#she's the whole reason why i always play with JP voices

[kotaerukoto]

Genuinely insane how Ogata's voice work for Makoto changed Kodaka's entire opinion about Makoto from "he can be kind of unreliable" to "actually no he's swag as fuck and extremely reliable"

[dirtyoldmanhole]

continuing the 'gunter is a obfuscating snake of a sleezeball in the married conquest route and i'm kinda into it' thought: one line that bothered me for a while was in his JP S-support; it's basically his confession line:

Gunther: A promise is a promise. Please answer the question. Kamui: Y-yeah, all right… I don’t have anyone like that… Gunther: I see. Then, what about someone like me? Kamui: W-what? Gunther: You are the only woman that I have loved.

[record scratch] here's the fun thing:

that is a straight up lie.

what about your dead wife gunter? the one you spent twenty-thirty years plotting revenge for and was the literal reason you got possessed by? (kronk voice) that wife? :P

there's a few plausible reasonings for this discrepancy: one, it's not the character, somebody at nintendo straight up didn't play revelation. fates was rushed, it's entirely possible that some S-supports were not double-checked for facts when iirc the routes were being done by separate teams. (1b: technically you could argue 'maybe he didn't actually love her lol' which is darkly hysterical, but that feels so wildly out of character to the whole 'plotting revenge for 20 years' shtick that i'm tossing that out). and then two: nintendo itself fully intended gunter to be lying to corrin.

and i think it's that second reasoning.

which is interesting b/c nintendo almost always falls on the line of warping characters to be lovestruck waifus/husbandos that worship you/corrin even if it starts to bend/break their characterization. why keep his sharp, murky edges of all characters? I genuinely don't think i've ever seen nintendo go as far as have a character baldly lie to you the player so boldly especially when it comes to the main love confession---nintendo doesn't really mix the 'cold blooded emotional manipulation' with the waifuism.

now ... I do think he genuinely loves corrin [gestures @ my whole revelation loveblog]. different topic, that, but both can co-exist, since i think gunter doubling down on the 'you're the only one :)' shtick is him being so petrified at how many questions will be asked about his past, especially in conquest.

don't forget in conquest, corrin (thinks) and is truly considered to be garon's daughter.

you know. the dude that killed his wife he swore revenge on.

awkward, my dude, to fall in love with garon's daughter, lul.

and yet - gunter's trying to balance 'we genuinely love each other, let's start with a clean slate' with 'she's gonna start asking shit i don't want to get into if i do try to be honest ... nope nope nope not gonna go there'. he's a bit of a coward there, but in some ways i can't blame him. there's a lot of hints that point to him being painfully lonely as a closet widow, and the idea of ruining this tender new love with a lot of painful shit in his past is a risk he just kinda... sidesteps.... and keeps sidestepping........... until it's just too awful to even bring up to begin with.

it's a very human flaw.

but even still on the other hand, i think it says a lot of darkly nuanced things that he has no qualms not even just not telling corrin shit, his spouse in conquest, but actively lying to her about his past and doubling down on that secret.

honestly in another metatextual level, it's kind of fridge brilliance for setting up how, mmmm long-term emotionally manipulative he can be, that's only really shown in revelation ('i've been using you all along'). you also see glimmers of it with corrin's A-support with silas with the literal gaslighting corrin to forget about silas; so this isn't a one-off moment.

gunter is a fucking fantastic snake of an actor.

and lastly on another level, ultimately i think that line is actually one of those that explains some people's terrible reading comprehension of gunter. don't forget that Fate's EN fan-translation scene that first year was huge, far bigger than any other FE game, and so a lot of fandoms/people's opinions were shaped by osmosis from the JP script versus the EN script. I could totally see people taking that implication he's never been married at face value and genuinely being confused as to his actual backstory if they've never played revelation. basically everything about his character is all misdirections right down to playing players like a fiddle with his assumed archetype (jeigan, wholesome dad), and the abyss between what he says and what he is.

tl;dr more sleazeball midlife crisis jeigans plz 🙏

[m0e-ru]

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P4G 3/20 attendant confrontation jp dub YAYYY. A compilation of isolated Japanese voice lines of the MOEL Gas Station Attendant during the confrontation on 03/20. This is the Golden version specifically because the some lines were retaken to be a bit more consistent with the newly recorded ones i think lol.

Here’s the original PS2 version, and a comparison of the voice lines being played back to back.

translation notes & script sorry for all the footnotes in the video lol ↴

English Transcript

My, aren't you troublesome. You defeated the Sagiri I hid within Adachi and Namatame, as well as having saved that diminutive dwarf of a life.

“Are you talking about Marie?” “So you're the one behind everything.¹” “I heard about you.”

Fufu... it's such a ridiculous thing. What would you even get with saving a life like that? Getting rid of that needless fog was the only thing such rubbish could do.

...Hm? Ahahaha! Don't tell me... She was still carrying that thing around!

Aha, excuse me... It's what you have, that old bamboo comb of yours.

“I got it from Marie.”

Yes... I know. After all, that gift² I gave her, a “comb of separation,” you see.

“What about it?”

Fufu... with that look on your face, you don't know who gave her that comb either. That comb right there... is simply a gift² I gave her. A “comb of separation,” you see.

“Why do you laugh?”

Fufu... My apologies, this whole thing is just so amusing. That comb right there... is simply a gift² I gave her. A “comb of separation,” you see.

It's such a foolish thing... That comb I placed a curse on³��to think she cherished⁴ it all this time. How much she wanted to cling onto anything so gravely... Even being so tenacious⁵ has its limits!

“I will not forgive you.” “Don't you look down on Marie.” “You've messed with me as well.”

Hmph, and what are you going to do about it?

Had the last time we fought not satisfy you? As I've expected of one who posseses such power.

“What do you mean?”

I've seen it in you, the potential⁶ you posses.

“Why did you choose me?”

Of course, it's the extraordinary potential⁶ you hold.

“Who are you?⁷”

You must know by now... Is that not why you came?

Your friends were guided by the “spark” I gave you, thus, they awakened to their own powers, and how they found themselves where they are. But, to think you would arrive here to me... Truly, I never expected this at all. You certainly are interesting.

That “spark” I gave you... do you not remember? The day you first arrived here, I gave your power a little push. Just like... this.

You're not the only one here I've greeted with a “welcome handshake.” Just like you, I granted it to others from the outside. And just these individuals that come from the outside were already enough to stimulate this small world.

However... It appears that the stimulus was greater than expected. The fog enveloped this place, and soon, cleared. And above all this, you're unsatisfied with the role you played, thus you stand here before me... All of this... and for what reason?

“To end everything.”

Fuun, the fog has already cleared in your world, and you're still not content? Fools, always so full of deep desire by nature, are they not?

“To learn the truth.”

This pursuit of the truth... what would any of it attain? Fools, always so full of deep desire by nature, are they not?

“I don't really know.”

Ahaha... You truly are interesting.

  Translation Notes

00:19 : 1 黒幕 literally means "black curtain," but also "wirepuller; mastermind; backroom manipulator; éminence grise; power broker"

01:05 : 2 The original word was "手向け" which means "offering to a deity or someone's spirit" or "tribute to a person who is about to depart." I don't know how to make it sound natural in English, so I used "gift" for further connotations.

01:49 : 3 The original was "私が呪いの言葉を込めた櫛を" and I wasn't too sure how the action was being used. Not sure if it was "giving the comb with a curse on it" or "putting a curse on the comb" if you have any insight on how particles are supposed to work like this I'd really appreciate it. It's like learning a bunch of math formulas individually and tests have you use 7 of them in the same problem. 4 It used 後生大事 which means "with religious zeal; with utmost devotion; take great care of" exaggerating how absurd Marie thought of the comb

02:07 : 5 未練 "reluctance to abandon or depart from something." Using "clingy" didn't feel right but "tenacious" felt too rough but I couldn't find anything I wanted in the same formal tone oh whatever I think it's enough

02:30 : 6 The kanji is 適性 and dictionaries give me 適性: "aptitude; aptness; suitability." I was digging around and found that it "is related to someone's learning speed or future potential rather than their current ability," so I stuck with "potential" anyway. https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/91567/whats-the-difference-between-%E9%81%A9%E6%80%A7-and-%E8%83%BD%E5%8A%9B-or-%E6%89%8D%E8%83%BD

02:42 : 7 The question is "何者だ?" which is "who; what kind of person" I think it's cool.

"Spark (きっかけ)" is emphasized that way because it's different from "power (力)." Izanami means she only assisted awaken the "power" of Persona, the "spark" being the access to enter the TV. If the protagonist couldn't enter the TV World, then he would never have awakened to Izanagi or got Yosuke or Chie inside the TV World either.

[wienzard93]

i kinda want to ramble a bit about genshin characters and my personal opinion about them.

[ those who deserve the whole world ]

i don’t think i need to explain why xiao is up there. the reason i’m liking aether more is not only well, he is male traveler.. but also there’s always been this widespread headcanon in the fandom he’s the defensive traveler to lumine’s offensive side (i’ve always been a defensive player in games that has ‘tank’ characters). not to mention his CN and JP VA simply makes me melt. aether is the softer one and i’m weak for softie-male character which include kazuha as well.

i won’t say a lot for kaeluc and cynonari-collei bcs they simply has the best interaction with each other, interesting personality-dynamic also simply endearing. i put them there all together bcs they’re a package deal to me.

candace is an exception. the reason why is bcs i love her design and her JP VA is amazing. very different than EN where she’s portrayed to be a powerful woman with a touch of femininity, the JP dub is on the other side of the spectrum. JP candace is soft through and through, the way she spoke, her tone of voice. but she also slip some well-placed words in her conversation that speaks hidden strength (es[ecially present in the archon quest). i like her more with this overwhelmingly mother-like quality but low-key strong woman because her visual backed it imo. her hairstyle is really feminine. she got the hime-cut for god’s sake. but it’s cut short with very practical clothing (which indicate her strong-woman nature) while draped in sash and decorations to emphasize more of that gracefulness of refined woman.

[ i like you ]

i have a lot of ppl in this category bcs i do like a lot of character’s stories. i have characters whose personality is interesting and idk if they’re actual ppl i can befriend them. but i do want to get to know them more. i’m curious about them. this category include; fischl, lisa, ayato, yanfei and heizhou.

then there are characters who i want to talk to bcs i think they’ll give me interesting direction of conversation. these characters include; albedo, venti, xinqiu, mona, childe, zhongli, ningguang, and kuki.

i have characters that i’d like to see them as someone who takes care of me, in platonic way. they’re amber and yoimiya. why? i think this is bcs i’m not a cheery person, i always look at them in admiration. even in real life, i admire ppl who has positive outlook to life and cheery disposition.

then there are characters that makes my older sibling radar buzzing. they give me urges to takes care of them. cook them food, wrapped them in a blanket and pat their head kind-of-way. they’re; gorou, barbara, razor, bennett, chongyun, lumine, noelle, kokomi, sucrose and layla.

xiangling and itto left. they both are the kind of characters i like bcs if they’re my friends, i know my day would be unpredictable with wild adventures. they both are fun ppl, the absurd, quirky kind-of-way. i’m not an adventurous person bcs i like things planned but once in a while, i like having someone tugged me into one. just for change of pace.

[ i acknowledge you exist]

most in here are women bcs this game has too many of them and not enough men. i play this game for the men. so yeah. these are mostly women whose personality is just bit too boring or too wacky for me.

idk about aloy bcs i play on mobile, so. there.

there are characters who are just there to tick the mommy box which i’m never a fan of. the reason why lisa isn’t here is bcs i find the way she does her work interesting. lisa only ever tell half-lie without giving other ppl unnecessary grieve. yes, this is for yae who makes my aether work for her for free for those novels in her character story. maybe it’s bcs she’s a kitsune and that’s why yae is shady and intentionally put ppl in some kind of misery, but still. if it were a real world, i don’t think it’s funny she took the money that should’ve been ours not hers to spend for luxurious food. ppl will call her out by being shady and abusive towards her employee.

other mommy type that i find boring are jean and sara. i appreciate them being hardworking ppl but if you leave that out, i can’t find any interesting bit to their personality if there’s any. sara especially bcs of how devoted she is to raiden shogun. i don’t like military-simp characters. they’re giving me brainwashed, culty-like vibe.

i hate eula character story. the challenges were annoying (i stopped continuing her story for a month or two bcs how bullshit the challenges were). i still hold her, the character, for that. fuck being graceful and aristocratic. i don’t want that.

there’s rosaria. which.. idk what she’s supposed to be other than filling the trope of ‘sinful-sister’. i like using her in overworld but as a character she’s kind of bland imo. even in JP, all i get from her is she’s kinda edgy or a female version of kaeya. that’s that.

oh also let’s not forget shenhe and yelan whose purpose is low-key eye-candy. as interesting as their character story were, which i enjoyed completely btw. i don’t like it when developers, writers or artists made female characters with visual design that includes tight-skin full body suit for the low-key purpose to draw their body lines so blatantly without it being flagged as nudity. it left bad taste in my mouth.

then there’s the two favorites from the metaslaves; hutao and ganyu. i actually wanted to put ganyu with raiden shogun and ayaka down there but ultimately i feel more indifferent than dislike towards ganyu’s character. ganyu is just kind of boring to me. she’s like jean. overworked sexy lady with soft-spoken and polite way of talking. which is not interesting for me.

hutao.. i remembered playing her story i get annoyed at her in the beginning of it. i admire her drive with her job but as a character, she’s the kind of person i wouldn’t want to be friends with. i’ll simply avoid her irl to which i say, i already did. i’ve met a person similar to hutao irl and i simply cannot stand with the way they speak of things. sure they’re capable and got the job done but i think there are times when you need to phrase things in a better way. but i know they won’t bcs that’s just their personality. work-partner? sure. friends? no.

keqing is actually has interesting way of looking at things, which i also agreed. but i don’t like her brusque way of interacting. she’s the tsundere trope kind-of girl with twintail. which is overdone imo. which is also why despite her interesting takes, i find her ‘boring’. bcs she’s there to tick trope boxes imo.

xinyan and yunjin. ahh these two. no offense but they’re forgettable. xinyan is painfully so. yunjin only remembered by ppl bcs of the opera singing thing imo. i like their personality, they’re decent. but yeah. just being decent is not interesting. there’s also nilou. she’s also like yunjin for me. decent character but not interesting enough. i plan to pull for her in the future for re-runs though. the only reason being, i like her JP VA.

then there’s klee and nahida. these two are the only child model i’m indifferent to and not outright disliking them. the reason for klee is bcs she’s the most tolerable one out of every child-model personality and design wise. i kind of icky about nahida sometimes act like a child, sometimes not. but i do empathized with her story. also i hate to say this but i understand all of her analogies and i relate to that. i also tend to talk irl with analogies. but i’m not a fan of her having child-model. she would be on [ i like you ] section if she has teen model.

scara. oh god scaramouche. i feel like i’m going to need to write an essay about him. anyway, i probably will so, i won’t explain here.

[ i empathic to you but i can’t like you ]

raiden shogun; i also will have a goddamn essay for her.

ayaka; the yamato nadeshiko trope, tick-box character. i always have reservation for character whose trope is yamato nadeshiko. for me they usually kind-of a mary sue. ayaka is close to that imo. i understand her struggle, but ultimately i could careless bcs of how mihoyo create her personality.

[ pls go away ]

i dislike loli. i dislike children. most lolis will ended up in this tier. sayu is boring. diona is loli, kemono-mimi fetish bait. dori is scummy and her JP VA did a real good job of making her voice really annoying and i say that as compliment from a former theatrical club kid. bcs it’s not easy to convey characterization by voice alone and her JP VA nailed that.

qiqi... oh god qiqi. i don’t hate her bcs i lost 50/50 to her. i hate her bcs there used to be someone i know about who likes to play/main genshin as qiqi and they’re real asshole as a person. i can’t look at qiqi and not remember that person.

i dislike faruzan’s design. nothing can make me change that opinion. if mihoyo wanted to make that kind of design, might as well go with western name. don’t use ‘faruzan’. her design is so generic it doesn’t fit well with other sumeru characters. how do i know that? try change her name to Nina or Rose or something generic, put her in with Mondstadt characters. i bet she blend well. even nahida, alhaitham and collei, as fantasy-esque as they are, they don’t blend with Mondstadt crowd bcs their design has sumeru-flavor to it.

[mrpenguinpants]

Hey so that Dainsleif quest huh 👀

[Spoilers for those who haven't played it yet ofc]

.

.

.

These are just some disorganized initial thoughts for your consideration:

So I'm pretty sure his "travel companion" that he keeps mentioning is our twin

Does that mean our twin has gone to the exact same places as we've been going?? Dainsleif seemed to be familiar with all the locations we visited in Mondstadt but I suppose that could've been from an even earlier journey

And the possibility that the Abyss is trying to mislead us bc we hadn't encountered any abyss mages since Dvalin 🤔🤔🤔 what do they want??? We know (kinda) that our twin is watching our progress and that they're the prince/princess of the Abyss so like are they trying to keep us from getting in the way of their plans so as not to accidentally hurt us? Though something tells me we're gonna get tangled up in it one way or the other lmao

Dainsleif said that his goal is to oppose the Abyss so perhaps he's got his own secret plans to try to stop our twin (as is also supported by what he said at the end of the mortal travails video about proving ourselves worthy of stopping "her"/Lumine probably)

Also turns out I'd been pronouncing his name wrong the whole time lmao I had been saying dains-leaf instead of dains-lif

No Vision as confirmed by his full character model

Also his eyepatch is more of a phantom of the opera mask lmao

Important observation he looks like post timeskip Dimitri from a distance when I had to meet him in Dvalin's Lair I legit thought he was Dimitri for a sec XD

Anyway those were my thoughts about the new quest lmao my internet was cutting out the whole time while I was trying to play like dsfkdksjf pls I just wanted to talk to blond eyepatch man

Important part of this post: 

I took a lot of pictures of Dainsleif if you want to use them as references (or appreciation).  The pictures are under the read more tag so if you don’t want spoilers, don’t read anything and skip to the read more. 

Also, he calls you and your sibling “idiots” through money.

He asks for 500 mora and (this is probably just a coincidence but considering Zhongli tips Xiangling 888 mora I’m sus). The number 250  [二百五] or ( èr bǎi wǔ) means “idiot”. 

If someone calls you 250, they can say (nǐ shì wǔ bǎi) or “You are [250]”. But if you give someone 500, this can be taken as saying two people are stupid (250 + 250 = 500). I mean, that’s probably not how it works but I think it’s funny to imagine Dainsleif being too polite to call us stupid. 

---

I know right? When I saw the leak for it and seeing it confirmed in patch notes, I was so confused. Wha-Why are you here so early? I wasn’t expecting you for another 5 years at least. I’m happy to see you and your beautiful model in game but at the same time I was so worried that we were going to get crumbs of interactions. Same thing with Guizhong in Zhongli’s story quest. Genshin please...finish your stories (that’s fucking hilarious coming from me considering I still have a part 2 to Childe that I need to write), but I’m honestly just happy that he’s in the game. But yes 👀👀 more lore food. 

You know, I was talking about the archons a bit with @maagdalen and, I may have been misunderstanding or reading the wrong message, but they brought up the idea that what if the archons’ personality is based on their regions country's? So for example, Venti’s personality adopts the German mentality because Mondstadt was modelled after Germany? Obviously, I have no idea if that’s true because I’m not from or am German but in the context of Liyue and Zhongli. I can definitely see some sort of connection. 

But some food for thought:

“But cyro archon is very viable since she's suppose to be a kind hearted person that needed to be cold for the sake of freedom. or peace. something like that.”

 “Sorry, but this is stupidly Russian style. No matter what you say, people will always be dissatisfied. Of course it's not that bad...but it's something to think about.“ 

But yess, @svnflowery​ said the same thing. That Dainsleif was Lumine’s “guide” the same way Paimon is our guide. I actually think that’s an interesting idea. That Lumine has gone to the exact same places as we’ve been through. It actually makes me wonder (since we can play as both her and Aether), that Lumine went through the same story line as Aether. She met Venti, Zhongli, everything that’s happening right now. She’s already been through, then when she reached the Khaenri’ah chapter she failed. So she decided to spin the clock back and change destiny. I mean, this is me spit balling and I don’t think this happened but it’s something to think about. 

You know funny enough, hasn’t Venti been asleep for a while? Either way, he doesn’t really strike me as the type that truly wants to be an Archon. He says in his voicelines as well that “that’s a problem for Mondstadt to deal with”. So it would be easier for the Abyss Order to mess some things up. While Zhongli has been alive for 6000 years and I highly doubt Abyss Order can do anything to him haha. If we’re going on that “Lumine has already been through this journey” she could be trying to re-make or lead us on the same path. 

I wouldn’t be surprised if Dainsleif was our guide, then when Lumine spun the clock back and aligned herself with the abyss, that’s when they split. That could be a reason why he’s trying to oppose the abyss order but really I think it’s because the Abyss Order’s goal is to basically set the world on fire (or something like that). I always pronounce character names wrong and I don’t understand why people make such a big deal out of it. You know who I’m talking about, my pronunciation isn’t completely shit to the point you don’t know. So why do you keep yelling at me??

Also. The most important part of his quest was it was “Aether’s version” of the “We will be reunited” trailer. 

It even showed the crushed dandelion flower and the ruin guard footprints. IT’S OUR SISTER. 

I knoww, I was searching for his vision and got weird pics but that’s alright, I LOWKEY HATE THE OPERA MASK SO MUCH. GIVE ME ACTUAL MASK. THERE GOES THE “SEPERATE COLOURED EYE” ART OF KHAENRIAH PEOPLE. Yo, knock off Dimitri let’s go. 

I love Dainslief’s english voice but I hate Xiao’s en voice. What a dilemma. I usually play in chinese but wow does Dainslief sound old. Jp is slightly better but I hear grandpa vibes. Korean isn’t bad and I actually don’t mind korean xiao so korean we shall go. It’s weird. I like Dainsleif english voices, Xiao chinese voice, paimon korean voice haha. Jp is usually just good all around but I have preferences. But tyty for telling me your thoughts! I’d love to hear about the Xiao quest that just dropped. Beautiful boy 

sweats 

yeah about that...xiao scammed me. I wonder if his speech changes based on what you say. i kind of doubt it though. 

I’m looking at his outfit from every angle while Xiao stays pretty in the back. 

I like that you can see his magic arm there. 

While on this side you can’t. 

I swear this is for research. IM TRYING TO SEE IF HE HAS A VISION. IM INNOCENT!!

he also has some sort of weird...blue thingy on his foot?

Im using Xiao as a personfication of me BUT TELL ME YOUR SECRETS 

[genshin-djinn]

Genshin Impact Chapter 1 Act 3: A Reaction.

Chapter 1 Act 3 is what took my experience with this game from “good game” to “masterpiece”.

THIS POST CONTAINS MANY, MANY SPOILERS FOR GENSHIN IMPACT CHAPTER 1: ACT 3

Genshin Impact has some problems— actually, it has a shit ton of problems. But during the fight against hordes of Fatui, with the Adepti channeling their abilities through my gang, flying through them as Oz, decimating them with Diluc— I just thought, this is the best time I’ve had in a mobile game in my life.

This game might not be perfect now— it’s only a quarter of the way done if we’re counting Karenri’ah. But it will be a fucking masterpiece once it’s all out. If this is the level of quality we’re getting for our archon quests, this game is going to be an amazing time on story alone.

KEQING

I love Keqing with all my heart. If she were alive today she would be a socialist here to topple the ruling 1%. When ningguang asked Aether who they trusted more, her or Keqing, I hit the Keqing button as fast as possible.

I think one of my favorite things about Keqing is that she’s so completely honest, which is unusual for a Liyue politician. If she doesn’t like something, she’ll speak out against it. If she thinks something else should be happening, she’ll make it happen. She can probably be deceitful at times, but in general she’s straightforwards in that she wants a government for the people and by the people.

I can’t wait for her story quest!

NINGGUANG

pretty.... voice pretty....

Ningguang is cool. Her JP voice is very pretty, like she could do ASMR videos online or smth. One thing I decidedly did not like about Ningguang is how her personality just ???? flips? In the middle of the quest, for no reason other than “because plot”.

It’s established that Ningguang cares about two things more than anything— the Jade palace and Mora. Why, then, would she destroy the Jade palace for the sake of Liyue? I get that she’s a good person at heart at all, but I want to see more of her indecision, her brain saying “mora” and her heart saying “Liyue”. The way she just flips on a dime isn’t really strange but it does contradict with her preexisting characterization.

Childe’s Boss Fight!

The section of this quest from Childe’s fight to the Adepti + Qixing battle is just nonstop adrenaline.

Childe is IMO a lot more fun than Dvalin (sorry Dvalin). I’m at WL5 and have a tendency to play fast and loose with important mechanics like.... dodging, for example.... and Childe’s Mask Electro form ended up destroying my team. I killed him with Guoba because everyone else besides Xiangling was dead. I

Another thing I really enjoy about Childe’s boss fight is that in the irrationalities of Childe as a character, it actually makes sense. Genshin is decent at making weekly bosses logical excursions— Andrius wants you to get stronger, Dvalin’s weekly fight is ~~all a dream~~; but tbh sometimes the weekly bosses don’t make sense. Andrius wants to train us, not murder us! How does dvalin, a dream slash memory that doesn’t exist, manage to knock someone out?

Childe as a weekly boss actually makes perfect sense. He’s an adrenaline junkie addicted to the thrill of fighting people— to put this in modern AU terms, he’s the guy who’s first in line to ride the rollercoaster that failed all of its health and safety checks. Childe wants to befriend the Traveler entirely because they’re stronger than him, so that he can fight them over and over again until he’s the strongest. Of course, this will never happen, because the Traveler is the MC and therefore is stronger than all others. However, in this way Childe being a repeatable boss makes 100% perfect sense— he actually wants to fight the Traveler again and again and again.

The one question I have about Childe is how in the living feck are the Fatui letting him join the Traveler and fight for them *against the Fatui*??? I think this might be touched on in Childe’s Story quest, which I’ll do in a bit, but like????? They let him keep his delusion and just walk over to Aether like “aight fam I’m on your team now”? How?

Jade Chamber/ Guizhong Ballista vs Sea Monster Fight!!

Basically, all my charged adrenaline from nearly dying to Childe just came to a head in this one huge fantastic fight.

And Xiao :)

I absolutely loved seeing the Adepti and the Qixing work together. This fight was probably my favorite fight in the whole game— the music was amazing (soundtrack where), the graphics were so nice, the adepti were so feckin cool, using everyone’s abilities was n I ce. My adrenaline was reaching its highest point at this fight and it was just perfect. It was just so fecking fun after days of WL5 pain, having to pop like five ultimates to kill one hillichurl, to be able to just demolish swathes of enemies with Fischl and Diluc, run around like a madman thanks to Xiao, have infinite health idr who did that for me but bless them, just absolutely destroy.

Ever since I hit WL5 I haven’t been able to really just go insane during a fight and stop caring about HP/ when to use skills/ dodging and this have me that opportunity.

Zhongli’s Deal

*punches Zhongli across the room with the power of being the player character* I love this man so much.

Zhongli Zhongli Zhongli Zhongli Zhongli. I AM VERY ANGRY AT HOW THE PLOT RESOLVED HIS STORYLINE. But it also makes a lot of sense. And I think, for once, Zhongli should be allowed to be selfish.

Because choosing to leave Liyue was a bit selfish. He’s leaving the country that adores him, loves him, gives him shit for free; to its own devices and then to a completely unknown fate once the new Geo Archon becomes god and takes over. But he made a frankly fantastic plan and can now leave the country, for now, in peace.

I was absolutely delighted to see Zhongli in Morax form. Making deals with La Signora, being a complete and utter puppet master who set this entire situation up and played Childe like a kazoo; but just like his dear friend Venti, I think Zhongli is happier when he’s just Zhongli, the eccentric mortal. He seems so much happier and so much more relaxed when he’s forgetting about mora and eating dinner with Aether and Paimon. Rex Lapis might have just put Liyue through the wringer, but he can now put down his 3000- year long reign and just be the happy, eccentric Zhongli.

Zhongli’s little bit of insecurity over being a “bourgeois parasite” makes perfect sense now— he doesn’t want to be seen as Morax, a superfluous god who’s using his name to get whatever he wants from the humans he watches over.

But also the part of my brain that feeds off lore nEEDS to KNOW what Zhongli got from Tsaritsa. What could be worth a gnosis? His own happiness isn’t enough— Tsaritsa is likely going to use his gnosis to try and destroy Liyue. What could be worth that?

My main thought would be either “someone’s protection” or “another gnosis”, but I don’t think the latter is possible. The former could be possible but doesn’t really make sense either— a) whose protection is worth putting an entire country, much less the world, in danger and b) the Fatui are out to kill everyone who isn’t Fatui, so they won’t agree to spare a major player in the war to come like that. Brain go brrr.

I’m very hyped for Zhongli’s story quest, which I think is coming with his banner on Dec 1, when Childe’s banner ends. I really hope that Zhongli visits Mondstadt and chills with Venti for a while, but anything with this guy would be fine lol.

LORE

We got a lot of lore this update and I am delighted by it.

Firstly, we get a tiny hint of how Visions are bestowed— “if a person shows true strength of will at a desperate and fateful moment in their life, the gods will look upon them with favor.” Vague but more than we had before.

Next we got some neat lore about Inazuma— firstly, that it’s led by a god named Baal and secondly that it steals everyone’s visions. I’m very hyped to visit because guess what fam aether doesn’t have a vision.

Final Thoughts

In case you can’t tell from my insane ramblings, I loved Chapter 1 Act 3 and I absolutely cannot wait to play through Childe’s story quest and Chapter 2 and beyond.

The Prologue in Mondstadt set the stage for Genshin. We started out in a fantasy environment with a fantasy tale of an immortal bard and a dragon. Mondstadt was an excellent introduction to the world of Genshin.

And now? We’re starting to build on that. Chapter 1 brings us another story of another god and their relationship with the country they watch over. Liyue is much less of a traditional fantasy setting and takes the darkness we saw in Mondstadt— a friendship ruined by manipulation and suffering— and build on it. Now we don’t just see the Fatui more often but we also see more of the Treasure Hoarders and the way both groups kidnap and experiment on humans.

Mond started to introduce us to the Fatui, but Liyue is where they really start bringing continuous plot relevance. Inversely, we saw much more of the Abyss Order in Mondstadt than we did in Liyue. I’m extremely disappointed we didn’t see any more of the Princess this chapter, but it makes sense given that Chapter 1 was really more about the Fatui than the Abyss Order.

All I’m trying to say is the Liyue arc was an excellent continuation to the stage Mondstadt’s arc set. Now, we’re on to the world of the Eternal Shogun, Baal! I’m really excited to meet new characters and experience new stories of Inazuma, but I hope we’ll continue to see Mondstadt and Liyue in the future. Mondstadt is likely going to be the most “boring” of the countries we experience, cuz it’s just so classically fantasy- themed, but it will always be the first country we explored in this world.

After Inazuma (if I had to take a shot in the dark, inazuma’s arc will take from December 23 to maybe March or April) we’ll go to Sumeru, which I am really extremely hyped for because it sounds extremely different from Mond and Liyue and we’ll meet Cyno and possibly even Collei! (just me extrapolating lol). I can’t wait to see where Genshin Impact goes story- wise, because its first major update has brought so much to the table.

.

[futurewriter2000]

Flowers don’t grow in the dark - pt.2

XX

This was the first time you visited your brother since he passed away. First time you stood at his grave with a small adorable cactus in your hands and tears in your eyes. Fifteen years since your eyes were dipped in tears. Fifteen long dry years. 

You wiped the liquid with your sleeve and sniffed, smiling and kneeling on your knees. “Hey, JP.” you put the cactus down and wiped away the leaves of the dry flowers. “I know you always loved cactuses since they were the easiest to take care for.” you let out a dry laugh, reminiscing of all the years you spent with and then without him. “I never betrayed you, brother.” you wept, burrying your head in your palms. “I’d rather die than betray you.” you kept weeping, tears rolling down your cheeks, on your palms and on the earth. 

And then suddenly you felt it. Like he was there, with you, holding you, embracing you and comforting you as he always did when you were at your worst. 

‘It was like you were pulled in your own head, far back where everything was light and back on its rightful place. It was a memory but it wasn’t yours. 

You saw Sirius and James, both walking with their enormous long steps and talking. It was as if the memory was leading you. “She can be such a pain in the arse sometimes!” James fumed to Sirius. 

“I admit, she can be infuriating sometimes.” Sirius bit in his apple and shrugged. “But she’s your sister.” 

“I don’t care!” James shouted back. “She always gets mad for the littlest things and today I asked her the most simplest question and you know what she did?! She just snapped at me for some weird reason, kicked me and shoved me out of her room like some sort of maniac!” 

“Maybe  it’s that time of the month?” Sirius guessed but that didn’t stop James from raging further on.

“Even if it is that time of the month for her that doesn’t excuse her for acting like a such bitch!” 

“You’re probably right but let’s be honest, if she was in trouble, you’d give your life for her.” Sirius smiled but James only shook his head.

“No! Never! If she came begging to me right now, I’d kick her and shove her out as she did with me!” 

“Come on, mate-” ‘ 

The scene twisted and turned, you were pulled front and back like a rubber and back in another memory.

‘ It was just the three of them; Remus, James and Sirius. They were in the Great Hall, joking around and you noticed that it must have been later that day from the recent memory. They were all joking and messing around with each other until Peter came and broke the news. 

Worriedly, he rushed to them and couldn’t know how to start. All the other three knew something wasn’t right, so they simply asked him what was wrong. It was when Peter told them the rumor that was spreading around school. 

You have never seen James react so furiously since now. ‘

You knew of which rumor this was about. It was about the day you had too much to drink at a Slytherin party that you blacked out. You couldn’t remember what happened during that period of time, you just remember waking up on the bathroom stool, somewhere in a Slytherin dorm. You have never told anybody that night but rumors started flying around that you hooked up with more than two guys from Slytherin and gave them an oral. 

It was worst than you have ever felt because you couldn’t know if it was true or not but later, days after this memory Lily helped you restore your memory with a potion, and during that black out you went to the bathroom, threw everything out and slept there. 

‘James and Sirius were both storming to the Slytherin table. You saw James, without a second thought, grab the Slytherin by his collar and push him hard on the floor. “YOU THINK I DON’T KNOW THAT IT’S YOU SPREADING DIRTY RUMORS ABOUT MY SISTER!!” he  exploded at Mulciber meanwhile he only licked his teeth and smiled wickedly. 

“What rumors?” he said cooly.

“DON’T PLAY DAFT, YOU BLOODY PIECE OF SHIT!!” and he swung his fist into Mulcibers jaw so hard you could hear it crack but Mulciber didn’t wail nor scream, only cackled.

“You can say goodbye to your Head Boy badge, Potter.” 

“You can say goodbye to your dear life, Mulciber.” and with another swing, Mulciber was bleeding from his broken nose and jaw, his left cheek bruised meanwhile James was pulledo off by a professor. “YOU TOUCH MY SISTER EVER AGAIN AND IT WON’T BE JUST YOUR NOSE THAT’S BROKEN!” 

“Mister Potter! That’s enough!” McGonagall interwined and the memory twisted and threw you out.’

You opened your eyes and fat tears rolled down your cheeks, one after the other. You smiled at his grave and said. “You always did go over the top.”

“He wasn’t the only one.” a voice behind you spoke and you turned around with a flash, you wand prepared and your mouth ready to cast. “Don’t shoot! Please!” 

“Those were your memories?!” 

“Yes. They are mine.” 

“Why?” you asked, almost desperately.

“Because I wanted to show you that he knew you didn’t betray him.”

“How would you know what he thought the moment Voldemort stepped in his house and murdered him. You, Peter, Remus, Dumbledore and I were the only ones who knew!” 

“Because he never believed in those rumors that spread around school. He knew you couldn’t have done that. He knew you to the core and when Voldemort was on his doorstep, he knew who it was and you were the last person who would come up in his mind. He knew it was Peter. We all did.”

“Yet it was still me who got thrown into a prison cell for fifteen years meanwhile you were playing a father to HIS CHILD!” 

“I HAVE NEVER PLAYED HIS FATHER! I WOULD NEVER PUT MYSELF IN HIS SHOES!” 

“YOU HAVE! The way Harry looks at you is the way James looked at our dad. Admiration and heroism. He thinks you’re a hero and a flawless man.”

“Shut up! You have no idea what you’re talking about. I have always told him about James and Lily!”

“WHAT ABOUT ME, SIRIUS?!”

“I THOUGHT YOU KILLED OUR BEST FRIENDS!” he screamed on the top of his lungs. “Imagine standing at the doorstep, having a one year old kid shoved in your arms, saying his aunt kissed his father and his best friend! Imagine knowing that your fianced killed your three best friends and now you’re stuck with a toddler!”

“How could you ever believe I could do such a thing?” 

“I couldn’t at first but everything led to you. You were the only one left.” 

“And when did you find out that it wasn’t me?” you asked with a shaking voice.

“Harry was in his third year. Remus got a hold of the Map and he saw Pettigrew’s name on. “

“That was two years ago.”

“I know.”

“Then why didn’t you do anything.”

“Peter was gone, (y/n). We didn’t have any proof, any evidence that proved you innocent.”

“So you just let me rot?” 

“It wasn’t easy, (y/n)! It just wasn’t easy for me nor Harry!”

“IT WASN’T EASY FOR YOU!! I DID FIFTEEN YEARS IN THAT PLACE! ALONE! HAVING MY SOUL! MY HAPPY MEMORIES! SUCKED OUT OF ME! AND HARRY DIDN’T EVEN KNOW HE HAD AN AUNT!”

“He already has enough on his plate.” he said, glaring. 

“He should have known about me! You should have told him as soon you founf out it wasn’t me!” 

“How would you expect me to do that?! Hey, Harry, you have an aunt that was convicted into killing your father but really it was just one of my best friends who did it.”

“I hate you.” you gritted your teeth. “You should have been in my place. I should have been taking care of my nephew and my Godson as well! You said you’d go check! You knew he was dead! YOU KNEW SINCE THE MOMENT I TOLD YOU SOMETHING WAS WRONG! YOU SAID YOU’D GO! YOU SAID YOU WOULD GO BUT YOU NEVER DID!”

“ I DIDN’T KNOW!”

“I DID! I FELT IT IN MY BONES! I TOLD YOU BUT YOU JUST DIDN’T LISTEN! IF YOU’D JUST GO HE WOULD STILL BE ALIVE! YOU AND YOUR STUBBORN ARROGANT ARSE! AND THEN YOU DARE TO PRETEND THAT  I KILLED THEM WHEN ALL THE TIME YOU KNEW IT WASN’T ME! BECAUSE I WAS WITH YOU! I WAS WITH YOU WHEN IT HAPPENED AND IF I WOULDN’T GO CHECK IT WOULD BE YOU BEHIND THE BARS AND NOT ME!” 

“You walked out of there alive. Peter was dead and you were on the scene with 13 other Muggles murdered coldly. What would you expect me to think? Yeah she was with me when James got killed but then she stormed away, wasn’t gone for 3 whole hours!”

“You know, you were always so dense and too stubborn to think on your own. Always the sheep, Sirius.”

“Sure, (y/n)! I was the sheep.”

“Weren’t you? Following your parents until you met James, Following James all until he was dead and look at you now, Sirius Black. A famous Auror, following everything the Ministry says so here.” you clashed your wrists together and offered them to him. “Cuff me. Send me to the Ministry. Send me back to Azkaban.” you provoked him and stared intensly in his eyes. “Go on.” you continued. “Be the Slytherin you were always intend to be.” you snarled and he grabbed your wrists by one hand and pulled you up to his chest. 

“You were always infuriating.”

“You were always so goddamn arrogant.”

“You were a bitch.”

“Man whore.”

“Snake.”

“Prick.”

The two of you were now only an inch away and you could see him losing any sort of insult to say back at you. So instead he pressed his lips onto yours and let that take the lead...

[luciens-one-and-only-sea-otter]

Five Otome/Romance Game Men I Adore

Hai hai many thanks for thinking of me for this tag game @justine-the-guillotine !!

 I always feel pressure to do these things perfectly, even though it’s just talking about things I like :’) so please bear with me in my, probably, screaming appreciation. I’ve been thinking of a list a characters for a whole day and honestly I’m suddenly blanking,,, who do I adore? lol who knows,,, Well actually you are about to know cause I am going to tell you LOL. OkAY. Enough of this blabbering, onto the list of many mens.

Please know I am excluding Lucien (MLQC) because it is obvious that I adore him to a fucking fault. If you want to see me do a whole appreciation about those him just hmu in my asks or message me and I will go on for days bby

This list is in no way order of most to least adored, I physically could not make that kind of decision jkdfjksdfh. ALSO PLS KNOW I DO SWEAR LIKE A FUCKING SAILOR AND I TALK OF SMUSHING LOVELIES OFTEN. IT”S JUST MY PERSONALITY SO SHHHHH IF YOU DON”T LIKE IT DON”T READ IT BOO, THAT SIMPLE!

Takeda Shingen (Ikemen Sengoku) - Okay, I will be honest, I was very skeptical of sengoku period romance games because I had played some in the past,,, but holy shit, Shingen blew me away. He quickly rose up the ranks of otome men in my heart, and I think about him at least once a day now. I related so much with his MC because it was so hard not to lust and swoon over that man. I have no idea how or when I fell hard for him but it happened and I am not mad at all. I self insert so much with my games,,, and it’s easy for me to slip my real feelings into my fantasies. And honestly I really wish I could have Shingen IRL, ~~though I’m sure I would absolutely freak out and hide under a rock if he ever paid me any attention. He represents the perfect man, lover, and husband to me; he’s on a god level kind of man. Shingen is compassionate, knows boundaries and has never restricted MC from doing anything she loved (without good reason), he’s reliable and strong in a way that makes my heart melt. AND  LET’S NOT FORGET HOW FUCKING BRILLIANT THIS MAN IS, HE IS SO FUCKING SMART AND I WISH CYBIRD LET US SEE HIS EXTREME INTELLIGENCE MUCH MORE,,,, He’s just so damn perfect it is near infuriating how good of a man he is. He fits my normal type so well; me saying “Tall, Handsome, Flirtatious, Sexy as Fuck and Infuriating” might of as well have been about Mr Takeda “I’ll marry you and give you everything for one smile” Shingen. I also really like characters that are loyal to their loved ones (yes in contrast to my bastard villain type kink, I also love those who show loyalty and devotion to the people they love) Shingen does more than enough of all of and I really do look up to him as a person and model for character,,,,, oh gods, and the way I imagine he would make sweet baby making love to ---*cough cough* ALRIGHT LETS STOP HERE BEFORE THIS BECOMES A WHOLE ASS SHINGEN APPRECIATION POST!!!

Sirius Oswald (Ikemen Revolution) - I’m really tempted to just insert a daddy kink meme and leave it at that,,,, He is my absolute top otome man, or rather,,, one of my top “I wish you were real and we were married” men. As much as I whore around and claim to love a new man the most (besides Lucien because they’re on the same level now) every week,,, I will always come back to Mr. Flower Daddy. He holds such a precious spot in my heart, I can only try to explain the things that he makes me feel. Like a giddy school girl in love for the first time, but in this story they end up together. High school sweetheart kind of love that lasts till they’re old and wrinkled with time. Gods, thinking about Sirius makes me sob and my wallet sob harder . I must have a thing for men who keep denying their affections for MC (aka me self insert) because of things like responsibility, friendship, being labelled an old geezer,,etc. I have played his route about eight times over (probably) by now, it’s a little upsetting that his route wasn’t as spicy as his side content. Please Cybird, let Mr. Flower Daddy be the sexy and dramatic man he can be. I love the way he cares for others, how hard he works to achieve the bonds and peace he has now for not only everyone he loves, but for the country they all live in as well. His many layers intrigue me, seeing his reactions as well ughhhh I love this man so fucking much, how do people irl deal with love like this? I’m sitting here dreaming over Sirius Oswald,,, and his,,, big hands,,, Never have I held such large and terrifyingly real emotions and lust for an otome character. The man just screams let daddy take care of you baby but also let daddy wreck your pretty whore mouth, little lady or maybe that’s just me projecting my kinks onto this pure (lol) man. Not only is his body, heart, and morals absolutely stunning, HE IS ANOTHER INCREDIBLY INTELLIGENT BEING AND I CANNOT STRESSSSS HOW MUCH I FIND SMART PEOPLE INCREDIBLY SEXY AND THE WAY HE USES HIS TALENTS TO SUBTLY AID HIS LOVED ONES UGHHHHHH I LOVEEEEEEEEEEEE. GODS PLEASE LET ME BREAK INTO THE SIXTH DIMENSION AND MARRY THIS MAN!!!! 

Kent (Amnesia Memories) - OKAY LET ME JUST SAYYYY HE IS THE BIGGEST BABY AND BIGGEST MAN AT THE SAME TIME AND YOU CAN FIGHT ME ON THIS IDC BUT HIS OUTFIT IS THE SHIT!!! FUCK YOU BELT HATERS!!! His outfit and his love slaps like the wholesome man he is. Absolutely I would love to h*ld his h@nds and give him the best smooches I can give. Because that is what he deserves. I really loved this game, growing to love Kent was easy despite his big brain fucker throwing math questions at me from time to time. I’m not sure what makes me like Kent so damn much, but I do and that’s what matters skjdfdskjfh. He is so damn precious,,, you all know those  “you so fucking precious when you smile” song video thingies? That is exactly how I feel about Kent. He’s so damn precious I want him to be happy always. And I will fight anyone who bullies him hnnn. 

Myeong Hwi aka Theodore Wilson + Lee Gun Wook aka William Harris (Mystic Code) - Mystic Code used to be one of my favs, till they did the whole updating and redoing the story thing, with no full voiced lines etc (I really hope they bring that back). But two stood out to me the most was Captain Wilson and Lieutenant Harris. Both have very strong personalities and care for the greater good, and thick as fuck lets be real with that dom energy . I adore men with strong and noble (?? is this the right word??) personalities and also possess a compassionate heart. As Theo is with the MIU team members and Will is with MC. 

Theodorus Van Gogh (Ikemen Vampire) - whoallowedthismantobethisfuckingattractiveandlegal??????  *insert his magic mike CG* I have played Theo’s route in JP a few times, once to completion but knowing him in the EN version I am already absolutely in love with this man. How this came to be? Maybe it’s his bittersweet personality, the way he cares for MC in the same way Sirius does, but he’s a bit more brash about it than Sirius. I absolutely adored his character growth in his route and as you get to know him better he opens up more and more, ahh the tsundere is quite the cute trait XD. He is strong willed and passionate, he is caring of his loved ones, he is loyal to his family, blood or found, and he is an absolutely attentive loving person. Why ask for more when you can just love Theodorus Van Gogh? He is the absolute softy packed into a large brooding and brash package with a shiny 8-pack abs that I wish to slather maple syrup on and lap up for the love of----  for someone who loves pancakes so much. And I very much admire his drive to do what he wants and needs to do to the absolute best of his ability. His will to thrive for the best he can get has me swooning. He truly is a breath taking man,,, whether that be because he is being a complete sweetheart all of the sudden or he’s whipping you some nasty insult that is itching for a rebut.

Alright, that’s it! I cheated a little lololll but there aren’t any rules so >;3c I can do as I wish. 

I uhhhhhhh don’t interact with many other otome blogs T^T (but maybe you can change that hwehwe) so I won’t be tagging anyone. However, if you do see this and want to join in and tag your friends pls do!!! Share the love, pass it on, scream about more 2D mans.

[blooming-blooming]

Can you explain more about the Eliphas’ rhetoric towards Yuma and the Hellshark was Yoshida hating women? And him hating women in general? Sorry. I'm confused. Sorry if you're mad.

I’m not mad at all, don’t worry! I know Yoshida is... a touchy subject among female YGO fans, to say the least, but I really don’t mind expanding on my thoughts. I was originally going to just put the Eliphas part under a cut for length but... I have a lot of thoughts on this, so I’m going to put most of it under a cut for the sake of peoples’ feeds. As always, people can rb if they want, idc.

This ask is about this vent post, which in turn is me piggybacking off this post I reblogged. The post I reblogged in particular being a very common plight among wlw shounen fans, and is why I overwhelmingly prefer shoujo to the point that YGO is quite literally the only shounen series I like besides one other shounen manga with a near all female cast.

Perhaps (though many will disagree with me) saying Yoshida hates women was a bit harsh. However, he has explicitly said in a blurb at the back of a volume of the Zexal manga that he very rarely, if at all, writes women when left to his own devices - to the point that the artist literally had to convince him to make the manga-only character Luna female because there were no female characters contributing to the story.

So, at the very least, Yoshida is very much not fond of writing women into his stories, whether intentional or not on his part (because what he said very much reads to me like he doesn’t intend to not write women, however: unintentional misogyny is still misogyny, and I think reflects subconscious views he has on women as a result).

As for how this plays into IV and Shark’s relationship and my feelings towards it: I’m gonna be blunt, HellShark is one of my absolute favorite ships in the franchise despite the lack of content I make for it. IV V Nasch in particular is a duel that means a lot to me wrt my own trauma and older unhealthy coping mechanisms as reflected in IV’s character. 

However.

It’s also very, very hard to ignore that a lot of their canonical, on screen interactions are directly at the expense of Rio. The entire foundation for IV and Ryoga’s relationship is that IV set Rio on fire, that Ryoga wants revenge for Rio, and, in II that IV wants to make things up to Ryoga for what he did to Rio.

Yet, Rio Kamishiro herself is never present for any of this. We are never  oncegiven an opinion from Rio about what IV did to her. At best, we have it mentioned in a 3Ds game that isn’t canon that she wants to talk things out with IV, but nothing in the anime itself. This is a very blatant red flag. Rio spends 80 episodes in a coma for this, wakes up from said coma, then is put into another coma before she can sort things out. In general, Rio has very little, if any agency of her own from the time her and Shark start realizing they’re Barians until the Barians start attacking Heartland.

This also plays into my comment about Megumi Han, Rio’s voice actress. The friend of mine who got me to watch Zexal watched it herself as it aired, and mentioned that Han accidentally slipped up/leaked Rio being Merag right before the Barian backstory arc. Because of her then being put into a coma right when things started to involve the Kamishiros and her being shown with IV in the ED, this lead to a rumor coming out that her and IV were supposed to talk things out in canon, but they wrote Rio’s character out as punishment. However, it’s just that: a rumor, and nothing more, so take it with a grain of salt.

As for Eliphas:

Juuuuust so I’m not talking completely out of my ass (as I often do), I’ll be citing this article by Masami Tamagawa, particularly the subsection of it linked therein. 

The rundown is: family structures are a very key cornerstone in Japanese society, with a very distinctive focus on relation to the father. Keeping this structure in tact is very key for career movement; particularly for men, who are traditionally viewed as the breadwinners while the wives stay home. Risking straying from this structure not only puts your family at risk, but yourself as well - leading to many LGBT JP people to stay closeted.

With this in mind, Eliphas is the known creator of Astral, and also explicitly created Barian when he banished all Astral beings who had chaos in them so that Astral World could continue to prosper. This already lays the foundation for an allegory to conservatism down, but in particular the way he, Astral’s patriarch, talks about Yuma’s chaotic (gay) relationship with Astral and how Yuma defends himself goes much further in this.

The foundation for Eliphas’ stance and rhetoric on keeping Astral away from Yuma isn’t the “impurity” of their love, though it is a major component, but rather: their love, and Yuma encouraging Astral to think for himself and find his own purpose detracts him for furthering the prosperity of Astral World. Because of Astral’s relationship, he is denying Eliphas, his family, the opportunities to further society. Afaik, this is a very major point for JP conservatism as a whole - however, my source mostly focuses on the family aspect, so I will refrain from going further on that.

Yuma’s defense to this basically boils down to “we’ve argued, but all I have ever truly done to Astral is love him.”

The article linked also goes into what an extreme generation gap Japan now has with regards to viewing LGBT cultures, and cites the 90s gay boom to exposure in the identities as a reason. Yuma’s final line in this defense reads very strongly as a generational argument/parallel to me:

Eliphas’ rhetoric is furthered when Yuma summons Hope, a direct symbol of Yuma and Astral’s relationship:

He refers to it as an “abnormality born from irregularity”, directly accusing Hope of only existing at all for deviating from the social norms, which is bad. Yuma again refutes that there is nothing wrong with Hope, just as there is nothing wrong with him and Astral being together.

This is all just from the first episode of this duel. I’m sure I could go on, but I’ll be blunt: while I like the themes and allegory of Yuma V Eliphas, I hate the pacing and don’t even want to skim through more. 

However, I do feel based on everything above, combined with the two being canon in the manga also written by Yoshida (with an argument I can very easily make that they’re canon in the finale of the anime as well - but that’s for another post), and again, Alit canonically being in love with Yuma being used as a point of sympathy for him and the Barians’ situation, that Yuma and Astral are a very deliberate and very intentional LGBT narrative. 

As someone whos gay relationship was recently sabotaged by her GF’s parents, all of Yuma’s points hit EXTREMELY close to home for me in particular - and, I’ll be frank: I’m friends with a lot of Zexal fans in gay relationships, and literally all of them have picked up on having the exact same sentiments as Yuma, be it to someone close or society at large - at some point in their lives.

[obliviatemick]

Ben Hardy Fanfiction | When I Kissed You p. 3

❤ Chapter 3. The Party.

Word count: 1511 words.

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therealbarbxx enjoying my only night in NYC 🍎 this dress makes me look fat?

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colesprouse finally!!!! any lads making you company? (liked by lilireinhart)

therealbarbxx @_tonybel none of your business, dork...

colesprousel @therealbarbxx @lilireinhart baby, come defend your man!

elliebamber_ stunning, darling! 🔥 (liked by you)

Narrator's POV.

The place was packed.

Ben and Barbara had arrived in Ben's car and now he'd left her alone to look for his friend. She stared at the decoration trying not to open her mouth in awe. There was everything you would expect from a NY party: red flowers in magnificent white pots that were lined up in front of every wall, tables full of silver plates with the most expensive looking snacks, fountains that were definitely not full of fruit punch and baskets serving what looked like French patisserie, purple lights that made everything and everyone look eerie yet elegant and sexy... Barb thanked the gods she had bought the dresses she tried on before.

She felt tempted to try one of those French desserts, she stretched an arm and someone snickered behind her back. A group of girls staring at her, whispering and giggling. She reached for the glasses instead and helped herself a drink from the bubbly liquid. It was delicious, she couldn't put her finger on what exactly it was though. Something mixed with strawberry.

"Ah, you found the fountain!", a skinny man with brown hair talked. "Be careful, miss... Some of my funniest moments came after drinking too much of this", he looked familiar, but Barb didn't know from where.

Ben laughed and hugged him by the shoulders.

"Barbs, this is the guy I told you about..."

"Ohhh, you were talking about me, Benny boy?", the guy gave Ben love eyes.

"All the time, babes!", the man said "awwww" and engulfed him in a tight hug.

What the fuuuuuckkk?, she thought. The guys seemed to know each other very well, Ben seemed happy and comfortable around the new guy. They soon started talking low and laughing at inside jokes. Until the girl cleared her throat...

"Ahhh, and you are?"

"The name's Barbara! And don't worry I won't steal your man from you, dude."

"That's what everybody says, but truth is...", he leaned to whisper in her ear. "Ben's a slut!" she almost spits her drink.

"Hey, man! What you saying about me?"

"Just the usual, baby!", he played hurt, a hand on his chest and all that. Barbs instantly loved him!

"Yeah, whatever... Barbs, this is-"

"The kid from Jurassic Park!", she chirped. She finally recognized him and was immediately star struck! "OMG, I'm a huge fan!"

"Oh, God! When will I get rid of this curse, Ben? WHEEEEN?", he put in a disgusted face and screamed dramatically.

"Oh... I'm sorry! Don't you like when people recognize you from that?"

"What? No! I love it!", he grabbed her arm and started walking. "Come, walk with me"

Barbara turned her head to give Ben a confused look. He just snickered and shrugged.

"Ummm, I don't get it"

"Baby, I was just pulling your leg! Recognize me from JP, The Pacific, a Cheerio's commercial... I don't care where from!"

"Roger that!" they were walking to a whole separate room on the other side of the venue. "And... where exactly are you taking me? I thought I was here with Ben"

"Wha-? And I thought you'd said you wouldn't mess with my man, bitch!"

"Heeeeey! I mean, not that I'm no bitch, but wtf?!", he laughed and squeezed her arm.

"Takes one to know one", a wink. "I'm taking you to meet the squad before you drown on that champagne and start taking your dress off"

"Oh, good idea!", she nodded and brought the drink to her lips.

"And btw, my name's Joe"

⭐

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benhardy Last night in NYC was a blast! These two guys asked me for a picture and it turned out weirder than I expected...

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joe_mazzello I thought you liked when I chained you up?

benhardy @joe_mazzello excuse me, sir! There are kids on this app

mrgwilymlee why am I not in this photo?

joe_mazzello @mrgwilymlee sorry, m8 only bros allowed

lucyboynton1 dorks

benhardy @lucyboynton1 @ramimalek are you gonna let her talk to us like that?!

ramimalek @benhardy you didn't include me in the pic so YES!

lucyboynton1 @ramimalek 😜

Barb's POV

"OH. MY. GOD."

I don't know how it happened, but from one moment to another I was sitting ON TOP OF A 20-STORY BUILDING with the one and only, the OSCAR WINNER Rami Malek himself and the rest of the cast of Bohemian Rhapsody, the biopic based on Freddy Mercury's life.

"Why didn't you tell me you were in BhoRap?!"

"I thought you already knew", Ben said matter of factly. "I mean, I played Roger Taylor, how could you have missed that?"

"Yeah, I must've fallen asleep during your parts", the boys laughed at my comment and Joe yelled:

"ROASTEEEDD!", Ben just rolled his eyes at me.

"Ben's famous for not telling girls his roles", Gwilym broke in. "But I'm pretty sure you remember him as Warren."

"Warren?"

"X-Men?", Joe added with a hiccup. It wasn't even midnight and he was already drunk.

"Oh, no. I was never a big fan of X-MEN"

"What about The Pacific?" Rami slid in the conversation. A simultaneous UGHHH filled the table.

"Man, not again!", Gwilym slouched back with both hands on his head.

"Why?" I asked "What's with The Pacific?"

"Nononono, DON'T ASK!", that was drunk Joe pointing a finger at me.

"Well, Barbara... Let me tell you the story of how I was casted in The Pacific miniseries", collective UGHHH again. "Do you want the long version or the short one?"

"None of them, man!"

"C'mon! You'll scare her off..."

"Long version it is, then!"

In the middle of that mess, I caught Ben eyeing someone on the other side of the room. I followed his sight and found a blonde girl standing near the entrance, she craned her neck as if she were looking for someone. Suddenly, he rose from his seat.

"I'll be back in a second"

"Yeah, yeah" Rami answered. "As I was saying... it all started in the year..."

"Is that his girlfriend?" I raised my palm and pointed at it with the other hand in the direction of the girl.

"Oh, who?" Joe perked up at the first sign of gossip.

"Why won't anyone listen to my story?" Rami whined.

"Yeah, man, so sad", Gwilym replied in a monotonous voice, then turned to Joe and I and inquired: "Who's Ben girlfriend?!"

"Umm, Barbs? I thought that was you" Rami said.

"What?!"

"Yeah, I thought the same?", Gwilym chimed in.

"How?! I just met him!"

"Y'all are wrong, though", Joe whispered leaning on the table. We came closer to hear him better. "Ben's girlfriend is..."

The remaining three exchanged nervous looks. Joe looked back at Ben and the girl, then again to us.

"Ben's girlfriend is... ME!" Rami, Gwilym and I yelled at him for his dumb joke. "But you already knew that"

"But anyway...", I started. I wanted to make clear my position in this party. "I'm just asking because I don't want to be the reason why Ben's ass gets dumped or something worse"

"Nah, you're ok", Gwilym assured me. "As far as I know, Ben's single. So relax"

"Welp, whatever!" Joe burped and attempted to stand up "It's my party and I ain't spending it here sitting with you nerds...", he looked around and grabbed a blonde girl by the wrist, then made her spin elegantly. The girl let out some giggles, she was so radiant my self-esteem went down three levels. "May I, Rami?"

"Have fun, man!", he replied but then raised a menacing finger "but not too much, you two..."

"I'm coming for 'ya later, babe!", the blonde blew a kiss to Rami and then walked off with Joe by the hand.

I gave a curious look to Rami, "Oh, that's Lucy, my girlfriend. Sorry I didn't introduce you, Barbs"

"Don't worry! She looks kind" I gave Rami a friendly punch on his shoulder "and gorgeous, you lucky bastard!", he laughed sheepishly, I can't tell for sure but he seemed to blush at my comment.

"Barbs?", I turned around and saw Ben standing by the table. I was about to ask what was up when he smiled and tilted his face down a little, an outstretched hand in front of me. I smiled and took it.

"It'll be my pleasure, Ben"

✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦

Btw, do you think Ben's a good dancer? 🤔

I’ve seen some videos from Eastenders and I’m not so sure lol

THANK YOU GUYS SO SO MUCH FOR LIKING AND REBLOGGING THE PREVIOUS CHAPTER! IT MEANS THE WORLD TO ME THAT SOMEONE ACTUALLY ENJOYS MY WRITING ❤

And that being being said, I’m also starting a series of imagines... I’ll be posting them here and on Wattpad as well ;)

TAGLIST: @valeriecarolinaw @rrrogahtaylahhhh

As always: thx for reading!! 

[falneou17]

BanG Dream! Favorite List

So... people have been requesting I made this for quite some time now, and I decided that I might as well. It might be a nice thing to look back on the past three years and see how I have formed and changed my opinion on the various characters.

The main reason why I held back with it for so long, aside from wanting to avoid giving off the wrong idea with who my least fave is, is because I was playing on the JP server while conversing with people who were only playing on EN. I stopped playing JP about a year ago now (the last event I remember playing on the JP server was Babyglow, actually), so the EN server has more or less caught up to what I remembered from the JP side of the franchise; which means that there is still a decent chance that my preferences might change from this point onwards. Not to mention that the third season will air next month, too.

I want to do these regularly-ish, but with how “fixed” the rankings have been ever since RAS’ introduction I wonder how often that can be done.

Icons are taken from the bandorisorter tumblr.

Favorites

1. Yamabuki Saaya Same old song and dance, she has been my favorite BanG Dream! girl since day one. She radiates an aura similar to Saten Ruiko from the Raildex franchise (who also happens to be my all-time favorite character), and this, coupled with her supportive, sacrificial, helpful nature really helped Saaya in solidifying a spot in the #1 spot. The only way I can feasibly see her drop from this spot is if she doesn’t receive any character growth and development because she has been, admittedly, rather static in this department.

2. Aoba Moca A name people still think is my fave of the franchise, she might really become it soon depending on how much Saaya grows in the future. A “simple” character at face value, I really started finding out just how deep her character is when I started getting more into her design and learned more about her. She is overall a really fun character to work with and nothing says that more than the fact that she has been the centerpiece of all my multi-chapter fanfics for this fandom at the time of writing this.

3. Mitake Ran Ran goes almost hand-in-hand with Moca, but where Moca had the element of surprise and curiosity to keep her high on the list, Ran felt like this mixture of two characters of a different franchise I really enjoyed, combining both their strong points into who we now know is Mitake Ran. And I am sure you all already know how much I like Ran considering the BlueFlora works I have done since April of 2017.

4. Hazawa Tsugumi Tsugumi is probably the easiest character, at least among the Afterglow girls, for people outside the BanG Dream! fandom to relate to, and for good reason. She’s a hard worker, remains positive, and you know things will go south when Tsugumi isn’t being optimistic and charging forward like no tomorrow.

5. Imai Lisa Lisa shares a lot of similarities with Saaya, or at least how I described Saaya. Nevertheless, there are still a handful of factors that would explain the gap between them. The first is that I saw Saaya on the screen first, so Lisa was doomed to become “similar to Saaya” as a result (the way the first season animated both girls didn’t really help). The second is the way Lisa is shipped by the general fandom that makes me feel a lot more restricted in using her freely. The final point is not Lisa’s fault, but while Nakashima Yuki has done an amazing job at taking over the role... she is not Endō Yurika.

Loves

6. Uehara Himari I make fun of Himari a lot, but she is still an amazing character and a great gear in the Afterglow machine. And while I personally feel like the English translation of Himari’s catchphrase is not doing it justice, I am very much aware of how important Himari is to the chemistry of Afterglow. She is the leader of Afterglow, after all.

7. Shirokane Rinko What started out as just a playful headcanon has really gotten traction and popularity amongst my readers and helped Rinko rise up to this spot, managing to even beat out the fifth member of Afterglow in the process. Although very different from the characters I usually wrote for, Rinko manages to be this breath of fresh air to allow for a different pace than what I usually work with. The only reason that is holding Rinko back is not even her own fault: Akesaka Satomi made Rinko into the character that I’ve come to know and love; she was Rinko, so losing her was and always will be a big blow to me. Shizaki Kanon is doing her best, and I respect her as a seiyuu in her own right, but... she’s never going to replace Akesaka Satomi as Rinko in my eyes.

8. Udagawa Tomoe Tomoe is a weird one. On the one hand, she’s very fun, energetic, and is tunnel-visioned enough to be fairly predictable in a fun way. On the other hand, she is the most static character in her band and one of the most static of the entire franchise, so... she’s still really high up thanks to the Afterglow bias in me, but who knows for how long that can last?

9. Maruyama Aya I really am unable to talk about Aya without bringing up her seiyuu, Maeshima Ami, because the phrase “the seiyuu is the character” rings very true when it comes to this one. And she is a very fun character, too! I am not really good with stumbly fumbly characters, but watching Aya on the screen has never been a bad thing. It also helps that her singing voice matches Misawa Sachika’s so much, reminding me of Misawa Sachika’s Polaris mini-album and even convincing me for a short period that Misawa Sachika was Aya’s seiyuu.

10. Okusawa Misaki/Michelle I am not really breaking the mold here, having Misaki be my favorite Hello, Happy World! character, so I don’t think I need to add much to it. In a nutshell, Misaki is to Moca as Lisa is to Saaya. But instead of being put in a band I like overall, Misaki was put in what is arguably my least fave band of the franchise (mostly because the style of music does not fit me, personally, and I like the other five bands more)... which really limits how much Misaki can rise in my list.

11. Wakamiya Eve I only have one thing to say about her: BUSHIDO. In all seriousness, Eve is adorable and her fascination with Japan can really act as a parallel to how some fans adore the culture. In short, much like the vocalist of her band, there is never a dull moment when Eve is around.

12. Asahi Rokka Rokka is a really fun addition to the cast through the second season that aired earlier this year. And what is really interesting about her is that, while the other four RAS girls have been a hit or a miss in the fandom, Rokka seems to be almost universally liked. She is just an adorable bundle of cute, what’s more to say about her?

Likes

13. Tamade “CHU2″ Chiyu So remember how I said in Rokka’s entry that RAS’ characters tend to be a hit or a miss? Well, CHU2 is, in my experience, the most polarizing of the RAS girls; people either love her or hate her. I personally really like her, because while she may appear as a brat at first there is obviously a lot more going on beneath the surface. And I enjoy watching those characters develop, so here’s to hoping that season 3 is nice to CHU2.

14. Nyubara “PAREO” Reona Now unlike CHU2, I can’t really pinpoint what it is exactly about PAREO that makes me like her. But I do, she is enjoyable, her dedication to RAS and CHU2, while bordering something else entirely, is still... quite admirable to see, in its unique way.

15. Ichigaya Arisa Arisa is a weird one. I enjoy watching the subtle actions she does in the background to show that she cares for and supports her friends, but at the same time... she’s competing with Himari for the title of “who can be the butt of all jokes”... which is a bit of a shame, but oh well. Another thing that is kind of holding her back is the fact that one of her defining qualities, being a tsun, is... not the most unique personality trait in the anime world, to put it lightly.

16. Tsurumaki Kokoro Kokoro is... an interesting case. I think I mentioned earlier that I am not really good with eccentric characters, and Kokoro is exactly that with a capital E, but on the other hand... the few times when we do get to see through that bubble of energy we get treated to a surprisingly deep character. It also helps to share birthdays with me, I suppose.

17. Hikawa Sayo Another really weird one to place, and one that will probably define the rest of the list. Sayo, by far, has received the absolute most character growth of any of the other girls. That is normally a good thing, but in Sayo’s case it kind of acts like a double-edged sword; while she grew to be a better person and a better sister, above all else, she... lost things that really defined who she was in my eyes. And because of that, I don’t quite know where to place her... I do enjoy her and still like her, but... I dunno...

18. Hanazono Tae Tae has always been a fan favorite ever since she first appeared in the anime, but... she faces a problem I have mentioned before: she’s pretty static. She’s still fun and the fact that I am kind of looking forward to the way her seiyuu continues to grow will probably keep Tae up, but not too high.

19. Udagawa Ako All right, so Ako being here should already tell its own story, but... generally speaking, when a character is “created” with its whole purpose being to surpass another specific character, they will never come close to that character on my list simply because I end up thinking of Ako relative to Tomoe (in Ako’s case). Ako is fun to see and her chuunibyou side makes for some cute interactions, but aside from that... with the fall of Rosela came the fall of its members...

20. Satou “MASKING” Masuki At this point in time, we don’t really know that much about her. She had like... what? Five lines in the entirety of season two? From what I have seen of her so far, however... she catches my interest, but depending on how well her character and backstory are handled she can rise or fall accordingly.

21. Minato Yukina So remember the whole “fall of Roselia” I mentioned? It is not really their fault, losing Endou Yurika and Akesaka Satomi was a big blow, but the effects it had on both the characters and their respective seiyuus are still... there. Yukina in particular also suffers from the whole notion that she is introduced as this super professional singer with more talent than she knows what to do with, but... in part due to the seiyuu shift of Lisa and Rinko, Roselia’s songs have taken a hit in how much I enjoy them (to emphasize this point: I haven’t really enjoyed a new Roselia original song ever since Akesaka Satomi left Roselia). The only two things keeping Yukina in this “tier” is that she is still somewhat interesting to work with and her rivalry with Ran can provide... quite the amusement.

Above Neutral

22. Shirasagi Chisato Once we’re in this tier, it... really is a bit of a blur as to who is placed where relative to each other. I can say that Chisato is probably at the upper end of it by the process of tiebreakers: BanG Dream! Livestream and events involving their seiyuus. Uesaka Sumire is always fun to watch on the screen and has made me warm up to Chisato in the process.

23. Matsubara Kanon Pretty much exact same reasoning as above, with Kanon being slightly lower simply because I tend to like serious characters more than those that fumble around. I will say, though, that the few times when we get to see a confident and determined Kanon on the screen, it was a lot of fun to see.

24. Hikawa Hina So remember my point with Ako about characters who are focused on their relationship and interactions with one specific character? Hina serves as this unreachable goal for Sayo to reach, and with a lot of the scenes that are being shown use Sayo’s perspective to do so... Hina’s innate genius is also somewhat of a double-edged sword for her ranking here, because while scenes involving Hina are anything but dull, I... prefer characters who work hard to get where they are above someone who is “born” with the ability to stand out.

25. Wakana “LAYER” Rei I feel kind of bad putting LAYER all the way down here, but as a character, she is rather... static and uninspiring, at least at this point in time. As a vocalist, however, LAYER is probably my second favorite in terms of the singing voice, so I am hoping that the third season can catapult LAYER up a couple places.

Neutral

26. Toyama Kasumi The “face” of BanG Dream!, so to say. I will say that, for a typical happy-go-lucky energetic female lead, Kasumi has a lot more depth to her than others. Unfortunately, being the character we see the world through, I’ve never managed to really relate to her. So while she is almost in the next tier, she barely misses it.

27. Yamato Maya Maya is, actually, a really interesting character with a lot of room to grow and become her own person. Unfortunately for Maya, she did not catch my eye early enough so by the time I got used to characters like Moca and Ran running around, Maya... kind of faded into the background.

28. Ushigome Rimi I don’t know how to say this without being too mean to Rimi, but... Rimi has been really static. Rimi interactions and scenes, more often than not, either consist of her love for Choco Cornets and/or her relationship with her older sister. A lot of potential, a lot of possibilities, but none that have really been taken advantage of...

29. Kitazawa Hagumi Hagumi suffers a really horrible fate, and I think that she would have been a lot higher on the list if she wasn’t in Hello, Happy World. Hagumi’s character and personality traits overlap with Kokoro’s a lot, and with Kokoro being the vocalist of the band Hagumi has really been living in her shadow... which isn’t doing her a lot of favors.

So, that’s my list. Oh, I missed somebody? Right right, let’s fix that~

Unsalvageable/Very Bottom

30. Seta Kaoru Where do I begin to properly explain how I feel about this character? For starters, Bang Dream is a gacha game where we grind up resources, save for weeks, sometimes even months, for that one card we want (unless we’re spending money on the game i.e. whaling). So what do you think will happen to the character who keeps dropping in a banner she is not even a rate-up in while you really wanted a limited card you have saved eight months for? Or if she keeps arriving as the guaranteed 3* in like 80% of all your pulls for over a year? For reference, I managed to get the skill level of her Phantom Thief 3* to level 5 by using duplicate copies of her Initial 3*. And vice versa.

The gacha side of my reasonings aside, the actual reason why she is and always will be at the bottom is for a reason that cannot be removed without changing who she is. Her over-the-top, flirtatious attitude really, there is no going around this, annoys me, and even if it is just a front... I’ve already associated at least three people I know irl to her, and since I despise those three for how they behave irl... I can never see myself saying that Kaoru is not my least favorite of the franchise.

The only way for Kaoru to no longer be at the bottom is for BanG Dream! to introduce a character I despise more. Which, to be fair, is a possibility with Argonavis, but not only am I just not interested enough to properly invest time in checking them out, they are also in an alternate universe or something if I remember correctly... so comparing the girls to the boys in Argonavis is like comparing... Railgun characters to Index characters, in a way, which isn’t really “fair”. I probably will if I decide to check out Argonavis, but don’t be surprised to see this one at the bottom still.

[transgender-scout]

Okay I found a pdf online of the Angel experiment and started reading it last night when I couldn’t sleep. It turned into less of a list of me complaining and more of a reaction as I relived my life in 6th grade. I’ve got the first four chapters + the prologue so I’ll do 5 chapters at a time. To keep from clogging dashes I’m going to drop this bad boy under the cut.

Book 1:

Prologue

•Oh my god I actually missed these prologues where the protagonist talks so dramatically to the reader like this. Gives me a real animorphs vibe hell yeah

•OH MY GOD 14 I USED TO THINK THAT WAS SO OLD WHAT HAPPENED

•WHOSE IDEA WAS IT TO RELEASE A LITERAL CHILD INTO THE WORLD LIKE THIS

•God I’m losing it this sounded like a deviant art bio

•Oh god I see where I got my flare for dramatic introductions

•It always bothered me that they’re only 2% bird. I feel like that might have given them some patches of feathers maybe instead of wings and improved hearing and sight and strength and metabolism an

•There it is again-“the only experiments to make it past infancy” I have a couple of books’ worth of proof that says that’s wrong. Yeah sure Max probably didn’t know about everything that was going on at the school but don’t sound so definitive about this. What is this, supernatural?

•Also why were the Erasers the only ones who could morph? Wouldn’t it be better to have wings that could morph into your back?? More useful???

•Also I hope the internet taught them about furries so they could make snide jokes tinged with nervous laughter about how Erasers are furries.

•“Welcome to our nightmare” GOD THAT'S SO 2005

•I still have no idea what Max meant by “if you read this story, you become part of the experiment.” I don’t see any wings popping out of my back, Miss, I’d like a refund.

Chapter 1

•GODDD NOW I SEE WHERE I GET MY WRITING STYLE I HATE THISSS

•Also still not sure what the whole point of this dream sequence was besides padding out a first chapter (which honestly? Mood). Any insight?

•W-if the Erasers are chasing after Max, why the fuck do they have bloodhounds? Isn’t wolf smelling on par, if not better than dogs’?? I understand this is a dream but like. Yo.

•Everyone always draws Max’s wings like eagle wings and they’re even colored like that in the manga, but the wiki says they resemble hawk wings. Hm.

Chapter 2

•Also the E shaped house always bugged me, too. The way it sounds, it’s not secluded by trees or anything, but Max says they’re totally hidden?? Surely someone goes hiking in the mountains around there.

•Ah yes. Jeb. Bastard man.

•Wait did he just. Fuckin up and leave? Like in the middle of the night like “bye kids gonna go get some milk” and never came back? How fucked up is that?

•And how the fuck did he expect three 12 year olds to take care of a 9 year old, a 6 year old, and a 4 year old by themselves??

•No doctors. Is Max part of the anti vaxx movement? Surely the folks at the lab weren’t like “well obviously they need all their shots if they’re to function normally in society and not die of chickenpox.”

•Also I like how dramatically this chapter ends. He literally could have kept going djsjfjsfn

Chapter 3

•Why is Gazzy a walking potty humor joke? That literally comes into play once in like the third to last book. #GiveGazzyTheCharacterDevelopmentHeDeserves2k19

•I forgot if this was mentioned but how do they know Gazzy and Angel are siblings? Is it just because they look similar?

•IGGY. SON.

•Also I’m remembering every page from the manga in like super high definition rn

•I saw someone else discuss this, but where in the fuck do they get food from?? Max makes it sound like she’s never gone into real society before and a 14 year old buying at least $1000 worth of groceries every week seems super sketch to literally any place ever.

•It always struck me as weird that Angel likes cozy places considering she lived in a dog crate for the first few years of her life.

•It’s so weird to me that literally the only person who got powers was Angel. The rest develop their (single use) powers along the way whenever it was convenient but I guess she just started out with hers? Idk I literally have no room to talk tho one of my ocs has inexplicable mind reading powers too lol

Chapter 4

•JDJSFJ THE CONVO AB THE STRAWBERRIES IS SO SHORT AND FORCED FJSJFJSJK I know it’s just to start the plot but shakfjajfjwj???

•CHAPTER 4 IS LITERALLY A PARAGRAPH LONG WHAT IN THE HELL

•Oh also why don’t they ever use Gazzy’s voice mimic thing?? JP could have made things where it was voice locked but Gazzy could have had a personality and been like “yo guys I got this!”

•Also how in the world can an 8 year old perfectly mimic a 14 year old’s voice? I’m guessing it’s an implied bird thing maybe.

•“Most of us had [weird abilities].” LITERALLY ONLY TWO OF YOU DO.

Chapter 5

•Oof trained? I can see why Jeb would train the kids to fight but like,,, yikes. Those are literal babies,,,,, plss

•Also I thought it was weird how they could just clap their hands around the Eraser’s ears and their eardrums would just fuckin pop. Do wolves really work like that? Someone who knows more about wolves than me look that up.

•Honestly?? The flock should have tons of scars n shit from all the times they’ve fought the Erasers. I’d really have liked to hear them come up at some point.

•Was there a reason they only wanted Angel or…? It’s been a long time since I read the series. From what Max was saying, pretty much half flock was out cold and would have been easy pickings for the Erasers to take back to the lab.

•Well the one thing I can say is that at least Ari is acting like a jealous seven year old.

•Lowkey wish there’d been more time to establish Ari, in hindsight. While we do get his view point in later books, we still really didn’t even get to know much about him. I’m not sure if that was for a reason or just a character who didn’t get developed. I wish there had at least been a name drop or something in the priori chapters like “I’m pretty sure Jeb had a son. Wonder where he went. Oh well ¯\_(ツ)_/¯”

•Also I forgot again but was there a reason Jeb didn’t bring Ari along?? Like, he couldn’t have done the same things as the flock, sure, but at least he would be there with his dad and like, other kids near his age to interact with. Did we ever get any info ab Ari’s mom? Again, shitty memory.

[rocketpowerreg]

beneath the milky twilight → rackie

TAGGING→ @acupp-jp​ @rocketpowerreg​ TIME→ February 20th, 2019, late night/early morning LOCATION→ A park in Brooklyn NOTES→ Nursing their heartbreaks, Jackie and Reggie decide to bar hop until the morning and wind up on a playground alone, sharing more than just a bottle of Jack Daniels between them

REGGIE CLIFFTON

It had been a long while since Reggie had felt any kind of heartbreak, which was likely why this one felt the deepest despite being a short lived relationship. Reggie had closed herself off to the idea of relationships and being with someone, only for Harper Clarington to of thrown that all for a loop. Now that she had opened herself to it again, she was having to re-learn the ups and downs that came along with it. Luckily, she had a friend in Jackie Puckerman to help ease the pain and provide a much needed distraction for her. Which, given Jackie was in a similar boat, Reggie was hopefully providing the same amount of comfort for her right back. The pair had gone out on the town, Reggie going to Jackie's earlier in the day to make some edibles for them. Which were then taken before going to the bars. Reggie couldn't go out and dance much with Jackie, but she could drink with her, joke with her, and have fun all the same. It was hardly anytime at all before they at that level of carelessness they both wanted. Maybe even needed.

It was getting to be later into the night with some bars starting to close, though rather than call it quits, they went to a liquor store to buy one more bottle to share. Finding the nearest park, Reggie and Jackie posted up on an empty playground, sitting side by side on the highest platform and looking at the view of the park and city surrounding them. Despite how alive New York City was, at the moment, it seemed rather still. It made the thoughts Reggie was trying to get away from creep in, and so she was quick to open the bottle of whiskey they for and take a drink, "Jesus Christ, why didn't we get a chaser?" Reggie asked, feeling the burn of the alcohol go down her throat and make her wince, though then her shoulders relaxed a little more.

Handing the bottle to Jackie, dark eyes landing on her with a shrug, "I mean, I can't complain too much right? at least it gets the job done because I am... already fucking drunk." She laughed, smirking over at Jackie before the expression faltered. Did she like running away from her problems? No, not really, but given how heavy her heart felt at the moment, Reggie thought maybe it was deserved. Or perhaps she was just hoping that it was, "Thanks for offering to take me out tonight, Jacks... I needed it. Bad, apparently."

JACKIE PUCKERMAN

The last week or so had been a bit of a blur for Jackie, purposefully so. Kitty dropped her. Kitty wasn’t happy. Kitty didn’t want her. The whole thing gutted Jackie.  She’d never thought love was a thing she go for, it wasn’t for people like her. She’d fallen hard for Kitty a long time ago and it scared the shit out of her so she instead dated Marley. Dating someone, because you’re afraid to date the person you want to be with is a shitty thing to do, but Jackie honestly thought she could make it work, but of course she fucked it up and hurt a person that she loves. Something she’ll never truly forgive herself for, but maybe this is Karma? Working for months to prove she was worthy of Kitty’s attention and honest affection just to be dismissed without a fight?... Kitty didn’t fight for her. Fuck! It all just hurt so damn bad.

Spending an entire week drunk or hungover may seem like a terrible way to deal with your problems, but who said Jackie wanted to deal with this shit? Whenever she really stopped to think about what it all meant, that maybe all the people she loved the most would leave, maybe they couldn’t love her, maybe this was how it was going to always be… That was too much to bare, so fuck it, she wouldn’t bare it. Jackie was going to party. When she’s drunk she almost forgets Kitty and Puck and the Sperm donor and the contentious yet slightly phony relationship she has with her mother. All she has to do is push a little harder and she’ll forget it all.

Luckily for Jackie she did have friends to help her forget. Reggie had been having a difficult time in general lately and on top of all the physical stuff the other woman was dealing with, turns out something had gone wrong in her relationship as well. Jackie honestly hated seeing her friends in pain but didn’t know how much of a support she could be in her current state, so she offered the only thing she thought she could, a night of fun and forgetting. They’d started out the night with some of Jackie’s favorite pot filled treats, proceeded to drink a few dude-bros under the table at a couple bars and ended the night with a last hurrah bottle at a park. Jackie laughed so much that night. Real genuine laughs that made her stomach hurt and in those moments she was so grateful to Reggie.

“Don’t be a baby, throw it back like a boss.” Her words came out with a slight slur because she was very very drunk, but she was halfway decent at hiding just how much. Jackie accepted the bottle from Reggie and took a long drink coughing a bit as she pulled it from her lips. “You are good company, Reginald, so I wanted to hang with you.” She ran the back of her hand across her lips. “I want to help with your sads. I hope I helped with your sads.” She grinned and shrugged before taking another quick sip and giving the bottle back.

REGGIE CLIFFTON

Reggie couldn't help but shake her head and laugh at Jackie's urging for Reggie to boss up. It was classic JP, as she had been one of the friends Reggie had who could push her to be a little more social. To put herself out there a little bit in the fun department. Sometimes Reggie needed that, and it seemed that she especially needed it at the moment, "Now I never claimed to be some sorta an expert, but I'd say you're fucking drunk, too, Jacks my dude." She teased in a loose tone. Sitting on top of a playground while shitfaced wasn't exactly how Reggie figured they would end up, yet somehow, it was fitting. It was soothing. The two of them were both running, yet the stillness of the night was providing a certain comfort, and bitterness somewhere deep in there.

Taking the bottle back from Reggie, she took another drink before handing it back at Jackie. And as the burning sensation happened again, Reggie sighed, laying herself back onto the cool surface of the playground. Her eyes wer looking up at the ceiling of the structure, only to close them with a hand resting lazily on her stomach, "I think that you... and the many, many, many Jack Daniels we met tonight did help with my sads... at least as much as you guys can, right." Reggie mused, trying not to let her usual world view put a damper on the night. Swallowing down the thoughts swirling in her head, Reggie's head fell to the side to look over at Jackie with a soft, inebriated smile, "How about you, Jacky P? This night helping out with your sads, too, or do we gotta find another store open in an hour?" She joked, knowing full well she hit her limit. But she'd remain good company for Jackie.

JACKIE PUCKERMAN

Turning her head a bit too quickly at the accurate accusation caused Jackie to have to steady herself. Placing a flat palm down next to her, she fought the giggle trying to escape. “I resemble that remark Reginald!” She waved one hand around, one finger pointing to the sky. “I am not... not drunk. I’m a little wasted that is all.” The giggle that followed was too strong to be contained. No one would remember the details of this night, especially not the fact that Jackie Puckerman giggled when drunk. Right? and with that thought she shivered. It was so cold out. Her teeth chattered faintly, but she barely noticed. What she did notice was a slightly snow covered monkey bars set that she had decided to climb before they went home.

Jackie tapped her finger to a melody that only played in her mind for a bit before realizing Reggie was handing her the bottle. She looked at it, admiration on her face before grabbing it and hugging it to her chest. The words “Old Friend” escaped in a hushed tone. She sways slightly as the melody gets a bit louder in her mind. Music helped drown out the painful memories too. Suddenly the unnamed song was replaced by Reggie’s voice and a whimsical smile danced across Jackie’s lips. “You’re a little cutie cute friend!” It took another moment for comprehension to come. And Jackie nodded, smile growing wider. “I’m glad. I wanted to make sure you we’re smiling sometime too. The real kind not the ‘see everyone I’m fine, so stop asking, Damnit!’ smile”. She nodded in a matter-of-fact way, mentally patting herself on the back for helping as she took another sip. Jackie thought about Reggie’s question. Her own sadness was the other reason they were there. She huffed and laid back beside the other woman. “Right now…” Jackie looked over at Reggie and a small smile appeared. “... Sads are mostly at bay… Score for Jackie!” She pumped one fist in the air. “I’m glad you’re here. Here where we are right now. Even though I don’t know where we are right now.” Her brow scrunched for a moment. “Reggie, people are hard… that’s what she said…” she laughed at her own ridiculousness. “No but really, I think I’m done with people.”

REGGIE CLIFFTON

Watching Jackie fumble and stumble through her thoughts while in her drunken state only provided entertainment for Reggie. The both of them were a little far gone beyond the realm of needing to make sense for there to be an understanding between them. They were both at a low point in their lives. Despite the fact one had been broken up with and the other did the breaking up in their respective relationships, it seemed almost too fitting for them to be finding a comfort in each other. Along with the bottle in hand, of course. When Jackie laid back, Reggie's head turned to have eyes meet with Jackie's own. Yes, her head was spinning, her eyes were a little glazed over, and her mind still felt heavy even if the thoughts that actually weighted it down weren't being considered. She was focused on Jackie, smiling back at her only for it to falter at the mention of people. Of being done with them. Reggie's first reaction was to do a chuckle that was paired with a snort of sorts. It sounded so easy to say, even Reggie believed it for a minute, only to remember calling it quits on anything wasn't easy. But she had been forced to do it many times before. What was one more heart break in her life, right?

"You know what? I could absolutely, positively start rattling off some bullshit about how you shouldn't give up on people, and that it's bad to. That you should keep faith because people change and it gets better and all that..." Reggie started, not intending to go off on a tirade but that was the level of drunk she was at. Propping herself up on her elbow, Reggie let her head move freely to fall to the side, attention on Jackie as she continued to slur out, "but you know, honestly? I'm right fucking there with you. It's better off that way." Reggie declared, lifting her head to haphazardly look out into the distance. Her vision was a little too unfocused for that, but she still was staring off, "It's shitty, you know... like knowing it's basically in your genes suck for all of eternity and that's just the hand you've got," Reggie spilled out, clearing finding her stride in terms of what emotional damage she felt like revealing, "It's like... no matter what you do, you're gonna wind up doing the same shit you don't wanna be doing. Or hoped shit wouldn't end up blown up in your face. But like... deep down, you totally knew it was gonna end up the same way. So... are you really just stupid for even trying to fight it?" Reggie rolled her eyes, only to then have them search for the bottle to take another drink. They were barely breaking it in, and yet by now, the burn was becoming much more a dull sensation Reggie wasn't having an issue with.

JACKIE PUCKERMAN

Jackie listened as Reggie spoke, nodding along, taking in what she could. “Don’t rattle off nonsense right now, ‘cause I don’t think I could tell the difference.” Genuine concern covered her face before quickly dissipating. Jackie honestly felt every word the other woman said. Each one hit her in such a way, that in her drunken state she was a bit confused as to which one of them was actually saying the words. Reggie somehow knew exactly how she felt. “Get out of my head sorcerous.” Jackie whispered, unsure if her night’s partner in crime heard. “You could have said ‘don’t give up on people ‘cause everything is gonna work out in the end’ and I would just call bullshit. And I’d kick you… just because.” A small grin slid across her lips and slowly fell from her face as the words began to settle in again.

“I AM stupid. I’m a fucking idiot. I did know, Reg, I knew how this shit was going to turn out but I convinced myself, tricked myself into thinking this 22 yrs of shit relationships would stop. I mean, when you’re abandoned as a fetus it’s def the universe giving you serious warning of how life is going to be, right?” Jackie closed her eyes squeezing them tightly, trying to push away everything that hurt. “I fight the loser piece of shit in my genes on a regular, but maybe I should just be who I am because trying to be something else ain’t fooling nobody.” She thought about how much effort she put into being “better” and how she always fell short. Was it even worth it?

Jackie turned and laid on her side, facing Reggie. “Is it supposed to be this difficult? Are some of us supposed to fail? Can you stop hogging that?” She reached for the bottle and put it to her lips, underestimating the difficulty of drinking while laying on her side. “Shit, don’t you spill that alcohol, as my King Bey would say.” Jackie chuckled before setting the bottle down, only partially disappointed half her gulp ended up on her cheek. Her gaze found Reggie’s face again and she pouted. “I’m sorry Reginald. I’m supposed to be cheering you up? Want me to do some naked acrobatics or something? I will.” She wasn’t supposed to be doing this, drinking and dope hot company was supposed to distract her from everything.

REGGIE CLIFFTON

"Oh c'mon Jacks, since when are you ever not cheering me up? You don't gotta even do naked acrobatics to make it happen. Not that I'd complain if you decided to try otherwise. I'm pretty sure I saw some monkeybars down there..." Reggie pointed out with her eyes on Jackie's, and knowing smirk on her lips. The two of them were friends, though things mainly started as a friends with benefits situation. It had been a long time since that had been their relationship, but among other things, it was likely one of the reasons they felt comfortable enough to be open. Which only continued on as Reggie, with all her might, tried to prop on her elbows so she could point her chin down to the ground at another structure nearby, "Yes. Cliffton scores. There they are, monkeybars waiting for climbing." She boasted, lazily attempting to lift a fist up as her eyes closed and she did a faux freezeframe. Her arm dropped back down, Reggie's body needing it for balance as she composed herself. Thought. mulled some memories over before slurring them out, "I haven't been on the bars in forever you know? Like... since I was a kid... I'm talking at least like seven or-or eight or maybe.... actually, I never really played on playgrounds now that I think about it." Reggie started to laugh at herself in a breathy chuckle, head falling to the side and loking at Jackie with a drunken smirk and eyes clearly thinking of another time.

"I was always that kid running around on the fields. Because back then I actually had two, that's right folks, two good legs. Oh man, I had no idea how good I had it then... we never do when we're kids." Reggie mused, her tone getting a little more distant near the end though her hand reached over wiped a drop of still wet whiskey from near Jackie's lips. It was a soft touch, with Reggie's eyes glancing at the familiar lips of Jackie's and knowing the many reasons why it was tempting to kiss them. Especially given the day she had of officially ending her five month relationship with Harper for reasons more complicated than Reggie cared to think about. Licking her lips, Reggie looked back up at Jackie's eyes and let her hand drop onto floor in the space between them, her own lips still in a small smile, "I know we keep getting all... this with the talking and shit but... I'm glad we did it. I'm glad we're friends, Jacks. I don't even care that we're both losers and have loser genes and make stupid mistakes... because we're fuck ups together. And that's pretty dope, right?" She rambled, her hand at some point having risen to Jackie's shoulder to ensure she had her friend's attention as she smiled, "I don't know... I think it's pretty dope at least."

JACKIE PUCKERMAN

“I mean I will, but if I do we gotta go inside, my nips can’t handle this cold temperature.” Jackie looked down at her itty bitties and laughed. “I am excellent at naked cartwheels.” Another laugh fell from her lips before her eyes fell onto Reggie’s face. Her voice was soft when she spoke again. “But I’m glad I always cheer you up, Reginald. I want to see you smiling and what not. You deserve some smiles.” Her mouth literally dropped open at the mention of Monkey Bars. “Yoooo, I was just thinking, well when we first got here I was thinking I needed to climb those damn things. You ARE some mind reading sorcerous! I knew it!” This was fun. There was ease with Reggie that was nice, a calm. There was no pressure to be anything but herself, no pressure to pretend to be okay but there were moments, like this, talking about climbing monkey bars when she in fact felt almost okay. “You’re such a freaking dork, did you know that?” Jackie shook her head and laughed at the ridiculous pose the other did. “ A cute one but a dork nonetheless.” She smirked and thought about the last time she was on a playground. “Don’t judge me, but I go to the park all the time. It was the one place in my neighborhood that got taken care of growing up. Like the the city couldn’t give a shit but the people in the neighborhood kept it up for us. Kept the grass cut and the rust away. So now even as a grown ass woman, because know that I am a grown ass woman,...” Jackie smirked and winked at Reggie before continuing. I go to the park sometime and swing  and slide and climb monkey bars and remember moments of happy.”

Jackie looked down at the gentle hand on her cheek and took in a sharp breath. Touch, it was something she craved, connection, affection. She licked her lips and sighed softly before shaking off the desire to lean in. “Reggie with the two legs! Don’t worry though, because you’ll get it back. You’ll be running around here like a badass little kid in no time. I want to help. How can I help?” Jackie furrowed her brow, thinking of looking up physical therapy videos on youtube, because she was going to fix Reggie’s leg, and yeah, she was still pretty drunk. She quickly abandoned that train of thought as the other woman’s words rang out in her ears. “I’m glad too, Reg. I’m glad I got you, and I hope you know you got me, babe. Like Sunny and Cher. We’re fuck ups together...” The last words came out in a hushed tone. Jackie placed a hand on Reggie’s cheek resting it there as her thumb gently caressed the soft skin. It was familiar. Something she’d done long before. Her body just remembered. “Your cheek is cold.” She smiled softly before leaning in and pressing a kiss on Regina’s lips, a kiss so soft that their lips barely touch, until she leaned in a bit more fully connecting them. The tip of her tongue ran along the other woman’s bottom lip before she nipped, and soothed the spot once again with the swipe of her tongue. Jackie pulled away and held out her hand. “Come on, Let me push you on the swing instead of the Monkey Bars. I promise to be gentle.” She winked and chuckled.

REGGIE CLIFFTON

"Like Sunny and Cher... 'cept I think we're just two Sunny's and no Chers. I don't have that chick's kind of energy. Or hair, for that matter." Reggie rambled, a giggle escaping her lips a bit with closed eyes. Her stomach was starting to hurt, and she had to wonder if it was pain from all the laughter or from needing food. They had eaten, but with all the hours of the night having been nothing short of a blur, it was hard to remember when that was. Reggie's body was relaxed back against the cool metal surface of the playground, her eyes opening slowly to upon feeling a weight on her cheek. As they opened, she felt Jackie's kind touch and there was a look in her eyes that was mirrored in Reggies own. The witty remark of ‘then why don’t you warm it up’ was there on the tip of Reggie's tongue, but she couldn't quite say it. It was too similar to a thing she'd say to Harper, and luckily, Jackie took the initiative of connecting their lips. That kept Reggie's lips busy in a better way than talking could have done. The simplicity of it was exactly what the moment called for between two friends feeling lost. There was a want for intimacy that had been lost due to their respective break ups. While their months long relationships had come to ends in different ways, that didn't change the need from existing for them both. Reggie sighed into it, the hand on Jackie's shoulder gripping slightly and pulling herself closer to the source of comfort she needed at the moment. The source in the form of her friend, with whom this wasn't their first kiss, and likely not they're last.

As the pair pulled back, Reggie glanced at Jackie's hand and a child-like grin broke out, "The fun just never stops with you, does it, Jackie P?" Reggie playfully stated, her hand enthusiastically though sloppily grabbing Jackie's as she also tried to get herself to her feet, "And you know as well as I that Reggie C don't do anything gentle." Reggie pointed out between chuckles and grunts as she rose to her feet. Truthfully, Reggie was more successful than expected in the task, apparently the physical therapy she had stuck enough to be transferred to her drunk state. Thus now Reggie was dragging her friend along by the hand, laughing for no reason other than the world wasn't so heavy. She hadn't broken Harper's heart. She hadn't broken Lola's heart. She hadn't broken her own heart. No. She was just there in the moment with someone who cared, and that she cared for, about to swing on the monkeybars as if the world hadn't beaten them down. That felt like enough for the night.

[write-stuff-for-life-blog]

Review: Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

NOTE: I actually saw this movie in theaters but since it’s DVD release was yesterday I figured I’d post my review of it here. I might ramble on for several paragraphs in these reviews, especially if I feel strongly about something, so I’ll try and make it a point to post a short rating at the top as well as a more in depth one at the end.

NOTE THE SECOND: I don’t usually care about spoilers in these reviews so read at your own risk.

1 out of 5 stars. Only watch on Netflix if you exhaust all your other options.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is written by Colin Trevorrow (previous writer and director of the last entry in the franchise) and Derek Connolly and was directed by J.A. Bayona. Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard reprise their roles as Owen Grady and Claire Dearing respectively and are sent back to Isla Nublar by Jon Hammond’s previously never mentioned before former partner billionaire Ben Lockwood played by a James Cromwell who can barely bother to keep his eyes open throughout the movie. I, in fact, share that same sentiment.

Usually in these reviews I try to touch on all the aspects of said medium: visuals, camera work, writing, directing, acting, etc. But this review is going to focus mainly on the writing and acting because both are so atrocious all the other aspects are inconsequential. 

I didn’t think the first Jurassic World (JW) was as great as it needed to be for a soft reboot / revival of such a beloved franchise but it did have several memorable moments. The leads were charming enough to make you forget that they lacked meaningful character arcs (Claire does have one but the movie doesn’t care about it that much) and the action in the second half of the film was pretty cool (specifically T-Rex and Raptor and Giant Alligator Thing vs. the Indominus Rex). So for the second go around I was hoping that the filmmakers would take the time to really get it right and do the franchise justice. My hopes were far too high.

The only two performances that were worth anything in Fallen Kingdom (FK) were the two returning leads, Pratt and Howard. Howard is a decent enough actress but I’ve never seen a performance from her that I really love and FK continues that trend. Claire does undergo a change from shrewd, cold businesswoman to animal rights activist and that does give some depth to her character but it happens off screen during the three years between JW and FK. It was a little jarring at first but I swallowed it better when the film took a minute to explain her motivations. Pratt was as Pratt as ever as Owen is exactly the same through this movie as he was when we first met him in JW. I fear there’s a real risk for Pratt here as it seems as though he’s becoming another Will Smith or Tom Cruise. He is varying degrees of his usual charming and charismatic self in whatever project he appears in. Owen is just Pratt but outdoorsy to the extreme. Star-Lord is just Pratt with his ego turned up to eleven. Andy from Parks and Rec is just Pratt as a dumb man-child. And I guess that’s fine. Plenty of stars have made careers doing the same but actors actually stretching themselves and challenging themselves to become someone else will always be more impressive.

One thing that annoys me about modern blockbusters are their tendencies to inject new secondary characters into each following installment while completely ignoring the B cast from the previous entry. In the original Jurassic trilogy it did make some sense to do that as each sequel followed the branching lives of Ian Malcolm and Allen Grant who, we can presume, never encounter one another again after the first film. But here there’s little justification for it. JW’s comic relief characters Lowery and Vivian, played by capable comedy actors Jake Johnson and Lauren Lapkus respectively, are nowhere to be seen in this movie. Instead we have Franklin Webb, a spazzy tech guy played by Justice Smith, and Zia Rodriguez, a ball busting veterinarian played by Daniella Pineda. I don’t have much to say about Pineda, she was decent enough and served her purpose, but Smith … Oh my God. I believe this guy will go down in history as the absolute worst character in any Jurassic movie ever. Yes, he is even worse than every child character in all of the movies combined. He does nothing for the movie other than to scream in a high pitched voice when something scares him. Everything scares him. It’s always played for laughs but the joke falls flat on its face every time. The movie thinks it’s funny for a grown man to shriek in terror and scream out loud the thing that’s scaring him. “Lava!” “T-Rex!” “Social interaction!” All right, I made up that last one but the character is so cliché he might as well have said it. And what’s more there is no reason for this character to be here. The movie wastes a fine opportunity to bring back JW’s Lowery who was also a tech guy. In fact it even makes sense for him to run with Claire in her animal rights activism as he was a huge fanboy for Jurassic Park. He had toy dinosaurs all over his work station, he loves them! And it makes even more sense for him to return to Isla Nublar because he was familiar with the park’s computer systems. Why isn’t he joining Claire? He was courageous and had some genuinely funny interactions with Vivian. He certainly would have been better than Spazzy McScreamy.

Speaking of trends let’s talk about the obligatory child character. Isabella Sermon makes her big screen debut as Maisie Lockwood, Ben Lockwood’s granddaughter. Of all the new additions to the franchise she’s the standout as her performance has a depth and range most child actors would struggle to convey. Now one thing about the Jurassic movies is that their child characters were usually pretty capable in some way or another. Hammond’s granddaughter in JP reboots the computer system. Malcolm’s daughter in Lost World is able to gymnastic a raptor to death (yeah it’s a dumb scene but she saves her dad). The teenager in JP3 survives Isla Sorna alone for eight weeks. And the brothers in JW are able to fix a derelict jeep and rescue themselves. FK started out following this trend of capable children with Maisie … until it abandons the idea so we can have a “monster creeping through a child’s bedroom” scene. This completely undermined her whole character. Up until then the movie had established her as smart and independent and capable as hell. She snuck into the secret lab, spied and hid from the bad guys, busted out of her room which she’d been locked in, and climbed atop buildings all secretly by herself without help from a single grown up. But the minute the new hybrid dinosaur goes after her, which she had seen several times before then, she immediately forgets how capable she is and hides under her bed sheets. This might be the most heinous example of bad writing in this whole movie. Mixed messages? Okay, fine. Forgettable action sequences? Whatever, that’s most of Hollywood anyway. But please, for the love of God, have consistent characters!

Now the villains. Ugh.

BD Wong returns as the dastardly Dr. Henry Wu, the mastermind genius behind the dinosaur cloning process, the I-Rex, and FK’s new hybrid the Indoraptor.  It would seem that in the three years since JW InGen and its parent company Masrani Global have cut Wu loose as he’s now partnered with a new financier Eli Mills played by Rafe Spall, the CEO / director / executor of Ben Lockwood’s … estate? Company? Trust fund? I don’t remember the movie specifying what Mills’ job was, only that he was another white collar villain (because we haven’t seen that before in a Jurassic movie). Toby Jones makes an appearance as Mr. Eversol, an auctioneer for the high rolling criminal underworld, and Ted Levine plays Ken Wheatley, the leader of a disposable mercenary force who has an odd fetish for collecting dinosaur teeth. And that is literally all there is to the villains. Each of them is cartoonishly shallow to the point that Wheatley is a parody of an archetype and all Dr. Wu needs is a mustache to twirl. True, the villains have never been that big of a deal in the Jurassic movies as the dinosaurs have always been the main attractions but not even Vincent D’Onofrio’s Hoskins from JW was this bad and in a movie full of weakly written characters he was the weakest link.

And let’s not forget the dinosaurs. They are there. Not as much as you’d like but they’re around. The big draw for Owen this time around is to save Blue, the only surviving raptor from the pack he raised and trained, from Isla Nublar’s impending volcanic eruption. FK plays this up as though Blue was always the equivalent of a loyal attack dog but it conveniently forgets that JW established her as a dog capable and willing to bite the hand that fed her. The scene from the previous movie in which Owen is in the raptor enclosure is a tense moment because he is under threat from all the raptors, Blue included. In fact when the I-Rex persuades them to go after the humans all the raptors focus in on Owen. There was that one moment when Owen pulls off Blue’s head camera at the end of JW but to rewrite the relationship as though she were a loyal golden retriever, I feel like that was not earned in the slightest. And the main attraction this time is the new hybrid, the Indoraptor, essentially a smaller version of the previous movie’s I-Rex. FK presents this abomination of genetic manipulation as an ultimate monster but it really just looks like rejected concept art of the I-Rex. Also the Indoraptor is only in half of the movie. The I-Rex in JW was a better monster because it was terrorizing the island for almost the whole runtime. Plus the I-Rex has some decent build up and a good reveal. Here, it feels like the movie couldn’t be bothered. “By the way, we made another hybrid dino. Here it is.” I did enjoy the return of more practical animatronics over every dino being CGI but if you saw the last film this one doesn’t have anything special for you in that regard.

Let’s talk about Trevorrow’s writing. It’s awful. Like a pile of hot rancid garbage awful. The biggest problem with JW is that it completely ignores the moral of the original. JP was a cautionary tale that proves whenever man tries to exert his will over nature he will lose and just because we can do something it doesn’t mean we should. It’s classic man vs. nature ending with man being humbled. JW said, “Hey look, we’re going to keep doing that ethically questionable thing most people believe we shouldn’t be doing and wield the power of a god with no regards to any possible consequences,” and gets upset when the monster it created wreaks havoc. But does FK finally learn that lesson and try to take the franchise somewhere new that doesn’t lead the characters into being idiots who keep going back to the island? Do Michael Bay’s Transformers movies understand subtlety?

More than ever this movie has dumb characters making dumb decisions that nobody with a brain can follow. The villains want to capture the dinos and auction them off to billionaire criminals because these crime lords want them for pharmaceutical reasons (but why though?), the ability to hunt one like a big game hunter (because we also haven’t seen that before), or for weaponization. Let’s touch on that last point. The villains justify it by saying animals have been used in combat scenarios for centuries when armies rode to battle on horses and elephants. And the movie might have had a point if either one of those transportation methods hadn’t become outdated before the fifties.

Now just for the sake of argument I’ll list off a few more examples for this movie’s case: K-9 units, bomb detecting dolphins, and pidgins have all historically been used by one military or another at various times. But here’s the common thread among all those examples: none of those animals are predisposed to ripping a man’s head off in a single bite. Why do you think it isn’t common practice for a military to use lions and tigers and bears? And let’s take a closer look at the proliferation of working dogs and horses. Could it be that thousands if not millions of years of closely co-existing with humans have made them predisposed towards not killing us on sight? What’s that called? Oh yeah. Domestication!

Whether we’re talking about fiction or not, training an animal that never co-existed with humans so it can become an attack animal is not a good idea any way you slice it. Any semi-intelligent person can recognize that there are way too many variables to take into account. Oh but what about Blue, I hear you asking. Owen proved that raptors can be trained with Blue. That may be true but one successful instance against a multitude of failures does not prove the concept. Sure the Polish Supply Brigade around WWII kept a bear named Wojtek that would carry their supplies for them but you don’t see cargo bears being implemented throughout the world’s militaries these days. Do you know why? Because they’re freaking bears! They could go in for a playful swipe and nick your carotid by accident you MORONS!

And that leads me to this movie’s message. Apparently FK believes these animals have as much right to life as any other endangered species. That’s the whole reason Claire wants to go back so she can save them. But the film is bookended with Jeff Goldblum reprising his role as Ian Malcolm speaking before a congressional committee on how much that is a bad idea. He argues that nature selected the dinos for extinction millions of years ago and bringing them back was a mistake. The volcano erupting and eradicating the clone dinos on Isla Nublar, he says, is nature’s way of correcting that mistake. So the film opens and closes arguing why protecting these creatures from a second extinction is the worst. And yet we spend most of the runtime doing exactly that.

Seriously?

Malcolm has always been the ultimate voice of reason in these movies and we as an audience are inclined to agree with him given the proof each movie provides for his argument. There are four previous films illustrating why bringing the Earth’s most dangerous predators back to life is a horrible idea. And now that nature wants to correct the mistake you’re going to defy that decision?

The film uses Maisie here to make this case. The dinos are technically clones and we learn that Maisie is a clone as well so now we’re using clone rights to justify saving the dinosaurs. It is a weak argument thrown in at the last moment. Arguing for conservation is good and all but how well are you going to side with that argument when the T-Rex is meandering through a neighborhood gobbling up pedestrians left and right? These animals have lived on an island their entire lives. Aside from T-Rex who visited San Diego in the 90s they have never seen a town. The only human made structures they are familiar with were the derelict park buildings that the movie shows them waltzing through all the time. Even our own real world wild animals don’t understand that they should stay away from human settlements, how well do you think Blue is going to do the first time she’s caught in the headlights? But apparently they have a right to live because they are just as alive as Maisie the clone is so let’s end the movie by releasing all these dangerous animals, most of which are as large as a rhino or elephant, into the American countryside.

Sure, forget about public safety. Forget that dinosaurs had their chance but nature selected them for extinction over sixty million years ago. Forget about all the indigenous plant and wildlife that is now under threat because you just loosed at least eleven different dinos onto the world. Forget about how their nesting habits might destroy the landscape like nutria in Louisiana. What was your motivation again? Conservation? Give me a break.

Honestly this movie makes me glad Trevorrow was fired from Star Wars Episode Nine. This proves that he has no clue what decent writing looks like and has no regard for what the original was trying to say. Just because he was given the opportunity to make these films doesn’t mean he should have.

 1 star out of 5

A forgettable and messy film that slowly meanders through the second and third act with no sense of purpose other than to say, “Ooooh look. It’s a dinosaur!” And it doesn’t even say that well.

[jilyyall]

i-saw-you-sneaking-food-out-of-the-dining-hall college AU for jily prompt? i loooove the neighbors one you just posted 👌🏻❤️

Here you go! This was fun to write :) Thanks for sending me a prompt!

It Began with a Dare

He’s rounding the corner of the dining hall when she stopshim – the beautiful redheaded girl from his history class. Just appears out ofnowhere, really, running up from behind him and swinging round in front of himto corner him there. For a long moment, she just stands there and stares athim, wide-eyed and crazed and pretty. His hand jumps to his hair, gives it aslight ruffle.

“Hello,” he says, trying his best to sound confident andcharming and even half as cool as his best friend and roommate, Sirius, who hashad more girls in his bed since the start of term than James and their twomates, Remus and Peter, have in their lives combined. “Not that I mind beingcornered by a beautiful woman, but…”

Before he can give his best attempt at charming her, shecuts him off. “I saw you.”

“Yeah?” His eyebrows, he is sure, are attempting to join thegravity-defying mess atop his head, but she doesn’t seem to care. “I saw you,too.”

He had, after all, seen her in class earlier. He didn’tthink she had seen him, though. Until this moment, actually, he had been underthe impression that she had no idea he existed. She sits nowhere near him, isalways there before him, and tends to stick around after class to talk with asmall group of girls long after he heads out for his next class.

Her eyes narrow in confusion. It isn’t until she switchesher focus to his face that he realizes she has been staring at the two bagshe’s got slung over his shoulders this whole time. Oh shit.

“What are you talking about?” she asks, studying his facefor a long moment and then raking her gaze down his body.

He wants to think she is checking him out – she may verywell be, he’s no slouch – but he gets too caught up in the fact that she isstaring at him like she has never seen him before in her life. He is toocrushed to have his long-held theory confirmed to rejoice in the fact that herface flushes when she realizes he caught her.

“What are you talking about?” he parrots back at her, tryingto keep the surliness out of his tone. Why he is so crushed that she’s nevertaken any notice of him before, he doesn’t know. He knew she had never seen himin history before. He sat in the seat very nearest the door and never spoke inclass, preferring instead to alternate between quietly staring at her andtexting his mates who had somehow managedto get into a different history class than him, all three together. Itshouldn’t bother him that she hadn’t noticed him. It was his own fault, really,for not speaking to her before even though he’s been staring at her for fivesolid months.

He hefts his loot more firmly over his shoulder, which is amistake. In an instant, she is staring intently at the two bags he is carrying,like a lioness tracking her prey. He makes to step around her, but she shiftsto block his way.

“If you don’t share, I may kill you.” Her voice, previouslyso light and soft and adorably confused, comes out in a low growl. James pauses, looks at her, laughs. And instantly regrets it when she stalkscloser. His grip tightens on the straps of his bags and he clears his throat,his heart pounding and thinks, dear God,she’s not only beautiful, she’s crazy.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says aloud.

“The scones, you prat!” She grabs for his bag, and heinstinctively steps back.

She trips, nearly falls, catches herself against the brickwall next to them. He grips her shoulders to steady her, eyeing her warily.When she flushes, clearly embarrassed, he reluctantly relinquishes his grasp onher.

“Are you okay?” he asks. He wants to ask if she’s stoned asfuck because, honestly, who else cares this much about a scone? Her eyes areclear and focused and she seems perfectly in control of herself, if not a bitscone-crazed, so he thinks she probably isn’t stoned.

Sconed, says thevoice in his mind and he nearly laughs aloud, but refrains, not wanting to seethat warning flash in her eyes again, not so soon anyway.

“I’m fine. Sorry.” She looks down at her feet for a moment,then takes a deep breath and looks up into his face again. He is momentarilystunned by the pure green of her eyes. “It’s just… I really fucking love thosescones. They’re the only thing that they serve consistently that I actuallylove and you’ve gone and taken them all!”

Her eyes widen and go a bit glassy and he is horrified tothink that she may actually cry? Over scones? Jesus Christ, she is actually araving lunatic. He may also be in love with her, which is ridiculous and justas horrifying a prospect.

“What on Earth do you need with five dozen scones anyway?”she demands, thankfully not crying.

“I don’t…” He trails off, unsure of what he should say.

“Don’t try to play innocent!” She jabs a finger at him,stopping just short of actually prodding him in the chest. “I saw you! Youwalked right up to the scones with your empty booksacks and started talking topoor Myrtle…”

“Myrtle?” he cuts in, genuinely confused.

“Yes, Myrtle! The scone lady! Myrtle!”

Judging from the look on her face, he is a right asshole fornot knowing the name of the woman who serves the very dry scones in the dininghall. He wonders if this girl knows the names of every server in the dininghall. He reckons it’s probably not the best time to ask, though, so he nodsinstead.

“Oh, yes, of course. Myrtle the Scone Lady. Very sorry,continue.”

“You were talking to Myrtle, distracting her with yourdashing looks and your charming smile and your bedroom eyes and she didn’t evennotice you stuffing five dozen of myfavorite scones into two bags!”

They stare at each other for a moment, both wide eyed forprobably two very different reasons.

“Look, I’m going to be honest with you,” he finally says. “AllI got from that was that you were watching me and think I’m attractive.”

“I didn’t – I never – now you just…!” She sputters, gasps,and chokes on the words that won’t come out.

“Now, don’t worry. I’ll level with you. I have watched youbefore…” When she takes a step back, he realizes what he just said, and hiseyes widen. He holds out both hands in a reassuring gesture. “Oh God, no. Thatsounded awful. I just meant…”

He stops, rakes a hand through his hair, fights the urge torip it right out of his scalp. Fuck, I’mnot Sirius I can’t be smooth.

He takes a deep breath and lets it out in a whoosh, forcing himself to calm down andspeak rationally in spite of the erratic beating of his heart. “I’ve noticedyou, is what I mean, and I find you rather attractive as well.”

“I don’t – That’s not - I just –”

“And that’s why,” he interrupts her, swinging one bagaround, unlatching it, and holding it out to her, “I am willing to share myhaul with you.”

She eyes him uncertainly for a moment, then stares down intothe bag. The look on her face is absolutely hysterical – it’s as if he has justpresented her with the Mona Lisa. Sheis either half starved to death or she actually just really, really loves thesescones.

She picks one out of the bag, and immediately startsdevouring it. He decides not to tell her that these are far from the bestscones he’s ever had. She may literally kill him if he did.

When he zips up his bag and swings it back over hisshoulder, she sends him a reproachful look. He sighs and reaches for it again,handing her one more. This is the last one, he vows silently, because if hegives her any more, then everything could very well be ruined. One missingscone? Easily explained as a miscount. Two missing scones? Well, it’s not hisfault if the server –Myrtle the Scone Lady – decided to take one or two forherself before serving.

“Stingy,” she says, but smiles nonetheless.

This time when he laughs, she doesn’t look angry. She justcontinues happily munching away on her subpar scones.

His phone vibrates in his pocket, his friends undoubtedlyinquiring as to the status of his mission.

“I’ve got to go,” he tells her regretfully. “But I’ll seeyou around.”

“Where?” She asks, and he understands that she’s asking howhe knows her when clearly this is first time she’s ever noticed him.

“Tell you what,” he says, grinning when she looks up at him,crumbs coating her lips. “You figure out where I know you from and I’ll buy youall the scones you want.”

She flushes and makes to wipe her mouth so she can replywith some dignity, but James has already turned to leave, convinced that thatis the smoothest statement he is capable of making and choosing to leave it atthat.

—-

Somehow, for the first time ever, he is running early onMonday morning. When he slips into his seat at the back of his history class,his gaze slides immediately to the seat she always occupies – six aisles downand four rows to the right. His heart sinks when he finds her spot empty.

His phone vibrates in his pocket. Before he is even able toget it out of his pocket, it vibrates three more times. For once, he isrelieved at the fact that his mates are going to be chatting in the group allclass; the object of his affection isn’t in class today, so the texting won’tbe a distraction. He holds his thumb over the home button and his phoneunlocks, immediately opening up to the group chat.

SB: bets on whether ornot prongs gets a date

PP: not

RL: Bets on whether ornot Prongs even gets noticed?

SB: SICK BURN

JP: i hate you all.

SB: hey two scones isworth a date right

PP: unlikely

RL: For what it’sworth, I think she’ll at least recognize you.

PP: rly

JP: what a lad, moony.wormtail, you’re my least favorite.

RL: Sure. Wouldn’t theface of the absolute nutter who stole every last scone in the dining hall andfelt it appropriate to only give you two of them be forever burned in yourmind?

JP: don’t act likeyou’re not the one who dared me to filch them all.

JP: by the way, i takeit back. i have no least favorite. i hate you all equally.

SB: chin up mate

SB: just ask her out

SB: if nothing elseyou can always lure her in with the promise of free scones

PP: tru uve alrdy prvnurself capable

JP: what? couldn’tfigure out how to shorten capable?

PP: rude

RL: He’s not wrong. Imean, you all need to work on your punctuation and capitalization, butWormtail, it hurts to read your texts sometimes.

PP: :( 

SB: enough of that

SB: back to matter athand

SB: are you going toask her out

JP: she’s not evenhere.

PP: she h8s u

SB: shes avoiding youlol

JP: fuck off.

RL: She doesn’t evenknow you’re in that class. It’s still early yet. There’s time.  

JP: okay, okay, i’llcome clean. moony, you’re my favorite.

SB: that hurts

PP: dnt wry hes vfickle ull probs b his fav in a few

Someone sits down next to him, and he looks up expecting tosee his usual neighbour, a pale, perpetually-tired-looking boy who usually payseven less attention to the professor than James does. Instead, he sees long redhair and vibrant, triumphant green eyes.

“I believe you owe me all the scones in the world.”

His grip goes slack for a moment, just enough for his phoneto slip out of his hands and clatter loudly to the floor. He ducks down to grabit. When he sits up straight again she is smiling at him.

“James Potter,” he says, holding out his hand with a widegrin.

When her small, soft, warm hand slides into his, his heart stutters.He is staring at her, absolutely enchanted by her, but she’s staring rightback, the smile on her face a perfect mixture of triumph, happiness, and excitement and he thinks, really hopes,that he’s not imagining the flush on her cheeks. She bites her lip and ducksher head, but still manages to maintain eye contact with him.

“I’m Lily Evans.”

[that-quiet-girl-who-writes]

How it all Started~Part 1(JP.)

A/N: I’m thinking of doing a second part to this, but I’m not really sure.

Summary: To make Sirius and Lily jealous, you and James pretend to date. That’s all you need to know.

Pairing: James x reader, James x Lily

Word Count: 2435

Warnings: Swearing, general sadness

Other Parts: How it all Ended-Our Story’s not Over

Masterlist

It had all started as a plan. A plan that two marauder’s had made. Two marauder’s that forgot it takes all five of us for any plan to go smoothly. Prongs and I had decided to fake date for a while. The plan was to pretend we were in a relationship and make Lily and Sirius jealous. It was an idea that he had gotten while drunk one night after a party and I had only agreed so that he would shut up. In the morning, he still claimed that it was a “brilliant” idea. After nearly two hours of non stop nagging and explanations as to why this would work, I finally gave in.

 “Okay, so how long are we gonna have to do this?” I asked him. We were sitting on his bed in the marauder’s dorm, discussing our plan.

 “Depends on how long it takes for them to get so jealous that they can’t take it anymore.”

 “Okay, this still doesn't seem realistic. What if they don’t get jealous? Sirius doesn't actually like me and I doubt dating another guy will make him jealous when he has a line up of girls wanting to date him.”

 Somehow, James convinced that this was a good idea (it wasn’t) and that it would give both of our stories a happy ending (it didn’t). And yet for some reason, despite the voice in the back of mind telling me these things, I went with it. James and I planned on telling the marauders and a few of my friends (including Lily) that we were dating. I was fucking scared. I had seen angry Lily before and I had no interest in finding out if she was the type of person who got angry when she was jealous, nor did I want to be on the receiving end of that anger.

 The morning after we had made our plan, I walked into the great hall for breakfast to see all the marauders look up immediately and then proceed to stare at me with mixed expressions of confusion, shock and disbelief. All of them excluding James, who had a proud smile on his face, clearly happy with their reaction. I approached the table almost cautiously. He had clearly told them, meaning there was no going back now. I sat down next to my ‘boyfriend’ and he immediately put his arm around my waist. The gesture would have actually been pretty normal. I was very close to all of them and it wasn't unusual for one of them to have their arm around my waist or shoulder or holding my hand. But after our surprising news, the other boys strared at James’ arm as though it was a massive invasion of my personal space.

 “Morning.” I said, “Is everything alright?”

 Sirius cleared his threat and looked at me instead of James, “Um, yeah. Just surprised is all.”

 “Oh. So James told you then?”

 “So it's true?” Peter asked.

 “Yeah.” I nodded my head slowly. I realized I probably wasn't being very convincing at the moment, so I smiled at James and leaned into him.

 “Good morning.” I said to him.

 “Morning, love.” He smiled back.

 I put my head on his shoulder and sighed.

 “You tired?” He laughed.

 “Only always.” I said. I closed my eyes and felt a kiss being placed on the top of head.

 “Why are you so tired Y/N/N?” Remus asked me.

 “James and I were up all night.” I answered, turning my head so that I could see him. Sirius raised an eyebrow at me, as if to suggest something.

 “Talking.” I clarified, narrowing my eyes at him.

 I didn’t speak much during the rest of breakfast. I really was very tired from spending last night coming up with this ridiculous plan. Just before the meal was finished, James asked me to meet him in the room of requirement. When I got there, he greeted me with a hug and a kiss to my cheek.

 “Hi.” he said pulling back from me.

 “Hi. You look awfully happy for such an early time of the day.” 

“Well I am happy. Our plan is working!”

 “Really? I’m not sure. I mean, yeah Sirius was shocked, but I don’t think jealousy is the right way to describe it.”

 “Maybe not yet, but I’m sure that it will all fall into place.”

 “How can you be so sure.”

 “I don't know… I guess I’m just not ready to give up on the possibility that Lily could love me.”

 I smiled at him. James might be an idiot, but he never gave up and I admired that about him.

 “So why am I here?”

 “Just to hang out. I figure they’ll think were snogging if we sneak off every once in awhile.”

 I laughed. “Yeah, I’m sure that’ll work.”

 We spent about two hours just hanging out in the room of requirement. By the time we left, I knew more about James than before and I’m sure he could say the same about me. Over the next two weeks we would continue to do this. We would act all affectionate in public and then sneak off to play random games, plan pranks or just talk alone. As far as I could tell, Lily was confused as fuck and Sirius was just trying to be happy for his friends. I had never shown the slightest romantic interest in James. Now we were “dating” and it had pretty much shocked everyone. Alice even told me that she had always thought I would have ended up with Sirius at some point. I hid my smile and just brushed it off, saying that James and I had found this connection between us very fast and that we hadn’t seen how alike we really were before.

 Alice’s comment was one of the last times I really felt anything for the gryffindor boy. Gradually, I stopped thinking about Sirius. I became more and more focused on James and all the time that we were spending together. The truth was, I did feel a connection. I wanted to be around him all the time. I got used to and loved when he would come up and put his arm around me or kiss my cheek. I missed him if I didn’t see him until dinner and I would want nothing more than to hug him and run my hands through his hair. After I realized that I was no longer hung up on Sirius, I didn’t bother telling James. I didn’t think he would want to stop fake dating as he was clearly still stuck on Lily, but I didn’t want to give him any reason to call it off. So I didn’t. It took me a week to figure why. Why I couldn’t stand the idea of us going back to normal. Why the thought of not having his arm around me while we walked through the hallways made me miss him even when he I knew he would be waiting for me outside the classroom. Why I didn’t want to be with Sirius anymore. Why I couldn’t stop thinking about the boy who had been in love with one of my friends for the last six years. When I finally realized that I had feelings for James, I felt like a fucking moron because of the amount of time it had taken for me to figure it out.

 I couldn’t tell James. There was no chance in hell that I was going to tell James. I wanted to, really badly, but he didn’t like me and if he knew that I liked him, he would probably tell me that it was best we stopped with the whole act. I wasn’t telling James.

 One night, a few days after I had admitted to myself my little crush, Lily and I were in our beds talking and listening to each other in the darkness of our dorm. Every time I was around Lily, I felt guilty. She might not really like James now, but when James told me that he wasn’t giving up, I could see the determination in his eyes and I knew that he wasn’t lying. I was almost sure that Lily would love him back at some point, which is why I was lieing in bed talking to her and feeling awful about having a crush on a guy that she would probably be going out with in the future.

 “So how’s it going with James?” she asked, suddenly.

 “Oh, um… it’s good. Amazing actually. He’s the sweetest guy on the planet.” I told her. She showed no change in her expression, but that was all I needed to tell that something was wrong.

 “Lil, is there something that you’re not telling me?”

 “What do you mean?”

 “You’ve never really asked about James and I before.”

 “Well, I mean it’s your relationship. It’s really none of my business. Besides, you’ve got Sirius, Remus and Peter to ask you annoying questions about it.”

 I laughed, “I guess you’re right.”

 We stopped talking and tried to get to sleep after that. As I was lieing there, I heard a small sigh coming from Lily’s bed. All I could think was that maybe this ridiculous plan of James’ was working a lot better than I thought it would.

 It took me about two days for me to decide to tell James. I was so conflicted. I wanted James to be happy and have what he wanted, but Lily was what he wanted. He deserved to know. Plus, in those two days, I noticed even more things about Lily. She would make sure not to make eye contact with James or I if we were together and it was never just the three of us. In any situation that could lead to us being alone, she would make up an excuse and leave before it would happen. When she and I were alone, she wouldn’t stop asking about James. I couldn’t help but feel my heart drop when I caught her staring at him from across the common room. She liked him, it was clear to me. But as far as Sirius, he was just Sirius. And it didn’t even bother me. Sirius could like whoever the fuck he wanted to because I sure as hell didn’t like him anymore. I had eyes for James and only James. But James had eyes for Lily. So I brought James to the room of requirement to tell him about her feelings.

 “Okay, so what do you want to do?” he asked, dropping his bag on a couch that had showed up in the middle of the room.

 “Well, actually I have something to tell you.”

 “Yeah, what?”

 “This incredibly stupid plan that we have going on, just might be working.”

 “Really? Sirius?”

 “No. Lily.”

 “Wait, really?”

 “Yeah, she won’t stop asking me about you and I saw her staring at you this morning.”

 “Wow. I can’t believe this.” he smiled. I loved his smile. I just wanted him to be happy and if being with Lily would make him happy, than I would help him try to win her over.

 “So what do you want to do?” I asked.

 “I think I should go talk to her. Wait, what about you?”

 “What do you mean?”

 “I don’t want to just go after Lily and leave you alone. What about Sirius?”

 “James, to be honest, I don’t think I like Sirius anymore.”

 “Really? Are you sure?”

 “Yes. It’s really sweet of you to not want me to be alone, but I’ll be fine. I promise. Now go after Lily.”

 After that day, everyone knew that it had all been fake. James and I had been dating so that he could make Lily jealous. He kept the part about me liking Sirius to himself, which I was thankful for. The new and very happy couple were absolutely adorable to everyone else. I tried to be happy for them, I really did. I tried to look at them and see what everybody else saw. A good match. But it seemed like the harder I tried, the harder I fell. I wanted to be where Lily was. In James’ arms. Next to him at the table. Partners with him in class. His date to Hogsmeade. I just wanted James. It was tearing me apart to be honest. I couldn’t sleep and I didn’t talk as much because I just felt sad all the time. Every damn time they walked into a room, I saw nothing but James. The rest of the world seemed to blur when he was there and I wasn’t complaining about that, but it was becoming too much.

 I was a very stressed person. I had ways of coping with it and so I tried some of them. Pretty soon, I was drawing, writing, playing piano and cooking at least once everyday. These methods always helped, but this time I felt no difference. I finally decided to write a letter to James. One that he would never receive. I never knew why, but writing letters to people usually seemed to help. Maybe it was because I was finally getting some of it out of my head and down onto paper.

Dear James,

 I love you. That’s the easiest and most truthful way to put it. I’ve loved you since the first week we started fake dating to make Lily and Sirius jealous. I look back at that and wish I had just told you, because now you’re with Lily and I’m falling apart. I don’t know if these feelings will go away, but for now, they’re here and I can’t do anything about them.

 I want you to know how much you mean to me. I know that you will never read this, but it needs to be in words. I wish the world would stop turning for a minute because I have so many thoughts and it’s making my head spin. I want to be with you. I want to go back to the way it was when we were pretending to date because I had never been happier. I want to be happy with you. That’s the problem right there. Happy. I want you to be happy too and what would make you happy right now is to be with Lily. So as long as you’re smiling and I don’t get pushed away, these pathetic confessions of love will never leave this letter. My thoughts about you will remain exactly that. Thoughts.

 Love Y/N

Part 2