#so i still have a LOT of thoughts about all these stories and characters even though i'm not actively working with them anymore

[zoe-oneesama]

The Kwamis! Some of these came easier than others, but since Angelic Layer has no magic involved, all the kwamis became human~ They won't be very prevalent, they're mostly here to fill in background character roles - shop clerks, MCs Tournament Directors, fans - so they won't have a whole lot of speaking roles (aside from, you know, the MCs who're there to commentate on the fights lol). But I thought I'd give them all a nice nod in the story somewhere.

As expected, Tikki and Plagg are the main MCs. Marinette and Adrien's fights will be going on concurrently so Tikki will be commentating Marinette's fights while Plagg commentates on Adrien's. They'll have the most dialogue of the kwamis, so I do want them to have unique ways of discussing what they're seeing.

Pollen will be working directly for the Bourgeois'. As a VIP with a direct relationship with the international director of Angelic Layer, Chloe has her own private practice layer in her home and Pollen is in charge of it's upkeep and maintenance. She matches Armand the Bulter's levels of competence.

Trixx is a Rena Rouge mega fan. They've been following Alya's blog for as long as they can remember and are mega stoked that Alya moved to their city. When Alya starts to doubt herself, it's Trixx's voice that can be heard cheering her on to not give up.

Nooroo and Duusu are servants in the Agreste Estate. Unknown to Adrien, they are fully aware of his sneaking around to play and the two do what they can to make excuses and deflect Nathalie when Adrien isn't where he's supposed to be. They're rooting him on from the shadows!

Wayzz is the adult son of Marianne and Fu. He brings them to Angelic Layer fights against his will because the two really enjoy them. The two seem to be really invested in Ladybug and Chat Noir's career (and the behind the scenes shenanigans that they secretly spy on).

Longg is Kagami's bodyguard. Like Nooroo and Duusu, they are fully aware of what Kagami is doing behind her mother's back and feigns ignorance when Kagami pulls something..."sneaky" to get to a fight secretly.

Here's where we get into some existing jobs from the show:

Orikko and Kaalki are the "Layer Hot Girls (and boy)". lol I just thought it was funny that Angelic Layer even has them.

Mullo is the sales clerk at the Princess Piffle store (the store where you can buy your Angel and all the accessories). All of them lol. Mullo and her many many sisters who look just like her.

Barkk and Fluff take similar but still different roles (the uniforms are ALMOST the same but there are some tiny differences). So Barkk is the receptionist at the Practice Ring (literally you pay to reserve a mini-layer to practice on) while Fluff is the waitress/cashier at the cafeteria at the Tournament Center.

(and back to making shit up lol)

Daizzi is a nurse where Rose goes to the hospital and she has segmental localized vitiligo. Rose is particularly close to Daizzi since she helps Rose make her donations to the hospital.

Sass is the backstage directory, aka, the guy who makes things run. He has an earpiece that has the same diamond pattern as his pants on it! The anime does show one person who helps backstage, but I wanted to have a little fun with Sass's look and tie in to him being "in charge" of the kwamis.

Ziggy works at Socqueline's family art supply shop, which is frequented by Angelic Layer players who are on a bit of a budget. They love talking with the customers about their angels, though mostly the design part.

Stompp is Ivan's foster mother and Roarr his foster sister (Stompp's bio-daughter). I actually didn't think of what kind of job this outfit would be good for, but I think she'd make a good security guard - usually working at rock concerts, which she bonds with Ivan over, but she's also been hired for Angelic Layer tournaments. Sometimes sore losers get a little...violent.

Roarr falls in love with Juleka's Angel Purple Tigress immediately thanks to her pre-existing love of tigers in general. She's even bold enough to proclaim her love to Juleka herself!

Xuppu is Ondine's sibling and a fan of King Monkey, though they'll go out of their way to make fun of Kim himself. Secretly, they're very invested in Kim's career and get very upset on his behalf when he loses.

[musashi]

Musing on Movie!Nessa's Future in Part 2

A lot of people simultaneously expressing confusion alongside their celebration of Nessarose finally being played by a wheelchair user, because her being able to walk in act 2 is obviously a huge plot point--the spell cast on the shoes is what turns them into the ruby slippers which establishes the continuity and leads to a bunch of other plot threads, etc etc.

This is obviously the reason a lot of people give for her being played by an able-bodied actress in the past, it's obviously a bullshit reason because a huge majority of wheelchair users are ambulatory and can walk and stand for varying periods of time just fine. So like. They could have still had an ambulatory wheelchair user playing her, but I digress: the point is she is played by Marissa Bode in the movie. A wheelchair user, hurray!

These are just the opinions of someone who is not a wheelchair user so take them with a grain of salt (and please speak up if you have your own stuff to say as a member of the community!) but from what I can see as someone who's been insane about Wicked for about 15 years now, the movie did a lot of good for Nessa's character. Previously, the ableism toward her was baked into the metanarrative itself, but it's now been moved to a more realistic place--the characters within the story.

Previously Nessa was treated with little agency or autonomy not only by the characters but by the people writing the story. Most notably of all, her chair is constantly being grabbed and wheeled around by other characters. The movie corrects this--she is very rarely wheeled around except by her father (and he is called out for his coddling/infantilizing of her by Elphaba within 2 minutes of their introduction) and the one time a stranger tries to do this in what reads even to me as a genuinely traumatizing and far too familiar scene for any wheelchair user to have to sit through, Elphaba immediately fucking goes apeshit and starts throwing fucking furniture. Nessa herself also tries to advocate for herself and tell the professor in question to stop kidnapping/assaulting her and is, again, realistically not listened to.

This last bit obviously happens in the stage musical too but Nessa's own agency is much less pronounced. The movie adds little things here and there to give her more of that agency--Elphaba's protectiveness is much less "I have to help and watch over my poor disabled sister" and much more "I have to make sure no one underestimates or takes advantage of her." Even the plot detail that Elphaba was not there to be her caretaker but just to drop her off and make sure she got settled in her dorm adds leaps and bounds to Nessa's autonomy. Her and Boq's shared look in the opening ceremonies where they both bond beforehand at their inability to see over the crowds' standing ovation. And of course, the dance scene, where he no longer wheels her out but instead beckons her to follow him!

These little details add up in ways that are, at least in my opinion, very meaningful. They also extend to the production itself--where the sets were made accessible for Marissa and she was even allowed to do her own stunts, in her wheelchair! That part in the beginning where Elphaba levitates her was her in a harness in her fucking chair and all. Dope as FUCK.

So I am mentioning all of this because I think the people working on this movie have shown that they are unafraid to make changes to Nessa to be more respectful to her agency. The ableism she faces, which is still plentiful, is framed as such instead of just casually brushed off & baked into the narrative. By making these small changes, Nessa is not just an unfortunate stereotype of a disabled woman, but a real and fleshed-out person who is dealing with the consequences of those exact stereotypes in the society she lives in. I really liked that! I don't know how others feel about it, but I thought it was very well-shifted.

All that said, 'curing' your disabled character is obviously, like, the biggest no-no of writing a disabled character. And that plot beat is a huge one in every version of Wicked... so far. But here's the thing. We have a shot of Dorothy wearing the slippers. And they... are silver.

Why. Are they silver.

And they are silver in all of Dorothy's small little cameos. Every single one. Even though this shot, which was used primarily for promotional material to draw people in like "Hey! Wizord of Oz! This is What The Refrance!" did not make the choice to even suggest that they should ever be red. One of the most important pieces of iconography, consciously and notably absent.

I genuinely don't think Nessa's going to have her disability taken away in part 2. With how much love to this part of her has been done to the retooling of her character, I do not think it is a stretch to assume that they will find a way to advance the plot without removing her disability. I believe this because that is the right thing to do for Nessa, to ascend her character, however you feel about it--she should stay in her chair. She deserves to continue on the way she is.

I realize this little change effects a lot. But after seeing part one, I am confident they can do it and do it well and replace what the change takes away with something just as good. I have so much faith in the direction of these movies. I really, truly believe it will happen and it will be good and satisfying and perfect.

It might still happen, sure--Marissa might get a stunt double, or CGI, or some other brand of movie magic. The shoes may still get enchanted and stay silver to pay homage to the original Oz books. But I can't help but consider that idea and keep asking myself... why. That makes so much less sense. Why not give movie audiences the red slippers, draw them in with the imagery, give them one more lion cub in the bike basket or Boq talking about how much he cries or poppies putting the whole class to sleep. Why not give us the ruby slippers when you... could.

I think because this is going to be a big, long awaited improvement. And I think it is hiding there in plain sight.

[dailynnt]

FRIENDS WITHIN TOUCHING DISTANCE

Summary: What happens when two best friends try to get along under the same roof? You've been living with Chunguk for three months now, but your cohabitation is still a challenge for you. He continues to live like a real bachelor without following the rules you agreed upon from the beginning of your decision to live together. Should you find a compromise or should you find a new place to live?

Couple: Jeon Jungkook/ Fem!Reader

Characters: The Reader, Jeon Jungkook, Park Jimin, Kim Taehyung, Min Yoongi, Kim Seokjin, Kim Namjoon, Jeon Hosuk.

🔞Age restrictions: 18+

👩🏼‍❤️‍👨🏻 Relationships: get

📑Number of words: ❓

📕 Number of part: 1/?

🖇️Tags: best friends, friends with benefits, ex-relationships, slow longing, sexual tension, protected sex, unprotected sex, alcohol, drunken sex, inexperienced main character. Tags will be added as the story is written.

👩🏼‍💻From the author: I was supposed to write a completely different story, but my muse disappeared. So I wrote this story to replace my previous one for some reason. I had the idea for a long time and I just finished the first part, which I couldn't finish for more than 7 months. I wonder what will come of this story. The Jungkook I created here is not like himself at all, but maybe he could have been. So who likes to read fanfiction about friends who become lovers then please give this story a lot of love.

⚠️ Warning: English is not my native language, so there may be mistakes in the text. Please don't get mad at me too much! Those under 18, please don't read this story!

Part 1. These fucking rules

The clock read 10 am. You left your room to satisfy the hunger that was making your stomach cramp. You went to the refrigerator and opened it. There was nothing in it but eggs and milk.

Yesterday you spent the whole day at the university and came home late at night. You had lunch in the campus cafeteria and didn't eat anything else. So your hunger was intense. You remember reminding Jungkook, your best friend with whom you were roommates, several times that it was his turn to buy the groceries for the week. You even wrote him a list because you knew for sure that he wouldn't buy everything he needed, and it wasn't a good idea to eat chips and beer.

Obviously, Jungkook didn't do what he was supposed to. The result was an empty refrigerator. Jungkook must have had more important things to do than buy groceries. Your stomach made a high-pitched growl. You felt your anger grow in direct proportion to your hunger. You slammed the refrigerator door shut.

Your eyes fell on the couch. Clothes were scattered around and on the couch. You raised your eyebrows and walked toward the clothes. You were seething with anger, not only did this careless guy not do what he was supposed to, but he was also leaving a mess behind. You were going to talk to Jungkook about how he was breaking the rules you had made on the first day you lived together.

It was Jungkook's idea. You decided to move in together because the apartment you were living in was too expensive. You were a student on a scholarship and could barely make ends meet, and only a part-time job at a convenience store allowed you to pay your rent. But you had to quit that job because you started to fail in your studies. The university where you were studying was supposed to give you a good profession, and you wanted to help your parents, who lived in a small town near Seoul and made soy sauce. They put a lot of love into you and did everything they could to give you a decent profession and to make you feel good about yourself. That's why studying well was a big priority for you.

And then one hard evening, when Jungkook came to your place for a beer, you complained to him about how unfair life was. He suggested that you move in with him and pay only for food and utilities. At the time, you thought he was joking or had had too much beer, but it turned out he was very serious. That's how you started living together.

But as it turned out, living with Jungkook was quite a challenge. He didn't keep the house very clean and liked to bring girls over almost every night. At first, you put up with it, of course, feeling a little irritated by it. But when you were trying hard to study and staying up late at night, it was difficult to learn the material by listening to the moans in Jungkook's room. So you decided that in order not to interfere with each other's lives, you needed rules.

You suggested some rules to Jungkook, and he kindly agreed to them. But he almost never wanted to follow them, so you often had small arguments about them.

It happened this morning, too, when Jungkook didn't buy any groceries so you will have to go the convenience store near your house to buy some food. You were in a terrible mood. But you were even more angry when you found Jungkook's clothes and women's things scattered around. You stared at the door of his room as you realized that he had brought another girl over that night.

With your eyebrows raised, you went to the kitchen and fried an egg for yourself. You flatly refused to go to the store because you knew that if you did, you would definitely buy food for Jungkook. And you wanted to teach him a lesson.

You were sitting at the table eating an egg when Jungkook's bedroom door opened. A sleepy Jungkook came out of it. He didn't have a shirt on, just the shorts he often wore at home. His hair was sticking out in all directions and his lips were pouty. You felt make muddle inside. And you felt like this every time Jungkook was half-naked. Even though he was your best friend, you couldn't help but think that he was a man, and a pretty good-looking one at that. You quickly gave him a glare full of lightning and continued to click the phone.

Jungkook noticed you and purred in satisfaction and headed in your direction. He came up behind you and bent down to look at your phone.

"Good morning," you heard next to your ear. Jungkook's voice was low and deep because he had just woken up.

"Morning!" you said dryly and continued to read the group chat with your classmates. Jungkook immediately realized that you were in a bad mood. He looked at you for a few long seconds and decided to start a conversation with you again.

"Did you fry the eggs? Where's my portion?" - He asked. You continued to ignore your friend.

Jungkook was about to ask you why you weren't talking to him when his bedroom door opened. The girl with whom Jungkook spent the night came out. You and Jungkook looked at her. She had the typical appearance of the girls he usually brought home. Slender, not tall, and with long black hair. Of course her figure was perfect.

She was completely Jungkook's type. You were her absolute opposite. You thought that Jungkook would never like you. Every time you met another girl that your friend brought home, you compared yourself to them for some reason. You were tall, but certainly shorter than him, and you had dark blond hair. Your figure was beautiful, but you definitely weighed more than 60 kilograms.

Jungkook's this night passion was standing in only her underwear. She rubbed her eyes and when she noticed you and your friend looked at her, she was visibly embarrassed.

"Uh, good morning." - She said quietly.

"Good morning!" you mumbled. You felt uncomfortable. Irritation threatened to burst out of you. You suddenly wanted to leave. You stood up abruptly, almost hitting Jungkook who was hovering over you. You quickly put your leftover food in the sink and hurried to your bedroom.

When you got into your room, you slammed the door and fell onto your bed. The morning did not start well. You were angry at Jungkook for not following the rules you had set up with him. You had always been good at following them, but your friend didn't seem to care about them. You had to do something about it. You decided to talk to Jungkook and remind him that you two had made those damn rules and that if he didn't follow them, you would have to find another place to live. Of course you didn't want to move away from him. It was convenient and beneficial for you to live with Jungkook in a way. But the irony was that by saving money you were paying with your nerves.

It was about half an hour after you heard the door slam, which could mean that Jungkook's girlfriend had left. You needed to take a shower because you had go to the grocery store to buy food. So after waiting about 10 minutes, you took all the things you needed and left the room.

Your gaze quickly glanced around the living room and kitchen. Jungkook was nowhere to be found. The apartment was quite quiet. You thought that he had gone to sleep in his room or might have gone out. You felt irritated again. But maybe it was for the best that he was gone. You walked to the bathroom door and was about to open it when it opened and your eyes met big black eyes.

Jungkook's hair was damp, and he was shirtless and wearing shorts. You shivered. You felt the heat spreading through your body. You continued to stare at each other for no more than a second, but it felt like an eternity.

"Do you want to take a shower?" Asked Jungkook, still standing in the aisle. "I thought you were sleeping".

"Obviously, I want to take a shower!" You replied dryly, turning away from Jungkook. You didn't notice his eyebrows jump up.

"What's wrong Y/N? Why are you so angry this morning?" - Jungkook asked as he approached you.

"Are you seriously asking me why I'm angry?" - You turned to Jungkook, trying not to look at his beautiful body.

"I'm asking because I don't understand what's going on? Did I do something wrong?" - You stared at your friend in shock. How can he ask you if he did something wrong when he does it all the time?

"Just tell me, are you really stupid or are you pretending to be?" - You clutched the T-shirt in your hand. Jungkook laughed at your words. Does he think it's funny?

"I'm not a mind reader, baby. So you'd better come right out and say it." - Jungkook's calling you "baby" made you even more angry. Usually you liked this affectionate nickname, but not on this terrible morning.

"What am I supposed to say to you, ha-Jeon? I'm like a fucking parrot to you all the time, and you don't do anything I tell you!" You wanted to talk to Jungkook in a calmer manner, but since you were an emotional person, it was hard to contain the anger that had long been in you. Your heart was pounding and your ears were ringing. You didn't understand why you were angry, but the more often Jungkook broke the rules and your personal comfort, the angrier you became. You'd been studying a lot lately, and the exam was about to start. Your tension and fatigue were making themselves felt, and Jungkook's behavior wasn't helping your situation.

"Y/N calm down. Are you mad at me for not buying the groceries?" - You didn't answer thinking "Hallelujah you guessed it".

"I really wanted to do it, but Jimin called and I went to his place, and then he dragged me to the club." - You continued to drill Jungkook with a menacing stare and he felt more and more guilty.

"Of course, how can you say no to Jimin and not pick up another beauty to take her to bed!" - You was indignant.

"Oh come on, Y/N are you mad at me for bringing a girl again?" - Jungkook asked.

"No, genius." - You snapped. "I'm mad because you forgot about the fucking rules again."

"Rules?" - Jungkook sighed. "You're doing this again?"

"Again?" you repeated his words quietly. Jungkook didn't want to argue anymore and walked past you. The scent of Jungkook's shower gel that you loved so much filled your nostrils. You gave your friend a shocked look.

"Jungkook, we created those rules for a reason, so that we don't violate each other's boundaries." - You explained, standing behind your friend as he gathered his scattered belongings near the couch.

"We weren't too loud!" - Jungkook tried to make excuses, but he sounded annoyed.

"It's not about being loud or quiet. You brought a girl home again, even though we agreed that we wouldn't bring partners. You didn't buy the groceries, even though I reminded you three times yesterday to do so. You constantly leave things scattered around, and I only go and clean up after you." - You could not stand it.

"Then don't clean it up, I didn't ask you to!" - Jungkook snorted.

"Are you serious now, Jeon?" - You laughed with a bit of hysteria. "We've been living together for almost three months now and you haven't followed a single rule, even though you promised you would every time!"

"I tried." - Jungkook admitted. "But these rules are..." He paused to find the right word. "All I'm saying is that I want to do whatever I want in my house!" - Jungkook turned to you and you, catching the look in his big deer eyes, stared at him. For a few unsuccessful seconds, you tried to figure out how to react to his words, but all you felt was anger mixed with guilt. It was your idea to create these rules, but he agreed to them, why didn't he tell you something was wrong?

"But... I mean, yes, it's your house and you can do whatever you want, but we agreed together that it would be more convenient for us!" - You said in despair.

"So let's just forget these stupid rules." - Jungkook said. He dropped the things he was clean up. All you could hear was the sound of your own heart in your ears. You're going to have to find a new place to live. Jungkook is not comfortable living with you. You can't continue to study normally and live in a bachelor's house without food and with the prospect of seeing a new face every morning of the girl your friend brought over. You exhaled loudly and closed your eyes for a moment.

"Well..." - You stuttered. "If you're not comfortable living like this, I'll have to find another place to live." - Jungkook stiffened. His eyebrows reflexively drew together, showing his face in a state of deep misunderstanding of what you said.

"What do you mean?" - He said sharply. "Why would you want to find another home?" - You looked at Jungkook and saw him getting angry at the whole situation. Your heart was beating like crazy, and anger was in almost every cell of your body. But the thoughts running through your head made you feel guilty. You wanted to make life easier for both of you when you made up these rules, but it seems like Jungkook had a hard time following them. He was used to living a certain way of life, but when you moved in with him, all of his usual things became forbidden or restricted. Knowing his freedom-loving nature, you understood why he resisted. But he agreed, he had the opportunity to add his own rules or offer something of his own. He just agreed, and that's what annoyed you the most right now. He was deliberately breaking the rules even though he knew how you would react.

Jungkook walked over to you. He stopped right next to you. You were only one step away. You did not take your eyes off him and tried to look only into his eyes. The fact that Jungkook was not wearing a shirt did not make your condition any easier. You always felt uncomfortable when he was naked.

"Y/N, let's calm down. You don't have to look for another home. You can stay with me. Let's just live without any of these stupid rules. Just together. As friends." - Jungkook wanted to touch you, but you took a step back.

"How do you envision that, Jeon?" - You huffed. "We're going to live without food in the fridge, you're going to bring a new chick home every night and I'm going to greet her cheerfully every morning. We'll live in an apartment where things are scattered and sometimes we'll have to clean them up. Or maybe we'll have fun when I bring my boyfriend here and he fuck me so you can hear my moans. Or bring friends from the university and sit here until the morning drinking beer or soju. Make life chaotic and have fun." - You almost burst into tears. Jungkook stared at you in confusion and surprise.

The words about your moans echoed in his head. "She's bringing her boyfriend? Does she have a boyfriend?" - Jungkook thought.

"Listen, Jungkook. I can't live like this. I am sincerely grateful to you for taking me in. But we are not a contractual marriage couple. I don't want to follow you around and clean up the mess you make. If we live together, we have to respect each other's boundaries. That's why those added rules were invented. But if you're not comfortable with them because I want you to, then I really need to move out." - You finally finished your monologue and exhaled heavily. Jungkook was silent for a few more seconds and then laughed to your surprise. Quietly and almost mockingly. Your face was again distorted by anger.

"Oh my God, you just gave me a good one." - Jungkook chuckled. "You've been holding it all in for so long. You should have told me earlier." - You thought you were going to strangle him. This arrogant half-naked man who is supposed to be your best friend.

"You think this is funny? I..." - You wanted to finally tell Jungkook what you thought of him, but he suddenly grabbed you in a hug. Without the possibility for you to move at all. He pinned you down so that your arms were pinned at your sides. You struggled in his metal grip, but to no avail. The struggle didn't last long, just a couple of minutes, and you didn't have the strength for more. You calmed down just as Jungkook leaned against the crook of your neck. His face was completely lost in your hair. You stood there for a few moments until you felt the vibration of his voice on your neck.

"Are you calm?" - You could feel your friend's breath leaving a trail on your neck, passing through your hair. "You're like that fire, baby." - You wanted to start pulling away again, but Jungkook held you tight, almost preventing you from breathing properly. "I'm so sorry." - He said. "I'm an asshole for not thinking about you." - Jungkook looked up, straightening up, and saw you almost holding back tears. He was hurt that he had brought you to this state.

"Please don't cry because of me, I'll follow your rules. And this time for sure." - He smiled lightly. "Just please don't go anywhere." - The tear you'd been holding back for so long ran down your cheek. Jungkook immediately wiped it away, not wanting to see you cry.

"I'm sorry, I was wrong too. I should have talked to you calmly instead of getting angry and yelling at you. We should have talked about it normally." - And you finally burst into tears. Jungkook was embarrassed and held you close again.

"It's okay, baby. I deserved you to yell at me." - These words made you cry even more. "Hey, don't cry, it's okay. We've worked it out. Please don't do this, I feel like a fool for making you cry." - You wanted to calm down, but the emotions you had been holding in for so long finally broke free. You had to cry out all the anger that had been building up inside you.

Jungkook picked you up in his arms and walked over to the couch where things had been scattered until recently. He still held you and after that seat down with you on his knees. You were crying so much that you didn't realize where you were sitting. He comforted you by stroking your back.

It took some time for you to calm down. You were hardly crying anymore, just sobbing slightly. Jungkook looked down at your crying face.

"Your eyes are red now." - You met his big black eyes. And suddenly you realized that he was holding you in his arms. One of his arms was around your waist and the other one was around your legs. You felt pressed against his naked torso. Only your T-shirt separated your bodies. For a moment, you thought, "It was interesting to feel his body by my own." You blushed at the intimate thought and quickly forced it away.

"Hey, are you okay?" - Jungkook asked you, looking at your face again. You tried to laugh.

"I'm fine." - You said in a tortured voice. You felt Jungkook's body relax.

"I'm glad to hear that." - You continued to sit there, but you seemed to be the only one who felt awkward. Because Jungkook didn't want to let go of you. He kept stroking you, running his arm around your waist. You didn't say anything. You thought about what to say. Or should you just say that you had to go to the shower, because that's why you left the room. Jungkook leaned against your shoulder and said with a desperate voice.

"Let's not fight anymore over these damn rules." - Begged Jungkook. All you could manage was a soft "let's." You wanted to say it more firmly, but your state didn't allow it.

"Y/N," - Jungkook called to you gently. "Let's not fight at all. I hate it when we fight!" - He confessed. You hated fighting too. Before you moved in with Jungkook, you hardly ever fought at all.

"I want everything to be fine with us. But it doesn't depend on me alone. I'm ready to compromise and solve all the problems at once." - You said.

"Then we have a deal?" - Jungkook held out his hands to you, extending his little finger and thumb. You smiled and intertwined your little finger with his and touched his thumb to seal your truce.

For a moment you sat there in silence and hugged each other. You wanted to tell Jungkook to let you go. But he was in no hurry. He seemed to like you sitting on his lap, or he was pretty sure you weren't going anywhere.

"God, we fought like we were married," - Jungkook said, laughing. You tapped him on the shoulder. What is he talking about?

"Don't be silly, Jeon. We were arguing like friends who just moved in together." - You said. Jungkook's face turned sly.

"You're be like that: I can't live like this. I'm going to leave you. I can't clean up after you all the time." - Jungkook laughed. His soft laugh both irritated and attracted you. "Doesn't that sound like something a wife would say to her husband?"

"If the world goes to destroyed and I'm told that I have to become your wife to save it, the world will die." - You replied sarcastically. Jungkook stopped laughing for a moment and looked at you with a challenge.

"No way!" - He didn't believe it. "You would love to marry me. I know you dream about me every night." - You were flustered by his words and almost boiling at the same time.

"Maybe in your dreams, Jeon. I think you're the one who dreams about me every night, or imagines my face when you look at that girl you're fucking." - You said in a triumphant voice as you poked your finger into Jungkook's bare chest.

"How did you know about that?" - Jungkook asked in a serious tone. "I confessed to you when I was drunk?!" You gasped at what you heard. You wanted to say something. Jungkook's seriousness made you believe that your joke was true. But your guess was shattered by your best friend's mocking laugh.

"You should see your face now!" - He said, almost laughing. You hit him again, but this time harder, but it seemed like it didn't matter to Jungkook. You tried to get up from his lap, but your attempt was unsuccessful, as your friend's strong arms pinned you down.

"You're a real ass. Let me go, I need to take a shower."

"I haven't finished talking to you yet." - Jungkook said in a purring tone. You tried to pull away.

"For example, I'm done talking to you. So go put some clothes on and go get some groceries, we need to make lunch." - You said.

"Yes, I'll go to the store right now. I'll even make us lunch, but you have to answer some questions for me." - Jungkook agreed and offered a deal.

You thought for a second, studying his sly look as it wandered across your face. He's definitely going to ask you something personal. What was he up to?

"And dinner, too, if you want to hear the answers to your questions." - You've outplayed your best friend. You finally stopped wriggling and sat down with your arms crossed over your chest. Jungkook didn't mind your conditions and smiled smugly.

"Deal." - He cleared his throat. "You said something today while we were fighting. You haven't told me anything lately." - You glanced over at Jungkook, who was obviously searching for words to ask you something. You wanted to laugh because it's usually not a big deal for Jungkook to ask you anything. And this applies to any topic. "Did you get a boyfriend?" - He finally asked. His eyes ran over your face, carefully studying your expression. He wanted to know if it was true, if you had found someone to fuck you so that he could hear your moans.

You expected to hear any question, but not this one. What makes him think you have a boyfriend? "You said something today while we were fighting."Jungkook's words echoed in your head. A puzzle formed in your head and you laughed.

"Oh my God, is that all you remember from what I said?" - You laughed. Jungkook looked at you, waiting for an answer. Of course, that wasn't the only thing he remembered. He also remembers how you said you were going to moan. "I don't have a boyfriend. Look at me. It's not physically possible with my study schedule." - You glanced over at Jungkook. He seemed... pleased? "I said it as a possible scenario." - Jungkook couldn't hide the relief he felt. He sniffed his nose out of old habit and asked another question.

"Good. Then I have one more question, and then I'll let you go. Have you ever had sex?" - You instantly blushed. Who even asks that question so directly? It's so...so...You seem to have forgotten how to think and speak. How you were supposed to answer questions.

It so happens that you haven't had sex. You didn't even date anyone. Studying took up all your free time, both at school and at university. The guys who met you almost immediately disappeared when they saw what a nerd you were. But you didn't care about those idiots because you didn't have time to meet anyone. Your friends and your studies were enough for you. It's not that you didn't think about getting a boyfriend. You're almost 20, but don't you have to study and become successful first, and then look for someone to date and have sex with?

Living with a friend who was a man under the same roof and who brought girls almost every night, and hearing those fucking moans made you think for a moment that you too want to feel hugged, kissed and made to feel so good that you moaned loudly. But you stopped yourself every time. First of all, you don't have time, and secondly, who would want to date a girl who only allows books in her bed?

You looked away from Jungkook and stepped your hands into your lap. Should you answer him or not? Will he mock me? Let him try and make me feel bad for him.

You were brought out of your thoughts by your friend's voice.

"Baby? I asked you something!" - He insisted.

"Why do you want to know that?" - Turning and meeting Jungkook's gaze, you said.

"Just tell me. I want to know." - He said firmly. Your heart started to race again. The blood was pounding in your ears. Why should you be worried? He's just your best friend. You're always honest with him. You know a lot about him because Jungkook likes to brag about his intimate accomplishments.

"No." - You said. "I didn't!" - Something strange is happening between you two today. Jungkook is acting strange. Even though he seems to be the same Jungkook, why can't you stop thinking about how he's making you feel.

Jungkook smiled lightly. "I thought so." - That was all he said. You wanted to know why he asked you that, but he let go of you, urging you to get up. He stood up after you and looked down at you from the height of his height. You had to tilt your head a little to look at his face.

"What would you like for lunch and dinner?" - Jungkook asked before you could ask your question. You felt a little embarrassed and answered: "Chajamyeon and Samgyopsal."

"I'll be back soon, you go take a shower." - Your friend said, picking up his clothes that he had thrown around yesterday. A moment later, Jungkook's broad, naked back disappeared behind his bedroom door.

[brionysea]

Is it just me or did Vi really not get an arc this season 😭? She doesn’t resolve the fact that she places all her worth on protecting those she loves. A lot of her big emotional beats (joining the enforcers, becoming a pit fighter, finding Vander, freeing Jinx and getting imprisoned for all her efforts) happened as a result of Caitlyn or Jinx’s intervention. She has so much oldest sister syndrome she infected the narrative 😇

yes! I think it's an issue of flawed ideas and poor execution. in classic me fashion, I'll go through the whole thing to show you what I mean:

vi joining the enforcers despite everything they've done to her (killing her parents, roughing up her family as kids, chasing them down, coming into the last drop to arrest them and intimidating everyone and almost taking powder, imprisoning and abusing and starving vi for her entire adolescence) because caitlyn asked her to and caitlyn is the Most Important Person in her life right now is the exact kind of thing vi would do. I personally love how temporary the enforcer gig is, despite that going against the lore (I honestly couldn't care less), because vi's CHARACTER in this show goes against the lore. I don't care that she's supposed to be an enforcer in the game. I'm not playing a game. I'm watching a show. the vi I know wouldn't do that, it makes no sense for her character, and it really feels like that's the point. she's losing herself for the sake of what caitlyn wants in a very clever way to address whoever demanded the show be more accurate to the game (which, again, I AM NOT PLAYING. BECAUSE THIS IS A SHOW THAT'S MORE THAN CAPABLE OF STANDING ON ITS OWN) without betraying the characters. this is the kind of freedom that would have made for a truly stellar season: going where the story is led naturally by its characters rather than being trapped by a pre-determined narrative

then in vi's fight with jinx (which, fine, I guess vi *would* decide that 'jinx isn't powder anymore' means 'my sister is dead'; she's single minded like that, even if it felt rushed), there's suddenly a random child in the crossfire and vi's like oh. okay. I can't actually hurt innocent children the way I was hurt. I do, in fact, have principles, and they dictate that I intervene rather than allow this to play out. and it turns out that when the chips are down caitlyn doesn't actually care about the undercity because she risked killing an innocent child and wants to kill jinx knowing she's vi's sister (and said that jinx, a young mentally ill girl from the undercity, killing caitlyn's mother, one of the richest and most powerful women in piltover, is the same as vi's parents being killed by enforcers while fighting to end the oppressive social order they enforce. it's not.) and basically says that she thought vi was 'one of the good ones' but she's exactly like all those other animals (again, because vi refused to let cait open fire on a child), before literally gut-punching her and leaving her there. vi was right before, they're oil and water, they're too different. and now vi's lost her sister; lost cait; the rest of her family is still dead. she has no money. no power. nowhere to go. nobody to protect. what's even the point of her?

and then we reach the second act. vi has no purpose so she's like well I'm just gonna fight people for money. because she'll win. obviously. she's a mess, she's drinking all the time, she's seeing jinx and caitlyn everywhere (people really breeze over how vi sees things too - definitely to a lesser degree than jinx, but when she hits rock bottom, it's there). I love this set up for vi. it makes so much sense that putting all her energy into caring for others would end up here. like a message from the universe that she needs to learn to do things for herself or she'll always end up back in this hole. you could argue that vi not having a lot of agency and just following jinx or caitlyn around until she ends up stuck in that cell (her ✨️ prison of the mind ✨️ or whatever jinx's imaginary, out of character, ghost silco was talking about), while boring (so boring), is more of vi being stubborn and stuck in her ways and refusing to learn her lesson until she's forced to. which she was also like in season 1, except there, it was more like vi repeatedly trying to solve problems that were much too big to be punched away by punching them (vi thought jinx could brute force her way out of being traumatised), and even then, I didn't get the impression that vi cared enough about the council to actually give up on jinx because of what she did to them. vi's a brick wall of a woman. sometimes, in this bitch of a world, stubbornness is a virtue

the problem, like a lot of things that had potential in season 2, is that it's not actually followed through on. there's no self actualisation for vi. she just cares about jinx until she doesn't and then she has sex with cait (who does not actually atone for any of the shit she did btw) in the prison cell where vi's sister was just planning suicide and is currently going through with it elsewhere, as far as vi knows

I think the intention was for vi having sex with cait instead of chasing after jinx to be the first selfish thing in her life (which jinx basically told her to do, because no one hates piltover anymore even though they haven't changed at all or done anything to earn this 'meet us halfway' demand of feeling entitled to zaun's bodies for their war after poisoning those same bodies for who knows how long. jinx never called vi an idiot for dating an enforcer. in fact, she feels bad for nuking the council :( which means she's good now! 👍 because GOOD characters are NICE to piltover and only BIG MEANIES care about zaun's independence. even silco's ghost thinks it's a waste of time! apparently he was just bitter and unloved, like a child throwing a tantrum! sure. sure! why not!), but it falls apart immediately because 1) jinx told vi she's going to kill herself (vi knew what jinx was planning before she asked, you can hear the fear in her voice), which obviously takes priority - never in a million years would vi let jinx disappear like that without doing anything about it, no matter how self actualised she is, because STOPPING YOUR SISTER FROM COMMITTING SUICIDE IS A NORMAL THING TO DO. well, maybe not normal, but you know what I mean. it's not exclusively a vi-ism. it's common sense. if someone you love tells you they're going to commit suicide, you do everything in your power to prevent it. and 2) CAIT IS NOT ACTUALLY REDEEMED FROM ALL THE SHIT SHE DID TO THE UNDERCITY. yes, cait letting jinx escape was symbolic of her letting go of the obsession that drove her to that point, but she didn't actually hurt jinx (except now jinx is free to off herself because of cait, which vi would be angry about if she hadn't spontaneously forgotten what she learned in the previous scene). despite her personal vendetta, cait couldn't catch jinx to even attempt to hurt her. who she DID hurt was the undercity at large, and she has no way of making up for that. they dropped the zaun plotline like a hot potato so there's no narrative opportunity for cait to prove to vi (and to the audience) that she gets it now. that she's done being a fascist and vi isn't just blinded by her hotness (which would be a strange angle to take but that's honestly what it seems like. it's so shallow and out of place with everything going on). none of this is earned enough for vi to choose a quickie in a cell over stopping her suicidal sister from blowing herself up

TLDR; there was an attempt at an arc, which was foiled by tying it so closely to caitvi, which was tied to the politics of the piltover-zaun conflict, which was never resolved and thus made vi's arc feel unsatisfying

[tiredassmage]

it is exactly this kind of thought process that makes me subject even my blorbos who i never intended to be in the main character hotseat, let alone alliance commander kind of main character syndrome, to the kotxx electric boogaloo. there's a post or smth that lives rent free in my mind about something to the effect that "not so much blatantly out of character, but what circumstances would lead the character to do x or act in x manner" and smth about if you can find that you can make almost anything believable but it's that first part of the ~wisdom that's really given me a lot to chew on.

i think the only tech class i haven't super spent a lot of time plugging into the commander seat is bounty hunter, but len did make it that far at least once and i'll do it to him again now that i have a better grasp of who he is.

[i have too many blorbos so in the thought of sparing dashboards, let me put a cut]

if i get to die on the hill convincing muts and fellow swtor-ers that agent is actually an epic kind of character to put through the expansions then i'd die happy. it... makes sense to me in a way that idk if i can generally explain it very well and it's... incredibly individualized to what happens to the agent in their class story. tyr fits the role of commander in a way that i think some would still call surprisingly well, but there's the argument that what is 'commander' but another role or mask to play, and especially for someone like tyr who is invested in building his team because the better his team, the better he was able to do his own job, he's... a natural at it, really. and tyr has been the type that's been looking for a kind of change (in his life, in his own circumstances, maybe in the whole galaxy) for so long that regardless of being thrust into the commander's seat or not, he would've found himself in the alliance. a man so driven by his ideals finally getting an escape out of being a ghost in the rather binary system of the galaxy is almost a relief - sans, y'know, the ancient sith emperor bouncing around in his head, but he's dealt with migraines before, so it's another day that ends in y for cipher nine.

his trooper au edition handles it all with... a significantly less amount of grace, to put it nicely, lol. troopertyr was kinda unsteady by everything he endured in the class story era and the early expansions to begin with, and his anchor was his team, to keep things short. being shorn of that support network that helped build so much of his identity and sense of purpose brings out the worse edges of him. he unravels a lot under the pressure, but being in that kind of position, nobody else can afford to stop him and ask if he's okay, which lets him spiral pretty far and get into a series of behaviors that he'll loathe himself for and have to spend several years after the alliance is no longer in his hands (he doesn't want the pressure, and he'll turn down reinstatement to republic special forces even as he hands what remains of the alliance freely over to the republic and sets whoever doesn't want to go loose) trying to unlearn and recover from. arguably, the ex-co of havoc squad should be relatively well-prepared for a role like alliance commander, and that spin through the story really improved my thoughts on trooper and my love for it, but troopertyr i built a very... special kind of cocktail about how he came into special forces and havoc squad where it... wasn't really the best fit for him to be there to begin with, but it was the circumstances he was dealt, so the further pressures found the cracks that had already formed and just drove them deeper.

i have toyed around a little about what it'd do to leo, one of my smugglers - arguably one of the least qualified people to ever have to handle the situation based on his credentials and disposition for handling pressure and decisions, which.... naturally meant i just had to figure out sooner or later what it'd do to him, right? so, for leo, ending up with the whole valkorian problem and trying to wrangle the alliance starts with being in the wrong place at a really bad time, and it preys on his fears about loss. leo's not nearly as good an actor as my agents are - they're trained for those kind of scenarios so they come by it quite naturally in comparison, but at the end of the day, leo finds himself in situations often where he puts on some kind of mask to get through the situation. and he's desperate to protect the few people he cares about. he's a much smaller picture kind of person, rather than the grand overarching picture of the galaxy and its interwoven problems that most of my other characters have. leo making a deal with valkorian is less, initially, about personal power or ruling an empire as it is a don't hurt them. which is easy enough for valkorian - it's not really a lie to say they won't come to harm by his hand when they're barely significant enough for valkorian to notice, right? and not that leo is.... gullible, exactly, but he's... scared in that kind of scenario. scared enough to lose the few people he loved, and astronomically stressed and overwhelmed by the impossible nature of the task set before them, and not particularly a good leader. i think valkorian can manipulate him into spinning taking over zakuul as the kind of... become more powerful so they can't touch you kind of narrative. a bit similarly to what leo thinks of his reputation in the wake of nok drayen's treasure and taking down the voidwolf. no reason to not take advantage of the power and the fame in the ways he can, and double down on keeping the claws at hand gripping desperately to the precarious position it puts him in to have that kind of notoriety, right? it's.... incredibly unideal for him in a lot of ways, and something that could arguably make him worse without a counter from one of his old gang of friends and beloveds to steady his perspective on things. he doesn't become malicious out of ill-intent, exactly, but he... can be driven to lock down and lash out in the interest of self-preservation and protecting the few people he cares for. if he's going to be forced to run this shitshow, he'll.... make it work for them. it has to work... this is what they want, right? right?

and len is... on a superficial, baseline thought it's... it can be as simple as the fact that the man doesn't know how to turn down a challenge. he's bullheaded. and while he's "smart" enough to know in the throne room he can't simply put a blaster bolt through the immortal ex-sith emperor and solve everything so simply, so take his deal, he is also incredibly, belligerently independent and stubborn in a 'this is good advice, but don't tell me what to do' fashion that ends up making him mouthy with valkorian, anyway. and len, thankfully(?), has a background in imperial black ops prior to his career as a bounty hunter that gives him some military training in addition to his several years as a hunter and experience in the great hunt that make him a prepared fighter and, admittedly, a surprisingly decent leader as far as assigning forces. he's not the most emotionally available man there ever was, and as mouthy and belligerent as he's known to be, he also knows tossing his head too much and trying to fight being given the reins on the alliance won't actually achieve any of their goals for anyone. he'll still make comments about it, sure, he's got a reputation to maintain, after all. can't have all these whelps thinking he's gone soft or somethin' on 'em. but he's also nothing if not a man about getting his jobs done, and this is another job. and he fucking hates losing. xD

smushing every class into the Commander role isn't the best decision storywise but asking how your particular character adapts to the role - whether they're unfitting or not - is always very good for the creative cogs

[myokk]

HOLA! ❤️ First of all, dropping some kudos because I love you and your art so much (basically my blog can be your side blog too at this point!) ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Second, from the character ask, I'd like to know about 3,4 and 20 for both Eloise and Leo 😁

Hope you have a wonderful day/night!

HOLA MI ITALIANA FAVORITA💓​ I APOLOGIZE IN ADVANCE FOR ALL OF THE YAPPING I'M ABOUT TO DO🤭​ will this get you to finally visit me🥺​

I'm going to answer these for Eloise SINCE I already did 3 for Leo & I have someone asking me about 4 for Leo as well🥺💓

3) What was the first thing you decided on, the character's name, appearance, personality or their role in the story?

This is a tricky answer…just bc my evil gremlin mc in the game has NOTHING to do with Eloise in my writing. I guess I would say her name? I was just thinking of what would be the most British sounding name I could think of when I started playing in December🙂‍↕️

But then my imagination took hold of me…I started thinking about Eloise’s backstory…and when I thought of how all of her family dynamics/how she grew up would influence her personality I started to be really dissatisfied with the game and the lack of choice we have while playing. SO I gave up on the game completely after the restricted section quest and started to use my free time to write my fic in January🥹🫶 but her backstory, personality, and role in my story are definitely the most interesting things about her to me!!

Bonus: my first ever drawings of her in January!!! Bad quality bc it’s an insta story screenshot😆💓 (I redid one for my fic🤭)

4) And reverse, which one of the four things did you struggle with the most?

Hmmmmm😭😭 I think her personality is what I struggled with the most and continue to struggle with as I write!!!! I always want her to feel like a *real* person with flaws, but ALSO convey to the reader why they should love her as much as I do. I think I’m successful bc I get comments/messages a lot from people telling me how much she resonates with them (and she’s some people’s favorite???😳💘) but I STILL CANT HELP BUT FEEL INSECURE ABOUT IT !!! It’s so hard sometimes keeping in mind how she is and how she thinks, and I never want her to be wishy-washy or doing things out of character for her. It’s a fun challenge but a challenge😭💓 (also her appearance changes like crazy in my art but whatever I’m learning😆)

20) bonus: share any additional thoughts, art, favorite scenes, anything you’ve been waiting for a chance to ramble about.

DES YOU REALLY WANTED ME TO YAP WHEN YOU SENT THIS MESSAGE😆😆😆😆😆

I really, REALLY want to yap about the foreshadowing and scenes I’m working towards in my fic BUT IVE ONLY TALKED TO LIKE ONE OR TWO PEOPLR ABOUT MY PLANS ( @choccy-milky & @kay9leo 🤭🤭) AND I DONT WANT TO SPOIL ANYTHING EVEN THOUGH I DONT HAVE MANY READERS😆😆😆😆😆😆😆 maybe in the future…

This is me redrawing the chess scene from my fic bc I’m really dissatisfied with how Seb looks in the original (he’s probably my LEAST FAVORITE TO DRAW BC IT’S IMPOSSIBLE !!!!!!!)

And ummmm….hmmm Eloise is DEFINITELY not a self-insert character to me, but I DID give her aspects of myself. Things like…we have the same birthday (January 31) and eye color (dark green), and I tend to overthink a lot and can be in my own head maybe too much, but I’m ALSO a lot more assertive and gremlin than she is😆😆😆😆 I love the fact that she’s so soft and sweet💓💓💓 & I just want to wrap her up in a big hug and never let go of her🥺🤲

(Imelda is my self-insert tbh…and this moment in my fic was ME😤:

At the sight of Imelda's worried face her throat contracted - Eloise found she couldn't speak - and she burst into tears again. They were rolling, hot and salty, down her cheeks and she hid her crumpled face back into the crooks of her arms. Imelda immediately wrapped her arms around Eloise, and she melted into her friend's embrace. Hands gently stroking her hair as she cried and cried and cried, murmurs whispered in soft Spanish to the top of her head.

She was overwhelmed, desolate, lonely.

I feel really bad for Eloise at this point in her story, but I also find it really interesting to keep poking her to see when she finally snaps and decides that she NEEDS to stand up for herself and what she wants. She hasn’t quite realized that she’s the only one who’s ultimately in charge of her life & I’m really really enjoying watching her become the person she’s meant to be🥹🫶🥹🫶

[almayver]

GMM2025 Lineup Game / Tier List

Rules: write your thoughts on all the GMMTV series pilots released (or just the ones you plan to watch) and tag people whose thoughts you wanna know about!

@jojotichakorn @wangxianinventedromance and @valentinaonthemoon tagged me in basically different variations of this, so I'm gonna smush them all together. Thanks for tagging me 😊 I love to be given the chance to ramble.

Prefacing this with a reminder that I am the personification of CinemaWins so I find things to like in everything, and that I was born to yap, so this will be long :)

I'm going to do it in the order of the trailers and put the tier list at the bottom. I'm adding a twist to mine and tracking the most important thing to me, Will I cry? (mostly just so I can look back and see if my guess was correct)

Dare you to death: I LOVE a good murder mystery. Yes. Give it to me. Snarky partners solving a crime was THE dynamic i was raised on and I still love it. It's going to be so entertaining trying to pick up clues and stuff while seeing these two bicker and fall in love. Don't think ill cry on this one, but serial killers, brothers, possibility of whump? There's a chance.

Head 2 Head: FUCK YES. Starting with the fact that I adore SeaKeen with all my heart, this one has me so invested!! Their bickering-flirting? ON POINT. When Sea says the line of “I've been saving my lips for you for ages” while flipping him off?? Yeah, that's my shit. But add to that the whole magic plot of seeing that they are in love and together years in the future, but then he dies!!! In his arms!!!! Yes. Yes. Just yes. “I will do anything to prevent that from happening…except not loving you”?? Yep. They made this show for me specifically, the rest of you can stay only if you are nice. The side couple also has me 👀. Basically, I loved every single second of it, and I'm ready for it. Oh, I will absolutely cry. No doubts about this one. These boys had me weeping with their soft rom-com, adding looming visions of death to it? yes, I'm ready to cry.

Burnout Syndrome: I'm intrigued by this one! Looks very messy and full of complex feelings all around, with some very very interesting characters. I don't actually have more to say about it except !!!, and it's on the watch list for sure! Hmm from what I get, I'm thinking is going to be more in the stressful, thoughtful side than in the emotional one for me, so maybe teary eyes but not full-blown crying.

I Love “A Lot Of” You: I've only seen one thing in which this topic didn't feel wildly offensive, so. Hmm. Even without that whole can of worms, I'm not fully interested in it? It seems cute and fun I guess, and the title is very sweet but eeeh. Not in the watch list for now, unless it gets some strong endorsements once it starts airing.

Whale Store xoxo: Oh this looks lovely! So so so warm and sweet. Having a character in just full-blown crisis and feeling lost, is always the best way to get into my heart. Add to that a sweet girl, full of joy, trying to help?! And the You've got mail vibes with the whole small business being threatened by the family of the love interest, plus feeling a duty to the store because of a parent without knowing if its what you truly want? Say less babe, I'm there, I'm seated. The side couple story also has me really intrigued. Oh yeah, tears will be very much present. Not full on wailing, but rom coms do make me cry, I see some tears due to both the angst and the character finding herself.

Only Friends-Dream On: Making the entire first half of the trailer one shot that manages to explain all the dynamics is enough for me to put it in the watch list no questions asked. I haven't watched Only Friends and from the bits I know and have seen I know I wouldn't enjoy it purely for weird personal reasons. This however? Oh yeah bestie sign me up, ill have popcorn ready, let the messiness begin. Also, the cast is insane and as someone who was absolutely taken by Ohm and Leng week after week, I'm so excited. Hmm, I'm going for yes. At least one of these assholes is going to be broken in a way that speaks to me and I will cry about it, I see it in my future. (Side note, please tell me I'm not the only one that laughed at the characters being called Jack and Dean)

That Summer: I CHEERED. Troublemaker sent to the beach to find some discipline finds a kind, amnesiac prince is something that i didn't know I needed so hard but fuck i do. It's going to be so fucking charming, and it has this very quiet emotional vibe to it that I'm going to eat up weekly, yes sir. I have no thoughts except loud cheering, I'm just excited for it. I was going to say I hope it comes in summer like that means anything to me. pft. Umm, yeah probs some tears, nothing too big, but I can see some emotional moments hitting hard specially considering the two people acting here. *side eyes that We Are scene that I still can't fucking rewatch because it did enough damage once*

My Romance Scammer: Marriage scam!!!!! I could cry of joy. This is the kind of shit I love sorry. It's so messy and at its core very silly, and I'm just going to have such a good time watching. It's going to be fun! I also feel like some of the backstories of these characters are going to be interesting and emotional, I'm excited for that. I was going to say I won't cry, but I always cry with fictional weddings and I'm guessing some sort of “real” wedding is going to happen at the end that will break me, so maybe.

Melody of Secrets: I'm fucking thrilled. As a horror fan, I don't know what I did to get this gift but ill fucking take it, thank you. This was SO WEIRD!!! Isn't that great!! What the fuck was happening? Is it ghosts, is it magic, is it a curse, is it trauma? I don't know, and the character doesn't know either, and ooof the journey we will go in while trying to figure it out! My only request for this show is that I want to say “What the fuck??” every episode. That's all. Whether I cry or not depends on where they are going with it so, no clue. Possibly.

Love you teacher: I had such a strong negative reaction to this, that it kind of went back around, and now it's in my watch list? It was a journey. So, fun fact about me, one of the fanfiction tropes that I adore the most and I will eat up every single time it pops up even though it's not that common is amnesia in an established couple (I'm sure no one was kind of scared I was going to say something else). I just love the idea of a couple having to kind of fall in love again, with the angst of one of them not knowing anything while the other has all the memories and feelings. It's specially interesting if the person with amnesia has a very different life in the present to what they expected/think they should have, or in a enemies to lovers dynamic? it fucks. So I was really really excited. And then he was 7 years old, and I got so shocked I stopped processing the trailer. But now I'm intrigued. I want to see if this show is going to surprise me, I'm going to be there seated for the first couple of episodes at least because there is something there that just, its intriguing. I think there is a chance this one will be special. I mean if I hate it I can just stop watching right? No big deal. The other thing is that Dome gave me a show so fucking special to me that I have to give the dude a chance. He already surprised me. I trust him enough to know that this will be fun at the very least. And also, if I do stick with it, tears 1000% guaranteed. The emotional beats of this will hit, absolutely, and motherfucker over there knows how to hit you with emotions with the simplest stuff.

MU-TE-LUV: Yeah so I'm probs only watching the SeaKeen and OhmLeng parts. Those are actually so compelling to me and I love watching them act, so I will be having fun with those stories. The rest fully depends on my mood and what other people are saying when it airs. Also, the Dew one that is just Amarres: la serie, kind of seems interesting. I kind of doubt this one will pull my heartstrings much but hey I'm willing to be surprised!

Cat for Cash: I have my blanket and my warm drink ready, I will be seating there just cooing at everything and feeling all the emotions. This is going to be a chill watch, it's going to be fun, and I love it for it. The familial shit is going to break me and sell me for parts, so that's going to be fun. And yes, absolutely going to cry, no-brainer.

Girl Rules: We all cheered. So what is going to happen is that I'm going to liveblog this, absolutely, and all the liveblogs are just going to be me being in love with Namtan, and I need everyone to be cool with that. In all seriousness, leaving behind my gigantic crush on her, this is going to be so gooood. Messy!!!! Hot!! FUN!!!!! The dynamics between all the characters are already delicious, and i can't wait for this one, it's going to be great. Grabbing pop corn and something to fan myself with. The NamtanFilm relationship has some real potential to pull some tears from me.

Boys in love: I love fluffy shit, sue me. We are going to sit here, and giggle and kick our feet and have a good ass time while doing it. The Chokun and Aston relationship drew me in so hard, I'm going to live there, but everything was just so sweet and delightful!! Its a fun time. Honestly, yeah, I can see a couple of tears. Not sad tears but more like, overwhelmed with softness kind of tears.

My Magic Prophecy: Once again, angsty visions of the future are always compelling to me, so I'm here for this. It's kind of in the same level as Burnout where I'm not shaking chihuahua levels of excitement but I'm interested! The relationship seems fun and touching, the science vs. magic thing could be interesting. If I get invested enough, yeah crying for sure.

A Dog and A Plane: I'm sure no one who has spent more than a minute in my blog knows this, but i fucking love these two so much. Shocker, I know. But seriously, they have something that makes me 20000% invested whenever they are together on screen and i didnt want to hope for a new show but i was secretly wishing for it and the universe decided to throw me a bone the size of Jupiter. And to add to it, they are bickering, they are horny, New is a fancy flight attendant and Tay Tawan is a paramedic with tattoos that wears a lot of tank tops. They both think the other one is better than them in some way. The plot is just the kind of rom com i eat up. And I know, I KNOW, I'm going to cry. I cry every time these two are involved. They will have one vulnerable moment and i will be in the corner cheeering with tears in my eyes. They will have the conflcit and the same thing will happen. They will have the happy ending and i will be weeping. I'm so fucking happy. Just one thing. I need them to fuck in that plane. I dont care where, I dont care how, but it has to happen. I have that small wish. Oh and MarcPoon!!!! Their bits seem so so good too.

Me and Thee: I made the joke that I read this Phumpeem au before, because actually yeah kind of, but also because these are the exact same vibes that drew me to Phum. The characters are super different and so cool, but oh lonely rich boy!!!!!!! I'm gonna have a new one for my list. And this one is so weird! and a dork! and loves soap operas so he is speaking my language. I love him already. The plot is also just for me. Teach me how to hit on someone?? And he uses it all on him!! yes yesssss. I cant wait to see more of them. I cant wait to see them each fall in love in such different ways and the conflict has the opportunity to be so so so my thing. In terms of crying, he is a sad lonely boy, i dont have to say more. I'm ready to imprint on him and feel very emotional.

WU: This was less of a plot and more of a "here, we heard you, they'll keep working together, dont kill us". I haven watched their show yet because of a silly reson, but i had been planning on binging it before the last episode next week, so im excited!! The brief glimpse we got compels me, i love me some red string of fate.

Memoir of Rati: I said I could watch them read the dictionary (and i fucking meant it) and instead they give me an intense period show??? I could cry. Look, one could say Great Sapol single handedly got me back into live bloging, i have a debt with the guy, add to that the fact that him and Inn became two of my favorite actors ever in just a couple of episodes? Yeah I'm here for this. They have an insane chemistry that is such a joy to watch, and i dont mind period shows, they arent my favorite but I find them charming if done right and they often teach me new things. These two are about to eat the shit out of these roles and i will be clapping while suffering. Also the AouBoom story is so interesting too!!! No notes. I'm going to cry like a baby multiple times. I still cry with their fake break up. This is going to kill me. Can't wait.

Ticket To Heaven: First let me list some fun facts about me. I was raised catholic in a very catholic family in one of the most catholic countries in the world. I still live in a house where my room is the only one that doesnt have some form of religious imagery. Bare a pop opera and Jesus christ superstar are two of my favorite musicals of all time. I ran away from religion before my confirmation but after my first communion, and every time i think about it i discover some new complicated feeling about it and a fun trauma it left behind. I am right now wearing a Look Khunnoo shirt.

They made this show for me and its going to break me. I'm already making playlists for it. I keep listening to Heaven while staring at the wall. This is just, gods, this is everything to me. The vibes of it are just so so so delicious. The aesthetic? The quotes? I am so going to relate more with Gemini's character, and thats going to be a fun painful little trip. And of course. These boys. I adore them. I'm ready to be killed by them acting the shit out of every single frame. I am going to cry in ways that will be dangerous to my health. I can't wait. There is no way that the ending isn't going to fuck me up, whether is super tragic, a time skip, a hopeful ending. Its going to be a Thing. Fucking Rosa de Guadalupe got me with its gay episode. and its. La rosa de guadalupe. This? Will murder me. I will listen to the ost and cry instantly like i do with Bare.

Basically im excited :)

And the tier list!!

I kind of did it in the scale of how much is it going to make me feel like a dog waiting for its owner, sadly pawing at the door, wanting to be let in.

I think everyone I would tag on this has already done it or has already been tagged so if you see this and you have thoughts that you want to share, you are tagged. This is legally binding. I want to hear your thoughts

If you read all that you can reclaim a cookie before leaving

[aleki-lives-here]

I'm making my way through System Collapse audiobook, and it's much easier both the second time around and than reading. This whole thing still feels too real too much, which makes me kinda passionately hate the book but in a way that I know isn't really hatred. I'm just experiencing a lot of emotions, okay. Listening to them create art, tell a story to make people see things from a new perspective is doing something to me.

I was ten when I decided I wanted to tell stories. I was thirteen when I figured out what kind of stories I wanted to tell, and yes the stories I wrote back then were kinda shitty but I reread half of those recently, at fourteen I already had the same kind of vibe that still appear in everything I ever created afterwards: shit happens, and people do mistakes, and it all just sucks, and you keep living, keep trying, keep holding on to hope.

I was a fucking teen and I knew I wanted to tell stories that would take the darkest most tragic situation and say: there's still kindness there. There's still hope. There's still future. I don't like whump or angst or anything just because I like to torture characters (tho I do, like to torture characters), but because shit sucks. shit sucks, and we keep living, and we keep finding joy in it all, and I want, always wanted, to have someone tell me -- to be the one to tell this to people, that yes. It sucks. It hurts. It's awful, and I see you, and I see the hopelessness, and it isn't hopeless anyway. It's all encompassing now and it's gonna change. If just one person read what I wrote and felt a little better, a little more seen, a little more hopeful, a little kinder -- that was all I wanted to achieve with my writing.

And the thing is: I feel like such a fucking failure.

Like okay. Objectively, rationally speaking, I'm twenty... right, twenty two as of now, which is young, but also it's fucking twenty two and it's longer than I expected myself to be alive, and it feels like I haven't done nothing. It feels like I'm never going to be able to do anything. It feels like it's ridiculous of me to even hope that I could do anything, especially with writing. Achieve something with my stories? Make someone think about new things? Make someone feel better? It's a ridiculous idea to aim for. That's what other people do, somehow, not me. The best I can settle is entertaining myself by torturing characters, which isn't gonna help anyone but hey if it entertains someone for five minutes it has to be worth something. It fucking has to be, I so honestly don't know why the hell I'm still alive, but it has to be worth something otherwise it's too depressing to consider.

But anyway. Then, there's System Collapse. There's this whole series, honestly, with the fairly background exploration of what media and art can mean to people, but here it's loud and impossible to ignore in the front of the narrative, and it resonates with me in ways I can't be comfortable with. It somehow fucking hurts to think about. Too many emotions and thoughts and just ugh. I'm not gonna be normal about this book any time soon, am I.

[relaxxattack]

old ass homestuck here (been reading since 2013, read with it all the way until the end of act 7 but i consider that the true end and never plan to read the epilogues) but i gotta agree i didn’t care for the squared sprites when they first appeared late in act 6 and i really don’t like them much more years later. i found davepeta slightly interesting but at the end of the day they’re the only one who even stood out enough to even pay attention to and unfortunately looking at them was visually very unpleasant due to the constant color flashing.

random disclaimerrrr this is really just my personal feelings, i'm not trying to make a statement about what is "true" or moral or whatever. i want to stress that i'm not against people making meaningful interpretations of davepeta... i understand the appeal of a trans/plural character. it's just hard to feel like any of that was intentional?

power to hussie for making jokes; but it's kind of confusing sometimes to frequently see davepeta - what felt like a really obvious joke made at the expense of the audience - touted like they're the most genius, intentional, meaningful, well-thought-out character ending or trans representation

especially with nepeta in particular... i guess it's left pretty up to the viewer to decide whether or not she was really done dirty at the end, but. personally i still think she was done fucking dirty. the death -> fefeta -> davepeta pipeline was not very rewarding in my opinion. she also never had a choice in any of these? it was not a consensual fate. she wasnt allowed to explore her own identity or choose this, her identity was simply shafted once again after a long pattern of it being shafted and mocked

davesprite is a suicidal character who gets made to end himself. and i guess thats empowering as a metaphor for some trans people but for me it was like ??? physically absorbing another person and then ceasing to exist didn't relate to me heavily but maybe it does for others! i've heard some talk about it being plural too, which i can also see, but they don't act like that's at all intentional in the story. i've heard a lot of "dave struggles with not being the alpha dave so he gets to stop being dave! :)" but why does he have to? he was dave first and longer, shouldn't the meteor dave change his name? 'dave gets to finally stop being a boy and embrace being a trans girl' does she do that? or is her individualism taken from her and regifted to a catgirlboy that is not actually trans at all but textually stated to be identifying as half of one cis girl and half of one cis boy?

guh i am trying so hard to not sound invalidating to how other people feel empowered by this character. while also explaining how its Not for me. once again disclaimer i LIKE what people have done with davepeta it just feels like, strangely un-empowering to me for these two characters to have their agency taken away in such a manner.

rose's dead corpse who literally just watched the love of her life die in front of her face gets dug out of her final resting place and immediately starts throwing herself at every women in the vicinity

arquius in particular is one i see get completely nostalgia goggled too because every moment they were on screen was painful dialogue-wise; but these days arquius is thought of like a vehicle for hal and equius gender thoughts. which is a concept with merit because of course both hal and equius have stuff going on gender wise and it makes sense to combine those but like. the character wasn't like that in canon and it never felt like they were meant to be like that. most of the time they were.. jokes. insulting jokes.

i get WHY its read a trans or plural narrative. just as a trans and plural person i did not read it that way or think that was what the author intended... and i find it a little uncomfortable in that regard

[justchillandshipit]

I've Been Trying to Make Sense of Eddie's Story in My Head.

There are several intersecting points that have me thinking. In different seasons, we have heard different stories about Eddie and his feelings for Shannon. We have heard that he met her when he was a kid, and they lost touch and later reconnected. (No problem here.)

Eddie also says his relationship with Shannon was like magic. He says this to Bobby in Season Six when he is trying to get back on the dating scene.

We also hear from him that he married Shannon because she was pregnant, but he didn't regret it. (I believe this was after he said it was like magic. It contradicts the previous comment but also tracks with a gay Eddie storyline. He lived in TX in a very comphet part of the country. FYI. They still, to this day, have conversion camps in Texas. So it is plausible that by marrying her, he was conforming to the expectations of his parents and his immediate social sphere.)

We learned that Eddie had questions for Shannon that he never got to ask. Like why didn't he get a letter when she left? He describes her dying as leaving him broken, and that is just his life now. (This doesn't sound like a person who felt love in the form of friendship. He has described himself as broken a couple of times though and this does remind us of what Athena's ex Michael said about himself as he was coming out. He thought Athena could fix him. So I'm unclear if Shannon made him feel like he was normal, and with her dead, he doesn't feel like he can feel normal again. This would be consistent with gay Eddie too.)

However, when Kim asks him if Shannon was the love of his life, he says he thinks so. We can zero in on the "think" part of that comment but in this show, characters use the word "think" an excessive amount. Most commonly, when someone asks, "Are you alright?" Someone will reply, "I think so. Yeah." (It is not a direct contradiction to his previous comment because he also adds that he didn't realize it at the time, but the whole thing is just confusing, and it ignores the fact that she had asked for a divorce. It ignores the fact that she felt there was something wrong in their marriage, and she didn't necessarily think it was Eddie because she talked about learning how to be a good mother and then figuring out how to be a good wife. I thought that was odd on her part. No one learns how to be a good mother before being a wife. Being a Mom is on-the-job training, and if necessary, there is some therapy to help. It doesn't happen before learning how to be a wife.)

Bringing us to this season, Eddie is saying things like he doesn't deserve to be forgiven. (For what exactly? For dating Kim? For hurting Chris? He didn't sleep with Kim. There was an alternate scene where they kissed, but that never aired, so the only thing Chris and Marisole walked in on was them hugging. Eddie broke things off with Kim. She came to the house and pushed the situation. Even so, Chris is understandably hurt and Eddie does feel guilty. I can understand that guilt, but not to the degree that he doesn't deserve to be forgiven for it or experience joy. Not when he had broken it off.) Eddie says he doesn't deserve joy. (Again, this seems overkill for what happened with Kim when all things are considered. Guilt is understandable, but not to this degree. He grew the mustache as a mask. He was afraid of seeing a failure in the mirror. (A failure at what exactly? Being a father? Being a husband?) There is a lot of meta on this being code for gay Eddie. The problem here is that at some point if Eddie is coming out, people who can understand subtext and gay coding should not be the only people aware of this possibility. The general audience doesn't know crap about gay coding, and that is one of the reasons I don't like the way the storytelling is going at the moment. If they intend to bring Eddie out in a way that is understandable to everyone something more than coding is needed. There needs to be something solid and not subtextual, so everyone can follow along with the journey he is on. The audience needs to see or know what he is thinking even if Eddie isn't out of the closet to the people in his life. The audience should know the struggle. As it stands, the only people paying attention are us Buddie shippers. (For the general audience, his struggles appear to truly be about Shannon. If Eddie comes out, they are going to think it's out of nowhere. ) I think clarification of these contradictions would help.

[tansyuduri]

@larluce Thank you for the tag and for the rec!!! You are amazing too! I can't believe I'm working on our second collab!!!! 1. How many works do you have on AO3? 31! 13 of which are Melin the rest are from YEARS ago.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

297,340

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Currently just Merlin. There is one dragon age fic I MIGHT eventually go back to but merlin for the forseeable future!

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos? Fever Talk

Treat Me Warmly

Better Than Burning Merlin Enchanted (my first colab with Larluce)

Unthinkable All of these are what I tend to stick too for my fics that are below 40K+ Aka a mixture of fluff, Hurt/confort, angst, banter, whump, ETC with a happy ending. The next one would be one of my long fics XD

5. Do you respond to comments?

Consitering how happy they make me! Yes Every one!

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I'll be honnest with you! It would be in my old fics for the Dragon Age Fandom and not Merlin. I tend toward happy endings for Merlin fics. Likely Forget me not or Good Boy

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

Uhhhhhhhh UHHHHHHHHH UHHHHHH Well Most of my merlin ones have happy endings? If we're going least traumatized Um PERHAPS treat me warmly?

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Oh not really hate but I got this one person commenting on my longfics that Merlin deserves better because arthur would go back to gwen if he could and that they don't like gwen. Like I'm sorry but my Arthur returns series is my love letter to the cannon version of the show in my mind. I'm not going to pretend Arthur never loved Gwen Even if the fic's main paring is Merthur, And even if I belive Gwen would be more likely to love Arthur but stay with the man she remarried (Who she also loved because In my mind she married again to a noble she loved for secrity AND LOVE because I want her to be happy in her life) and knew into old age in the afterlife.

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

I include sex scenes in longfics usually and if asked for a request. I do not think its what I am best at but I do my best!!!

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? NOPE!

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

NOPE!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? I am borning and only speak english but I would never say no to this!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

with @larluce I'm actualy currently about to do my first edit of our second colab! 14. What’s your all time favourite ship? MERTHUR

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

When I started writing merthur I had a rule that I do not publish any of a fic until I am done with the entire thing. I do have some drafts however One is my version of What happens post cannon during gwen's reign. I Don't think I'll ever finish it because I'm CRAZY about merthur. and having Merthur in a fic helps keep me going with it.

16. What are your writing strengths? I like to think I am good at keeping In character, Besides that Dialouge and feelings I think. I like to know my characters deeply and be able to keep them fairly close to their cannon versions. Of course characters have LOTS of cannon versions depending on which time in cannon and how the story affects them. BUT still its somthing I like to focus on

17. What are your writing weaknesses? Problubly having enough decription. I'm NOT a super visual thinker so yeah. 18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

Normally it should be translated or knowlable. Spells are an exeption

19. First fandom you wrote for? Um I was not in any fandom but I wrote a LOTR spoof in elementary school

20. Favorite fic you’ve written? Oh easy. Our Stars Still Shine Together was my first long merlin fic and the first that I wrote after realizing I could write again

@shanastoryteller @shana-rosee @catsconflictscopicsandchamomile @calamity-talvi @247merthur

@saurix5 @groundbreakingdot872

Twenty Questions for Fanfic Writers

Thank you @liviapeleia for the asks <3!!

Tagging longtime frond @breadkween, fabulous runner of @merlinmicrofic @queerofthedagger (thank you!) and reader and writer who's left me lovely comments @achillesuwu. @mythandmagic, Ao3 is down rn so I can't check but if you have any fics yourself, here's an ask game for you! There's no obligation, presh or time limit of course! Also like @liviapeleia said before me, consider yourself tagged if you see this!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

11

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

265,960

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Right now just Merlin. I've written for other fandoms in the past but each of those works have been standalone.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Always His Destiny | Merlin | A true love's kiss, resurrection and golden age AU written for Glompfest 2024.

Like Every Tree Stands On Its Own | Merlin | A longfic inspired by other Arthurian media/sources featuring Wildman Prophet!Merlin and a magical forest. This is my magnum opus.

What's Mightier Than a Sword and Robs a Prince of His Servant? | Merlin | Pre-slash Merthur minor canon-divergence in which Merlin's talents in speech writing land him a promotion and Arthur is Not Pleased™.

Only Human | Venom | A short gift/exchange fic about masturbation, lol. The fic I received in exchange was also about masturbation. In my defence this was a writing exercise (I promise).

The Sky Is Falling | Nightvale | Unfinished fic about alcoholism recovery, love, community and the complete collapse of reality.

...Okay wow what a mix :D

5. Do you respond to comments?

I really love comments and I love getting into discussions with readers! It really makes my day to see that someone has commented on one of my fics.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Am I allowed to choose a soon to be published WIP? Words Are Dead, a microfic inspired by the Agnes Obel song of the same name in which Merlin and Arthur are unable to communicate when Arthur returns. Merlin has lost Brythonic, his first language, and his capacity to relearn it. He's simply been alive for far too long and his mind has suffered :(

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

Like Every Tree has a prolonged bittersweet kind of ending but I think Always His Destiny wins.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Nope/not yet!

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

Yes, though so far it hasn't been the focus of any of my works, there's no reason why that can't change though (the Venom one doesn't count, I make the rules here). As to what kind I'd say loving and intimate, I guess? Sometimes with a bit of a hurt/comfort element to it. Again, no reason why I can't branch out in the future ;)

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

While not labelled as a crossover, Like Every Tree was heavily inspired by Arthurian media both new and old, and one medieval Irish source. I did so much research for this fic and I'm still down those various rabbit holes. It was a homage to my favourite, janky cartoon movie from my childhood Quest for Camelot. Otherwise I don't write proper crossovers.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Don't think so.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Also don't think so.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No but I would love to!

14. What’s your all time favourite ship?

I guess it really has to be Merthur! I don't recall a ship ever having such a hold on me. Those two are doomed but made for each other. The way they interact is so much fun to read/write.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Damn, this is definitely Be Here When the Weather Turns, a Mushi-shi fic. It has a very soft, restful and liminal vibe and I adore it. I really do wish I can finish it someday. So sometimes like a song, you share a piece of media with someone, or you associate it with a particular chapter in your life, and that song/piece of media brings up feelings. I'd like to think it's still worth a read. If you don't know Mushi-shi, please consider checking it out, it was weird and quiet and beautiful.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I can't deny that I put a lot of love into this hobby. Also @breadkween has told me that they really like my dialogue :3

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I'm really prone to typos. I can re-read something a hundred times and just fail to see them. I'm a very slow writer; what I put out usually goes through months of edits and change-ups. Lastly I have embraced a faux-pas or two for fun, such as starting sentences with 'and.' And no one can stop me >:)

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I'd only be comfortable writing dialogue in a language I've formerly learned and have some level of familiarity with for fear of getting something wrong.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Okay I love this question because the answer is the highly formative Garth Nix's Keys to the Kingdom series, a YA series I was obsessed with, and have continued to read, and re-read as an adult and as unexpected prequels and sequels popped up in more recent years. I wrote it on a literal floppy disk :D First fandom I wrote for that I actually published online was Undertale.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

Definitely Like Every Tree. I'm just really proud of it :3

[kacievvbbbb]

Honestly despite my feelings about how the last arc of MHA went down I really love Deku and his story.

I just feel like a lot of the time we get these protagonists whose whole philosophy is it doesn’t matter what you were born as everyone can achieve greatness. But then the series goes on and it turns out that actually it DOES matter because the protagonist has this really great lineage and these really great powers you can only have through birth they were actually born born, predestined if you will, to do this.

But MHA actually sticks to its guns. Midoriya wasn’t revealed to have some great connection to all might that the universe had put in place. He wasn’t defended from some great lineage that makes him uniquely suited to this. Hell All for one didn’t even turn out to be his father, there was no hidden powerful quirk he was always meant to have. He was just Midoriya Izuku a boy who was in the right place at the right time and simply decided to act while the world did nothing. And that’s what really made him a hero.

I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, but I believe him a bit more when he goes anybody can be a hero if you just decide to act

[alongtidesoflight]

so here's my honest thoughts on dragon age: the veilguard, after ~40 hours of playing. i finished the main quest after having finished all companion quests and major faction quests. just to clear up what content i saw, i played as an elven transmasc rook who is a member of the lords of fortune. he romanced lucanis (although after finishing the game i'm now leaning towards taash). i don't know what's happening in playthroughs that have a different race, gender identity, romance or faction going on.

full spoilers ahead, i mean it. don't read further if you want to avoid them. i don't want complaining about it in my asks.

oh and also, if you're worried because of a few negative reviews online i can comfort you by saying don't give a fuck about a certain big name youtuber who is very much tied to bethesda franchises giving this a negative review. i'll explain why.

i'm starting off with the things i liked

the game looks really pretty. i was worried it wouldn't feel like thedas anymore (with them trying to "focus on northern thedas only" i thought they'd make a clear cut in environmental design. they do and they don't. it's complicated. i'll elaborate on it when talking about the negative stuff). anyway it does. minrathous feels like kirkwall. treviso enchanted me like the winter palace did. the hossberg wetlands reminded me of the hinterlands and a couple other inquisition maps. arlathan looked like... arlathan. the crossroads were different, but familiar. overall i like the way it looks and feels. it's thedas, with a twist. it's a good one, and gives everything a solid but unique feel.

combat is top tier. if you're a hardcore dragon age player you WILL miss the tactical aspect of it for a bit, but i promise you, once you're used to the way the combat works, you will be lapping that shit up. and once you get to ability combos you'll mourn the control you used to have over your companions in battle a bit less

the MAIN quest and its story. i expected worse, way worse. and for a while the game even had me tricked (harr harr you'll get it in a second) it is Really That Much Worse. but holy shit was it good. i walked away satisfied ngl.

your choices have SOLID weight. there's consequences, good AND bad. i got minrathous blighted, ruled over by venatori, and the leader of the shadow dragons ultimately died because of my decisions. i made those at the beginning and throughout the game. he died at the end. DAVRIN died because i didn't expect what i was saying to have that much weight. i thought i was in the clear. he had hero status. well turns out, your choices can still get your companions killed even if you do everything right. i fucking love him. he shouldn't have made that sacrifice just because i told him to do everything it takes once.

the inquisitor, morrigan and dorian being there, surprisingly. there's also negatives to this though, see below.

speaking of companions dying and the inquisitor playing a bigger role: the final quest feels like me2's suicide mission. i was blown away by it and the fact that i got to see the results of all my efforts playing out in front of me.

bioware are NOT trying to redeem solas. they love him as a character yes, but i wasn't forced to see any good in him. he betrays you. he fucked my rook over twice. he fucked him over right back, for good this time (the veil wasn't torn down, i anchored it by binding him to it, he's doomed to uphold it). but solas really lives up to his name as the trickster elven god. rip to all the people who grew really attached to him over the years.

varric died. if you like him that's probably as hard reading it as it was watching it. varric died and the game lies about it until the very end. when the realisation hits, it hurts. but in the very best way.

the amount of care they put into gender expression and trans identities this time around. (i'll add onto this with negative points as well too).

rook feels very much ingrained in the world of thedas. he doesn't ask questions that expose the player to lore through dialogue as if he's stepped foot into thedas for the first time. those conversations feel very solid and good. i hope other faction players got as much joy out of this as i did.

and the things i didn't like and boy there's a lot unfortunately

the music. let's just get that out of the way holy shit. it doesn't feel like it belongs in this universe. it gets so incredibly sci-fi-y at times you'd think it's taken straight from mass effect andromeda. there's not a single song unique to veilguard that i really enjoyed. it broke my immersion, real bad. hearing a busker play the tavern songs from inquisition on a lute right after i killed some venatori with wobbly bass songs playing in the background is just odd. weird tonal shift. don't like it. it's made for people who like flashy light-weight cinema.

tevinter nights is required reading. the podcasts are required listening exercises. the game is so fast paced, especially at the start, that there's no time to introduce you to characters and how much weight their names carry in-game. i would not have known who half these people are if i hadn't skimmed over tevinter nights. i'd care even less about them than i already did. there is no time to get properly attached to them. people will act as if you're talking to a legend personified and you'll be thinking man goddamn which chapter of tevinter night were they in again and what did they do???

there's a weird mismatch with the animations. you'll have beautifully fluid ones, like emmrich casting spells. and then you'll have rook's face animating in the most unnatural manner that's sorta reminiscent of mass effect andromeda's "my face is tired" addison, when their emotions SHOULD be landing with the player rn instead.

i'm not vibing with the art style. sometimes it works. most of the time it doesn't. at points i felt like i was watching tangled.

that also brings me to some of the dialogue. same issue. i am watching frozen. i am watching tangled. someone on the writer's team really likes the adorkable trope. bellara is its victim.

for all the talk about identity, bioware sure doesn't like theirs. the grey warden armor got a redesign again and it just makes them look like a generic army. i hate it lol

in general, i don't like the armor design. the wardrobe/appearances system is fine, but it's just not helping if all the armors are just... kinda bland or downight bad looking? and don't get me started on the lords of fortune armor. that is orientalism personified.

the world states should have been carried over, full stop. i know they said they didn't because they want to separate what happens in the north from what happens in the south, which... i could have lived with that. but the inquisitor sends you letters that keep you up to date on... the south of thedas. you learn that there's a blight again, that people are standing strong but it's difficult, denerim's fallen, the rulers are taking care of it, orlais is fighting and they're successful for a while, etc etc. what's good bioware. i thought we don't care about the south this time around. why are you feeding me so much boring generic information. if you're not gonna show any of it and just write letters, then carrying the world state over should not have been an issue. i have a game dev background. those few lines of code would not have broken your budget or pushed your engine's limits. fuck right off.

this gripe of mine carries over to all the cameos. as a lord of fortune you have to deal with isabela a lot. it's fun. i missed her. you get to go drinking with her and taash and bellara! also my hawke romanced her. she's not mentioned once. they had the opportunity to put a sentence or two about her in there with not a lot of effort, trust me.

when varric dies, all she has is a single line about it. for gold, for fortune, for varric. she only says it if you interact with her on your way to the final push. that's not mandatory.

morrigan is there. kieran isn't. the old god soul that mythal and then solas absorbed? who cares at this point, the gods are dead now and solas is locked away for eternity. i suppose? why is morrigan there. she feels unneeded. i wish they'd just left her down south, at least that way i wouldn't have had to witness her god awful redesign.

dorian at least feels as if he belongs in this story. the shadow dragons are a crucial part to protecting minrathous. he's also weirdly underutilised. isabela and morrigan had more lines than him in my playthrough.

on the topic of romance: bro that was underwhelming. no, genuinely. you know when romance picked up a bit? after the point of no return. i heard maybe two lines of companion banter about it before that. maybe i missed something which i honestly doubt, but romance did not play much of a role in lucanis's storyline. i saved his grandmother as he wished me to (and if you read tevinter nights you know she was rather abusive and their relationship not the healthiest) and told him to focus on his family. a reunified family my rook wasn't even introduced to as a partner at the end of all that.

really, do not buy this game if you're only in it for the romances. others might be better, lucanis's basically gave me nothing. except for an outing (the second coffee date i had with him, it was getting repetitive) all of it played out once i committed to the final quest. the sex scene was a fade to black. annoyingly right after davrin died. if you're looking for well paced and good spice, pick up something else. the sweet talk and the final goodbye were nice though.

for all the good the ever-presence of gender identity does, it is brought up in such a disruptive manner too. it doesn't even play out naturally if you CHOOSE the lines that are meant to be said. hearing the words trans and non-binary in this setting doesn't feel right, and i'm saying this as a trans guy. i think it could have been handled more gracefully. the amount of times my rook went "i'm a MAN" as if he's about to start drumming on his chest and roaring any second now got super nerve-grating. "i'm so glad you're into me... the me who is trans. remember?" just. tell me one trans person who'd talk like that to a person they've grown close with and are trying to romance. this game doesn't handle sexuality well, so all this hey my body might not look like the way you're expecting it to look talk amounts to nothing anyway. i feel about this the way i feel about krem: this is partial exposition to trans experiences... packaged up for cis consumption. the ONLY exception to that is interacting with taash. holy shit was all of that heartwarming and bro did it feel good and natural to talk to them about theirs and rook's gender.

rivain and nevarra are new locations added by veilguard. they're also incredibly underwhelming, small and constricted maps. rivain is a coastline with a few ruins. the hall of valor is a partial ruin nestled into a cave on a beach, with a fighting pit. isabela is there in her skimpy outfit commentating your pit fights. that's it. i'm sorry if you were looking for a bustling pirate cove or whatever. you're not gonna get it. the nevarran crypts btw are a long ass dungeon crawl. that's it.

speaking of maps. i thought people were being dramatic when they said you're gonna be fighting the same enemies on them again and again. i thought they were figure of speeching it. they're not. you WILL fight the same amount of enemies. in the same spot. every time you reload the map. best to stay on a map and clear out the enemies and do as much questing on that map as you can before leaving, because you WILL have to do it all over again once you return.

the three choices i made for my inquisitor didn't matter lol she didn't have to face solas and therefore couldn't stop him at any cost as she had sworn (maybe because my rook tricked solas into binding himself to the veil, there was also an option to fight him. would she have stepped in? who knows). blackwall wasn't mentioned. and either her using a small amount of her forces in the final fight was the reason the civilians of minrathous fared so well..... or it just didn't matter. ultimately i think she had very little impact on anything

[greyedian]

MAN I'm seriously so sad about season 2. Bc I wish act 2 had the same emotional impact on me as it appears to have on so many others. But rn I'm just somewhere between unable to care and actively annoyed by some of those writing decisions. Seriously the more I think about it the less I like it.

[cburambles]

Speaking as someone who ships Ruiri but try to keep away the shipping glasses from my eyes here, I think it's more the case of said partner showing him a glimpse of what life could be for him & him deciding to explore that on his own as ultimately, he is still rather self-driven.

It would be someone who actually has influence on him but also he can relate with, which would push him to "lower his defences" & get him out of his isolation because of his curiosity while they also themselves remain assertive about themselves & vice-versa. ( see his attitude toward Ramza in Dissidia or the way he start to respect a bit more Evan when he shows some backbone). In short, more of a partnership where both partners benefits from it in term of development & safety but also provide some excitment in their lives while also being on a similar wavelenght.

In the novels, you get the sense he's still isolated but some attempt of the group try to get him out this state are made like for example Reno who tries to have him connect with his little brother but not understanding why Rufus doesn't feel like it. And that's because he can't really relate with Rufus on that domain. Rufus doesn't perceive his siblings the same way a normal person would. They are at best here to ask money from him & at worst, potential competition.

There's him & Elena who unintentionnally get to be better people when one take a decision with the other in mind or cooperate on a project together. There's also the fact they could relate on a lot of things (their love for customized fancy guns & fashion, coming from emotionnally neglectful families & competition with siblings, both are cunning & can be ruthless & like having some exctiment in their lives, show some interest in Shinra's buisness side, Elena who can't help liking the fact he's willing to lead alongside his men despite the danger etc...) But it's also confimed that in rebirth that she want to retain a sense of normalcy in her life while Rufus in TKAA start wondering & blank when he tries to imagine what a normal life is but also is implied to envy Evan for having the chance to get one (hence why I see their relationship being the one with the most narrative potential in term of character developpment in the group post-BC/ OG.)

Tseng...doesn't seem to bother. He most of the time defer to him, even when it make him feel bad, & you can feel there's some negative point of tension between him & the rest of the group that need to be resolved. Rude is here along the ride with Reno and likes his life as a Turks but doesn' try to get involved much with Rufus.

That's why it feels there's some wasted potential & that there's a lot missing. You get the feelings the like of Rufus or Elena are basically the little siblings in the group who needs to grow. Tseng need some resolution about his relationship with his job & maybe point of negativity with the other members of the group which would be an interesting arc for him. & Rude & Reno are a bit stagnant as characters.

It's like there are those entries & end points between various cliffes & what's lacking are the bridges between them so it's a bit frustrating, in particular knowing it would make a compelling story for them.

You get the idea that there's supposed to be some kind of found-family in their relationship who gets to become better together while retaining their edges but by the end of the novels/AC, it lacks the meat & journey to be called that way. It feels more like just camaraderie with Rude & Reno's being the most preominent relationship because it has already been established for years that they have the strongest bond in the group.

But maybe it's supposed to happen after AC. I don't think they gave much more thought to it tho as I remember reading the script of the movie where all the Turks are seemingly absent/ dead by the end of it, with Rufus laying on the pavement while his geostigma is getting healed bcos Tseng & Elena are not here to save him & Reno & Rude just left him there lmao (which could explain why they were just silent at the end of the movie. Maybe the 5 of them being wasn't the plan & was a last minute addition) ACC/COS & TKAA wasn't clearly not a concept yet at the time.

I was remembering discussing the missed opportunity of FF7 expanding on the faction of nobles/old money on Gaia with @cburambles and I had some rambly shower thoughts. I also may just be reading too many fantasy webtoons, but anyway...

I could absolutely see President Shinra feeling like he has to compete with and outdo the existing wealthy before, and while, Midgar was being built (unless he fucking lied about his background. I think it's possible). It would explain his awful and gaudy taste. The 70th floor office is something I am constantly horrified by. But the rest of the building is actually not that bad. It's like a combination of trying to be different than, better than, and the same as wealthy people with poor taste. His office is so high up, it's like he was trying to separate himself from everyone else. And perhaps, it was an effort to alleviate any insecurities when comparing himself to the established wealthy, because he doesn't have to be reminded of them.

I have considered the impact this may have had in Rufus growing up. That perhaps he tried to mould his son into something that's the same as, but also better than, these other people. An improved version, you could say. Another way to say "Shinras are better than these old snobs." By having him thoroughly educated (judging by how Rufus speaks), for example. Although, it's not clear how many of his current skills are because he was self-driven or not. It's possible that certain things were forced on him with no rational reason given (I can relate to this. Abusive parents don't explain, they just demand). But anyway, I think this would just further drive the two away from each other, because President Shinra wouldn't be able to relate to Rufus and whatever he's taken an interest in and exposed to. He seems to have an interest in fashion, judging by his clothes, for example. And it already seems like Rufus has quite a few different ideas than his father, judging by how he is in Before Crisis. It's hard to tell what is being rebellious and what is a result of being a different person.

I think President Shinra having a son he was constantly annoyed with is something he did to himself. Even if that wasn't true, these two were always going to clash. They are both driven and controlling individuals. I honestly think he felt somewhat threatened by Rufus. Why else would he bristle at Rufus questioning him during a meeting (again, in Before Crisis), while, in contrast, Reeve is thinking about what "a fine young man" Rufus grew to be. Unfortunately, Reeve is too young to be Rufus's father, even when Rufus was canonically 25 years old in FF7. :(

[stagefoureddiediaz]

So do we think maybe Buck golfing with Gerrard is something along the lines of Tommy giving advice to Buck to get to know him and play nice to make his life easier (or some such - because Tommy never actually had any hated directed at him from Gerrard so never actually experienced first hand what he was like in the same way Chim and Hen did).

Which Buck will do and find out a few things about his situationships (it’s technically unlabelled as a relationship so I’m not calling them boyfriends!) past behaviours and dots will start connecting all those red flags that Tommy is waving?!!