#some other few people whose names I get memorized

[chaoflaka]

There is just so many things I love about this shot in DBS Battle of the Gods film:

1.) The fact not only Piccolo did a song performance, but is actually enjoying it.

2.) He is a horrible singer to everybody….

3.) …Except for Gohan! He is straight up idolizing him nearby and being

“Look at my teacher, my idol, my uncle/father figure in all his glory!”

I can go over many things I like about that movie. But this shot alone is one of my favorites.

[causenessus]

new grounds

part 0.15. EPILOGUE

PLAYING IN THE CAFE . . . roi by videoclub

she splits away from keiji as soon as their within the doors. he navigates through the crowds to find their seats while she makes her way towards yachi. despite the crowds of people she’s pushing through, she knows where she’s going–or more like she’ll know it when she sees it.

all she’s looking for is a tall stand with the sign “NEW GROUNDS” above it. if they were lucky, there should be a stand next to them with the sign “ONIGIRI MIYA.” whenever possible, the two franchises tried their best to place their stands next to each other. it was a cute little thing they did; both were stands that were in close relations with many of Japan’s volleyball teams. after yachi and her had taken over new grounds, they had even organized a few crossovers with onirigi miya to advertise upcoming volleyball matches. it sounded like a weird combination–coffee and onigiri–but people fell for it left and right nonetheless, and who was she to critique the tastes of others?

she catches sight of both signs at once and quietly squeals to herself, happy with how perfectly everything has gone so far. she squeezes through a few more groups of people to the side of the coffee stand, waving to osamu at the oinigiri stand whose noticed her arrival. he smiles and waves back, looking as nonchalant as usual.

she laughs at the difference between the two stands; both have long lines but while osamu is working by himself at a calm, manageable pace, yachi is running around everywhere, panicked, slamming down orders and yelling names. she gives the blonde a pat on the shoulder, letting her know that she’s arrived to help before she ties up her hair.

yachi begins to take another order while she prepares herself for the task at hand. she notes where everything is; the coffee, the hot water next to it, the fridge beneath the machines, the coffee cup lids that are for some reason in the farthest corner away from the actual coffee cups–she memorizes it all as best as she can.

her back is towards the register and line, keeping herself focused on whatever order will be next.

“can i just get a cup of cold milk, please?” she hears a customer ask and is already kicking open the fridge door.

“got it, y/n?” yachi asks as she cashes out the customer.

“yep,” she replies quickly, smiling to herself. the universe couldn’t have given her any more signs that today is the perfect day to it. how ironic was it that the first order she prepared today was a cup of milk?

she snaps the lid onto the cold clear cup before handing it to the awaiting customer. “here’s your order, sir,” she says with a smile, looking up at him for the first time just as he grabs it from her, brushing his hand over her own.

at first her pulse quickens, worried he’s a creepy stranger but then she recognizes him. he’s tried his best to disguise himself with a baseball cap, sunglasses, and face mask but he’s never been great at disguises. she could still recognize him even if his back was turned to her.

“tobio!” her face lights up with a smile as he removes his glasses and pulls down his mask, revealing a smile of his own.

“hi,” he greets, as simple as always. 

she can’t help herself and grabs his shirt, pulling him close to place a kiss on his cheek, “good luck today, love.” then she gives him a grin, “if you win, i have a surprise for you.” the small box in her pocket seems to get heavier at its mention.

“oh?” he raises his brows with a sly smile, “just like old times?”

“just like old times,” she agrees.

he reaches a hand up to caress the side of her face, “well good, ‘cause i have a surprise for you too if we win.”

her eyes widen with excitement at his words, “what? what is it? you have to tell me!”

he presses a kiss to her lips with a small laugh, “you’ll just have to wait and find out, love.”

“i love you guys and i’m sorry to interrupt but you are holding up the entire line,” yachi says, no remorse in her voice. they pull away immediately, the moment immediately cut short and a blush dusting both of their faces.

yachi’s been at this for too long, and y/n can’t blame her for being fed up with them.

“i have to pick up some onigiri for hinata, i’ll see you afterwards,” he gives her one last smile, “make sure you cheer for us.”

“of course,” she waves him off before looking at the long list of orders yachi has for her to complete. she’s dreading it, but it’s what she signed up for, and she knows it’ll all be worth it in the end. she has the entire day to look forward to, including a proposal.

prev. | m.list

extras <3

y/n and yachi now co-own new grounds, tobio had to quit but keiji still works there as a manager (who actually shows up <3)

y/n and keiji still stick together, applying to work on shows together and were just coming from doing a matinee to tobio's game

guys i tried really hard to understand how tournaments work but i could not for the life of me comprehend it </3

tobio ended up buying onigiri for everyone bc he texted the gc asking if anyone else wanted anything and got a chorus of "yes pls"s

osamu always gives yn a free onigiri box to give to keiji <3

onirigi miya and new grounds started to get close because they both were franchises invited to set up stands at stadiums and the owners found they had a lot in common <3

after the game y/n burst out of her seat and started running to get onto the court (she'd gotten permission thanks to bokuto talking to the higher ups)

which was also a funny moment because the vball team was talking and bokuto was suddenly shot up saying "oh i need to go talk to the stadium managers" and kageyama was like, "i do too...🤨"

once the game had ended and the teams had congratulated each other, tobio was looking for y/n which he's become a pro at and literally panicked when he couldn't find her

then she was right in front of him and she got down on one knee and the entire crowd cheered while tobio froze

hinata came running out with tobio's ring box and he got down on one knee and they both started laughing-crying

thank you all for reading!!! i had so much fun with this smau i hope u guys did too <3

taglist: @ncitygreen @lvrlamp @cherrypieyourface @mimi3lover @lees-chaotic-brain @frootloopscos @0moonii @cr4yolaas @eggyrocks @pinkiscool @httpakkeiji @localgaytrainwreck @lunaviee @kitty-m30w @lixie-phoria @aliruuiz @corvid007 @iluv-ace @yvjitadori @k8nicole @ryeyeyer @thechaosoflonging @kettlepop @r0seandth0rns @rinheartshyunlix @lucky-chars @par4disee @vixx-11 @luvkvni @does-directions @whykirbo @reminiscentyearn @mylahrins

[broadwaybalogna]

Zuko and Katara are shopping at a market. While Katara is haggling for deals and Zuko's carrying all the bags, a lost child approaches them asking for help finding their mother. Momtara and Dadko activate!

Awww this is so cute

I love these prompts so much please continue sending them!

FEATURINGGG: hella soft Zuko

Grocery shopping was bonding time for Katara and Zuko. At least, that’s what Katara told Zuko. It felt a lot more like an excuse for Zuko to hold her grocery bags while she bargained with business men/women. So unless standing within five feet of each other while shopping was what Katara meant by “bonding,” Zuko didn’t buy it.

“Just last week this was a whole dollar cheaper!” Katara reasoned with one of the people at the many stands in the market.

“Inflation dear, it gets the best of us.”

“That’s not what-! Ugh, never mind. Do you price match?”

The man in front of Katara squinted his eyes and looked the woman up and down. “Yeah. But who else is selling angelberries right now?”

“I passed her as I was walking up here, just a few minutes back. At that point, I thought 4.50 for a dozen angelberries was beyond what they were worth. But I stand corrected,” Katara said, staring at the man.

Zuko knew that they had not, in fact, passed another stand that was selling angelberries, and Katara was purely gambling on the fact that this salesman didn’t memorize the other stands in the area.

He stared her down before giving up. “Fine, 4.50 for a dozen angelberries,” the man scowled.

“Thank you very much,” Katara flashed him her signature smile and grabbed the ripest berries she could find.

“Nice going, ‘Kat,” Zuko said after they were out of earshot from the salesman.

“Ugh, thanks. He was such an asshole, though. Some people.”

They continued walking around until Katara spotted another stand with something that was on his shopping list. Before she could make her way over to it, though, a small child went up to the two of them and began sputtering something nonsensical.

“Hey, hey,” Katara rushed to speak, “take a few deep breathes with me. In and out.”

Katara knelt down to the young child and began breathing with her. When she was finally calm, she opened her mouth a few times to try and figure out what to say, then her eyes started to water again.

“I-I- I can’t find my momma!” Tears began to spill from the young child who couldn’t be more than four years old.

Katara took both the child’s hands and held them in her own. Zuko knelt down beside the girl and began to rub her back.

“Hey, I’m sure she’s looking for you too. It’s going to be alright,” he finally spoke, “what’s your name?”

The girl took a few more deep breaths then spoke again.

“Izuma.”

“That’s a lovely name,” Zuko smiled, “I’m Zuko, and this is Katara.”

The girl nodded a few times.

“Do you know what your momma’s name is?” Katara asked.

“Uhhh, momma?”

Katara and Zuko both let out a sigh.

“Here, Zuko and I will split up so we can try to find your mom. How does that sound?”

The girl nodded faster.

“Alright, Izuma, you can come with me and we’ll go to the end of the market. Zuko, can you go in the way of the entrance? Let’s meet back here in twenty minutes.” Zuko gave a sharp nod and began to walk away and toward the entrance, stopping every few yards to look around for anyone who might be looking for their lost child.

By the time he was maybe a tenth of a mile back to the entrance, he spotted a woman rushing around and searching for something.

“Izuma!” She called, tears rolling down her face as she searched every crevice of the area.

Finally, he found her. He walked up to the woman whose face was scrunched and slightly disoriented.

“Ma’am, are you Izuma’s mother?”

“Yes! Have you seen her? Is she okay? Is she here?”

“My girlfriend and I found her, they’re looking for you towards the end of the market.”

“Oh, thank the spirits. Please take me to them!”

Zuko nodded and led her deeper into the market. Finally, when they could hear Izuma calling for her mother, she ran to the sound, leaving Zuko behind.

“Izuma! Oh, thank the spirits you’re alright!”

“Momma! I was so scared!”

“It’s alright, I’ve got you now.” Izuma’s mother said as she picked Izuma up and held her. “Thank you so much- both of you,” she said as she turned to face Katara and Zuko, “I owe you my life.”

“Oh, no!” Katara reassured, “Please, it was the right thing to do. Just knowing you’re both reunited is reward enough.”

“Thank you so much.”

“Of course,” Zuko spoke.

“Izuma, what do we say?”

“Thank you!” She yelled.

Katara and Zuko smiled. When Izuma and her mother finally left, Katara turned to face Zuko.

“We are never having children.”

“Couldn’t agree more.”

[onthewaytosomewhere]

Sunday - yeah sentences & last line challenge cuz i'm lazy and doing them all in one

so i've been tagged by some lovely peeps @england-would-fall @taste-thewaste @firenati0n @piratefalls

So I need to get this thing done - as it has been lamenting on my drive waiting for me to just finish it already - and stop playing around with all the other fics so I'm posting it in hopes that might encourage me to get it frakkin' done already - and i wasted hours this afternoon tracking down one detail lol - but hey that's what happens i guess lol

So this is what I have lovingly been calling gotta sign 'em all - it's a little thing inspired by TZP and his fascination with signing a little book (and well, with him being so ACD-coded it just fits) it's a lot more than 6 or 7 sentences but i just need to get some of it out in the ether

They are nearing the end, both of Henry’s ability to continue and the line of people with books for him to sign, when the girl whose book Henry just signed peeks behind him at Alex. She turns the book to the dedication page and gestures towards Alex. “Mr. Claremont-Diaz,” and fuck if that doesn’t make him feel old, but the girl can’t be more than 13, so he sucks it up. “Would you be willing to sign the dedication page of my book? Your story helped me come out as bisexual to my parents; they’re from the US, and my father’s Mexican family is very Catholic. Seeing you have family of similar background who support you after everything happened to you made me hope mine could be as well.” Alex feels Henry’s hand grab his and squeeze it. This is one of the things that still amazes him: how in sync they are with each other. How even though Henry is drained from a taxing day, Henry is there to support Alex unequivocally. He nods to her and reaches for her book. He takes a deep, centering breath and squeezes Henry’s hand once quickly before letting it go with a smile so he can sign. Henry hands him the Sharpie he has taken to carrying in his inner jacket pockets, and he grips the pen, looking back to the girl in front of him. “I am just floored that my story—our story,” he says, gesturing between himself and Henry, because his story is and always will be intertwined with Henry’s, ever since they first started this, “gave you the courage to be yourself. I hope it all went well with your family.” The girl nods, and Alex sees the wet sheen to her eyes, the tears she is attempting to hold back, and blinks to keep his own at bay. “Yes, it did, thank you,” her smile wobbles a little as she responds, and Alex moves the conversation on for all of them. “Who am I making this out to?” Alex asks, pen poised above the page, ready to sign. He pauses a moment to read the dedication he has memorized as she gives her name.  [insert sappy – probably not good enough – dedication to Alex - probably something about you and me always maybe breaking down walls] He writes her name in the book, adds a few lines about bisexual solidarity, and signs his name with a flourish. He hands the book back to her, and she looks at the page, smiling at his words. Alex is not the most self-aware man, and he’ll admit this, but even he knows that moment has him feeling things he didn’t think it would.

oh i also got a few of last line tags yesterday so here goes for that too

He decides to help her out and says, “Hey, I see you got your copy of Henry’s book; glad ya got one before the vultures at that shelter swooped in.”

so some no-pressure Sunday tags and well if ya already posted let's just assume ya had an open tag that i snagged and i'll find it lol @adreamareads @anincompletelist @bitbybitwrites @dragonflylady77 @duchessdepolignaca03 @firstsprinces @forever-fixating @heybuddy-drabbles @hgejfmw-hgejhsf (hope ya had a good time in austin Val! (at least i assume based on wednesdays post that's wehre ya were)) @inexplicablymine @itsmaybitheway @junebugclaremontdiaz @kiwiana-writes @lizzie-bennetdarcy @magicandarchery @nocoastposts @priincebutt @sophie1973 @stellarm @sunnysideprince @suseagull04 @typicalopposite and an open tag

[astronicht]

viking au, max/daniel f1🫶

Hopefully you came into this anticipating the wall of text 💜

1. The summer that Max was ten years old, the raids went far to the south, through the Pillars of Hercules and into the Mediterranean— because this literally happened like Vikings in fact did this. Theoretically Vikings could have seen Monaco! Anyway. This was memorable not because it was his first season — it was his second, he started a little young — but because it was the first time he stole something for himself on a raid. So, Max saw the coast from Narbonne and Pisa. And Max stole two cats on a raid of a town whose name he did not know, but where people died fast enough that a boy could dodge into a house with searching hands.

Back home, people sometimes laugh and ask if he saved his spoiled cats from the pelt-sellers, who raise cats for their fur (sorry i know i wanted sexy viking “i stole my dutch wife” stuff and instead i give u this canonical Viking-era Danish practice SORRY). He always corrects this: “no, I went out viking and i stole them.” People usually think this is a joke. Their names are Jamti and Saxi, because of course Max does not know their original names. (these are both boy names but whatever, his cats are named after Monaco clubs, what do you want me to do about it).

2. Daniel’s folks are from Sicily and Calabria; let’s put him in Calabria, which is partly Byzantine Greek ruled by Constantinople and partly Arab; he would call himself Roman (meaning Byzantium, the Eastern Empire) and speaks Greek, probably, with a smattering of Arabic that is mostly slang. He is weirdly bad at it. (Sicily was entirely Berber Muslim at this point with a large Byzantine Greek population, by the by, and would later be conquered by the descendants of the Vikings, so I guess that’s a whole different AU). Daniel, for his part, was not stolen from his home; his father was not killed, his mother and sister are presumably well. It is simply that he could not sit quietly in a warm place that would have loved him fine. Oops!

3. They meet for real in the town of Jorvik, which is a river city in what will later be England. Christian warned Daniel ahead of time that they were taking on a new kid, implied that there was a favor owed. Daniel’s met the father, and like, fair enough. Pay Jos back for whatever and steer clear, in Daniel’s opinion, and Daniel and Christian usually agree. Max arrives with a set face and carrying his cats — who are 16% smaller than modern cats but still fucking heavy and sliding around unhappily — in a wicker basket that he carries up the hill from the river himself, his doeskin boots sliding in the muck. A few of the guys tell Max he can get mousers here, why carry these? Daniel, who had been in the city for three years now, tells him he should have taken the old Roman stone road. Max is unamused, but at least Daniel was (unwittingly) the helpful one. They are overwintering together in a house down by the other river. Max is seventeen.

3.a Christian’s debt owed was to Max’s mum. Daniel doesn’t know this.

4. Daniel does otherwise know a lot about Christian, because he helped the ironically named Christian Hornbære (also written as Hyrne), once a minor Northumbrian thane, to throw his lot in with the Danes (vikings), take a Dane wife, turn on his compatriots, and sack the place. Christian has remembered this loyalty ever since. This will come up later!

5. Okay since everyone has been patient i WILL play up one sexy (?) viking trope and like. At some point it’s spring and just prior to the beginning of raiding season and the first early little harvest has come in so Christian is hosting a feast before they all go off to do some genuinely heinous shit, and the expectation is absolutely that Christian’s boys get to fuck in this semi-public way in the longhouse. And Max and Daniel are two of the stars of the show, right, so it’s a sort of champagne room situation, only it becomes increasingly clear to Daniel, who is btw barely holding everything together, that Max is absolutely relying on him to get through this. Like everyone in this long dark room has been drinking for two days and Max is watching Daniel to see what he’s going to do, and Daniel is terrified to realize Max watching is the only reason he’s getting hard, etc. They fuck women side by side. It’s a mess! They get off, by which i mean daniel watches Max get off and then fakes his but watching max was the best part. After a bit Daniel goes outside bc he thinks he’s going to be sick but he’s not and he just sits on the new wet grass. Max comes out looking for him and somehow they end up just like. sitting in the wet grass and Max lets Daniel hold him and it’s the only thing that calms Daniel down that entire year, it feels like.

6. The emotional narrative here is like. The inherent tragedy of wanting to be the best, wanting to be beloved, wanting a crowd to know your name, and the outlet available to you is a small, brutal, violent activity. Not because there is absolutely no other option— the Viking Diaspora is one of the widest worlds to have existed; there was a rigid social structure, but one with lots of little odd corners and loopholes. But the tragedy comes in any time and place when no one thinks to tell you this. Max’s cats — stolen from the dead, but themselves simply just cats, just little animals that kill birds for food or to show you love — are kind of the nexus of this, somehow. No idea how I would resolve it, frankly, which is partly because i have to write things to know what they’re gonna say!

Further notes: in this verse Alex Albon’s granddad somehow got caught up in the Battle of Talas, probably on the side of the Tibetan Empire and the Caliphate but who knows, politics are big complicated. Like many Talas veterans’ families he lives in Baghdad right now with his mum and his siblings and he’s often very tired. Look if a Tang Chinese general could get lost in Ethiopia for a bit after the Battle of Talas then Alex Albon could be doomed to watch a really weird viking funeral on the banks of the Caspian during a trade mission to meet up with his father. Shit happens to him. Why is that nude viking man holding a torch and covering his anus?? We will never know bc Alex + Ibn Fadlan’s translator wisely chose not to show up that day. Alternatively Alex IS Ibn Fadlan’s translator, which explains why he is very tired.

what the fuck is this one! thanks for playing. i spent two hours researching domestic housecat dispersal theories.

[gizm0-gadgetz]

Time for another random old fic i wrote.

Don't reallt remember when I wrote this but its a tma fic around an oc with a half asked mention of the mechs band before I properly understood it

Still silly so figured I'd share it. Archives crew plus oc go out for drinks basically

Charecrwrs name is Giz (its a nickname) and they're an intern/currier for the magnus Institute

   Giz hummed softly as they moved a box into the archives. Fresh statements they presumed, though maybe it was office supplies? It didn't matter to them, it wasn't their job to snoop. They noticed that the crew seemed to be having a conversation of some sort. It looked quite fun. A pang of loneliness hit their heart like a truck, they kept moving though. Just do your job and get paid. Then look into new information. That's all you're here for. It felt so stupid that they had to remind themself so often. 

   “Hey kid!” They startled out of their trance and looked over to the group. It was Tim. They hesitated but pulled a headset ear off. “It's Giz right? Cmere!” He waves them over. It took them a moment to process what he said but slowly they just gestured at the box in their hands. “Ah don't worry about it. Just set it down. I'll take care of it later.” He had a very welcoming voice. They sighed softly and set the box down, just out of the way so nobody would trip. They paused their music and took the headset off properly before slowly walking over. 

   “Is something wrong?” Their voice cracked slightly, an annoying tell for how nervous they were. Tim just chuckled.

   “No no, nothings wrong. We're going to a pub for drinks tonight, do you wanna join us?” They blinked a few times, staring at Tim like he had spoken in another language they didn't know. 

    “I'm sorry…” They noticed his expression fall. Had he been hoping they'd join him? Why would he want that? They weren't exactly good company. “I uhm…” They began fidgeting with their headphone cord. “I've never been drinking. I don't think I'd be muc-” 

   “Woah woah what! Hold on,” Tim interrupted them, seemingly shocked. “You've never been out for drinks?” Words seemed to fail them at that moment so they just nodded their head. They noticed that both Sasha and Martin, who he had been talking with before, had surprised expressions too. Had they said something wrong? “How old are you again?” Tim spoke with a tilt of his head, clearly curious. 

   “I uh… I'm 19.” They shrugged and looked away from the group. They felt so judged. 

   “So you're old enough.” Martin chimed in. They couldn't help turning to look at him shocked. “You should come with.” He smiled warmly. These people were far too nice, what if something happened? 

   “Tim's paying-!” Sasha added to try and persuade them. They glanced at Tim who just nodded. 

   “I… i just- wouldn't want to intrude on…your friendship and…stuff.” They felt so painfully awkward, mentally cursing themself for being like this. 

   “Nah, that's why we're inviting you!” Tim grinned. “You seem really cool, you just gotta come outta your shell!” 

   “I… how do you even know???” They couldn't hide the confusion in their voice. 

   “Martin was the same way.” Tim shrugged, gesturing to the man beside him whose face turned red. “So cmon, you wanna join us?” 

   “I…” He was really dedicated. They didn't know how to react. “What time?” 

   “10 or so.” He shrugged and leaned back in his chair. 

   “I…fine.” They watched his expression light up. “I'll try.” They shrugged, trying to be more casual about it. Trying very hard to hide their nervousness. 

   “Cool! Can I get your number then?” 

   “Huh?” The request took them by surprise. 

   

    “Yknow, so I can tell you where to go!” Tim laughed at their surprise and they felt their face heat up in embarrassment. It only got worse when they heard the other two chuckle softly. 

    “Right uhm… lemme look.” They hoped he wouldn't question why they don't have their own number memorized as they pulled their phone out. 

   “Here, why don't I just put mine in yours?” Tim offered, “Then I can put you in a group chat with us.” He had such a bright smile, it kind of confused them how nice he was being. 

   “I guess that works..” It took a lot more effort to hand their phone over. If he noticed he said nothing as he put his phone number in. They watched as he took a photo. He was just making a contact at this point which struck them as a little odd but they were too shy to actually say anything. He handed the phone back with a smile. 

   “There you go!” They looked at the phone to see he had sent a text message to his own number, just a peace sign emoji. They also noticed he hadn't saved his name as Tim but as “Tim from the Dungeon” with another peace sign emoji. They couldn't help but chuckle softly as they put their phone back in their pocket. “Do you mind if I take a picture?” They blinked a few times and looked up, Tim was holding his phone and had the contacts page open. 

   “Oh uhm…I'm not very photogenic…” They didn't want to outright say no, it felt too rude for how kind he was being. 

   “That's fine.” He shrugged and saved the contact. “Maybe later.” He looks at the time before turning his phone off. “Well, work day’s almost over. We should wrap up and all that jazz.” 

   “Oh yeah!” Martin seemed surprised, like he had forgotten they were still at work. “I'll see you guys later then!” He smiled and walked off, presumably to go finish whatever he had been doing prior. 

   “I do hope you'll join us Giz.” Sasha smiled at them. It wasn't as bright of a smile as Tim, but it was still much nicer than they thought they deserved. They smiled weakly back. “Tim, you better pick someplace good.” She huffed softly before walking off the other direction, leaving them alone with Tim. 

   “So…yeah. I'll text you once we have it figured out where we're going.” He hadn't stopped smiling since they'd started talking. “Oh and don't worry about that box either,” They paused and glanced back at the box from before. They kinda forgot about that. “I'll take care of it. I mean it. See you later?” 

   “Yeah… seeya…” They took a deep breath and walked off, heading back upstairs to go collect their things, and their thoughts. So much had just happened and they weren't sure how to feel. What had they just agreed to? This wasn't like them at all. Maybe they could just tell them that they couldn't make it? It left a pit in their stomach, the idea of lying to people who were being so nice. There was a lot going through their head as they put their jacket on and began walking home. 

■□■□■□■

   They set their bag down and collapsed into bed, not even bothering to take their shoes off. They wanted to cry. Emotions were so freaking hard and they felt so bad just accepting when they probably wouldn't go. If they didn't go then at least there was no worry about getting them hurt, at least not physically. They couldn't promise any emotional damage. Why couldn't they just be some normal teenager who would jump at the idea of free drinks. 

   They weren't sure how long they laid there in emotional hell but eventually their phone went off. They rolled over and pulled their phone out from their pocket, staring at the text message notification. They opened the chat but didn't actually type anything, just watching everyone talk. It wasn't clear which number belonged to who since they didn't have the other twos numbers saved. They felt so out of place in this chat so even when they did start typing they didn't actually send anything. Tim sent the address and the others agreed. They looked at the time. 9:30 already. Half an hour until they were supposed to meet up. It was another 10 minutes before they managed to crawl out of bed to change into something else. They didn't necessarily need to change but they felt the need to. 

   They decided to shower before they changed, still debating if they were going to go at all. It was all so conflicting but the hot water did help them clear their mind. It took a while to find some clothes not covered in paint stains but eventually they settled on a long sleeved sweater. Some old band on it, they weren't sure which as the logo had since faded. They did make out the year though, ‘92. It must've been one of their moms old shirts. They sighed and tied their hair back, taking another glance at the time. It was already 10. They were late. Maybe it would be a good idea to let them know that they'd be late but they decided against it. 

   They picked up their bag and hesitated. Maybe bringing the bag with was a bit much? They frowned slightly before pulling the pocket watch out from the bag and slipping it in their back pocket. They grabbed their phone and keys before slipping on a jacket and finally heading outside. They only realized as they left the apartment that they had neglected to grab a hat but they were already running late. Besides, if they turned around they probably wouldn't leave again. Taking a deep breath they began walking, pulling up a map on their phone and heading to the address Tim had sent. 

    It was a nice looking building, a nice warm light filtered out of the windows. The atmosphere seemed very welcoming and they figured that's why the others had picked this place. As they got closer they noticed a familiar face leaning against the wall with a cigarette. He seemed lost in his thoughts as they approached.

   “Mr. Simms?” If they needed any confirmation of his zone out the way he jumped was proof enough. He was wearing a faded green sweater and dress pants. It was the most casual thing they'd ever seen him in, though it made sense. He probably just dressed professionally for work. “I didn't know you smoked.” They watched as he put the cigarette out and left it in an ashtray. 

   “...good evening.” He seemed a bit confused to see them there and they didn't blame him. They weren't sure why he was there either. “Are you meeting with someone?” He raised an eyebrow, looking them over as he spoke. It must've been obvious they had changed for this. 

   “Uhm…kind of. Tim invited me to go drinking… I'm a little late…” They noticed his confused expression and quickly looked away. 

   “He didn't tell me that.” They couldn't help but blink a few times in confusion, glancing back at him. “They're inside. Waiting for food.” He shrugged. “Figured I'd take the chance for a smoke break…” He trailed off, awkward silence filled the air. “Right. Guess you should come in with me.” He didn't look at them as he brushed himself off and opened the door and held it for them. 

   “Oh..uhm…thanks.” They nodded at him with a slight smile before stepping inside. Imminently they regretted having not brought any headphones or sunglasses for that matter. That hat would've been really nice to have. Jon pushed ahead of them and walked to a table in the corner. It took them a moment to get moving and follow him. Tim, Sasha and Martin were sitting at a booth having a conversation. Jon sat down without a word, rolling his eyes when Martin welcomed him back. They took a deep shaky breath as they approached the table, worried about interrupting. “..sorry I'm late…” The conversation ceased almost immediately and the trio turned to look at them. They felt panic rise slightly before Tim spoke up. 

   “There you are! I was worried you got cold feet! C'mon man, have a seat!” He pat the seat next to him. They hesitated for a moment before sitting down. “Loose track of time?” He hummed softly, leaning back casually. 

    “I uh… took a wrong turn walking here.” They shrugged, pulling their jacket closed. It was warm in the building but it made them feel safer. Tim seemed confused. 

   “You walked here?” 

   “Yeah i…don't have a car…” They shrugged, fidgeting with the coat zipper. 

   “Why didn't you tell us? I'm sure someone could've picked you up. It's cold out this late, not to mention dark. You shouldn't be going out alone.” The genuine concern in his voice confused them. Why was he so worried?

   “I wouldn't have had any problem picking you up.” Martin's voice was soft and so was his smile. They shifted slightly in their seat. “But I get it if you want to keep your privacy.” They glanced at Jon who seemed to just be sulking in the corner of the booth. Tim must've picked up on it too. 

   “Jon, Jonny boy, dude-” Jon looked up with a slight glare. “Lighten up. You used to be so much more fun dude.” He laughed as he leaned forward. 

   “Did you two know each other?” Martin was clearly confused and they were glad he spoke up cause they were curious themself. 

   “Oh yeah absolutely! Went to the same college.” He spoke as if it was super obvious. “Fun times.” 

   “Oooh! Have any fun college stories?” Sasha snickered. 

    “Oh yeah tons-” 

   “Don't you dare.” Jon interrupted both of them. 

   “Aww man you're no fun.” Sasha huffed softly but was willing to move on, tim however clearly wasn't. 

   “Yeah? What are you gonna do? Fire me?” He snickered and leaned back again. It was all so casual. Giz felt a bit out of place in the conversation but it was amusing to watch. “Did you guys know Jon was in a band?” Jon tensed up before trying to hide himself half under the table. 

   “Jon can play an instrument?” Martin stared at Tim with disbelief. 

 

    “I mean yeah but thats not what he did.” He shrugged. 

    “Tim-” Jon had a warning tone that the man chose to ignore. 

    “No, Jon was the lead singer. Technically the band was his.” Tim hummed softly, quite happy with the chaos he was causing. 

   “No way-” Sasha gasped and looked at Jon who was doing well at pretending to be part of the booth. 

   “Introvert Magee was the leader of a band?” Giz couldn't help piping in, immediately regretting their choice of words when everyone looked at them. “Sorry I-” 

   “Yeah it's surprising isn't it?” Tim brushed it off with a laugh. “My man used to be so confident! Now look at him!” He cackled as jon balled up a napkin and chucked it at him. 

   “You-” Jon started but they were interrupted when a waiter came and set some appetizers down. Giz was a bit surprised by the amount of food and variety. They had forgotten that Jon mentioned them waiting for food. They hesitated on taking any, it felt quite rude since they weren't there when the order was placed.  

   “What kind of drinks do you guys want?” Tim hummed as he grabbed a soft pretzel to nom on. “I'm gonna get some scotch. Dunno what kind yet.” He paused, seemingly thinking for a moment. “Giz you said you've never had any drinks right?” 

   “Not legally, no.” They shrugged, ignoring jons confused expression. 

   “Legally? You sneaking alcohol?” Sasha sounded impressed. 

   “No no… nothing that interesting.” They chuckled weakly. “My mom would drink the occasional Jack & Coke. I think that's what it was called at least. Regardless she left it out once and I thought it was pop.” They shrugged again. 

   “Right then. I'm gonna get you a few things then! See what kind of thing you're up for.” Tim grinned, more excited than they were for their first proper drink.  

   “I wouldn't want you to waste-” They started but he scoffed and brushed it off.  

   “Don't worry. It'll be fine. If you don't like them ill drink it.” He shrugged, finishing his pretzel. “You can have some appetizers by the way.” He smiled warmly. “I ordered them for everyone to share after all.” They felt their face heat up a bit, embarrassed that he had picked up on their hesitation. They began to zone out slightly as Tim talked with the others about what drinks they wanted. The whole thing felt so domestic. It was really odd for them. They hadn't even been working for the institute all that long and they certainly hadn't had any prior relationships with anyone there yet they still had been invited to such a close gathering. It was all so…different than anything else they had been to. 

   The atmosphere was comforting, loud but comforting. It was overall a very nice place to be, even if they felt a little out of place. They finally started to relax. Eventually Tim elbowed them and they snapped back to reality, clearly confused. Tim chuckled softly. 

   “I wanted to ask if you were allergic to anything? Just in case yknow.” 

   “Oh. No.. I mean yes but I don't think there's gonna be any fish inside alcohol.” Tim blinks a few times before nodding. 

   “Probably not no. Thanks for the heads up though.” He smiled warmly before ordering drinks for everyone. It was a decently long list for just the five of them and they couldn't help but worry about what he was up to. The bar had calmed down a bit, people all just minding their own business with their drinks. They nibbled on a pretzel as Tim spoke with the waiter. They noticed Jon tapping his hands against the table with the beat of the music playing. It was a small detail that they didn't think anyone else picked up on. They shifted awkwardly in their seat. 

   “Giz?” Martin's voice cut through their thoughts. They looked up at him with a slight hum. “Are you alright over there? You've been pretty quiet the whole time.” His tone is gentle and concerned. 

   “Oh uhm…not much of a talker is all.” They shrugged and stared at the food on the table. Eye contact was hard. “Happy to just listen.” They hoped he wouldn't pry much into it. 

   “That's okay. I get it.” He smiled warmly. They all had such warm smiles, except maybe Jon. They weren't sure they'd properly seen the man smile. He seemed so grumpy all the time. Maybe drinks would help? People talk about alcohol bringing out something in you. They weren't sure. 

   “Do you have any hobbies, giz?” Sasha hummed softly as she turned her attention to them. “You've been a really hard worker. Don't think I've ever seen you really take a break.” They blink a few times, processing the request. 

   “Oh. I…am an artist?” They smiled meekly before shrugging. “It's just a casual thing. A small hobby to keep me sane. Wouldn't say I'm any good at it.” 

   “I'm sure you're great!” Martin grinned. “If you create with the same precision you have at work I'm sure you do amazing things.” He seemed confident in this assessment and they couldn't help but smile a little. 

   “Thanks… maybe I'll show you guys sometime. I don't have anything on me is all.” That was a lie, they had plenty of photos on their phone but it didn't feel right to just…show off. “What about you guys?” They weren't very good at coming up with their own questions but they could reuse the ones the others ask. 

    “I've done some knitting.” Martin hummed softly, fidgeting with the edge of his sleeve. “Occasional poetry…” His face was a little red like he was embarrassed by his own hobbies. 

   “Dance.” Tim interjected, causing everyone to look at him. 

    “No way.” Sasha stared at him like he was crazy. “You're lying.” There was a slight teasing tone to her voice. 

   “Yes way! What's so hard to believe about that?” Tim joked as if he was offended. 

   “I mean look at you!” Sasha gestured at all of him with a laugh. “You own twenty pairs of Hawaiian shirts!” 

   “I fail to see how that makes it less believable?” Giz pointed out. “If anything, that's just in his favor.” 

   “Heeeeey what's that supposed to mean-” Tim looked at them and they just shrugged with a smirk, causing Sasha to snicker. 

   “What about you sasha?” Giz spoke softly, pulling the conversation back to the topic of hobbies.

    “I haven't played in a while but I used to really like volleyball.” She hummed softly then turned her attention to Jon who had returned to sulking. “What about you jon, do you do anything out of work?” There was a teasing tone to her voice. 

   “Nah man hes totally married to the job. All he thinks about.” Tim pointed out with a smirk. 

   “Surely you have some hobbies?” Martin looked at Jon with a tilt of his head. Jon just glared at him, opening his mouth to say something when they were interrupted by drinks being set down.

   “Saved by the bell once again huh jonny?” Tim snickered as he grabbed his drink and then set a few in front of Giz. They stared at the drinks, barely registering Sasha's comment on Jons fruity cocktail. “Don't be shy!” He elbowed Giz with a grin.  They chuckled weakly as they grabbed one of the drinks, beer presumably considering the rich golden color and slight fizz. They paused before drinking it, making a face at the smell. They heard Tim cackle next to them, presumably at their reaction. It made them smile a little. 

   “You're more excited then I am…” They chuckled weakly as they slowly took a sip, processing the flavor. It was a very heavy drink but knowing how beer was made they weren't that surprised. It was a bit roasted tasting, probably just whatever brand they had on tap. 

   “Hey it's not everyday you get to buy someone their first drink!” Tim hummed, sipping his own drink. It seemed to just be plain scotch. “Besides, everyone reacts differently to things and it's pretty fun to watch.” He shrugged and grabbed a few fries from one of the appetizer plates. 

    “If you say so.” They shrugged and turned their attention back to the beer. They could see the appeal but it definitely wasn't a drink for them. Too heavy for their liking. They set the glass down after a few more sips. Tim looked at them expectedly and they just shrugged again. “Its fine…it doesn't feel all that special. Very heavy stuff.” 

   “Yeah that's reasonable.” Tim leaned forward against the table, happy to talk with Giz more one on one as the others did their own thing. “Don't make yourself drink it, might fill yourself up.” He hummed softly, tapping his fingers against the table in no real pattern. 

   “This looks like a cup of fruit juice.” They mused as they picked up the next cup, a tall peach colored drink. It smelled nice enough, definitely a different type of alcohol. They could see Tim's smirk out of the corner of their eye. “What?” They hesitated on taking a sip. 

   “Oh nothing. Just a fun name for a cocktail.” He snickered as he sipped his scotch. 

   “How so?” They raised an eyebrow and looked at him. 

   “Its called Sex on the Beach.” He snickered more and they couldn't help but roll their eyes. How mature. They hesitated for a moment.

   “The only sex i'll put up with.” They shrugged and took a sip. Their voice had been quiet enough so only their table would hear the joke. Tim looked amazed that they would make that joke and they heard someone choke on their drink. They glanced up to see Jon staring at them with a bewildered look. Martin's face was a little red but he was chuckling at the joke and Sasha was just as amazed as Tim. They smirked slightly before focusing on the drink. It was just as fruity as it had smelt and significantly lighter then the beer had been. Almost refreshing really. They drank about half of it before Tim finally spoke up again.

    “I didn't think you had it in you for that kind of joke!” He laughed and elbowed them slightly. “I'm proud!” They rolled their eyes with a slight chuckle. They felt a lot more…content with what was happening. A lot calmer than they had been before. Was it the drinks? They weren't sure. They set the cocktail down, it was good but there were still a few other things to try. They'd probably come back and finish it though. They took a moment to eat another pretzel, cleansing their pallette almost. The soft pretzels were really good. Drinks were fine and all but the food was amazing. There wasn't anything that compared to pub food. 

   They felt kinda tired. Usually they'd have gone to bed by now though they weren't sure exactly what time it was. The alcohol in their system wasn't helping as their body wasn't used to the energy required to process it. They decided to ignore it and continue anyway, picking up a short glass with an amber colored liquid in it. This one smelt familiar and they imminently recognized it as whiskey. It was spiced and coated their mouth with a flavor hard to describe. They hummed softly as they drank up. They heard Tim join the conversation the others were having but they didn't quite process what he was saying. Everything felt a little fuzzy, good but fuzzy.

   The rest of the night was starting to blur together. It was a good time and they found themself talking with the others much more, but they weren't a hundred percent sure what they were talking about. It was pretty late by the time everyone was ready to go home and they weren't sure they would be able to walk home. Martin offered to drive them home to make sure they would make it home safe and they found themselves agreeing to it; even if originally they hadn't wanted to share where they lived. 

   Their head was swimming by the time they got back to their apartment. Martin was nice enough to walk them up to their flat, joking about them collapsing in the hall if he didn't. It wasn't obvious that Martin had been drinking at all because he seemed quite calm. Giz thanked him for his help multiple times by the time they were finally home. 

   They faintly remember getting a glass of water that they proceeded to spill all over the counter before collapsing in bed and quite quickly passing out. They were so drained but quite glad they had gone out. They didn't wake until noon the next day and didn't feel ready to go to work until the day after. They liked these people. They were fun to be around. Maybe it was worth finally making some relationships. 

[fandombead]

Sanders Sides human AU where they’re all camp counselors at some backwoods Alphabet soup upstate summer camp—

Camp Sandside

Also locally known as Camp Mindscape

C!Thomas is the newest camp director trying to keep the camp funded and running every year. He advertises and keeps in touch with people who help everything work out each year.

Logan is head of schedule and morning role call. He makes sure camp has an educational side to it, so they have something to take away. He enjoys accompanying on the nature hikes and takes their slightly older campers stargazing. You can find him usually hanging out in the camp archives and he can answer any question about its history.

He coordinates camper activities with Patton, who is the poster child for Campy Dad-Counselor™️. Patton knows every campfire song ever how to make 477 different crafts from sticks and rocks you can find in the forest. He is good at wrangling the kids and making any activity fun so everyone gets included. He’s excited to be there every day. He’s been there the longest and has dappled in every other job as needed.

Remus runs all the sport activities and Roman throws together a little theater group production for the parents at the end of the summer. Both twins help each other out for those activities depending on whose day it is. They also keep up the Canteen and craft workshop. They tell the best campfire stories. (Fun fact: they went to this camp as kids and are working here now during college)

Virgil’s shadowing Patton with first aid as a trainee nurse and handles safety protocols/checks. He’s just stressed out trying to keep everyone alive till the end of the summer. He particularly sticks around at the sport fields, lake, and obstacle course. He barely sleeps and runs on caffeine and spite. He enjoys playing guitar for the kids at campfire time. He makes sure everyone wears sunscreen, is drinking enough water, and that no one wanders off from the group.

And not least of all, Janus, who is the mental health counselor and resolves incident cases between campers. He also is someone the other camp counselors can confide in because the job is draining. He makes sure everyone is taking care of themselves and not doing too much, short-staffed as they are. Camp has run much more smoothly since they added him to their team and everyone is happier for it after getting used to the changes.

They all really enjoy the work and each other. What started as an interesting, versatile summer job that let them hangout together turned into a fun tradition they were quite invested in. Every summer is a memorable one and they look forward to it every year.

I just think it’d be a fun story setting, a series of glimpses at camp life with chapters dedicated to silly or fun happenings at the camp. For some reason all that are coming to me is chapters that sound like history event logs and just imagine it’s because the twins hijacked Logan’s documentation of them and rewrote them with more flair and drama. The Hiking Disaster of 21’. Battle at…Vine Lake (okay maybe not the name but I WILL work Vine in somewhere—maybe that’s the name of the theatre). The Kayak Wars. Surviving the Storm. Bear-ly Active.

(Actually half the chapters will be puns and you’ll know Patton had a hand at assisting the twins’ shenanigans for those retellings~)

Depending on the number of campers, they might also each be head of a cabin and in charge of 3-5 campers specifically on top of everything else that they manage to make good connections with even the most unlikely campers by the end of the summer. (I mostly thought of this just because I wanted an excuse for Logan to be head of the ‘Crofters Cabin’ bwahahaha)

I want Campy adventures!!!

Side notes expanding on the AU bc I have tons of scattered ideas:

I also had the alternative (/prequel? With a few tweaks) idea where some or all of them are campers instead and they meet at the summer camp years before they decide to work there~ ^^

I think that’d be a great story too, where they become lifelong friends in the end and grow to be glad they got sent to this weird old camp for the summer and just have a great time after getting through a few challenges. And they go back every year to see each other again.

Patton calls the campers “saplings” and other nature/tree related nicknames

Their camp shirts have a white star border in black incorporated on the front with the Camp Acronym and everyone styles theirs differently (example: Remus cut the short sleeves off of his)

I imagine they have a rival camp too that every one of them is personally invested in beating yearly, as you do in Camp media. (Alt version where it’s “light” vs “dark” sides camps)

Logan got stuck up a tree once as a kid camper and they still haven’t let him live it down. There’s a photo of it in the archives he keeps trying to get rid of but someone keeps replacing it every year. They call him Pinecone and Lookout 🤣 (Forest Watch)

Janus was someone they never expected to see again. He came to camp in their last years of being campers and joined the group through Remus and Patton. After some getting used to him (Roman and Virgil kept butting heads with him), they were tentatively friends…Roman saved him when he fell in the lake and Janus came in clutch and saved their team at the camp games! they kinda took one step back when he joined as counselor, but they worked it out eventually for good that time~

The twins have a fun rivalry they try to drag their friends into every year…even as counselors now 😂 there’s always some sort of competition going on with them, especially when they start being heads of their own cabins and take pride in their little campers destroying the other teams (but especially each others’)

I think each cabin has a little flag the campers remake every year hanging out front, featuring the animal trait and color of each counselor in charge. Tentative Ideas:

Logan’s Cabin: Team Crofter (of Discovery Cabin). Campers have dark blue bandannas/necklaces

Patton’s Cabin: Team Friendship (of Amity/Compassion Cabin). Campers have light blue bandannas/bracelets

Roman’s Cabin: Team Braveheart (of Ambition Cabin). Campers have red bandannas/necklaces

Remus’s Cabin: Team Chaos (of Endeavor/Spontaneity Cabin). Campers have green bandannas/bracelets

Virgil’s Cabin: Team Storm (of Vigilance Cabin). Campers have purple bandannas/necklaces

Janus’s Cabin: Team Serpent (of Accord/Cunning Cabin). Campers have yellow bandannas/bracelets

They collabed on these name ideas themselves~ The twins’ cabins also relate to one another.

Roman’s theme is having goals and dreams and Remus’s theme is trying ways to reach them, not giving up when it doesn’t work the first time. Together they encourage campers to find something they wanna try that’s new and going for it~

You can probably pair Virgil and Logan’s cabins + Janus and Patton’s in a similar way of their themes relating or balancing each other.

Every year you return to camp, you get a charm to add to your bracelet/necklace (typically all moved to whatever cabin color you are for the current year’s summer). Represents the overall theme of that summer, received at the end.

[msunitedstatesjames]

As someone who legitimately enjoys House of the Dragon, this show has some real issues with side characters. Specifically, the timing and scene quality of side characters.

I feel like I have to point out that I have read Fire and Blood, as well as all the published A Song of Ice and Fire books, but I read them all years ago and don't remember a lot of the specifics.

I'm also going to be comparing HotD to Game of Thrones in here, even though I realize this show and that one are very different beasts.

One of the great things about early Game of Thrones was its characters. Almost every character was given a unique personality, story, and enough time to thrive. Even the side characters were given this more often than not. And frequently, even characters with incredibly small parts, who might show up in just a few episodes, were memorable.

In total, Game of Thrones had 73 episodes. Hot Pie was only in 12 episodes. Shireen Baratheon was only in 10. Lyanna Mormont was in 9. The Blackfish was in 7. Robert Baratheon was in 7. Mance Rayder was in 5. Hell, Maggy the Frog was in 1 episode and I still remember her. You probably remember most or all of these characters by name and face if you watched GoT, as well as knowing some of their traits, motivations, and possibly deaths. But I'm struggling with the sheer number of side characters being introduced and rushed past our faces with very little fanfare in House of the Dragon.

I thought this was highlighted quite clearly in episode 6 with Ser Darklyn. He's been in 9 episodes, which is more than Robert Baratheon and, perhaps a fairer comparison, the same amount as Lyanna Mormont. His attempt to become a dragon rider and his subsequent death could have been a genuinely impactful scene. I really wasn't sure going into the scene if he would be successful or not. I've read the book, so I knew some of the off-shoot Targaryens did eventually succeed, but I didn't remember specifically if he was one of them. They had five episodes before this (not even counting season 1) to try to make him a memorable character whose death had some impact, and they just didn't really try. I knew this guy had been in other scenes, but his character was so bland that I couldn't have told you anything specific about him. The only reason I remembered he was in the Queensguard was because of the armor and cloak. Even when I looked him up on the wiki most of the description was just like, "he escorted Rhaenyra." I feel like Game of Thrones would have really taken the time to make this dude likeable before they had him burned alive. And it's not like they didn't have the time. Daemon's been fumbling around Harrenhal for like 5 episodes, doing very little. He even had Alys tell him in this episode to just wait 3 days for something to happen. I know he's kind of become the flagship character of this show, and I like the little cameos we're getting, but I feel like I've seen the same 3 scenes happening over and over there: Daemon is awoken from a weird dream by Ser Simon, Daemon talks to Alys, Daemon saunters around trying to threaten people. I get it. But what I don't get is why I'm supposed to care about all these randos who have been given 5 minutes of time total in the last 5 episodes.

There's Alyn, a sailor who apparently saved Corlys off screen and who has a seemingly ambitious brother. That's all we know about him for the first 4ish episodes until we find out he's Corlys's bastard. Now we also know he doesn't want others to think he's getting special treatment for being Corlys's son, but that's about it, and he's already been in 5 episodes I think.

There's Hugh, the obviously Targaryen blacksmith with the sick daughter and long suffering wife. Honestly I wouldn't remember his name if not for subtitles. I think he's been in four episodes so far.

There's Ulf, whose name I had to Google. He's another bastard Targaryen allegedly, and he seems to be a typical struggling peasant of King's Landing. That's honestly all I can remember about him. I think he’s been in 3 episodes.

I could have told you Hot Pie's name after 3 episodes. Or Shireen's. Or Lyanna's.

I understand that all of these characters will have narrative importance eventually, but the writing is just not doing a good job of making you really care. Look at Lyanna Mormont, we loved her from her very first scene.

I feel like the writers are really relying on the audience having read Fire and Blood, and either being superfans or having read it so recently that they remember minor characters who might have gotten a few pages of mentions in the sprawling narrative of that book. And this just isn't realistic for a show with a fanbase of this size.

Again, I really do enjoy this show. I think compared to other fantasy shows it is overall of good quality. It's just a shame that the writers weren't able to fill in some of the blanks left by the "historical" slant of Fire and Blood.

[miraphoenix]

Right off the bean, this is not a callout post. I'd talk to the person this is about 1-on-1, but a) he's had me blocked for 4 years, and b) it's mutual. This is me venting on my personal blog, something that he decided to vague about me doing back when I had my first blog.

With that out of the way. I'm really fucking tired of people stealing from Valenth/Revecroir, and from its creator.

Years and years ago, when they were a literal child, my bff/queer life partner--for the purpose of this post, their name is Leupai--made lizard-critters with hands on their tongues and called them leupaks. Eventually, they ended up splitting off from Subeta where they worked at the time, making an affiliated petsite called Valenth where the leupaks featured quite prominently as creatures in a fantasy-meets-steampunk world.

Unfortunately, their boss was a piece of work, and following a rather large kerfluffle involving another petsite lifting other elements of my partner's work (namely, a dragon concept and a companion concept), my partner was fired by the Subeta head boss. The leupaks were renamed into leupai, and Valenth expanded into Revecroir. This was in 2014, give or take a few months.

Through about half of the Valenth era and into the Revecroir era, Leupai was dating someone else, who went by Sixar at the time, later Kismeti, and the two had a long-distance open relationship. Kismeti also did a fair amount of site art for Valenth, and described himself as Leupai's biggest fan; when he'd met Leupai originally, his username referenced leupaks, he had a bunch of leupak characters, and a leupak sona. I met both of them in 2013-2014, right around the close of Valenth, and started chatting with them both. Leupai was more responsive, Kismeti was more reserved, but I did the best I could.

Over the years, I kept trying to reach out to Kismeti, but found that Leupai was honestly more willing to talk with me, so I did become better friends with them. Note that I was friends with Leupai, and trying to be friends with Kismeti. We chatted, we sent memes, we played World of Warcraft, I bought folks pizza across the Pacific Ocean, you know the drill.

Through this, I became really familiar with Leupai's world, at that point named Revecroir. I got to know their lore, their worldbuilding, their current projects, and the leupai creatures themselves.

The leupai were--and are!--still fat lizards with paws on their tongues, who can open portals between worlds with acid in their claws, who transfer their consciousnesses to other bodies if one is destroyed, and whose strength comes from the realm of dreams and creativity. In the early days, in lore that wasn't publicized, leupai were roaming around to find a world to live on after Valenth. This was a project that was supposed to be worked on with Kismeti, but nothing really ever came of it. Eventually, Leupai kind of moved on from that storyline to write more about Revecroir itself.

At the same time, I tried asking Kismeti about his worldbuilding, because he had characters and allegedly a world of his own, but didn't really get a lot in the way of answers. I saw a lot of Sonic fanart, I saw a lot of homestuck, I saw a lot of MLP:FiM, I saw a lot of Captain Planet. Eventually, I kind of... Gave up asking? And that's on me, but frankly, if you ask someone to share their stuff and they don't share their stuff, I figure that's the signal to stop asking.

As time went on, though, I was seeing some cracks forming in the 10-year relationship between the two, and I was helping Leupai through a lot. I watched as he yelled at my best friend for not responding to messages fast enough. I watched as he made plans with Leupai and then fucked off to do other things for hours, leaving Leupai in the lurch and worried about his physical safety. I watched as he gaslit Leupai about their ability to use a computer. On one memorable instance, when Leupai's internet was unstable while we were all playing WoW together, Leupai left the voice call to go reset the router, and Kismeti decided that it was a great time to shit-talk Leupai's intelligence to me. For a half hour straight. Until Leupai rejoined the call.

Eventually, I visited Leupai in person and watched as they were broken down to tears by Kismeti failing to respect their boundaries for literal hours, until Leupai caved to Kismeti's preferences. That was a rough night, and I remember wondering why the fuck my best friend's partner was treating them so badly.

About a month and a half after I visited Leupai, they decided to break up with Kismeti, because they'd had enough of him verbally berating them for not responding fast enough to memes sent over instant message, among so many other things. He, to put it mildly, lost his shit.

(For the record, I know what went down, because Leupai had me read the messages sent back and forth, to make sure they were grounded, and were reading things right. I've seen logs going back 10 years. His original vague accused me of not knowing what I was talking about, but boy howdy I was either there, or have read the raw logs.)

Anyway, he begged for Leupai back. Leupai gave him a chance that he fucked up within a day. Leupai said goodbye and blocked him. He then started messaging me about this on discord, clearly trying to use me as a go-between to get to Leupai.

At the time, I was going through some Complex Feelings about my own abuse by various people in my life, triggered by his behavior, so was reblogging a lot of support stuff on my original blog. I guess he decided this was vaguing about him, because he made a vaguepost accusing me of not knowing all the details (unbeknownst to him, I'd read everything) and finally blocked me.

I figured this chapter in my life was done at this point, and moved the fuck on. Made a new blog because I didn't feel like getting all his shit off my old one, moved across the country, got a new job, the whole shebang. Leupai and I entered our odd QPP/partners/bffs/???? phase, and I genuinely didn't think much about him, unless I was helping listen to Leupai talk about stuff they'd gone through with him.

Until this year. When I saw some comment of his break containment and end up on my dash, under the name "riftclaw". I had a bit of an inkling, so I broke my "don't look" rule and looked at the linked toyhouse to confirm it was really him.

Turns out, riftclaws are... Lizard creatures. Who open portals between worlds with acid in their claws. Who are looking for a new world to call their own. And who have some divine properties, that may involve body switching.

And all of Kismeti/riftclaw's old leupai characters are now riftclaws.

Oh, and he was planning to make them into a closed species. To make money off them.

Now, leupai were decently popular back in the day. I still have leupai characters, and make some periodically from time to time. There's a tag on tumblr and everything; if you're reading this, there's a decent chance you remember Vee yourself, as a fair number of my followers were there too. People still talk about Valenth from time to time. Leupai still has a folder of old fanart from back in the day with some 800 pieces of art in it. They were, by all accounts, successful until they weren't.

But the height of popularity was back when Vee was still around, in the late 2000s and early 2010s. The only new stuff in the tags is from an archive blog of old Vee assets.

Despite that, though. And I know this from messages between the pair, I know that Kismeti tore into Leupai repeatedly for "being more popular" and "having more eyes on their work". Even though "those eyes" didn't keep Leupai fed or housed, or really give them any income. Even though "those eyes" meant getting 50 notes on a tumblr post as opposed to 20. Even though "those eyes" just increased thievery and the constant pressure to be a Content Creator(tm), and were a major part of what drove Leupai off the internet entirely starting in 2018.

So imagine. Imagine for a moment. Being so hungry for clout and attention. That you steal your ex-partner's species concept that they've had since they were literally 8 years old, barely file off the serial numbers, and then make that your entire online persona four full years after your partner broke up with your ass twice for being an abusive piece of shit over a 10-year timeframe.

To borrow my own tags from this post, which got me thinking about all of this again?

#This is all to say; if you're jealous of someone else's success? Fine. Go have your emotion. But don't lift their shit.#Your emotions are valid; your actions aren't.

(Oh, and this is the smallest thing in the world, the least important piece of this? Riftclaws are already a thing from a game released in 2016 called Grim Dawn.)

[blind-dates-fest]

Blind Dates Festival FAQ

What is Blind Dates, anyway? Blind Dates is a festival/challenge that celebrates creating and writing original characters! The guiding principle is to do something new, and possibly challenging, and to serve as writing practice. It can also be a low-stakes excuse to try out a new character in a fandom you don't usually work in in a small and manageable way.

Do I need to sign up? Nope! This fest is designed to be low-stakes and informal. There's no penalty for thinking this was a great idea a few months ago and not having time or energy now.

How do I participate? Using the method of your choice (random generator, dart board, tea leaves, plain old brainstorming, et cetera) find a name and character concept for a new-to-you original character and a scenario to introduce them in. Then, write a short (1000-2000 words) snippet that introduces them inside the fandom property of your choice. The idea is to provide a compelling moment that makes the reader want to know more about this person.

You may publish your finished piece on the site of your choice and provide a link to the blind-dates-fest blog. Throughout the Valentines Day Weekend, we will publish all of the submissions for you and your fellow participants to read and reblog. If you publish your piece here on tumblr, you must use a read-more or we will not reblog it to the fest blog.

Why would I want to do this? The idea is to practice introducing new characters in a memorable and compelling way. This character might be something for your next project, or just a way to get an idea out of your head! Maybe you’d don’t often (or ever) write OCs - Blind Dates is a low-stakes way to try it out.

Which fandoms can I use? Any fandom you like! In 2023, 7 different fandoms were represented in submissions.

Can I make a graphic for my character? A graphic can certainly be included in your fest submission, but remember, the purpose of this challenge is to focus on the writing.

I’m not a writer - can I still participate? The purpose of this challenge is as a writing exercise. If you’d like to create a moodboard, graphic, gif, or a drawing of a character, that’s fine, but it should accompany a written scene to introduce the character in a compelling way.

Are there limited spots available? Nope - this is open to anyone who enjoys the challenge of coming up with a new character from scratch! Most participants are here because they like the unique challenge this presents!

Can I do more than one submission? I have a lot of good ideas. There's no limitation on how many characters you can work on or submit, but remember, this is about quality, not quantity.

Do I have to be following you or anyone else to participate? Nope! Although following the @blind-dates-fest blog will mean you get to see your submission and read everyone else's.

Are these judged? Is there a prize? There is no judging, nor is there a prize for participation apart from bragging rights.

Will I gain more followers or traction? To be completely honest - no, probably not. I like to think of this as a networking event, more than anything else. You get an excuse to write something new and small and manageable, and other people get a chance to read some new and small and manageable things. Maybe you'll meet someone else whose writing you really admire! Maybe you'll get an idea for a new project! I can't promise or guarantee anything in this regard. I want to stress that this challenge is to come up with a new character, not 'advertise' an existing one. If that's your only reason for thinking about participating, this may not be the event for you.

[100ducksizedfolignos]

15 people 15 questions

thanks @girlfriendline @giveemgreef @tblueger <333

1. are you named after anyone?

i am not! my middle name was an homage to my mom's grandparents but i have since changed it and my parents are blessedly allergic to otherwise naming anything after anybody

2. when was the last time you cried?

few days before christmas

3. do you have kids?

no and i do not want to. i have one fur baby (that i co-parent with my parents lmao) though as you all well know (scout my baby boy <3)

4. what sports do you play/have you played?

played kids' baseball/softball until i was like 10/11 bc i was constantly in the outfield and nobody can pitch until you get to like. high school. so it was boring and i hated it so i quit. i was on dance team for a while until i had to drop it bc recital dates kept being on the same days as school band concerts. was in marching band throughout high school, which counts bc i was a percussionist and had to lug around those heavy drum harnesses

5. do you use sarcasm?

a ridiculous amount. if we also count like comedic lying in this i accidentally convinced a coworker that there were only three seasons of spongebob doing that whole pretending that only the good parts of a show exist. such a shame spongebob ended after season 3. there's no more of it! just too bad

6. what’s the first thing you notice about people?

hair probably

7. what’s your eye color?

brown! medium tending towards dark

8. scary movies or happy endings?

while i love gothicness and gothyness i am a Known Weenie and certain types of gore literally make me feel faint. like the finale of the terror s1 made me a little faint and gave me the sweats and i had to fully pause the episode and lay on the floor for a while. so i guess categorically happy endings based on that. if a scary movie isn't super gory though i'll go for it

9. any talents?

i’m very performing arts inclined! i play piano, sing, dance, and act (was a theatre major in college). i memorize things quickly if i set my mind to it, am great at navigating, have great pitch memory (like i can be exactly or near-exactly on pitch when singing something i’ve heard before even without backing accompaniment. this unfortunately drives me crazy when people post pitch-shifted versions of songs and i can tell they’re off. bearer of the curse), decent stage combatant, good crowd weaver, and somehow bear the ability to unintentionally come off as intimidating to basically everyone i’ve ever met

10. where were you born?

iowa, usa

11. what are your hobbies?

i'm something of a gamer in my spare time. basically only solo joints though i'm not like gamer nhlers that play like. league of legends or fortnite or counterstrike. i've recently joined a community band and a bar trivia team (with my old middle school choir teacher lmao. he's a homie), i write fic every once in a while, read, dance around the house, go for walks when it's not cold, snuggle my pup, and obviously watch hockey. i keep telling myself i'm going to learn how to sew but trying to find beginner projects for men types is fucking dire and i keep not going out to get fabric for the pirate blouse i keep wanting to make rip

12. do you have any pets?

ah there's a separate question for this. scout, my yellow lab baby boy whose breeder had a confederate flag up in his barn when we got him (we saved you buddy). have some pictures

13. how tall are you?

5'5". short king territory

14. favorite subject in school?

i was a band/choir bitch. probably followed by english (literature). i liked basically all of it but phys ed though fuck that class i hate distance running it gives me a stitch in my side and you have to run a mile at least twice a semester (fuck you presidential fitness test). on top of all the other running they make you do. loved when they just did games though. matball my beloved

15. dream job.

actor, either stage or voice. unfortunately i do not want to live where the big voice acting studios are located and regional stage acting is kind of limited unless you go all the way out to chicago, which i tried for a couple of months before multiple breakdowns told me i should probably be closer to home. i enjoy being a librarian though :)

tagging @get-hockeyed-idiot @amandaleveille @wildaboutmnhockey @girldewar @letkirillfight @yes-perwallstedt if you guys haven't done it yet and also anyone else who wants to

[lucienne-thee-librarian]

I truly think it would solve so many problems with intra-community bigotry and even just community infighting as a whole, if people could learn how to unpack their own personal traumas and insecurities around their gender/sexuality/life in general without projecting it constantly and obviously onto other people instead of purely blaming the people who yknow. Actually hurt you.

Like, you see this all the time where people have understandable and legitimate issues but they see other queer people whose lives and choices remind them of the things they feel inadequate or insecure about. That's entirely normal, and human and to some degree inevitable, and not what I'm criticizing. You can't help your initial knee jerk feelings, all you can do is learn to work through them and eventually hopefully heal and learn how to manage them in the meantime.

Where it becomes a problem is when people have no self-awareness about this at all or when they take these feelings as fact every single time and make other queer people responsible for their own trauma. Like, you see it all the time with...just to name a few examples:

Bisexual women who end up in long term relationships with men being treated as like. Just Barsexual or see people expressing angst about Becoming Them. And like...I get where it's coming from, bisexuality is constantly erased so especially if you're a woman in a relationship with a man. Being with the right man who'll Fix You is something dangled over every queer woman's head, it's what society expects us all to do, so I can see why people would think "we need to prove them wrong" and also be rightly afraid of the prospect for themselves being essentially quietly repeatedly pushed out of the queer community. But...that's not the problem of random bisexuals. And repeatedly apologizing for your attraction to men and making ball and chain jokes is not gonna fix the issue. The whole problem is bi people's personal lives being forever treated as a political statement or a pledge of loyalty in an eternal stupid, regressive on multiple levels Battle of the Sexes instead of...just their personal lives, right? They're not responsible for society's bi erasure.

Flamboyant or "feminine" gay men are not the reason the guys who picked on you because they guessed you were gay despite your masculinity picked on you. They didn't invent stereotypes, they're just trying to live their lives, and there's nothing wrong with being a "stereotypical" gay man anyway...right???

Your own internalized shame and rightful annoyance at being stereotyped is not an excuse to shit on other people for something harmless. Same with feminine queer women and butches. Like...yes, we've all been terrorized with the Mannish (and therefore Ugly) dyke stereotypes but maybe the problem is equating gender nonconformity with ugliness and violence and lack of worth??? And cishet people's willingness, again, to stereotype??? Shitting on butch women is not going to fix society, it won't go back in time and undo your own personal anguish. They are not responsible. They're just trying to express themselves the way that best fits them.

And on the even more extreme and inexcusable end:

I see the same impulse in a vocal minority of lesbian terfs (a lot of the people who clain the loudest to be Lesbian Allies...aren't lesbians lol, hi JoRo 🙃🖕🖕🖕🖕) making it out like there's an Epidemic of all these lesbians who are being Brainwashed by Self Hatred, Misogyny and Lesbophobia into wanting to be men rather than be lesbians. One of the most memorable examples being, the reaction by some to Elliot Page's second coming out.

Of course, this kind of overlooks...a million fucking things, like how just as many trans men if not more, do not in fact follow this narrative because they did not identify as lesbians before their transition and came out as gay/bisexual trans men instead...or the fact that you have to be seriously disengenous or just. Not Live on Earth to actually say that trans people of ANY stripe including transmascs, as a group somehow have it BETTER than cis people even cis women and face less discrimination...or that for every "lesbian" who later came out as a straight trans dude/nonbinary transmasc like Elliot, there are a thousand cis lesbians still out here around the world *waves* hiiii...

I honestly think the biggest issue out of all of it, because these facts don't seem to MATTER to these loud online terfy lesbians, ia that these people are fundamentally just. Making the world about them. They're projecting their ideas and experiences onto everyone else. Elliot Page isn't just a thirty-something adult with his own opinions and feelings and thoughts and life experiences separate from these people, who should be deemed the #1 expert on their own body and life and what decisions to make about it. Not to these people, to them he's an expression of...the trauma they've faced in THEIR lives living as lesbians, as women, and a tragic story about how Sexism and Homophobia Wins Again. He's a cautionary tale to them, not...a person. So Elliot Page's actual happiness and well-being, or simply their own opinions and words about their life, and their motivations...don't really matter to these women, because their own grasp of their own identities depends on other people doing what they think should be done, and staying Loyal to a label for life. And someone choosing to leave that identity behind triggers those old insecurities that they've repeatedly refused to find a better way of dealing with. Their sense of self is THAT fragile. Which is sad...but obviously doesn't excuse their alignment with a goddamn hate movement whose rhetoric has only grown more violent in the last few years.

Idk, I just think so much pain and harassment and...bullshit would be better if we could all actually learn, repeatedly, through mental habits and patience and therapy and growth etc etc...to see other people AS PEOPLE in their own right without being reflections on us.

[lefluoritesys]

Hi! Random question but what's the funniest/most awkward situation you have ever been in with a headmate/headmates? Also, I love your Tumblr. It helps us through a lot of system denial :)

Thank you so much!! We're glad to hear that, we try our best to make it a safe and positive space!!

I don't think we have stories that people would count as incredibly funny, however, we have a few that stand out to us as at least amusing, lmao. And awkward... don't even get me started.

I (co-host) keep texting people trying to make friends, and don't ask nor tell anybody. And then I just dip. I think it's a pretty effective strategy. :D

The amount of times somebody told us something that we know we would have memorized by hard. Like when we're supposed to have our lessons. And then we'd switch, be asked about it, and don't know the answer as to what that thing was. It puts us in such awkward situations IRL cause of our parents.-

Today, remember the couple that went on a date? One of them had to front to take our sibling to their classes, and they were sulking, so our co-host & persecutor-caretaker had to keep their composure when their partner, from the inner world, said our sibling looks like an offended ostrich.

We got berated for eating the host's chips. We now have a policy about eating chips. Because people ate their bag of chips...

One of the funniest stories were probably with one of our alters who went mostly inner now, though. They once purchased a premium on an app we use a lot without telling anybody, and at the time, we could buy a whole McDonald's meal for that amount of money. Then, we put them in charge of English classes, and they were definitely working, but their way of working was roasting everything and cracking some of the most hilarious jokes we've ever heard. That same alter then offered our mother cyanide.

Some of the things we say are so fucking funny that we made a quote book. For ourselves. And our partner systems. There, we not only have hilarious quotes, but some of the funniest roasts we've ever seen, one of our favorites being:

Host: It's kinda funny how I can do everything alone at front, and y'all have to do it collectively when I'm not around.

Co-host: Nah, we're just healthy.

Our co-host sprained our foot. And called the bandage on it "foot prison." I am not elaborating on their behalf. /laughing

In the inner world, we have this thing where we can track people and where they are at that point in time (especially our robots can do that), and sometimes people decide to play tag. And since our inner world is our inner world, what we basically see is a dot (that represents a person you're watching) telelporting from point A to point B to point E in a matter of seconds. Which doesn't sound funny, but picture it, lmao.

The number of posts we made that were purely targeting each other is insane. And you will never know that they are targeted unless we say something, we are sneaky like that.

At some point some people in the inner world discussed fucking Jesus?? And I mean doing the deed, not the "fucking Jesus." We still have no idea who or why.

And then another two people, whose names we know, discussed our partner system's semi-sentient hotel and what its type would be. In detail. And who they could pair it up with.

Our host is still salty at one of our prosecutors because they bought them cocoa instead of coffee, didn't tell them, and our host couldn't figure our why the coffee was sweet but tasted well, considering we hate coffee with sugar. And then they realized.

Our host address purple so much that now all of us gotta keep up with the idea what "we, a singlet, definitely a singlet (/s), love purple so much" because explaining to our bio family that we don't like it anymore but we also do but also don't would be too difficult for a number of reasons.

One of us can just decide that it's chicken nuggets day, and we will have chicken nuggets for lunch. Not because we don't want to upset this somebody by refusing but because we'd literally switch on the streets halfway to chicken nuggets, stare at the distance for a couple of seconds, and accept our fate.

We generally talk to ourselves in public constantly, we have no shame about that, especially since it's mostly in English, which is not our first language. That got us a lot of looks. We also do that in VCs with our partner system, and we openly switch in front of them and talk about inner world shit.

Hope that gave you a few laughs. /g /pos

-host, co-host & persecutor-caretaker, sexual persecutor

[nellie-elizabeth]

Doctor Who: Boom (14x03)

I regret to inform you that this was a very good episode of Doctor Who. Fucking Moffat, knock it off with being an occasionally very good writer. I hate this dude.

Cons:

I thought the romance arc between Mundy and the random dude whose name I can't remember was probably the least memorable part of the episode? It just felt a little flat and proscribed, and it fell into some cliche writing tropes. Why is it always that an oblivious woman is being pined after by her long-suffering martyr of a best friend? It's giving Rory and Amy, it's giving... Joss Whedon. I don't know. I didn't hate this, but it didn't add a ton to the story, it almost felt like more of a distraction to the core relationships that we should have been focusing on.

This was the most I've enjoyed Ruby and the Doctor's relationship on the show yet, but there was this one moment that I had a problem with in the writing. The Doctor is calling out to a dying Ruby and basically says "I need to talk out loud in order to think, and you're the only person I can talk to." I think I get what the goal was here, but it read a little strange to me. Because the point of the Doctor is kind of that he can make friends with most people, isn't it? He finds the connection, and the adventurous spirit, and the bravery, in all sorts of people he comes across. We even see him forming connections with the other people he's meeting in this very episode. So I do wish the sentiment had been adjusted just slightly. Ruby shouldn't be valued and loved simply because she is uniquely able to provide the Doctor with companionship. You know?

I thought the resolution felt a little rushed, with the father's love saving the day. Very sweet or what have you, but I could have used a bit more build-up to it? As is Moffat's MO both as a writer and as a show-runner, he's always better at the setup than he is at the payoff.

Pros:

I think when Doctor Who is at its very best, it takes a simple concept, a small group of people, and it plays out the complications of the scenario over the course of the hour. This was an episode with a small core cast, basically only one setting with just a few cut-aways to the camp where the soldiers were staying, and there's a pretty simple problem to solve: the Doctor is standing on a landmine. If it goes off, because of his special Time Lord-y-ness, he could blow up half the planet they're on. So the stakes are higher than simply the Doctor's life, and they're on a timer.

And from there it's really just a lot of intense stakes-raising, alarming moments of tension as the Doctor tries to keep his emotional reaction to a minimum so as not to trip the sensor. I loved the scene when the Doctor is begging Ruby to back away and she's insisting on staying close to help. Great relationship building, great classic rapport between the Doctor and his companion. She's brave, he's worried about her, but together they thwart catastrophe.

As is often true with this show, and with sci-fi more in general, this episode has some not so subtle political messages baked into it. I think it was brilliantly and disturbingly done, showing us first the soldiers and the way their lives hang in a delicate balance, then starting to learn about the for-profit model of this weapons manufacture, and then the gradual and chilling revelation that these people are not at war with anyone at all. It's an empty planet, and they're fighting nothing, letting themselves be killed for the benefit of a corporation running on auto-pilot designed to maximize profits. Yeesh. That's a thought, isn't it.

There's also the lovely detail that all of the soldiers are part of the church. Ruby talks about how strange this is, and the Doctor points out that the military and the church are usually hand in hand, and that her current reality is really just a blip in the pattern.

The gasp-out-loud moment of this episode is of course when Ruby gets shot. I love the way the scenario is set up here, where Ruby is going to shoot Mundy with her consent, in order to draw the ambulance's attention away from the Doctor, but Mundy's love interest dude sees Ruby pointing a gun at her and misinterprets. And then the Doctor, forced for the sake of this whole planet to stay frozen in place and just watch it happen... great face acting from Gatwa here as he reacts with horror while simultaneously trying to tamp down on his reaction.

This was a good episode, with a lot of good moments. I think tamping down into a more tragic story allowed for the Doctor and Ruby to have some exchanges that didn't feel so... manic, the way the first two episodes were? And that was a big help to make them feel like they have a more grounded relationship. Ruby begging to know her next of kin in the final moments of her life is going to haunt me, that was so tragic! And while maybe a little bit trite, the father's love saving the day thing did still work okay for me, all things told.

I'm hoping we can get some motion on the Ruby mystery in the coming weeks, and hopefully preserve a bit more of the naturalistic bond between our main characters as we move forward.

8.5/10

[kimberlyannharts]

So......a little while ago we had the big milestone of MMPR reaching 100 issues.  Which I’m not going to lie - is a really big deal, and something worth celebrating.  Even if it’s technically cheating a bit because we’ve been splitting MMPR into two for the past few years.  But still!  It’s a big deal, so we’re going to talk about it now that everything’s done and the books are moving on to other things.  It’s Charge to 100 - Power Rangers edition!  

As I said in the Mighty Morphin post, the Power Rangers’ side of Charge to 100 is actually more of an event storyline, as everything it does leads up to #100′s story.  And in all honesty, this is because Charge to 100 and MMPR #100 is, in essence, the finale of the Power Rangers side of the main series; and not just because after this, the series rolled back into one monthly MMPR release.  The Mighty Morphin side contributes to #100, and the storyline calls back to events in MMPR, but ultimately it’s a Power Rangers story more than a Mighty Morphin story.  So how does that work out?  Well, um.

Summary time.  Jason decides looking for the fascist murderer that they let escape at full power isn’t worth wasting time on anymore so he and the Omegas put it upon themselves to tell the entire universe they’re their personal cops now.  Andros sees their message and enlists their help to free the last survivors of KO-35 and then get his Astro Megaship (with bonus twinksicle inside) back from his enemies.  Meanwhile Trini and Zack save and adopt an alien baby they name Journey, whose gimmick is they age super fast.  Jason and Andros save the KO-35ians and Jason’s condescending white boy attitude towards the genocide victim is interrupted by his mom we’ve never met dying.  Andros commits some war crimes and steals a Gold Omega morpher from the Safe Haven vault.  Some people fight aliens to cope so after the funeral the Omegas go to take back the Astro Megaship and Andros Pet Semetarys Zhane with the Gold Morpher, unleashing the Death Ranger.  Surprisingly the Death Ranger is evil and “kills” all the Omega Rangers.  Zombies.  The MMPRs once again need to clean up the Omegas’ mess so they fight and fight and Jason learns to let go of his mom I guess and Death Ranger goes bye-bye and Jason loses his connection to the Omega powers somehow so he leaves.  Trini becomes Omega Red and Kevor, one of the Harturian refugees from Ultimate Power, becomes Omega Yellow.  Due to their accelerated aging, Journey dies of old age.  THE END!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As usual, the positives.  Because despite my distaste for the Omegas, there were some things I liked here!  While I didn’t think much of Journey the first time I read due to the reliance on family sitcom cliches and just waiting to get to the point of their inclusion, I liked them a lot more on a reread.  They had a fun personality and I welcome any kind of alien physiology in Power Rangers that makes them more than just a funny-looking human.  Their relationship with Kevor was cute, even if it only got an issue before it turned weird with the whole aging thing.  And of course the inclusion of a regular non-binary character, even if.....well.

The most memorable part of the event is undoubtedly Death Ranger, who caused a stir the moment they were first revealed to the public.  And let’s be honest, it’s because they’re a super cool concept!  A lost Omega ranger, with the powers to manipulate death itself; and more non-binary representation, to boot.  Like!!!!!!  They raise zombies!!!  Who doesn’t love a good zombie story?

well.

Beyond the initial cool concept, they’re...........boring.  I’m sorry guys.  They dropped the ball hard with this character.  Their main source of intrigue comes from their origin book, something that is barely referenced in the main series at all.  Obviously they want you to read the Unlimited book alongside the main series, to the point where it’s being included in the volume collections, but with how little the main series references their backstory, it makes you wonder what the point of telling their origin was in the first place.  Which is a shame because their backstory promises an evil but ultimately nuanced and tragic character with their own identity and past life, but the main series just delivers generic evil conqueror.  (Hmm, sounds familiar.)  It feels like such a waste of potential, since there was a lot to talk about here - they’ve technically outlived their old team.  Xi worked with them, yet the two never acknowledge each other.  (On Xi’s part, it’s established they refused to upload their old memories, but this doesn’t amount to anything but a personality change and again, Spa’ark doesn’t acknowledge them.)  The core of their struggles coming from how they were separated from their species’ hivemind and thus didn’t have “death” the way most beings do.  How they are ultimately motivated by wanting to help others find justice.  Nothing from that ever comes to play to make them seem more than just Evil Death Spirit who is too mean about wanting to do the right thing.  Their biggest claim to fame in the main series comes from their powers, which even then is confusing (they kill the Omegas to take control of them, yet when they’re defeated and their influence over the dead is gone, the Omegas....are still alive?  Jason gets stabbed clean through the chest and Zack is implied to have gotten mauled alive by a zombie Yale, and there are no consequences there?)

I understand Boom wanting to keep Death Ranger an open concept they can return to, especially considering their immediate infamy, but their defeat in this book amounts to the basic “you bested me, but I’ll be back!!!!!!!!” - something we saw with Alpha-1, of all villains.  So it just adds to the feeling of wasted potential - this character could have been SO much more and told a way better story than what they gave them.  Especially when over on MM we had a very intriguing story about someone trying to beat death......though I’m biased.  And I know recent solicits have confirmed apparently the Omegas’ newest mission is to search for Spa’ark but.....with both of their ties to the Morphin Grid destroyed, how is there anything left of them to search for? 

On that note, let’s talk about The Themes.  Obviously this story is ultimately about loss and the importance of treasuring every moment you have with your loved ones, because you don’t know when they’ll be taken away.  It’s something told through Andros losing his planet, Zack and Trini losing Journey, and Jason losing his mother.  The best way I can describe its execution is...........you can see it, but you can’t feel it.  Especially with Jason’s plotline, which is arguably meant to be the heart of it all with him becoming Death Ranger’s new primary host.  

I’ve complained about this a million times ever since the reveal but having Jason’s mother die hurts this more than anything.  And it’s not from lack of trying to make this work thematically; a lot of emphasis is given to how lot of the tragedy comes from how unexpected it was.  That Jason had given himself time to prepare for his father’s death, but not his mother’s.  And that’s fine.  What hurts it is that this apparently huge loss does not translate properly to the reader.  Jason’s mom was never, and I meant NEVER, a character before this; just someone we knew existed because Jason and his dad would talk about her sometimes.  And even then it’s implied in early GGPR that his mom was just as distant with him as his dad was.  There is nothing for the audience to connect here with beyond just basic-level “sad my mom died” in any kids’ movie (and even then, there’s at least ONE scene that establishes how important the mom is to the kid before she dies.)  And it’s taken even further when what you would think is the ultimate consequence of Jason’s grief, that he would choose to go along with the Death Ranger’s promises of bringing her back.................he doesn’t.

He says “I would give ANYTHING to see my mother again” literally right after he refuses to go along with the Death Ranger.  To contrast this, Andros going to these huge extremes to save Zhane and his people actually does translate to the audience that this loss was impactful in a way that......means something to the story.  (Which it should be, because Andros is a victim of genocide in an interplanetary war.  It bothers me that the book tries to act like Jason understands this, when their tragedies are nothing alike?)  And it hurts it even further during Jason’s trip through the Morphin Grid/mindscape or whatever and sees the illusion of his mother being alive; we already know he refused the power of the Death Ranger to bring her back, so where’s the tension in him being given the chance to stay with her if he stays with Death Ranger, or the character development that comes with him refusing Death Ranger’s power?  He already said no to it!!!!!!!  

It just boggles my mind that something that seemed so clearly set up - Jason suffers a sudden and tragic loss, in which part of his grief comes from taking his mother’s presence for granted under the assumption he’d always have her, and is presented with a chance to make it right - but he immediately says no.  So Death Ranger’s takeover of him has to be done through a sneak attack and forced consumption.  (It doesn’t help that the possession in general is just......Spa’ark puppeting their bodies and not a mutual combination of wills a la Eddie Brock and the Symbiote.)  In general, Andros’s choices carrying the Death Ranger storyline this much works to its detriment, because it robs the Omegas of really having agency throughout it.  Zack, Trini, and Yale in particular are presented as mindless, generic minions once they’re possessed, with the only indication they had more going on with Zombie Trini apparently holding back....something that’s only told to us via Journey and not shown. (Which is weird considering Zombie Zhane was able to talk and outright mocks Andros for fighting back???)  I’m not sure if Andros’s inclusion was an editor mandate or not, but I feel if you took him out and gave the basic drama of his storyline to the Omegas, it would feel more earned and give their choices real weight.  

(And honestly, having Jason’s dad die could still work for the theme - such as Jason believing that living it up on Safe Haven and neglecting his Earth responsibilities left his dad without the extra care he needed.  There’s a lot of emphasis on the Omegas treating Safe Haven like this perfect utopia, including a scene where Jason is acting extra flippant about how great they have it, that I thought for sure that’s where this was going.)

On Zack and Trini’s side of it, well.......I’m honestly not sure what to ultimately think of it.  As I said before a lot of it mostly serves to tie to the themes of spending time with loved ones because you don’t know how long you have with them, which makes it feel very self-contained as a whole, especially how Journey - whom is arguably the main character of the arc, even more than Zack and Trini - dies at the end without really contributing anything to story beyond lending an extra hand in the final battle.  Outside of that it really just feels like a basic funny adoption story (complete with that stupid “Dad hates my boyfriend” trope that is honestly out of character for Zack) that I don’t really want to call filler, but it can feel like it was just something to give Zack and Trini something to do while Jason and Andros do all of the important stuff.  Zack and Trini don’t really develop as characters (Trini becoming Red happens offscreen and she's been teased as a new leader long before this), and their relationship doesn’t develop into anything more significant than it was before despite them being....you know.....PARENTS (and this was written way before we knew Minh existed so “oh well Zack/Trini isn’t endgame in the show” is no excuse.)  It was a bit of a wasted opportunity to not have their possession via Death Ranger tie into their own griefs about the possibility of losing Journey or how they miss their own families (because apparently “fear of losing their loved ones” doesn’t apply to the ones they left behind on Earth.) 

Yale is also there.  And like.  They do stuff with Jason and Andros?  But it really shows how they’re not so much a character than a mascot when after they become a ranger you immediately bring in three new characters for the Omegas to bounce off of.  And as for Kevor, the new Omega Yellow......well.......after a strong introduction where he rightfully points out the problems with the Omegas and Safe Haven, it’s never brought up again (a common scene in the Omega books) and he just becomes Journey’s friend/kind of love interest before they die and he gets the Yellow morpher offscreen.  It’s......extremely forced, and disappointing that his character development goes from “criticizing the Omegas to becoming one of them,” especially when we don’t even see that happen.  He and Zack don’t even resolve their arc-long tension.  It’s less “yeah, he deserved the powers over anyone” and more “well, Journey’s dead and Arkon’s old, so I guess he’s the last named Safe Haven character we have left to fill the suit.”

Meanwhile Kiya is still in that fucking jar.  

(Also in general it sucks that pretty much everyone in the fandom was assuming Journey would become a ranger, giving us the possibility of another non-binary character who’s an active ranger that isn’t an animal or robot.  Instead the book ends with both Journey AND Spa’ark gone.  Thanks, guys.)

I think the harshest criticism I can give #100 is it doesn’t feel like a huge milestone event of MMPR, despite claims from other readers that it celebrates ALL of the MMPR comics and not just Ryan’s run.  Like Eltarian War before it, it’s a finale that belongs solely to the Omegas; specifically for Jason.  Sure the MMPRs come in to help and land the final blow on Death Ranger, but it’s once again relegating them to just an extra pair of hands rather than characters with personal stakes.  The only time we really get a “celebration” of anything else is through Jason’s little trip through the Morphin Grid, and that involves.....a page where he’s with the originals on the Megazord, a page of the scene where all the rangers gathered back in Shattered Grid, and one last page of quick flashes of events mostly from Necessary Evil.  I know Ranger Slayer, Ari, and Remi’s inclusion back in Necessary Evil’s finale had its own problems, but at least there it gave a better impression of the previous eras of comics contributing to the big milestone’s victory.  And in general I just don’t understand why it only led to Jason’s departure when all three of them retiring their powers to members of Safe Haven would have felt like the story encompassed all three of them rather than Jason - because really, even his departure feels lackluster because it’s literally described as “just a break” that’s more or less forced onto Jason rather than an ending he chooses.  

Yes yes I know this is most likely referring to how he’ll eventually become Zeo Gold but you can still foreshadow that while making it clear Jason learned something from this whole experience.  And besides, this could be twisted into him possibly returning to the OMEGAS, which would be completely shit writing.  Not even going to be nice about that.  It would be shit. 

And the worst part of it is not having ALL the Omegas retire is it apparently leading to one book switching perspectives between two separate teams again......because THAT went over so well in Necessary Evil.........

[projectcaramel]

Saccharine (8) - Satan x F!Reader x Lucifer

“Oh my god,” Satan breathes, almost in tears at the sight of the cats lounging around the building, and you can’t help but chuckle as he tries to suck in his adoration when a black kitten nuzzles his ankle. 

“Do you want to sit down?” you tease him, and he eventually brings himself to join you in a chair as you buy tea and snacks. “I’m surprised you don’t come here more often.” 

“I need someone to hold me back in case of emergency,” he replies, seeming embarrassed. “Otherwise the staff get angry with me.” 

“Why don’t you have a cat when you love them so much? I know Lucifer’s more of a dog person, but I don’t think he hates them...” Satan seems reluctant for a few moments. Then:

“...well, a while ago, I did get a cat...” 

“Did something happen?” you ask, feeling concern well up for him. 

“You... could say that.” He scratches the back of his head. “One... turned into two... then three... then six... Everyone was okay with six. Barely. But then I got a few... dozen.” 

“Satan!” you laugh. “That’s just asking for trouble,” 

“I know,” he groans. “That’s why Lucifer—the dick—banned me from getting a cat again.” 

“Well, supposing you got another cat, do you think you would be able to restrain yourself?” you prod, and Satan thinks for a moment before he gets irritated. Evidently, the answer is ‘no’. 

“Are you on Lucifer’s side?” he grumbles, and the question startles you. 

“How do you define being on his side? Because I wouldn’t take care of either that monster he calls his pet or a dozen cats. I think both are asking for death.” 

“You’re a drake though,” Satan points out. “Why should you be scared of a dozen cats?”

“I’m more afraid of the hassles that accompany owning a dozen cats,” you reply. “Just making sure they don’t kill each other in territorial wars might be a problem.”  

“...true,” Satan agrees grudgingly, even as one of the more friendly cats crawls up onto Satan’s lap, making the blond swoon with delight. You can’t help but think it’s truly adorable how Satan completely lets his guard slip when he’s with cats. He loves to pretend with that fake smile of his, but he’s really being genuine in this moment. 

And he likes to show that genuine smile more to you than other people, you’ve noticed. Almost like you’re one of those precious cats. 

For a moment, you actually catch yourself wondering what it would be like to be nestled on Satan’s lap, just napping there while he tries to read, ignoring the fact that you’re fascinated by his jacket which he refuses to wear properly, just like his mother brother. 

“MC?” 

“Ah, er,” you draw your attention away from the cat curled into his stomach. “Yes, you were saying?”

“I wasn’t saying anything; you just looked like you really wanted to pet Liam.” For a moment, you’re confused as to who the hell Liam is before you realize that Liam is the cat’s name—Satan memorized them of course. “You jealous because he likes me better~?” 

“A little,” you reply, and to some surprise, Satan beckons you to his own seat so that you can pet the plump ragamuffin. “He’s really cute,” you mumble as he bunts his head affectionately against your upraised hand, apparently uncaring that he’s never seen you before. “And a purrbox,” you add as you hear him rumbling his throat out as he shuffles himself on Satan’s lap. 

“He really is,” Satan agrees with an adorable laugh, and for a hot second, you’re consumed with the desire to listen to the cat purr. You admit it doesn’t occur to you immediately that it might make Satan uncomfortable that your head is on top of him, but Liam is so soft and irresistable! Apparently Satan isn’t the only one whose brain turns off around cats.

“MC?” Satan asks, and you glance up at him to see his cheeks—and his ears! so cute!—have gotten a little flushed. 

“Sorry,” you apologize quickly, sitting back up, even as Satan looks away and covers his mouth. “I couldn’t resist.”

“No, it’s fine,” he mumbles. “If you had stayed there much longer I probably would have pet you too...” 

You really have to stop yourself from recklessly saying that you wouldn’t mind him doing that.   

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