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annymation · 10 months ago

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The Kingdom of Wishes- A “Wish” Rewrite

Chapter 13- Magic Mirror

Chapter 12

Asha is now sitting on the hand drawn bed that she drew with her magic pencil the previous night. Staring at the 7 teens in front of her, she looks at them completely stunned.

Asha was about to open her mouth to ask a million questions, such as how did they get there? Are they okay? Do they believe her now? Is the king dead?

(Man, if you've been missing the past few chapters this all must feel pretty weird huh?)

But she doesn't have time to say anything, as Dahlia rushes over and hugs her tightly:

"WE'RE SO SORRY WE WEREN'T THERE FOR YOU!!!" The girl's scream echos around the cave, she speaks quickly and on the verge of tears "We were so scared- and and Magnifico was looking at us like he was gonna cut off our heads if we said something! BUT THAT DOESN'T JUSTIFY IT! I should've spoken up for you! I'm the worst friend eveeeeeeeer!" Dahlia says dramatically.

Bazeema, Hal and Dario come in for the hug too, Bazeema being the next one to apologize

"I know it's not much, but I brought an apology gift..." she whispers shyly, while reaching inside a bag she's carrying, and takes out a plant, composed of small star-shaped blooms that cluster together to give the illusion of a single flower "A hyacinth, your favorite... They also symbolize the desire for forgiveness."

(Yeeeeeah remember back in chapter 2 when Bazeema made a garden of purple hyacinths as a birthday gift for Asha? Yeah... It was aaaaaall foreshadowing that eventually the 7 teens would ask her for forgiveness. All details in this fic are foreshadowing! Also I just love flower symbolism.)

Asha takes the flower and smiles softly while the four hug her.

Gabo is standing next to the bed with his arms crossed. He interrupts the sweet moment:

"For the record, back at the plaza I tried to throw a rock on Magnifico's head SEVERAL times, but Mr "respect the corrupt authority" here kept stopping me." He says, pointing at Simon with an annoyed expression.

"Uuh yeah I did, because otherwise you'd be executed for treason, you're welcome." Simon says matter of factly, he looks even more tired than usual, after all he and the others have walked through the woods the whole night to find Asha.

"I would've died a happy man." Gabo says with a cheeky smile.

"You're not a man, Gabo. You're 17." Simon, the 21 year old, says sounding as tired as he looks.

"I would've died a happy boy." Gabo corrects himself with the exact same tone and cheeky smile.

Asha giggles at that, and she finally opens her mouth to say something "I don't blame you guys for not standing up against the king... Simon has a point Gabo, Magnifico is really REALLY dangerous." Asha warns.

Hal leaves the hug and speaks sarcastically with a smile:

"Yeah, we could tell heheh! Next time you find out that the kingdom is ruled by a two sociopaths, just let us know, okay? We can handle it." She finishes with a wink.

Dario looks surprised by that comment and comunnicates in sign language: "Wait, we can? I've been freaking out about it the whole way here." He still has a dopey smile while signing.

"Speaking of which... HOW did you all get here?!" Asha asks them, baffled that they managed to travel so deep into the woods.

Dahlia is more calm now, as she explains with a knowing smile:

"Let's just say we got help, from a little someone who's reeeeeally good at finding you anywhere you go."

"I told you guys I could find her!" Exclaims a little kid's voice coming from bellow the bed.

Asha is confused as she crawls on the bed to see where the voice came from and-

"Valentino?!" Asha exclaims with her eyes wide.

The goat is as happy as can be, looking up to her with his tail wagging.

"Hiiii!" The little goat jumps on the bed and starts licking Asha's cheek " I'm so happy to see you! I explained eeeeeeverything to them, so they'd come with me!"

Asha hugs Valentino, happy to see him... But not understanding how is the goat talking again.

"I- I'm happy to see you too Val... But... Aster, I thought you said Valentino couldn't talk anymore."

Aster, who has been floating around watching the conversation with a pleased smile, flies closer to Asha and explains:

"It's simple really! Some of my magic stayed inside him. That time, he REALLY wanted to say thanks to you. Now, he really wanted to tell your friends that you needed help, so my magic was re-awakened, ain't that right lil buddy?" Aster asks the goat with a cheerful smile.

"Maaa!" Valentino bleated in confirmation... Aaaand now he doesn't need nor want to talk anymore, so he went back to normal.

(This is still THE idea I'm most proud of in this whole rewrite, I unlocked talking goat on demand.)

"I see... So did Valentino really tell you guys everything?" Asha asks her friends with an awkward smile, hoping the answer is yes because it's really a long story.

Dahlia confirms that Valentino did indeed tell them everything, by saying "You mean how the king and queen have been changing people's wishes for years?"

"And when you found out, you ran away and wished upon a star?" Bazeema continued, while looking at Aster with a shy smile.

"And the star... Or rather, "Aster" here, answered?" Simon finishes the train of thought, looking at Aster with a... Suspicious glance.

"YUP! Look's like you guys are all caught up!" Aster says excitedly while floating around the cave.

Hal already seems to like the star boy's energy as she begins to introduce herself "Well, it sure is great to finally meet the guy who protected our girl back there, pleasure to meet you, Aster! The name's H-"

"Hal Diallo, right?" Aster interrupts with a smile as he shakes her hand, his smile widens once he does so, since he's seeing Hal's star.

Hal is surprised that he knows not only her name but also her last name.

Aster then proceeds to list all the others while pointing at each one "And you guys are Dahlia Hayashi, Bazeema Latif, Gabo Brandt, Safi Ayad, Dario Allegri and Simon O'Donohue... Did I get all those right?" Aster asks innocently.

(And yes, I did research all those names to fit with each character cultural background, except for Simon's that is from the movie. Yes, I do have a lot of time in my hands.)

All the 7 look at the star in shock but then slowly turn to Asha in confusion, Asha looks at them with an awkward smile. So Gabo promptly asks:

"Geez Asha, I know you like us a lot but did you really tell everything about us to star boy over here?" He asks in a cynic tone.

Aster quickly corrects him "Oooh no no no you got it all wrong ha ha! I know you guys because I've watched everyone from the sky." Aster laughs it off a little more.

"... THATS SO MUCH WORST!" Gabo exclaims looking actually scared this time.

Asha intervenes while getting out of the bed "Ooookayy this is a whoooole other can of worms that we don't have time to get into right now!" She says, referring to everything she learned about Aster the previous day "All that matters is that Aster is here to help us defeat King Magnifico and Queen Amable, and save everyone." Asha says confidently while holding Aster's hand.

Aster's stary freckles begin to sparkle when he notices she's holding his hand.

Gabo begins to to ramble in his usual sarcastic tone "Oh really? Awesome! Wow! Mind explaining HOW, exactly? Because although we didn't stay to watch the fight 'cause the rain started triggering Safi's allergies-"

"It's true, you know how bad it gets, we ran away as soon as it started raining." Safi interrupts, speaking for the first time.

(This is my way of saying they didn't see Magnifico almost break Asha's wish by the way.)

"Yes, yes we know how bad it gets Safi-" Gabo looks at his friend frustrated, not liking to be interrupted, even though he interrupts people all the time "Anyway- Although we didn't stay to watch the fight, word of mouth says that shinny pants over here got tossed around by Magnifico like he was a mouse being chased by a cat."

"He was more of a snake, if you ask me" Aster says with a shrug, and proceeds to talk confidently "And by the way, I certainly was no mouse, I was the one who won that figh-"

"Wait..." Asha interrupts the star as she remembers what Aster told her yesterday... She turns to Dahlia and quickly holds her friend by the shoulders as she pleads desperately "Please- Please PLEEEEASE tell me that lightning killed him!"

Dahlia looks like she really didn't want to bring the bad news, but she says it anyway "Uuuum... Well, yes-"

"*GASP* WWWOOOOO-" Asha jumps with joy, throwing herself on the bed with her arms up and a huge smile on her face.

But then her celebration is cut short by Gabo being his straightforward self:

"For like 5 minutes, then the queen did some creepy stuff and brought him back from the dead."

Asha and Aster both looked at him in shock, Asha slowly lowers her arms as she asks:

"... She did what now?"

"I've heard she gave him a true love's kiss... Would be quite romantic if it wasn't so scary" Bazeema says in a whisper.

Both Asha and Aster seem very disappointed by this, Asha remains in silence kinda just processing it, while Aster thinks for a moment before he states casually:

"... Well that's just cheating" Their arms are crossed and his mouth has a pout.

Gabo begins throwing some harsh reality as he speaks frankly "Yeah but that's how it went twinkle star, because guess what? Those two are CRAZY POWERFUL. And as long as Magnifico has that magic of his, there's nothing we can do, none, nada." Asha looks very frustrated with those words "So we might as well get comfy living in the woods from now on. Get used to the humidity, Safi." He says as he also lays next to Asha on the hand drawn bed.

As if on cue with the comment about humidity, Safi let out a sneeze

"ACHOOOO! Sorry..." Safi says while itching his nose... He thinks for a moment, and an idea seems to cross his mind as his eyes light up "I think... The king might have weakness though." Safi says raising his finger with one hand while itching his nose with the other "... But it's just a theory, maybe I'm wrong."

"ANY clue might be great help for us, Safi. Please, what do you think?" Asha looks at her friend in the eyes with a hopeful expression.

Safi looks back to her, her words encourage him to tell his friends a secret he has been keeping in for a while, he takes a deep breath before saying

"Alright... Last year, my mom asked me to help her at the castle-

We cut to a flashback sequence where we see Safi and the same cleaning lady from chapter 8. They're dusting off a fancy room in the castle.

"She needed my help because they were short staffed that day, and the king really wanted the castle spotless. Then he came in, complaining that my mom didn't clean his bedroom yet or something... I didn't pay much attention, but I did notice he left his magic staff leaning next to a wall... I got curious, I wanted to take a closer look at it, so I walked towards it while pretending to dust off some furniture. But when I got too close to it... Some ACTUAL dust got in my nose. I tried holding it in but...

"a- A-AAAACHOOOO!"

I sneezed on his staff and knocked it over. Magnifico immediately heard me and RAN to catch the staff before the gem touched the floor, and he did it just in time. I was relieved and so was my mom. I even laughed a bit thinking he would too... But he didn't... He looked at me in the eyes like he wanted to kill me then and there. He grabbed me by the scarf and lifted me off the floor a little. He yelled to my face:

"YOU INANE, FILTHY LITTLE BRAT! YOU ALMOST COSTED ME EVERYTHING!"

I was so scared, I tried a apologizing but that seemed to only make him angrier... My mom only watched nervously from the side. Then, a hand touched his shoulder... It was Queen Amable. She looked at him worriedly, and he looked back to her, I couldn't see his face... And just like that he let go of me and left the room without a word. Then the queen smiled to me, like what just happened was no big deal

"Please do forgive the king, my dear. He has been under a lot of stress lately, that's all... But you shouldn't be here in the first place, now, should you? No, a castle is no place for children. So how about you run along and enjoy the rest of your day, hum?" She placed a finger on my lips as she said with a sweet voice "And we'll keep this as our little secret, won't we?"... All I could do was nod."

The flashback ends.

We cut to all the other teens staring at Safi with expressions of both surprise and pity.

Aster's is floating in a sitting position with his legs crossed, he looks very sad.

"... Why didn't you tell us?" Asha asks, sounding heartbroken that the king and queen treated her friend that way and he had to keep that pain in silence.

"Probably the same reason you didn't tell us when you found out about their secret... I was scared." Safi said quietly with a sad expression, Asha nods in agreement "Also my mom told me not to gossip..." Safi adds quietly.

Dario comes over and gives Safi a hug.

"Heh thanks bud." Safi says, feeling relieved to let all that out.

Gabo, as always, ends the sweet moment by saying bluntly "Ok so we all agree the staff is like, his achilles heel, right?"

"... Yeah, if not breaking it was so important then why would he run to catch it when he could just use his magic to make it float?" Dahlia ponders.

"Because he can't do magic without holding it... " Aster answers, with an expression of realization.

Asha also has that same face of realization as she says "... Of course! None of the kings that came before him even had magic staffs, they could do magic with their hands alone... Magnifico DOESN'T know magic!" A smile forms on the corner of Asha's lips, it's almost comical how every aspect of that man was a lie all along.

"Soooo if we break that gem on his staff" Aster says with a huge smile while flying closer to Asha's face, his hair shinning brighter and brighter.

"He will be powerless." Asha finishes his sentence, looking at Aster in the eyes with a determined smirk.

"Uuuh that's great but... How are we supposed to break it?" Simon asks confused "Even the literal STAR here couldn't use his powers against the staff's magic, so what are we supposed to do?"

Aster turns to Simon with a confident look "Yeah sure, it was too much for me to handle... On my own." He turns to Asha for her to complete his point.

Asha get's up and makes the bed that she drew return to her sketchbook, surprising the rest of the teens.

While she does so, she finishes Aster's point:

"But together... We can fight."

She uses her magic pencil to draw some drums.

And we transition to the song:

What We Know Now

Lines in Purple- Asha

Lines in Red- Dahlia

Lines in Yellow- Safi

Lines in Blue- Hal

Lines in Bold Orange- Gabo

Lines in Green- Simon

Lines in Pink- Bazeema

Lines in Bold Yellow- Aster

Lines in Bold White- Everyone

(Lines between parenthesis- Me)

(Asha begins to draw some drums with her magic pencil, making them fly out off the page. Aster immediately gets her idea and begins to play the drums as the instrumentation of the song.)

… We've been deceived That royal pair are not what they've claimed to be They're more vicious than I could have ever comprehended When I made a wish and Aster came down This is not what I expected or intended But now that it's happened I don't regret it

(She begins to sing turning to her friends, her expression is bold. As she says the line "When I made a wish and Aster came down" the two of them share a glance, with Aster smiling at her as he plays the drums, and she looks at him with a warm smile.) 'Cause now I've seen Them show their true colors, in shades of green Saying that your wishes aren't safe because of me and That's a lie, lie, lie, lie. And now we know how we'll get the upper hand

(Aster uses their light to reflect on the gems inside the cave, creating the figure of Magnifico and Amable on the walls, that turn from blue to green. As Asha says the last line she raises her hand to the sky and starts walking out of the cave, with her friends following her to the forest.)

… If it's not us then who and when? If we don't fight they know they'll win Not allowed Knowing what I know now The lengths they'll go there's no amount I won't sit back watch this play out That's my vow Knowing what I know now

(She marches with them to the clearing in the forest, pushing the tree branches out of her way, some birds fly off the trees upon hearing her sing. As they reach the clearing, she turns to her friends to know what they have to say... Dahlia is the first one to step in)

… Get up, yah! No, I'm not the only one that's (yah) Fed up (yah)

(Dahlia walks to be next to Asha as she raises her hand to the sky with every "yah", motivating their friends even more)

… Wait 'til they hear our feet go dun, dun, dun, dun (yeah)

(Safi sings as Dario grabs one of the drums that Asha drew and begins playing it at the "dun dun dun" part. Dario may not be able to sing but he helps Aster with the instrumentals.)

… I don't think they'll be prepared for what's coming

(Hal sings her line with a passion, as she extends her hand forward to call the others to join their hands together in a group circle)

… A revolution hit the ground runnin'

(And they do so, then they raise their hands together, and with that we transition to Asha making a drawing of the castle that turns into a miniature, for them to plan how they'll get in.)

… If there's one thing they can't keep down Uh-huh It's us and the strength we've found It's too loud (loud) Knowing what we know now (knowing what we know now)

(Asha then draws little miniatures of her friends and Aster, they all come to life and get in position on the castle as the group begins to formulate their plan)

… And who, who knows if we'll succeed?

(Simon looks unsure, as he holds the little miniature of himself that Asha drew.)

But we- Won't stop and we won't retreat or turn round

Round

(Gabo notices the fear in his friend's eyes and offers these words of motivation)

Knowing what we know now Knowing what we know now

(They all sing together with Asha... All except Simon, as we see a shot focusing on him a bit far away from the group, smiling at them singing, but his eyes give away how he's trying to hide from the others how he's unsure if they're doing the right thing.)

… Hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo Hoo-ha-hoo-ha-hoo-ha Hoo-hoo-hoo

(We get a sequence showing small glimpses of the group making their plan, and we can see time passing as we transition from early morning to mid afternoon)

… Can they tell what we're becomin'? (Hoo) Hear it in the way we're drummin' (hoo) I was sweet but now I'm something else (oho) Yah, yah, yah, yah! (Hoo-hoo)

… Ain't it nice of us to drop in (hoo-ha) To take what's ours to take it back in? (hoo-ha) They think we're nothing (hoo) But we're something else! (Ha) Yah! (Hoo)

(In this sequence, the group already planned everything. The gang dances together, as Dario is now the only one on the instrumentals, Asha drew a bunch of drumming instruments for him to go crazy with... But the camera suddenly moves up, as we focus on Aster looking at the castle in the distance as the sun begins to set, and the star sings his verse.)

… I've seen too many bad things that I can't keep count (The sky) And land now both unite To fight (fight) Knowing what I know now Knowing what I know now (hoo-ha-hoo)

(Aster refers to all the bad things he has seen them do while he was in the sky, as well as all the bad things he could see inside Magnifico with his eyes. His expression as he sings is bold and serious, as if he can't stand all the injustices he has seen.)

… They shall see all of your stars (We are) Aligned by your own scars So profound (Ahh) Knowing what I know

(He's flies down and begins to sing looking at all the other teens, referring to THEM as stars, that have been aligned to fight this battle because of the scars that the king and queen caused)

… I know (hoo)

… I know (ha)

… We know now (hoo)

… Knowing what we know now

(And the song ends with them striking a group pose)

...

So we transition to the castle, as we get a scene of Magnifico and Amable in the throne room, with 4 guards lined up in front of them.

"So let me get this straight..." Magnifico speaks to the guards with his voice filled with frustration, as he's sitting on the throne with his hand on his forehead "After searching THE WHOLE NIGHT, none of your troops could find any sign of that girl, nor the star?" He glares at the guards in front of him.

The guards all seem nervous, but one steps in to say something

"W-we went as far into the woods as we could, your highness... But there were some setbacks."

"Setbacks?" The king pronounces the word like it disgusts him "What kind of setbacks are we talking about here?"

"Last night when we were searching... Some of our men could've sworn they heard voices and whispers, the likes of cursed spirits..." Another one of the guards begins to explain, he sounds frightened.

"I've heard some say that the trees attacked them!" Another guard adds in, also sounding just as scared

"And I experienced the most unbelievable thing!" Finally a third guard starts telling what he saw, and we get a quick flashback

We see the guard at night searching through the woods.

When suddenly the ground beneath him starts to shake and... A giant flower sprouts out of the ground and closes it's petals with him inside...

Our perspective in the flashback changes to Aster hiding in the branches of some trees, giggling quietly as the guard screams for his companions to get him out.

(So yeah, the whole night Aster was messing with the guards by asking the animals to whisper creepy things and giving life to the trees and so on... The Peter Pan vibes in him keep growing.)

End of flashback.

And we cut to Magnifico staring at them shocked, not shocked that those things happened, oh no, he knows exactly what those things really mean... He's actually shocked with how incompetent they are.

Magnifico stays silent for a moment... The guards are all standing up stiffly, waiting for what he'll say next.

"... he he ha aHAHAH AH HA AHAHAHA!" Magnifico lets out a laugh that echos through the room, the guards look nervous. The king turns to the queen sitting next to him, she's staring at the guards with a cold expression. Magnifico talks to her like he just heard the funniest joke in the world "Did you hear that, my sweet? Hah ah They retreated because of- aha hah- some scary little whispers, moving trees and a FLOWER! HA!-Ha ha ha-" The king's genuine sounding laugh descends into a fake, deep one, as he stands up holding his staff tightly. His expression is twisting from a smile to a furious scowl-

"You FOOLS!"

Using his staff, Magnifico attacks the guards with a lightning spell, the guards manage to escape it just in time. As they look to their king in horror.

"IDIOTS!"

He does so again, the four men are now running for their lives to the exit, but Magnifico slams the door shut with the snap of his fingers.

"IMBECILES!"

He summons a third lighting strike that barely misses them, as they're now cornered against the wall.

Magnifico marches towards them, his face is red with rage while his staff is glowing green, ready to attack them again at any moment.

"That was THE STAR'S magic! THAT MEANS HE WAS NEAR YOU!" He hits the staff on the floor, creating a loud clang of the metal against the marble, the white floor is now cracked. "WHY did your captain not alert me about this?! I gave him a mirror PRECISELY for him to tell me about ANY SIGN OF THE STAR!" The king exclaims to the four men cowering in fear in front of him.

His voice is loud but it's not hysterical, it's a booming and commanding tone that demands respect and attention.

They remain silent, trembling in their armor.

"WELL?" He insists for an answer to his question, threatening to attack them again.

One of them spills the beans "I- I heard a rumor this morning that he lost the mirror!..." The man immediately covers his own mouth, realizing what he just did.

Magnifico turns to the guard that said that, his face relaxes as he says "... Oh did he now?... How unfortunate." his voice sounds calmer now, but the sense of uneasiness is palpable... his staff stops glowing. "Well then. Congratulations men, it seems the captain's position will be vacant very soon." The king speaks calmly as he starts walking back to his throne "Who knows, if you don't disappoint me any further, one of you might even take his place."

The guards all shiver at that, not sure if the king means their captain would just lose his position... Or worse.

"That will be all for now. Dismissed." The king snaps his fingers and a large door opens, allowing them to leave. The four guards bow down before rushing out of there. Once they're out, Magnifico snaps his fingers again to close the door. "... UUUUUUGH What's the use of ruling a kingdom when you're surrounded by idiots?" He slumps down on his throne, sounding miserable as he vents to his wife.

The queen holds his hand, her previous serious expression is gone, replaced by a passionate gaze "Patience, darling. We'll have our star sooner than you think, I just know it." She says soothingly.

He kisses her hand before saying "So do I, my love... But you were right, as always. We can't rely on others to even tell us where that blasted star is. It's true what they say: if you want something done right, you must do it yourself." He gets up from the throne and starts walking to the exit "I'll go to the forest to get them myself." He stops on his tracks for a moment and turns back to his wife with a pondering look "Hmm... Say dear, would you prefer that I brought the girl dead or alive?" He asks her in a loving tone.

"Alive, I could use a test subject for my potions, but either way would be lovely." Amaya responds, smiling wickedly.

"Then I better be on my wAAY- " The king almost trips over on something when he was walking to the door, he looks down and it is- "BRAVO! Watch where you're going you little devil!" Magnifico berates their lynx.

Bravo looks up to the king unbothered by the screaming, and it seems like he did it on purpose, not to stop his owner from going out though... But because he wants to show them something.

The lynx let's out a growly meow as he looks to the king and starts walking to another room, after taking a few steps the feline stops and looks back at the king and queen, as if to ask if they're coming with

"... It seems he has something to show us." The queen says while rising up from her throne to follow her pet.

The king raises one eyebrow at that, not quite sure if that's worth his time. But he follows along either way.

The two royals follow their pet up the flight of stairs, until they reach the king's study next to the wishes room.

And on the table, they see a hand mirror, that looks just like the magic mirror from Beauty and The Beast. It's glowing with a green light.

"OH! So I guess he didn't lose the mirror after all. Well done, Bravo." Magnifico says as he pets the lynx's head, Bravo seems pleased. "Now, let's see if we get some good news today."

The king holds the handle of the mirror and begins to speak with whoever is trying to get in contact with him

"About time, O'Donohue! So, have you found the star ye-" The person trying to speak with him comes into view in the mirror, we're not seeing who it is yet, only the king's face of surprise and confusion when he sees who it is "You're not the captain..."

We still only focus on the king's face, as we hear a familiar voice coming from the mirror:

"Erm no... I'm his son, actually, I'm sorry for stealing this from him but... there's something I think you should know."

The king looks intrigued at the mirror, he's ready to listen.

...

And we cut to another scene-

(*Jumps on screen* I MIGHT write a small bonus chapter just to show you guys how THIS conversation went, because if this was a movie then we wouldn't see it, but I want you guys to know SIMON IS NOT A TOTAL JERK AS HE SEEMS! So like, if you guys really want it, I'll write a bonus scene showing what Magnifico and Simon talked about, like a deleted scene of sorts! Okay moving on!)

It's evening time, the sun is almost completely set. And we're back to the forest.

We see 6 of the teens, Asha and Aster all together around a camp fire, sitting on logs. There's a small pot above the fire with some mushroom soup that Dahlia prepared, she brought the pot it in her bag, and the other teens also brought bowls and eating utensils with them.

Asha has an empty bowl of soup next to her, she's already done eating. She's now focused on trying to draw something on her sketchbook, not paying much attention to what her friends are talking about. Valentino is sleeping next to her.

Meanwhile, Aster is staring at her with what can only be described as a teen absolutely smitten, resting his head on his hand as he admires her.

They're also “wearing” their human disguise, so he looks 3D like all the others, if it wasn't for his fancy looking clothes he'd blend right in with all the other teens.

The other teens are all sharing stories and venting about how they've actually always had their grievances with the king and queen, but they never told anyone because they thought others would think they were ungrateful.

"-And then, it only took me messing up my juggling act ONCE and the king howled with laughter, but he never laughed at all with my actual jokes- UGH I've always felt there was something off about him." Hal vented to her friends about her experience as one of the court jesters look.

"You think that's bad? I've lost count of how many times I've seen them complaining about my dad's food." Dahlia said while eating her soup with an angry face... But then she starts smiling as a joke comes to her head "Sometimes I felt like asking THEM to try cooking something for once... But I’m pretty sure if Magnifico got near an oven he'd self combust hahah" She laughs at her own comment

The others chuckle as well

Bazeema shyly chimes in with her own story "Once, my mother accidentally planted red roses in the garden, when the queen specifically asked for white ones, so my mom painted all of them white in secret, and the queen actually believed it hihihi" Bazeema giggles, finding the situation really absurd.

"... Wait, wouldn't that kill the roses though?" Asha asks, taking her face off her sketchbook for a moment.

"... Unfortunately, it did, but my mom said it was better to sacrifice some roses than to upset the queen." Bazeema explains a little sad for the roses "I managed to save a few of them though." the bashful girl adds with a hopeful smile.

Gabo cuts in with a smug look "Ya know, since we're competing to see who had the worst experience with the monarchs-"

"It's really not a competition." Safi corrects him

Gabo ignores him and continues to say casually "I'm pretty sure I heard Magnifico killing someone in the dungeons once."

Everyone turns to look at Gabo with eyes wide as tennis balls.

"... I’m sorry, you heard what?" Aster asks, in the same position he was sitting when staring at Asha, but with his head now turned to Gabo.

"Killing: The act of un-aliving something that was previously living-" Gabo proceeds to define the meaning of the word, like the star doesn't know what it means

"Wha- I- I know what the word means!" Aster says, annoyed that Gabo thinks he's THAT innocent.

"Sorryyy, I just can never guess what your galaxy brain knows and what it doesn't, few hours ago you asked what was the meaning of the word "Revolution"" Gabo said sarcastically.

"Ummm how about you stop mocking Aster and get back to what you were saying about the king, I feel that's kind of a big deal." Asha said seriously, placing her sketchbook next to her.

"Oh yeah, right right *ahem* this one time when I was a kid, I stole the dungeon's keys from my dad, cause I wanted to see how it was down there, ya know? Just give it a quick look" Gabo smiles as he starts narrating like he's telling a scary story "Then, I heard someone screaming behind a door, and I could see some green light coming from the keyhole, just like Magnifico's magic... then all of the sudden- CRACK" Gabo says loudly, scaring everyone, specially Bazeema "I heard the sound of something breaking... And the screaming stopped." He says sinisterly.

(Keep in mind the teens left when it started raining at the plaza, so they didn't see Magnifico almost break Asha's wish, had they seen that Gabo would probably connect the dots that what he heard was not a murder but an inmate having their wish broken)

"... You're making this up to scare us, aren't you?" Dahlia asks with an unimpressed look.

"NOPE! It's all true. I ran out of there so fast I almost lost my shoe, and I've been keeping this inside me for years. Joking about it is just how I cope." He explains quickly as he shrugs. He then turns to Dario with a smug "What about you D? Your dad's the royal announcer right? Did he or you see something you shouldn't?" He asks like he wants to hear more gossip.

Dario's face turns sad as he looks to the side, then he just signs:

"I rather not talk about it."

"Understandable, then how about you Si-" Gabo looks around and notices that there's only 8 of them in the circle

(ONLY?! Uhum, like coming up with dialogue for 8 people is easy, It's really not!)

"Hey, where's Simon? Did he even eat?" Gabo asks everyone.

"Sleeping, of course, he's inside the cave, has been there for a while in fact." Dahlia says pointing at the cave they were in up the hill.

"Ah, I should've guessed" Said Gabo rolling his eyes.

"Someone should go check on him before we're out of soup though." Asha mentions, worried that he doesn't have enough energy for when they go enact their plan.

"I'll get him!" Aster says excitedly, as he morphs from his human disguise form to his 2D animated real form, and starts floating so he can get there faster "Be back in a flash."

Aster flies to the cave quickly, when he's about to get in-

"AAAH!" Simon was already walking out of the cave holding his pillow close to him, he get's startled by the wishing star flying towards him.

Aster stops flying just in time before crashing on Simon "Oh good, you're awake! Come on, you should go eat with the others, can't break in a castle with an empty stomach, am I right? Hahah I wouldn't know though, I don't eat." Aster giggles.

But then they pay more attention to Simon's face and realizes... He doesn't look like he got any sleep at all, in fact... He looks scared... And it's not just because Aster just startled him.

"Hey Simon... You look kinda shaken up, did you have a nightmare or something?" Aster ask concerned.

Simon looks away from Aster, as he just holds his pillow tightly and starts walking to where his friends are "Nope, you just scared me. I'm fine." he says with his usual monotonous tone.

Simon is walking ahead while Aster is following him. Aster looks sad, he has been sensing that the gentle giant doesn't like him for some reason, he thinks for a moment, and an idea pops in their head:

"Ya knooow, if you're having trouble with nightmares, I can actually make dreams! If you'd like maybe I cou-"

"NO" The young man says sternly without looking at the star.

Aster is taken aback by that... He doesn't understand why Simon is acting so weird.

Simon takes a deep breath before he turns back to look at Aster, with a calmer tone "Sorry... I just-... I just really don't want you in my head, okay?" Simon says with a concerned look.

Aster thinks he understands the issue, Simon is just shy and the star has been breaking the "personal space" boundary that Asha told him about.

"Ooh I get it, you want privacy! Thats totally fine! Tell you what, I swear to you I won't use the magic in my eyes to look what your soul desires, deal?" Aster says reassuringly, hoping that'll make Simon like him more.

Simon just turns away from the star and says "... Deal."

Then he just walks to be with his friends.

Aster doesn't quite understand what's up with Simon... But it's probably just a human thing he doesn't know about yet.

The two join the others at the camp fire.

"Well hello there sleeping beauty, did prince sparkling wake you uuuup?" Gabo jokes as the two join in the circle.

"Will you ever call him just "Aster"?" Asha asks him while still trying to draw something on her sketchbook.

"As long as I have star related puns? Probably never." Gabo says with a cheeky smile.

"*sigh* Fair enough" Asha says smiling at her friend, knowing that's just how Gabo is. She then turns to Simon "So, did you sleep well Simon?"

Simon just sits down smiling as Dahlia hands him a bowl of soup

"*yaaaaaawn*... Not much actually, but I'm fine, don't worry. Promise I won't pass out during our plan... Heh heh" He says with an smile... That looks quite forced.

"He's totally gonna pass out guys, we're so screwed." Gabo jokes and a few of the teens snicker a little.

Hal is one of the ones who laughed a bit but still she stands up to defend Simon "Aw come on Gabo, don't be like that, yeah Simon may be a sleepy head, but he always been there to help us out when we need him, right big guy?."

Simon gulps his own soup with the face of someone who knows they've made a huge mistake.

"T-thanks Hal..." He smiles to her "Though I really wish I could do more t-"

Asha suddenly takes her face off her sketchbook to ask "Hey, by any chance did you girls bring a mirror?"

Simon almost chokes on his soup "MIRROR? HUH?? HOw-" He coughs a bit and tries asking more calmly "I mean haaha why would you need a mirror NOW, Asha? hah ha"

Asha and the others look at him confused by his weird reaction, but she brushes it off as Simon just being tired "I'm trying to figure out a way to draw myself perfectly... Call it a plan B I have in mind, for emergency." She winks as she shows some drafts of herself on the pages of the sketchbook. "But I'm not sure if they look quite right, I've never been that good with self portraits."

Hal has a big smile as she says "Heeeyyy I think I saw a river back there, you should try looking at your own reflection on the water!" she says, pointing to where she saw the river.

Asha smiles to her friend as she gets up "Great idea, I'll be right back. And after Simon is done eating and you guys get all your stuff organized we can get started on the plan." She says confidently

"Yeah yeah yeah best friend, go on! Go over there and draw your beautiful face, you can do it!" Hal pretty much rushes her to leave. And as Asha walks away Hal says quietly while looking at her get into the woods"... Aaaaaaand sheeeeee's faaaaaaar enough?... YUP" Hal jumps to sit next to Aster and asks "Alright Aster, come on, when are you telling her?"

Aster was distracted playing with the fire on a stick, but once he hears that he turns to Hal in confusion "Huh? When am I telling her what?" He asks curious tilting his head to the side.

"The thing anyone with eyes can see, you’re in love with her." Hal says with a smirk.

"............ I

WHAT?!"

Chapter 14

Final Thoughts

Guess what song we're getting neeeeeext!

Oooooh writing the 7 teens, how I’ve missed you, I love them so much! Poor kids went through so much.

Gabo is definitely the one I like writing the most, you guys can probably tell, I just love his sense of humor.

Can I just say that the funniest thing I ever came up with in this rewrite is that the answer to how they can defeat Magnifico COMES FROM SAFI??? LIKE?? THE CHARACTER THAT HAS HAD THE LEAST LINES AND ONLY PERSONALITY TRAIT IS SNEEZING??? THATS THE ONE WHO SAVES THE DAY?!? HECK YEAH!

That part when Magnifico is yelling at the guards is a DIRECT reference to the scene in Sleeping Beauty when Maleficent screams and zaps her minions with her staff by the way, like, the words “Fools, idiots, imbeciles” are exactly what she said. Magnifico is now a lot more of a short tempered kind of villain like Hades, while Amable is more like lady Tremaine or The Evil Queen, always cold when around others. But just you wait when they reencounter our heroes, oh the evil levels will go through the roof.

And I’m sure you guys are wondering what’s the heroes plan, right?… Yeah you’ll see :)

…. Oh and I need you guys to know that EVERYTHING bad that happens with our heroes from this point on is HIS fault, not mine!

👇

Thank You for Reading!

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ordinaryschmuck · 2 years ago

Text

Alright, last time ever that I’ll talk about Velma. I promise.

Because I’ve been extra salty towards this show all week, and I don’t want to take it further than that. Talking nothing but bad stuff about this show for the entirety of its run is exactly what the writers want. They want us to hate watch it so we can talk about each new atrocity the show brings up week after week, and call us haters or anti-woke propagandists. When, in reality, they don’t give a FUCK about any of that. They don’t care about other races, genders, or sexualities. They just WANT you to think they do. Know how I can tell? Because I’ve SEEN genuine attempts of representation.

THIS is a genuine attempt of representation. Matt Braly, the series creator of Amphibia and a Thai-American, felt like Thai culture was underrepresented in media. So, he not only made his main character and her Thai, but he also dedicated subplots and entire episodes showcasing the culture he wanted to represent.

THIS is a genuine attempt at representation. Dana Terrace, series creator of The Owl House and open Bisexual, wanted a main character that was explicitly bi to finally help kids feel like they’re seen. To help give the representation SHE always wanted.

But when I look at Velma? None of it hits the same.

This isn’t a genuine attempt for representation. This is Mindy Kuling turning a character into a self-insert to make herself look smarter than everyone else and the most important person in a narrative. Truth is, this Velma is nothing more than a sociopath, narcissistic dipshit who thinks she’s better than everyone else but is actually more aggravating than endearing.

So...Good job representing YOURSELF there, Mindy.

And this?

This isn’t representation. This is a shield.

A way to protect the show from any criticism because it couldn’t possibly be bad. They have gay characters! Gay characters are good in everything!

Except that is the LAST reason you should include gay characters! Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE more LGBTQA+ representation in media. What I don’t love is obvious attempts to pander to audiences just to avoid criticisms. And keep in mind, this is NOT the first attempt a creator wanted to make Velma gay.

James Gunn wanted to make her gay in the live action movie, but WB said no.

Scooby-Doo: Mystery Incorporated (the GOAT of the Scooby-Doo franchise) wanted to make Velma gay, but could only imply it because Cartoon Network didn’t greenlit Steven Universe yet.

THOSE are genuine attempts to make Velma gay, to represent people because the creators of both products agreed that it was the least they could do.

But making Velma and Daphne a thing just to protect a show is nothing more than shallow and inconsiderate of the hard fight dozens of people put up with for the sake of representation.

And, honestly, I’d be a little more forgiving if the writing in Velma was good. But it’s not.

Within the first minute, this show features...

Cockroaches having sex...

And fifteen year olds taking a shower to make a joke about how over-sexualized a series’ pilot can be.

First of all: FUCK YOU FOR MAKING ME FIND THIS SCREEN SHOT FOR A POINT!

Second: You lose every ounce of credibility that you actually care about people when one of the first moves you make in your series is to sexualize minors for the sake of a joke.

A joke that doesn’t make sense at that. Point me to a series pilot that’s over-sexualized. If you get more than ten, I’ll say you have a point. I won’t say that sexualizing minors to make it was a good thing, but I’ll at least say that, “Yeah. You’re right. So many pilots do this. SO STOP DOING IT!”

That’s the level of writing Velma has. And it’s why they have their “representation” to protect themselves. Meanwhile, you want to know the level of writing you’ll find in The Owl House and Amphibia?

Villains who prove that the most dangerous people are the ones who make the rules.

Jokes that are actually funny.

Likable main protagonists who are kind and caring to the people around them.

Protagonists who have heartfelt relationships with other great characters, to the point that it breaks your heart to see them leave each other.

And on top of that, actually good representation. But here’s the thing: The representation isn’t only genuine. It’s a bonus. Something great to add onto everything else the writers and the creators do right.

What it isn’t is an attempt to protect a show from what it does wrong.

And that’s it. That’s the LAST time I’ll ever talk about Velma. I really mean it this time.

Talking about this show past it’s premier is already more attention it deserves. And if you were smart, you would not only stop watching, but stop talking. The best attention to give something you hate is NO attention.

If you really want to waste time, waste it by watching something good, like The Owl House and Amphibia. They may be kids shows, but they have more maturity than a single second of Velma.

#velma series #velma series salt #the owl house #amphibia #luz noceda #anne boonchuy #cw: naked minors #cw: velma

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thesuperiorgenshinaddict · 6 months ago

Note

Can I ask for an Emily x reader from class of 09?

Emily x GN! Reader

AN: yo w i fuckin love emily. literally the goat. tbh i highly doubt emily would date anyone who's not actually at least mildly insane so i'm gonna make reader kinda fucked up yk :thumbsup: Pairing: Emily x GN! Reader Warnings: Drug use, Codependence, Unhealthy relationships, Violence, idk just expect similar shit to the stuff in class of '09

HCs:

The two of you met when you were trying to find a plug to hook you up with some Addy's. It was pretty fucking surprising that you hadn't gotten your hands on some already, but that was mainly because you didn't want to die on the side of the road after downing some fake laced shit.

Emily was apparently a solid dealer. Sold for decent prices and gave discounts to people she liked more and it was pretty easy to ask her. You literally just walked up to her locker with a wad of cash and she tossed you a half-empty pill bottle and talked with you for a hot minute.

Somehow, you managed to win her over by bitching about Ms. Ames once and the two of you spent a shit ton of time together. Like, a LOT of time. Skipping classes together, going to the mall and selling crack, even sleepovers (that had way too much tension to be considered platonic).

After she stopped taking her anti-psychotics, she went full on batshit. All the shit about Emily being actually insane that all the bitchy kids were talking about? Fuck, they weren't lying. Emily was defending you with her fucking life. Fucking Jeffrey called you the lamest insult known to man and she practically jumped that fuckass.

Even though you guys were literally saying 'I love you' to each other like, 9 times a day, she was just your friend. Supposedly anyway.

Honestly, you highkey started thinking that you'd be 'just friends' forever until her gang boyfriend got his old ass hands on a huge fucking package of crack. You told her to sell it because some dumbass middle schooler would probably pay their life savings for half a gram, but of course, she doesn't listen.

Normally this shit would be mild as fuck but her parents were acting up and being bitchy whiny fucks so Emily had the genius idea of snorting a concoction of whatever mystery substances she had on hand and like half the entire supply of coke.

She was fucking blasted as fuck and she had the dead fish eye shit going on when she just started being weirdly clingy and she gave a violent but oddly heartfelt confession. It was like highkey concerning because of the sheer number of threats she not so subtly inserted in but it was endearing in its own twisted way.

Her words were slurred and the entirety of the little speech she gave could be summarized as the same shit she told Nicole in that one route but more sociopathic sounding???

Anyway boom I'm gonna put HC's on what it's like dating her now.

She probably wouldn't bother telling anyone that you two are dating, but it's so obvious. Like, everyone knows.

If someone says one thing that can be taken as offensive in the slightest to you, Emily will fucking pounce on the asshole and curb stomp them. She'd act all nonchalant about it afterwards.

Since a ton of the other people in the school have beef with her, if you defend her and slander the shit out of them, she'll be super happy about it.

Free drugs. She's not worried about OD'ing at all and takes smoke breaks with you all the time when skipping.

You guys have sleepovers like, everyday. Not even an exaggeration at this point. If your parents or her parents try to tell her no, she curses them out. If they're being particularly bold, she goes through with the slashing tires shit and is on the verge of actually beating the shit out of them.

If you ever get her a gift that she actually likes, she's going to constantly flex it. Get her a nice necklace or something and she'll literally never take it off.

Choose your words carefully. She's going to get pissed as fuck if you say one thing that she considers harsh. Drabble time woohoo "...Fuck, this is totally laced." Emily groaned, leaning her face onto her palm. She ran her free hand through her hair. Diverting her gaze from blankly staring at the table, she stared at you and raised an eyebrow. She opened and closed her mouth as if she lost her train of thought before giggling and leaning closer to you. "I love you. Like, I love love you. I'd kill anyone who even dares to be a bitch to you. I'd kill myself if you asked me to." She nonchalantly says. Batting her eyes, Emily firmly tugs you closer to her. She coyly twirls her hair around her finger while pursing her lips — and she's like 2 centimeters away from violently making out with you. What do her lips taste like? Xanax probably. Fuck, she's actually so pretty. "You're not gonna say it back?" She pouts. She's clearly high off her ass right now. At this distance, you notice the little minute details, like how she painted her nails today and how her mascara's just slightly fucked up. With a hesitant 'I love you too', she digs her nails into your shoulders and pulls you in for a kiss. She's acting almost rabid and she desperately wraps her arms around your torso and breathes into your lips. Slipping her tongue in, she pushes you onto the couch and pins your shoulders down. After what feels like a long ass time, she parts the kiss and takes heavy breaths while staring down at you. "Can I stay the night at your place?" AN: lmfao sorry that took a lil while my internet was freaking the fuck out. anyway this was fun as fuck thank youuuu :3

#class of 09 #emily class of 09 #class of 09 emily

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ilynpilled · 1 year ago

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The thing about the hand loss and how people attach things behind it like “it was as a result of Jaime’s arrogance towards Hoat” or “he lost it because he saved Brienne from rape,” is that neither is true to what actually happens in the text. Those actions still hold meaning, sure, but the chop itself is also independent to it all (the maiming is symbolically karmic in a lot of ways as it is tied to his greatest sins, but that is not what i am talking about). The capture itself is different, but the right hand and his fate was doomed the moment he landed in Hoat’s hands for reasons out of his control. What is so good about it is that the hand chop is not really about Jaime as a human being (which makes it causing one of the biggest existential crises in the series all the more interesting), and more about Jaime as a token. Ironically, his status and relationship to his father is what ends up dehumanizing him entirely. There are so many things going on outside of Jaime. He is an integral political piece, every side is scrambling for him for different reasons, and he is fully treated as such in the Riverlands.

Hoat had his own motivation, that is much bigger than Jaime, due to his previous betrayal of Tywin, which turned into a death sentence following the results of Blackwater. As Roose implies throughout the dinner conversation, Jaime’s hand chop was, above all else, the result of Tywin and the ruthless foundation of much of his authority (the Reynes and Tarbecks are brought up again). And what I like about it, other than the emphasis on the players constantly making moves solely for their own benefit in war while everyone else suffers the consequences, is that it does address and criticize the Lannister method a whole lot. The hand chop almost feels less karmic for Jaime himself than it does for Tywin. It is another reason that I find the perspective that these books were heralding this kind of sociopathic ruthlessness as competent and uber effective while completely condemning the relatively more “moral” Starks so funny. Like without even getting into where we are headed in the aftermath of the WoT5K, the holes within the “Tywin method” are already being explored. And the results are creeping towards Tywin himself, invading his family, because it is his very heir that suffers directly from it. The more we move along in the story the more the distance lessens between him and his putrid actions to cement his authority and power. “I’ve lost a hand, a father, a son, a sister, and a lover, and soon enough I will lose a brother. And yet they keep telling me House Lannister won this war.” is a Tywin/House Lannister thesis when it comes to the events of ASoS. For a start, he is the one who brought in the Bloody Mummers. The cruelty he unleashes on the smallfolk ends up coming back to him directly through his heir being the one experiencing it full force. There is the layer of loyalty vs utilizing sellswords, which is one way the conflicting sides in the war foil each other, and it is a root cause of the betrayal to begin with. If you use these men, you can end up suffering the consequences yourself, loyalty can only be bought if you remain the highest bidder. Relying on greed is fragile. Then, the part that Jaime is repeatedly faced with throughout his narrative: fear ≠ trust.

Hoat is smart enough to realize by now that his betrayal will not be pardoned by Tywin. Jaime’s offer means nothing in terms of his safety. He is aware of his low status and the meaning of his action to Tywin. That is what truly dooms Jaime and his hand. Hoat needed that token, and he needed to secure a path for himself (without losing his token along the way to Roose) to the Karstarks. He made sure that he brought Roose down with him, and put him in a difficult situation. Sure, Jaime’s skill itself is a huge threat and liability, but that is not the primary motivator. It is his sole ticket to safety from Tywin’s ruthlessness.

Then the goat gets outsmarted by Roose, and Jaime catches on to that part, so Hoat does take the L ultimately I fear, but these layers remain and it adds a lot. I also like how in ASoS, Jaime’s status is constantly fluctuating between dooming him and saving him. It often depends on how clever he is being in the moment.

#i do not do this type of analysis that much but i do like that dinner convo a whole lot #and it does certainly get overshadowed by the fact that it happens after the bath confession #valyrianscrolls #jaime lannister #roose bolton #tywin lannister #and then j becomes another ticket for roose instead 😭#honestly being tywin’s heir and what it puts jaime through is incredibly funny considering the aerys hostage situation and all this #also love love how roose is playing w his words #like his sentences are layered and carefully chosen #and all so deliberate #i mean this scene is very much about the red wedding

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jurijyuu · 3 months ago

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Scratch an Itch Chapter 27: Fool Me Once

Link to full chapter on AO3

Ynna’s POV

Two days. You hadn’t left your room in two days. Hunger, both regular and infernal, gnawed at your insides as you sat curled in a ball by your window. While Charlie and Angel brought you food, you ignored their concerned urging. This was punishment, after all. Punishment for your foolishness, for trusting so freely, for taking Alastor’s sudden interest in you for granted in the beginning.

For still wishing you could hear his soft old timey music and humming white noise right now.

God, you’re pathetic.

You should have known when he struck that deal that he didn’t view you as any exception to his tricks. No. You knew. You just chose to ignore it. Alastor had always been a psychopath, willing to undermine and torture others for the sake of entertainment. Beneath the seemingly effortless charm lay a monster and just because he moved with grace and breathtaking elegance, considerate and attentive care with you, it didn’t mean that he couldn’t turn his monstrosity against you still.

You should have known when he gave you that blood potion, created from self-harm just so he could lessen your pain. What it symbolized, a selflessness within that sociopathic mind, allowed you to accept his twisted nature so long as he sincerely cared about you. But he never cared, did he? Not truly. Not enough to put the sanctity of your body over his ever hungry craving for something to stimulate his sick mind.

You understood all this now, in the calm after all your tears had been cried. While most of the fault lay with the one who conspired against you, it was also fair to share some of the blame for being too naive and trusting. However, understanding all of this didn’t stop the deep-seated anger and sadness that he cut into your heart with each dish he admitted to tampering. In fact, it only made it worse.

A laughing smile and a wink as he delivered the punchline. A light nudge to make sure you didn’t step on shit. The unforgiving curve of his back as sharp eyes smirked at you.

Pathetic.

Leaning against the cool window pane, your faint reflection mimicked your sighs. Maybe if you sat under the windowsill, you could grow roots and survive the rest of eternity on water and photosynthesis. That seemed fitting since it was your stupid mouth that got you into this mess.

Alastor’s POV

It was only the second day of Ynna’s self-imposed isolation but he already ran out of excuses to pass by her doorway just to see if this time, he could chance upon her emerging. Only a little over 48 hours and his promise to wait for her already seemed a bite too big for him to chew. And yes, he had meant to use a food-related saying. Food and dining were all he could think of when it became clear that Ynna was not only rejecting everyone’s company, but she was also rejecting her meals.

As an individual who shared his love of food, starving herself was too drastic of a move. Even when it made her queasy, the goat would still eat because her appetite wasn’t one to be ignored. It was one of the things he adored about her. Was she rejecting her meals because he was the one who cooked them? The thought stung more than it should have though her lack of trust in his entrees and snacks was understandable.

He tried not to fret, not to appear to be fretting. Not in front of the princess and her worried questions or Vaggie and her angry accusations. He had no desire to share details of their quarrel to anyone. It was just that he heavily disapproved of this act of self-harm.

He stared at the closed door for another moment, seeing the shadows subtly move in the crack under the doorway. She was still in there, moving about, pacing, it seemed. There was that, at least. She hadn’t thought to run away or get drunk out of her mind again. She still seemed healthy enough from what little he could gather without crossing anymore of her boundaries. It would be so easy to send his shadow to watch her but that would be another invasion upon her that he couldn’t afford.

Perhaps, tomorrow; tomorrow he could see his dearest.

#hazbin hotel #hazbin alastor #alastor x reader #hazbin hotel fanfiction #alastor x you #ao3 writer #ao3 fanfic

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brucebocchi · 11 months ago

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Ranking every new anime I watched in 2023, Pt. 2: #20-11

hey, i just started a ko-fi for my writing and possible other creative outlets. this post will also be available there, so please check it out and consider tipping/donating as i'm currently between jobs. the tumblr version of part 1 can be found here.

Let's get right into it.

20. Helck

I watched Helck’s first season for its entire half-year run, and I'm honestly still not sure how I feel about it. I’d heard amazing things from people who’d read the manga, and it had a hot start, but the pacing slowed to such a crawl after a while that it kind of felt like they stretched out the story just so they could make another season.

Helck, an enormous and impossibly jolly human warrior, enters a tournament to decide the successor to the throne of the recently-slain Demon King. Demons and humans had been at war for some time, so Vermilio, an adorably fiery elite lord of the castle, is naturally wary of him. Helck is naturally powerful, talented, and affable, so he easily breezes his way through the tournament in hilarious fashion, despite Vermilio’s best efforts at sabotage. Before the finals can take place, though, an immortal army sent by the human forces arrive to attack the demon realm, and Helck and Vermilio are teleported to the far edge of the realm.

The season largely covers Helck and Vermilio’s trek back to the demon kingdom, as well as the demons’ struggles against the mysterious warriors as they attempt to figure out just what the hell the humans are plotting. Vermilio remains leery of Helck, regardless of all he’s done for her, but it becomes further evident that Helck is harboring a very dark past, and eventually we get a lengthy arc where he sits down and explains it to Vermilio in flashback. There is, as you’d expect, plenty of tragedy there, and you’d like to see it resolved, but things just seem to keep getting worse.

There are powerful messages in there about toxic positivity and fighting the urge to shoulder one’s burdens alone, but they don’t become fully apparent until late in the season. Everything until then, at least after the teleportation, is… fine. I had higher hopes for this one, but it just feels like it’s missing something, and I can’t put my finger on what. It looks fine, the voice acting is good (the GOAT Katsuyuki Konishi is typically very good as Helck), the action is decent, it’s all… fine. The pacing just feels glacial at times, to the point where if I hadn’t been watching it weekly I might have bounced off of it.

Of course, the season ended with what appears to be the endgame on the horizon, so for all I know there’s still a lot more to come, but the story beats feel so familiar that I get the feeling it could be resolved with, like, a movie. I hope I’m wrong, because there are clearly some major emotional payoffs yet to come, and I’m still curious to see how it gets there. I may have to pick up the manga to find out if it’ll be worth any more of my time.

19. Urusei Yatsura (2022), second cour

Fresh off of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure’s possible series finale, David Production’s modern take on Rumiko Takahashi’s legendary comedy manga hummed along nicely into 2023. The cast continues to expand as the new version introduces characters like Ten, Ryunosuke, and Tobimaro to further raise the level of shenanigans inherent to Urusei Yatsura.

Lum Invader has been a sex symbol for pretty much as long as anime has had sex symbols, but the reboot’s second cour focuses a bit more on the side of her personality that makes her so iconic, and which I consider essential to several of my favorite female anime characters: Lum’s kind of a psychotic asshole. Her schemes to wring more attention and affection out of Ataru border on sociopathic at times, and she’s honestly so real for that. Her mortal frenemy, Ran, was introduced close to the end of the first cour, and there is still no shortage of sabotage attempts in the second, but we quickly come to learn that Ran’s undying vendetta is mostly because Lum has been a selfish, lying piece of shit since they were kids. God bless her.

Ataru continues to not be much better, serial philanderer that he is, as he continues to be surrounded by other hot crazy ladies who aren’t his not-fiancee. Mendo’s younger sister, Ryoko, is a real highlight in the 2023 run as a result of her escalating penchant for Looney Tunes-esque slapstick violence. The settings of Ataru’s and Lum’s respective worlds take more focus as well, between Ataru’s high school hijinks and Ten’s galactic mail-order mishaps, and the two often collide in hilarious fashion.

I still adore the look of this one. Character models have been cleaned up and simplified to a sort of retro-modern look while still being instantly recognizable to anyone already familiar with them. Everything is awash in an eye-popping Day-Glo color palette. Backgrounds and pop-in gags are often adorned with Ben Day dots to maintain the retro comic look. This doesn’t quite look like the manga, nor does it resemble the original 80s anime, but this is unmistakably a Rumiko Takahashi product. It almost looks like it could have come out at any point in time.

I’m only holding this back in the rankings because it’s the weaker half of a season that straddled the end of 2022 and the start of 2023, but the season as a whole is excellent. It is an essential watch for fans of comedy anime, especially considering so many tried-and-true anime gags effectively originated with Urusei Yatsura (it’s worth mentioning that Lum is largely considered the first-ever tsundere in anime and manga). Season 2 is imminent and I cannot fucking wait. Maybe I’ll even read the manga.

18. Tomo-chan is a Girl!

This is basically Monthly Girls’ No-jock-i-kun. Very simple premise: Tomboyish high schooler gets the hots for her childhood friend who is dense as fuck and forgets most of the time that she’s even a girl. Hilarity ensues and romance progresses glacially.

The voice performances are what really carry this one. Rie Takahashi is golden as the titular Tomo Aizawa, and this was the first entry in an MVP-caliber resume for her in 2023 that was so stacked that I still haven’t gotten to her best role yet. Rina Hidaka nails the conniving, misanthropic nature of Misuzu Gundo in a far cry from her turn as Emul the bunny in Shangri-La Frontier later in the year. The American-born idol Sally Amaki is a revelation as the airheaded gaijin Carol Olston, whom she also voices in the English dub. Even Carol’s mom speaks broken Japanese with a noticeable American accent, which is one of my favorite gags in the whole show.

Outside of the voice acting, nothing is particularly special about this show. Which is fine! There's nothing wrong with a solid 7/10 romcom; junk food is still food. It’s cute, it’s funny, it hits all the right beats, but nothing particularly stands out. Misuzu and eventually Carol give Tomo advice to try to woo her bestie Jun, while Misuzu is usually also playing Jun against that same advice so that it usually works and backfires at the same time. It’s all a game, and she plays both sides so she can always come out on top.

If I have a complaint about this show, it’s that it just… ends. I went back and read the manga, and unfortunately that issue is not the anime’s fault. If anything, it did a phenomenal job of fitting eight volumes of a 4-koma into a single season, and that’s always how it was supposed to go. I watched and read a ton of slice-of-life romance anime and manga this year, as it turns out, and the ones that really hit for me are usually the ones that take their time with the central relationship once it actually starts, rather than treat that big event as the climax, or worse, the finale of the story. Stuff like Kaguya-sama, Horimiya, Sweat and Soap, and even Wotakoi (though I have my own problems with that one) treat their central relationships as a step, not the goal. At the same time, for plenty of others, the fun is in the chase, and they just run out of time, and Tomo-chan is the latter. We got what we wanted, and we had fun getting there. Sometimes that’s all you need.

Also good god, Tomo’s mom. The second those genes kicked in for Tomo, Jun was doomed.

17. The Eminence in Shadow, second cour and season 2

The Eminence in Shadow is the smartest piece of stupid media I've seen in a minute. It so perfectly skewers dime-a-dozen chuunibyo isekai trash while still cannonballing into a McDuckian swimming pool of the stuff. It nearly overwhelms you with lore; the series abounds with rich backstories, centuries-old power struggles, palace intrigue, shadowy conspiracies, the artificially accelerated march of progress, long-simmering revenge plots, looming economic catastrophe, and love dodecahedrons. And the most compelling thing about all of it is that none of it fucking matters.

Cid Kagenou spent his teenage years in modern Japan trying to become the coolest badass dark antihero who ever lived, but he quickly reaches his limits in our boring normal world so he rides the isekai truck into a world with actual, like, magic and shit. He spends his new childhood leveling up and rescuing elf girls, all the while regaling them with his “wisdom” in the form of a bunch of horseshit he made up based on all the light novels he used to read. Turns out that he’s entirely too genre savvy; this new world is apparently so contrived that every single thing he told them ended up entirely true.

So now Cid’s a teenager by day and shadowy vigilante by night (under the apt moniker “Shadow”), with an underground legion of hot deadly babes at his disinterested beck and call. All he genuinely cares about is looking and acting like the coolest motherfucker a socially inept 12 year old boy can think of, and in his downtime actively trying to be a forgettable mob character. And I do mean that that is all he cares about; when I say none of the wheels within wheels happening in the background actually matter, I mean that Cid is completely and totally unaware of any of it.

Anything he does or says to drive the plot is either incidental or accidental. He spouts off some nonsense he heard in a video game once, and his cadre of elf baddies and beastgirls takes it as gospel en route to exposing a millennium-old conspiracy. He parrots a really cool line he heard ten minutes ago and a beautiful woman he just saved takes it as inspiration to turn her life around. It’s kind of like in Mashle, funnily enough; where Mash will go “I don’t know what’s going on, but you were being mean to my friend so I’m gonna beat the shit out of you,” Cid is more like “No clue what this is about, but that’s a really badass looking villain, so I’m gonna say some epic shit and do a big explosion.” And then he fucks off to go eat a burger or something, not knowing or caring that he just unraveled a prophesied master plot to destroy the global power balance.

The episodes that aired in 2023 largely revolve around the lovely Princess Rose, smitten with both Cid and Shadow (not knowing they’re the same guy), pledging fealty to Shadow Garden after failing to foil a coup d’etat. At the same time as her training, Cid is busy with a vampire something-or-other and then tries to make some coin for himself by teaming up with an assassin hellbent on revenge to create a credit crisis. The conspiracy later drags Rose back into the palace, where Cid sees a new opportunity. Every single one of these things has very specific reasons for happening, and everyone involved has a rich backstory and clear motivations to carry out their parts of the ever-evolving plots.

But that’s not why you’re here. You’re here to watch a bunch of hot ladies and a guy in a black cloak with one glowing red eye do some sick action stunts to bad guys with silly names, and this show delivers that in spades. This feels like a throwback in the best and worst ways. The Eminence in Shadow is stupid, and it is brilliant.

16. Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation, season 2

Mushoku Tensei is a tough anime to talk about. On one hand, it is one of the most gorgeous anime series ever put on television: Almost consistently movie-quality sakuga, lush background art, and a breathtaking score come together to form an immersive world unlike many I’ve seen in any medium. On the other, it forces some very unpleasant conversations about reincarnation in anime, particularly ones like this where a grown man is reincarnated as a child while retaining his mental age and is surrounded by potential love interests closer in age to his new body. What doesn’t help is that in his previous life in our world, the man who would reincarnate as Rudeus Greyrat was a socially isolated hentai addict, and much of his journey centers around him unlearning those proclivities in unfortunate and often damaging ways. If you can handle that, Mushoku Tensei is a rewarding watch, but if that’s beyond the pale to you, I don't blame you in the slightest.

However, even if you’ve been able to stomach all of the questionable shit in the first season, I'm sorry to say that the second season’s first cour doesn’t do much for the “bro I promise he gets better bro” crowd. The first cour covers the Quagmire and Academy arcs, which follow Rudeus’ struggle with being effectively abandoned by the only person to show him any physical affection in either life. The knock-on effect sees him retreating into an antisocial shell and developing, and I am deadly serious here, a seemingly incurable case of erectile dysfunction.

The first few episodes surround Rudeus growing into a young man, making a name for himself as a wandering adventurer in hopes that talk of his name will spread to his missing family and friends. At the urging of the god with a direct line to him (still unexplained), he enrolls in a magic university to investigate the calamity that flung his loved ones to the corners of the realm. There he finds an old friend in the figure-obsessed young prince who saved his life in the previous season, a girl from his previous world who seems to have also been transported to this one, and most crucially, his old childhood friend Sylphiette, hiding in plain sight with new hair and a sick pair of shades as a retainer to a scheming princess enrolled in the school.

Mushoku Tensei's initial season was at its best in its quieter moments, and those abound in season 2’s first cour. It's really lovely seeing him connect once again with Sylphie purely for who she is, even though for all Rudy knows he’s talking to a twinky dude named Fitz who makes him feel weird things. We get our amazing action animation early on, and things settle down quite a bit from there as Rudeus navigates all of these interpersonal relationships, old and (seemingly) new.

And while, yes, this version of Rudeus is a far cry from the drooling, grinning pervert he was in his first ten years of reincarnation, his improvement as a human being is not a straight line. He unfortunately takes more steps backwards than forward. The things he says in a drunken rage about his party member Sara (who inadvertently revealed his ED) are awful and undeserved, he literally ties up and gropes a pair of beast girls from his class (he has apparent reasons for both of those things, but come on), and he “frees” a young dwarven slave to take on as an apprentice. That last one seems admirable on its face, but uh. He went with the flow in a god damned slave market and still paid a slaver.

I'm not excusing those things, nor absolving Rudeus as a character; I'm simply saying they happen this season. Mushoku Tensei, for better or for worse, depicts gnarly subject matter as it is while neither glorifying it nor moralizing about it. It trusts you to make your own judgments, and if your verdict is “I can’t watch this show,” that is perfectly valid. If you can stomach watching through its worst moments and compartmentalize the uncomfortable aspects of it, Mushoku Tensei remains one of the best-looking and -sounding pieces of animation out there, and the part of its second season that aired in 2023 has an exceptional emotional payoff. Otherwise, I'll be talking about Frieren much later.

15. Spy x Family, season 2

The most succinct praise I can give season 2 is also the most backhanded: Well, it’s more Spy x Family.

I want to be clear that there is no shade inherent to that comment; the first season of Spy x Family was excellent! It was a stylish, beautifully animated, appropriately hilarious adaptation of a fantastic manga that did it justice in almost every regard; the second season didn’t need to move heaven and earth to try to one-up it. It wasn’t broken, so Wit and CloverWorks didn’t fix it. It’s still the blend of domestic slice-of-life hijinks, tense cold-war intrigue, and heart-pounding action it’s always been. Even the production music is largely the same, and that’s not a complaint, because SxF’s production music fuckin' slaps.

A lot of anime-onlys rightfully complained that Yor’s plot relevance seemed to fall off a cliff in the back half of season 1, so they have been eating GOOD this time out, as season 2’s (ostensible) first cour puts her directly in the spotlight. The Yor Cour, if you will. The season opened on a hilariously spot-on adaptation of my favorite Yor-centric chapter of the manga (the “bullet in the ass” one) and quickly moved on to a nearly perfect interpretation of the cruise arc that sees her protecting a government asset from a legion of assassins.

If you wanted to see more of Yor in her second life as the contract killer, Thorn Princess, this season was a meal and a half for you. Having her beset on all sides by an eccentric rogues’ gallery, with Anya fully aware and trying her damnedest to keep Loid from finding out what’s actually going on, is Spy x Family at its best. The tension constantly ramps up as the ship approaches its target, and Anya’s attempts at distracting Loid usually go sideways because, well, she’s Anya. Blood splatters, laughs are had, and Loid continues to struggle with both fatherhood and acting like his growing affection for his ragtag “fake” family is just “for the mission.”

Outside of the cruise, season 2 maintains the series’ usual episodic pace, which can be a little jarring before and after the cruise arc, but that’s SxF for you. Shit can pop off at unexpected moments, and having read ahead in the manga, I’m excited to see the next time that happens. For now, though, things can feel kinda static from time to time, but the Forger family and the extended cast are always pleasant to just hang out with for a while.

And now to wait for the movie to come out in the west.

14. Undead Unluck

Up until this past Winter season, I primed myself on a lot of the more-hyped anime by reading the manga ahead of time. I knew that Undead Unluck is one of the bigger Shonen Jump manga out there, but this debut kind of crept up on me. I went in blind, got drawn in by the premise, and then got quickly overwhelmed with a wild amount of lore.

Fuuko, a young woman seemingly afflicted with a curse, is saddled with a brash, enormous man who cannot die after he foils her suicide attempt and is then himself grievously injured. Don’t worry, he got better. It turns out that he’s roughly 200 years old and has a completely cracked healing factor, while she brings terrible misfortune to anyone who touches her skin. They are both Negators, people with the ability to reverse or ignore the laws of nature: Fuuko’s ability is Unluck, causing tragedy for those close to her, while the man is Undead, exactly what it says on the tin. The man, who cannot remember his own name, believes their meeting to be kismet: If she can bring death to her loved ones, he vows to woo her so she can deliver the death he’s sought for so long. I promise this is a comedy.

Fuuko and Andy (whom she named as shorthand for the Japanese pronunciation of “undead”) foil a series of assassination attempts by other Negators, and take their spots as part of the Union eliminating threats to the universe. They team with an eclectic group, whom we’re still getting to know as of the end of the first cour, as they trot the globe to complete quests given to them by a mysterious (and seemingly nefarious) talking book lest the universe incur penalties for their failure.

The power system among Negators is one of the most inventive I've seen, with each one able to cancel out a specific element of the natural order of the world, and it’s a blast learning how each new one works. Andy in particular is wild; because he can regenerate himself so quickly, his weapon of specialty is his own body, never hesitating to use his own fingertips as bullets and his own gushing blood as a propulsion mechanism. He also has no compunction towards taking on the worst of Fuuko’s Unluck ability, often sacrificing himself to get hit by lightning or falling debris to deal damage to an enemy. Every new Negator power introduced adds a new wrinkle to the way this world works and the different shapes its action can take. Others can freeze matter into suspended animation, force people to act opposite their own intentions, or even subvert someone’s entire belief system. I cannot wait to see what else is in store.

The first cour’s pacing is a little off, and Andy's behavior towards Fuuko in the first couple episodes is nothing short of gross (I promise that eases up), but you can see the show finding its footing as it goes on. Shonen Jump series don’t last for nearly 200 chapters and counting by accident, and I'm excited to see where this goes.

13. NieR: Automata Ver. 1.1a

Those of us who played Yoko Taro’s 2017 masterpiece approached the announcement of an anime adaptation with some trepidation: So much of what made Nier Automata so outstanding and so beloved is that much of the delivery of its narrative is inherent to the fact that it’s a video game. How can a video game known for pushing against the fourth wall of the unique elements of its very medium be faithfully adapted as an anime?

The choice of studio was also concerning: Though A-1 has produced a ridiculous number of excellent series (and some aggressively mid ones that were nonetheless very successful), its track record with video game adaptations has been far less than stellar. The latter three films in the Persona 3 adaptations were solid if uneven, and the Valkyria Chronicles anime seems to have been well-received, but the same can’t be said of A-1’s takes on Ace Attorney, Persona 4 Golden, or Persona 5. Regardless, Yoko himself was heavily involved in the anime’s production, so if they could keep on budget and schedule, Nier Automata would have a fighting chance.

And while there indeed ended up being massive and likely unpredictable production delays, I'd say they’ve done almost as good of a job as they could have so far. While the first cour mainly covers Automata’s A and B routes, it does much more than just play that part of the story straight; it also takes the time to incorporate other elements of the Nier canon. A surprising amount of time is dedicated to the canon introduced in the YoRHa stage play (and by extension the Pearl Harbor Descent Record manga); Lily and the android resistance are woven directly into the narrative far beyond the vague overtures the game makes in their direction. Ver 1.1a also ties the history of the original Nier into the story at unexpected and intriguing (and in my case, tear inducing) moments.

Unfortunately, it’s still too soon to assess this series in its entirety. While too many people who played Nier Automata stopped after route A or B, there is still much more of this story to come. There was some very sloppy CGI integration in the first episode when it aired, but far from enough to put me off the series. For now, it’s a treat for Nier fans, but I’m not sure whether I can recommend it yet to people who are unfamiliar with the source material.

Until the anime is completed, go play Nier Automata. It’s one of my favorite games of all time.

12. Kaguya-sama: Love is War -The First Kiss That Never Ends-

This was a late 2022 theatrical release, but it didn’t see western release until this year and was split into a four-episode mini-season for streaming, so I'm counting it for this year. You can deal with it.

I got completely obsessed with Kaguya-sama early this year, and in record time. I binged the anime and the manga in the span of a couple weeks and irreversibly fell in love. I say with no reservation that it is the best romantic comedy, in any medium, of the 21st century. It nails both the romance and the comedy in equal measure; the characters are perfectly realized right down to the supporting cast, the dynamics between them are carefully considered and consistent with their personalities regardless of circumstance, and every emotional and comedic beat hits exactly as it’s meant to. There is a constant momentum moving the greater plot along, even in the smaller moments, and seismic shifts take over before you’ve even noticed they’re happening.

It’s rare for romcom manga adaptations to stay on the air long enough to actually reach the romantic payoff, and Kaguya-sama fucking nailed it in season 3. Well, we’re pretty sure it did; the central conceit of the psycho-romantic warfare between Kaguya Shinomiya and Miyuki Shirogane is that they’re both chronic overthinkers and won’t accept any romantic undertones or overtures in any form but an explicit confession. So while the finish to season 3 is everything we wanted as an audience, these two dorks still sense a margin for error. Regardless, that would have been a perfectly acceptable place to end the anime.

HOWEVER, the Ice Queen Kaguya arc that follows in the manga is iconic, and A-1 was absolutely right to adapt it. Although Shirogane is ready to move forward with the relationship that (he’s pretty sure) they’ve both wanted for a long time, Kaguya has a crisis of personality and inadvertently reverts to the dead-eyed, emotionally walled-off version of herself he’d initially met, well before either of them had realized they’d fallen in love with one another. The interstitial omake preceding this arc in the manga has Aka Akasaka warning the reader that in order to counteract the massive emotional payoff that just happened, the ensuing chapters would get very, very silly.

And of course, hijinks do indeed ensue; this is Kaguya-sama, after all. But before you realize it, the story is neck deep in Jungian psychology as self-doubt begins to plague Kaguya and Miyuki and they struggle with the faces they think they need to put on for the other and whether their “real” selves even deserve to be loved by the person they idolize. It gets heavy! I cried every time I watched it! And that first time was in a damn movie theater!

I’m much more comfortable appraising First Kiss as a mini-season than as a movie, because frankly, it doesn’t work as a movie. The animation, while maintaining the series’ standard of excellence, isn’t a single degree better than what aired on television, which can be disappointing upon a visit to the theater. The pacing is also off for a feature film; the common knock upon theatrical release was that it felt like four episodes stitched together (it even has the omake-style interludes between scenes, like the show). The arc also focuses very heavily on Kaguya and Miyuki specifically, so the ensemble cast I mentioned earlier does have to take a backseat. Splitting this up for streaming and televised release was the right move here.

Season 3 would have been a very good ending for this series if it never got picked up for the movie. If it doesn’t get picked up for a proper fourth season, this is the perfect place for it to end. The manga has now been adapted up to just past the halfway point, and the next best stopping point would have to wait until a possible, like, fifth season. And that arc in question, while it does have some iconic moments, is very uneven. If this is all we’re getting, we’ve gotten plenty already, and I am satisfied.

If you've watched the first three seasons of Kaguya-sama, you owe it to yourself to watch The First Kiss That Never Ends. It is nearly everything you could ask for. Also, read the manga if you haven’t already. It’s genuinely one of my favorite things I've ever read.

11. The Apothecary Diaries

This one is basically House M.D. set in the Ming Dynasty, and it fucks.

Maomao, an apothecary raised in a pleasure district near the palace of a fictional East Asian empire, is shanghaied (pun intended) into menial work in said palace. She hears tell of a supposed curse plaguing the emperor’s newborn children and the concubines that birthed them, quickly deduces that it may be poisoning, and discreetly leaves a message for the ailing new mothers. She’s found out by an impossibly beautiful young administrator named Jinshi, who quickly deduces that she’s one of the few literate peons in the rear palace, and he puts her to work in the pavilion of the concubine that heeded her advice.

With her knowledge of, resistance to, and slightly masochistic infatuation with various poisons, Maomao slots right in as an attendant and poison tester to one of the emperor’s embattled concubines. Often at Jinshi’s urging (even though she immediately gets the ick at his habitual flirting), Maomao finds herself investigating deaths, mysterious ailments, and strange behaviors, on top of the foreign world of palace politics. Though she’s a deeply jaded person who only seems to care for her special interests, Maomao is incredibly perceptive and often able to suss out the finer details others miss.

Surprisingly, this one is a really breezy watch, and much funnier than you might expect. For all its lush environs, slowly-mounting intrigue, and often stunning cinematography, The Apothecary Diaries isn’t afraid to get a little silly with it. The dialogue is snappy, quick gags abound in a familiar single-panel chibi style you wouldn’t expect in a setting like this, and Komi-esque cat ears spontaneously pop up from Maomao's head whenever her interest is piqued. Interactions between Maomao and Jinshi are always a hoot, and you can pretty quickly figure out where it’s going, although Maomao can’t because she’s still pretty sure Jinshi is a eunuch.

As she does in virtually every role in her dozen-plus years as a seiyuu, Aoi Yuuki crushes it in the starring role. She really nails the disaffected cynicism that animates most of Maomao’s internal monologue and sarcastic dialogue, as well as her hair-trigger glee when presented with her personal interests in food and drink, medicinal herbs, and of course, poison. Yuuki is an indispensable element in ensemble casts like One Punch Man, Persona 5, Nier Automata, Wotakoi, and the aforementioned KamiKatsu (as well as others I don’t plan on watching like My Hero Academia, Rent-a-Girlfriend, and The Seven Deadly Sins), so it’s especially nice to hear her in a spotlight role outside of the odd Madoka Magica, spider isekai, or Cyberpunk Edgerunners.

There are a handful of anime on this list that will be continuing or returning in January, and second only to my #1 anime this year, this is the one I’m most excited to see more of. At time of writing, the show appears to be shifting in a new direction, and I’m hoping to see it take less of an episodic pace.

Part 3 is on the way! I'm going to split my top ten into two more posts, because I ended up writing... a lot more than I'd expected.

#anime reviews

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coffinsister · 1 year ago

Note

If it's not to much to ask, what did you have on your coffin playlist? And if you're taking suggestions, I would say Annabelle by creeper fits

Here is Soleil's Ultimate List of Coffincest Songs, that I could actually remember, that I put together this morning just for u Anonnie !!!!

If I say Where you at - Ayesha Erotica do I get shot mid-sentence or after finishing the sentence

I was really close to including ManEater - Nelly Furtado here but besides the title and the You wish you never ever even met me at all line it doesn't really fit them lol

Cannibal - Kesha

Someone Gets Hurt - Mean Girls Musical

(You wanna click this link you wanna click it so so bad)

An Unhealthy Obsession - Synthetic Orchestra

Obsessed With You - The Orion Experience

Stalker's Tango - AutoHeart

Kuroneko No Tango

Masochism Tango - Tom Lehrer

(Click on this link click on this link click on this link)

Love Me Dead - Ludo

I Love You Like An Alcoholic - The Taxpayers

No Children - The Mountain Goats (This is very Decay route of their part)

Sex With A Ghost - Teddy Hyde

In my Room - Insane Clown Posse (Lowkey Cementary Girl fits them too)

Sadistic Vampire - Meri Yapura

Magnet by them is also pretty good I think (Btw I need everybody to know that the guy voice here is how I think Andrew sounds like, I have many approved votes of reference for this.)

Sociopath (Lol this one is just ASPD Ashley propaganda but also Decay Route vibes)

Romance is Boring - Los Campesinos

Normal People Things - LoveJoy

Pacify Her - Melanie Martinez

505 - Artic Monkeys

Crazy Girls - TOOPOOR

You're So Creepy - Ghostown

Diablo - (This Song is Decay Route Ashley to me)

This Is Love

Me and My Husband - Mitski (This is how Ashley sees Andrew lol)

A Pearl - Mitski (This just reminds me of Andrew's nightmares tbh)

Tag you're It - Melanie Martinez (When he chases her on the Decay Route something something I'm mentally unwell)

#can you all tell that I love talking lol #the coffin of andy and leyley #ashley graves #andrew graves #coffincest #soleil asks

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2ctheocean · 2 years ago

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Snow is already subtily terrifying in ABoS&S. He reads like a high functioning sociopath with the limited capacity to care about anyone. Even his care for Tigris and his grandmother seems to he rooted in pride for their bloodline, and even the threat of Tigris sleeping with someone to get what they need feels more rooted in his pride than in concern for her safety.

He turns outright abusive in his thoughts towards Lucy Grey, even when he stops thinking of her as district scum.

How many times he thinks of her as his and gets jealous of other men in her vicinity. Hell, he gets jealous of her goat once.

Like he legit thinks to himself that he prefered it when she was locked in a cage at the capital zoo rather than free in district 12 because he knew where she was.

Just. Terrifying.

#a ballad of songbirds and snakes #lucy grey #snow #the hunger games #coriolanus snow #really hope they don't try to make him a sympathic villain #villian origin story

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raisedbythetv89 · 8 months ago

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Just finished “Poor Things” and damn what a fucking movie.

The mind of a child inside a woman’s body who has an insatiable sexual appetite and curiosity is uncomfortable as fuck but that’s the entire point. Children are innately curious and experimental and very simplistically seek pleasure and avoid pain and our puritanic (or in the story victorian) western society has turned all things sex related into such an uncomfortable taboo topic and this movie shoves that reality in our faces forcing us to confront how uncomfortable we are when it comes to educating children about sex and the relationships we have with our own bodies and pleasure and often resort to just telling them “it’s improper or wrong” and that leaves the door

W I D E O P E N

For men like the lawyer to come in and take advantage of the appetite others tell us to deny, the curiosity and the naïvety of someone who must venture into sexual relationships with absolutely zero frame of reference or knowledge. If you deny children the ability to learn something from you THEY WILL SEEK TO LEARN IT FROM WHOEVER IS WILLING TO TEACH THEM.

Every man who tried to control Bella failed miserably and what I ADORE about this film is it flips the traditional “poor naive girl goes to the big city, gets taken advantage of and ruins her life and is left with nothing and now she’s just another victim…. Poor thing….” completely on its head and not only that, better reflects real girl’s journeys through this world because we truly overcome so much in order to become the women we are. Yes she is taken advantage of and treated cruelly (“I wasn’t trying to educate I wanted to hurt you. I couldn’t stand to see such blind happiness”) yet she persists, she learns, she forms her own ideas and opinions and beliefs, she shuns societal norms and in the end the lawyer has been driven mad, her sociopathic husband from her previous life is a goat and she’s happy studying to be a doctor surrounded by women and a man who supports her to he exactly who she is and does not view her as her property. It was incredibly refreshing to see what is usually framed as a very dark traumatic journey for girls coming of age as one of self empowerment and agency. It was a magical adventure, an Odyssey. She is a true adventurer. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and Barbie to an extent are the only other stories I can think of that frame women’s coming of age journeys in this way (though I haven’t seen THAT many movies in the grand scheme of things so there very well could be others I’m unaware of)

I understand if you get stuck on the “child brain in woman’s body that men then desire” it is icky but this film is in no way condoning that behavior in men it absolutely is criticizing it. The lawyer is driven mad by the very childlike curiosity that drew him to her in the first place, it’s perfect we LOVE to see men go insane by getting exactly what they wished for 😌

It’s important to note that yes it’s a male director but Emma Stone was a producer and has said she had complete say and control with both how her body was shown and how the story was told. I personally tend to just viscerally react to male gaze media in an I’m immediately nauseous and on edge kind of way and didn’t get that at all with this film. My brain was like “this is weird and uncomfortable” but my nervous system wasn’t actually sending up and red flags that this was unsafe or insidious in some way like it did when I watched game of thrones for the first time. I knew shit was off on that set IMMEDIATELY which was then later confirmed to my unfortunate lack of surprise.

But anyway I’m not normally one who cares about oscar nominated films but this one had me laughing HARD and crying and it’s such a visually beautiful and interesting film I absolutely loved it.

#poor things #emma stone #meta

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davekat-sucks · 5 months ago

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The only YouTuber who analyzes Homestuck that I respect and watch is Mivnol since he is not partial to the story and talks about its flaws, he doesn't minimize the shit that Vriska does (as some others do), he shows the shit person that Meenah is (incompetent leader, sociopath, admirer of fascist and p*d) and still praises the GOAT, Eridan.

Besides, he does the minimum that many people who analyze Homestuck make the mistake of: he doesn't base his analyzes on the most delulu headcanons created by man.

Not sure if he wants to be known as Homestuck analyzer, but Mivnol is definitely one of the better people that looks at this series under a critical eye and speak out about it.

#Mivnol #Homestuck #Homestuck fandom

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nancydrewwouldnever · 7 months ago

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It was a fourteen-month old puppy, and instead of taking it to dog training (or rehoming it), she put a bullet in its head.

To me she's just admitting she's a borderline sociopath.

But I guess I already know that from her proudly wearing that MAGA hat.

#random musings #politics

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ja3gerb0mbb · 11 months ago

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bloodsucker epilogue: somewhere in germany

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

word count: 2.2k

content warnings: sexual content, brief descriptions of blood

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

three years later:

warm air circled through the barn; it was finally spring in germany. quiet sounds of life filled my ears. birds chirping, the movement of the barn animals. “good boy,” i murmured to the goat at my hands, feeding him another piece of straw as i patted his head.

“i hate it when you call other guys that,” eren teased. turning to him, he was sitting on the railing to the pen, an exaggerated frown on his face. it couldn’t cover the constant comfort his features wore. a few months after we had gotten here, reality set in, and both of us adjusted to the absence of overwhelming doom that had followed us for too long. it was hard not to be constantly happy with how things turned out.

“it’s a goat, sociopath,” i reached into the ground below me, chucking a bit of dirt at him. he launched himself off the fence, walking over to me to pick me up from my kneeling position. “doesn’t matter,” he muttered, lining my head with quick kisses. “so i was stalking reiner a few days ago,” eren drew me out of my bliss.

i pushed him away so he could see the disturbed look on my face, “the fuck? why?” i shook my head in disbelief at him, but i couldn’t hold back the laugh. “he is your ex,” he lifted his brows, trying to show his reasoning.

i rolled my eyes, “are you seriously still pulling that? i’m your goddamn fiance!” i lifted my hand in the air, showing him the ring. he laughed, and i pulled my hand down to admire it again. the one he picked was perfect; i wasn’t surprised. neither of us could have kids with the vampirism; it would be just us for the rest of our lives. i couldn’t be sad at that thought; instead it made perfect sense.

“yes i am,” he protested, “anyway, he has a new girlfriend.” my jaw dropped open. i scoffed lightly, “yikes. i almost feel bad for bertholdt.” i really did. it was hard to imagine everything he did to me being useless because he never confessed his feelings to the person it mattered to. and he likely never would.

eren scoffed even harder, “i don’t,” he shrugged his shoulders. “i can’t believe he still hasn’t mentioned anything,” i shook my head in disbelief. “you really don’t need to feel so bad for him,” he approached me, rubbing my shoulder in comfort.

shrugging my shoulders, i let out a breath of air, “i know.” he scanned my face quickly, trying to gauge my emotions before changing the conversation. “jean texted. he’ll be here tomorrow,” his voice was lined with false disappointment. i couldn’t hold back the laugh in the back of my throat. “oh don’t sound so disappointed, i know you’re excited to see him.”

in the months leading up to our move, eren and jean had fixed their bond. sort of. i doubted it would ever be how it was when marco was still with them; but i was happy to see them have a semblance of a friendship again. “whatever,” eren muttered, still insecure about being excited.

“why’s he coming so early though?” none of our friends were supposed to be flying in for another week and a half. “he wants to spend some time with us before the wedding. i guess pieck is gonna fly up separately.” i nodded my head, finishing up the goat’s feed.

eren took my que, grabbing the bucket of chicken feed, and throwing the rest around their coup. the sun started to set on the horizon. our plot of land always had the best sunsets. it was hard to feel any disdain here; other than the mention of one thing. “and i heard from someone else.”

i already knew what was coming, but i couldn’t hold back the disappointed sigh that left my mouth. news from zeke. i should be thankful to him, and i was, but his name usually came with unnerving news. but i think zeke was thankful to us, too. apparently, after we left, grisha was so caught up in finding eren, it allowed him to have more freedom in his own life. grisha was less suffocating to him.

eren laughed nervously, trying to gain composure before continuing, “he’s issued an official order for my execution.” the words hung in the air. we knew it would be coming at some point, but it would make tensions higher when we returned for visits.

my steps halted on our way back to the cottage. eren turned around to face me, approaching me. i interlocked our hands, fiddling with his fingers. he continued, “the dumb oaf still doesn’t realize i ran off with you, though,” his laugh rang out around us. absolving the tension that had built around his previous statement.

“guess i played my part well at his house,” i winked at him, trying to set my emotions back into place. eren was still having difficulty, “there’s something else,” his features tensed again. i pulled on his hands, urging him to continue.

his sigh was loud, and he broke our gaze to look out at the sunset, “with his sights off of me, he’s gone back to focusing on the cult. zeke said there’s been a lot of deaths.” i pulled one of my hands out, moving it to his cheek. his head tiled in the direction of it, leaning into my palm. i stroked his cold skin with my thumb, “we won’t have to worry about that in our lifetime. it’s not our responsibility.” eren had already seen too much of that life; it wasn’t right that he still felt burdened by it.

his head shook lightly, “we could do something,” he offered weakly. “really, we couldn’t. if it’s as big as zeke says it is, we wouldn’t even have a shot at getting close to grisha. it’d be futile.”

eren thought about it for a few seconds, getting lost in my eyes. he sucked in a breath, “you’re right, i know that, it’s just hard to accept sometimes.” with my other hand, i squeezed his, “i know,” i whispered it. the wind whistled softly around us, bringing with it the sound of barn animals. the serenity of it helped to calm both of us down.

“i love you,” he whispered, leaning down to connect our lips. he moved slowly at first, pausing after each movement. his hands moved down to my waist, pressing my hips up against him. i bit at his bottom lip, trying to get him to kiss me harder.

i could feel his lips turn into a smirk before he gave in, moving his lips fervently. his hands wandered over my torso, and mine did the same, pulling at his skin with my nails as i went. a few kisses later, eren ripped the shirt i was wearing from my body. unlocking our lips, i gasped, “that was my favorite shirt, eren!” he threw it to the ground with a chuckle, “i’ll get you a new one.”

he lifted my body up, and i wrapped my legs around his torso as he carried me the rest of the way inside, leaving kisses around his neck. i could feel him getting hard beneath me. my butt hit the kitchen counter as eren let me down, fixing his grip around my waist again.

the next thing he pulled off were my pants; i lifted my hips higher on his stomach for them to pull off cleanly. “this reminds me of something,” i giggled, tugging at his shirt. he furrowed his brows, “and what would that be?” he feigned innocence.

he took a step back to slide his pants off as i undid the buckle of his belt, “just something that happened on a kitchen counter a few years ago,” i giggled again as i admired his toned body that flexed with the movements. he hummed, “i don’t remember. guess you’ll have to show me?” his hand gripped behind my neck, pulling me forward in a kiss. i bit his lip as a response.

his movements were hasty, quickly pulling back again. his two middle fingers hung on my bottom lip, silently asking for permission. i opened my mouth, sucking them in. my tongue swirled around them as his other hand slid under my body, pulling my hips out further.

his fingers slid out of my mouth, and the next second, i felt him shoving them into my pussy. “fuck!” i yelled out at the abrupt action, arching my back into him. i shot him a dirty look as i heard him laugh, his other hand circling my nipple. i brought my lips to his neck, biting into his flesh. i licked up the small amount of blood that trickled out, hearing a moan escape him at the action.

with another pump of his fingers, he drew his fingers out and slipped off his boxers. i bent down from my place on the counter, letting spit drip down onto his tip. he groaned, and i wrapped my hand around the shaft, spreading the slick with my thumb over his piercing.

his hands gripped each side on my waist, pulling me off the counter before shoving my body around and pushing my torso against the cold surface. “so pretty,” he muttered, pulling my legs further apart with his leg. he stood in between, placing his feet on either side of mine; an attempt to keep my legs separated.

i felt his tip tease my folds before he slammed his entire length in me. i let out a loud moan, “god, eren,” i grunted. he placed one hand on my waist to steady, and brought the other to my shoulder. he didn’t move as he learned down to whisper in my ear, “say my name again,” i could head the smirk in his voice, even with my face shoved into the counter.

my body lightly jostled with the grip he had on me, slamming his body into mine, “eren!” i yelled it louder, arching my back so he could penetrate deeper. “louder, slut,” he teased, moving his grip on my shoulder closer to my neck. at the nape of it, he applied pressure, keeping me pinned to the counter as he moved at a faster pace.

“eren! eren,” i started babbling as his hand around my waist reached further down, looping around my hips to rub my clit. with the added stimulation, i felt a knot tie tighter in my core. i let out more panty moans with eren’s hits on my g-spot becoming sloppier.

his body pressed further against mine, and i could hear pants of his own closer in my ear, a few drops of blood dripping down onto my upper back. his hands tied in my hair, and he pulled back on it, sending me into an orgasm. eren removed his dick, continuing to work me through my high with my clit.

i could feel a warm substance hit my back as eren lt out a final low moan. he wrapped his body around mine, moving my hair to plant a kiss on my forehead, “wait here.” i barely noticed his absence, still trying to catch my breath. i felt my knees buckle without his support, as i waited for a few minutes. my body started to heal itself quickly, and i was already ready to fuck him again.

he was back quickly, the sound of running water filtered to my ears. “c’mere, pretty,” he cooed, picking me up bridal style. he carried me to the bathroom, the room lit by candles. a floral aroma filled my nose. looking into the tug, eren had added dried flowers, “aw such a sweetheart,” i teased him. this was something he did often, but it never failed to give me butterflies.

“ugh, shut it,” he scoffed, annoyed with my constant mocking. his arms lowered me into the tub, and i moved my body forward, allowing him to get in beside me. his hands reached down to my waist, pulling me back onto him. he dunked my head in the water, running his hands through my hair, “i found the perfect destination for our honeymoon.”

i closed my eyes, content against him, “let me guess, you’re not gonna tell me?” i sighed. it was his nature to still keep me in the dark with everything he could. his chest bubbled with a laugh, jolting my body with it. “nope,” he popped the end, placing kisses on my temple, working his way down my face.

i sucked in a deep breath. i was aware of the absence of the void in my stomach. anxiety was no longer clawing at the back of my mind. with grisha finally setting his sights off of eren, i felt like i could fully settle into my fiance, certain that we could live in this calm for the rest of our lives.

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

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a/n: had to reference phoebe bridgers in the title

thank you to everyone who has spent time reading this; i appreciate you! and thank you for all the comments, notes, and interactions; they really made my days, and gave me the confidence to finish this story! hope you guys like this ending, i’m not sure how i feel about it, but it’s the only one i could come up with. love yall!

#eren jaeger #eren jaeger fanfiction #eren jeager x reader #eren jaeger smut #eren yeager #eren yaeger smut #eren yaeger x reader #attack on titan #jean kirstein #mikasa ackerman

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