important concerns with writing the heavy and complicated stuff, there is no right way to write your character. To start, you are supposed to experiment. Don’t let “perfection” be the enemy of good enough.

[caddy-crystal-queen]

Okay I totally get this is kinda counterproductive but I don't care. As a genuine question: why do people waste their lives and time on this earth just to hate things? Like...I don't get it. I just took five minutes to read this incredibly long ass rant about the complexities of a certain controversial scene in GoT and then they used it as an angle to talk about another pair in HoTD. Then said at the end they were done with the show and wanted nothing to do with it.

My girl/guy/they...IF YOU ARE DONE THEN BE DONE!

Half the stuff this particular individual posts is about GoT/HoTD/ASOIAF. If you are done, then stop wasting your own time and be done with it. The one thing a person loses that they can't get back is time. If you're gonna waste it on something you don't enjoy then I'm sorry but yes, you are wasting your time.

"Oh I need to point out all this stuff-"

Why? Why do YOU have to if you don't enjoy any aspect of the show? You have literally sat there whining, crying, and bitching about literally EVERYTHING involving this particular universe, in between posts about another particular book/musical.

Stop.

You don't need to educate fucking anybody in regards to this show. Let people form their own opinions. If you're sick and tired of the bs, walk away and don't look back. Because honestly this is getting ridiculous.

And really this goes for anyone who does this shit. If you don't enjoy something, or you're just gonna whine and cry and be a little jerk to everyone who enjoys this stuff, walk away. Enjoy the stuff you yourself want to enjoy. Stop making yourself miserable for some pretentious intelligence points or some other nonsense you wanna use to justify it. And this literally goes for any fandom: from Star Wars to fucking Avatar or whatever great animated show is IN right now.

And again I kinda get that I'm being a hypocrite here because I kinda do the same thing for my "Who in What Fandom Needs to Be Slapped" thing, but at least I try to be somewhat funny with that. Kinda like what foamy the squirrel used to be before he got annoying and repetitive.

As for me, I'm gonna watch season 2 of HoTD because I like the dragon designs. That's literally it. A few of the human characters are interesting to me but not a lot of them are. I'm really hoping they show Tessarion this season but I doubt they will...

Justice for the Blue Queen!!!!!

[rivetgoth]

what do you think of cursedindustrialconfessions on instagram? and other fandom style confession accounts?

personally i don't find much issue with the accounts themselves but some of the comments and confessions are truly cursed 💀

Been sitting on this ask since I woke up trying to figure out why it doesn’t sit right but yk, here— I don’t have any interest in name dropping specific accounts or pages and talking shit on them (OR conversely praising accounts who I think are the "right" kind of fan). I obviously vagued a few specific instances I’ve seen of behavior I found inappropriate from online “industrial fans” in the original post I made but even then kept usernames out of it and even then I was trying to emphasize that all of these are examples of a larger problem, not that One Particular Guy is the harbinger of inappropriate industrial fan behavior lol. I already shared the bulk of my thoughts about “fandomizing” real life musicians and real life music subcultures/communities and my distaste for it, but ultimately every single topic (especially things that are ultimately not life threatening and I’d even go as far as to call a First World Problem) is going to have plenty of nuance and grey area and I think it’s counterproductive and even hypocritical personally for me to start making lists of the Good and Bad industrial fans/pages. That just as much goes against my view of the industrial scene as a community as the stuff I was bitching about to begin with.

I’m honestly a little nervous about the post I made getting a decent amount of notes to begin with because it’s not like I was trying to write the absolute manifesto on Correct or Moral fan behavior, though I think sometimes my posts are mistaken for such because I write a lot and very passionately (sorry), I was just complaining about trends I’ve seen in online industrial music spaces that feel disrespectful or rub me the wrong way, and ultimately was just trying to strongly emphasize that this subculture is an incredibly important real life community for me full of people I absolutely adore and I don’t like seeing the music or the people who make it fandomized or treated like weird quirky characters, with their experiences and traumas not taken seriously. Obviously there is a grey area to any of it, and ultimately I think stuff like memes or jokes about these guys, fan creations ranging from DIY’d clothing to fan art to fan edits to cosplay to whatever else, and even expressing sexual attraction towards them is generally harmless and normal when it’s done respectfully and thoughtfully, keeping in mind these are real people with real traumas, who are not that famous, who can and do look themselves up online and see what’s going on, or have friends who do and then send it to them. Like, I was planning to make that post BEFORE Ogre spoke up about how he was reading comments online about people complaining about the show not being as bloody as prior ones and how it upset him because the older shows were an expression of authentic pain and suffering and even literal self harm and this new show was an intentional movement towards something new and the fact that he’s in a better place in life now… He said that because he saw firsthand what people were saying about him online!

So idk man. But ultimately if you really really want my thoughts? I think any time something is described as “fandom style” in the context of real people or an active real life music subculture all of my hair bristles like a scared animal and my fight or flight response kicks in lol. And I ultimately think that y’all are gonna have to decide for yourselves what you’re okay with rather than ask me, because Lord knows I am not the keeper of all that is objectively right and true. I think some of MY opinions for what is or isn’t okay might actually be more extreme than others (like I said in my previous post—I’m much more neutral on RPF than many I’ve seen, which I think is a controversial take? I just think like anything else there is lots of nuance in that conversation. Idk.), I just encourage anyone calling themselves an industrial fan or viewing it as a fandom to try dipping their toes into an IRL alt music scene and start talking more to old timers and going to shows and clubs and making friends and connections that way with other people who are devoting parts of their life to actively engaging with the community surrounding this music face to face because I think it can very quickly change your perspective for the better and kinda demystify some of the more fandom-y mindsets that these guys are larger than life caricatures to be memed on the same way you would talk about like, Herbert West or Will Graham or whatever.

[thebrokengate]

And not to make this thread that I've already started referring to as the Perryshmirtz Bible even longer considering how long it already is, but I'd just like to say that even if this relationship isn't your cup of tea (which is totally fine, like what you like, dislike what you don't), I just want you to please note that every single argument I've seen against the ship's validity is completely fallible considering all the above points from canon and the fact that the show itself goes heavy-handed on the metaphor from It's About Time! forward. There's a pretty clear metaphorical multi-season arc about cheating and fixing the collateral damage that caused for both parties from that episode up to Lost in Danville, using both symbolism and allegorical text to make that point (Perry walking in on Peter and Doof fighting, there's a paw mark on Doof's cheek - you can already guess what that's supposed to mean, hiding Peter away in the closet, the whole song afterwards where Perry sadly accepts being replaced, literally going on what looked like Dr. Phil to fix the relationship, and then when you look at Lost in Danville - Doof telling Professor Mystery he would "never want to be the other evil scientist" AKA the other man, Doof calling Peter his "thwarty call" [really? that flew right under Disney's radar? LMAO], "what could he give you that I couldn't give you?" and that whole scene where I was wondering whether or not I should even be there because that got way too personal, etc. Cartoons are no stranger to metaphors). So yeah, it's completely supported as a metaphor already in canon, and even outside of that, it's often been supported in other canon works and merchandise, and even been supported by Dan and Swampy themselves as a valid ship.

And after all, why shouldn't it be in a world where one of Doof's exes left him for a whale, a man can be in love with a milk carton and have milk carton kids, a teacher can be in love with a desk, and a kid can be in love with an ice cream machine? Not to mention as well, Marty the Rabbit Boy and his musical blender exists which also implies the likelihood of him having at least one human and one rabbit parent (for all I know, this could be the son of Jessica and Roger Rabbit LMAO). It's also worth mentioning that in this universe, Major Monogram had to take a class on animal sensitivity for treating his animal agents as lesser species where he had to write on the chalkboard over and over that "animals are people, too". But hey, while we're on the topic, back to the Jessica and Roger Rabbit thing because I see us using that comparison a lot - and there really is no difference. "But Perry can't talk" neither can people who are mute. Even besides that, he did at least once in Night of the Living Pharmacists where he was turned into one of the Doof-zombie animal hybrids like the other agents, and he was the only animal agent who did say "lots of me" in clear English whereas the others kept to their regular animal noises, which sort of implies that Perry could probably speak at least some English, but rather chooses not to, much like how Ferb most of the time chooses not to speak. "But the toons know that they're toons; this is reality for PNF characters" not necessarily - there's been jokes and moments in the past that regularly break the fourth wall, implying that they either know or at least have some knowledge of the idea that they're living in a cartoon show world. And even still, that doesn't matter so much when you take into account the rest of the rules of this particular universe. And dare I say it, the Who Framed Roger Rabbit? universe was just as crazy in collaboration with the real world (a universe that also similarly used cheating metaphors like catching Jessica playing patty-cake with another man - though the metaphors there were even more on the nose), and if memory serves, even the cartoon baby was literally like a 40 year old man who was regularly getting bitches, lmao. I'll bet you anything that Dan and Swampy sat down to watch that movie one day, were told they couldn't make anything crazier, said "hold my beer", and that's how we ended up with Dwampyverse in the gloriously weird way that it's been presented.

I get it looks weird from an outsider's viewpoint, too. I was you a few weeks ago before my rewatch, because I hadn't seen the show since I was 6 or 7 and forgot that all of these things even happened, but it's pretty blatant when you watch the show especially as an adult. That metaphor is almost impossible to miss. Even I was surprised that Disney let all of that stuff slide the way they did, but because it can be somewhat passed as humorous because one character is a platypus and the other is human presenting (ocelot adoption aside), that's probably why they let the metaphor run its course more openly than, say.. shutting down Buford and Baljeet's queercoding with bromance and "he's like my least favorite brother" because they're two human boys and Disney just can't give the LGBTQ+ crowd anything.

But anyway. It's fine if you're not interested in or don't like Perryshmirtz - I wouldn't force anyone to ship it, or to ship anything in general. If you don't like it, you don't like it, end of story. But where I do stop you is when you're making arguments against its in-universe validity, because by validity standards alone, the rules of the PNF universe checks out. Comparing a cartoon universe to our own only works so far when cartoons regularly bend the rules of our reality to the furthest point it can. I mean honestly, if half the contraptions that Phineas and Ferb build in one single day could A) actually be built that fast and B) could work flawlessly the way they do without extended time for testing and research needed, we could've solved so many problems in the world already. And that's just cartoon universe basics, that's not even getting into the logistics of how much these things would cost in our world or even cartoon physics. But regardless, if it's valid by the cartoon universe's standards before the court, then it's a valid relationship in that universe.

the dynamic between heinz doofenschmirtz and perry the platypus would probably come off as v romantic and gay if they were two people in a similar age range rather than a dude and a platypus. no i dont ship them but think about it. villainous monologues are already a very romantic and gay thing in itself (don’t question me on this you know im right). listening to somebody ramble excitedly about something they’re proud of is even more romantic and cute af. also doofensmirtz is already gay anyway. the only thing preventing this from becoming Peak Gay is the fact that perry is strictly professional and also a platypus. thanks for coming to my ted talk

[captainaikus]

okay first of all *clears throat* how are you? are you feeling better? has the tea and comfort show binging been helping? i hope you get better soon!! second I FREAKING LOVE THE NEW THEME THE HECK IT LOOKS SO GOOD!!!! and third for the ask game can I ask 🤩, 🔮, and 💌? and fourth. Oh my God. The fact that you love Haikyuu and Tokyo Revengers is literally amazing adhkkjhhhgf. Who’s your favorite character? Are you caught up in the manga? Did you hear the devestating news that the rest of Haikyuu is gonna be animated into 2 movies? I wanna sob like they can’t do my comfort show like this there are too many scenes they’re gonna have to cut out and God forbid maybe some matches too *sobs*. And Tokyo Revengers only had two chapters left. Yes I’m totally fine what are you talking abt 🙂🙂🙂. Last weeks chapter and this weeks chapter freaking destroyed me. I mean I say that abt every chapter but like THESE TWO GAVE ME SO MUCH WHIPLASH LIKE *screameths*. Anyways. I hope you’re doing good and that your day goes well!! As always *sends many virtual hugs*

- ✨ anon

✨ anon !! Hi lovely !! ૮⸝⸝> ̫ <⸝⸝ ა

I just got back from the doctor's, took my meds and healing, kinda bummed out that my roommates went for a halloween party dressed as ghostface basic bitch and the other was gluskin (he didn't look terrifying but his manners were; 'for the sake of our children') but i got chocolates so i'm happy and November is here (¬‿¬)

AND I HIT 900 FOLLOWERS!!

Its my birthday month so I have an excuse to skip out on No Nut November... but my writing? It's gonna go up a notch (¬‿¬) with the possibility of making it hard for you guys; pun intended.

I'm deciding to roll with pink as my theme. Spooktober is over and now its my month so I'm going with pink cause its my favorite color.

૮ ˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶ აThe theme is still in the making... but I'm taking my time with it and trying to make the blog look pretty. Theme said being; dangerous but cute

For the ask game :

🤩 : What led to your interest in the fandom?

I blame my brain, youtube, pinterest and instagram for this.

I was pretty active in the knb and bnha fandom (i was an aomine fanatic, still am tho) and bnha is something I've put on hold for now. With wattpad, tumblr followed and soon ao3 (my ex friend had to teach me how to use it). After instagram came, I got to see edits and that piqued my interest in the anime and I also followed pop culture accounts (that's how I found jjk and tr). Then came the writing. I've always had a knack for it, winning creative writing certificates in school and even writing for papers, there was always an idea that I had so, I decided to use it for writing x reader inserts for characters.

🔮 Any advice for writers working through burnout or writer’s block?

There can be a lot of reasons for a writer to have a burnout or have a writing block but its mostly to do with pressure imo. Can be because you feel that your writing is not good enough, could be that you want to keep the follower count high, could be a rivaling author or any reason.

To avoid a burnout, you need detachment and discipline. Don't write it all in one day (unless you're really up for it) make a bit of progress every day and add content to your writing. Don't let your readers force you into updates, taking your time with it is what makes the writing and reading more savory. If you have a writer's block, try something new. A change in environment always helps and there's not one particular thing you have to stick to. Watching a show and reading books has helped me understand the style of my writing better. You can follow writing prompt blogs as well and build your storyline around it (I prefer to create my own content so I have my own writings prompts).

💌 Is there a favorite trope you like to write?

Enemies to lovers (please the amount of hate sex I thrive on - five wrong one right readers know), forbidden love (planning to start this for Toji), mythology ( i had this in my wip and then I had to take it down), partners in crime (Bllk) and best friends to lovers (planning to write this for Bllk)

Basically, dark romance, slow burn, angsty with comfort themes.

Haikyuu : I really can't choose tbh cause I like all of them... sawamura daichi, miya twins, kuroo, Kageyama, Haiba Lev (victor and yuri's lovechild) and bokuto (the himbo captains sue me)

Tr : I like Shiba Hakkai (mans too precious and is the baby. Can't look a woman in the eye and yes, I like shy boys but he's also kinda a himbo), Mitsuya (must be protected at all costs), Kisaki tetta (his brain is sexy), Wakasa Imaushi, Inupi (reminds me of shoto) and Kawaragi Senjuu.

Tell me your fav characters! (/ω＼)

Oml. The rest of haikyuu is gonna be made into 2 movies? This is as bad as taking beefy Bokuto away from the anime. smh its starting to look like the repeat of beastars and promised neverland (remember how disappointing that was? They literally skipped an entire arc with Hugo in it)

I'll have to catch up with tr. I haven't read the manga in months now but it wasn't a surprise that it was coming to an end; saw a lot of posts instagram about that

Chainsawman on the other hand. You guys aren't gonna like Makima. The manga readers already hate her.

*Sending back hugs*

[jinkicake]

Soaked

Iwaizumi, Kita, Terushima reacting to their s/o squirting. 

Iwaizumi Hajime x Reader

Kita Shinsuke x Reader

Terushima Yuuji x Reader

Enjoy, Anon~~ I usually am really fair with my writing and make each scenario and shit relatively the same amount of words but,,,,,,, today..... I was not able to that..... I apologize. Anyway, I am never going to stop writing about getting eaten out by Terushima so take that. 

SMUT // NSFW

WC- 1,645

~~~

Iwaizumi Hajime

Truthfully, I was only going to write Kita and Terushima…. I had the entire writing done and then I went to Tiktok for a break and saw a beautiful clip of my baby boy Hajime and then decided I must write for him

So,,,, here we are. THE Iwaizumi Hajime who has everyone falling in love on spot, the original hottie, the best ace who I would destroy the entire world for, my sweet baby boy

Iwaizumi is so shy and blushy even though we know damn well his dick would change your entire life, he tries his hardest to be gentle with you but he is still oh so soft

Iwaizumi is the type to go feral if you squirt, only because the idea of it is so hot to him

Like if you squirt for him,,,, Iwaizumi is going to have your legs bent over his shoulder before you can even blink as he fucks you for hours

Have we ever discussed the stamina that Iwaizumi has? I think that out of all the haikyuu characters he has some of the best stamina like this bitch is simply not quitting after one round 

I know boys suck and can only cum like once in one sitting but NOT Iwaizumi,,,, he can cum at least three times… if you can keep up then he has no problem unleashing his true potential 

Iwaizumi Hajime. Quirk : Fat C0ck. Wrong anime sorry 

I trailed off,,,, didn’t I? 

Anyway, Iwaizumi would seriously leave you dickmatized, and whenever you want to squirt homie pulls up like dw bbyg I gotchu and scene.

“Oh, Hajime~“ You moan loudly as his hips dig up into yours. At first, Iwaizumi had you on all fours, that was until he decided he needed to feel you. Now, one of his strong arms is wrapped around your waist to hold you against his chest while his hand is holding the front of your throat. Every now and then he will cut off your flow of oxygen, just to hear that sinful whine leave your lips. 

Iwaizumi Hajime does not mess around when he fucks you. 

His strong body feels so hard underneath your touch that you can’t help the way you press back into him, you love feeling Iwaizumi because it seems like every single touch of his is meaningful. 

“Right there, ah,” Iwaizumi tilts his hand down to rub circles into your clit. He always tries to be soft with his touches, he tries so hard but it only lasts so long before his fingers begin to move at a pace you can’t seem to understand.

“Keep squeezing around me, sweet girl, just like that.” Iwaizumi chuckles lowly, which breaks off into a moan at the way you clench around him. His hand squeezes the sides of your throat and one particular thrust inside of you makes you see stars. 

Iwaizumi looks over your shoulder, watching with greedy eyes the way your hips grind against him. How you so desperately try to meet each stroke of his cock into your tight cunt. His fingers are stimulating your clit so furiously that you aren’t able to hold back.

You completely soak his hard cock, the deep sprays paint his hand in your essence and Iwaizumi pinches your throat harder. 

“You like that, don’t you? My filthy girl likes to be choked?” He asks lowly, not once letting up his thrusts or the assault on your clit. “Let me see you do that again.”

Kita Shinsuke

Kita is just so…. Wow, over the last month I discovered this character I fell in love yet again,,,,

I wasn’t expecting this and I genuinely thought I was going to be a Suna bitch but I proved myself wrong…. Something about Kita’s personality gives me such a sense of security LOL

Yes, hello, I am back with the Kita Daddy™ agenda,,,,,, I won’t let it go

He’d be so shocked when you first squirt for him,,, like this mf’s jaw will drop and he will just stare at you like holy shit 

I think the messiness of it all would really turn him on like it will make his dick sooooo hard

Bruh Kita would find out all the ways to make you squirt so he can see you do it again, this mf is going to put you in so many positions 

It’s like a science experiment, how can Kita make his s/o squirt for him? 

Please, Daddy Kita will want to fuck you so hard like he will ache for you…. He wants to cum so badly

I think you could genuinely have Kita in the palm of your hand in this instance, his overall need for you will seriously cloud his mind and you could do anything you want with him

But you know Daddy Kita will only let you get so far~ POWER BOTTOM KITA 

“Ah, baby slow down.” Kita moans as his eyes flutter shut, with the way you are bouncing on his lap there is no way he is going to last long. His large hands grip your waist tightly and he tries to hold you flush against him, anything to break his focus on your tight warm walls sucking him in. “If you keep doing this, Daddy won’t be able to last.”

The warning goes straight to your clit and you giggle foolishly, a loving smile appearing on your face as you stare down at your boyfriend who is withering underneath you. 

“But if feels so good, Daddy.” You tell him and moan loudly when his cock rubs against that spongy part inside of you. “Especially, right. there.” You whimper and toss your head back, rubbing your clit against his harsh pubic hairs. The sensation feels too good and you eagerly reach down to relieve that tension. Kita snaps his eyes open and pushes your wrist away. 

“No.” He warns and you bounce in his lap angrily, much like a little temper tantrum. Kita growls lightly before bringing his fingers down to your clit, using four digits he rubs your little pearl back and forth as you grind into his lap. 

Kita can never be soft with you, he loves to please his baby girl and will do anything he needs to do to accomplish it. He has never had such a lack of control over a situation but, he can’t find it within himself to hate it.

“Yes, y-yes,” You hiccup and arch your back, letting go all over his hard cock as you squirt in his lap. The liquid sprays all over his abdomen and hand, a sight that Kita never wants to forget. Kita purposely moves his fingers faster to get you to squirt all over him, letting you completely drench his skin.

“Keep going baby, I know you have more.”

Terushima Yuuji

You know,,,, YOU KNOW I HAD TO DO TERUSHIMA HAHHAH >:-) He is just so damn fine 

Can we acknowledge the piercing for a moment like I know there is no reason to do so but,,,,, have you thought about Terushima’s TONGUE piercing today? Oh, you haven’t? Well… now you have </3

Terushima will literally rearrange your guts, destroy your insides, his dick will cause you to go through an identity crisis ….. too much?

When you squirt for Terushima he is going to become the cockiest mf ever

He will quite literally almost cum in his pants, he just seems like the type to think it is the hottest thing ever

He’d want to see you do it again and again and again, please he is going to work your body

If you squirt while he is eating you out,,,, Terushima will fall in love.

Please he is already so arrogant and this will fuel this ego to a point of no return 

He will act like he solved world peace or something like he did the most amazing thing ever….

I mean giving your s/o who you love more than life itself a mind-blowing orgasm does deserve a reward 

“That’s it, give into to me.” Terushima chuckles against your clit, the vibrations of his moan send your hips flying up into his face. Terushima has had you like this for hours, he has been eating you out for so long you don’t even know how he can even stay focused anymore. His chin is soaked and shines in the light with your release, the entire sight makes you feel hot inside. 

When Terushima pokes his tongue out to wet his bottom lip, the silver piercing catches in the light and you can only think about how badly you want him to eat you out for another handful of hours. Terushima spoils you, he really does and it’s to the point that you sometimes wonder just how deep his feelings are for you. Not like you’ll ever speak up on it. You don’t have enough time to continue your thoughts because Terushima begins his ministrations once again. 

Two slender fingers prod at your entrance and you whine in frustration, you just want him to stuff you full even if it is just with his fingers.

“Yuuji, fuck me!” You grip his dyed hair and yank it harshly causing the boy to nip at your clit, the feeling against your swollen bud sends your eyes rolling to the back of your head. At the exact moment, he thrusts two of his fingers up into you, shallowly curling along your walls and hooking on a spot he knows too well. 

Much to his delight, and utter surprise, you cum again. It happens so fast this time that he barely had to touch you. However, what surprises him the most is the way you squirt on his fingers and even on his chin. Terushima doesn’t even know how to react but he continues to thrust his fingers, just to hear that squelching noise echo throughout the room. 

“You are the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.” His voice is low and he speaks in amazement, even you’re too shocked to say anything, because that has never happened before. “I’m never letting you go (Y/N)."

~

Taglist.

@yams046 @why-am-i-sad-and-sleepy @xhanjisungiex @xxashshs @chaosamu @angelkogane @augustdearly @kunimwuah  @lovellucy @osamuonigiri @pearzuko @darksxder

[thorniest-rose]

Watching that video of the KK3 screentest has been making me think a lot about Daniel and his dynamic with other men in the TKK movies. I just want to know why every rival of Daniel’s – and honestly it’s so weird that Daniel even has so many rivals in the first place when he’s such a twiggy little thing and isn’t overtly macho or aggressive in any way – gets heated around him in a way that continuously borders on sexual? Like yes men are competitive, but why is it always so obsessive? Why target a boy whose biggest crime is having a smart mouth, but who always wants to be amicable and friendly?

Take that screen test. Why does the actor auditioning to play Mike Barnes (and who would get the role of Snake) talk to Ralph like he’s seconds away from trying to fuck him? Why is this take so low and heated, why does he get so close, why does he look at Ralph’s mouth like that, why does he call Ralph female-coded insults like PUSSY and BABY, and why does he try to get under his skin by explicitly talking about sex? It’s such an interesting way of performing that scene. Like the whole thing brims with this unexpected sexual energy and it leaves you asking, does this man want to fight Daniel or fuck him? And that’s an ambiguity that’s hounded Daniel in these movies from the moment Johnny sees him on the beach at the start of TKK. And it’s not just Johnny, but all his Cobra Kai friends; it’s Kreese; it’s Chozen in KK2; it’s Terry Silver in KK3. 

So I want to know: is Daniel just the sexual obsession of every single bully he meets? I get that’s he an annoying motormouth, but why the fixation? Is it because he’s so pretty (he’s a tough kid, but he’s so soft and delicate too) that hatred quickly froths over into desire? After all, desire is a feeling that can be just as red-hot and intense as rage. And just as destructive. Do all these men look at Daniel and instantly think, “I should want to beat him up but I actually just want to make him my bitch”? Is that what makes them so intensely angry at him? To the point where they won’t give up until they’ve destroyed him? I’m also thinking of the KK rehearsal scene with William Zabka where Johnny basically says, “I torment you because I like it,” which very much denotes that Johnny gets pleasure from hurting Daniel and seeing him in pain.

Then there are all the scenes with Terry Silver in KK3. Silver’s tasked with taking revenge on Daniel, but the way he goes about it is so particular. He doesn’t just hurt Daniel, but instead charms him, isolates him, and endears himself to Daniel with flatteries and lies. He then exerts his influence to dominate Daniel, uses BDSM language to condition him, orders him to call him sir, and meets him in a shadowy, dark building where he teaches Daniel about finding power through pain (does that sound like a sex dungeon to anyone else?). So does Daniel just naturally bring out the unhinged D/s fantasies in every man he meets?

It’s fascinating and completely accidental I’m sure, but it’s been making me think about the dangers of internalized desire and how men come to grips with their sexuality when it's a source of shame. And that’s so often through violence, which mirrors the passion and intensity of sex. But it’s also making me think about Daniel as a character. It’s interesting that Ralph Macchio was cast in the role, a boy who looked much younger than 22 (to denote an innocence?) and in contrast to Zabka, was soft and skinny, with big, expressive eyes. Zabka, in subsequent interviews, has even described Ralph as a deer. An animal that's associated with grace, kindness and natural beauty. So Daniel isn’t just any boy, he’s an androgynously beautiful boy who melds typically masculine qualities (determination; independence; resilience) with typically feminine ones (kindness; empathy; vulnerability). 

And maybe that combination is threatening to the men he meets. At a time in the 80s when aggressive machismo was idealized, Daniel represents something Other. He’s not like these other boys, though he masks himself as one of them, and they sense that immediately. The way pack animals can sense an interloper or something that doesn’t belong. Maybe hurting him is a way of punishing him for that difference, but also allows them to be be close to him in a way that isn’t openly sexual, but is close enough to be. Because when you see these pictures of Daniel cringing, moaning, and crying after being beaten up, without context it can be hard to tell if it’s the result of sex or violence. And maybe that’s the point. Maybe these men want Daniel so much that every touch they give him, no matter how hard or cruel, lingers like a kiss or a long-coveted caress.

[eri-cheri]

Okay! So I've been meaning to do this this season and I hope you'll bear with me. I'm not planning on making it super thorough, just mainly highlights and other things I found fascinating! But without further ado, here is Eri-Cheri's MHA episode recaps ✨🎉

MHA Episode 90- Vestiges

Alternative Title: Keeping Up with the Todorokis: Pilot.

Quick Summary: We see in a flashback (because damn recap continuinity) that Dabi shows up after Endeavor's fight against the Battle Ready Nomu™️ and surrounds EndHawks in flames and then Miruko‼️ shows up and her sheer Boss Bitch energy scares local misogynist Dabi away. We then learn Hawks is *gasp* with the LOV?! Only to find out he's *gasp* a double agent?! It's all very dramatic.

After finding out more of bird boy's tragic backstory, we move to a Todoroki family lunch! Which goes about as well as one would expect. After some theatrics that would be the Kardashians to shame, we go back to our Main Character (Contrary to what this app thinks, that would be Deku)! And he's tired from doing suspicious rabbit themed activities. Anyway he dreams!!! And his dreams involve All for One! And One for All! And it's all mysterious and enticing and then he wakes up and breaks his window because it's been too long since he's broken a bone so he has to break something!

HIGHLIGHTS:

Miruko

The queen has entered the chat. You are now a Miruko simp. We are all Miruko simps. 👌🏼

Natsuo's emotional performance!

I was really moved by Natsuo's scene! Some comedic moments in the lunch didn't hit as hard as they did in the manga but at the end of the day, the emotional impact and purpose of the scene shined through. I really enjoyed how Bones delivered this moment! And props to Natsuo's Seiyuu

The One for All Dreamscape

This was so beautifully animated! I was drawn in to what going on between First-kun and AFO! Also the red eyes! The whole scene was absolutely breath taking!

Manga differences: They left out Miruko stubbing her toe!!!! 🥺

They left out class A (and Todoroki in particular)'s reaction to seeing Dabi pop up on their TV. This scene of Shoto remembering Dabi is actually kind of important so while I understand why they left it out, I kinda wish they included it.

-They increased Aizawa's interaction with the feral cat outside the Todoroki home! Which I very much appreciate! He's so dorky!!!

-I'm going to include the infamous slurp here because I want to clear up something. I read from JP fans on Twitter that the Shoto way of humor is because he is very dead pan and serious! I've read a lot of takes already disappointed Shoto wasn't more sarcastic but he's not supposed to be! The humor in the scene lies on the fact that Shoto is actually seriously pointing out the bad scar on Endy's face without taking into account his matching one! Natsuo is the one who notices the irony! So the anime played the scene right!!!

Shipping:

We got a new Ship BOIS! Finally all aboard the DABIHAWKS TRAIN! The tension! The banter! Yesss DabiHawks shippers, hopefully you gained more traction today!

EndHawks boy oh boy. Hawks's little Endeavor plushie is finally animated 🥺 Ah! The scenes with him and Endeavor are so sweet! His concern is so touching!!!!

Next time:

-Next time we get class A vs Class B + a "mysterious guest" gee, looking at the OP sequence, I wonder who that could be???

-Scene I'm most looking forward to animated: Deku fangirling over Bakugo's new costume!

Until next week my lovelies!!!!

[mollyolikeme]

Any Way The Wind Blows SPOILERS

Okay. Here are my ramblings in no particular order. Proceed if you care and/or dare. They a lot.

- I am emo shit. (I’ve said it before and i’ll say it again. Brilliant.)

- Honestly the ‘break up’ is important even though it HURTS

- Holding the wand together. I CRY. Knocking foreheads. STAP.

-The first real snowbaz conversation during the make-up. Was just …......… FAN-TAST-TIC. Just real conversation and being patient and listening. Like they were both being so SOFT and UGH!

- Fuck yes the emotional intimacy!

- The first night in bed… like simons trauma and love and how they interact and how he can’t cross the lines right away but wants to and he’s just trying to process NEVER having to ever make a decision for himself and think about his own emotions in his life. Boy thought he was never gonna grow up. He thought he was gonna be dead! UGH. He just. Can’t handle the emotions and I FUCKING RELATE!

- SNOWBAZ MAKING OUT. GIMME MORE.

- Snowbaz hunting that first time and the conversation about simons sexuality (no label!) and further talking about how Simon thought (but really never thought!) about his relationship with Agatha

- The fact Simon wanted to JUMP ON baz and never thought past that

- Simon telling baz he would let him drink him. Yup. Good boy. Good bois.

- The mutual OBSESSION they have for each other!

- NANDOS! Yes sir.

- Penny and Shepard. Penny and Shepard. Penny and Shepard.

- Penelope deserves SO much. She is such an amazing friend/family to Simon AND to baz. Ugh their LOVE for each other.

- I think Shepard is v good for her

- YES bitch get him out of that engagement!

- Shep reaching slowly for penny and then penny just moving his hand to reach her cheek. I CAN NOT!

- KISS HIM! You go Penny! GET. IT.

- DOMESTIC SNOWBAZ DOMESTIC SNOWBAZ DOMESTIC SNOWBAZ

- IKEA trip. Just get out. That’s my dream for them.

- MORE KISSING. KEEP KISSING. I LIVE FOR IT.

- every damn time Snowbaz goes to lady Ruth Salisbury’s. I love it!

- I love lady Ruth! Like YES grandmama you are an open minded and smart powerful woman!

- SNOWBAZ MAKING OUT AT WATFORD! DO IT AGAIN!

- TEAM SOLVING PROBLEMS! YES TEAM.

- Smith smith Richards can accept my foot in his ass. I agree with Baz’s reactions. Like yes son.

- I get simons too honestly. For him as a character, as the guy that he is, ya know.

- Smith smith is a HILARIOUS and TERRIBLE name.

- LOL. What a scammer though eh?

- CULTS! Why is it ALWAYS cults these days!!!

- The whole bring the magic up and then burn it out thing smith does. Like fuck you. Why do you think your special because you made up a new spell?! Lots of people do that!

- The kind of first time?!?!?!?!?!!?!?! MY PRECIOUS BOYS. YOU DESERVE THAT AND MORE IM SO HAPPY!

- Fuckin GET. IT.

- The conversations the communication! KEEP IT UP MY GUYS!

- They just love each other so COMPLETELY. Despite everything and especially INCLUDING each other’s ‘flaws’ (I weep with joy for it)

- Honestly the Britishism’s in this book were prime!

- GETTIN THE TEAM BACK TOGETHER! Legit gives me ENERGY!

- GREAT Watford action. Simon being Simon like ‘nope imma lie to keep my people safe’

- His people then being pissed at him. lol yup

- Fuck you smith you deserve to be embarrassed by Simon!

- You look like a fool because you ARE a FOOL!

- GO PIPPA! Spell em like you see em! LIAR!

- KAY. The character growth for all of our mains …….. you guys I caaaaaant, stop it! (Don’t ever stop. Keep improving yourselves you guys are magical beauty’s)

-omg and AGATHA. girl you get your fucking story how you like it. this is about you now! your life is your life and you get to do what you want with it! Herd goats and just chill! uhuh uhuh!

- WERK HEADMISTRESS BUNCE. YOU ARE QUEEN AND YOU ARE SMARTER THAN EVERYONE!

- Simons true nature just being protective boy to people who are assholes to him. Yes sir you are too precious.

- V interesting that rainbow gave us an open ended thing with smith. Like at least somewhat. I’m assuming the coven will be like ‘yea you are a fraud and we will not have you around people anymore’ but also she leaves it with him still being delusional and like ‘I chosen one. Uhuh dat me’ … ya fuckin’ knob. You aren’t it Smith!

- ALSO WOAH WOAH WOAH! On the MF SLY Nico (good for Fiona. Marry your angry boy. You deserve it. Whatever it is.) being like ‘you can’t be immortal only drinking animals’………………

- IM SORRY!

- That is a BOMB!

- WHAT. WUT.

- OUR BOYS CAN LIVE AND DIE HAPPILY EVER AFTER!?!?!? You are fucking kidding me! THAT IS ALL I EVER WANT IN MY LYFE! (Healing healing healing emotional healing)

- Beautiful addition with the Excalibur sword to give us the Simon Salisbury reveal. Just Beautiful. Thank you thank you thank you Rainbow. I think that is exactly as we need it. Like obviously a lot for Simon to work through. And he and baz LITERALLY have that conversation (‘it’s too much.’ ‘It would be too much for anyone’) I REALLY appreciate that scenario as the reveal. Like Ruth already knows all the important things about Simon and now they can just be a supportive and CONSISTENT presence in his life. BAWLING IM BAWLING.

- And Simon has his sword!!!! Yes boy! You look good with it! Baz thinks you’re Hot! Because you ARE!

- THESE BOYS ARE HANDSOME! WE ALL WISH!

- Okay but also the moment it hits Simon (and baz) that he killed his father…… noooooooo. POOR THING. (Crying real tears. Crying real tears in the park reading. It’s true.)

- HE WAS NEVER YOUR FATHER SIMON! NOT REALLY!

- ROSEBUD BOY!

- Yes that is the pet name and henceforth will be the ONLY pet name! (Actually baz should keep saying love because I SWOON)

- my thoughts are Simon is gonna keep his wings.

- Like he likes them and so does baz and honestly everyone does. I actually love that every time anyone who is important to Simon thinks about him without his wings they get a bit sad about it.

- I think he’ll keep them.

- I like that they left things with the nownext like….. those Vegas vamps will probably fucking kill them, let’s not get involved. And then literally didn’t talk about it. HA. (Fair enough. Not their problem.)

- Our baby’s get normal lives now!

- Like normal for them

- But they get to GO ON! ITS AMAZING!

- AH IM SO HAPPY FOR THEM!

- HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY

- Penny and shep are getting his passport and moving to LONDON! They gone be cute cute cute together and it’s LOVELY

- SIMON AND BAZ LIVING TOGETHER FOREVER!

- MY BOYS (crying crying crying crying crying)

- I can just picture Simon doing Sunday night dinners at the Salisbury’s and coming home with HEAPS of take home leftovers for his week because grandmother Salisbury would NEVER let him leave without it

- He’s got an uncle! And probably/maybe cousins!? Sweet baby aaaaaahhhhhhh!

- Daphne at home again. THANK HEAVENS!

- I really enjoy that baz calls her mum. I think it’s so soft and important on so many levels because she did raise him.

- BAZ DRESSING SIMON! COME. ON.

- I CANT HANDLE ALL THIS BOYFRIEND BEHAVIOUR THAT I AM CONSUMING! IT. IS. PERFECT. I AM EATING IT UP.

- every time each of them comments on how sexy the other is.

- Simon thinking about Baz keeping his wand in a holster on his wrist. And it being dead sexy without his shirt on. FUCK. ME.

- Okay okay okay but MORE physical intimacy!!!!

- Like Clothes. Get rid of em. Don’t need em. Confident with where things are going. Check. Communicating consent and checking in. Fuck yes check. Sexy sexy sexy. Check. Kissing kissing kissing. Check. (I’m dying just about here) (get it my sons)

- What does Simon say? Just like ‘do you trust me’ ‘yes’ ‘can I touch you’ ‘yes’

- I. HAVE. DIED.

- (I’m dead)

- (Me being dead) AAAAAHHHH

- I LOVE the on going ‘is this what people do?’

- That makes me feel so many things.

- FUCK

- Simons like ‘we just get to keeping trying and working and being close and trying and working and making each other happy’

- I WEEP!

- These. Boys. Have. My. Heart.

- They have it they have it they have it they have it

- UGH

- okay better leave it there. I need to READ. THIS. AGAIN.

- LOVE ❤️

[iron--spider]

I woke up at 3am yesterday to watch The Devil All the Time and I’ve been thinking about it since. I’m gonna put my thoughts and feelings and a review of sorts behind the cut, because I am gonna talk about it freely, so there will be spoilers! So don’t click if you don’t wanna see. I’ll also be discussing the content of the film and I know that might bother people, so that stuff is in here, too! And it’ll be really long because you know I can’t shut up.

So, I loved it. I loved it loved it loved it. I read the book a long time ago when I first found out Tom was gonna be in it, and the only problem I had with the book was that the POVs would change in the middle of a paragraph lmao, but other than that I thought it was pretty perfect. I knew the movie was gonna be pretty brutal, because the book is brutal, so I was prepared.

-BUT I think the critics HIGHLY HIGHLY exaggerated how bad the content was. Like, seriously, they acted as if this was gonna be a Saw movie. I was preparing for blatant, horrific gore, but it didn’t live up to their dramatics at all. There’s blood and nasty situations, but every single episode of Game of Thrones is worse than this movie, as are most episodes of any crime drama on a paid network. I actually thought they were super, super tactful of all their horrific shit. The dog death was off screen and the shot of the body (described by the critics as literally traumatic) was so quick (enough to shut your eyes) and in the dark. I also argue that particular moment is extremely important for Arvin’s journey, because it’s the moment he truly turns on his father and turns on religion entirely, and he carries it with him his whole life (it’s what he flashes back to when he says “I know what my daddy did” because it’s the marker of all Willard’s mistakes) and it winds up being one of the last things he does before he leaves everything behind. Burying Jack’s bones. So, like, I despise dog death or any animal death in my entertainment, but it’s important here and handled well. And all the worst death scenes are either extremely fast (Helen’s and Gary Matthew’s) or shown in negative (all the photos). I think Bodecker’s headshot with Bobo is probably the worst and is also pretty quick. I don’t know if this means I’m a jaded bitch, but God the way they were all whining and crying, I thought it’d be a million times worse. It could have been, with the book’s descriptions, so it was actually pretty tame. Lenora’s death affected me the most and they cut away from that, too. I guess it’ll still bother some people, but there are many, many mainstream things that are far more violent and gory than this was.

-I thought it was a beautiful movie. I never mind films that are slightly slower but I love ones that use their time to lay things out and really show us what’s going on, build the ambiance and the relationships. I loved the narration (which I was worried about), and it really made me feel like we were visiting a moment in time that was important. Like something that was written and should be learned about. Rumors in a town you’re passing through. The ghosts of past trauma and transgressions looming over everyone that’s left.

-I liked the changes they made with Roy and Theodore because I thought that storyline kinda meandered in the book and I’m glad that Roy was actually gone the whole time and not just neglecting to come back to Lenora.

-The only real complaints I can make, I’ll get out of the way here: I wanted a little bit more time with Carl and Sandy. Carl was really creepy, but he could have been much creepier. In the book he was the one looking at the pictures constantly, Not Sandy, and that really showed that he was the one with the sickness, the one pushing them forward and orchestrating it all. I thought they did well with showing how Sandy deteriorated in her efforts with him through the years, but I would have liked to see a bit more of their personal lives together and her fear of him and her genuine feelings about what they’re doing, because the book goes into that a lot more. I also wasn’t a fan of Lee finding the picture early and knowing some about what they were doing, because I liked how it was a surprise to him in the book and yet he still did all he could to cover it up. And lastly, in the book there’s a scene with Arvin after he kills Sandy and Carl where he’s in a motel and he takes like 18 showers because he can’t get the grime of what he’s done off of him, and he looks at the picture and has a nightmare about killing Sandy, and I really would have loved if they’d kept it in. It would have been another ‘acting’ moment for Tom, and it would have been nice for us to see his direct trauma and reaction to everything that’s piling on top of him.

-BUT that’s it. I loved pretty much every single other thing and decision that they made. The cinematography was TOP NOTCH. You could tell they filmed on 35mm film, you could see the grain, and it really, really added to it. Antonio Campos is a very skilled director and I trusted him at the helm of this story. Everything looked so authentic, all the sets and the costumes. The soundtrack and score were AMAZING and enhanced the film. Technically it was just perfect in every regard to me.

-Acting! Acting! God this was like...a massive testament to the casting department and the talent of these people. Everyone was on their A game. Bill Skarsgård has been on my radar since Castle Rock (which I recommend to everybody, both seasons) and he was so natural and great in this role. Haley Bennet was absolutely adorable as Charlotte, I loved her cute face and her sweet relationship with little Arvin. Riley Keough was so great as Sandy with the limited amount of time she had, and Jason Clarke is one of my favorites but he was unrecognizable in this as creepy ass Carl. Harry Melling was a far cry from Dudley Dursley and he did a great job with his screen time, too. Same with Mia Wasikowska, who didn’t have much to do (same as poor Helen in the book) but she was able to garner our sympathy anyway. Seb Stan was slimy and gross but he pulled it off so well. Eliza Scanlen has been one of my favorites since Sharp Objects (another one that’s brutal as hell but I recommend it, she’s so scary) and she was so, so great here. Robert Pattinson was ALRIGHT, everybody talks him up over this but he felt a little hammy to me and a little too over the top, but there’s no denying his talent.

-Now, the reason we’re all here. Tom. My God. As soon as it was over I just didn’t know what the hell to do, I didn’t even know how to....go on, lmfao. We all know he’s talented, that’s why we’re here, that’s why we love him, but his performance in this is just BEYOND all that. Beyond comprehension. The man is only 24 years old and he’s out here outacting people who have been in the industry for longer than he’s been alive. He is SHOCKINGLY good. I knew he’d be perfect for Arvin as soon as I read the book, but he just completely embodied this role in a way that I couldn’t have imagined. He doesn’t show up in the movie until about 45 minutes in (which doesn’t hurt it because of the strength of the leadup, Bill’s performance and the performance of little Arvin’s actor) but God, as soon as he’s there the whole thing comes to life in a way that it hadn’t before. Tom is literally just a shining light, and he draws your eye in every single scene he’s in, and when he’s not there you’re wondering when he’s gonna come back. Arvin, to me, is a very complex character—he has been inherently changed by how his father twisted religion in his childhood, how deeply he betrayed him by his behavior, but he still has a kind heart and a protective streak and the need to be strong despite the pain nearly breaking him apart from moment to moment. Tom is just outrageously good at portraying all Arvin’s little nuances, how he clenches his jaw, how his voice breaks when he’s afraid or trying to convince someone of something or get his point across, how his hands tremble after he’s done something he wishes he didn’t have to do, how his whole body wilts when he realizes he’s emulating his father. And his eyes. Tom can do so, so much with his eyes that it’s unbelievable. He tells you so much with just a simple look, a glance, a wince, a long blink. I’m not exaggerating when I say he’s just an absolute revelation in this, he cements his place in Hollywood with a firm hand and a tender look, and I will not be forgetting what he did here anytime soon. There’s a reason that everyone called him out for being so stunning in this. He is magnificent. He has a gift.

-I wanna say, in particular, how much I love Arvin’s relationship with Lenora. Their lives were both marked by such tragedy and pain and Arvin just took up the torch of protecting her from the moment he said hello as a child. He wants so badly to be tough, and he IS, but there’s just miles and miles of love in this boy’s heart, and it manifests itself for his family—for his uncle, for his grandma, but for Lenora in particular. I loved how he just showed up when she was being harassed and just ran in there without thinking, and it’s purely devastating that he was out taking care of her bullies while a worse predator was cornering her. The scene where she was sick wasn’t in the book but it was a beautiful addition. Tom sometimes wears this very open, unguarded, honest expression, and this is the only scene in which he shows it, and it really expresses the love between them and how much she means to him. Arvin didn’t find Lenora’s body in the book, but it was the right change for them to make. Tom was devastating here, and that pain and that moment truly fuel every second of his journey through the rest of the film. “My Lenora”. The saddest siblings. Both Eliza and Tom did so beautifully with this relationship and I hope they work together again.

-Favorite acting moments for Tom: when he’s in the car in the rain after beating up the bullies, when he’s in the church crowd and realizes Preston is insulting his Grandma (the way his face changes oh my GOD), when he finds Lenora, when the cop comes to tell him Lenora was pregnant (this is just....so damn good), when he was telling his uncle to look after his Grandma, THE ENTIRE CHURCH CONFRONTATION (the way he trembles when he’s trying to get his attention, how he speaks the whole time, how he slowly gathers his strength), when he thinks Sandy has shot him, the moment where he’s over Lee’s body and just....pleading with his eyes for him to listen and realize what he’s done. And the last scene, in the car, all the emphasis on his face....once again, he can do so, so much with a look, with his eyes. Someone called out the beautiful last shot in the film, and of course, it’s Arvin’s sleeping face. And it was so beautiful (and devastating, to think of him enlisting. Tom draws so much sympathy that you just want Arvin to have a normal life so badly. He deserves it, he does, but will he get it?)

-Last thing I’ll say, I really loved how, despite turning his back on religion, that God seems to be protecting Arvin the whole time. He’s terribly afraid confronting the preacher and that could have easily gone badly, especially when he tosses the book, but Arvin was somehow able to get a shot off and get the upper hand. And with Carl and Sandy, he senses something is off immediately once they pull off the road, and he would have absolutely been killed had Carl not switched out Sandy’s bullets for blanks. And in the confrontation with Lee, he once again shoots at the same time as him, shoots without looking, and manages to come out unscathed and on top. A few spoiler reviews pointed out that the last person that picks Arvin up is supposed to be a Jesus-like figure, almost like he’s finally been saved. It hurts that everyone around him that he loved is almost forsaken by God, but he himself is protected. It’s such a complicated commentary on religion throughout the entire piece, but it’s so interesting and engrossing.

So I’d recommend this movie to anyone that loves movies, loves Tom, can deal with a gritty story that takes its time laying out all the chess pieces. It is definitely heavy subject matter but it doesn’t go overboard with the horror as it easily could have. Yes, there are triggers to look for, but the critics hugely over exaggerated how awful it was. I can probably go get time stamps for certain things if people wanna ask me after reading this, but if you can get through a Tarantino film or any HBO drama, you can do this. And Tom’s performance is one for the ages and not one that deserves to be passed over or downplayed. It is beautiful and heart-wrenching—a magnificent turn that displays his monumental ability to reach out and guide you into any world he decides to make his own.

I loved The Devil All the Time.

[biteghost]

How do you come up with so many cool characters?? All of your OCs seem so vibrant and fleshed out. Do you have a specific process for developing them, or do they just kinda come to you mostly formed? I find I struggle with building a compelling OCs for D&D games & would love to hear your thoughts on character development.

(This answer got long, sorry.) This is a super nice sentiment, I’m happy you think my characters are all cool and unique!!

As far as process goes, uh, it depends on the character? I’ve spent a long time (years) rewiring my brain when it comes to what I think about when creating OCs. They don’t usually come to me fully formed - I get an idea in my head about a concept, and then over like a week or even months of fiddling I end up with a character for that concept.

A lot of the time my characters are simply people I wanted to see more of in media as a kid! Mostly, female characters I actually relate to or are as nuanced and messy as their male cast members, haha... (It was a trip when I realized in high school that I didn’t hate female characters - it was actually that none of them were written as well as the cool boys in the anime series I liked, haha! Be the change you want to see in the world, basically.)

Inspiration for characters (and stories for them to be part of) come from a lot of places. An easy piece of advice is to make an effort to intake media you like! Read new comics, watch new movies and television shows, read books, play video games, listen to music and obsessively memorize the lyrics - hell, obsessively learn everything there is to know about black holes or public domain characters (that’s what I did, lol...)!

(Note: ’New’ meaning new to YOU - you don’t need to only be partaking of media that’s created in 2021 - you can find a lot to love in media that was created before your time, or for generations before you!)

I must reiterate: intake new media that you ENJOY! You don’t have to like all the same things as everyone else, you don’t have to be invested in the same shows and podcasts as your friends. Varied interests and taste is part of what makes us all unique! Increasing your pool of inspiration will help you come up with interesting ideas, and help you find YOUR voice. Your particular interests and the niche things that speak to you will help you figure out what kind of characters and what kind of stories you like to create! But the process doesn’t end at just intaking media... When you find the stuff that brings you joy, analyze what exactly it is about that thing that speaks to you... Put it into words. Explain it to a friend. Make it tangible, analyze the feelings and why the series made you feel that way... and then take it and shove it into your own stories, lol!

Engage critically and thoughtfully with work you like, with characters you like, and it will help you have the language and thought process to recreate it in your own work!

My creative process is like an exquisite corpse of all the characters and series I’ve liked over my lifetime. I mesh them all together in a grim blender and what comes out is a shake in the vague shape as an OC, lol

BUT... it seems like you’re asking more specifically about making characters for tabletop roleplaying games like D&D? And THAT is a different process for me than making OCs for my comics or original story ideas!

I don’t usually join a tabletop game with a fully fleshed out character, actually?? I don’t spend a long time on their backstory, and I usually figure it out like halfway through the story, or through collaboration with my game master!

My TTRPG characters are usually whatever I think would be most interesting in the given game setting or set-up and... usually they exist in opposition to whatever the core concept of the game is. So, the examples I have from games I’ve played are:

In Cardians: West (World of Darkness: Hunter the Vigil): we played in a modern-day urban fantasy setting, where players were recruited into a supernatural Hunter group that was also a criminal organization that Did Crimes and Broke The Law in the name of keeping peace and protecting humanity from the supernatural creatures that go bump in the night. I played Andrew, a Lawful Good Police Detective, because I thought playing a character who would need to grow past his original ideals of ‘Right and Wrong’ in the name of the greater good would be interesting! (And it was!)

In SINNING ADVENTURE (WoD: Geist: The Sin-Eaters) we payed in a modern-day urban fantasy setting with the premise that the players all Died and were brought back to life by forming a pact with a powerful spirit (and getting cool ghost powers in the process!) I played Cassius, a character who could not cope with his death, and thus refused to use his new powers because they were evidence that he was no longer strictly human. It caused conflict in the group and world, but I thought it would be interesting! (And it was! Cassius was a Bitch.)

In Rex Machina (Dungeons and Dragons 5E), I wanted to play an Aarakocra, but was having a hard time deciding on a class or backstory... until I found out that in the ‘canon’ of D&D Aarakocra only live to be like, mid 20s???? Their lifespans are insanely short compared to other playable races!! And I thought that was stupid, so I decided to make MY Aarakocra, Izzy, a warlock that’s looking for ways to extend his own stupidly short life. His pact essentially granted that to him, giving him extra time to find a way to achieve True Immortality. His conflict challenges what’s ‘true’ living in this world, and his extended life is in direct conflict with a lot of forces in the world we play in, and while it is very stressful I think it’s really interesting to play!

In Lamplighting (Monster of the Week), my character Aicen is an assassin who made a deal with a demon and gained supernatural perks out of it... except I decided that she doesn’t WANT to be in this deal. She is actively trying to undo it because it wasn’t her deal - she inherited it from a CEO that she killed during an unrelated job. (Aicen is probably my character I’ve put the most backstory into, and that’s just because at character creation in MOTW you are given a lot of questions about who your character is and why they’re where they are!)

In Hand of Adam (WoD: HtV), the concept was that all players were going to join a post-apocalyptic supernatural-hating cult. I played Shouter, who was a self-preserving pacifist coward who also turned out to be a fae (which the cult would have killed him over). It was stressful but very fun. I love Shouter. He ran away from fights and didn’t actually kill anyone until the last episode where they fought God (whom he killed, lol).

NOW. THESE ARE ALL JUST EXAMPLES OF HOW *I* LIKE TO PLAY CHARACTERS!! For me personally, I enjoy playing a character who has built-in conflict either with the world, the story, or the other players. I’m only able to play characters like this because my friend group are all really cool and we all know that conflict is not bad - it’s fiction and we’re just roleplaying! If I didn’t trust my GMs and fellow players as much as I do, I probably wouldn’t have felt comfortable enough playing some of these concepts.

I don’t think you need to know every little thing about a tabletop character, and in fact, not knowing some things and leaving it up to the GM and story to flesh out is an easy way to help you get more invested in both your character AND the story your GM is telling! Tabletops are a collaborative storytelling experience, so if you’ve already plotted out your character’s whole story, there won’t be much participation from other players or your GM. Figure out what your character wants, and let your roleplaying and GM slowly put all the other pieces in place over the course of your campaign!

But the TL:DR about how I make tabletop OCs is that I just... try to give them a goal, an ideal, or a personality that is in direct conflict with some aspect of the game we’re playing. I don’t want the character to be undermining the whole game, because that’s really crappy to do to your GM, but I have to have something for my character to grow through or change. I like giving them built-in character arc starters, lol. I haven’t played a game where my character has gotten along with every other player character and NPC over the entire campaign since my very FIRST game, lol!

Also, if you’re having trouble, why not ask your GM what they think? Again, tabletops are collaborative! Don’t be afraid to talk ideas out with your GM for your character.

A final note about playing in specifically oneshot games (i.e. games that are not long campaigns but are meant to be played in one or two sittings). Personally, I always just retrofit an OC I already have to play in oneshots! When I make a new character for a long campaign, it usually takes me two or three sessions to find their voice and figure out how to roleplay them. If the game you’re playing is only one session, I find it easier to jump right in and get the most out of your character and the game when you’re playing a character you already know pretty well! I’ve played characters from my webcomic quite a few times, and it’s always a lot more fun for me than figuring out a new character on the fly!

SO UH, IN CONCLUSION... sorry if this is mad unhelpfu!! My personal processes are unique to me! but that's the point - no one person will have the exact answer that works for you! You have to keep trying until you figure it out for yourself! Good luck! Keep creating! <3

[butwhatifidothis]

I did it! Finally fucking did it! I 100% the support log for 3H….Holy shit, that took longer than I was expecting, lol. 

(Long rant, so heads up.)

I came in thinking “Oh they finally time-locked the supports, so I don’t have to have the damn cursor mocking me every time I open the menu like in Awakening and Fates, hurr hurr”. No no no no no. At least for Awakening and Fates, it was on my dumb ass for pressing the S-support and saving when I knew I shouldn’t. First off, if they wanted us to regain supports for Byleth in NG+, why the heck are supports for characters like Edelgard, Rhea, Dorothea and Lindhart locked? I don’t mean time-locked like the post-TS supports in a regular playthrough, I mean deadass “you can’t buy this, period” locked. “Oh it’s because you haven’t advanced that far in the story yet”. I can buy post-TS supports for the other characters, what makes El and Rhea exceptions?! The only thing that would be lost is that I don’t have to replay their entire route to get their S-support twice. It’s not like there’s enough differences between Bylad and Bylass to warrant the supports being locked, none of the characters specify a specific gender in their dialogue, and as far as different models go, changing models during a cutscene is coded into the game, so that should be no issue.  

After going through the monastery option enough times, the hubworld is in this weird limbo state where it feels like it was made specifically for Byleth’s benefit (faculty training, recruiting party members, etc,) but the rest of the party seems to benefit from it instead (Instructions, Motivation points, etc). The Explore vs Battle options just don’t mix well, which feels like poor design choice. You can focus on auxiliary battles to raise your party’s level, but at the cost of potentially missing out on more party members. You can instead focus on the monastery to recruit party members, but at the cost of Byleth falling behind due to splitting activity points between recruiting and faculty training, and being in the monastery means less time grinding for levels. This isn’t as much of a problem in NG+, but if a game needs NG+ to lessen a design problem, then that’s more of a sign to me that the idea itself needed more ironing out. 

 As far as using the monastery to raise support points goes, the hubworld definitely needs a revamp. The only (good) options available are Meal Time and Choir Practice, with the latter being limited to once per week and the former making me think that the monastery must eat their own weapons to survive due to how fucking scarce food ingredients are. Getting meat and fish isn’t too big of an issue so long as you have enough money, but produce might as well be an urban legend. There were too many times where I had 60+ fish/meat, but produce was at fucking 1. I get that they wanted to be “realistic” in having seeds grow once per week, but if it’s at the cost of a gameplay element being nigh unplayable, then some more thought needs to be put into it. Sothis is a goddess of life and time, maybe her powers allow Byleth to make plants grow faster. Just something to make this section actually playable. 

The final thing I wanted to talk about when it comes to the monastery is that, for some baffling reason, it is entirely possible to lock yourself out of key events like S-supports or being able to choose CF, simply by skipping to the end of the month. I’m not sure why this is a thing. It’s not like the game was designed with speedruns in mind (I mean, it is possible to beat a route in an hour, but fuck me if I ever succeeded in that), and nothing happens like a prompt popping up that you have to explore the monastery during that month or even limiting your options to just Explore (which the game has done before). This is especially weird for the quest in getting Jeralt’s ring (how to access S-supports), since Byleth is supposed to be sad in this month, so not being able to do seminars or Byleth being undeployable during auxiliary battles would make sense. 

The option to choose CF is even worse though, because at least for Jeralt’s ring it’s a Red Quest that doesn’t allow you to finish exploring unless you complete it. For Edelgard, however? A dime-a-dozen quest prompt you can entirely look over and skip. No prompt by the game, no indication to talk to Edelgard, nothing. FFS, Rhea’s tea time quest was given more thought. At least her quest marker is a unique color. 

(End of rant…sort of) 

…So anyways, that was my experience with the game, lmao. Now you or someone else may be thinking, “nonnie, if you had this many problems completing the game, why did you bother?”, and the answer to that good question is…I’m not completely sure, lol. I know there’s more than one reason why, so bear with me here. I know part of it is due to sunk-cost fallacy (“I’m already this far into the game, I might as well fully complete it”), but I think a bigger reason is because I knew ahead of time that the routes were so similar to each other that there was little point in having a route split to begin with (except for CF, but who gives a fuck about that?). Despite all of my bitching, I do really like 3H even if I admit that it’s my least favorite FE game that I’ve played so far. I guess a part of me just wanted to like the game more despite my issues with it. 

Now that I think about it, maybe the main reason was for fear of future mainline games. People are fear to like whatever part of a game that they wish, but I do think that 3H introduced some fundamental storytelling flaws that I’d rather not see repeated in the future, with me focusing on 3 in particular: 1) The Monastery, 2) Route Splits and 3) Byleth. 

Aside from what I already talked about in regards to the monastery, if we are going to get another hubworld in the new FE title, have it to where it doesn’t conflict with how the rest of the story is presented. Is it better to simply tell us that the Western Church is xenophobic in an easily skippable side quest early on, or is it better to show us? Enemy Western Church NPCs going after foreign party members like Dedue or Petra more aggressively and calling them “animals” or the like, the map having Duscari NPCs locking themselves indoors for fear that the Western Church will persecute them, things of that nature. Is it better to tell us that there has been civil unrest in the Empire and the citizens revolting against Edelgard, or is it better to show us? Enemy Adrestian Civilian NPCs, assassins specifically going after Edelgard in a map, maybe one where a large farmland has been stripped bare. Things like that. 

I’d rather do away with the Persona-calendar/Monastery hubworld, but if they are here to stay then they need enough content in it to keep the player engaged for 20-odd chapters, because there isn’t enough content in Garreg Mach to even hold up 12 chapters. Speaking of more content, if there’s going to be another route split in the next title, then there needs to be enough differences in the routes that actually warrants having a route split. Fates already did this well in having the route split be early in the game, along with the plot and story maps of each route being different, you could even skip to the route split moment on subsequent playthroughs, so 3H’s approach in having to play the same 12 chapters 3-4 times just felt like a massive downgrade. Playing multiple routes should feel rewarding rather than tedious, is what I’m trying to say. 

Finally, and most importantly, I know that no one at IS is reading this but on the off chance that someone is - please, for the love of God, do not make another blank-slate/self insert main character like Byleth. Or at the very least, don’t have them be the focal point of the story, it’s a big reason why AM just works better than the other routes. For a game like FE, “self-insert” and “protagonist” goes as well as oil and water. Now, out of those three flaws listed, the Byleth one is what I’m hard set on. The monastery and route split flaws, my opinion might be flexible within reason, but the Byleth one…not so much, lol. If we really do get another self-insert doll for a main character, that alone is going to make the next game a hard sell for me, because seeing all the praise Byleth got (and has been getting) makes me fear that IS is going to take the wrong lesson from this and think they don’t have to put effort in making their protagonist anything resembling an actual person and their audience will still lap it up. It would be one thing if I just hated the character, but I don’t. I’m disappointed, which is even worse.

…With that said, it’s still better than whatever the heck Cap’n’Crunch is doing. Okay, rant over. For real this time.

—

I agree with a lot said here! But I do have a few disagreements, though they’re mostly my opinion than anything else lol

And this first one is probably like, extremely unpopular given how much shit I’ve seen flung at this aspect of 3H, but like… I actually really like the Monastery? Like yes, absolutely, it should have done more to not shelter the player from how bad the war is and it should change more with the world instead of being in this mostly limbo state where apparently seasons don’t real. I definitely also have those complaints, but to me, the Monastery was fine for the most part. A lot of the issues you brought up, like supports and Faculty Training and supplies for eating, weren’t a problem for me almost at all. My only real gripe is with how hard it is for Byleth to get training in Flying, Mounted and especially Heavy Armor without NG+ unlocking weapons ranks, since they don’t have access to Weekly Chores. I do believe I still managed to recruit everyone while only unlocking C in Faith on my Maddening playthrough of GD, but it certainly wasn’t easy. But I feel a lot of the problem people have with it are on subsequent playthroughs where they’re trying to do things like 100% any aspect of 3H, which yeah is gonna exacerbate the issues tenfold. Cuz like, while those three weapons ranks I mentioned are hard for Byleth to raise, on Normal mode you have unlimited auxiliary battles to help with all the other ones. 

Like, I wanted to get Claude’s Dex to the max amount right? Just cuz I felt like it. And in doing that I found out just how tedious it is to get levels once a unit gets to a certain point, just cuz while Normal Mode gives you the Retreat option that lets you keep exp so you can drop a unit down on a yellow spot and get a decent boost in exp… you can do that like, twice or thrice on a story chapter. Once if it’s auxiliary (and not the freebie one). And that’s if you even have internet. And using the greenhouse to get Ailiell Pomegranates was a pain because they weren’t really guaranteed even if I used nothing but the right seed - doing that is more consistent, but not always, and I usually only got one anyway. It was annoying! But I was also doing a specific thing that’s gonna heighten the flaws in the system that I never would have noticed - didn’t even notice - unless I did that. The flaws are still there, don’t get me wrong! The Monastery definitely still needs improvement, battles still need to be a little more streamlined for future playthrough, but the flaws can seem a bit bigger than they are once you do certain things outside of a casual playthrough, know what I mean?

But, for example, when replaying 3H on hard mode and looking to recruit everyone after my no recruitment run, I didn’t come across any dilemma over “recruitment or Byleth being good, pick one.” That was the run my Byleth was usable, in fact - my first blind run that was no recruitment (save for Shamir) had my Byleth be pretty much completely useless while literally everyone else was fine. Also never came across problems with supplies for cooking (or at least not any big enough to comment on). So like, while these (and the above stuff) can certainly be problems for players trying to do everything everything in 3H, at least from my experience I just haven’t come across them. The monastery itself definitely needed a better story implementation, but yeah. I could’ve just been lucky tho lmao

I don’t mind how they implemented trying to get on CF at all tho lol. If you’ve been playing the game like it suggests you do - supporting characters and exploring the monastery  there’s no reason for players to have missed getting on CF. If players wanted to ignore one of the biggest aspects of the game I don’t really feel that bad for them when they miss out on very achievable things. Plus, CF’s requirements are nothing in terms of FE’s madness when it comes to getting on a route. It may be more specific than any other route, but like I said, playing the game as the game tells you to would naturally land you in it (the only thing that might be a bit unfair is that I think if you talk with Edelgard at all that month you have to decide right then and there, and then the whole month is lost. Kinda ass). 

Binding Blade, for example, requires you to do specific things that few first time players would think to do in multiple, random chapters in order for you to get the best ending. With absolutely no warning as to when these chapters happen and what to do in them. And some of these requirements are not fun lmao, I’d prefer how they did it with CF than with how they’ve handled ~secret~ stuff before personally

Pretty much agree with everything else though! While 3H is actually one of my more favored games in the series, I’ll be the first to admit that its storytelling is in dire need of improvement. Having the story and lore of the game just be spat out in lore dumps and this or that NPC just isn’t that good. Or if they are going to do that, at the very least give some visuals to go along with it! Imagine how much impactful Rhea’s story would have been if it was in a visual format, like CGs and/or a cutscene. It still would be an info dump, but at least we can see for ourselves how horrific the Red Canyon was for her! And I do not want another avatar in whatever next mainline game we get, personality or not. We’ve evolved past the need for self-inserts that all the characters Just Like lmao

But thanks for sharing your thoughts!! And sorry that it took so long for me to get to answering ;w; 

[trifle-of-doom]

The Hawk X Demetri Manifesto

Okay, here is the thing. Despite being well past my teens, there's a particular ship of Cobra Kai that has drawn my attention, this ship being Hawk/Eli x Demetri. When I first watched the show, I was actually more invested in the adult characters storylines than the teens. I immediately rooted for Johnny and Carmen, and I was always hoping for more interactions between them. But then I saw episode 2x05, in which the atmosphere between the Binary Brothers becomes way more dense, and that's when I started to see some potential for them. Not because I'm a deranged person who fosters abusive relationships, but because I immediately caught the hurt/comfort dynamic of the duo, which is something that works really well when it comes to fictional relationships. However, it wasn't until 3x10 that I said, "Ok, that's official, I need to see more of these two! I totally support them!" And I was quite surprised to find a fairly large amount of people who are very committed to this pairing, to the point it's caught the attention of the screenwriters/producers as well. Honestly, I don't know if the showrunners will ever have the guts to make them an official couple, and chances are their supporters will have to keep reading between the lines of their bromance, but in any case, here is my take on why Hawk/Eli x Demetri is an option worth to be considered.

#1 - The Bromance

If there's something that many years of navigating the Internet taught me, is that the main driving factor for fan-made ships is the presence of either a solid relationship based on mutual brotherly love or a bitter rivalry that may or may not flow into hate/obsession. If you consider anime fandoms, there are thousand examples that fit into either of these categories: Yugi and Jonouchi from the Yu-Gi-Oh series (yes, that's how old I am), Yugi and Kaiba from Yu-Gi-Oh, Sakuragi and Rukawa from Slam Dunk, Light and L from Death Note, etc. And our Hawk and Demetri fit into both categories. When we first see them, they are the stereotypical nerdy friends (possibly childhood friends?) sitting at the losers' table, who have no one else but each other. When Eli is at his most sensitive and fragile, you can tell he feels comfortable being with Demetri by the genuine smile he has on his face as Demetri is joking with Miguel at the canteen table. Through his sarcasm, the mouthy kid acts as a catalyst to deviate the attention from Eli, speaking for him, reprimanding Johnny when he makes fun of his lip and trying to make him feel safe. Besides, you can see a certain degree of frustration in Demetri when Kyler and his gang are harassing Eli, and he's unable to do anything to defend him. And they even have a jingle for their friendship with a robot dance, I mean, how cute is that? But of course, a solid friendship between two helpless nerdy guys is not enough to spark a ship to be rooting for. In order for the magic to happen, another key ingredient is needed, i.e. a little bit of angst. Which brings us straight to the next point.

#2 - The Angst (aka the Hurt/Comfort Dynamic)

Even though I never liked the Twilight saga or any similar urban fantasy young adult works, I can easily see where the appeal comes from; the attraction to a charming, dangerous person who could either protect you from any harm or crush you like grape. Although with different franchises, I wasn't immune to the bad boy trope either (Yes, I'm looking at you, my teenage self drooling over Grimmjow from Bleach). If we can appreciate the genuine, brotherly friendship between nerdy Eli and Demetri, the shift that Eli makes as he transitions into Hawk and becomes more aggressive and dominant gives their relationship a totally different flavor. Attrition sparks a certain tension that, in the viewer's eyes, could either flow into a brawl or into passion.

During the mall fight, Demetri comes to the realization that his former best friend is actually someone who can crush him like grape. We see Hawk intentionally harming him for the first time, and Demetri's heartbreaking expression as he drops the line: "You'd actually hurt me?" And if that line gave us a pang in our hearts when we first watched Season 2, imagine rewatching it now that we know what happens in Season 3. Demetri is chased down the mall, running for his life, and then he's locked in a grip, as his best friend menacingly advances towards him. Demetri appears as the damsel in distress, however his friend is not the one who will fight to protect him, but rather his tormentor.

During the party at Moon's, Demetri manages to briefly go through Hawk's mask and reach out to Eli, thanks to a casual conversation about Dr Who. But then the beer incident happens, and Demetri defends himself with the only weapon he has – his loudmouth. The situation is reversed, and for a brief moment, he gets to be the dominant one as he discloses all Eli's most intimate secrets. Demetri is now actively contributing to the Hurt/Comfort dynamic; he's no longer just a target, but he's doing his part to enlarge that gaping hole that has formed between them. And Hawk didn't take it well.

From this moment on, Demetri becomes a sort of obsession to Hawk, who hunts him down the school, teasing him and taunting him sadistically, like a serial killer from a horror movie, during the big fight. Of course, in real life, this would be completely insane, and the police/a social assistant/psychiatrist should be called, but in ShipLand, these situations are pure gold. Okay, we get it, Hawk wants to get revenge for the humiliation at the party, and he wants to crush that nerd part of himself he sees in Demetri, but he does it with such an intensity that it borders on ridiculous. It's like this is his twisted way to acknowledge Demetri's presence. Eventually, Hawk ends up smashed into the trophy case, and I confess I felt a little disappointed when Demetri broke that hug to give Hawk a roundhouse kick. I mean, it was a great comeback, but I was sincerely hoping for a "No hard feelings man, let's get outta here!" scenario.

Getting back to the sick and twisted way Hawk acknowledges Demetri's presence, he destroys his science project after he got jealous due to him being confident in his nerd self and laughing around with his ex girlfriend (whom the writers insist he still has a crush on). Speaking of Moon, I have a feeling she likes Hawk mostly based on his badass appearance. Remember when she goes "I like this (mohawk) and I love these (muscles), but I'm not dating a bully"?

Then the football match happens. Okay, let's break this down. Demetri trips Hawk and acts all sassy, and a fellow Cobra Kai is immediately ready to take him down, but Hawk stops him. "Fight smart, he says". Too bad that literally 5 seconds earlier he had shoved a kid to the ground just because his ex girlfriend (again, duuuh~) ignored him when he winked at her. And then, as he's trying to intercept the ball, BANG, Hawk hits Demetri, sending him to the ground, pretending it was an accident. So, what does this tell us? That Hawk has some serious anger management issues? Yeah sure, but also that he cares about fighting smart only as long as it serves as an excuse to leave Demetri for him, because he's his designated target. Again, this is all but romantic, and it doesn't necessarily have to be interpreted as him lusting after his friend, but it's undeniable that this dynamic offers a lot of ship fuel.

The arm breaking thing is just too painful to even analyze. We see a completely helpless Demetri begging for mercy to his ex best friend, who has made No Mercy his life motto. And that scream, oh that scream. All I wanted to see was Hawk realizing what he had done and throwing himself on his knees while begging for forgiveness. But I'm glad that at least we get to see he feels awful for what he's done, and I like to think that, as he got home, Eli cried out all the tears he had in his body thinking about poor Demetri at the hospital, with a swollen broken arm, all because of him. Of all the situations, this is undoubtedly the most deranged and extreme, and if something like this happened in real life, the wrongdoer would deserve to be punished and would definitely need to be sent to therapy. But in ShipLand, this opens the road to many, many different scenarios, in which the bully understands his mistakes and shifts back to the good side, or the two share a tender moment after they reconcile, or the traumatized character has to to learn to trust the other one again, or the bully becomes overprotective of his former victim, etc.

#3 - A Rewarding Reconciliation

Finally, we come to the reconciliation, in which Hawk makes his heel-to-face turn. While we've seen him torn with doubt for an entire season about his sensei's teachings, his actions and the people he wants to surround himself with, the key factor that drives Hawk's redemption is the sight of his best friend being held down for him to beat. And with an epic stunt and his awesome KEEEH screech, Hawk jumps to the rescue of his friend. Like many of us, Demetri thought this was still part of the "Only I Can Torment Him" dynamic I discussed earlier, as he steps backwards a little concerned, but then he understands that action was actually meant to save him, and the two begin to fight side by side, in sync, watching each other's back. You can see Demetri's eyes sparkling at the thought of having his friend back.

Also, not only Demetri stands up to alpha bitch Tory in defense of Eli, but he also speaks for his friend when he's faltering, just like he used to. So kudos for Demetri.

#4 - The Red Oni, Blue Oni Dynamic

Binary Brothers are two sides of the same coin and complete each other with opposite character traits, visually expressed by the color red and the color blue. Being the color red typically associated with violence, rage, passion and irrationality, as opposed to blue, which is associated with calmness, melancholy and rationality, red is clearly the dominant color. Again, this opens many interesting scenarios for shippers.

#5 - Body Language

Besides the situations I described above, which may or may not be read from a romantic/attraction standpoint, there are also a collection of small gestures I noticed when rewatching the series with a more attentive look on their relationship.

- Demetri's heart-broken expression when Eli shamefully covers his lip during the anti-bullying announcement.

- The smile Demetri gives when Hawk responds "Hell yeah!" after Aisha proposes to crash Yasmin's party, implying he's learning to embrace this new wild side of his best friend

- The astonished look with which Demetri watches Hawk at the tournament and the way he's pissed no one knows his real name.

- How deeply hurt Demetri is when Hawk belittles him by saying: "Five against three. More like two and a half." He even tries to reply, but he's caught so off guard that words die in his throat.

- How Demetri takes a step towards Hawk during the mall fight, before Sam makes him back off, and how sadly he looks at Hawk's nearly unconscious body after Robby defeated him.

- How Demetri smiles and nods when he briefly connects with Eli at Moon's party, despite the mall incident.

- How Hawk watches Demetri juggle with the cleaning product from behind his bike helmet (how did he stuff the mohawk in there by the way)?

- Hawk's psychotic/sadistic faces when he smells Demetri's blood, and how he likes to hunt him down like he's his prey.

- Hawk's secret impulse to comfort Demetri after the arm breaking (I hope you get nightmares of Demetri's howl of pain for the rest of your life, Hawk).

- The way Hawk twitches his upper lip when he sees his friend Demetri in danger.

- How Hawk and Demetri are so absorbed in their new-found friendship, that they're caught off guard, and Demetri swings Hawk to allow him to deliver a kick using their handshake as a lever. And how they keep fighting together, shaking each other's hands even when they're out of focus and the attention is on Miguel vs. Kyler.

- How they're standing so close at Miyagi Do, in comparison with the other Red/Blue partners.

In conclusion, this kind of relationships are engaging and entertaining to watch, and they make us wish the best for the characters. They make us hope that, in the end, as Miguel puts it, love really conquers all (and what is friendship if not a form of love?), despite all the hurt they did to each other.

So this is it. I hope you enjoyed my Ted Talk. Feel free to share it with whomever you want, especially if you need some solid reasons why this ship has got some good potential.

And remember: the ship is in the eye of the beholder.

F.