#so I'll probably have it at ten people and then see where they'd be from and all

[bomberqueen17]

don't know where else to put it

I was going to do a big wrap-up of Everything I Learned From The Must Farm Site Report PDFs but then life got super busy. So I only have the things I turned over and over in my mind, just now, and I want to go back and reread but now's not the time, I'll have to do another pass through at a later date.

But the one tiny vivid little factoid I've got in my mind that I just have to write down-- that necklace, with the big amber bead? Some of the glass beads were shattered from the heat but the amber bead was only charred a little on one side. So obviously some of the necklace was closer to the fire than the rest. I had initially connected that it was found near where there was probably a door, and I vaguely imagined someone dropping it as they fled. But now I'm convinced that's not it at all.

It was hanging up. It was hanging on a peg or a hook or a twig or something, right near the door, maybe even on display, and the big heavy amber bead was hanging at the bottom, and the glass beads were hanging at the top, and the fire at that point spread down from the roof and it burned through the string, and the glass beads shattered and the necklace fell down and when the floor collapsed it wound up in the mud.

The other thing I keep thinking is that the fire has to have started while no one was home. And modern people don't think about this, but in a premodern society where you've got a group of people living in a house, where you don't have appliances you can turn on and off, where starting a fire takes serious effort and getting it to a state where you can cook on it takes hours, where the food served at daily meals has to be the full-time job of several people because it's so labor-intensive--

there's never going to be a time where everyone is out of the village. There's going to be a sickly or elderly person who can't really get out of bed or move far, or a new mother who's just given birth and can't travel, and there'll be someone home to tend to whoever that is, and while they're home they're tending the fire and getting dinner started. There's just always someone there. I could see maybe one house being unoccupied for a brief time, but a village, that probably had at least ten houses if not more, and each house had ten people in it? Someone would be home. And those who weren't home wouldn't be far. We know the wheat etc. that the village was eating was grown on dry land, and the flax they were processing into fiber, but it could not have been far away. And the Fenlands are flat. You'd see smoke. Before the first house was even engulfed someone would have noticed the smoke and they'd be hurrying home.

But nobody tried to fight the fire. Nobody spread it, but nobody fought it either. Nobody pulled any timbers out to save them. Nobody threw water on anything.

Nobody was there. The houses were empty. Nobody fled the fire, because they weren't there to see it start, or they would have been able to stop it.

They hadn't been evacuated in any organized way, or surely the bead necklace would have been taken. Even if they were in a hurry, at least the pot full of cooked food would have been taken, or emptied into something more portable to bring along! There was so much prepared food lying around. And the thread bobbins-- bobbins and bobbins of painstakingly-spliced flax they'd grown and rippled and scutched, some of it then painstakingly plied, hours and hours of several people's labor, and it was on little bobbins, you could sweep that into a basket along with your bulkier household goods and barely take up any space at all and save hundreds, maybe thousands of hours of labor later when you needed to weave some new fabric. Thread like that was precious, and it's portable, and I can't believe they'd choose to leave so much of it behind if they had any chance to choose what they brought with them.

As I'd said, it's beyond possibility that everyone had gone out to do some job-- there would be people left behind in the houses for that. Maybe everyone had gone out for some religious observation, maybe. Maybe something was important enough to even haul out the oldsters and the infants, and to put off dinner until late. Maybe. it's possible. But someone (probably in Structure 1) just didn't bank the fire correctly, and it got away and got into the roof beams. A properly-banked fire wouldn't do that, and surely these people, managing cooking fires for their entire lives, would know how to do it. But even then I can't imagine them going that far, and again, they'd see the smoke and hurry home. Even if it was a religious rite they'd still hurry home from it, there's no way they wouldn't have come back.

So it seems to me that they had to have been forced out. No notice, no chance to pack, everything left where it was, last night's supper still in the pot, tonight's bread still rising on the trays, the lambs in their pens and the dog tied up in House 5.

I can't imagine what forced them out. It wouldn't be weather. It could be enemies. There were no weapons found in the houses, but that might mean they'd taken them with them-- except the spears, perhaps they were only hunting spears but you'd think still if everyone ran out to fight they would take them too, the spears and the axes; if it was a situation where they had to last-ditch defend themselves the non-warriors would certainly arm themselves with the wood axes and the hunting spears. But they didn't.

So my conclusion is that they all were forced to leave in a hurry, without banking the fires, without putting anything away, and they were prevented from returning. The cause could be human enemies-- perhaps the warriors of the settlement had gone out to fight and been defeated, and the victors came here and the survivors knew they could not fight and so came out unresisting to meet their fates.

The cause could be something religious or spiritual-- something they believed in made them leave and prevented them from returning. It would have to be incredibly compelling, however, because leaving without their food or their cooking pots or their domestic goods (the little bobbins of thread!!!!! you could easily carry those!!) would make it very hard for them to make their way in the world.

The cause could be-- I really don't know what else. Disease would maybe make them abandon a settlement, maybe leave no trace if they buried their dead on land, but they would pack first. Most things, they would pack first, they wouldn't leave cooked food sitting out, they'd bring the lambs and dog with them. Any orderly evacuation, they'd have brought the lambs and dog with them. They have to have left in a hurry without a chance to prepare. And there was no attempt at salvage afterward, they didn't come back to look for anything they'd left. The ruins of the burned buildings would have stood visible for decades, the ends of roof timbers above the water, much of structure 4 (possibly the gate house entrance) above the water, the palisade probably unburnt for much of its length. It would have been easy to find. There are only a couple of disarranged timbers in Structure 3 to suggest anyone ever poked through the wreckage at all, and that's not much to go on. Certainly nobody dug around in the mud, which would have been quite shallow at some times of year.

And while it's possible the evidence of what happened existed once, somewhere in the long-vanished sections of the village-- perhaps the fire started at that end, perhaps they tried to fight it there, perhaps they tried salvage over there and discovered the fire had burned too hot to make it worthwhile, perhaps the bodies of the villagers were all dumped into the channel over there after whatever battle there was-- perhaps there was all kinds of stuff. But I just think whatever it was left no trace. So many of the possibilities would now be invisible, three thousand years later.

All we have is the facts: They left in a hurry, leaving their lambs in their pens, their food on the table, the dog tied up in the house, the cooking fires not banked.

And whatever made them leave, they never came back.

[jellieland]

It's just like them, thinks Martyn, miserably, To want to make these things stick.

He's always been an "act first, weasel your way out of any potential consequences later," kind of guy, so immediate, painful and permanent consequences to his recklessness strike him as unfair, unwarranted, and quite possibly a personal attack.

But, well. Here he still is anyway. What's he going to do about it?

His ankle burns where the baby zombie clawed at it. His legs ache from the dripstone, and the dripstone, and, yes, the dripstone again, and also walking off Mumbo's house and perhaps slightly misjudging his landing.

His ear keeps ringing and most of his right side stings from the creeper that decided, quite rudely, to sneak up on him and then blow up directly in his face about half a second before he could raise his shield. And the gravel later on, that he'd seen falling but still not managed to avoid, hadn't helped with any of that either.

He can feel blood dripping down his back in no less then five separate places, along with his arm, his shoulder, and the side of his head—that last one bled a lot and got onto his bandanna which was pretty annoying, actually—all from his many encounters with what he thinks were probably, at a conservative estimate, about a billion skeletons.

He doesn't quite glare up at the Secret Keeper. The healing they'd given him had been too much of a relief for that; his vision had stopped swimming, that head wound had stopped bleeding so much, and it was significantly less painful to walk. But the look he gives them is certainly glare-adjacent.

"You do know injuries aren't supposed to stick around like this, don't you?" he mutters, bitterly. "I know you like twisting stuff, but this is ridiculous. It's unnatural, is what it is!"

Someone snorts behind him.

He turns, and he sees Cleo. Neat, meticulous stitches are visible across their skin. Martyn hasn't met many people with scars before, but she's one of them.

The only new one is what looks, ironically enough, like a zombie bite on their arm, entirely healed over.

"It's really not that hard to deal with if you're just patient," she says.

"Ah," he says. "Well. That's my problem right there, then, isn't it?"

"It certainly looks like it," they say, amused. They're laughing at him again. He can't even be mad, since all in all, he totally deserves it.

"Yeah, alright," he says, a bit indignant just for the sake of what remains of his pride. "No need to rub it in! I hope you realize that if healing just worked normally, I'd be doing really well, actually."

"Hmm. Right, you do tend to throw yourself off of cliffs, and then try and work out how you'll save yourself on the way down, don't you?" She gives him a knowing look. "But look on the bright side—when you do die, you'll get to be perfectly healthy again for... I give it ten seconds. After that, you'll start making decisions."

"Hey, I'll have you know I went to the Nether for ages, and got out without a scratch on me that I didn't have when I arrived!" he retorts.

"Oh, so you can be careful, you just choose not to be?" They raise a judgemental eyebrow.

"Well... I mean." He half-shrugs, then winces. "I mean. Yeah. Yes. You know this about me."

There is a brief pause. She gives him an unreadable look, eyes catching on the blood seeping through his shirt. "...Yeah. I guess I do."

He glances over at the Secret Keeper again, bold and unmoving against the unnaturally darkened sky.

When he looks back, Cleo is still watching him. "You didn't even bandage those, did you?" they ask, with a touch of what most people would think was disdain. "Let alone stitch them up."

"I mean, no? It's not like it'll do anything, is it?" he asks, taken aback. "The good old 'Powers That Be' want us to bleed, and they want us to keep bleeding! Who am I to argue?"

She narrows her eyes as though she doesn't quite understand his point. "I'm not saying that would fix it. I don't think any of us are going to live long enough for that method of healing to work." They shrug. "Would make it hurt less, though."

Now it's his turn to narrow his eyes. "Oh yeah?"

"Yeah," she says. "At least, so I've heard. For me, it's mostly about making sure I don't start physically falling apart, because it's really inconvenient when that does start happening."

He nods in acknowledgement. "Well, maybe I'll give it a go if I have the time." It all sounds a bit far-fetched to him. Much better to spend time working towards completing the next secret task he gets, or persuading people to give him the healing they have to spare, rather than losing hours on something that wouldn't actually help him in the long run.

(Maybe it's an echo, maybe it's just who he is, but Martyn's time is precious, and he is not giving it up for something so monotonous. Who would find that interesting?)

"Alright," they say. "If you're sure. But no one else is going to do it for you, you know."

He snorts. "Cleo," he says. "You're funny." She, of all people, should know he's already well aware of that.

"Right," they say, dryly. "Well, unless you want anything else I think I'm done here."

"Nah, not really." he says, then pauses. Frowns.

As unconvinced as he is, she really didn't have to say that to him. She deserves at least something in return.

"I will say," he says delicately, "if that advice really does help. You should probably keep it to yourself. You know. Death game, and all that."

All at once, their expression turns cold. "I think it's my business what I choose to give up, actually," she snaps.

Martyn's eyes briefly flick over to the Secret Keeper. "I mean..."

"No. I meant what I said." They cross their arms. "It's up to other people what they choose to do with it. But what I give them is up to me." She glances at the Secret Keeper, and then back to him. "No one's ever been able to tell me what I owe, or don't owe, to anyone." They smirk, and give him a piercing look. "You know this about me."

"...Yeah," he says. "I guess I do."

There is a short silence.

"Well!" He claps abruptly. "I won't keep you!"

"No, you won't," she says. "I'd best be off. This might come as a surprise, but I do actually have better things to do than hang out around Grian's creepy rock all day."

"Fair, fair." He chuckles, and raises a hand in farewell as they leave. "See you around."

Once she's out of sight, he goes back to staring at the Secret Keeper.

It's quiet.

"They're doing pretty well this time, huh?" he says. "If she keeps going like this, she probably won't get another happy ending, will she."

The air is very still, here. It's as though the place is trapped in night, even when he can see the sun in the sky.

The Secret Keeper does not answer him.

"I know you, though," he says. "You won't let it be all about being careful. That would be boring."

The thought nags at him that Cleo hasn't sounded as though they'd found any of this boring. Surely there had to be more to it than what she'd said? There had to be.

If there wasn't, then what was the point of all this pain?

He shifts, and his shoulder twinges, and he hisses quietly with frustration.

"Things already stuck," he says, unhappily. "They already stayed. I thought that was obvious."

The rock just stands there.

Judgemental. Impartial. It's impressive how it can manage to be both.

Martyn sighs heavily, and winces, and turns away. He looks towards his extremely small, entirely copied base, and a place where the sky is capable of letting in the light.

He pokes gingerly at his head wound. It's shallow, but painful.

"Maybe just this one," he mutters. "Could repurpose my bandanna. Although I guess I should probably wash it first. That would be smart." He wipes at his face. "If I don't then blood's going to start getting in my eyes. But not in a cool way, just in a way where I'll fall in a ravine by accident or something."

Nobody responds. That's ok. He hasn't exactly endeared himself to anyone, recently.

In a game that's even more about trust than usual, there's a part of him that doesn't mind being a lone wolf, as it were. At least for now. Harder to stab someone in the back if you don't let them get behind you, right?

He can make this work. He'll just have to adapt. He's good at that, usually! He just has to find the angle.

After all, he may not be patient, but he is persistent.

And he suspects being a liar will come in handy, for this one.

[ask-olive-huchers]

just for funnies, I'm gonna do a relationship chart thingy realll quick with the characters Olive has interacted with (plus maple, Chris, Ditch, and pebble bc they technically have met but there's so roleplay for them-)

Olive and Bailey: close friends, kinda like siblings! Olive definitely sees him as a big brother, though! And (don’t tell anyone!), They definitely look up to Bailey a lot

Olive and Sora: close! Sora is like the mother of the group, so naturally Olive see's him as a role model!

Olive and Zaria: they know she helped Rowan with her plan. So. hate.

Olive and jasper: ehh, neutral (ish). Just has fun messing with him most of the time. So I guess possibly another brother figure idk

Olive and Rowan: despises. Hates. Would kill. Could kill. It’s their fault. Or, that’s what olive thinks anyway.

• Olive and Finn: neutral. Not much to say in this in, olive just doesn't really know Finn that much.

Olive and Jay: ZERO OUT OF TEN. HATE EACHOTHER, DEARLY. WOULD PUNCH THIS MAN FOR A CRUMB OF BREAD BRO. ANYTHING TO MAKE HIM SHUT UP.

Olive and Skipp: do I even need to explain this one? ok, fine. Olive definitely "likes" Skipp. Let's put in simple terms for now, shall we?

Olive and Yuki: Dislike. Only bc bro was in a bad mood when they had met. Then again Olives kinda always in a bad mood, so..-

Olive and Ray: sorta dislike. Only because they had a bad first impression as well. But all of Olive's first impressions involve anger so..no hard feelings?

Olive and Quinn: a like for sure. I mean, her dog had already won them over! Plus she was pretty nice!

Olive and Stone: neutral. I mean, he's okay I guess.

AND NOW, TIME FOR THE OTHERS THAT ARE CONTROLLED BY ME!:

Olive and Ditch: hate. Hate. Hate. Pure annoyance. If given the chance, Olive would stab him in the neck and stomp on his body. They'd throw his body into the ocean. Plus, Olive would tie giant rocks to his body so he'd sink to the very bottom. Where no one could find him. But he's too important to the story so that'll never happen! Perhaps in another universe...

Olive and Chris: neutral. Not practically close, but Olive does like to call him out for anything he's done wrong. They find it funny how ironically clumsy he is.

Olive and Maple: neutral. That's all I have to actually say but, I don't reallly think they'd have have a straight bond. It would probably be from their friend group, if you know what I mean.

Olive and Pebble: I guess sorta like? I mean, he must be cool if they're dating Bailey. Right? Though I think they've only met like, once..-

AND BONUS: OLIVES RELATIONSHIP WITH PARENTS!! And Adi!

Olive and Calvin (their father): hate. I thought that was obvious..? But yeah. He's a pretty shitty dad who was verbally abusive and physically abusive. What was worse was it was only olive that WAS being abused, so it was favouritism for sure.

Olive and Charolette (their mother): Strong disliking. Not much as a hate, though. Their mother was fairly nice to them when they were younger. And the only golden child to appreciate. But once Their sister was born, Olives perfect little world had fallen apart.

Olive and Adi: let's get something straight. Olive hates a bunch of people. Like, a lot. But Adi takes the number one spot on the leaderboard. Olive absolutely DESPISES HER. I mean, she RUINED their life! If you were to ask olive how they ended up on the streets, they'd probably say their father. And little sister. If they could torture anyone until the end of time, Olive would 100% pick Adi. I mean, that's the whole reason they had murder their mother. To strike fear into the child, and to get the message clear for her small little mind.

And yeah! I think that's everyone? Question mark? Well, that's everyone olive met! I think? I'll probably put this is the masterpost, and it'll probably change over time as well!

Last updated : Aug 4th, 2024

[panfluidme]

Taken Away Forever

Martin squeezed his eyes shut as he gripped his bleeding stomach. The knife in his side really caused pain to course through every inch of his body and made his face pale and his forehead sweat. He knew he couldn't remove it so he didn't bleed out as fast as he would if it was taken out.

He hated that he was alone. He had always been afraid of dying alone, and that seemed that was going to be the case. Which was absolutely terrifying. He wasn't supposed to die until he and Chris were much older. Not at twenty-four. He still had so much things to do...

Despite the fact they had stabbed him, Martin couldn't bring himself to hate them. He knew that sometimes, desperate people did something they didn't want to do to keep themselves fed, sheltered, or having clothes on their back. Sometimes even to do those things for someone else, usually their child. 

That didn't mean he wasn't scared, because he was so scared. He was so scared of leaving Chris and the rest of the crew. He was scared that he would never get to make things up to Chris, that he wouldn't get to hold his brother again. He was scared that he would never creature adventure again; there were still so many creatures he hadn't seen yet. He was scared that he would never get to see his parents again, never get to tell him that he loved them.

Martin shifted— he didn't know why he did it— and gasped out in pain. Every inch of him just exploded in more pain. Tears welled up in his eyes, but he tried to keep them down. If anyone found him, regardless of who they were, he didn't want to be seen crying over something so... unimportant.

"Fuck, this hurts." Martin wasn't usually one to swear, but it slipped out. It made him feel dirty when he swore, so he had a dislike for it. He didn't care when other people swore (though, he did tease Chris and tell him not to swear whenever he did). 

He reached for his communicator, but found that it was missing from where he normally kept it. He felt around to see if he could find it, to see if it was put somewhere new in the rush of him leaving to get fresh air in the city. But Martin couldn't find it.

Fear built up inside of him. It swirled with anger at the person and himself for the briefest moments before being replaced with regret. He wouldn't get to finish his animal life list. Martin wouldn't get to tell his brother that he loved him one last time.

Martin slowly opened his eyes, the street light blinding him. He has always been more sensitive to light than most people, but it was only amplified by his pain. Sure, the sensitivity was annoying at times, but he had ways to deal with it and it was what it was.

He tensed up when he heard footsteps approaching. He turned his head away and shut his shut, scared that whoever it was would finish him off. That or hurting him more then leave him to die when they saw that he didn't have a wallet or any money on him anymore. He probably did have expensive equipment on him, but the person wouldn't know that.

They put their hand on his chest, a familiar, yet unfamiliar smell coming from them. It was surprisingly comforting. "Deep breaths, hun," the stranger spoke softly. "I'll call an ambulance here soon, just keep breathing. You're doing great."

Martin slowly opened his eyes again. "Who are you?"

"My name is Martha Zacks." She looked familiar somehow, like she could've been related to someone he knew, but he couldn't place it through the pain. "What's your name?"

"Ma-Martin Kratt."

She nodded with a comforting smile. "How long ago were you stabbed, Martin?"

"Ten min-minutes ago."

Martha nodded again and called 911. She answered every question they asked calmly, keeping her jeweled hand on his chest to feel his heart beat. It was slowing, but it was still there. That was all that mattered to her.

"They'll be here in five minutes," she informed after hanging up. "They'd be here sooner, but the hospital isn't very close. Your job is to stay awake and keep breathing. Do you think you can do that for me, hun?"

Martin hesitated before nodding. "I think so..."

He hoped so. There way no way in hell he was going to leave Chris and the Crew like this. Especially without saying any kind of goodbye. They all deserved to have one if he really was coming to his end.

The blond didn't want Chris' last memory of his older brother to be of them fighting. It had been a really nasty one that ended with Chris loudly making the false claim of hating Martin, a statement that Martin knew wasn't true, but still stung to the core. Martin ran off to get some fresh air and cool down.

Which led to this situation. Stabbed and bleeding out in a city, and Martin hated cities, much preferring small towns or  the wilderness. There was a stranger there, so Martin wasn't truly alone, but he still felt alone. Martin wanted his baby brother, to hold Chris close and tell him that everything was going to be okay.

He saw a blinding light at the top of his vision while the rest darkened. Martin was vaguely aware of Martha swearing and saying something else, but his mind blocked it out. He was so very tired...

Chris was reading in his room to help himself calm down. Thirty minutes ago, he and Martin had gotten into an argument over something that really didn't matter. But things had been getting tense around the Tortuga since they had to quarantine while everyone was sick. Martin and him had been stuck in the same room for just over a week. So just the want for the only copy of a power disk caused an explosive fight.

Someone knocked on the door, bringing the brunet out of his book. He scoffed and stomped over to the door, swinging it open. "Not now, Martin," he growled angrily, not bothering to look at who it was.

"I'm not Martin," Aviva said softly. Tears rolled down her cheeks, but for once, Chris was too angry at everything to really care. "Can I come in? It's important."

Chris moved to the side, rolling his eyes. He assumed that she was hear to talk about the fight. "I'm not talking to Martin, nor am I apologizing to him."

Aviva softened and sighed. "Chris... Martin's dead."

His heart stopped beating for a moment, sinking down to his stomach in dread. "He's what?"

"He died ten minutes ago. Martin had been mugged and stabbed. A woman called an ambulance that arrived right after his death. They tried everything they could do to bring him back."

"No. He can't be dead," Chris denied. "He was fine an hour ago! Martin ca-can't be gone." He hid his face in his hands as a sob shook his body. It was such a heartbreaking scene. Not even a minute ago, Chris was so angry, he wanted nothing to do with Martin. Now he was crying and trying to deny his brother's death.

No matter how upset with Martin he was, Chris never wanted him to die. They were best friends. They rarely argued, and when they died, they would take some time to cool off and then talk about things. Which always had cookies and hot chocolate or chocolate milk. That can't be gone forever, it can't have been taken away forever. 

Aviva put her hand on his shoulder. "I know, Chris. I know it hurts. I know you don't want to accept it, but you deserve to know that he's gone. I know he loved you more than anything."

"The last thing I told him was 'I hate you'. I didn't think he was going to die, and I-I didn't mean it. He died thinking I hate him, but I've never ha-hated him."

"I know you didn't." She looked at him in concern then opened her arms. "Do you need a hug?"

He nodded and fell into her arms. He broke down, allowing himself to sob without holding anything back. His role model, his best friend, was made all because he needed to get fresh air after an argument. After an argument with Chris. How was he supposed to ever forgive himself?

Chris felt so foolish and upset at himself. He let a creature power disk that he had wanted take his brother away for the rest of his life.

Part Two

[ramblebramblefun]

"I'll surpass All Might and become the richest hero ever!"

That's what Bakugou Katsuki says, in a world where he grows up alongside one Midoriya Izuku.

In a world entirely devoid of a certain green-haired 'damn nerd', Bakugou Katsuki did not need to say such things out loud.

Everybody already fucking knew it.

Bakugou Katsuki is, was, and always will be number one, top of the charts in any arena he cares to enter, and the stage that he desires to dominate is the same as it ever was and will be, whether or not there’s anyone for him to call Deku.

Bakugou Katsuki goes to the vaunted UA academy, and leaves everyone who meets him there choking on his dust.

Yeah, maybe Freezerburn and a couple of others gave him a run for his money for a minute, but Katsuki has never been anything but a hard worker. Practice, practice, practice turns natural talent into a fortress of steel that no one can crack.

Katsuki will just blast you off the balustrades.

He goes to UA, and he graduates, and he enters the fray that is the hero billboard rankings with a bang he’s pretty sure the whole world heard.

All Might has the good sense to retire before Ground Zero can knock him down, but Endeavour? Katsuki blasts that piece of shit to smithereens.

Not literally. That would be bad PR. The press team gets on his case enough as it is.

Speaking honestly, as Katsuki does, there were probably a few more other heroes in between 'graduation' and 'top of the charts', but Katsuki hadn't bothered to remember any of those extras' names. No fucking point.

The rest of his graduation class had come surging up behind him, after all. Katsuki has only ever associated with the best. Hawks whomst? Gang Orca? Best Jeanist?

Well. Maybe Katsuki did know that last one. Internships had been embarrassing, but, in hindsight, he had, perhaps, learned something there.

Anyway.

Bakugou Katsuki becomes the fucking best, the way everyone always knew he would be. Undisputed number one, that's him. Top of the heap in every way.

The praise comes thick and fast, for every little thing, the way it always has ever since his quirk came in, but it's nothing he hasn't heard since long before conquering All Might's fucking mountain of a molehill and frankly, he's kinda sick of hearing it.

Blah blah blah, Ground Zero is an amazing insert-here, saved twenty people today, same as he did yesterday, and the day before that, yadda yadda we can't wait to see where the youngest number one hero goes from here-

He stops watching the news.

He stops watching the news, and so he's the last to know when a building collapses on top of fucking Uravity.

…

He hates being last. That's all. That's why he doesn't attend the funeral, that's why he-

...

Ururaka Ochako had been a worthwhile opponent in their high school spars. Her thirst for the top had been as great as Katsuki's, and it was a thrill to compete against her.

She'd just opened her own agency. Broke the top ten. Come within spitting distance of-

...

He'd been looking forward to having competition. That's all.

...

Uravity is not the first person from their high school class to die. That would be the four-eyed hypocrite who got himself murdered in first year.

Uravity is not the last to die, either. Next up is Tailman, sniped by some bitch they never catch. There's nothing for Katsuki to blast.

Then Red Riot gets gassed, Grape-face gets squashed flat, and Chargebolt doesn't die, but he does fry himself so badly that he'll never live independently again.

Didn't even win the fight, that moron-

It's like a fucking conspiracy against Katsuki’s graduating class specifically. Like a whole lot of someones had some kind of grudge, because... What? They were too successful? They'd blasted the older pros out of the water, but that was no reason to-

Tsukiyomi's Trigger bust goes wrong next. They send Ground Zero in the morning after, in case Dark Shadow is still active after one hell of an overdose. The twerps had shot the shadow hero chock-full of it in their escape, and, well.

They didn’t escape.

…

Dark Shadow wasn't there, by the way. She was Tokoyami Fumikage's quirk, and Tokoyami Fumikage was dead.

Katsuki doesn't go to his funeral, either.

[cheegu3]

Hey hey! I'm now wondering what if we got away from the guards like ran far far away and they cant find us?

a/n: u think it’s possible to ever really get away? 👀 interesting. In the series it’s hinted towards there being games in other countries aka, there are eyes everywhere especially from those powerful ppl - in other words there’s like 0.001% chance :( but I'll entertain that idea !

I tried my best I hope u like it <3

tw / trigger warning: yandere themes, blood, murder

wc: 1.6k

pairing: f.m reader x red.guards

taglist: @nev20

Yandere SG guards - you try to run away PT. 2

The sound of your feet hitting gravel felt like it was echoing in the deadly silence. You didn't know how long you had been running, but you felt like you couldn't rest even for a second - or else those evil people would find you.

There was one big problem - no matter how far you looked, all that greeted you was the blue wast sea. How were you supposed to run away from them when you were in the middle of nowhere?

You felt like you knew nothing. You had no idea how to leave, you had no idea if the guards had noticed your absence and you had no idea how big this island was. For all you knew, you could be mere minutes away from getting discovered because the island could be way smaller than you had anticipated.

Yet, you still had that small fire of hope sparking inside your body. No matter what, you wanted to make it out alive. Even if that meant killing one or all of them.

The sky was getting darker quickly and you had no sense of time now. Had it been ten minutes since you made it out - maybe forty or even an hour perhaps?

Distant shouting told you they probably knew you had escaped now. So who knows how long before they'd see you.

You were unsure if you should set up a camp somewhere for the night, gathering energy for the next day in case a fight would break out.

But although that was the most desirable option now as your legs were aching from all the running, you had no idea where you would even do that.

In the distance, you could spot the highest point of the island. It was about 400 meters away from where you were, pressed against the mountain wall like a scared mouse.

A long battle went on inside your head about wether to go or not. By now the sky had fallen completely black, but thanks to the island being far away from the city - the stars lit up your surroundings a little bit.

The only thing that filled the silence were the cicadas singing. Although it felt eerie, it also sounded nostalgic, reminding you of your childhood home where you spent loving moments with your parents.

It made you make up your mind - if you wanted to see them again you’d have to risk it. So you walked as fast as you could, being afraid that running would make too much noise.

The whole time, you whipped your head around in all directions several times as anxiety filled your body. Your heartbeat was beating so fast that it was almost hard to hear anything except for your loud footsteps and breathing.

But in the end you still made it, being extremely thankful it wasn’t that far away. The first thing you noticed was a big shipping boat stationed below the hill from where you were standing.

It had several grey vans parked on it with some space in between them. You weren’t sure what they were, but made a quick guess they were the same vans that had picked you and all the other contestants up.

So that was it, that was your way out!

You ran for it - no longer caring if anyone could hear your footsteps. Adrenaline was coursing through your veins, making your vision turn into a tunnel.

As you reached the closest car, you opened it cautiously; only then glancing around to see if you could spot any guards. A few were in your line of sight in the distance, their pink uniforms being easy to spot - so you quickly got inside, scared that the longer you took, the bigger the chance of them deciding to patrol in your area was.

You took a few deep breaths and looked back to the backend of the boat, seeing only water stretch out wherever you looked. To your dismay, no matter how long you waited - the boat didn't seem to move.

Since most contestant would be dead by now and they'd have to transport the winner, as well as pick up new contestants, you hoped it would be moving soon.

So you took a chance again, sliding out of the van as gracefully as you could without drawing attention to yourself and then shuffling underneath the van.

Here you wouldn't be seen by guards who were watching from above deck and you could cling onto the car without having to hide riskily in the backseat as the driver would enter.

This was also very risky however. If your energy ran out and you lost grip, you could fall into the middle of the road, or worse - get taken back by those monsters.

No matter how hard your heart was beating and how scared you were, you decided resting now was better than just laying awake, wasting time. It could be hours for all you knew until the drivers would go to their cars, and you were confident you would wake up at the sound of the engine turning on.

Slowly, your eyelids got heavier as well as your body, and when letting yourself relax fully; whispering comforting affirmations to yourself, you fell asleep in the end.

While the sky was still dark, figures started moving closer to your hiding spot. Doors were slid open and cars were started, luckily waking you up - just like you had predicted.

You grabbed on immediately, knowing you only had seconds before they would reverse and if you weren't hanging on securely, you'd be spotted right away.

It was extremely tense. You couldn't see where you were going but if you stretched your body out and lay flat, you could see the car in front.

They seemed to have the exact same speed and the exact same distance between every copycat car, like they were all robots.

As the ride reached the twenty minute mark, your hands were starting to lose the strong grip you had underneath the car. But you forced yourself to hold on, replaying memories of the guards' torture in your head to remind yourself of what would await if you stopped fighting.

It took everything in you to keep it up - you were sure by the time the car came to a halt, your body was hanging close to the road.

When it stopped, you allowed yourself some rest, letting go of your grip and exhaling as quietly as you could. The driver opened the door and got up on what looked like a sidewalk.

A male voice was heard, speaking to another man. You felt sweat dripping down your back. What were you going to do? You hadn't thought out this part of the plan yet.

Looking from side to side, you closed your eyes for a quick prayer and then shuffled out on the other side of the car.

Crouching so he wouldn't see you - you quietly waved at a taxi passing by.

It was all luck. The taxi could've been occupied if you had one of your more unlucky days, but everything seemed to work out in your favour now.

You got into the backseat super quickly, locking the door behind you and ducking down in case their heads would turn around at the sound.

'' Where are you going, miss? ''

'' Home, it's a few blocks away from here '' you whispered, voice raspy.

You told him your address and exhaled once again as he started driving and you could stop ducking. He looked at you in his rear-mirror, eyes laced with concern.

He must've thought you were out of your mind. Your eyes traveled down to your body. The clothes were dirty and ripped in some places, presumably due to the bushes you had to push through on the island. Your face looked flushed and you had dark bags under your eyes which carried a bit of paranoia in them.

Yep, you definitely looked crazy. But at least you were free. You smiled to yourself and looked out the window, rolling it down a bit to take a breath of fresh air.

You did this the whole ride, head leaning again the window while you breathed deeply. It was very different from the air on the island, even though that sounds insane. The atmosphere there made you feel like you were suffocating constantly, probably due to the anxiety.

The taxi driver made you jump as he braked really hard and told you that you had arrived at your destination.

You thanked him and hurriedly got out. You couldn't wait to get out and be inside your home again.

Your mom must've called you a thousand times, poor thing. You unlocked the door and went inside, breathing in the familiar smell here too.

Immediately, you went to your room to pick up your phone. It was turned off but you knew it had battery left. Just in case, it was plugged in as you turned it on.

0 new notifications

Well, that was...weird? Why hadn't your mom called or texted you? Your fingers pressed the call button, and you held your breath as the signals kept beeping.

An eerie feeling settled in the pit of your stomach - like something was wrong.

Suddenly you were up and packing your bags again, running about as if they were going to barge in any second. You would never feel safe here. Maybe you would be on the run for the next of your life, but you'd be willing to do that if it meant you would never have to see those psychos again.

After some time, running around and exhausting yourself. You laid down in your bed, staring at the ceiling. As soon as you saw it, a scream erupted from your throat - followed by hysterical sobs as you looked towards the room across from yours.

It was a body, and a message in blood was painted on the ceiling.

Do you like our gift? We will see you soon

[arenabreadandbiscuits]

Alright guys I wanna make this post because I'm not mad or anything just feel like it's better being said now versus waiting until the last minute.

This post mentions my commission methods but also what I am and am not okay with writing. Please read and vote at the bottom.

Some kinks I will not write for unless it's a very specific situation. Here's kinks that I will write for no matter what you commission. I'm desperate for funds so I'll take up to ten active commissions at a time as long as they follow my rules and such.

TOPICS MENTIONED BELOW ARE PURELY FOR ADULTS AND SOME ARE DARK IN NATURE. I ONLY TAKE COMMISSIONS FROM ADULTS SO EVERYONE KEEP THAT IN MIND AND READ ON. IF YOU ARE UNCOMFORTABLE WITH ANYTHING MENTIONED PLEASE MOVE ON FROM MY ACCOUNT BUT ALSO PLEASE KEEP IT TO YOURSELF.

More info on commissions HERE!

Kinks Available: (not outta pocket)

Daddy/Mommy kink

Breeding/oviposition/eggs

Dom/sub

Spanking/choking/electrocution (depends on context)/ biting/ marking/ claiming

Cock worship or body worship in general

Wings/tail kink

Tentacles

Face riding/thigh riding/riding in general

Cum worship

Pet/Master

Somnophilia aka sleepy sex or sex while sleeping but I only want requests where consistent is known as someone who was sa repeatedly when I was younger.

Yandere/blood kink

Noncon/con noncon

Spurting

Etc, these are just some to name a few that I will write for. There's more I'm sure but when commissioning me mention exactly what you're looking for and we can really discuss it. :3

Big Nono Kinks/Not Available:

I have a history and present of self harm so nothing like that unless certain cases call for aftercare. Ex: person 1 is a sh-er and their partner catches them to stop it or even if they don't catch them in time they are strict for them to not do it again and shows them love and care for the rest of the fic.

Amputation.. ngl someone dmed me earlier asking for this and I was willing to hear it out at first but grew into not wanting anything to do with it especially Cause I think it was going to be purely self indulgent. The ONLY cases I'll let slide by is something like an OC x Valdemar from the Arcana for example. It seems like something they'd be into doing and I really like that character so honestly any commission for Valdemar I'll most likely do. (Not just Valdemar but Vlastomil, Vulgora, Valerius, etc) It's interesting because I'll either be down to do it or I won't, it purely depends on what's being asked so always dm me with everything you think I should know.

Anything to do with feces

Weird 'sibling' or 'family' dynamics. Please don't request incest, my personal sa revolved around that and I'd literally be sick to see anyone ask for it. The only way i'd be okay with it is if they aren't actual family by any means, just people who grew up together. An example of what I would feel okay writing would be something like Toji (jujutsu kaisan) x OC/reader who he found who grew into having feelings for him years after they became an adult. Another example could be Severus Snape x reader who grew similarly. In these cases I'd put more emotions and such into the story to explain the inner workings of their heads when they are around each other. Most stories would probably have angst too because of the morals aspect. It's something else that has to be discussed and talked about nonetheless.

Throw up no matter what.

Anything to do with animals.. please don't. Only things that can slide by are werewolves, sirens, feline hybrids but these beings are conscious which is why I'd write for them just no beastiality. An example that would be okay would be: something like an OC x werewolf Elliot from Stardew Valley where he probably keeps it a big secret and gets worried about anyone finding out and then he can't stop himself from shape shifting on a night of a full moon that he wasn't prepared for and his partner has to be patient with both calming him down and his instincts to mate.

Trying to think of some more because there's definitely more things I wouldn't write for but maybe I'll stop here for now. Like I said DMS are open and if you have questions on what I will and won't write it's always best to ask me there. Our chats will be private unless you wish them not to be just don't be weird please and thank you.

Imma leave this little list here and if I have to add on to it later I most definitely will but those ideas I mentioned earlier in this post are fine to request if anyone wants them I'm just trying to lay ground rules. My stories can be really cute and fluffy to things more dark in nature but always ask to see what's fine and what's not.

Here's a poll for engagement but also don't vote if you have no intention of actually commissioning. Also HERE is my original commissions post that you can check out for more info.

I'm putting this poll up for a week but know you can dm me prior to it being done and after, like I mentioned this poll is for engagement and just some ideas on what I can and will write for others if it's commissioned. Please be over 18 to commission anything sexual from me. I profess in writing smut but as mentioned I do fluff and angst as well.

[chihirolovebot]

and so it is possible to evaluate the attitude of other participants in the game of a physicist from one to ten? I'm terribly interested in the relationship of physics and maki.

i THINK i understand what this means but if ive gotten it wrong just . shoot me another message clarifying and i'll redo it . i believe ur asking me to rate how the other participants feel about physicist on a scale of 1-10 ? let's say 1 is enemies and 10 is their closest friends.

i'll start with physicist's weakest relationships and work my way up to their strongest !

shinguji — 1/10, not really any friendship built before the incident where shinguji tried to murder phys; likewise, phys always felt vaguely distrustful and creeped out by kiyo even before the incident. a very safe last place.

yonaga — 3/10, one of the only characters physicist has had a real, longstanding problem with. phys is generally pretty passive, but yonaga definitely managed to piss them off by brainwashing kiibo and trying to control the student population. i don't think yonaga had any grudge against phys personally, though.

shirogane — 4/10, phys seems very neutral and sometimes irritated by shirogane. throughout the story, shirogane is rarely seen standing up for physicist, generally quick to believe they are guilty when accused.

houshi — 5/10. i don't think physicist ever had any sort of problem with houshi, they simply didn't know him well enough before he died to really feel close to him. i think they would get on if they had more time to spend together.

yumeno — 5/10. again, physicist is mostly neutral on yumeno, but their opinions on her probably skew a bit more positively than shirogane. yumeno has definitely earned sympathy points from physicist and has moments where she tries to believe in physicist's innocence.

gokuhara — 6/10. we're starting to move onto people physicist likes now. gokuhara is ranked low because i wouldn't consider himself and physicist to have a very deep relationship beyond generally liking each other, though. their relationship was definitely tainted by chapter five, too. i think gokuhara only cared for phys as much as he did all the other students, and physicist liked him well enough and felt it hard when he died.

iruma — 6/10 physicist tends to think iruma is a little much, but they definitely appreciate her as a scientist. iruma is a coward, so she's for sure very jumpy and paranoid around phys after they kill korekiyo, but killing game circumstances nonwithstanding i think they'd be pretty good friends.

akamatsu — 6/10, akamatsu was definitely super important in physicist's early development, i think she gave physicist a lot of hope and she would be remembered a lot more fondly by physicist if she hadn't murdered amami and started the killing game.

harukawa — 6/10, an interesting relationship for sure !! they start out in a super rocky place with harukawa accusing physicist of amami's murder and being stubborn when confronted with reason, and physicist disliking her because of it. there's a lot of shaky points for them, but i think they've both grown to a place of mutual respect. they may not ever be close friends, especially in the killing game, but they've learned to appreciate the other at the very least.

momota — 6/10. a source of strength for physicist, although their philosophies dont always align. their relationship is weakened a little by momota refusing to see physicist's agency in their relationship with ouma.

toujo — 7/10. ranked a little lower for the whole uhhh toujo considering killing physicist and trying to throw them under the bus about it thing. but pre-ch2 they were very close. i think phys is the closest anyone got to seeing toujo as a person, and toujo genuinely cared for and respected phys a lot.

chabashira — 8/10. another relationship that needed a lot of time to evolve. chabashira and phys didn't really interact meaningfully until chabashira discovered them after killing kiyo and helped cover it up. since then they've grown incredibly close, something of a result of chabashira being the only one to see phys like that, and continuing to have faith in them. one of the only people to see the real phys, i think.

saihara — 8/10. these two have a more subtle relationship i guess, but still extremely close. saihara believes in phys a lot, not just because of his detective's intuition, and they mean a lot to him. both of them care for the other deeply, and beyond that, want to be cared for by the other. they each find comfort in talking about their grief and regrets, and have near-unwavering faith in the other.

amami — 8/10. only isn't a 9 because of his secrecy and the amount of stuff physicist doesn't know about him, but needless to say amami very much acted as physicist's rock in chapter one and that losing him in such a brutal way damaged them to their core. amami, in turn, adored physicist in a sorta big-brother way, felt pretty protective of them. i think it said a lot that he told them he'd come find them first after ending the killing game? he grew to feel pretty close and protective to them in the short time they had together. physicist constantly looks to his memory for advice on what to do when they're struggling.

ouma — 9/10. this bastard. he's so high up because he probably knows phys better than anyone else, and the same goes for phys knowing him. phys is closer to him than anyone in canon ever got, and although they've had a very very rocky journey they both harbour indisputable respect for the other. there's something so intimate abt their knowledge about each other, the way they know the exact things the other wants to keep hidden the most. he's ranked a point lower than a ten because of his obsessive paranoia and trust issues, and also his struggle to get over phys killing kiyo and using them in his plan to kill iruma and gokuhara.

kiibo — 10/10. u may question this ranking when thinking about the recent distance between them but i raise you . in regards to each other , everything phys and kiibo have done is a result of extenuating circumstances and not their own actions. phys only allowed iruma to be killed because they believed the world is virtual and iruma wouldn't actually be dying, and only distances him because they can't tell anyone at all about the plan to catch the mastermind. circumstances nonwithstanding, physicist and kiibo love each other. they are best friends, they trust the other wholeheartedly, always the first to jump to the other's defence. kiibo's faith in physicist is incredibly stubborn at times because he knows who they are deep down, and the same for physicist. anyway. they mean everything to me :3

[goodluckclove]

I'm writing a new thing!! I don't really need advice I'm just excited about starting it. They're gay and one of them's a shapeshifter the other has a culturally engrained fear of shapeshifters given that as defenders of the wilderness/ basically very local gods they tend to fuck up anyone who's in their space. I also dong know how to start books which is an issue my beginnings are always weak. How do I start a book. Do I describe the sheep? He's a shepherd btw which I think is fun because the shapeshifter often takes the form of a wolf or coyote. It's also set in a relatively high fantasy setting (no elves and shit just weird magic and a different landscape) that vaguely corresponds to the late 17 or 1800s (they've got some guns i think, they ride horses and trains might exist). How do I start a book. What do I start with. Where do I start. There's no real solid beginning I've got in mind, just a dude trying to take his sheep over a large area on his own. Help please I do actually need advice

Well you see, Ghostie, everyone knows that the first sentence of a novel is the most important part of the entire story. It has to contain the main character's name - in fact, it has to contain the names of every character in your cast - and it has to provoke intrigue and resolve it in a satisfying way without being a too long and jesus christ i can no longer keep up this bit.

I'm annoyed by people who say you need to have a super profound first line. I mean, they're good when they happen. If you can think of one that's great. But if you can't you aren't fucked right off the gate. If your first line isn't something people will get calligraphed onto canvases to hang on the walls of their boring houses (Is this a thing? Did I just make up a type of person to hate?), it doesn't mean your beginning won't be good.

You want to hook the reader. That's what all the guides say, right? They describe a person picking your book off the proverbial shelf and leafing through the first page to see if it's something they'd be interested in. That's solid, but then some go on to make it seem like you have maybe ten words before they either buy the book or toss it across the room in disgust. I'm not saying this is never true. I'm just saying that, personally, that type of person is probably not someone who'd be interested in me or my stories to begin with.

Usually when I'm considering a new book I'll skim the first few pages and then a bit throughout the middle, just to see if I like the prose. I do not put that much weight in the beginning, but it's always a good sign when the general scene feels purposeful. It doesn't have to be a car chase/diamond heist/sex scene/murder. I read someone somewhere saying that you have to start with something exciting and it took like an hour off my life I was so angry.

Here's one out of a billion angles to tackle this puzzle from - where does the story start for you? What is the inciting incident to the inciting incident? This feels like something easy to answer, but oftentimes what you come up with might feel a little inconsequential.

A beginning scene - like, for instance, a prologue centered around only sheep and coyotes - does not necessarily sound interesting on its own. But in a world where shapeshifters usually take on those forms it both sets up the world and establishes a mood. You can play with how much information you give people in the world.

Using my book as an example because I've been watching my editor @hoard-sweet-hoard react to it in real time, at one point he commented that he didn't know if the Eddie in my initial prologue is the same guy as the Edgar in Chapter One. And I was like yeah man that's the whole goddamned point of the book you tiny little king of fools. I wasn't at all that mean. I made a really good sandwich for dinner so I'm feeling extra rowdy. But the point is that I focused less on the action and more on the feeling it would create in the reader.

With that mindset the action doesn't really matter. If it's mundane it can be comforting, or tiring, or numbing, or eerie, or unnerving. If it's far removed from the world we know it can be fantastical and whimsical and sexy, maybe? I don't know. God that sandwich was good. I'm getting really into bagels lately.

Also, from purely the perspective of a writer, you might think of a better beginning midway into the draft. So you can also go back and make a weak start much stronger. You can skip the beginning entirely if it's really fucking with your life. Come back to it later. Who will stop you? Me? I don't even know how to find you. And if I did, you could easily kill me. You have that vibe and I am very clumsy.

Also also start posting excerpts when you get going because that shit sounds rad as fuck.

My bagel had egg and bacon and a hash brown patty and caramelized onion. Man has done a lot of sin, but it is almost neutralized by the insight we once had to caramelize onions. They have a unique flavor that I can only describe as eating the house of a beloved grandmother? Or maybe just the way that house makes you feel?

Yum.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Guess what, guys? Guess what? Guess what guess what guess what guess what?

Finally. Fucking hell, finally. He took so long to finally announce what he's doing this summer. Which is apparently not Edinburgh, which I find odd because in previous years it's at least been a whole big thing, where he'd either go to Edinburgh or would spend a bunch of time explaining why he wasn't and how he was conflicted about staying home. I haven't seen Daniel Kitson explain any of that this year, but he has got shows in non-Edinburgh places that run to August 3rd and from August 24th, and he hasn't mentioned anything he's doing in Edinburgh even though we're a month out now, so I think it's safe to say he's not going there. Which I've known was likely the case for a little while now, and while that was disappointing, he had said he'd probably do a run of Collaborator in London in July.

I'm going to be in London from July 28-August 1, before being in Edinburgh from August 4-8 (a couple of days in Scottish Highlands in between), and if I can't see him in Edinburgh, I so, so hoped that he'd do something in London while I'm there. Anything. Anything at all. Not to be 6,287th person in the world to say "I'd happily watch Daniel Kitson read the phone book," but I'd happily watch Daniel Kitson read the phone book. I'd happily watch him do that show he wrote in 2019 that I'm convinced was conceived as a direct response to all the people who said they'd watch him read the phone book, as a fair bit of the early part of that show is just him essentially reading the household items equivalent of the phone book. No, seriously, I would love to watch that. He was supposed to do more of Keep in 2020 but that got canceled for some reason that no one can remember now and I think he should revive it.

Okay, sorry, I'm going off topic. The point is that I've been waiting for some time now on Daniel Kitson to tell us what he's doing with his life, and I've been putting off committing to any other concrete plans throughout my trip because I don't want to risk anything clashing with what could be the only chance to see Kitson. My godmother lives out there, she hasn't seen me in ten years, she wants to know when I'd be free to meet up with her, I said I don't know, I'm waiting for a comedian to send a message to his mailing list with his gig schedule. I wanted to book a show at the Soho Theatre, but not until I know what Kitson's doing. I want to plan one or two day trips out of London, but not until I know what evenings are taken.

And the thing is that I knew the longer I wait on everything in the hopes that KItson will do Collaborator while I'm there, the more I'll get my hopes up for it and start assuming I'll get to see it, and the more disappointed I'll be when he announces a run that ends before I get there. So I tried to compensate and remind myself that it's not actually the end of the world. Sure he's my favourite comedian, but he's still only one comedian. I'm booked in to see nearly thirty shows in Edinburgh, plus several more in London. One other show isn't going to make or break the trip.

That's what I was saying until today, when he finally announced his dates, and guys, guess what? I have a ticket to see Daniel John Kitson at an arts centre in London on July 29!!! And now that I actually have that, I can say, this trip is a hell of a lot of money to spend to not see Daniel Kitson. I'm so fucking glad I'm not doing this whole massive trip just to not see Daniel Kitson. I'm so glad. So very very glad. I couldn't have gone all that way to not see Daniel Kitson.

Guys it's going to be so good. Normally at something like this - a show with lots of audience speaking parts but the option to not speak - I'd take the latter. But obviously I'm not going to miss my sole opportunity to say I was in a Daniel Kitson show. Obviously I will take a speaking part and I will be in a Daniel Kitson show. It's such a great show, too. I'm going to be in a room with Daniel Kitson, guys. I have heard that guy talk for so many hours, a weird number of hours to have spent listening to a guy with whom I've never been in a room. I wonder if, of all the people in the world who have never been in a room with Daniel Kitson, I'm the one who's heard the most hours of him talking. There's a chance that I might be.

I'm so excited for this. The whole trip, not just the bit where I'll be in a room with Daniel Kitson. But definitely that. I've also got tickets to see Brynley Stent do her 2023 hour Frigid at the Soho Theatre during my week in London, and Desiree Burch do a WIP at ABC Comedy in London, the day I get back there from Edinburgh, and the day before I fly home. Both things I've been able to book now that I know what Kitson's doing. I'm hoping to do at least one other comedy night in London, I'd like to see the Bill Murray comedy club in person after all the words I've heard recorded there. But these are the main things. Soho Theatre and ABC are big things I wanted to see, venue-wise, Desiree Burch is a comedian I really wanted to see and was disappointed she gets to Edinburgh after I leave but it works out nicely with the WIP, and Brynley Stent I liked on Taskmaster and the description of her show looks very good. So I think I'll get to hit the main things I wanted on my list.

But I'll be honest, if Kitson's Collaborator run had ended in mid-July, I would be thinking that as wonderful as the rest of this trip is going to be, it's a long fucking way to go to not see Daniel Kitson. It's okay, though. I have a ticket (well sort of, my friend whom I'm staying with in London bought us tickets when they went on sale while I was at work and I shall pay him back with their strange British currency, so I don't actually have the ticket yet, but I'll get to use it). I can finally commit to things on other nights. Just over one month to go.

[cinderella-ish]

(heads up, this post mentions death and suicide)

I started writing Bloom Within Us about 8 or 9 months ago, almost a year after losing a grandparent, as one way to deal with my grief from that loss. I hadn't written any fiction at all since high school, and I'd never written a story of more than ten pages (double-spaced), so it was very much a surprise to me that, despite being only about 2/3 complete, Bloom Within Us sits at over 220k words and nearly 600 pages. Writing it has led me down a rabbit hole, learning about the craft of fiction writing, and I'm so touched to hear it's resonated with readers. When I started, I truly thought I'd be lucky to get even one reader.

Though Bloom Within Us is based on a tragic premise (what if Tohru died after falling from the cliff?), it's meant to be a hopeful story. Kyo has faced traumatic loss after traumatic loss; would he really be able to survive losing Tohru after he told her about her mother?

I think the answer is maybe. He'd be devastated, for sure, and I don't think he'd be okay for a long while. However, even though it would be incredibly painful, this would be the first time in his life where he'd be mourning as part of a community. He'd have people there to support him, to grieve alongside him, and to tell him it's not his fault.

Kazuma was all but a stranger when Kyo's mother died, and he never knew what caused Kyo to lose all hope when Kyoko died. Kyo had no one who really understood, though Kazuma certainly tried, and probably saved Kyo's life in both instances.

But I imagine, if Kyo were able to mourn Tohru properly, alongside his cousins and friends and adoptive father, he might be okay one day. Maybe there's a way (or multiple ways) things could align that would allow him to move forward, and that's the path I've tried to take in my story.

In a lot of ways, writing about dark or tragic subjects is my way of trying to find (or create) hope. Things can feel unbearable, but they won't always feel that way. And while they do, you don't have to feel that way by yourself. There's always someone who can understand at least some of what you're experiencing.

For Kyo, whose arc really revolved around him choosing to live (both figuratively and literally), I think it would be really powerful to see that even after losing Tohru, he could one day be okay, and maybe even have a life he loves.

So, in many ways, I hope Bloom Within Us comes across as having an anti-su*cide message. That is my intent, along with the other ideas I'm trying to explore, such as the universal nature of loss, or the importance of having community during challenging times.

When I learned that a younger cousin of mine ended their life this weekend, it brought up a lot of feelings. I wasn't particularly close with this cousin. I wasn't "not close," either; they just tended to keep a distance, and I was anxious that I'd come on too strong, so I let them remain at a distance.

Hearing now about the things that felt insurmountable to my cousin, I wish we'd been able to connect. They'd felt insurmountable to me, too, at that age, but I made it through to the other side. And I know so many people who went through a crisis in their late 20s only to emerge from that crisis with a better understanding of themselves, and a life they actually want. Life can and does get better, for so many of us. I think it would've gotten better for my cousin, too, if they were still here. I wish they'd been able to hang on at least until they could see that, too.

I don't know yet if I'll need a break from writing, especially writing a story that deals with grief and suicide. I don't know if I'll need a break from fandom or social media. Right now, I've been going about everything more or less as usual, and that's been working for me, but that could change. I am okay, and I know I'll be okay, even though I'll be sad for a while. I have a good support network and I'm in a good place despite everything. If I disappear for a bit, it's because I'm relying on my IRL support network. ❤️

[whypolar]

Gundam Unicorn OVA 2: The Second Coming of Char

It's time.

Here comes a special boy!

If you don't cheer and clap for him I'll blow this whole building up.

(You can read my previous post here, if you want.)

I was grinning every time Frontal was on screen. I'm so easy. He's perfect.

The music continues to be excellent.

The percussion in Frontal's theme is fucking crazy. I don't even have the vocabulary to describe what is happening here musically, but I like the aggressive synth and that there's a xylophone. Maybe multiple xylophones. Imagine.

I also particularly liked this one track with the chanting vocals before the hostage negotiation-- apparently it's the Sinanju's theme.

The main theme associated with the Unicorn itself keeps getting caught in my head.

The robots remain very cool.

Combat plays out almost beat-for-beat as described in Novel 3, right down to the automatic cockpit functions and Banagher throwing up in his helmet. Gross.

Environments: effectively conveying information.

The backgrounds in this one didn't wow me as consistently as the first one, but that's fine. They're in space. They're on closed ships. They have other, more important things they want you to look at. Sterile corridors communicate information about the setting, even if they're not necessarily exciting.

They do some cool stuff with the lighting on the bridge. I also like that they have an inexplicable vaporwave room to put the civilians in.

I'm pretty sure I have this exact room in my house in Animal Crossing.

After Banagher gets captured we start seeing more variety again, since there are more different places for us to visit.

Those are my big surface-level impressions.

From this point on, there will be novel spoilers up to the equivalent point where this OVA ends (which will include some things that I assume will show up in OVA 3).

One of my favourite background nobodies, Lieutenant Commander Liam. I love that the main thing we know about her is that she's big and constantly side-eyeing her blustering boss.

In terms of novel comparisons, there's a lot more I can potentially talk about in this one than the first.

Judging by these first two, it seems like each OVA covers about 1.5 novels worth of material, which sounds about right to cover all ten in seven episodes.

They swapped a number of scenes around. They've been skipping over a lot of little Vist family stuff that will have to come up later. I don't think that will be a problem. I assume they had two priorities:

Establish key details of Frontal's character, such as his self-identity as a vessel and his ambiguous relationship to Char, in the same OVA where he's introduced

Set up the hook of Banagher getting rescued for OVA 3

They've held off on introducing Martha for now, which is fair. She hasn't really done much by this point, she just exists as a vaguely menacing figure. I assume she'll be in the next one. Please?

They also skipped over Cardeas' memories of Syam arranging to have Cardeas' father killed. If they intend to tell us that later, it will probably be through another character, such as Martha or Syam himself.

Alberto hasn't figured out Banagher is his half-brother yet. Martha is the one who tells him this, so that makes sense. I could see them making that scene Martha's introduction.

Have I mentioned I love Alberto? I really do. I like him even better without a judgmental narrator describing his fatness, so there's an unambiguous point in the anime's favour, lmao.

Banagher

I'm glad they kept the flashback of Banagher's childhood 'training', but disappointed that they cut off the nightmare at the end. I wanted to see how they'd do it.

Caught my not-husband zapping our son so he'll be good at killing people in the psychic death machine when he's older. He does it in the piano tapestry room, to make sure the repressed traumatic memories are as poetic as possible.

We don’t get to hear Banagher's mother confront his father about putting him in the newtype pilot torture simulator, so we miss out on Cardeas' incredible defence of "don’t worry, I'm not using drugs on him in the tests." Father of the year.

In the novel: we hear the fight, it moves on to memories of Banagher leaving home with his mother, and then it eventually degenerates into the horrible withered body of Banagher's dead father grabbing his ankle and trying to make him go to the Gundam. The Gundam is described as a giant bleeding demon that wants to eat him.

It's important to me that a Gundam should always be at least a little monstrous. They should let the Unicorn be evil. As a treat.

At this point, I think anime Banagher comes across as mostly in line with his novel counterpart's characterization. The change in situation means a change in behaviour. Events have forced him to start openly expressing his doubts and fears-- which means the audience can actually know what they are.

There is still one difference that stuck out to me, because they chose to cut a particular scene:

OVA Banagher feels less genuinely attached to his friends.

I don't think this is a worse characterization. It's interesting in its own way. It's just like... a notably different one, imo.

There's a very sweet scene in the novel of him reuniting with Micott and Takuya. They're all overjoyed to see each other again alive. They hug, floating through the air in low gravity. Banagher feels warmth and a sense of belonging, and seriously considers never getting back in the Gundam again. They get so caught up that they end up hitting a wall and getting grabbed by gravity again, so they all collapse and start laughing. Then Audrey comes in, and the moment ends, as Banagher is compelled to go to her instead.

In the anime, they're all at his hospital bedside when he wakes up. Micott directly calls out to him in concern. He totally ignores her and addresses Audrey instead. Bro???

Given that he mostly ignored the other students and stared into space for a lot of the previous OVA, because they cut a lot of their casual school interactions from that one, too, well... Audrey doesn't just feel like Banagher's most powerful connection, but possibly his only real connection.

They also cut Micott being the one who approaches Mackle about Audrey, which makes him decide to look her up. Instead, he recognizes her face on his own. I was surprised by this one, since it felt like they were setting it up, but I guess not.

Audrey / Mineva

Mineva translates flawlessly to the screen. It helps that she's central both to the plot and to our protagonist's motivation. An element of mystery is also already important to her portrayal, so not getting direct glimpses into her thoughts doesn't feel like losing something. Much like last time, we basically know what the protagonist knows, and it works.

This is the best case scenario, but it also gives me less of an excuse to talk about her. Now I have to talk about Riddhe instead. I can't even believe how much I feel the need to talk about Riddhe. I did not think I cared about Riddhe.

And yet.

Riddhe

We find out who he is by the end of this one. Kinda. Depending on how much attention the viewer pays to character surnames, they may have figured it out earlier, or might even still not have grasped exactly what was being implied.

Again: I don't especially care about Riddhe, so I'm hesitant to say I want them spending time on him that could be used elsewhere, but the thing about reading the novels first is that I know his significance to the plot going forward. I'm worried things might end up more frustrating in the long run if they don't do enough with him early on.

When I think about scenes centred on Riddhe from the first 4 novels that I found particularly memorable… a lot of them were removed!

That good luck charm he has? In the novel, he doesn't have that. He has model biplanes, like actual hand-sized toys. In his introductory scene, he's sitting in a cockpit with one and basically zoning out, pretending to make it fly around. He thinks about wanting to be a pilot growing up, and it really gives the distinct impression that he's a bit mad that planes are mostly obsolete and he has to fly in a mobile suit instead. People roast him for being a rich kid playing with his toys.

That's the kind of idiosyncratic and slightly cringe enthusiasm that makes a character feel real to me. I don't even know if it would have been better to keep that in, I just know that I personally would like it.

The little things are what let me engage with him as a specific character, as opposed to an archetype I'm not personally invested in. I'd rather have a more detailed character than a guy who feels like nothing, whether I personally like him or not.

This is how the novel version of Riddhe meeting Banagher played out:

After the battle, Riddhe is feeling survivor's guilt, since they lost a lot of pilots during the battle. He goes to check on his machine. The mechanic inside is one of the older crew members, and he's crying.

When Riddhe tries to speak to him, he turns around and screams at him. He found the airplane model in the cockpit, where Riddhe accidentally left it. He's furious that Riddhe brought a toy onto the battlefield. He tells him to his face that he wasn't taking things seriously, and that's why they got massacred in the battle.

He throws the plane out of the cockpit, Riddhe chases it down as it glides through low gravity, and Banagher ultimately catches it, which is how they meet for the first time.

It's just much meatier than what we got.

I also feel like we've seen less conflict with others and emotions from Riddhe about his family so far. We don't know what his relationship to them is like at all, really. We miss the scene of him biting the bullet and asking his father for help, even though he really doesn't want to, because he believes it might save lives.

Maybe that will feel more present going forward, now that Mineva knows who he is?

Still, it's not like we didn't get any character moments for him. We get a bit of banter between him and other members of the crew. He reacts to stuff. I thought the scene where he confronts Mineva about Zeon and recalls Garma's funeral was very good.

Just... I want him to be interesting enough for me to get something from his arc.

Imagine me pacing around my room and gesticulating wildly for this next part, because I finally get to talk about Full Frontal

This scene. This specific scene is the one I most want to talk about.

First of all, it has Frontal in it. Second, there's a lot of information conveyed in the novel scene that does not make it to the screen at all. Third, the anime makes its own strong visual choices that are entirely original and not drawn from any kind of novel description.

This shot of Frontal's mask is downright fascinating to me. The outside of the mask is pristine and smooth, but the inside has all these gnarled ridges. The lines around the eyes remind me of wrinkles on an old man's face. In-universe, someone decided it was important to make it look like that, where nobody but Frontal himself will see it. Was it designed this way at his request?

This scene in the novel is written from Banagher's perspective. There is no camera, it's just Banagher pointing out whatever he thinks is important to comment on. When they decided how to frame it in the anime, they pulled the camera way back, for all these extreme distance shots in this huge room. Everyone looks so tiny. This is, obviously, an unusual framing for an intimate conversation between three people.

There were so many cool and very deliberate shots in this scene; I'm kind of obsessed with it. The separation of spaces in this massive room and how they kept showing Frontal moving back and forth between them... I wish I could include them all, but tumblr has a 30 image limit per post.

When Frontal is wearing the mask and sitting next to Angelo, he is visually separated from Banagher. When he moves to speak to Banagher, he is then separated from Angelo. This is a sentiment that Angelo expresses in the novel-- that when Banagher was around, Frontal suddenly 'left him out of focus'. This is one of the things that drives Angelo to fixate on Banagher out of jealousy going forward.

Aside from depicting emotional distance between characters and showing off the absurdity of how big the room is, it's possible that the camera choices are meant to evoke another detail from the novels.

There is something very important we learn about Frontal that is conveyed solely through narration, and which has not come up at all yet in the OVA: the way characters describe his appearance, and the emotional response they have to it.

Specifically: Full Frontal looks exactly like Char Aznable, but he doesn't look like a convincing human being.

How does Banagher describe Full Frontal in this scene?

Well:

Is he a human? This was the first impression Banagher had. He could not detect any sense of life from that man, not just from the mask covering his eyes, but also the vibe that he was artificially created. He stared at the masked man who sat on the Mahogany made office table, and seriously thought that it might really be part of the decorations in the room.

The hand under the glove felt rather hard, causing Banagher to remember the first impression of a puppet ...

Perhaps I might not have seen the true appearance of this man? Banagher recalled the beautiful blue eyes, and felt that he was following an illusion ...

He also describes his stare as "machine-like" at one point.

After removing the mask, he describes Frontal's face as handsome and without identifiable flaws. "His cheekbones did not reflect his age" -- he looked younger than expected based on the age of Char Aznable, I think is the implication.

Anyway. The point is, he's good-looking and there's nothing specific anyone can pinpoint that's obviously wrong with him, and yet this is a consistent reaction characters have to meeting him. He doesn't feel real.

Honestly, this is one of my favourite things about Frontal, and it makes me a bit sad that it doesn't translate at all. I'm sure it would be difficult to visually convey-- any attempt runs the risk of looking like an error, or just 'bad'. It could also be they were worried about going too hard with it and making him read like a monster, rather than someone who could plausibly be a charismatic leader.

I get it. I just miss it, man. It's such a good little detail. He'll always be a beautiful creepy puppet to ME.

I love that Angelo's always two seconds from going on the attack. He's like a beautiful fluffy dog that's human-aggressive and keeps biting people. He's Frontal's feral rescue persian cat.

Angelo doesn't go for Banagher a third time in the novel. In that version, these lines are delivered (less violently) by Frontal himself.

The change makes sense. It's in character for Angelo, and it still implies something about Frontal-- he speaks about Banagher sympathetically, but he pretty much just lets Angelo do this, not even chastising him or telling him to stop like the previous two times.

Banagher still falls over in the novel, despite not being physically assaulted. He almost passes out from the horror of realizing he killed someone, and then he spends the entire rest of the scene dissociating and feeling physically ill. Marida and Zinnerman pretty much have to drag him out of there.

The scene with Angelo and Frontal on their own discussing the possibility of an attack on Palau is gayer in the novel. Being inside Angelo's head is always gayer. We might get the full version of this scene in the next one, since they started talking about certain exposition-related things before getting abruptly cut off.

Concluding scenes

I really like this scene with the family. The designs of these characters and how they interact with each other is very endearing. Marida casually holding the little girl upside-down and handing her over to the mother is unbearably cute.

They don't fully explain the logistics of where and how Banagher is being held prisoner, leaving it to you to intuit what the arrangement is. This works just fine for me, but I did wonder if it might throw some people off. Maybe not-- I feel like most UC Gundam stuff I've watched occasionally leaves gaps like this and trusts you to connect the dots on your own.

It's just very different from reading the novel, where it leads you through the whole process of him being kept on the ship, brought to Palau, being taken to see Frontal, etc. It gives a history of Palau as a mining colony, including how and why it was built, why the guy who bought it most recently renamed it Palau, the population size, the dimensions in kilometers... you get the idea. Completely different approach.

Marida.... the next one should have a lot more of Marida, I think. I'm glad. I want more Marida. She's one of my favourites.

Her big scene in this one is a good one with a lot of thematic and emotional weight, but the reordering of scenes did skip over a lot of smaller moments between her and Banagher that I really love-- big fan of her grabbing his face to check his eyes and then telling him about the effects of g-force on the human eyeball.

I'm hoping at least some of those casual interactions make it into the next one. They can be shifted around pretty easily, so long as it's before the attack on Palau begins.

I think that's everything I wanted to go over... either way, I'm done. This post took me a lot longer to edit than the first one.

I can't believe they made me write fifteen paragraphs about Riddhe.

[machifuwa]

Autumn Cafeteria | Episode 2

A few days later, on a holiday

Koga: ーDamn it. Why did I have to babysit you, and on a day-off, too?

Yuuta: It's not babysitting~. We're shopping, sho~pping!

We were playing rock-paper-scissors to decide on who'll buy the groceries for Bank BB, and you lost! So to sum it up, you're a loser…☆

Koga: Don't call me a loser. Come to think of it, don't act up on me now. You also lost, didn'tcha?

Yuuta: I guess so~. If only I gave it my all earlier, I would've pushed everything on Oogami-senpai.

But still, thank god I'm not alone. When I saw the shopping list, I was so shocked by the amount we had to buy.

Koga: Agreed. I get that cleaners and oils are necessary to take care of the instruments, so we need 'em butー

Isn't it weird that there are party crackers and tinsel garlands on the list!? Just what are they up to?

Yuuta: Usually, people buy this to set up a party but, we're not that kind of circle.

…Or maybe we're going to use them as instruments? I mean, party crackers do know how to make a sound.

As for the tinsel garlands, I'm sure you can shake them up like this…see, it makes a sound.

Koga: Shit~, I can barely hear a thing…that ain't an instrument at all.

Yuuta: Woah, that's harsh ♪

Speaking of musical instruments. At the music store we were at earlier, I've been thinking about something.

Koga: Aan?

Yuuta: I like musical instruments enough to join the light music club and Band BB. The reason I started playing an instrumentーwas to make a living as a street performer.

I never really had a pure and dedicated approach like my seniors though. I just wanted to use whatever instruments and tools I could.

So, I just thought it was cool to see you choosing consumables without compromise.

…I have to admit that after talking about this, it was such a pain in the ass ♪

Koga: Hey now.

Yuuta: Ahaha. Now that the shopping spree is over, why don't we take a rest before going back to Seisoukan?

Koga: Right. I'm a bit hungry too, let's go somewhere…

Shit, it's so crowded everywhere. I got no time for long lines.

Yuuta: As expected of a holiday. There are so many restaurants open, but we can't even get in.

I'm not in the mood for a takeout. How troublesome…

…Ah, right! We have to walk for a bit, but please just follow me.

Koga: Hm, where're we goin'?

Yuuta: Fufufu. It's my hiding place…☆

Ten minutes later

Yuuta: (...As I thought, it's empty. Thank god.)

We're here, Oogami-senpai.

Koga: Hell with "a bit". You made me walk a ton…

…Aan? This is the place you're callin' your hideout?

Yuuta: Such a beautiful café, isn't it~? I found it when I was looking around for a secret place where I didn't know anyone.

You can come here from time to time, too. But please don't tell anyone about it.

Koga: Shut it. I'm hungry and frustrated. Let's just get the hell in.

Tsumugi: Welcome~ ♪

Oh, if it isn't Yuuta-kun and Koga-kun. Good afternoon~.

Yuuta: H-Hello…

Tsumugi: Welcome, welcome. Please follow me~ ♪

Koga: (Whispering) What's goin' on, Yuuta? Itsuki-senpai and that red-haired brat's here too.

Yuuta: (Whispering) Who knows...

Koga: "Who knows", you littleーIsn't this your hideout!?

Yuuta: Yes, but I've never seen or even predicted this situation before. Whenever I come here, there's only the owner or a part-timer present…

Perhaps…do they work here?

Koga: Haa? There's no way inーhell. I mean, Aoba-senpai's a deputy director and that red-haired brat came from a rich family.

As for Itsuki-senpai, well…I don't know much about him but I heard he likes to travel back and forth, right?

These dudes are a bunch of successful idols, there ain't no way they'd be needing a second job.

Yuuta: Right~. They're probably just trying to gain work experience at a café, maybe a TV project or something?

Woah, he's coming this way.

Shu: ーEhem. Have you finally decided on what to order?

Koga: Were those honorifics I heard…I'll get the Lunch Set A. How 'bout you, Yuuta?

Yuuta: I'll get the B one please~.

Shu: Umu. Got it.

Koga: He ain't repeatin' the order…? Seriously, what the hell is going on here? [1]

Yuuta: Hmm~. It's the same as usual, except the fact that those three people are working here.

Maybe we should ask Tsukasa-kun, who's obviously distracted, to tell us about the current situation.

O~i. Tsukasa-kun~.

Corgi is confused as to why Shu didn't repeat their order, despite trying to "earn the experience" of working there. Since most waiters or clerks would repeat a customer's order to avoid future misunderstandings.

Prev | Masterlist | Next

Translated by machi

[please-help-this-little-lesbian]

So...remember when I said I was boycotting Dead City? Welllll my dad bought the first season, so I watched it. And Boy oh Boy, Do I have Thoughts

Spoilers Ahead!!!

Note: I'm not going to address the Negan and Maggie of it all because I've long said everything I can about them.

One: What I liked, because believe it or not, I did actually like some things!

The setting! I loved seeing post-apocalyptic New York. It was really fun for me to pick out all the things I recognized.

Ginny. Was it a little annoying that she wouldn't listen to anybody? Sure, but a girl who shows up, clings to Negan like glue, and doesn't say shit? Literally, me. Character of the century.

Speaking of Ginny, I was LIVING for Negan's single dad era. Yes, king abandon your wife and son to take care of some random girl! He was living his best life.

The plot twist with Ginny was INCREDIBLE!! I was not expecting it at ALL. The fact that he killed her dad?? Bro my jaw was on the floor.

I actually liked the Croat and Negan's dynamic! I think it was funky and deliciously homerotic. However, I hate the Croat's character.

Two: What I DIDNT like.

Nothing made ANY sense, and NOTHING was explained. I get that Maggie was in New Babylon to find Negan but why was HE there? Last I checked nobody banished him from the Commonwealth. And where even IS this place? It seemed to be like Pennsylvania, New Jersey but still. Also, how did Maggie know he was there? Did she airtag him?? It made no sense.

The Croat was a TOTAL retcon. He made NO sense in the established canon. Let me explain:

3 a) I get NEGAN being upset that the Croat tortured a girl because his whole thing was no harming kids, but SIMON?? Bro you killed every boy over the age of ten at Oceanside and slaughtered all those garbage people, why are you on a high horse NOW??

3 b) If Negan could recognize that the Croat was too much of a wild card and needed to be dealt with, then why the HELL did he keep Simon around? Because Simon did MUCH worse.

3 c) The girl whom the Croat tortured was a scout from the Kingdom, but this makes NO sense with what we know about them? I believe the deal was as long as they paid proper tribute they'd leave each other alone, this feels like a major violation of this agreement? Like they were probably wondering what the hell happened to her, surely somebody had to address this at some point.

3 d) The Croat mentioned this story where Negan let him Lucille someone from the "river people." I feel like these people have to be Oceanside, but this is a total retcon either way.

I'll admit as a writer it's hard to keep up with details and I've had to change and retcon a couple of things myself in my stories, but surely they can go and make sure that everything in their spinoff that's a continuation of an already established story makes sense with it.

Anyway, I didn't hate it, but tbh my expectations weren't high. I got one (1) scene of evil jester Negan and a hinted promise that he'd come back in season two, and I'm disappointed. But if he DOES come back I'll have to watch I fear.

[destinyc1020]

You want some examples? Check tardisludgate repeatedly wishing for Dune 2 to bomb and celebrating that the strike was going on so that there wouldn't be press with Timmy and Z. One thing is for one of their projects to not be one's personal taste, another thing to wish the project to bomb. We frequently get a bunch of blogs posting anons demanding for Darnell to stop being Zs live-in assistant but we never see that kind of anger asking for Tom to kick Harry out of his house

Regarding Tom's only blogs, the place for that is Instagram where there are many Tom-only pages with tens of thousands of followers. There are even a bunch of Tom y/n imagines accounts where the fan self-inserts in fanfics regarding Tom, many of them extremely smutty

You want some examples? Check tardisludgate repeatedly wishing for Dune 2 to bomb and celebrating that the strike was going on so that there wouldn't be press with Timmy and Z. One thing is for one of their projects to not be one's personal taste, another thing to wish the project to bomb.

I'm sorry girl.... Idk who that is. 😔 But if she wants the Dune movie to fail, then that's her opinion? It's NOT gonna fail lol 😅, but people wanting certain films to fail isn't really anything new. 🤷🏾‍♀️

RE: "Dune: Part 2" Press Maybe she was celebrating about the strikes mainly because she doesn't want to deal with a bunch of Timdaya shippers in her inbox during a Dune 2 press tour with Timmy and Z. 🤷🏾‍♀️ I'll admit, although I was sad about the strikes and all of the promotion for the film I thought we were going to miss out on, part of me was thinking that at least ONE good thing that came out of it was the fact that we wouldn't have to deal with delulu Timdaya shippers lol. 😅 Cuz I'll just tell you....the last press tour ("Dune") was insufferable due to Timdaya shippers. 🙄

Some of you all don't see half the nonsense stuff we have to filter out from our inboxes on our blogs because it doesn't get posted. 😒 IJS...

We frequently get a bunch of blogs posting anons demanding for Darnell to stop being Zs live-in assistant but we never see that kind of anger asking for Tom to kick Harry out of his house

Well, for one thing, Harry is Tom's actual brother. Harry is Tom's flesh and blood. While Darnell is like a brother to Z, he's not her flesh and blood. Also, Darnell is pushing 40 real haaarrrd lol.... Harry is still in his 20's. Maybe if Harry were close to 40 they'd be saying the same thing about him. 🤷🏾‍♀️

Either way, I think it's perfectly fine if Z's assistant lives with her. She's a single woman living in LA in a huge ol' mansion. Like, if she wants to have her whole entire FAMILY living in her house if she wants to, I don't see the problem with it. 🤷🏾‍♀️ Some single women don't feel comfortable living by themselves, and that's okay! She's also someone who's in the public eye, so there's another huge safety concern.

That house is probably so big that Darnell can have his own corner of the house if he wants to. I really don't see the big deal.

But a few blogs here and there mentioning certain things doesn't = the fandom....not even a small percentage imo.

[enderon]

This is another instance of something seeming terrible when I wrote it, but after some time, revisting, it's actually not that bad. A but awkward in some places, but not terrible.

It's the start of a fic that will explore the specifics of Junior and Leo's relationship that does turn smutty, but the smut is for the sake of exploring characters and relationship and I actually put a lot of thought into what Leo, a being with no secual organs who reproduces asexually, might get out of such a relationship. If that interests you and you like this beginning, let me know and I'll see about finishing it.

------------

Leo was busy discussing the preparations of an upcoming ritual feast when a handmaiden walked up and cleared her throat to get the spirit's attention. He turned to her, not feeling even an ounce of annoyance, as his duty as master and guardian of Infant Island saw many people needing him all throughout the day, making interruptions like this very common. 

She bowed politely in greeting. “Your grace, you have a visitor.” She gestured towards the entrance, where a small body could be seen leaning up against a wall. 

Minya didn't often come to the worship chamber. While he was thankfully beginning to grow out of his timidness, he had once admitted that the place was so special that he felt wrong being there. Leo had of course assured the child that he was more than welcome in his family's special place, but he still tended to avoid it if he could. So to see him there, wringing his scarf in his hands in his usual nervous fashion, Leo knew it had to be important. 

“Thank you, I'll go handle it.” Turning back to the priest he had just been speaking to, “Go forward with that idea, see what can be done. I'll check in on the progress later, once this issue is handled.” 

All present nodded and bowed once again in respect before heading off to tend to other matters, leaving Leo with the young mutant. 

“Is everything alright Minya?” He made sure to keep his voice soft and kind as he approached the child, kneeling down once close enough so he wasn't towering over him. Not that that was quite as easy these days. 

While still a bit underdeveloped for his age, Minya was shooting up quick, as most mutant children did. At a mere ten years, he was already beginning to match grown humans in height, and would likely surpass them quickly in the next few years. It warmed Leo's heart a bit to remember the scrawny, malnourished little thing he'd been when they'd first found him three years ago, and to see how much he's grown out. 

But it isn’t the time to get overly nostalgic, as Minya turns wide, concerned eyes on him. 

“I'm alright,” he admits, but instead of continuing just bites his lip and looks away. 

He's not saying it, but the specification of his own state, and present concern, is all Leo needs to know what the issue is. 

“Take me to him.” He insists, standing up and following behind as the child quickly begins scurrying off towards some far corner of the island. They travel along the line where the jungle turns into beach, making for faster travel. If he wanted this to be over even faster, Leo could just fly over, but Minya has never enjoyed the process, and he doesn't feel like troubling the child more than he already is. 

As the sound of snarling and smashing begins to reach his ears, Leo can't help the soft, quiet sigh he releases under his breath. While it's been quite a while since the last time this happened, probably the longest since they began, it's still troubling that it's still happening at all. 

Leo knows that recovery can be a slow, steady process, and that it's possible that complete recovery may never be entirely possible, but they've not been doing this long enough for him to come to terms with that. 

They turn a corner when something heavy smashes into the boulder next to them, spraying debris everywhere. It's instinct that brings a brightly colored wing up, shielding himself and Minya from the onslaught. Bringing it back down, he takes in the scene in front of them. 

The clearing is a mess of broken boxes and crumbled rocks, holes and trenches gouged into the ground and boulders shining with claw marks. 

And in the middle stands Godzilla, huffing and snarling, his body tense and a little curled in on himself. A defensive stance, like he's expecting some kind of fight. 

“Goji?” Minya calls out, his voice colored with concern. Leo doesn't like Minya having to see this, and he knows Godzilla likes it even less, but he won't deny his gratefulness of having him there when the man's gaze immediately draws to them. His chest expands as he takes a deep, slow breath, clearly trying to get himself back together in front of them, though still struggling to do so. In these moments he's his own worst enemy, and it will take a bit more to get him back to himself. 

“Thank you for bringing me Minya,” Leo says and rubs his thumb into one of the boy's shoulders soothingly. “Why don't you go into town and play with some of the other children?”

Minya looks uncertain at the idea, looking between the aggravated mutant and the spirit. While bothered by the sight, he was clearly hesitant to leave his guardian behind in such a state. 

“It will be alright, I promise. I'll help him.” With a confident smile, Leo turns the child and pushes him back the way they came, shooing him further when he still stumbled with hesitance. Finally Minya truly began to walk away, allowing Leo to turn back to the matter at hand. 

“Are you good to go, or do you need a bit more time here?” 

Still struggling with himself, with the heavy, heaving breaths, Godzilla seems to think to himself for a moment, though in his state it’s hard to tell if he’s  actually thinking about Leo's question or arguing with himself more.