#realistically he'd be in the middle of those two

[vamprnce]

is the only responsible and mature person to wield a gun safely: Kaitlyn

is okay/safe w a gun but still give them supervision: Ryan, Laura and Nick

never ever hand them a gun: Jacob, Dylan and Emma

would never hold a gun in their life: Abi and Max

[goldsbitch]

Ah...

In a world where people get born with the first sentence their soulmate shares with them tattooed on their wrist, Y/N and Oscar are probably not the ones with the easiest story to tell.

note: first Oscar fic! this is prep for a longer 1k followers celebration...i'm a little too excited for that one

warning: pure fluff

Not everyone got to meet their soulmate, and that was totally fine. Her parents weren't soulmates and they still managed to have an amazing life. Why waste time waiting around and looking for a guy who's first word he'd ever say to her was suppose to be "Ah."

"Ah."...? What was that about anyway? Stupid wrist tattoo, marking her forever with a word so unimpressive.

During her teenage years, it became an inside joke between her and her best friend. A word to overuse so much it could truly mean anything. Ah.

Her boyfriend was definitely not her soulmate. He was blessed with having a full sentence on his wrist - but in French, a language she did not speak. The hot, dark haired boy was too obsessed with studying physics to take the whole concept of soulmates seriously, so when they met in university, it was a no brainer to follow the path set by hormones rather than fate and date together.

Only after they graduated she realized just how soul-crushing it was to spend time with him. When the social circles broke down and they were left alone, it was more than clear they were not a good match. But it's hard to see the tornado when you're standing inside of it.

The vacation was suppose save the relationship. Instead, their fights were laced with her running away and him having his eyes wonder around any girl walking by.

Only two more days, she said as she walked hastily around a garden adjacent to the villa they were staying at, once again. It was like a dance - they'd fight, she'd run away, he'd search for her and they'd go back to their room for a night of silence. On repeat for the whole vacation organized by the devil himself. The plan was to turn her life upside down once she arrived back home. Start fresh. At that moment, she had no idea just how fresh that would be.

She stood in the middle of a pathway leading to dimly lit swimming pool, tired and impatient. By this time her boyfriend would usually be on his way to get her back.

Finally, grass cracking sound that followed any footstep in this garden. She closed her eyes, unable to do this dance anymore.

"I want to break up," she whispered and turned around.

Oscar did not plan on speaking with this woman standing in the middle of the way back to his hotel room. He was just coming back from his late evening swim session.

When she uttered those words, it was like each of the syllable burned on his skin. Hundred questions answered and thousand new on the table.

Absolutely baffled, yet in his typical stoic style of keeping it together on the outside, while exploding internally, he couldn't bring himself to a more than..."Ah."

//

Oscar fully believed in the concept of soulmates and had no doubt that he would meet his, that's why he refrained from dating anyone who did not have the specific, very strange, words on their wrist.

"I want to break up"...? Why would this be the first thing you ever say to someone?

Over the time, he figured it would just be him overhearing the words. Or that he was one of the lucky ones, having a soulmate who has a special catch phrase they use when introducing to anyone new. He imagined his soulmate to be clever and cunning. And like the dreamer he was, he already had several versions of their meet up in his head, usually followed by their whole life together playing out. Oh, what a bliss when the moment would finally come.

But when it came, it took him totally of guard. Somehow, in all the scenarios he thought about his whole life, he missed probably the most realistic one. He was only trying to get back to his room and this girl was standing in the middle of the only clear pathway, as if it was nothing. She spoke with her back turned to him.

"I want to break up."

And when she turned around, after mistaking him for someone else, he saw a beautiful face, all puffy with smudged make up. And obviously in a really bad mood. He was, as they say, too stunned to speak.

"Ah." He said bluntly, too quickly for him to even notice it, processing the fact he just heard that one specific sentence, the one that should define the rest of his life.

She stared at him, as if he just offended her entire family. "What?!"

He felt..nothing. She couldn't be his soulmate. No way. Most likely because he had his response to "I want to break up" rehearsed his whole life. It was supposed to be "Worry not, now I am here." A lovely sentence to walk around with, right? He wanted his soulmate to wear the tattoo proudly, not with - what was it he even said? Did he even say something? He didn't, did he?

"Worry not, now I am here," he tried, feeling like he had nothing to loose. The words came out clumsily, as if they tripped over one another.

He was sure her face was already the most confused one could make, but she proved him wrong, quickly.

"Sorry, I'll leave you to it. This was obviously a misunderstanding," he said, trying to be polite and took few steps ahead to get going. She reacted and stepped right into his way.

This surely couldn't be it. But, emotions were running high, she thought she was addressing her boyfriend and was somehow trying to comprehend the fact she nearly broke up with him. And then she hears an "Ah." "What did you say?" she shot at him, no filter whatsoever, watching him with fascination and some flavor of anger.

Oscar was beginning to regret ever engaging in this conversation. "Worry not, now I am here...There, now, is that tattooed on your wrist? I imagine not, so, apologies and I'll leave you to whatever you're doing," he said, without giving her much space to respond. He felt slightly guilty about leaving an obviously distressed woman alone there, but his social awkwardness won this round and he just wanted this to be over.

"No, you didn't," she said, not intent on moving anywhere. Determined look replaced her sorrow.

"I'm pretty sure I did."

"And I am sure you didn't," she said, raising her wrist all the way to his eyeline. "You said this, didn't you?!"

It was not a tone of playful or even hopeful realization. Her delivery was spiced with unresolved anger that grew inside. He squeezed his eyes, having hard time seeing the small letters in the light of the nearing night. "What's that?"

She put her hand down, having a really hard time believing this was actually happening. It took him by surprise the speed with which she reached for his own hand, but his racer reflexes kicked in and he managed to avoid her.

Annoyed sigh left her mouth. "Will you show me your hand? I've already had a pretty shit day without you making obstructions."

He looked deeply in her eyes. This was a lot of emotion battling each others, little too much for Oscar.

"I'm pretty sure we're not soulmates," he said dryly.

"Tell me what's on your hand and I'll let you fuck off from when you came from."

"I'd actually like to go the other way-"

"Show me your hand!"

Visibly taken back, almost offended by her shouting, he reveled his wrist.

Time stopped for Y/N for few seconds. She was staring at the words she uttered just a minute ago. Decided to take a deep breath before she looked in his eyes once again. "Sorry for...screaming. We're almost definitely soulmates...You said "Ah." It felt good to finally know what kind of tone this sound was spoken with. End to the endless possibilities.

The irony of the fact that Oscar had a hard time remembering if he had actually said something so stupid dwelled on him. Did he? Knowing himself, he probably did.

"Ah," he repeated with a much heavier, slightly bitter, undertone.

"Yeah."

They just stood there, staring at each other. Was this suppose to be it? The moment he longed for and the one she already mourned? Just now she noticed that he was a gorgeous guy. Heavenly actually. Such a kind smile. Innocent look with a hint of spice. But she believed in love, not necessarily soulmates. Even if she did, this was the worst moment to do this. Little, almost invisible, tears started rolling from her eyes.

"Can I take a photo of you?" she asked, with defeated smile, wanting to walk away with a tangible evidence for her lonely evenings in the future.

Oscar was still processing. "Sure," he replied to a sentence he heard thousand times each month. Very automatically his body moved for a classic hug with a fan - which she rejected and just snapped a photo of his face.

"Nice to meet you. But I have my shit to deal with. I'm not good for you anyway," she said and sprinted back to he hotel room, to her current boyfriend and a deadend life. He just stood there, unable to comprehend. When he finally did, she was gone.

//

"Mr. Piastri, you understand that I can't just give you a room number to someone who you don't even know by name," the receptionist said, not backing down to his urgency.

"But she is my soulmate! She just passed by, surely you would know which one of the guests she is," he said, both hand on the counter, towering the poor reception lady.

"I'm going to have to ask you to stop this request or we might be forced to cancel your stay and remove you from the premise."

He rolled his fingers into his first, mad at himself the most out of all the people. "Yeah. Great. Understood."

//

Y/N didn't sleep for a minute that night. When she returned back without a word, her boyfriend didn't even look up. She didn't really care.

"Let's just get through these few days," he said and she just nodded.

Mind racing around new set of eyes she memorized from the photo she had, not having a clue that he in fact was a racer.

//

Breakfast. Oscar's chance to take destiny into his own hands. He was the first one to arrive and planned on being the last one to leave. And should she miss her breakfast, he'd move into the lobby. Determined to talk to her at least one more time. Sat there, drinking his juice and bouncing his leg up to the point it annoyed even him.

//

He'd probably be at the breakfast, she realized as her sleep deprived body walked towards the elevator. A stolen glance at her partner. They hadn't said a word to each other the whole morning. To think she once thought one of them would bury the other after a nice full-filled life. Coffee and croissant was her only hope now. And of course the guy from yesterday was there. Sitting at a table, alone, very obviously finished with his breakfast. Arms crossed and eyeing all the entrances. She couldn't help but smile and light up when she saw him. He sat there. Waiting. Was there even a possibility he'd be waiting for her? Like a soulless ghost, she followed her current partner and sat down to the table he picked.

Oscar was a secret over-thinker. He spent every minute going through every possibility of what could happen. So of course he was ready, in theory, for her entering with another guy or a girl. However, the whole nature of her first sentence to him was about breaking up. And you don't say that in a healthy relationship.

It was now or never for him. He watched the pair grab a seat few tables away from him. God, she was gorgeous. Seeing her walk in, summer dress proving the internet was right once again, made him weak in his knees and unable to look away. She paused upon noticing him, eyes shyly flashing back and forth, absolutely no plan or idea what to do. Awkwardly put her things down the at the table, fumbled around aimlessly and proceeded to walk over the breakfast bar. As she walked, she could almost feel his eyes piercing through her back. For some reason, it felt as if he knew something she didn't. she had to actively convince herself to act normal, as if this was her first time having breakfast at a hotel. Copy others. Oscar did indeed stare at her as if there was no tomorrow. Eyes glued to her back, cosplaying as the worst private detective this planet ever produced. He found himself getting up and approaching the bar she was standing by, the guy she came in long gone from her close proximity.

Oscar gulped before speaking, standing right beside her, pretending to be interested in a stack of apples. Her eyes flashed to her left, but she already knew who was standing next to her. It was as if she could hear his energy, something divine, intoxicating and most importantly - inevitable.

"Morning....I hope you've had better night than when you left yesterday," he opened with, desperately trying to break the ice. He was absolutely hopeless with small talk. His tone created a small smile on her face. This sort strange and unique tonality, which was exceptionally hard to decipher, mixed with his Australian accent. Again, so many questions popping up in her head - her body wanted her to find out everything about this guy.

"I'm not sure that's the case. But thank you for asking I guess," she said and leaned over his hand to reach for a fresh peach. It was not her conscious decision to brush his hand, but it definitely could have been avoided. Neither party mattered. Two shy smiles were created at that moment.

"Would you mind sharing your name with me?" he asked, as she glanced over to his wrist, to look at his tattoo once again.

She answered, slightly hesitantly. "Y/N."

"Uuh,"

"Are interjections the only language you speak?" she whispered, still not over the whole "Ah." thing and finally stopped pretending to be interested in the breakfast bar. She did the best she could to meet his eye while not turning around and becoming too obvious.

Oscar was having trouble processing his body's reaction to this girl being so close now. "No, but I am happy you seem interested to know that."

It was impossible to fight of the smile. "I'm not, you're the reason I'm walking with this my whole life," she said, lifting her wrist once again.

He fiddled with some apples, trying to keep his hands busy. "I'd like to object that in this pair I'm the one who lost"

"Don't say the word pair," she said in a tone so unserious even she couldn't pretend to believe it.

"Why, does that idea make you nervous?" he clicked his tongue, feeling more confident with every second she stayed there with him.

"I have a boyfriend," she stated, lying to herself anyway.

He smirked. "Apologies, must have misread my own hand."

"I can't break up with someone on a holiday," she responded, reaching for straws, not even knowing why. She took two steps to the coffee line and to no surprise, he followed.

"You didnt seem to think as such yesterday," he said in more serious tone. "Look, I don't know you-"

"No, you don't," she jumped in before he continued.

"-But...let me present my hypotheses, so that we can test the whole soulmate thing. Does that not make you at least a bit excited?" he said, trying to hide his own excitement, which was something he did not have to do often, so he was not really good at it.

She found his confidence mixed with clumsiness so intoxicating. "It's overrated," she argued, perhaps trying to see how much he's willing to defend it.

"I'm so much looking forward to proving that theory wrong." There is was. The point of no return.

"Well before you do," she bit her smile, accidentally leaving a pause for him to fill.

"Ah, so you believe that I will," he said sith his signature "I won" smile.

"Again, with the interjections, you gotta unlearn that," she said, happy he couldn't see directly into her face, as she felt the blush spreading.

"Teach me."

"Stop it...." she froze, searching in memory a moment when he'd introduce himself.

"Oscar."

She finally paused and dared to look at him, or more specifically stopped resisting her wondering eyes. Her mind rushed through all the Oscar's she had the pleasure to meet and absolutely none of them did justice to the name. His kind eyes, while somewhat giving shy guy vibes, pierced through her fearlessly. So sure of himself, et somehow humble. An impossible enigma she could see herself deciphering for the rest of her life.

"Nice name," she said, in a completely new tone, one he hadn't heard yet. Calm, kind and intrigued.

"Thank you." They stared at each other for few more moment, utterly inappropriately for two strangers in a coffee line. Taking in the little intricacies about the other, as if memorizing for a test.

"You said you had a hypotheses?" she broke silence, not quite sure they were at the same planet as their surroundings anymore. All around them sort of blended together into an unclear, totally unimportant mush.

"I do. Hope I don't overstep."

"I think that does not matter now," she said, walls crumbling down one by one.

"Good. I think you don't want to break up with your current boyfriend now that you'd met me," he said boldly.

"Astonishingly obnoxious," she teased, unable to believe he caught her.

"Fair. But, yesterday you wanted to. Now, it serves like a perfect excuse why run away from this," he said and stepped just a little bit closer to her.

"I don't want to be a slave of some destiny bullshit," she said, while absolutely agreeing with destiny this time.

There was no way back for Oscar. Looking into her eyes was making him drown in lands never explored before. "Yes, but why reject it before we even get the chance to discover if we like each other."

"I don't even know you."

"Your parents didn't know each other at one point," he said matter-o-factly.

The reality was creeping into her mind. "I hardly know anything about you! Like where you live, what you do..."

He was not letting her go. "All over the globe, I am a racing driver. You?"

How come it seemed so easy and obvious for him? "Oscar, I'm..I'm scared." Intimidated was the word she wanted to use, but it felt a little bit too much.

"Of what?"

"I dunno...? Of this working out?"

"Do you realize that sounds quite ridiculous."

"...Yes".

"Well, I believe this is going to be great fun. Listen, it's not socially acceptable for me to bother you for longer. But I desperately hope this is not the last conversation we share," he lowered his voice, parting ways with her being the last thing he actually wanted to do, but his intuition told him, that he had to give her some space to come forward to his, her decision.

Y/N's head was a mess, truth slipping through, passing all the filters that seemed to have stopped working. "I am afraid it's not."

He smiled. "Good. Now, I'll leave you to your life - do whichever you think is right. But please give me your number."

"No, you give me yours so that I can call you when i want to. You know, boundaries," she ordered, trying to keep some control in her hands.

He trusted his gut. "Fair."

//

"Lady, I can't tell you where's Oscar's room." It was a different receptionist that Oscar had dealt with, but probably with the same training.

"But it's a suprise! Look, I have his number an everything."

"Why don't you call him?"

"You're familiar with the concept of a surprise?"

//

Unlike Oscar, she managed to convince the reception into giving her Oscar's room number. It was all the way up at the last floor. Fancy, she thought. It's impossible to convey the energy and adrenaline cocktail that Y/N was on when she was on the way to knock on his room and announce that she actually went though with the break up and the guy was on his way home, cutting the vacation early. It was unhinged, reckless, addictive. She had to stop herself several times, as the excitement mixed with fear was making her put on faces very strange to anyone who should pass by. If music was on, she'd dance for hours. Hell, she had no idea what was suppose to happen now. And that had never felt so exhilarating before.

With one last breath before her life changed for good, she knocked on the door.

After the longest few seconds ever experienced on this planet, he finally opened the door.

She physically couldn't hold it anymore. "I broke up with him," she blurted out the moment their eyes met.

Oscar tried to take in the image of his soulmate, standing there in front of him, flustered and ready to take the leap with him, once again, having trouble holding his smile in.

"Ah."

[chrrychills]

heya! do u think u could write about the sbg characters confessing to reader and how you think theyd do it?

i'll never love anyone the same .

main six « confessing!

ashlyn banner:

•she acts nonchalant, but she's internally freaking out.

•she's spent days weighing the pros and cons of confessing, and it got the point taylor had to beg ashlyn to just tell you already. her crush on you was so obvious (at least to your friends) that it hurt.

•you two will spend at least five minutes sitting in complete silence until ashlyn starts talking.

•she's not great with words– we know this. but she's spent a lot of time figuring out what to say, how to convey just how she feels about you.

•ashlyn's a realistic person, she knows rejection is in the realm of possibilities and dreads the scenario of it happening.

•she's a naturally blunt person, and that doesn't change while she confesses. it's charming, in a way.

•eventually, she'll just come out and say it because the overthinking is starting to frustrate her.

•"...i like you. i have for a while."

aiden clark:

•he's either super cryptic or really forward, it just depends on how he's feeling that day.

•it's most likely a spontaneous confession– he listens to his impulsive thoughts way too much.

•if he's nervous, he doesn't show it. he's staring at you with that stupid smile like he didn't just confess to you.

•unless you're a little brain dead, you probably noticed he had a crush on you. he didn't make it super obvious, but his eyes always found yours after he made a joke, and he was basically always by your side, regardless of where you were.

•aiden's observant. if you liked him back, he knew. he didn't comment on it, but he knew.

•it wouldn't be surprising if he confessed in the middle of a conversation, which there's a 99% chance that's what'll happen.

•if you were talking, he'd cut you off with "will you be my girlfriend?"

•if he's talking, he'll absentmindedly slip it into conversation and not realize what he said until you react to it.

•"that bio homework kicked my ass... hey, will you be my girlfriend?"

ben clark:

•he's so nervous and it's so sweet. he'll plan everything out because he's a sweetheart and wants it to be perfect.

•when he invites you to hang out, he seems a bit on edge and can't look you in the eye because you're so gorgeous and he will freeze up.

•100% gets you flowers. will also get you your favorite food– better yet, he'll make it. yes, his hands are trembling when he gives them to you.

•he'll spend the entire night before drafting up the most heartwarming message you've ever read. he feels kinda bad that he can't tell you directly, so he makes sure to communicate how he feels the best he can.

•blushing the entire time you read what he wrote. starts internally freaking out while you read because he's so scared you're not gonna like it.

•is literally giddy when you accept his confession. he gives the best hugs ever, so expect one of those.

•goes into detail explaining what he likes about you (pretty much everything) and how he feels about you. if you cry easily (me) there's a good chance you'll get misty-eyed.

tyler hernandez:

•it took him a while to accept that he had feelings for you, so it'll probably take him months to even think about confessing.

•honestly, you'll probably end up confessing before he does. if you don't, though, there's gonna be a lot of unspoken tension.

•he'll end up confessing for a couple reasons. one, taylor will not stop pestering him until he does because it's so obvious you two like each other. two, he gets so fed up with all the uncertainty and tension. he hates it.

•during the actual confession, he's a mess. his face is pink and he's obviously flustered but he'll get so defensive if you point it out.

•he's lowkey fumbling over his words until eventually he just blurts it out. he thinks it's the most embarrassing thing he's ever done– you think it's sweet.

•"i'm in love with you, okay?!"

•"...shut up– stop laughing!"

•he'll be so butthurt until you assure him that you feel the same way. he's still gonna be butthurt after, but he'll be too distracted to really care.

taylor hernandez:

•taylor's really in tune with her emotions, so she'll know pretty quickly when she develops feelings for you.

•she'll give it a month or so until she confesses, just because she's nervous and she really doesn't wanna mess anything up.

•her confession would be really thought out. she'd have your favorite movie, snacks and drinks laid on her bed.

•she'll try to keep it short and sweet, but taylor has a tendency to ramble. there's a good chance she'll go off topic and you'll just sit there, smiling and listening to her talk until she realizes.

•just like her brother, her face will be pink the entire time. she won't get defensive if you point it out, since you most likely look the exact same way.

•"i've liked you for a while now, but i just didn't wanna say anything. y'know, in case i messed something up between us or you didn't wanna be friends anymore- you still wanna be friends, right?"

•you'll have to tell her you wanna be more than friends. she doesn't wanna accidentally overstep by asking.

logan fields:

•he's the type of person that will go through every possible scenario before making a decision. that's why it took him so long to confess to you– he was nervous you'd reject him.

•when he does decide to confess, the first thing he's doing is hand making a bouquet from his grandparents greenhouse. taylor helps him by asking what your favorite flowers are.

•he's also a rambler, but he doesn't go off topic. he tries to keep it simple because he doesn't want to overwhelm you, and it works! he has to physically stop himself from rambling from nerves, though.

•when you accept his confession, he's smiling from ear to ear for a good week.

•his heart melts when he sees that you've put the bouquet he made in a vase, sitting proudly on your kitchen counter.

•audibly sighs from relief when he realized you didn't reject him– and gets embarrassed when he realizes that you heard him.

lacey's notes: guys i've actually never confessed to anyone before so idk...

i'm also running on a 20 oz redbull and two hrs of sleep ignore any spelling/grammar mistakes.

...maybe i'll edit this later (no i wont)

also thank you all for 100 followers yall are crazy ilyilyily

[quimichi]

MATCH UP TRADE

@xxchthonicreaturexx yaaay done! I hope you enjoy my pick! I love the trope of a hot mess x a more reserved one, its cute soo i hope you like it. Its not Sebek lol

ACE

@ HEAR ME OUT FIRST! You seem very easy going and fun, not boring at all and he'd love that! He needs fun, he needs adventure and he needs you

@ yeah ik I'm super smooth like that lol

@ Ace is the type of guy that would kiss your freckles behind closed doors, like really treat you all nice and sweet. But in public he plays more of the cool guy role. Dw, he won't touch you too much if you're not OK with it. He's a handsy person, but respects your boundaries. He just likes a hand on you to feel you, not in a sexual way but in a reassuring way. 'You're here, you're save, if you need me I'm right beside you' kinda way

@ that being said, he's super protective obviously. You two are dating sooo he needs to! Who knows who might steal you away?!

@ Definitely in love with your piercings, says the look really cool on you and stuff. Especially in love with your tounge piercing iykyk

@ imagine you two playing horror games together--damn he's gonna be scared shitless. He doesn't get scared too easily but definitely feels uncomfortable when you two play in the middle of the night in your creepy ass dorm. Especially with all those doll eyes watching you two-

@ more than 186271 times he said "can you at least cover them all up or...turn them around idk?" when you two are in your room lol

@ but he would also buy you some dw. Not his favorite hobby of yours but he supports you!

@ needs someone to tell him shit like please your realistic ass must tell him that learning 5 min before the test is doing nothing

@ but you don't have to worry, he always texts you so you seriously can't forget or something. Is the type to spam you if you don't answer so have fun

@ he can deal with you. He needs time and you need patience but he can and will. It works with Riddle too so dw about your OCD or PTSD. He trys and remembers for sure. But like I said, you need the patience for him cause it's all new and obviously he needs to know the things first. Might mess up a few times but don't we all do that?

@ has acts of service COVERED! His love language is obviously touch, but also quality time and acts of service. He's a like tsundere so stfu no! He didn't buy you a drink cause he was worried you didn't drink enough today! Tf you mean he's constantly over at your place? Do you want him to be with someone else or something??

@ would skate with you. Told you he knows how to but fails miserably.

@ welp-his talents are in basketball after all--

[todorokistheories]

Endeavor Is One Of My Favorite Characters

I don't agree with his redemption from a viewer standpoint but heres the thing no one seems to realize.

It's really realistic.

tw: discussion of abuse, toxic masculinity, it's the todorokis what do you expect

I can't count how many middle aged men I've seen realize that what they were told about being a man their entire life was false. They never learned to mature, sit with their feelings, and all they were left with was this anger they never learned how to control.

Now let me make this clear. I am IN NO WAY defending his actions.

Think of those older men you know who are still misogynistic, prideful, greedy. They all think they're better than everyone else because if they don't, they have nothing.

Fathers, uncles, grandfathers, even brothers who were just too proud to sit with the fact that all they've done is hurt have a breaking point. Sometimes that point comes when they're on their deathbed.

Or, like Bakugou he was taught by the ppl around him that he was what everyone wanted to be.

Difference is... he grew up. Endeavor didn't.

He had the great success of his 20s, a loving wife who was bought specially for him, the public's awe, and his first ever prodigy who was going to be even more special than him. He was in the best position he'd ever be in his whole life.

That's why All Might's success messed with him so much.

He was at the highest point of his life and career and he STILL wasn't good enough to become number one.

For a man who only has his pride, that's a huge ego crusher. Unlike bakugou he never sat with this. He became obsessed, deciding that if he couldn't be the best then he'd train his kids so that they were. That way he was still worth something. Because all of his worth was tied to his success.

It didn't matter what stood in his way, because he had two choices: succeed, or admit to himself that he was a failure.

For men who bought into toxic masculinity, yeah that wasn't an option.

And then his worst failure happened. Touya burned.

He died and suddenly those voices that told Enji that he was a failure grew loud enough for him to lash out at everyone who might even hint that they agree. Unfortunately, Rei was in the forefront of that. Every comment about their children turned into a criticism that his ego couldn't handle. It was a personal attack.

And then his second failure happened. Shouto burned.

Suddenly, the shame was too much to handle. So, he sent away the person who would constantly remind him of his inadequacies: Rei. Sent her away to never see the light of day again because he couldn't face it.

He locked everything away and threw away the key, shutting down Shouto verbally and physically just so that he didn't have to think about what he's done. Because he's special, remember? He's better than everyone. He is worth something because he's special.

Then Touya, who he shoved all of this generational trauma onto, turned out to be alive. Not only is he alive, he's the antithesis of what Enji fought his whole life to be.

Suddenly, he couldn't hide anymore. The whole world knew he was a fraud. He's forced to face the jealousy, the embarrassment, the shame, and the feeling of worthlessness that he ruined his life to run away from in the first place.

His career, gone. Image, gone. Youth, gone. His life is over and all he is left with is the shards of a family he broke years ago.

So he embraces it. He accepts the blame for the first time in his life.

And it changes for the better. He can't undo it. He can't fix what he hurt. And he can't truly repair anything. But he can try and that's worth something even if he's not.

This is a scenario that happens daily. This is something that happens in real life. And no one is expected to forgive these people for the harm they've caused. But understanding it is the first step to not repeating it. So yeah, I fucking hate Endeavor but goddamn he's well written.

Horikoshi wrote something very accurate to the experiences thousands of people have and I appreciate that. It's needed in media. There's many things he's done with the Todoroki family that I do not agree with, but the premise of Endeavor's redemption is one that rings true.

[blazehedgehog]

Let's assume Metal Sonic has some degree of personal agency. Do you think he has any attachment to Robotnik as his creator? Like they potentially made amends after Heroes? Would he share Sage's sentiment about being "siblings" in a sense?

I think to some degree the canonical Metal Sonic has a very primitive idea of what a "relationship" looks like and is. I think some elements of Sonic's personality leak through as a natural product of the data Metal Sonic contains, but Metal himself doesn't always understand how or why his programming comes to those results. The data is very complex and analyzing its own processes takes resources away from the rest of his computational systems, something he doesn't often spare.

I imagine Eggman probably gave him some kind of boost to whatever he considers "loyalty", or at least tried to, so Metal has some inherent appreciation of his creator. But again, it's the kind of thing he doesn't really understand -- it comes from somewhere, but it doesn't come from him. It's a programming directive, something that adjusts the data as it executes, so if Metal Sonic feels anything at all, he can probably feel like he's being pushed and pulled internally.

The Sonic part of his personality is like "Eggman is bad and must be stopped" and Eggman's programming is trying to override that with "Eggman is your creator and you must be loyal to him." Metal Sonic himself sits somewhere in the middle of those two.

Presumably Eggman's censors win out in the end, but Eggman also strikes me as a guy who thinks "80% is good enough." That last 20% is where the hardest work is, it's where all the smallest, most pointless fringes are, and there's too much other stuff that needs to be done, after all.

So Metal Sonic still occasionally receives a valid "Sonic Thought." And he doesn't really know what to do with it, because so much of his programming has been rewired to block that. Part of his programming is definitely "error correction", so mostly it gets discarded without examination, but maybe it doesn't always. And that's how we end up with weird situations like Metal Overlord; Metal Sonic is acting on his "Eggman must be stopped" but it's getting filtered and redirected through all of this Eggman propaganda programming. So Metal Sonic stops Eggman by trying to replace Eggman.

After Sonic Heroes, I imagine Eggman "punished" Metal Sonic by increasing his filtering, censoring, and redirection programming. Like if Metal Sonic is 80% "good enough" now, I imagine before Sonic Heroes he was probably 70% or even 60%. Good enough that Metal Sonic did not immediately try to fight Eggman on activation, basically. But, obviously, Metal Sonic was just playing a longer game.

Eggman would see the whole incident as a programming bug and would simply seek to reinforce his control and suppress more of Sonic's natural tendencies. But again, never 100%. He'd probably see 100% as some impossible number. Metal Sonic is probably running on some neural network type code, something deliberately made to be unpredictable on some level, so plugging all of the personality "holes" isn't something that can be realistically done because the range of output is too vast. Plus, blocking them all starts to negate the benefits of having Metal operate on a copy of Sonic's brain in the first place. You need that wiggle room.

So in most cases I think Metal Sonic understands and acts upon an intrinsic loyalty to Eggman, which Eggman himself put there as part of Metal's programming. But it's possible (difficult, but possible) to poke and prod to get him to question that loyalty and himself.

[frodo-with-glasses]

25 Questions with Phil Dragash: YES, SERIOUSLY!

So y'all know how I was reviewing Phil Dragash's audiobook of LotR last year, but kinda fell off somewhere in the middle of Rohan?? Well, guess what! A couple weeks ago, I received a tumblr message from the man himself, saying he'd read through all my reviews, had really enjoyed the little blast from the past, and was open to answering questions if I had any!

So of course, I had LOTS of questions.

The first one being: "Are you actually the real Phil Dragash??"

But I'm delighted to say that after exchanging emails with the work email listed on his website, I can confidently say that it is the real dude, and I've had a blast chatting with him! So for those of you who urged I listen to this audiobook—especially @laurelindorenan for her glowing recommendation—and for everyone else who likes the audiobook and/or enjoyed my reviews: I am delighted to present, ladies and gentlehobbits, this peek behind the curtain!

But of course I'm putting it all below the cut, because this man rambles like I do 🤣

Obligatory disclaimer: All opinions presented by Mr. Dragash are his own, I am not necessarily condoning any of them; please do not come after me for his opinions regarding pineapple on pizza.

25 QUESTIONS, LET'S GO!

1. Tell me how you got into Lord of the Rings!

I was ten years old when my dad took me to the library, and found a VHS copy of Ralph Bakshi’s 1978 animated Lord of the Rings film. I was already a fan of the “Chronicles of Narnia” and my dad just handed the tape to me and said “Look, C.S. Lewis’s friend made this”. I watched it, and had no idea what was going on. It was so hard to understand.

Fast forward to the year 2002 when “Fellowship” was out on DVD, and we had a movie night at my older cousin’s place, and watched the film for the first time. My 13 year old self was enraptured by it. Dad bought the DVD first thing the next day, and I’ve been a fan ever since! I, my brother, and our dad watched “Return of the King” in theaters four times, which was saying something, considering we only ever saw a movie once in cinemas. Between “The Return of the King” opening in December ‘03, I picked up the books and read (as well as I could) through them. A lot of friends kept joking “tell us how the damn story ends!”, good times.

2. When and how did you decide to make this audiobook? What’s the story behind the entire project? 

I was a very ambitious lad, and my first and biggest interest was filmmaking. I used to direct short films with my friends ever since my 11th birthday, and was the youngest in class at the filmschool I attended a few years later. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that I had massive ambitions to direct “the Hobbit”, which is silly in retrospect considering I was 16 years old at the time. I even sent my portfolio and DVDs of my films to Peter Jackson’s manager (who actually got back to me with a wonderful response, despite not being able to accept my ‘completely reasonable’ offer) When I was heartbroken and torn to pieces knowing I wouldn’t be directing the movie, a few more years went by, and I decided to reread some chapters of the “Lord of the Rings” books. I remember really well that this was late at night, laying in bed, and going through “King of the Golden Hall” and seeing how close to the movies it was, but also far more expanded. I thought “my extensive home-made short movies experience with sound design and sound mixing could work here, and I could just read a few chapters and try to make the soundscape as realistic as possible. Why not try it?” 

So, the next day I tried. The first two chapters I tried were “King of the Golden Hall” and “A Journey in the Dark” (which partly answers your other question about that chapter). I was so absolutely surprised by how well it was going, that I decided to upload them onto YouTube in March 2010 I think. I got a fairly good response, and I was planning on doing a few more random chapters. I never intended to do the whole thing. But this one comment on YouTube I’ll always remember, it said: “I think you should go from start to finish, because you’ll probably get used to the characters and sounds and people can also follow along in the story gradually”.

Taking that suggestion to heart, in August 2010 I went from Chapter 1 onward. 

3. Were you inspired by any other audiobook versions of LotR (such as the BBC radio drama)?

I was not, I actually haven’t listened to the BBC Radio drama until far ahead into the project I was doing. I did some research on what other audio productions anyone did with LOTR, from The Mind’s Eye edition, to the ‘60s Hobbit Radio Play; so I felt pretty confident. I just fell in love with the way the films brought Middle-Earth to life and seeing their incredible dedication for authenticity (from the props department, to the music), you really couldn’t do any better than that visually or audibly - at least in my opinion. I just wanted to hear Tolkien’s text but with the realisation of the films. 

However, if you listen to Chapter 1 of TTT, and hear how Legolas laments their absence from not being there to help Boromir at Amon Hen, you can clearly hear the inflection from the BBC Radio play’s version. I just lifted that because I thought it was a fantastic way to deliver the line.

4. Did you have any rituals for “getting into character” before recording?

If I were to show you the raw unedited recording sessions, you’d probably be surprised at how underdeveloped it is! I had no real rituals or warmups, I just went for it. Usually went in cold, and tried reading the entire chapter and doing all the voices at once. Then I’d be exhausted, and afterwards start cutting all the mistakes, and separating each character into different tracks – and then re-recording 50%-70% of it, as I was laying in the sounds. 

I think any character just needs a few words for me to say in their voice, and that helps for the rest of their dialogue. For Aragorn it was usually: “You cannot wield it! None of us can.” for Pippin it was: “Sometimes”, just random things that make things ‘click’ in my head. If I got lost or didn’t feel like the performances were working, I’d simply just watch scenes from the films to hear the real actors again!

5. Who was your favorite character to voice? Who was your least favorite? And why?

People who know me, know I love doing the villains. Sauron, the orcs, the Nazgûl, etc. I just love the idea of personifying things that scare you. Something completely the opposite of who you are. Always a fun time! Any character I can nail extremely accurately always makes me happy, but I’m always very critical of my own work, so it’s a rare thing.

My least favorite characters to voice are: Imrahil, Denethor, Arwen, Celeborn, Galadriel, Erestor, Lindir, Haldir, Goldberry, Gildor… I think the pattern is pretty obvious if you realize that I am incapable of providing a satisfactory voice that feels unique enough. They just sound to me like “I wish I had a broader range. They weren’t done justice.” I have feelings for most of the characters in this situation, but I’m a mere mortal. I can’t do all of them as well as I wish I could. I wish Aragorn was more like Viggo Mortensen’s voice (I tried with the nasally yells you mentioned!), I wish Gandalf had a richer tone, I wish Saruman sounded more majestic, and I wish Frodo was - in retrospect- more older sounding, too. There’s so much I wish I could do better, but to hell with it, I tried.

Fun fact: my least-favorite to voice are also Orcs because they destroy my throat after a while. Which is ironic, because of my first statement.

6. I noticed that you gave the men of Rohan and Gondor slightly different dialects! Are you pulling from any real-world accents to make that happen?

I did try to listen to Anglo-Saxon, and ancient norse but I just tried to make Rohan and Gondor slightly distinct in any way I could. I never really tried to make things too obvious, but admittedly, I think I just used my intuition (smoothing the R’s for the Rohirrim, making the Gondorians more ‘proper’, etc.). I do want to emphasize that this was a one-person project and keeping things together or consistent is definitely an extraneous exercise when you’re just trying to get something finished by yourself! 

7. Some characters (like Beregond and Quickbeam, to name a couple of my favorites) aren’t in the movies, so they don’t have an actor for you to imitate. How did you decide what they would sound like?

Well, in the case of Beregond, I realized he was just “your ordinary guy”, and seeing Minas Tirith through his eyes (and Pippin’s)  is such an amazing and interesting opportunity. It made the city feel so real, and I wanted to take advantage of that. I think I started with a ‘generic’ voice, but when I re-recorded him knowing more and more of the context and what he was saying to Pippin, and as a result who he is, made me adjust what I felt were more his personality. But still that ‘ordinary guy’ idea was the bedrock, and it’s been years since I heard that chapter, but I hope it holds up! (I just remembered Bergil is in that too, another voice I wish I could have done better) 

Another fun fact: when Pippin scares the kids in Minas Tirith, the audio was from something I videotaped when I was 10 years old with my friends, it had the perfect “kids-going-aaah!” sound.

If I had it my way, I’d have a cast of dozens in this Audiobook, so a lot of times I never felt like my voice was enough to truly capture the “We’re in Middle-Earth, we just have microphones to record it” idea. So I have to make compromises since I was the only one doing the voices. That being said, Quickbeam was a fun surprise because he felt like, as you said “young treebeard”, and these things just worked out through experimentation! I think Quickbeam turned out pretty nice. I like Quickbeam.

8. HOW—I ask with great enthusiasm—DID YOU DO TREEBEARD’S VOICE? How did you get that resonance and woody sound? Did you send your voice through a wooden box and re-record it on the other side like they did in the movies?

It’s really great that you know all the behind the scenes stories from the films! Especially what Ethan Van der Ryn, David Farmer, and the late Michael Hopkins have done with their incredible creativity. I had no such resources to produce Treebeard��s sound. What I did was a digital facsimile: a special ‘room’ reverb, with some other equalizing effects to boost the bass and (maybe, I can’t remember) another higher pitched track of the same voice faintly in there. 

You won’t believe this, but I was not going to do The Two Towers audiobook unless I could do a good Treebeard voice. In 2011 after finishing “Fellowship”, I was on the fence about continuing, and only committed once I knew I could do Treebeard right. Treebeard was the key to all this. This should come to no surprise to the ones who played the game, but I used a lot of sound effects from ‘Battle for Middle-Earth’ which contained a lot of clean sounds for ents, trolls, the balrog, the ringwraiths, and other monsters from the films. I used the ent’s footsteps from the games, and recorded my own foley for some of the trees snapping and leaves rustling as well. The “fart” sounds were the low creaking of tree branches, and - as they stated in the making-of for the films - very pitched down cow moos. 

9. Tell me about the foley work! Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always been that nerd who watched the Behind The Scenes featurettes for fun, so I’m very interested to hear how you made the sound effects for footsteps and whistling arrows and jangling horse harnesses and such. 

I’m glad you are! I’ve collected sound libraries (ripped from video games, and finding and buying sound packs) for a literal decade, because I always needed sounds for the short films I made when I was younger. I just kept learning about how to mix sounds together, and it’s very creative and very enjoyable! That being said, the foley work itself is mostly recorded by me. If I can’t find a sound in the library I have, I will record it. Clothing rustles, and touch are all recorded while I listen to the audiobook playback and ‘perform’ each character. It’s a really arduous process, but I think it adds so much life into the sound. 

I went out into the woods (or backyard) with my mic to record footsteps, sometimes I would listen to the audiobook with headphones while performing the footsteps. When I would have traveled somewhere with different terrain I would be sure to record more foley (rocks being moved, or pebbles being stepped on) knowing I’ll use it for certain chapters. I do not want to reveal a huge secret about the predominant foley for the character's clothes, but an old backpack I used were 90% of the characters’ ‘movements’. Some wingflaps of the fell beasts were just my jeans. It’s a really creative process trying to find things that ‘sound’ right for an environment or action. The magic is putting them all together and hearing the result. Also, yes Sam’s pan is my grandma’s frying pan, and I know it’s sometimes annoying, but - look - Sam has a lot of stuff to carry.

I start with the background sounds (wind, tree rustles, water if there is any, etc.) lots of layers of them just to make them sound unique and not the same. Then I move to selective and nearer environmental background sounds. Then, the ‘hero’ sounds, the effects that are integral to the story (if it’s sword clashes, or an explosion, or who knows what), and finally the foley (footsteps, clothing rustles, breaths, etc.) - I had a friend record her own horses breathing and moving for a lot of closeups of the horses in the audiobooks. I think even if you can’t really hear some of their low breaths, their presence is still ‘there’. I personally think I got a lot better by the end of LOTR than when I started! 

I wanted to add, the sounds for little Elanor in the very last scene of “The Return of the King” (the baby sounds), I was not happy with the stock baby sounds I had, and asked my older cousin (an audio person too!) to send me recordings he made of his then-1-year-old daughter in a studio. So, my first-cousin-once-removed is Elanor! She’s 22 now. I feel old.

10. Do you have a favorite sound effect from this project? Mine is the “pat-pat” against cloth that’s used to denote a hug.

Absolutely, do you remember the two “watchers” before the tower of Cirith Ungol? The vulture-like statues that block the hobbit’s path out? The alarm sound is a wholly original sound design I did, and I’m really happy with it. It’s just ugly sounding, and that’s the point. I always wished I had more Nazgul, and I think the worst moments I had with mixing were the battle scenes. There’s just too much to handle and make it sound good. But I really tried.

I’m very glad you heard the ‘pat-pat’s. I try my best to perform every character when recording foley, and want even some of the sounds to convey something in the telling of the story.

11. What's the thought process behind your use of the various musical motifs from Howard Shore's score? (Read: Why do you use the Shire theme so often, and why does it get me in the heart every single time?)

I want everyone to know that this is a really important and valuable question, and one I never really get to talk about: To me, Howard Shore’s music is one of the very best things to come out of the films. He truly made an opera out of the story, and all his leitmotifs and orchestrations are a stroke of genius. They work on their own, and when reading the books as well, and as a nerd for films and all that stuff, I wanted to put a lot of care into how I’m placing the score, and for what scene, emotionally and leitmotivically, if that’s a word.

The Audiobook I did is obviously a ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’ situation, so I can’t credit myself for the majority of the Audiobook I did, but I wanted to use all my filmmaking intuition to properly use the music to enhance the telling of the story. So, just like the filmmakers had to change and mix lines from the book, or make changes to make it work as a film, I felt like a lot of instances happened with the music for the audiobook. Obviously, I used the score when applicable to the intended scenes, but there are very often cases where they won’t work. I read as much as I could in the past about what the motifs were and where Shore used them in the movies, so I followed that trajectory for the most part. Gondor is Gondor, Rohan is Rohan, Mordor is Mordor, etc. 

Changes happen when I feel the emotions for a scene in the books do not match up to the ones in the films, and then there are brand new scenes and characters not in the movies at all, that I have to figure out! Take the pause from music between Gandalf falling into the chasm with the Balrog, and the fellowship successfully escaping. It’s perfect in the film, but I knew I couldn’t put the lamenting heartbreaking music in there yet, since the descriptions all drive the idea that escape is paramount. So I treated it as a ‘shock’ moment. No music until they’re completely out of the mountain, then the grief comes in. Things like that, a lot of fun creative thinking to get those emotions working!

I recall you mentioning the ‘Gimli / Legolas drinking game’ statement and how I used the hell out of it throughout the Audiobook, which is a good example. I pitched it up and down, for different moments, and it just has that hobbit mundane and jolly quality to it. So, in it goes to fill moments from the books. 

I also edited and modified existing motifs for completely different scenes and ideas. One of my favorites is when Treebeard talks about the Entwives. I needed this melancholy yearning sound that was really essential, and found it by reversing Eowyn’s theme, and pitching it down so the violin sounds like a cello/bass. To me it just felt extremely appropriate for the sound of a long-lost relationship while portraying a larger-than-life creature. 

Let’s also say Bombadil. I made up the idea that the last statement in the credits for “Return of the King”, was Bombadil’s theme. It’s actually just a reference to Der Ring des Nibelungen by Wagner, a very verbose beautiful crescendo, but I thought “I’ll pretend like it’s Bombadil, he’s last in the score even though he’s the first in Arda”. So I used that musical progression in his songs, that’s his leitmotif now (to me, anyway) He sings in that wavy up-and-down melody. Which is why you hear a lot of that in those chapters.

I also try to use recordings not from the original score: I looked far and wide for alternative recordings, predominantly the album by the Royal Prague Philharmonic, and the “LOTR Symphony”, just to make the Audiobooks feel different. I pitched down and moved and reassembled a lot of different cues for different scenes as well.

There are not a lot of instances of music from other movies, however, they do exist! I used music from “Battle for Middle-Earth”, the game “War in the North”, and for the last few chapters, “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” since it just came out at the time. I used a lot of music from Howard Shore’s “Seven” and “The Game” during Shelob (I think), and for the Barrow-Downs. I used a tiny bit of underscore from the brilliant Don Davis’s “The Matrix Reloaded”, it had a really eerie choir which made me feel like it would be perfect for the fatigue and dizzying unreality of Mordor when Sam and Frodo were on their last leg, trying to get to Mt. Doom. Lastly, I used a little bit of music from Howard Shore’s “Twilight: Eclipse” for some dialogue scenes during Return of the King! And music from the independent film “Mongol” by Tuomas Kantelinen for the Woses when Theoden has to get help from Ghan-Buri-Ghan. Also the ending of ROTK has a few cues from “The Lord of the Rings musical”, lovely stuff.

It may surprise you that there is a small amount of score I actually ‘wrote’ with help from my brother (he’s a musician). It’s in the coronation of Elessar. It’s not very good but I needed something. There is also a cello version of “to the edge of night”, which I kindly asked permission to use by YouTube celloist, but I sadly don't think that video is up anymore.

Lastly, I use the Shire music so much because - just like Howard Shore said - it becomes a ‘hymn’ or an ‘anthem’ for the hobbits as they leave their comforts behind and are in a wide and unfamiliar world. Every little bit that reminds them of home, or relates to each of them, usually deserves a little ‘shire’ statement here and there. I feel if it’s in the characters’ hearts and minds, it has to be expressed in the music!

12. Out of all the chapters I’ve listened to so far on the Internet Archive, “A Journey in the Dark” is the one most plagued with editing issues; Sam’s temper tantrum over leaving Bill the Pony is cut out entirely. Which is a shame, because I was really looking forward to hearing your take on that. (Is it strange to say that I wanted to hear you break down into blubbering tears? Probably. Let’s ignore that and move on.) Is there any chance that you have a cleaner edit of that chapter somewhere?

I think you’ll be very unsurprised to know that “A Journey in the Dark” is the first chapter I ever recorded. I think you’ll also need to know that I did FOTR when I was 21 years old, and my grasp on doing better sound mixing or even getting the characters right was still a work in progress. I learned so much going chapter-by-chapter and felt that each succeeding one improves from the former. As a demo-run, I did “King of the Golden Hall '' and “Journey in the Dark” in early 2010 (in fact, I did only the first half of “JITD” back then. Stopping right after they are barred inside the mines, as the Watcher destroys the gate. I did the second half once I caught up with the story going chapter-by-chapter.)

There are so many issues with it, and I haven’t listened to it since. If you have headphones you’ll also notice that none of the voices really pan from left to right, or feel like they’re ever anywhere else except the dead-center. I was lazy back then. 

When I read the chapters, at the time, I was sharing an ‘office room’ with my younger brother, and as a teenaged younger brother does - continues strumming his guitar no matter what the other brother is doing. It was really fun, and funny and I was extremely sloppy with editing things out, and taking it too seriously. So, for sure you can hear ‘someone’ in the background during the early parts of FOTR, and I was too lazy to re-record or edit out the noises that weren’t supposed to be there.

Forgive me if this part is a lot longer, but now that you mention it, I want to get on my soap-box and rant about how many things I agree with about the Audiobook’s shortcomings and how many things have changed since the wee days of 2010: 

I didn’t really get a grasp on the characters, and I had no idea I was going to do the entire book. I did not take enough care with sound mixing (it’s a highly technical and rigorous practice, I’ve discovered. Even now, ten plus years later - it’s too technical for me to fully understand yet), and I did not thoroughly re-listen to the chapter when I was done with an edit or a sound-effects pass. Therefore there’s always been mistakes still in there, and just unpleasantly careless placement of sounds and music. I have often thought about re-recording it to get it up to scratch, but it’s been over a decade and I haven’t properly preserved all the sound stems without having to re-sound-mix the whole chapter again, and there is that little thing called ‘burnout��� which is hard to ignore. So, I apologize to everyone who has to suffer through that huge drop in quality with “A Journey in the Dark”. It quite literally was my first attempt, and it definitely shows. 

The good news is that a fan asked me the same thing about the missing piece in that chapter (the one you mentioned! With Sam and Bill!), and I’ve heard the same comments about it throughout the years. Why is it missing? I don’t know why! I recorded it, but in my loose run-and-gun past when I was a wee lad, I was careless, and just had the mp3 with that part missing. A rendering error, perhaps! Stupid 21 year old Phil just hodgepoging everything.

A Few months ago, I did get another email about that missing piece. I thought “okay, once and for all, I’m going to find that missing part.” - and I searched my old harddrives for some kind of archival copy with that part in it. Amazingly, it was a lot harder to find than I thought. Every rendered version of JITD either stopped right before that scene, or had it omitted. I actually found one half of it as a ‘demo’ piece I rendered years ago for a ‘sound trailer’, and then I finally found the original YouTube video I made - which had it intact! Now the hardest part was stitching it together with the rest. Took longer than I thought, but I finally amended this horrible incompetence. And yes, I will share the link to you! And be prepared to be disappointed at the 2010-era quality!

I don’t know if anyone knows this, but with the mp3s circling around, I have taken the liberty of re-recording and re-working some chapters from their original versions. I try my best to preserve the originals, but I also wish people to listen to the re-records. I have actually re-recorded and re-mastered “A Long-Expected Party” three times. 2011, 2013, and 2014. I re-recorded “King of the Golden Hall” in 2013, and “Shadow of the Past” in 2014. I usually try labelling the dates on the mp3 files themselves. The one I’m most proud of re-recording bits of, is “The Pyre of Denethor” as the first time I had Denethor say his last words he was mildly raising his voice, but I listened to it again one day and went “this man should be at the edge of sanity.” - so he absolutely yells now, and it’s such a night-and-day comparison.

Another addendum: I completely understand the complaints about ‘the sound/music drowning out the dialogue’. It’s been the #1 complaint over the decade. I completely understand. I never had professional sound mixing gear, nor did I have proper mixing headphones or speakers or a proper studio (most of the audiobook was recorded at my grandmother’s house!). The balance of the audio making it sound immersive, (like you are there!) and having clear dialogue to hear is - like I said - an extremely technical and complex process that I’ve never had the ability or tech to master. Let alone for a book that’s 48 hours long, and has so much sound and music to it. Nothing would bring me more joy than to work with an experienced sound mixer, and find all my audio stems, and for us to work together to clear up any and all issues. But as this project was a simple fan-made work, and I haven’t distributed it myself for a decade, who knows?

This is also why I never went on to do “The Hobbit”. Burnout is real, and I’ve never recovered from LOTR. The burnout… “it’s never really healed, Sam.”

13. What was your favorite scene to record and mix?

Mount Doom. Can’t get better than trying to make the climax as horrible and eucatastrophic as that. It all led up to this, and it was such a rush to work on. I remember how I was at the edge of my seat watching ROTK in cinemas for the first time, and how amazingly they pulled it off, and I wanted to definitely imitate that, but using Tolkien’s own writing. Just so cool.

I have two favorite chapters: The first one is “The Scouring of the Shire”. I remember well, when I was working on it, I realized this has never been ‘dramatized’ before. At least not in full. I felt so special being the first one (probably) to do it. I could imagine the entire chapter in my head like a film, and I could bring it to life with very little outside influence. Such a poignant and shocking chapter. 

I don’t think I would have done it as well without the experience I gained doing the rest of the Audiobook. Showing the strength of the four hobbits, portraying the dignity and resolve of their kind, giving that pathetic yet dangerous authenticity to Sharkey, and the ruffians, illustrating the battle of bywater with sound… this was done in 2013, so we all were able to listen to new music by Howard Shore (for The Hobbit), and I would be able to transpose motifs from that, into “Scouring”, and honestly I wouldn’t know how it would have worked out if the Hobbit films didn’t come out just at the right time. I think the score fits so well with the events of “Scouring”, there is a ‘mordor’ theme but it feels ‘unfinished’, like the remnant of an old defeated foe; there’s that wily progression for Radagast in the films, that I used for the hobbit’s rebellion and the conflict, and there’s a new ‘hobbit/shire’ motif that worked so perfectly for a ‘wounded, but recovering’ Shire. I feel so silly talking about decisions I made for this, but I always wanted to share some thoughts I had! 

Fun fact: I had a wonderful person ask if she would be able to play Rosie Cotton back in 2013, and I asked her to perform her lines. She was great, but I realized a very strange thing: when I put her in the audio mix, it would actually break the immersion, because you can hear a voice that wasn’t mine, and as a result - I couldn’t help but keep thinking - my voice for Rosie’s mother sounded like a Monty Python skit in comparison! And thus her lines had to be unused. It kind of just opened the fourth wall, breaking the illusion. Which is a shame, because I always dream of having a fully-cast LOTR Audiobook, maybe someday officially.

The other favorite is “The Tower of Cirith Ungol” just because I listened to it one day in 2014, and heard no errors. I was so proud. I couldn’t think of anything I wanted to change substantially. No one dislikes all the errors more than I do!

14. What’s your best memory from this entire project?

My late dad drove me and my brother out into a clearing at midnight in the forest. The sky was so clear and starry. And we were here simply to just yell at the top of our lungs to record material for “Helm’s Deep”. All the clear yells: “Elendil!!!” “Gúthwinë! Gúthwinë For the Mark!”etc. Etc. - I lost my voice, it was a fun time. He held the microphone for me as I splashed around a stream (for Gollum), once again at midnight since there were fewer background sounds.

I also tell this story a lot: A friend of mine who was listening to the chapters as I finished them - she hated the sound of knuckles cracking. And hated spiders. So, obviously, Shelob would have to have knuckle-cracking sounds for her limbs. So I recorded my own knuckles cracking and tried using it as much as I could for Shelob’s legs moving about. My friend was soooo ecstatic to know this fact.

15. If you could do it all again today, what would you change?

I would consider doing a ground-up re-recording of everything. With a budget, with a cast, with a lot more understanding of the story and intentions behind them. With VR sound options. With extra original music. That’s the dream. 

If we’re back to reality, I guess I’d just re-record a bunch of chapters since they could always be better, and tighten all the technical errors. But that would require a lot of assembling of the raw archived files, and re-building of sounds, and re-recording of lines. Also, as I stated before, I do not want to distribute my unofficial fan work just because I know that it’s a copyright nightmare. And burnout… “it’s never really healed, Sam.”

I like taking other people’s opinions to heart, such as the issues with Frodo’s youth or inflections and intonations for certain scenes that I didn’t quite fully grasp the first time. I would love to adjust things and make it closer to the book now.

- - - - -

And now! The Silly Questions Lightning Round!

(With thoughts from Lady Glasses in parentheses and italics!)

1. In Fellowship, long stretches of dialogue would often have someone randomly cough in the background. Tell me about the Cough. Why is the Cough there?

No one hates the coughs more than me. That’s either my brother minding his own business in the other end of our ‘office room’. I think you now know I was 21, I didn’t care, so these things are just left in because I was careless. However, sometimes there are intentional coughs to make it feel more realistic. It’s been years since I listened to it, so unless I somehow do a massive commentary stream someday (thinking about it), your guess will be as good as mine! The coughs heavily subsided once I did Two Towers, since I was by myself.

2. During the dinner scene with Farmer Cotton, someone burps. Who was that?

Mine. I have no regrets with that one. Or Pippin. I guess it could be Pippin.

(Darn! And here I thought it was Farmer Cotton, LOL)

3. How did you manage to make Bill Ferny’s voice so perfectly obnoxious?

I imagined Bill as an obnoxious guy. The image in my head gives me a good idea of what he’d sound like, and I’m so glad he’s so obnoxious that you had to mention it.

(He sounds perfectly punchable. Thanks, I hate it.)

4. Did you crack yourself up at any point in the recording?

Oh yes, in fact I have a whole outtake reel just for you!

(Warning to anyone who clicks the link: the April Fool's audio had me ON THE FLOOR)

5. Voice acting aside, who is your favorite character in LotR and why?

If you asked me in 2002 it would be the Balrog, if you asked me now it would be difficult because so many of them mean so much to me, and each of their aspects have something to aspire to. Gandalf, Aragorn, Sam, Frodo, Galadriel, the list goes on and on.

(That's beautiful, and so true. The story really grows with us, doesn't it?)

6. What’s your favorite color?

Blue. Always has been.

(Blue is a good color! 💙)

7. Political question: Pineapples on pizza, yes or no?

Yes, I still don’t get what the fuss is about

(Oooh, controversial)

8. Is a hotdog a sandwich?

No, it’s a hotdog!

(Counterpoint: A hotdog is a taco.)

9. What’s your opinion on geese?

They’re racist

(Racist against the entire human race, apparently)

10. How much would I have to pay you to say “I love boats!” in Merry’s voice? (It’s an inside joke with my friends.)

Nothing, it’s on the house!

(HOLY CRAP I LOVE YOU)

- - - - -

Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us! What are you working on nowadays?

I’ve actually had a few people ask me if I’ll ever do more audiobooks like this, and I seem to have tapped something. Yes, in fact! I’m working with a few creative collaborators on a small company to do the exact same sonic experience with other books! Since we’re very small, we are starting with stories in the Public Domain, and have successfully kickstarted (and finished) “The Jungle Book” by Rudyard Kipling. Which will be out (hopefully, officially) by early September! I’m really excited and hope this will lead to more projects, and - hopefully- back to Tolkien someday, in an official manner. Please follow my Instagram or Facebook for more info about it. (I also have a Twitter and Tumblr and more, but they’re all completely unrelated to LOTR and are just me drawing doodles and being a nerd, very unlike the Audiobooks I did, which is a bit confusing, I admit.)

- - - - -

And that concludes our interview! As I told Phil, it was so much fun to discuss a fellow fan's passion project like this. The more I read about it, the more I realized just how similar it was to my own experiences as a fan creator. We all start out as just a noob with a few unpolished skills, making something because we love it, and we learn and grow and hone our talents along the way. It's legitimately inspiring.

Needless to say, I am stoked to finish listening to the rest of this audiobook! Is it a bit weird knowing the creator of the thing might drop in and read my reviews?? Yes. Yes it is. But I'm gonna do it anyway. No holds barred! If I hear another cough, you're gonna know about it, Phil!

Also I may or may not do something with that audio of Merry because I'M STILL DYING OF LAUGHTER HELP

Anyway! If you made it to the end of this, you deserve a cookie! Everybody say thank you to Mr. Dragash, and go check out the other stuff he's doing nowadays! Namárië!

[seriousbrat]

I suppose we need to look at "dating" with the aforementioned awkward teenage lenses, which makes things simultaneously not-that-big-of-a-deal and the biggest-deal-in-the-world. I'm sure adult Harry would look back on his awkward time with Cho and think "merlin, did that even count as dating?" - but for all intents and purposes, a teenage jury could decide that yes, they briefly dated. Hell, in teenage years, Ron had a long-term relationship with Lavender.

Maybe people get a bit stuck on the fact that you don't have to be in ride-or-die love to date someone? Fandom is sometimes obsessed with soulmate-ships and extremely intense relationships.

I am also not a fan of James and Lily being each other's first. Feels like people are either extremely traditional, or trying to look at potential previous relationships as adults. Yes, there'd be no time for other long-term, deeply in love, committed partners, accounting for courting, dating, breaking up, and healing. But teenagers are not like that. Ginny dated Michael Corner and Dean Thomas! Hermione dated Krum and Cormac!

The Marauders and Lily were fun and popular and did not carry the weight of being the Chosen One. I'm sure they all had something going on for themselves, as I for one count "kissing a couple of times and going on two or three awkward dates in hogsmeade" as one of the many forms of teen dating.

Exactly, that's kind of what I was trying to say (though I didn't express it very well lol.) What counts as "dating" for teenagers is very different than what it typically means to adults.

Feels like people are either extremely traditional, or trying to look at potential previous relationships as adults.

Yeah, I think so too tbh. There's a middle ground, which is what I was trying to get at (my brain really wasn't in the mood for coherent replies yesterday rip) which I think is very common for teens. Like at that age even just kissing can be terrifying haha. Anyway, I think for me it feels most realistic for James and Lily to each have had at least one of those short-lived adolescent relationships before getting together, but nothing an adult would consider serious.

This is why it's so silly to me when James is written as a suave womaniser (Sirius used to be written that way too but not recently lol, at least for him it kind of makes sense.) Once I read something where James was famous among Gryffindor girls for being a good lover like bro is a sixteen year old boy be fr. But that aside I do see him as honestly pretty insecure about girls deep down, and I think he'd have been quite nervous his first time. And again pretty nervous and hesitant around Lily.

[italeean]

Ello it's me for the event hehehehe so here I go.

Description: I'm a serious person, but (tho I hate to admit it T-T) I'm pretty soft and fluffy when you get to know me more. I'm particularly excitable when it comes to my special interests like anime/games. I do karate, and I'm into martial arts in general. I dislike really obnoxious and loud people, but if they're too quiet it just becomes awkward. So someone in the middle would be nice. Name is Robin. Nickname is Robbi.

I'm a lee leaning switch :)

Fandom: Genshin Impact cause why not

Relationship: hmmm romantic cause why not >:)

With a boi pleaseeee :D

Hello hello, my dear cutie, thanks for participating in my event ^_^✨️ I'm super happy to do someone for you so I really hope you enjoy!! 🍡 *some dango for you, too*

🔮 So... for the match-up, your pair is... HEIZOU 🩵💚

🔮 Why did I choose him for you?

• You're serious and a good listener, which means that Heizou could tell you about his cases or ask you for an opinion • I totally see him getting overwhelmed by a case and you distracting him! Then when he's calmer, you'd go through the materials and clues to make him see the situation from your own perspective • Probably a tickle fight would be a great distraction (maybe even your favorite, for both you and him) • Heizou's combat style is based on martial arts, which is another thing you have in common!!! I can imagine you two training together or even trading techniques!!! • I'm sure he'd be delighted to tickle a certain technique out of you if you don't wanna tell him hehe~ • Heizou isn't particularly loud, but he's extroverted (and super teasy 😳🫣) so he can be a great match for you because he isn't overwhelming but not too quiet either • He's a detective, so he'd be perceptive of your mood even without you telling me (and trust me, it can be useful when you're an INTJ) • I'm 100% sure that Heizou would be able to bring out your fluffy and soft side... I can already see you snuggling together when you get in bed after a long day • I'm quite sure that he'd be able to sneak some cuddly tickles while enjoying the little moment of affection before going to bed... and it would be his pleasure to tire you out with a good tickle attack if you don't wanna go to bed • This detective is so nice... I'm sure he'd be delighted and honored to spend time with you playing games or watching anime!!! • His favorites would be Detective Conan and Yuukoku no Moriarty hehe • He has a very teasy personality, as I've already said, but he's also super goofy... which is why I see him as a ler-leaning switch and a perfect match for you 🩵

🔮 Tickle scenario

"Ummm... are you sure this is what Madame Kujou Sara told you to do..?" You looked at your lover quizzically, "Of course it is! It's a very effective training passed on by the Shuumatsuban itself" Heizou was quick to reply. "Would you really deny me your precious help, RobbiBabe..?" He used the nickname he invented just for you and gave you those puppy eyes you could never say no to.

"No, no..! It just sounds a little weird, that's all..." you were still perplexed, but you were too weak to Heizou's pleading eyes to say no to him. It was unfair how such a mischievous and cunning person could be so cute... He really had you wrapped around his pinky finger.

"Great! So, I'll explain you again what you gotta do." The detective started, every trace of sadness or plead gone from his face. "You have to pretend to be a criminal who has stolen something precious, and I'll try to get the location of the stolen goods out of you through an interrogation. This will help me to be quicker and more efficient when I'll actually interrogate someone!"

"Umm... fine, let me think about a place where I'd hide something..." you said while your brain gears were working to create a realistic scenario.

After a couple of minutes, you tell Heizou you're ready and give him permission to start this 'interrogation training'. He was taking this scenario very seriously, and it almost scared you how ominous he seemed when he looked at you as if you were a criminal, but after a while, you got more confident and even dared to give him sassy answers and witty remark. Even Heizou was somewhat impressed by how much you seemed to enjoy yourself.

However, you couldn't imagine what your lover was planning...

"Fine," he said at some point, "I guess I'll have to use drastic measures if you don't wanna talk to me. And I even asked nicely..." The look he gave you was threatening and almost disappointed, even if it was an act.

Before you knew it, a pair of mischievous hands were latched on your sides and squeezing firmly but softly. "Gh- aaaaeeeeehh..! W-what are you-" You started squirming in your seat, shivering when you heard a low chuckle coming from 'your interrogator'.

"I think you know what I'm doing, Robin..." The way the detective pronounced your full name made your eyes widen, "the Shuumatsuban is usually rougher when it comes to getting the truth out of someone... but torture is technically legal and I'm not part of the Shuumatsuban, so I gotta find an alternative way to make you talk. Tell me, criminal, are you ticklish?"

You tried your best, but you gave in way more easily than you wanted to admit to yourself. "Aaaahehehehehehe nohohoho!!!" You started squirming in your seat, but you did your best to remain still. "No? You aren't? Then this interrogation should be a piece of cake for you~" He said casually, as if his hands weren't slowly walking towards your most ticklish spot.

Your eyes widened in terror when you realized where they were going. "NO!!! Wahahahahait pleheheaha- NAHAHAHAHAT THEHEHERE NOHOHOHOOOO" You didn't even try to hold back your laughter when your feet were targeted mercilessly.

"IHIHIHI GIHIHIVEEE!!! IHIHI'LL TALK!!!" You pleaded, but you didn't expect your boyfriend to stop tickling you and start laughing boisterously. "Pfft- hahahahahaha I can't believe you really bought the interrogation training excuse!" He saw your perplexed face and explained better.

"I noticed you've been awfully serious this week, so I decided to find a way to make you unwind and have you cooperate with me~" You pouted, but you couldn't deny he was right... and you had enjoyed yourself a lot to be honest...

That evening finished with you two snuggling and kissing sweetly on the couch, and Heizou was unaware of the pair of hands that was making his way towards his bare, exposed ribs...

[lokisprettygirl]

Lose me to Love you (Loki x Female Reader) (AU) (18+)

Read Chapter 33 here / Series Masterlist

Chapter 34

Summary: Things are getting back to normal but Loki can't stop thinking about his heritage.

Trigger Warning: 18+, Mention of torture and psychological trauma, violence, guns, discussion of mental health, Smutty smut, degradation, unprotected sex, Description of rape and assault, panic attack, violence against women, Extreme dark themes, Sexual abuse, physical abuse, public sex, Rough violent sex, 18+, Steamy stuff, age difference ,Rough language, mention of suicide, talk of virginity and slut shaming, manipulative behaviour, mention of trauma, smut, toxic relationship between main characters. Dark themes, cult stuff

"Yeah baby that's good ..right there" he let out a small moan and it made your mouth curve into a smile. He was so pretty whenever he moaned and you just wanted to keep him like this forever.

"Mmmhmmm? You feel good daddy?"

"Ohhh my.. yesss sweetheart, can you get deeper? Use those goddamn nails" his voice came out all raspy so you chuckled in response.

"You sound as if we're having sex"

"What? Noooo..well it does feel good" he got bashful as you hinted towards the moaning and groaning.

He had an itch in the middle of his back and his hands couldn't reach the spot so you were just helping him out but those moans were not helping. It's been two months since that awful day when he actually died on you, there were several nights you woke up sweating because you saw yourself holding onto his cold lifeless body. However he was always there to calm you down, you had to feel the warmth of his body and the touch of his lips to get yourself back to the reality.

"Okay lovebirds, help with the dinner please?" You heard Jane's voice so you looked behind and Loki peeked to the side as well. You both were at Thor's dungeon to celebrate his birthday, he didn't want to celebrate it but Jane was relentless about it, he was living in the city since they had started to date but you all wanted to come here to get away from there.

You couldn't wrap your head around the idea that the place where you were brought once after being kidnapped would end up becoming your comfort zone. You two always stayed in the room with the roof window, you loved it so much especially on rainy days and it was raining today, you couldn't wait to make love to him surrounded by the sounds of rain splattering on the window above you. You got up reluctantly and moved to the kitchen to help her, it was difficult trying to maintain a personal as well as a professional relationship with her because you both were definitely doing the documentary.

You two were getting trained to talk in front of the cameras when sharing about your past. Loki almost cried the day you both went to meet the actors they had hired for dramatic reenactments. The little girl held an uncanny resemblance to you and he was extremely emotional throughout the day after meeting her.

However working under Jane's production was also a little assuring because you could tell she genuinely wanted to make this as realistic as possible and didn't want to do anything that would jeopardize her relationship with Thor. She really did love him but he was just a tad difficult, just like how Loki used to be, he still was sometimes when he got into his head a bit too much but you always managed to pull him back to you. That's all he needed.

Since that day you could tell he was slightly troubled, you didn't want to snoop around but once he left his phone unattended and through his search history you found out that he was researching about the Norse myths for some reason, you wanted to talk to him about it but you didn't want to accuse him of anything. Things were just starting to get normal, maybe he was just curious, you knew he'd talk to you if he wanted to share this with you.

As Thor stepped out of his room you hugged him and wished him a happy birthday.

"You seem to be in a good mood" you teased him and he chuckled in response.

"Thanks starling. well we just had sex soooo" you gasped and you could tell from Jane's expressions that she wanted to dig a hole beneath the ground and jump in there.

Loki wanted to help in the kitchen but you dragged him out and made him sit down with his brother, they were having a few drinks while they played cards and every time your eyes met with him he smiled at you. There was something about the way he looked at you these days that had got you feeling all warm and giddy, it's not that he didn't treat you tenderly before but it mostly felt one sided, he wanted to soak you in his love but he was afraid of receiving it but since that incident he had been trying to get out of his shell and accept the love you wanted to give him. In and out of the bedroom.

The other day he actually allowed you to stay on top of him for a good few minutes while you rode him to heaven, his fingers stayed clutched into your hair, he was still dominating but he wasn't restricted in the way he wanted to be intimate with you.

Loki couldn't stop staring at you while you helped Jane in the kitchen, he wondered how you were getting prettier and prettier by the day. Everytime your eyes met with each other you had a flushed smile on your face and he had to restrain himself from wanting to get up and reach you so he could drown you in millions of kisses.

After his divorce he has vowed to himself that he'd never open his heart to someone ever again and he probably didn't even need to do that for you. You were always in there in his heart in one way or another, he had shoved the love he felt for you aside but it was all out in the open now and he just wanted to make you as happy as possible because he really adored that little look on your face and the sound of your giggles whenever he was giving you all the love that you truly deserved.

"Are you even listening to me?" Thor asked him and it pulled him out of his daydreaming. Thor poured him another drink so he chugged on it in one gulp.

"What were you saying?"

"Mother called this morning, wanted to see me" Loki looked at Thor curiously. Apparently Frigga was in an old age home in NYC, it was either that or a psychiatric hospital.

"Are you going to?"

"Not anytime soon..no" Loki hummed as Thor said that.

He himself had a talk with Frigga a few days ago, all these years he thought of her as his mother, she wasn't the best mother, obviously, but she was all he had in his life as a maternal figure. Discovering that he wasn't even her son had affected him, sure he was relieved to not have Odin's blood running through his veins but then who did he belong to?

The question kept bothering him so he asked her about his own family and where they kidnapped him from but she kept saying that he was Laufey's son, the son that Laufey had to give up to please the goddess Freyja. Just to entertain her he asked why did they keep him if he was the enemy's child and Frigga then told him that that's how Odin wanted it, he wanted to keep him like the prize of war so eventually when they all will return to Asgard, Odin could use him as a weapon against Laufey.

Of Course he didn't want to believe in the folklore but then why couldn't he stop thinking about it? Why was he getting so obsessed with the truth about his heritage?

"Let's play truth or dare" Jane said as you both sat down to join them for drinks, you didn't really like whiskey but Thor had vodka so Loki made you a little something to drink.

"Are you like ..four?" Loki asked her and she glared at him. The first time they met each other they both felt zero mutual attraction and it made sense now because he wasn't her type at all, his brother was. And now they had formed this endearing sibling type of relationship that you adored from the distance, only from the distance though because they got too childish sometimes.

"What kind of adult ass four year olds have you been around?" He rolled his eyes as she retorted. You had to use the bathroom so you excused yourself. You were washing your face when you felt someone's hand on your shoulder, it made you yelp and jump on your spot. You truly hated being alone these days

"It's just me..calm down sweetheart..just me yeahh?" he whispered as he pulled you closer, he could feel your heart threatening to burst out of your chest so he placed it hand on your chest and caressed gently.

"I'm sorry" you mumbled under your breath and he shook his head before he hugged you tightly, as soon as his scent infiltrated your senses you felt at peace.

"You okay my love?" He asked you so you nodded, the gray t-shirt he had worn was too tight on his body but you weren't complaining, you could feel every inch of rippling muscles underneath the fabric. After a few seconds he pulled you away and took his shirt off to dab the water off your soaked face. Again you weren't complaining at all. Your eyes fell upon the scar the wound had left behind, it was the constant reminder of what had happened but it was also the proof of the insurmountable godly strength your man carried within him.

"You're sooo drunk aren't you?" You giggled and it made him smile.

"I thought you liked the drunk me"

"I love the drunk you and the non drunk you" you grabbed the shirt from his hand and threw it behind you before you stepped closer to him. He stumbled on his feet as he took a step back.

"Feeling wobbly are we?" He noticed the change in the inflection but he wasn't going to fight it today, he had no will to do so. You grabbed his arm and took him back into the room then you sat him down on the bed, he tilted his head and gave you a small smile, pressing him down on the bed you straddled him, the back of his fingers ran over your cheek.

"I loveee it when you look like this" he mumbled softly.

"Like what?"

"This.. so freshh and natureeee..just the way you are meant to be" he was so drunk, you could tell by the way he was slurring on his words.

"Did you mean to say natural?"

"What did I sayyy?"

You giggled before you grabbed his hand in yours, you placed soft kisses on his fingertips one by one before you sucked the middle finger in your mouth, the digit disappeared completely in the warmth and you heard a desperate moan escape his throat.

"Would you still love me if I was ummm..uhhh big?" You looked at him curiously as he said that, was he insecure about his body? He didn't get any workout in the last two months except the sex of course but that had no negative effect on his physique whatsoever, his metabolism was crazily high.

"I'd love you no matter what lo..you know that right?" You asked him as you leaned over to him to kiss him.

"If I was blue in color and had scars all over my body, would you still love me?" you chuckled as he mumbled and it made him smile too.

"You could get as big as you want and you could be blue or red I won't care, I'd continue to be obsessed with every little inch of you, big or small" you whispered the last words in his ear and he smiled but then something else started to bother him, he had no grip on his emotions but atleast he knew he could always share the matters of his heart with you and you'd never judge him for that.

"I went to heaven when I died"

His eyes teared up so you sat up taking him along with you, you both were still healing from the trauma that Odin had inflicted upon you two, sure he was opening himself to you more and more but it also left him feeling extremely vulnerable and you were more than happy to take care for him during such moments.

"You did?" You curled your fingers around his neck to caress the nape and he put his head down on your chest.

"Mmmm.. I know Jennifer forgave me but it was because I helped her, but…what about those girls I didn't help?" His eyes welled up even more and the look on his face broke your heart "They died an untimely death and I get to go to heaven? Meeee?" He questioned you so you cupped his cheeks and kissed him as softly as you could.

He had mentioned before that when he died he went to a place that seemed perfect, he met a woman who claimed to be his real mother but you just figured that he was dreaming, he was technically dead for 9 minutes and maybe he had those Dreams after they brought him back and he just got confused.

"Maybe they were there as well, how would you know? You were only there for nine minutes" you said to him, your thumbs rubbed over his cheeks to wipe the tears away and he nodded like a child. He wanted to believe your words. Maybe they were there and he didn't see them.

"You think they would forgive me?" He looked at you again as he sniffled

"I'm sure they already have lolo" you whispered softly and laid him back down on the bed slowly.

"Would you touch me please?" He questioned you, the dim light in the room, the sound of the rain hitting the window above you two and his body underneath made you feel intoxicated. You trailed your fingernails down from his sternum and he sucked in a breath as you reached his torso, it didn't take you long to unbutton his pants and grab his hard cock in your hand. Latching your lips onto his neck you sucked a mark while stroking him simultaneously.

"That's good lolo?"

"Mmmmm yesss please..don't stop"

"Not going to baby" he moaned at the pet name as it made him feel so small, so little but he didn't despise it, he wanted to feel small beneath you, for once he just wanted to feel free and allow his girl to do whatever and however she wanted to do it.

"You're so pretty lolo, i always wanted to tell you that you are the prettiest thing I have ever known in my life..in every fucking way" he gasped as you took him inside you, every inch of his body felt aflamed when you started to roll your hips back and forth, he grabbed onto the headboard and watched your breasts jiggling with every move you made, once in a while he grabbed them in his hands, they fit just right, just perfect enough.

You didn't ask him or command him to cum, none of you had to say a word as both of your orgasms approached, your bodies felt synchronized and you were able to clench around him at the same time as he had filled you up.

You felt completely spent so you laid down on his chest in order to collect your breaths. He could feel you starting to doze off but sleep was the last thing on his mind, he felt extremely awake after that mind-blowing release.

"Lolo?"

"Mmmhm?"

"Why did you ask me if I'd love you being all blue and stuff?" He chuckled as you questioned him.

"Just a thought sweetheart..just a silly thought" you hummed as he said that.

It wasn't just a thought though, either something has awakened inside him or he was finally losing the last bits of his sanity because as he lifted his right hand up that he was using to caress your back, he could have sworn that he saw streaks of blue flashing through his pale skin. He saw it with his own eyes and he didn't know what to think of it.

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[beep-beep-sunny]

Reddie week!!! Day 3- Meet-cute! This is based on my experience visiting Manhattan!! I did NOT like it.

You learn quickly in Manhattan that people never just want to talk. It's always something. There's always an angle. Once you stop and make eye contact, they've trapped you. They've won. Eddie Kaspbrak logically knew he grew up in Maine, but he always felt like he was shaped by New York. The fast paced hustle and bustle. He perfected the "I'm a businessman and I'm far too busy to stop and chat" demeanor.  

It was obvious when someone didn't belong. Tourists in Manhattan stuck out like a sore thumb, if the thumb had on one of those yellow hats with the sting keeping it on its head and a camera around its…neck. Do thumbs have necks? Around it's knuckle which in this analogy functions more like a neck. Regardless, it was obvious. To some, these things were walking dollar signs or lambs to be led to slaughter. Eddie just kept his head down. He had no use for tourists. They were a minor inconvenience at best. They never walked fast enough, always gauking at the various "landmarks". Sometimes, they even stared, wide eyed, in awe of the majestic and rare pigeon. 

Eddie almost felt bad for tourists, he knew the city would do nothing but chew them up and spit them, like gum, back onto the street, penniless and sore. Though, what was he realistically going to do for them? He had his own problems. His wedding chased him like a creature chasing a teen girl through the woods in a hoodie movie. He knew it was approaching, but he couldn't bring himself to look. He'd just keep walking forward until it caught up with him. His mother was also recently spending more and more time in the hospital. No, tourists were not his problem. They were as numerous as the pigeons and nothing he could do for tourists or pigeons would make any difference. 

So, he just kept walking. Keeping his head down and moving forward with purpose, clutching his briefcase with white knuckles as he made expert turns and pivots around fake monks raising money for fake temples or this costumed off brand SpongeBob that's face was just a little off in the way you'd see in a kid's creepy jumpscare game. Someone else could get suckered into taking a picture with Spongecreep that they think is free, but oops, that'll be twenty dollars. 

It was like a dance. A dance that Eddie did everyday, so he knew the chirography by heart. Dodge, dodge, duck, dip, pirouette, slide, and SMACK. 

The smack was not a normal part of the dance. What the fuck. A big sunburnt hand broke through the haze, reached out to him. "I am so sorry." Said a man in a voice that was deep, but also deeply unserious. The humor in his tone boiled Eddie's blood slightly as he took the man's hand with a hard squeeze and a tug, he pulled himself off the greasy Manhattan sidewalk Disgusting. Oh my god. When was my last tetanus shot? No. Die later, Kaspbrak. Kill this guy first. What a klutz. A big stupid lug. A- 

Eddie looked forward and got a look at the man. Dark messy hair clumping in sweaty chunks on his red forehead. Big black plastic frame glasses that were already leaving a stupid tan line. His eyes were bluer than the muddy Manhattan sky. He was lanky and big. Eddie felt small with his hand …still clutched in this stranger's large paw. He quickly ripped his hand away and straightened up his suit. The guy was obviously a tourist. Everything about him said tourist, from his yellow hat, to his camera hanging off his neck, to his kind smile and friendly eyes, but especially the fact that he stopped to help Eddie up instead of letting him get trampled like Mufasa in a stampede of antelope. No, instead, they both stood in the middle of a Manhattan sidewalk with people washing around them like they're two rocks in a stream and the sound of rushing water was the cursing Newyorkers they were mildly inconveniencing. 

Then, Eddie realized it had been a weird amount of time that he'd just been standing there, staring at this man and saying nothing. "... it's fine" he forced out, knowing he looked like an idiot even though he wasn't the one that crashed right into a stranger with his stupid long limbs. 

The guy laughed at that. What the fuck was so funny about all this? "You're pretty cute for a curmudgeonly business man." Cute? Cute?? What the hell was that supposed to mean? His eyes met Eddie's and it was like the words even surprised himself. Like he didn't know that's what he was going to say until it fell out of his mouth. "Well," he broke the eye contact. "I'm sure you have places to be, you walked right into me after all." He winked and ran off. "Bye cutie business man." Eddie should have said Excuse me? You are obviously the one that ran into me with your stupidly long limbs, you floppy man they put outside of car dealerships. 

He didn't though. Instead, he kept standing. Now a lone rock, the water only having him to slosh around. Cute? He felt something unpleasant turning in his stomach. It wasn't strictly unpleasant, but perhaps nostalgic. The kind of feeling you get when your limb just starts falling asleep or what he imagined it might feel like at the top of a roller coaster just before the big drop. It was similar to dread, but he couldn't understand why he'd be dreading something. Maybe that guy looked like a mugshot on America's Most Wanted and he was subconsciously remembering. Cute. It kept playing on repeat in his head. He could almost hear someone saying that. Cute cute cute. Probably just his mother. No one else would have called him that. Just his mother and some jackass tourist trying to make fun of him. 

He watched the man keep walking until he crested over the horizon and disappeared into a crowd of faces going every which way like a page out of a Where's Waldo book. Then, Eddie did all he could really do, and kept walking too. He wasn't even going to make it to work early. Never talk to anyone in Manhattan. Just keep walking. 

Eddie shook his head as he fast walked towards inevitability. "Cute." He repeated under his breath, and if he smiled, no one saw. 

[canonmisogynyvictimstournament]

PROPAGANDA

SAKURA HARUNO (NARUTO)

1.) 1.) It is repeatedly stated throughout the series the areas in which she excels. We are told over and over again that she is gifted (early on in the series) or tremendously strong (end of the series) and yet with the exception of of the Sasori fight, there seems to be a staunch refusal to actually SHOW her being competent in a fight. 2.) her backstory ties into nothing plotwise as far as the overarching world and history of the village and its families. The three other leads (Sasuke Naruo, Kakashi) all get their own relevant backstory that gets delved into. But Sakura? Neither has one nor goes off and embroils herself personally into one of these overarching plot points. She is constantly forced to just be a companion/side character to the stories of her male counterparts. 3.) She's given so much potential for a great powersuite and those all either go unrealized or she gets shown up by other characters. idk if this is what was meant by propaganda but its what i got

2.) Despite becoming the world's best surgeon and doctor at age 17 (including doing open heart surgery in the middle of an active battlefield), her achievements are routinely undercut and underplayed by the canon.

It's all the more disappointing because in some ways, she's a very realistic and humanistic depiction of a teenage girl. Unlike her teammates, she grew up in what we would consider a pretty average family situation (two living parents who love her, even if they don't understand her choices), and has relatively average goals at the beginning. Compared to her teammates who are orphans from dynastic ninja clans, who were basically born to a lineage of massive amounts of powerful ninja magic; Sakura's civilian family has given her no genetic predisposition to being powerful. Despite this, she's shown to be highly intelligent, achieving top scores on exams and having a deep knowledge for theory and concepts.

She begins the story having a crush on Sasuke Uchiha, a boy who has no interest in her, and hating Naruto, their village's Omelas Child. However, as she works with her team, she bonds with them on a deeper level, and works very hard to meet their natural level of skill and not be deadweight on their team.

However, despite the fact that trios are treated with deep cultural and narrative significance throughout Naruto, the narrative quickly abandons the "Team 7 Trio" framing in all the ways that matter, becoming the Naruto-and-Sasuke show in all ways that matter. When Sakura gets her time to shine, she's always undercut. Her massive physical strength and strong sense of self in Shippuden are never treated with the same reverence as her teammates'. Despite the fact that she can easily shatter rock and manipulate the ground with her sheer physical power, and that she was originally presented as good at genjutsu (illusion magic); she becomes a field medic/doctor -- a carer/support role, rather than a DPS. Her decisions to advocate for herself and the people she cares about (such as trying to kill Sasuke) are treated as foolish and naive, not a heroic choice to try and help her friends at a large personal cost.

She also basically never gets to fight a man, except for one important case: Sasori. This is important, because the female characters in Naruto are routinely presented as less powerful and less of a threat than male characters. While her fight with Sasori is a fantastic arc, it ends with Sasori undercutting her victory by being like "well actually I wanted to die", implying that he'd chosen to let her win, not that her win is well deserved. This is at the start of Shippuden, she doesn't get a solo fight arc after that.

Of course, the most egregious thing done to Sakura is that she's married off to Sasuke. Despite the fact that Sasuke is never once shown to give a shit about her, and the fact that her character development in a large part was about her giving up the childish and misogynistic desire to be a wife to the cute guy in her class, suddenly they're together. Sasuke is a deadbeat husband, however, and immediately fucks off, to the point where he doesn't recognise their child when he meets her, and tries to kill her. Sakura-the-housewife-waiting-at-the-window-for-her-husband's-return is again now deeply in love with a man who doesn't give a shit about her. The only photo she has of them together is shown to be a cutout of another photo of Sasuke stuck on a photo of her. She's again trapped in a housewife box, her achievements and skill sideline to her ability to rear a child for the male lead. And worse, despite the fact she's a very confident person who otherwise has no issue advocating for herself, she doesn't really seem to fight back against this awful status quo in her relationship, grateful for the scraps of affection Sasuke delivers to her once a decade.

3.) Despite being on a team of three, she's always side lined for the other two. Her whole thing is healing, then in a major arc at the end of the main series a character gets hurt and when she goes to attempt to heal them, she is pushed aside so Naruto can do his amazing magic healing that he just learned and is already better at it than her.

ADA VESSALIUS (PANDORA HEARTS) (CW: Domestic Abuse)

1.) Her treatment is so terrible. She gets abused by a guy who's only dating her for other goals, and has openly told her he's only using her and doesn't love her, and yet she's written to constantly forgive him and love him to the end, anyway. She's only used as a plot device, being kidnapped and having her life threatened multiple times just to further her brother's story (he's the MC). And whenever she tries to make her own choices, like God forbid date someone, the male figures in her life get in her way because "that's my sister/daughter/etc". Not even because the guy she chose sucks lol. Her arc is basically just...forgiving people that shouldn't be forgiven, I guess? But that's generous. She doesn't have an arc, and has basically no personality.

[jacqcrisis]

So Ronan the dragonborn cleric has his journal and a habit of drawing. Alongside his dry recounts of the day, the more spicy prose written in draconic that frustrates his nosey companions, and simplistic stick figure diagrams of action he can't draw properly, are more detailed sketches. These sketches are generally reserved for animals or plants, especially flowers, he happens across and enjoys, jotted down to the best of memory alongside the words written about the days events.

But between those, every now and then, are drawings of people, most notably people he finds important in some way. These sketches aren't hyper realistic or artful as his capabilities are amateur at best, but they are detailed and good enough you would recognize who they were depicting. He's not trying to become a master of the art, but just good enough that he can have a visual reminder of someone if they should leave him or pass away.

Sometime during Act 2, after the conversation with the mirror about Astarion not remembering what he looks like but before he confesses to feeling something more, Ronan notices his journal is missing. Again. It happens often enough that he's not worried, but he would like it back so he does the rounds around camp to see which sticky-fingered companion took it tonight.

After checking with nearly everyone save Wyll, Ronan finds Astarion a little ways away from everyone, sat near a torch and hunched over conspicuously. Upon silently walking up to him, standing just behind him, Ronan waits just a few moments until his presence is felt. Predictably, Astarion jumps to his feet, hand going for a dagger with the journal clutched to his chest as he whips around to face his would be assailant.

Of course, it's just Ronan and Astarion sighs in a melodramatic relief, commenting that they should perhaps bell the dragonborn when he isn't in his horrendously loud armor. Ronan grunts, holding out a hand expectantly and what follows is a rather typical back and forth as Astarion teasingly mentions all the 'dirty little secrets' he's supposedly gleaned from the journal while Ronan steadfastly asks for the damn thing back as he'd like to make an entry and get to sleep. But something's off, as usually after a minute or two the leather bound book is halfway into Ronan's hand, being pulled away a time or two, yet Astarion is keeping it close to himself, as if reluctant to give it back.

Ronan notices, interrupts Astarion in midst of being complained at over his assessment of the rogue's battle performance to ask if everything is alright. For a moment, Astarion says yes, of course, well as good as he can be starving and exhausted in the middle of this godforsaken place but-

And he stops, chewing on his lip, troubled as he opens the journal again to flip to the page he'd had his thumb wormed into this whole time. He touches his face and Ronan can feel what's coming before Astarion opens his mouth to ask if the person on the page is him. He doesn't even need to see the sketch Astarion shows him; there's a lot of the elf drawn in that journal.

Ronan nods and then immediately mutters something akin to an apology that his artistic talent is lacking, receiving a joke about how Astarion certainly wouldn't hang anything he's drawn by his bedroll that trails off. Then he's silent for a moment, taking the journal back to stare down at the page before he supposes it's the best he'll get. It's a want for a way to help that strikes Ronan as he watches, struggling with what to say and wishing he had some way to alleviate that grief, to show him-

But there is a way to show him, isn't there?

It takes some convincing and a promise to not probe into Astarion's thoughts, but eventually a reluctant vampire is standing illuminated in a holy daylight summoned eagerly for just the occasion. He's instructed to close his eyes as Ronan crouches down to get the best view he can and takes Astarion's hand to press his palm to a scaley temple. The connection is immediate, Astarion's sight filled with a clear picture of himself, of a face he hasn't seen in centuries mirrored perfectly through Ronan's steady and concentrated gaze.

He's given as much time as he needs, Ronan seemingly happy to stare at him as he takes it all in. There's something filtering through the cleric's ironclad concentration, made only more apparent at every observation and joke Astarion makes while refamiliarizing himself with himself. Words and phrases pop into mind, squashed before they complete like the sound of them being thrust underwater to muffle and become incoherent.

Comments about his features, about his voice, about the hand still curled against Ronan's temple, about how close they are. Noachi, that draconic nickname Ronan's given him that he still has no idea the meaning of, thought less like a word and more like a fond prayer floating through as Ronan chuckles at some quip Astarion makes about not remembering his chin being like that. But there's another thing that Ronan can't seem to stop coloring his perception and his thoughts.

It's not a word or a phrase or even a picture. Merely a feeling, a warmth, deep and radiating, growing stronger and stronger the longer Ronan is staring at Astarion. So much so, it colors the picture he's presenting as a glow emanates around Astarion that has nothing to do with the magical daylight or the nearby torch or anything about himself, as if that warmth Ronan is feeling is warping his very sight.

And it's a feeling that Astarion recognizes, has tried not to recognize for a little while now, ignoring and writing it off and burying it at every turn. A feeling that answers back within him and that shakes him. Frightens him enough, he takes his hand away, opens his eyes to break the connection.

Astarion thanks him, kind of, inbetween commenting that he hopes Ronan is happy he's probably satisfied his need to stare at Astarion for the evening before actually saying something that amounts to gratitude. It gets him another chuckle, and Ronan bows his head with a little smile, telling him 'anytime, noachi' before leaving Astarion alone. The daylight fades away to nothing and Astarion is left by the torch, watching Ronan take his journal to the rest of the rest of camp as he touches his face, lost in thought.

[wagrilous-23]

Bunny With A Vision AU!

Masterpost

- This is going to be the post where all the links and stories of this AU will be as I develop it over time, and I'll organize it as best I can!

During an unknown time period, a cosmic force of unfathomable proportions tears holes between realities, both big and small, snatching those unaware in a tear that led to a specific world....

In one world, a digitized simulation whose sole AI ringmaster administrator was in the middle of giving his 6 human avatar guests a rundown of the next adventure he had in mind, until a reality tear enveloped the purple one, confusing everyone and briefly causing chaos within the digital circus before he is taken, but not before adding in one final joke to humor himself.

In the other, the world was already war-torn and a bit empty on human life except for cybernetic robots, one of which was a giant TV-headed one. He was in the midst of using black smoke to teleport himself to another location, but a reality tear happened to appear, sending him far away from his home dimension, to somewhere far beyond....

Characters:

-Jax

The whimsy, mischievous, yet so annoying and jerkish asshole of the Amazing Digital Circus, he had been taken away from the now familiar simulated world he had come to call "home", initially thinking he had finally escaped. But nope! Jax was still in purple rabbit digital avatar, now apparently stranded in a big, desolate world that was far too realistic looking for Dentures' to have made-

"What, you expected the author to be writing everything? Nah! I can speak for myself, and boy, do I got things to say!"

"First of all, @$&^ the one who sent me to this place! Two, I hate the stupid monsters that roam everywhere in this stupid world, they ruin any sort of fun I have. Third, why am I stuck having to listen to a giant screen-faced robot who I can't even understand because he's talking gibberish!"

(In reverse) "I heard that." >:(

"Shush you. Eh, I guess this is my new circumstances, oh well. Be sure to be on the lookout for updates to the adventures me and the big guy get into, it'll be hilarious watching him do all the work! While I just sit back and relax now that I don't have to deal with that hammy AI or the others. Don't need 'em. Never have, and never will! Hahahaha!"

....Moving on.

-Visionet

-Visionet, or more often known as Titan TV Man (abbreviated TTVM), is a giant, TV head robot who can teleport with a black smoke effect, is all kinds of stoic and badass, yet cares for those who are smaller than him as comrades. His abilities are diverse and set him far apart from your regular TV head character, on top of being tall enough to look into a 4 or 5 story building (not that he'd do that mind you); plus he likes to swear or say some vulgar innuendos whenever he can, something that Jax gripes about since despite being WAY beyond the range of the Circus, he can't swear without the profanity filter. Visionet was just trying to teleport to a mission objective when he landed in a hostile world that seemingly was once full of life and is now roaming with all sorts of creepy monsters, but is now dead, with only a small purple rabbit jackass to act as company. The Titan makes it really fucking clear that he hates being the one pulling his weight while Jax just chills behind him. However...something within Visionet recognizes that there's more to Jax that meets the eye...

(In reverse) "On any other day, I would've crushed you within my fist, but for some reason you have something in your soul that stops me..."

"Is it my charm? It's gotta be my charm! I do try to be as presentable as possible, and that's just one part of me I have!"

(In reverse) "At times like this though, I severely question my own judgement." -_-

-Character 3: N/A

-Character 4: N/A

-Character 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, whatever: N/A

Posts List:

The Setup (here)

Lore, Backgrounds, and Worldbuilding (Coming soon!)

When a Rabbit and an Overconfident Box Meet (Coming soon!)

Interactions 1 (Coming soon!)

Oh Great, Ommetaphobia if it gained sentience (Coming soon!)

What's an ol' Telly For? (Coming soon!)

Jax and Visionet: The Exhausting Quest for some Peace and Quiet (Coming Soon!)

Interactions 2 (Coming soon!)

A Sense of "Why do I care about this guy?" (Coming soon!)

Of Hares and Screens (Coming soon!)

Irrational Fears (Coming soon!)

Learning to Live, Learning to Love (Coming Soon!)

Soft Lights, Dull Gold (Coming soon!)

Story Post #1 (Coming soon.)

(That is all for now. To whoever becomes interested in this AU, ask me about anything, criticize any mistakes I make, and just do so for fun, lol)

To give you a preview, here's this:

[mean-scarlet-deceiver]

I know you are a fan of FutureRust and It’ s A Splendid Life. I think that AU is great. It makes me wonder how the timeline works if Thomas is never made? Or Edward, Henry, Gordon etc 

What do you think? 

Ooooooohhh. Hmmmmmm.

Okay, first of all, for those who haven't read Splendid Life (shame!) or just need a recap [SPOILERS]: in this fanfic James gets to observe what the NWR would have been like if he'd never been built, and the answer is [AGAIN! SPOILERS! THERE IS NO TURNING BACK AFTER THIS!] the railway failed to expand, faces inevitable bankruptcy, and everyone's miserable.

For what it's worth, I think the logic of A Splendid Life is excellent if FC1 couldn't have bought James or a mechanically similar engine at a knock-down price. However, I do think that realistically FC1 could have found "another James" throughout all the decommissioning the LMS was doing in the '20s and '30s. They would probably have been a little less robust than James but he could have certainly gotten a good mixed-traffic engine for scrap prices. I do think the NWR might have been poorer and not in a position to come out of WWII swinging, and yes I don't think FC1 would have picked up Percy in particular because he wouldn't have been looking at the exact time Percy was on the market, but then that's true of quite a few canon characters that FC1 does buy in Splendid Life anyway.

So, not to ruin the story, but as I think through this I'd argue James's absence has less impact than the absence of many of the others. He'd be, like, middle-of-the-pack in terms of essentialness. This is in no way a knock on Splendid Life; it's still one of my favorite ttte fics.

[END OF SPOILERS]

Let me take the rest of the engines in a different order. Kinda going from easiest to hardest to write about. For "etc." I will throw in Percy and Toby, the other two FC1 engines.

Gordon: I think it's very simple—without Gordon in the timeline, the NWR likely goes bankrupt before we even get to the Depression. That doesn't mean rail on Sodor disappears but I think the system would be absorbed by the LMS. Topham Hatt I might have been kept on as a director and manager but he wouldn't be able to run things in his own way. LMS engines would largely take over the network and the other tender engines would have been scrapped by WWII. Percy and Toby never come to Sodor. Thomas probably lasts the longest, on a Sodor railway that looks quite different. He might have still been promoted to branch line but that would have to be before the LMS takeover. It's also possible that without the revenue from Gordon's services the extension of the Ffarquhar line is not completed and so an engine isn't needed to run it.

Toby: If Toby didn't exist, Thomas might have been fitted with cowcatchers and sideplates and never heard the end of it from most of the other engines. Alternatively (despite what FC1 says offhand when he's on the spot and discouraged), FC1 might have simply acquired a different tank engine. One possibility is outfitting Percy with the kit and replacing him as Tidmouth station pilot earlier (possibly even with Duck! a long shot, but the NWR was nationalised by then...)

Percy: If Percy hadn't been made, I think FC1 simply buys another cheap secondhand industrial engine (but it's unlikely he happens to buy one with Percy's spunk and pluck so that changes the dynamic of the main cast in some ways). I think it's unlikely that FC1 simply would have never found another candidate but it would be very interesting if he couldn't. In that improbable scenario, I don't think FC1 manages to completely break the Strike Trio's action. I think he'd have to continue appeasing them in some sort of ways. At the same time, the issue is never completely resolved one way or another—it just festers. I think FC1 would rely heavily on Edward taking up residence at Tidmouth instead of Wellsworth but operations suffer accordingly and I still don't think Edward could be station pilot full time since he's also basically the rescue engine and banker at this time... This all would honestly set the railway on a fairly toxic path, with the big engines continuing to be unhappy with the ad-hoc situation at Tidmouth, continuing to have power struggles with FC1, and probably continuing with their mean-girls bullshit until there is full-out enmity between them and Edward + Thomas.

Realistically, I think there's plenty of middle ground between canon, where FC1 resolves the situation so quickly, and an AU where he never gets things in order. But I do think if "Trouble in the Sheds" had dragged on for any length of time that the dynamic among the fleet would have been very different and therefore the cast of the Railway Series books is different—if the Thin Clergyman is charmed enough to write it at all.

Edward: On the one hand, I doubt Edward's non-existence leaves a unique hole in the early workforce the way that the others' would—if there hadn't been an Edward I think the NWR would have simply begged, borrowed, or stolen some other Furness engine of similar vintage, maybe a little older, maybe a little less willing, but I think they'd have muddled along in a similar way... in the short term. In the long term, though, I believe Edward's absence would be very telling. In many ways he's really the heart of the (NWR) cast and his influence on the others is subtle but significant. Not in that the cast would be any more foolhardy, the railway would have its same chequered safety record—I really don't think Edward's frequent advice of "be careful!" really helped the others to learn sense any faster... but I do think it's more he influenced the whole joint to be a kinder, warmer, more forgiving sort of place than it would have otherwise been. Without Edward there is no counter to the early-years dynamic of Every Engine For Himself, Zero-Sum Competition. FC1 would have still sent away the worst influences and battered some morals or whatever into the others but, I think, at a slower rate, and the change is all imposed from the top... without Edward there I don't think the fleet becomes a family. It's also quite possible that it never crosses FC1's mind to consider Thomas to run the Ffarquhar branch so There's That.

Thomas: In contrast, Thomas's coming to the island is such a mysterious fluke that there's no "it would have just been another engine." I think this is another situation where the NWR would be missing something vital—certainly its greatest claim to fame, in the long run!—but they wouldn't know it, you know? They wouldn't know what they were missing. In a Jamesless world FC1 might sometimes wistfully say to himself that it would be nice if he had a some real pizzazz and panache on his fleet, and in an world without Edward I think FC1 would be wishing that he could've somehow socialized the engines a bit better, so they were all a little more chill. But Thomas, man. He was a gift from the gods. He was a strike of blessed lightning. Everything about Sodor's vibe would be a little worse without Thomas and they wouldn't even know it. How sad is that?

Okay, getting down to brass tacks. I don't think his impact on the workforce would be so obvious. I think even in their poorest and earliest days the NWR could have scrounged up another shunter somehow and until he was vacuum-fitted and rebuilt Thomas wasn't good for much else, and without Thomas they would have just fit up another of their tank engines for the Ffarquhar line—it might have even been cheaper. I think the community along the Ffarquhar line wouldn't have been so attached to the railway without Thomas's charisma but again, the NWR probably wouldn't notice that. I do wonder if Charles Hatt would have married into the Ffarquhar Quarry owner's family without Thomas's stellar relationship-building to highlight that area of the island or not.

The Thin Clergyman still becomes a friend of the NWR and writes a Railway Series that is a thing for a while, but it doesn't really take off the same way without Thomas and the series probably ends sooner. I do think in this timeline the RWS has enough of a cultural impact that there is still some merch, maybe even a TV series, but I don't think it becomes a franchise in the same way as now; it's more of a trend-setter. I think it would inspire other book/TV series and that one of them would probably eclipse the RWS and become the "Thomas the Tank Engine"-equivalent brand name in-universe.

All this said, it is fascinating how the events of the series really don't hang all that much on Thomas at all. He's so very on the sidelines for most of the "golden era" of the RWS. I don't think the railway would have failed or struggled without him, though I think the Ffarquhar line itself wouldn't be as busy or important.

One big change is that I think, without Thomas, Gordon remains at least 50% more insufferable throughout his whole life. There's something about that cheeky tank engine that humbled him some. I know he puts Thomas in his place in "Thomas and Gordon," but—nevertheless!—Gordon met his match when he was condemned to put up with Thomas the Tank Engine mouthing off to him every day for years on end.

Henry: If Henry is never built? Hmm... how much changes?

I think things do change but he's the hardest to quantify. As far as the fortunes of the railway, honestly in the pre-RWS days they are probably better off. FC1 can spend the money he spent buying Henry on another engine, one that may not be as theoretically powerful but one that is more reliable. No need for Welsh coal, no need for a Flying Kipper rebuild. But I think the railway suffers as far as never really being pushed to develop a higher code of loyalty or understanding. This would be most notable in Gordon and FC1 (and, as they are both huge influences on the railway has a whole, these would make for some big ripple effects).

Without Henry, I think Gordon's character development might not get off the ground until much later. I think it still would have eventually grown up just because he was born with the soul of an elder statesengine, but in this timeline the seeds for his change aren't planted so early so he just remains Insufferable Unapproachable Bigshot for a few decades longer.

As for FC1, I think Henry is probably the catalyst of his character development—I do think the others played into it too but I think Henry had the single biggest impact on us going from the good-for-little-but-plot-device-and-comic-relief person we meet of "The Sad Story of Henry" to The Fat Controller. Before Henry, FC1 was an arrogant and inflexible man. Clever, and enterprising, and his stubbornness was probably key to his career thus far... and I doubt he was devoid of some nicer sentiments... but he is not yet the man he becomes. Getting swindled by Henry's builder was a humbling moment for him. Henry also gave him a dramatic illustration of the limits of just trying to get people (well, engines, but I don't doubt this lesson spilled over to people) to do things by force and authority and shouting. He probably regretted escalating things at once but found himself in a bind and had to learn the hard way that you should not make threats if you don't really want to follow through with them! Henry's pervasive mechanical issues probably also taught FC1 greater patience and understanding, and Henry's triumphant turn-around would have ensured that FC1 committed himself going forward to rather high ideals.

I think FC1 tried so hard to eke a "win" from the Henry situation at least in part for his own ego/reputation—if he gave up on Henry, he had to admit utter defeat in the matter of buying him. But I think by the end of the whole thing FC1 had become a different person. In short, without a Henry I/Henry II saga, I don't think we have a man so committed to saving his engines even in the face of nationalisation (and Edward rattling about like crazy at 55—a perfectly reasonable age to withdraw an engine from service), or a successor who assisted in Henry's triumph of a rebuild and who goes on to defy BR's modernisation plan completely.

Therefore, without Henry, the NWR still survives.

But also? It isn't really our NWR.

(It's probably fully dieselised. And D7101, while not rude to their faces, always considered that steam engines were kinda clapped-out.)

ALL THAT SAID... while writing this I came up with another AU involving Henry. But in this one he proves to be a perfectly reasonable, decently reliable engine who can handle the Express on his own from the beginning. This means he kinda isn't really Henry any more, but. It's hilarious. Because Gordon arrives too. You thought the NWR was boisterous enough with one haughty egoistical Pacific racing along the main line and struggling to live up to their own boasting? Try two of themmmmmmm! And they loathe each other!!!!

(I'm actually dying... it takes Sodor the Unnecessarily Extra Island and makes it 94% MORE EXTRA)

[linagram]

[meet the guard!] guard 003: kuroki hinode

(this was supposed to be posted yesterday but.. i forgor...)

HE'S FINALLY HERE!!! THE THIRD GUARD!!! AND ALSO RIKU'S BIG BROTHER!! LET'S GO!!!

he gets not one but two drawings bc he's a very special little boy (and also bc i feel bad for him since he got introduced late for obvious story purposes but like.. i really need to make more content for him..)

(also fun fact: the first drawing actually was done in july and the second one just a few days ago.. i can actually see some differences in my art style hehe..)

another note is that when i started to work on hinode's character, my first thought was that i kinda wanted to create another physically disabled guard character (since i think eiji can count as the first one because kei's treatment of him had not the best impact on his body), it just sounded like a neat concept! but i also didn't want to make him.. how do i explain.. too sympathetic, maybe? too squishy? what really annoys me as someone who is physically disabled is that characters like that are often used to make people feel bad for them and don't really have any personality OR they turn out to be the bad guys who only pretended to be disabled for pity points. so instead i've tried to make hinode's problems realistic and a lot of it comes from my own experiences, but i still wanted to make him morally gray and kinda.. you know.. kinda suspicious. (you're more than allowed to joke about punching him or putting him in a blender and all that)

General info.

Name: Kuroki Hinode (黒木日出) (his last name means "black" and "tree" and his first name means "sun, day" and "exit, leave". yes, hinode's name has kanji for "day" and riku's name has kanji for "evening".. the parallels <3...)

Age: 22 y/o

Gender: Male

Status: Guard 003

Birthday: January 28 (Aquarius)

Blood type: AB

Height: 179 cm

Occupation: Unemployed

Personality: Hinode isn't as outgoing as his brother, but he still enjoys talking to others, learning more about them and just spending time with other people. However, he's used to being alone, so he won't complain if it's not possible for him to talk to anyone at the moment. It actually might be better for him, since he gets tired quite easily because of his poor health and can't be active for too long. He feels sleepy most of the time, so please don't judge him for suddenly dozing off in the middle of the conversation, even if it's very important. He's not as passionate about justice as the other guards and mostly just wants to do his own thing, not caring about morals too much, but still having enough common sense to punish those who deserve it (in his opinion). He dislikes the physical kind of punishments because he believes that they're too "basic", since pain can easily scare anyone and there's nothing special about it. It's also possible that he doesn't like them because of his own experience with chronic pain, but to be honest, Hinode is lying when he says that he doesn't like to see people in pain. Yes, he believes that pain is the worst thing that could happen to anyone, even worse than death. But also, as someone who has no choice but to spend most of his days in pain.. Maybe he does want to see the prisoners feel the same way as he does. Maybe just a little bit. He still prefers the psychological punishments, finding them more "effective" and "suitable".. mostly because he's too weak to punish anyone physically.

MV info.

His Milgram cover: Him and T1 Naomi are twinning and he'd cover Weakness! The lyrics remind me a lot of him and I think with an instrumental like that it'd be appropriate for Riku's brother to cover it.

His DECO*27 cover: Harinezumi. The lyrics remind me a lot of him in general, him trying to keep up with everyone even though his condition doesn't allow him and him feeling like a burden to others, especially his family, but also being jealous of Riku for being so popular, talented and living his best life (at least it seems so on the outside) ("I can still keep going! Jealousy, what a trifling thing", "Don't you sometimes feel a little dizzy? I'm sighing because I'm tired of my heart pounding", "People know their true forms after being broken and crushed") and also the song describes his dysfunctional relationship with Riku really well as two brothers who are both jealous of each other and who both want something the other has (Riku has friends, popularity, the time and energy to make music, meanwhile Hinode has the family's attention, others helping him and people not judging him for spending the whole day in bed) but who also still love each other and genuinely wish their life could go differently ("I'll embrace you, we won't be parted", "Don't be prickly with me, each time we touch, I throb. If I prick you, you might hate me, well, there's no way that will happen!.. At least, I think", "I'm an attention seeker! I want to be spoiled! I want to melt even more for you!") And also considering that one of them is extremely suicidal and the other one is afraid that his life won't be that long.. ("In the blink of an eye, which of us will die?")

His Non-DECO*27 cover: Waltz by Nashimoto-P. I imagine Hinode having this very soft and quiet voice that almost sounds like a whisper and I feel like it would fit the way Miku is tuned very well! Also the lyrics sound so much like him trying to cope with his condition, his relationship with Riku, other problems and slowly going insane in the process. ("Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, I ask what day is it today, regrettably thinking today will be a good time", "I don't know what's fun, but as I run out of things to do, I will accompany you", "My EKG is a straight line, I wonder how many decades ago") Some lyrics, especially the chorus remind me of the way he acts as a guard too. ("Stop trying to give up, the world is connected. Dance, smile, while you're being controlled. In the beginning, in the end, the details are non-existent. Don't resist, accept it, everything is connected") Also, Riku's T3 song is supposed to be by Nashimoto-P too, so :} They're matching!

His T3 Voice Trailer Voicelines:

"Ah, greetings, prisoners. Um, I apologize for such a late introduction, haha.. My name is Kuroki Hinode and I am the third guard of this prison. Nice to meet you. Starting from today, I'll be replacing Sanada Eiji-san as he's recovering. I hope we all get along. I'm really not the best person for this job, so I apologize if I end up falling asleep in the middle of the interrogation, haha.."

".. What was I supposed to do? I can't even get out of bed right now. If he wants to be saved, then I'm not the one who he should ask for help."

Trivia:

His eyes may not look like it because of the lighting on the first picture, but his eye color is supposed to be gray, meanwhile Riku's eye color is more of a mix of light green and gray.

Hinode's natural hair color is light brown, but a few days before Riku committed his crime, Riku suggested that he dyes Hinode's hair, hoping to make him feel at least a little better. They went with the brightest colors Riku had just for fun and it really did make Hinode smile and he was happy to spend time with his brother like that. In season 2, Riku dyed his hair the same way and noticed the colors only when it was too late, so it's possible that he missed his brother and did that subconsciously. It should be noted, however, that Riku's T2 hair is light green on the left and red on the right, meanwhile Hinode's hair is light green on the right and his hair is more pink rather than red on the left. Hinode also has a double ahoge just like his little brother and same goes for their little sisters. It's something they all share :)

He started putting his hair in a bun since he arrived because he found working with his hair down uncomfortable. Miki helps him with it now.

Hinode's illnesses aren't deadly, but a lot of them are chronic and dealing with them made Hinode a little bit paranoid and he has a lot of health-related anxiety. His condition is supposed to be mostly up to interpretation, but I can say for sure that he has anemia, narcolepsy and fibromyalgia.

He's the tallest out of all the guards (and that also makes Eiji the shortest). He's also the oldest one.

It's hard for him to walk because of how tired he feels most of the time, so he asked Miki if it's okay to hold her hand when they walk together. After a lot of internal screaming because of Hinode being so cute, Miki agreed. 

His room has everything he needs and he can see the whole prison on multiple screens, watch the interrogation recordings, adjust the brightness of the screens and the room temperature and whoever kidnapped him also somehow learned about all the medications he has to take. He was creeped out by first, but then went "Oh, it's kinda nice actually :)"

Speaking of him arriving to Milgram, he was kidnapped while he was asleep. So before Jackalope brought him his guard uniform, Hinode spent all his time wearing pajamas. He still thinks they're more comfortable than his uniform. (another fun fact is that the first "concept art" of him had him in his pajamas sjskkssl)

He's probably the best character to ask for medical help at the moment, since he does know a lot about things like that, but whether he's able to actually help someone depends on how he's feeling at the moment and what his relationship with that person is like. 

Hinode actually used to play the guitar before his health started to get worse and after he realized he doesn't have the energy to play anymore, he gave it to Riku. Riku still uses his brother's guitar and not counting the ones he got in Milgram, he refuses to get a new one. It also has a bunch of silly drawings on it made by Riku himself, Hinode and their little sisters.