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tryst-art-archive · 2 years ago

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Failed College Essays 1

These paragraphs were all in one doc, and I think they encapsulate what was happening with me at the end of '08 pretty well. My depression was rampaging, and I was angry.

Can any person be truly prepared for the tsunamis that wash over their lives, forcing them on to new, unknown lands? The first years-long escape from the parental abode looms before hundreds of eager high school seniors. Many will move far from their home, some going to other countries or even continents to pursue the tentative education of their choice. Hundreds upon thousands of new adults step into a world that they have been ill-prepared for, blind to the dangers of the life that awaits them. Twelve years of schooling and we are still not done. We pack the paraphernalia of our lives into cardboard boxes, traverse meters or miles, and, after a long and grueling process of paperwork and waiting, step into a life we have no way of truly expecting. We have ourselves and our boxes. We have the possibilities of success and failure floating before us, our eyes unable to pierce through the mists and into the future.

How can we, mere children, be expected to produce a decision? How can we be expected to select the school and the place that will allow us to grow, to soar, to become somehow better than ourselves? We are victim, now, to the truths of others. Reality is a subjective entity; what seems true to one person may, in fact, be a falsehood for another. Few facts are truly indisputable.

I started as a girl named R[...], my imagination expanding beyond my capabilities. My ideas stretched into infinity while my body remained firmly grounded in the ever-turbulent yet uninteresting tides of reality. Bored with what was around me precisely because it was around me, I grew into a young woman called R[...]. In the process of doing so, I created well over two hundred individual characters, several fictional species and races, a small handful of worlds, a number of tales, and what is arguably my own brand of fantasy writing. I also produced what must now be thousands of sketches, hundreds of finished artistic pieces, several website layouts, some amateurish films and sound clips, and a vast multitude of written pieces. At present, I have roughly six novels in progress as well as five tales which I plan to present in a comic format to the Internet. I also have a website displaying some of my work set up on the internet. I have enjoyed the company of videogames and computers for the entirety of my life, and I have long enjoyed the fluffy entertainment of cartoons and Japanese anime. I will happily spend ten dollars on a Japanese comic book, and I will pay the money for a regular novel as well. The fantasy and sci-fi genres have been my bread and butter for years, and I have never seen a school year through without turning my notebooks into a landscape of doodles. Mild insomnia and a love of long showers has given me hours to daydream every day. Indeed, I spend hours upon hours chasing the thoughts roving around my mind. I am, in short, a lover of escapism. I reject reality in favor of my own inventions and the fictional realities presented by others.

Creativity is one part individual and one part chance. From the individual comes past experiences, intellectual knowledge, world view, theme, and the potential for an idea to become a completed reality. Chance is that which defines those who create from those who do not. Chance is the possibility of an idea hitting the person who can birth it. Where do ideas come from? They appear at odd moments, to receptive minds, careening like meteors into the fertile minds of would-be creators. What creator sits down and invents a world all their own without the intervention of a chance thought? Aren’t all ideas born through chance observation or a peculiar way of looking at the world, even if that peculiar view lasts for but a second? A second is all it takes.

Characters grow like vines. They begin as a tiny seed of inspiration, nurtured by the creator. The creator waters the character with affection, feeds it with the creator’s careful consideration of what the character will be. The character’s seed sprouts, planting roots in the soul of the creator, and begins to grow. The roots sink deep into the creator, assimilating traits, experiences, habits, and memories. Fed on touches of reality, the character’s vines begin to extend out. A history develops and then a future. A hometown and a family become apparent as do the friends both past and present. Layers build up as the character’s psychology begins to form. Suddenly, the character is not a two-dimensional cardboard cutout that the creator is making but is, rather, another person, another being whom the creator is meeting for the first time. The vines extend ever outward, growing leaves and flowers, developing thorns, spiraling and twisting into the convoluted mass of humanity. Character and creator pursue their acquaintanceship. They go for coffee, they discuss, they chat. The creator passes through her life, applying consciously or unconsciously her experiences to her character. A brief spat of fat rain falling on her car, for example, may lead to a momentous turning point in her character’s life. But it is not that she has created that moment, it is that the fat rain has reminded her of a moment buried so far in her mind as to be previously unknown. In these ways, the character grows. Even as he is fitted into his story, he continues to grow. Indeed, he grows even past his tale’s completion, finishing his growth only when his creator places him aside, in a closet of the mind.

Characters are rooted in their creators. The two can share experiences, personality traits, habits, tastes and interests, even physical traits. Generally, characters think in a similar way to their creators.

Fuck you, world. Fuck you with a cactus up the asshole.

#writing archive #TrysKits work #prose #nonfiction #assignments #college applications #old writing #me #00s #2008 #Age 17

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pan-fangirl-345 · 4 years ago

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Books Bring People Together

Summary: A frustrated and stuck Kaminari comes to you for help, and it somehow blooms into something else along the way.

TW: I made Kaminari ADHD, so I'm sorry if there's anything wrong, I went off what my ADHD friends do and what a medical site told me. I myself am not ADHD, so again, I apologize if there's anything wrong with this. Small swears, and Mineta, which should be a warning in and of itself.

A/N: I have had this half-baked idea stuck in my head for months and I wanted it out, so I am giving you all this!

"Hey, um, (Y/L/N), can I ask you something?" Kaminari asked, sliding into the chair across from you at the common room table.

"Sure, what's up?" you asked, setting your pencil down on the paragraph you were reading.

"Um, this is kind of embarrassing," Kaminari admitted. "But, um, I'm having a really hard time with English right now, and I know that you're right behind Bakugou in grades."

"Where are you going with this Kaminari?" you asked, crossing your arms in front of your chest.

You had heard things about Kaminari, and after meeting Mineta and knowing that Kaminari hung around with him, you didn't have the best impression of him. You had just been placed in Class 2-A, and so far you had mostly hung around with what the other students were calling the 'Dekusquad'.

"I need someone to tutor me," he admitted. "Normally English isn't all that hard for me, but Shakespeare is whack and I don't understand half of it."

"You want me," you started, "to tutor you. Why not ask Bakugou? Isn't he your friend?"

"Yeah, but . . . Bakugou has . . . harsh methods, and I need someone who won't treat me like an idiot," Kaminari confessed.

"Alright," you relented. "Why don't we get started now? Do you have anything going on?"

"No, this takes precedent," Kaminari said, rushing to grab his things.

"Alright, here's my question for you," you said when he propped his book open. "Why don't you understand?" You saw the look on his face change and you winced. "Sorry, sometimes I have a hard time controlling the tone of my voice. Let me rephrase that question." You paused for a moment, thinking of the right words before you said, "What about this don't you understand? What's the one thing about this that trips you up?"

"The formatting for one thing," Kaminari grumbled. "Why the hell is printed like that?"

You chuckled, brushing hair out of your face. You had thought the same thing the first time you had read Shakespeare.

"Alright, how about you just read, and then you can ask me any questions while I work on my own stuff, alright?"

"That sounds like it might work," he admitted.

"If that doesn't work, feel free to let me know," you told him. "This is about what helps you remember the material better."

"No, like I said, normally this is really easy for me," Kaminari said. "Let's try it."

"Alright, and remember, if you have any questions, I'm right here."

"Thanks (Y/L/N)," he mumbled.

"Of course, I wouldn't be much of a hero if I couldn't help people, right?" you mused, smiling at him.

"R-Right!" he chirped, grinning back at you.

You both worked in silence for a little bit before Kaminari leaned back in his chair, rubbing at him eyes.

"You okay?" you asked.

"Yeah, sorry, I'm ADHD, so sitting still and trying to read this is a little hard," he confessed. "And I might be dyslexic, I've never been tested but sometimes reading is hard for me."

You frowned, biting the inside of your lip, running the situation through your head.

"What if I read it to you?" you asked, looking up from your chemistry homework.

"How? It's a play," Kaminari said.

"I used to be in a drama club in middle school," you told him. "It's set up like a script, or if we don't have the energy to act it out, it's not hard to pretend that it's a regular story."

Kaminari stared at you for a moment before he nodded.

"Yeah, yeah I think that might work a little bit better than me staring at the same paragraph for fifteen minutes without actually reading anything."

"What part are you on?" you asked Kaminari, moving to glance over his shoulder at the page.

"Portia is trying to convince Brutus to tell her what's going on in her house. I think."

"Oh, I adore this part," you muttered, mostly to yourself. "Alright, what has you stuck?"

"This part. 'I grant I am a woman; but withal A woman well-reputed, Cato's daughter. Think you I am no stronger than my sex, Being so father'd and so husbanded? Tell me your counsels, I will not disclose 'em: I have made strong proof of my constancy, Giving myself a voluntary wound Here, in the thigh: can I bear that with patience. And not my husband's secrets?' I don't entirely understand what she's saying."

Wow, English must've been his thing, he didn't mess up a single word, and he was able to read it fairly fluently, everything considered. It might have taken him a little longer than normal, but he had nailed it.

"Okay, so she's basically telling Brutus that she won't tell his secrets if he tells her what's going on, it doesn't matter if she's a woman or not."

"What was with the voluntary wound thing?"

"So, it depends. Sometimes, in plays, the women playing Portia will have a fake knife and stab themselves in the thigh, other times they pretend to slice themselves, depends on the director," you told him. "She basically cut herself on the thigh and said, 'If I can handle this I can handle whatever's going on inside your head.' Do you understand?"

"Yeah, but damn, this woman is a badass," Kaminari said, staring down at the pages."

"Right? Some people read that as psychotic, but it's Shakespeare," you told him, "everything in Shakespeare is psychotic to some extent."

"That's fair. Thank you for explaining that to me," he said.

"Of course, that is why you came to me," you replied, laying a hand on his shoulder for a moment before you moved back to your seat.

Kaminari, despite the things you had heard, was actually quite intelligent, it just took him a little longer to get the answer sometimes.

"Thank you so much for helping me," Kaminari murmured. "You were super helpful."

"Of course, I actually enjoyed helping you," you told him. "And if you need any more help, please, let me know."

"I will, thank you so much (Y/L/N)," Kaminari repeated.

"Have a good night Kaminari," you told him.

"You too!" he chirped before he headed up to his room.

You sat down at the table again, staring at the chemical formula in front of you.

So, if zinc only had one charge, positive two, and it was combined with thiosulfate, that meant that there shouldn't be the need for two of the zinc atoms, they would make the charge neutral.

You wrote the answer down, checking the textbook to make sure you were right. Polyatomic ions were a little more complicated than monoatomic ions.

There were only a few more questions, and then you could go to bed too, and you just hoped that there were no trick questions.

You were the last one in the common room, as usual, despite assuring Iida that you were right behind him when he went to bed an hour ago.

"Alright (Y/F/N), time for some good sleep," you muttered, shutting your book and gathering your supplies.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You had been tutoring Kaminari for about six weeks, and he was definitely smarter than people gave him credit for. Sometimes he just needed a few minutes to think, or he needed something explained to him in a different way than everyone else.

Sero had been joining your little tutoring sessions too, and you had started doing them in Sero's room, since there were things Kaminari could mess with while he studied, and it was an environment where he didn't feel the need to prove himself.

"Hey, (Y/L/N), can you help me with this problem?" Sero asked, waving you over.

"Of course, what are we working on?" you inquired.

"Polyatomic ions, again," Sero said. "I need this extra credit."

"Alright, which one are you stuck on?"

"How do I figure out which Roman numeral goes here? Gold has multiple charges."

"You work backwards," you told him. "When you look at the formula, you need to figure out what charge dihydrogen phosphate has."

You gestured to the chemical formula.

"It has a negative one charge. Right?" Sero inquired, checking the list of common ions that the teacher had given them at the beginning of the unit.

"Right, and you have three of those ions, right?"

"Yeah, because there's a subscripted three outside the parentheses."

"So you have three of those, which means that those three together have a negative three charge."

"Right."

"So now you just have to figure out which gold variant has the right charge to cancel that one out."

"Well, there's only one gold atom, so it's gold three right?"

"Bingo, you got it."

"Oh, that makes it so much easier than what I was doing," he muttered, erasing the math he had been doing, writing down the way you had just shown him.

"(Y/L/N), can you come read through this essay for me?" Kaminari asked. "I think it's okay, but I need another eye on this."

"Sure, hand it over," you told him, taking the papers that he had handed to you.

You grabbed one of your signature blue pens and uncapped it, ready to mark anything you thought he could do better.

There wasn't as much as you were expecting. While Kaminari had a hard time interpreting things, once he understood, he was golden. He had a way with words, you noticed as you scanned through the paper he needed to hand in next class. You assumed that it gave him time to think about the right phrasing of things.

Other than a few grammatical and spelling errors, the paper was well written, and there was nothing major that needed fixing.

"Good job Kami, this is really good," you told him, ruffling his hair lightly.

He responded well to physical affection and praise, you had also noticed, and he made it easy.

Once you got past the typical shield he threw up, he was a nice guy with insecurities, just like everyone else.

He chuckled, leaning into your hand.

You noticed that the others didn't touch Kaminari as much as you did, despite having known him for much longer. They were worried about getting shocked, Sero had told you.

"Why though? He's never shocked me," you had told him.

"He can't control it sometimes, it builds up in his body and it needs an out."

"Well, that still no reason to stop touching him," you had mused. "If he shocks me he shocks me, it's really no big deal."

Kaminari had only shocked you once, during a thunderstorm when there had been a lot of lightning outside. He had gotten excited about getting a 90 on one of his tests, and had hugged you, giving you a slight shock.

He had apologized profusely, but you had waved his apologies off.

"It's okay Kaminari," you told him. "It happens to all of us sometimes."

You were finding yourself thinking about him more than you should've. You had become good friends with both him and Sero, and the other students had started coming to you when they had a question, but Kaminari was a little different.

It had started out with the flirty comments, but slowly those had turned into real compliments. He had been keeping Mineta away from you more and more, and he had even started laying off the perving with the grape rat.

He was a good guy, he really was, despite the playboy attitude. He was sweet, and he was just like every other person in the world.

"Thanks for tutoring us both," Kaminari said as the session was coming to a close.

"Yeah, you're really saving our asses," Sero agreed.

"Of course, come to me any time," you told them both, smiling as you made to head back to your own room.

"Hey, um, (Y/L/N), can I ask you something?" Kaminari asked.

"Sure. You know how much I love questions," you teased, smiling at him. Then you noticed his expression. "Kami?"

"Will . . . will you-" he chuckled awkwardly, messing with the seam of his pant leg. "Can you read something to me?"

"Yeah, of course," you said. "What is it?"

He handed you the book, and you smiled.

"My dad used to read this to me when I was little. I think that's why I love books so much," you admitted. "That was before . . . well, it doesn't matter now. Come on, we can head down to the common room if you want. Or your room, it doesn't really matter to me."

You had visited Kaminari's room on more than one occasion to return things to him, he tended to be a little forgetful, and he had often left things with you.

Despite the fact that everything you had learned about society told you that you should avoid being alone in a room with a boy, you trusted Kaminari enough to be alone in a room with him.

"I really like to read too," he confessed. "But sometimes my brain doesn't like to let me do it."

"I understand, it's okay," you told him, touching his arm lightly. "Are you sure that you'll be able to sit still long enough for me to get through any of it?"

Kaminari, after spending so much time with you over the last few weeks, had figured out how your voice worked, and he rarely got offended by your tone of voice anymore, which you were thankful for.

"Yeah, I like the sound of your voice, it helps calm me down. I think I might pay attention more if you read it to me."

"Alright, sure, let's go," you said, holding the book to your chest.

You knew this book like the back of your hand, and you had a feeling that Kaminari was telling the truth when he said he would be able to pay attention.

Kaminari followed you into the common room of the dorms, trailing just slightly behind, but he was in front of you the moment Mineta tried to get to you.

It amazed you how fast he could move sometimes, when he really wanted to.

"Get lost Mineta," you said. "I have nothing to say to you."

Mineta opened his mouth but a raised brow from Kaminari had him shutting it and heading to his own room so he could think his pervy thoughts in peace.

"I can't believe I was ever friends with that perv," Kaminari whispered. "I think I owe a lot of the girls apologies."

Kaminari glanced over his shoulder, and you smiled at him, linking your hands together.

You were proud of him, he had really grown lately, and you were glad that he was seeing how uncomfortable he had made the girls.

"I'm proud of you," you told him, and he beamed.

He responded well to praise, and being told that he had done a good job.

"Come on, we'll have to go to bed soon if we don't want Iida to lecture us again," you said, sitting down on one of the couches.

Kaminari sat down next to you, leaning his head on your shoulder as your propped the book open.

You didn't mind the fact that Kaminari was a little clingy, the contact was nice, and he always radiated warmth, though whether that was his normal body temperature or he ran hot because of his quirk, you didn't know.

You started the book off, barely having to look at the words as you read, changing your voice as necessary, stopping every once in a while to explain a word to Kaminari that he didn't understand, or to answer a question that he had.

It was nice, spending time with him like this, simply because he wanted to, not because he was going to fail a subject.

Somehow he had ended up with his head on your thighs, and you had one hand buried in his hair, brushing it away from his face, your fingers carding through it softly.

He was making a content noise in the back of his throat, and you smiled down at him, finishing up a chapter.

"Do you want to go to bed?" you asked softly, not wanting to disturb him too much, he had enough trouble sleeping as it was.

He hummed softly, leaning into your hands, and you smiled down at him softly.

You had never been one for crushes, they had seemed pointless, and there had never been a person who had caught your attention like this.

You had thought about it, of course, what it would be like to be in a relationship, but you had never thought that you would have to worry about it.

Well now you were worrying about it.

That nameless, faceless person that had been with you in those daydreams was starting to look frighteningly like Kaminari.

You had panicked when it had first started happening, until you realized that it would probably fade. You had had a friend in middle school who had a new crush every week, and you had assumed that it would fade with time.

It hadn't. That uneasiness that had popped up around him slowly melted into a nice warmth whenever he was close. You had started to stop worrying about whether he would like this, or hate that, and had started to show your true colors.

He had seemed to like you even more when you had started doing that, and you were glad.

But the only bad thing was that now you were noticing other things. His hands lingered a little longer than necessary when he helped you during training, his smile always seemed brighter when you made him laugh. His eyes always seemed to follow you around the common room, and he sometimes appeared at your side when you walked in.

You weren't sure if you just overthinking things or if he might like you back.

But this wasn't a simple crush anymore. You weren't sure what it was. It was a little too early to be love (even though it was just a rush of chemicals in the brain meant for human survival), but it was way past a simple crush.

Was there another step between a crush and love? Was this going to end with your heart breaking? Was there even a chance that he might like you back?

These were things that you kept in the back of your mind until you were alone in your room. Worrying about them in his presence made him worry about you, and you didn't want him to worry about you if he didn't need to.

"Kami, seriously, you need to go to bed."

"If I do, so do you," he told you, making you chuckle.

"I'll go to bed if you will. You are in my lap after all," you teased, pulling your hands away.

"That's fair," he murmured, stifling a yawn.

"Go to bed Kami," you whispered, standing up as soon as your legs were free.

They had fallen asleep a while ago, but you hadn't had the heart to move him.

"Alright," he mumbled, stumbling towards his dorm room.

You smiled softly, heading for yours.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You weren't sure what woke you up hours later. Maybe it was the three glasses of water you had drank before bed, or maybe it was the fact that your brain hated you almost as much as Kaminari's hated him.

You stretched, pulling a hoodie on over the tank top and shorts that you had gone to bed in, heading for the common room.

You weren't going back to bed any time soon, so you might as well get some studying done with a nice cup of tea or something.

You were almost surprised to see Kaminari sitting at the common room table with his books out.

"Denki? What are you doing?" you mumbled, wandering over.

"(Y/L/N)? What are you doing up?"

"I could ask you the same thing," you murmured, plopping into the seat next to him.

"Couldn't sleep, my brain went into overdrive the minute I tried to fall asleep."

"I at least got a good four or five hours in," you replied. "But it's Friday night, I should be sleeping in."

"What woke you up?" he asked, laying a hand on your thigh.

Kaminari, you had noticed, liked having his hands on you.

Not in the perverted way you had expected though. He liked having a hand on your thigh or on the small of your back. He liked an arm around your shoulders or his arm linked with yours when you all took class outings. He liked being close to you.

"No idea. It might've been a nightmare," you admitted. "I remember faint flashes, but it might've been something else."

"Are you going to be able to go back to bed?"

"Nah, I'll be up for a good while," you told him, leaning into his shoulder.

"Anything I can do to help?" he asked.

"Can you just . . . talk to me?" you inquired. "I like listening to you talk about things. Calms me down."

"What do you want to know about?"

"Anything. Everything. You."

"Did you know that I have a cat named Marshmellow?"

"What? No," you said, perking up a little bit. You had always been an animal person.

"Yeah. He's the spawn of the devil, but I didn't know that when I named him. All white, pretty blue eyes. Pure fucking evil," Kaminari told you, taking his phone out to show you a photo.

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah, he absolutely despises me," Kaminari said, handing his phone over to you. "Loves my sister though, so he isn't a complete psychopath."

"He's a cat, can animals even be psychopaths?" you asked, moving your seat closer to his.

"No idea, but it wouldn't surprise me if he is," Kaminari said, chuckling.

"You're right, he is pretty," you murmured, flipping through the photos quickly.

Kaminari hummed, but when you glanced up he was looking at you.

He had that look on his face, the look that he sometimes got when he looked at you. It was one of the reasons you wondered if he liked you or not. He looked like he was in pain when gave you that look.

"Denki?" you inquired softly.

"Hmm?"

"Why are you looking at me like that? Like you're in pain? Like you're hurt?" you asked.

You didn't like the way your voice sounded. That little hint of insecurity snuck in, your voice had that clogged sound it got when you tried not to cry.

You weren't sure whether you could handle his response to that, but you needed to know if being around you caused him pain. You needed to know if there was any chance that he hated being in your presence.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(Kaminari's POV)

Pain, huh?

Yeah, this was definitely pain, seeing her like this, swaddled in a hoodie he had left in her room accidently a week ago, covering her shorts, making her legs look a mile long.

He had tried to ignore it, tried to ignore the feeling in his chest every time he looked at her, tried to ignore the blatant male pride that came with seeing her draped in his hoodie, but he was only human after all.

Denki, after spending so much time with a girl that didn't tend to pull her punches, he knew how uncomfortable he had made the girls with all of his comments. He now knew how it made them feel when he said some of the things he had.

Denki never wanted her or any of the other girls to feel like that again, and he wanted to ignore some of the things that were running through his head, but she was making it hard when she looked at him like that, when she said his name the way that she just had.

"Denks?" she asked softly, moving to get a better look at his face.

Denki had never had a crush, not a real one anyway. He had had his eyes on Jirou first year, but that had been fleeting.

He was flirty, it was just his nature, but this feeling whenever he looked at her . . . that was completely new on him.

"Denki, are you okay?" she asked, putting her hands on his face lightly, making him look at her.

"Do you have any idea what you do to me?" Denki asked, placing his hands over hers. "I wasn't sure whether you felt the same way and I didn't want to mess anything up."

"Denki? What are you saying?" she asked, eyes bright with hope as she looked at him, running her thumb over his cheek softly, almost absentmindedly.

"I like you, (Y/F/N), I like you a lot, and this isn't some . . . three A.M. spur of the moment confession, but . . . it kind of is. The point is that you're smart, and all kinds of gorgeous, and there's so many things about you I wish I could list, but words aren't my thing, and I know that I'm rambling, but I really can't stop 'cause I'm terrified of what your response is gonna be and I don't want to fuck anything up and-"

"Denki," she cut in, smiling at him the way she did when she was fondly exasperated with him. "You have nothing to worry about. Absolutely nothing. I like you too."

"Why?"

Even Denki was surprised by the amount of confusion in his own voice.

"Because you're a dork," she stated. "Because you're smart, even if people don't always see it right away. Because you want to be a hero, because you like to make a difference. Because in the end, you're a good guy, when you get past the playboy attitude and shitty pickup lines. Because you're cute and all kinds of soft. Because apparently I have a thing for hyperactive morons with screwed up hair."

"Rude," he muttered, but she smiled at him even wider, and he knew that it was worth it.

"Am I wrong?" she asked softly, swinging her legs around to get closer to him.

"No, but that doesn't mean that I'm happy about it," he mumbled, pouting slightly.

She gave a small giggle, something that rarely happened, and Denki smiled, wide and unburdened.

"So, what do you say about going on a date?" he asked, tucking her hair behind her ear to get a better look at his face.

"I think that's the smartest thing you've ever said to me," she teased.

Denki pouted again and she touched his nose lightly, making it crinkle in response.

"That wasn't a no," she told him, wrapping her arms around his neck softly.

"You know, this looks good on you," he whispered, touching the hem of the hoodie carefully. "And it looks very familiar."

"It does?" She pulled away to look down at it and her eyes went wide. "I didn't even know it was yours. I just threw it on on my way down here. When did you even . . . .?"

"I left in there like a week ago," Denki informed her. "I thought you had just kept it."

"I didn't know it was in there," she admitted. "But I'm not sorry that I'm in it, it's very comfortable."

"We can share custody," he murmured.

"We'll have to," she agreed. "I don't think I can deal with never wearing this again. You actually have good taste in hoodies."

"Why are you so surprised by this?" he asked.

"Because most of the time your style seems all over the place," she replied. "But that's not a bad thing. It makes you unique."

"Normal is overrated."

"A normal sleep schedule is not," she said, standing up. She grabbed his hands, pulling him to his feet. "Come on, we can chill in my room if you want to."

"You aren't nervous about having me in there?" Denki asked.

"No, because I know that if you try anything I can knock you on your ass. I also trust you," she told him, linking their fingers together softly. "Is this okay?"

"More than okay," he breathed, stepping close enough to brush their shoulders together.

He could get used to this.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(Your POV)

It was a rare day when you and Denki got a day off together. Being heroes was tiring, and schedules were always weird, so when you both got a day off together, you always spent them together.

"You're up early," Denki murmured, slipping in behind you from where you were sitting on the window seat of your apartment.

He wrapped his arms around your waist, burying his face in your neck.

"The baby woke me up," you said.

Said baby padded into the roof, tail high in the air, a smug look on that cute furry face as he jumped up onto the seat, curling up in your lap.

"Marshmellow, don't lay on my book," you muttered, pulling the book out.

"Told you, he's fuckin' evil," Denki murmured, kissing your shoulder lightly.

His shirt was slipping off your shoulder, and Denki treated uncovered skin like a target, regardless.

"How long have you been up?" he asked.

"Only an hour or two, and you looked so peaceful, I felt bad waking you up. I know that you've been getting more action than I have these last few weeks," you murmured, taking one of his hands, kissing his palms softly, leaning back into his warmth.

"I love you," Denki hummed.

"I love you too Denks," you told him.

"Read to me?" he requested, and you smiled.

"Always," you replied, finding your spot in your book again.

#denki kaminari x reader #denki x reader #kaminari fluff #kaminari x reader #kaminari x reader fluff #denki x reader fluff #mha #mha kaminari

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bokunoheroanalysisforthefuture · 3 years ago

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Time for the rest of the first challenge. Event. Whatever. Words hard.

[No. 26 - Chase Down The Leader]

We flashback just a minute or so from where we left off, in order to see just how Izuku pulled off his impressive launch across the field. He stands at the start of the minefield, watching other students pick their way through - and occasionally setting off mines with missteps - while having a veritable mumblefest over the mines and the general issue of trying to pick past them.

The general gist of the mumbling: The mines are the type that blow up when stepped on, and aren’t that strong, but can throw a student off enough to possibly cause a chain reaction and lose them a lot of time. It’s better to go slow to avoid damage, even for leaping types, and trying to slow others is a guaranteed time loss. Izuku then analyzes the field in front of him, noting the spots people avoid and that most students will be most on guard at the entrance, which means there are plenty of mines left for his plan so long as they stay frosty.

Izuku puts his armor plate to work digging up mines, muttering about how anti-personnel mines should only be 14 centimeters or so deep (about 6 inches). Jirou, just making her way into the field and using her quirk to… I guess disable mines in front of her? Anyway, she actually notices Izuku is up to something and asks what he’s doing, though I think it’s not one she expects to get answered. In short order, Izuku has a pile of about a dozen mines, and mentally claims he’s taking a page from Kacchan’s book. Meanwhile, Present Mic announces Shouto and Katsuki are still in the lead, and that they’re about to cross the finish line.

Not for long, though, as Izuku names his adhoc maneuver ‘great blasting turbo speed’, throwing himself on top of his armor sheet and onto the pile of mines, launching him over the field and right towards the two leading the pack. Pretty much everyone hesitates or stops to stare for a moment, shook by the sheer brass balls it had to take to literally blow yourself sky high. The two most shook, of course, are Shouto and Katsuki, who only just start moving again when Izuku actually flies ahead of them, forgoing their fight in order to catch back up.

Izuku considers the whole experience intense, and is even more focused now that he’s managed to gain the lead. However, there’s one huge issue - he didn’t think far enough ahead to consider how he was going to land. As if that’s not enough, Katsuki is throwing himself forward with more explosions, screaming at ‘Deku’ to get back there (presumably to fight). Shouto’s not far behind, giving up keeping the others hindered in exchange for the speed he gets from icing over the field ahead of him - he doesn’t have time to worry about those behind him now.

Present Mic announces the temporary ceasefire between the two in order to chase down Izuku, and how when a common enemy appears, people stop fighting - then tacks on that, well, actually they’re still fighting, just not each other. Aizawa wonders what his friend is even trying to say.

Izuku starts floating away from his armor sheet, the larger surface area causing it to stall and slow faster then he is. He grabs onto one of the wires as he recognizes this, and that if he loses time on his landing, passing the two again will be impossible. As the two just start to rush past him, Izuku swears mentally, telling himself to not let go - while he’s still ahead, this is his only chance. So, if passing them is impossible, then he has to maintain the lead.

Somehow, he manages to flip in the air, using the momentum to bring the armor plate swinging around and into the ground right between the two, the pressure enough to set off several more mines. The two are forced to stop from the resulting explosion, while Izuku’s newfound momentum throws him readily ahead.

As he falls into a duck and roll, Present Mic announces how Izuku blows off the competition with no time to lose. He goes on to marvel at Aizawa’s class, wondering what he’s teaching the kids. Aizawa says it’s not his doing, and that they’ve been spurring each other on all on their own. Present Mic rolls on with his commentary, asking who could have predicted such an incredible turn of events? Aizawa asks if he’s being ignored as Present Mic announces the first one back to the stadium:

Midoriya Izuku. The crowds go absolutely wild. Outside the stadium, Death Arms recognizes Izuku as the kid from a year ago. At home, Inko falls off the couch sobbing while repeatedly stumbling over Izuku’s name. In an unknown location, Shigaraki watches on while scratching idly at his neck.

Izuku looks around the stadium while breathing heavily, eventually looking at one spot in particular. Somehow, he’s found Toshinori in the stands, and the two have a Moment™ from across the stadium.

These fucking two, man.

While Izuku is trying to keep himself from crying, the other students start making their way across the finish line as well.

Toshinori thinks about how Izuku has the spirit of a savior hero to the core, but the sports festival is a competition that tests the exact opposite of that - your willingness to take down the enemy. Heroes nowadays depend on popular opinion so much. So many selfishly seek to beat everyone else. But that’s not Izuku - and that’s why Toshinori chose him, even as he thoughts that lack of selfishness would be his one weakness. He claps in the stands, happy to have been proved wrong and mentally apologizing for doubting him, even as he laments Izuku’s crying habits.

Some business students nearby catch Toshinori’s attention, mostly due to them discussing Izuku’s potential and how they’d market him. They talk about how Izuku’s stock is about to rise, but it’s hard to say what’s still in store for him since he didn’t show his quirk. They then start speculating about how a hero agency would market him if they took it on, with one pointing out how he’s not much to look at, so they’re have to push his skills and his unique, almost artistic sensibilities. When the resources you need aren’t there… Well, we don’t hear how that gets handled, but Toshinori does note how some things never change.

We get a brief narrative insert about the business course, most notably how they have nothing to gain by directly competing in the sports festival. Instead, they hone their skills as salespeople and run business simulations.

Back with the hero students, we see Katsuki and Shouto both catching their breath. Katsuki is furious at Izuku once again managing to wrangle a win right from under him, while Shouto is just staring after Izuku silently. Present Mic announces more racers reaching the finish line, and that the standings will be gone over later, so the students can catch their breath for now.

Ochako and Tenya make their way over to Izuku. Ochako calls Izuku’s strategy awesome, while Tenya is in despair over losing a race with his quirk, stating that he still has progress to make. Ochako states that she’s jealous of Izuku’s first place; Izuku flushes and hides his face behind his arms, stating that it wasn’t that impressive, and was still too close. Internally, he laments that he just got lucky, that all his chance strategies happened to work. They say it’s awesome, but it was just a lucky break, and that the real test of skill starts now.

Anyways, Midnight announces the end of the race, and we get the results:

Midoriya Izuku

Todoroki Shouto

Bakugou Katsuki

Shiozaki Ibara

Honenuki Juuzou

Iida Tenya

Tokoyami Fumikage

Sero Hanta

Kirishima Eijirou

Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu

Ojiro Mashirao

Awase Yosetsu

Asui Tsuyu

Shouji Mezou

Satou Rikidou

Uraraka Ochako

Yaoyorozu Momo

Mineta Minoru

Ashido Mina

Kouda Kouji

Jirou Kyouka

Kaibara Sen

Tsuburaba Kosei

Kaminari Denki

Bondo Kojiro

Yanagi Reiko

Shinsou Hitoshi

Kendo Itsuka

Shishida Jurota

Kuroiro Shihai

Kodai Yui

Rin Hiryu

Shouda Nirengeki

Komori Kinoko

Kamakiri Togaru

Monoma Neito

Tsunotori Pony

Hagakure Touru

Tokage Setsuna

Fukidashi Manga

Hatsume Mei

Aoyama Yuuga

I wasn’t able to find this list in word form anywhere online, so I made it myself. You’re welcome. I also calculated the points each of them had going into the second event, but I’m not gonna worry about that here. I’ll do individual and team points when we actually get to the teams. That way, we’ll know who has which teams’ headbands at the end!

Moving on with the chapter. Midnight announces that the top 42 from the qualifying round will move on, conveniently just including every hero student as well as the two non-hero students who managed to place higher. For those who placed lower, the sports festival will have another way for them to show their stuff!

(Not that we see said show, which I mean, makes sense narratively speaking, but also…)

[I was going to insert the server discussion about my thoughts on the arbitrary cut-off point here, but it’s getting long enough to merit its own post at this point. So look forward to that whenever it goes up!]

Anyways, Midnight continues on, explaining that now the main selection really begins, and that the press corp is going to be jumping out of their seats, so the students should give it all they’ve got. Now, onto the second event, which she already knows - which confirms these are predetermined by UA and they just do the randomizer for the sake of the crowds. Said event is…

the cavalry battle!

Kaminari is nervous at that, thinking about how he’s going to suck. Mineta is also looking concerned. Tsuyu notes they’re teaming up, but how, exactly? Midnight explains with a neat little graphic:

Basically, participants get in teams of two to four, and get into a horse-and-rider formation. The rules are the same as your regular cavalry battle - snag the opponent’s headbands while guarding your own - but with a twist. Each student has an assigned value based on their placement in the race.

Sato notes that it sounds like the points in the entrance exam, so it sounds simple. Hagakure comments on how this means the point value of each team is based on its members. Midnight snaps and cracks her whip at the students that she’s about to explain, so they should shut up already.

Individual point values start at five, at the bottom, so the student in 42nd place is forth five, 41st is worth ten, etc etc. However, the first place participant - that is, Izuku - is instead worth a whole ten million points.

That, my friends, is the face of someone realized they done fucked up.

Basically all the students stare down Izuku as he goes stiff from the internal panicking. Shinsou and Hatsume seem to be shown particular interest in it. Midnight finishes the chapter by noting that the higher-ranked students are the ones to aim for, and that this survival game is a chance for a comeback. It’s anyone’s game!

And with that, we end chapter 26… and volume three. Which means bonus content will be coming soon! See y’all then, and we’ll be back with more sports festival action in the next volume.

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hanzajesthanza · 3 years ago

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waking up from a dream of the hansa’s fates somehow worse than stygga…

i think posting your dreams about characters online can be kind of cringe if you insist that they were entertaining and wonderful and everyone should take them for canon… i just want to record this somewhere because it was disturbing to me hah 😅

at first in the dream, i thought that this was a previously-unseen epilogue to the hansa where they were interacting in the afterlife. very happy with that premise, i sat down and read on.

i realized though, from the subject matter (and also the fact regis was there) that this wasn’t the afterlife…

in this scene, the hansa (of the ones who went to stygga at least) were locked in some cavernous death trap. it appeared to be a grand library. i have no idea where this was or why they were confronting their deaths in such a macabre way.

the reason i’m writing this post was because the prose was actually on the page of the book (i could see the printed text on the pages of the book and read the words in the dream). i also saw this as a visual scene with the characters interacting but it was the text reading itself out. i’ll write down what i remember from it:

The Witcher paced incessantly.

Cahir, a brave boy, stood solemnly by the wall, and turned his head away from the group when he began to cry to his mother Mawr.

The archer Milva sat on the floor heavily. One by one, she took out her arrows and examined their sharp metal heads, evaluating them carefully as if judging which ones would better serve to cut her wrists with.

this is where i realized that it’s not a epilogue, but a death scene. it continues, though i have to say this part is annoying to me because of two reasons.

firstly, i don’t share the headcanons expressed here (i dont think regis would act in this way. perhaps the company is sincerely defeated though. and i also dont agree with the headcanons of him having a history of some vague childhood or parents, that’s not part of my personal canon). so what i’ll be writing is, again, not entirely reflective of what i believe, it’s just what i “saw” in my dream.

secondly, regis’ dialogue became lowercase and formatted “incorrectly” before i stopped reading it. it was a disturbing scene to read, so that’s when i closed the book (even though we had yet to read the description of angoulême… (see tags for more explanation)). but i’ll keep this “incorrect” formatting towards the end because it’s what i “saw”.

for parts of the text that i didn’t “see”, i’ll just put ellipses as such: “[…]” because i don’t want to create interpolations

The vampire, confronted with his own death, began to read literature dated to his childhood, several hundred years ago. He had never read any of it before, but that was of no matter.

The cat […]

[…]

But watch out!

He closed the book heavily and sighed. Staring up at the wall. The Witcher came to sit next to him.

“I can’t take it,” he said mournfully. “i want a drink … i’m sorry … i feel disgusting for that …”

as for my sensations while experiencing this dream, it was typical, i could see them all moving around within the space from different shots/angles, like a live-action, but i couldn’t see (or remember?) their eyes very well. i could hear regis’ voice speak (yes it was the peter kenny audiobooks voice 😔), though i couldn’t hear cahir cry.

then the rest of the dream before i woke up was trying to run around the house i was in to take pictures of the books in even lighting so i could send them to my friends and ask if they remembered such a passage…

the pages were 430-1. outwardly, it appeared to be the regular UK paperback lady of the lake.

strangely enough, i also had the polish version with me and opened it to find the passage, and i managed to find it but could not read any of it, though i “saw” and remember how the text was formatted on the page.

this is also when i woke up, i wasn’t able to find a place to take a picture of it. but at least i remember what was written and what happened?

#regis and angouleme may have had an interaction but the most annoying part is that i cant remember it #i believe regis was like ‘this was written when i was a boy’ and she teased him for being old (lol)#but what she said didnt really make sense / i cant remember how the dialogue went so thus the […]#the witcher books #f: a hansa’s a hansa #cw character death #cw alcoholism #cw self harm #cw wrists #the elbow-high diaries

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callmearcturus · 4 years ago

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shout out to spotify for somehow not being able to make a video game podcast from two McElroys and two Polygon contributors work. what a fuck up.

anyway, appropos of that, here is my List Of Video Game Podcasts Based On The Depth In Which The Discussion Goes.

HEAD IN THE CLOUDS A BIT - The Giant Beastcast:

Mostly a rundown of the gaming news of the week with some fun forays into technology, and then “so what are you playing.” The cast is pleasant enough and are longtime vets of the industry. I personally want something more substantial than what they offer, but TGB is a good shallow listen.

CHECK OUT THIS COOL ROCK I FOUND - The Short Game:

This is a sweet little book club-style podcast in which they (with rare exception) focus exclusively on short games, games you can finish in one or two sittings. This podcast is a great way to just hear about a lot of indie games you’ve probably never heard of. I enjoy it, but more than once I have kind of rolled my eyes at the, ah, lightweight analysis. (Also, weird Apple stans? Eh.)

THE GOLDILOCKS - The Besties:

YEAH HONESTLY I THINK THEY GO DEEPER THAN THE SHORT GAME. The Besties is a weird long-running that has been a regular weekly/monthly/yearly pod at different stages of its life. Spotify revived it as a weekly podcast, and I honestly really enjoyed the format, focusing on one or two games every week. I was surprised at the level of nuance and consideration the Besties gave to each discussion, while also delivering the laughs. I would say the emotional intelligence of Griffin, Justin, Plante, and Russ is what makes this show work. Check out the eps they did on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Bioshock to see what I mean.

THE ONLY VIDEO GAME PODCAST THAT MATTERS - Waypoint Radio:

If I only had one podcast for the rest of my life, I’m picking Waypoint. This is the news and criticism podcast you need. You want an intelligent discussion of labor rights in the games industry? You want someone to talk about the pitfalls of minority rep and how we can do better? DO YOU WANT TO LISTEN TO ROB ZACNY AND GITA JACKSON TALK AT LENGTH ABOUT THE ACTING CHOICES OF THE TWO VERY DIFFERENT VERSIONS OF SORKIN’S “TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD”? Do you want a podcast with queer, PoC voices? Do you want to listen to the jurisdiction of the Jedi Order be re-adjudicated every time Star Wars is mentioned?

Waypoint Radio. If Vice ever fatally shoots itself in the foot, I am following every person on Team Waypoint wherever they go. If I have to go to a New England bakery to eavesdrop on Rob Zacny talking about military history and its depiction in video games with his specific hyper-intelligent dry humor, I will do that.

Literally the gold standard all should aspire too.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS CRUSH DEPTH - Abnormal Mapping:

This is the only podcast I have found that gets out the scalpels and dissects a game. I sometimes find them kind of infuriating because how casually mean they will be to a game. But also this is the only place to really listen to someone get actually critical on a video game. And they aren’t always negative nancies! Their re-litigation of FFX and FFX-2 convinced me those were good games. They care a lot about story, about cohesive characters, about effective set pieces, about music especially, and go before the tepid “it has good gamefeel” shit that you, like me, might be tired to death of. Abnormal Mapping is a specific flavor I crave in fits and bursts, but never longterm. Truly great work.

If you have every watched a video essay about a game you haven’t played, you will probably dig Abnormal Mapping. Its for you.

#video games #podcasts #the short game #the besties #waypoint radio #abnormal mapping

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roguish-gallery · 4 years ago

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How would Jonathan Crane react to eventually reuniting with one of his old students? Someone who actually really looked up to him and admired his passion for teaching, but was one of the quieter students who never spoke up in class. But now that he's no longer their teacher, they feel much more comfortable talking to him?

Sorry this took so long to write! I got... a bit... carried away... uhhh. Here’s my first ever full-ass fanfic, kept under the read more like always! I hope you like it!

p.s. if the formatting on this is too weird, I also have it on my ao3 here

Jon + Reuniting with a Former Student!

It’s incredible how little he seemed to age over the years. His auburn hair might have gotten a bit greyer and thinner, and the lines under his eyes have gotten darker, but he remained just as tall, as intimidating as he was those years ago. After all these years, Jonathan Crane still goes to the same café, orders the same coffee, and even sits in the same seat. In a way, you almost admired how little he cared about keeping his identity a secret.

Of course, the last time you saw him in this café, it was during his office hours, and you had come to talk with him about the midterm. Now he’s… well. You know.

A wanted criminal.

A killer.

The Scarecrow.

You’re shocked how no one has noticed him sitting there except for yourself- a testament to how thoroughly desensitized Gothamites are towards flamboyant villainy. Or, possibly, the burlap mask does work to hide his identity. Probably a combination of the two, you figured.

You absentmindedly tapped your fingers along the table. You should have left the moment you saw him; anyone who’s watched the news would never want to be in the same room as the fucking Scarecrow. Who knows what he might do? What if he floods the air vents with fear toxin? What if he lunges at a waitress for getting his order wrong?

Yet… you still haven’t left, he has yet to create any incidents, and… you still want to talk to him. It’s not like the opportunity will ever present itself again. When will you get this chance?

Fuck it, let's go. you thought. The worst-case scenario is that you get to take a few days off from work to detox yourself. The threat of fear toxin has almost become as routine for the average Gothamite as getting into a car accident; unexpected, unfortunate, and it certainly ruins your day, but it’s nothing new. Finishing your coffee, you rose from your seat to approach him.

As you got to his table, you felt your stomach churn as Crane’s eyes darted from his book to you. He watched you with caution, his mouth pressed into a familiar displeased line. He looked mildly annoyed by your presence, but he said nothing. He doesn’t need to say anything for you to understand his unspoken threat- what will happen to yourself and everyone in this building if you chose to make his presence known. In an attempt to make things appear more casual, you took the seat across from him. He quirked a brow, but allowed it.

You might have thought you didn’t make a presence, but Jonathan Crane never forgets a face. Especially the face of someone brave enough to take his class.

You opened your mouth to speak, but Crane cuts you off. “No need to exchange formalities here.” he gestured vaguely to the surrounding café patrons. “This is hardly the place. Before you ask, yes, I do remember you- your final paper on cognitive dissonance was… adequate.” He took a sip of coffee. “If you’re asking me to change your grade, well, it’s a bit late for that.”

“Oh...” You didn’t even remember the grade you got on that final. “Well… I won’t bother you for long… I just wanted to pop in for a quick chat.”

He rolled his eyes and dog-eared his spot on his book. “Alright, but make it quick.”

...

.......

“Um..." You stutter. "... What are you doing here?”

Crane’s nose twitched. “All the things you could ask me, and you choose that?” He paused for a moment, and sighed. “Fine. If I’m being honest, no one makes coffee as good, cheap, and black as this old haunt does. Furthermore, even I get nostalgic sometimes.”

...

........

The two of you awkwardly stare at each other.

“If you don’t have anything else to tell me, you can leave.” he said.

...Better cut to the chase, then.

“I’ll leave you alone, but before I do…" You linger off, trying to find the right words. "I just wanted to let you know that you were my favorite professor back when I was in college. You changed me for the better... if you can believe it.”

Crane's eyes widened, and he disdainfully shook his head. “Of all the professors you could have chosen, and you decide that I’m your favorite? I thought I had taught you better than that. All of my research, my field data on fear, and yet I somehow fail to scare away a former student. Pathetic”

“I suppose you still have some work to do, then.” You told him.

“Yes,” he mused. “I suppose so.”

There’s more silence, before Crane decided to press further. “May I ask why?”

“I wasn’t in a good place back in school… I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, and I didn’t know how to articulate those thoughts into a vocal, healthy way... You though, you were always so passionate during your lectures” You explained. “Even if the tests were hard, and I hated having to cram for them. Coming to class and watching you talk about whatever, it was nice. You gave me hope that I’ll have that fire too, once I graduate.”

Something about that seemed to get to Crane. He blinked in surprise, and the irritated expression he had throughout the entire exchange… disappeared. His eyes softened just a bit, and his shoulders lowered into a more natural position. He studied your face, trying to find the smallest hint of deceit; something to let him know that this was just another joke. When he couldn’t find any, he sank back into his chair, his face now unreadable.

....

“... Did you find that fire?” He quietly asked.

“I don’t know... but I at least found enough to talk to you, even after all these years.”

The quiet returned, but it’s less awkward now, more comfortable. The air surrounding the table seemed to settle, and you could finally breathe.

“If it means anything to you, I am... flattered by the kind words.” Crane muttered something else under his breath, but you could make out a very restrained “Thank you”.

“I’ve got to go now, but thank you for your time, Professor.” You got up from your chair, hesitating. “It was good to see you again… I’ve been wanting to talk to you for a while now.”

He graciously nods his head. “It was… good to see you too… I enjoyed our talk.”

Before you could go any further towards the exit, he beckoned you back.

“Before you go- don’t drink from your tap next Tuesday. I’ll be testing out a city-wide experiment then.” He whispered.

Your eyes widened, and you quickly nodded your head. You needed to update your health insurance anyway. You thanked him again, bid him farewell, and left.

Jonathan remained in his seat as he watched you leave. He took a glance at his watch, wincing slightly at how much time had passed. He ought to be headed back to his hideout, assuming he wanted his plan to work on time.

Hmph- that’s what I get for getting sentimental. He finished the last sip of coffee lingering at the bottom of his cup, and shuffled his papers back into his satchel. It was good while it lasted, he supposed. Jonathan rapped his fingers along the table.

How long has it been since he’s been here last? Ten... no... twelve years? Dear god.

Despite the time gap, the café was just how he remembered it. Of course, things have changed- repainted walls, some refurbished furniture, and all of the regulars he shared the space with have long-since retired or graduated. Still though, things were fundamentally the same. College students mingling with each other, some trying to tutor less than-enthused peers, some study groups feverishly swapping notes with each other. The minimum-wage baristas, as expected, passed the time by flirting, or trying to study for their own classes. Yes, everything was just the same as he had left it.

And in the thick of the chaos, in the corner table sat Jonathan Crane, either up to his neck in library books, or helping out his students. Despite a more casual setting, the café had become just as academic of a place to Jonathan as the Gotham U libraries or the psychology conferences he used to attend.

His train of thought was broken as the waitress gently cleared her throat.

“Sir?” she asked. “Would you like your check?”

He thought about it for a moment. He did have work to do… but…

“Actually, could I get a refill?”

“Of course. Black coffee, right?”

“That’s right. Thank you”

Jonathan watched her take his cup away, and he pulled his book and notes back out. The fear toxin can wait.

Let him stay in this moment... just a bit longer.

#jonathan crane #the scarecrow #headcanons #dc headcanon #DC comics

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cannibalisticapple · 4 years ago

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Okay, so I have some thoughts on Kurikuri’s decision to delete a large number of her fan fics, and on fan fiction as a whole.

For those who don’t know, Kurikuri (@letaizawarest) is a popular fan fiction author with numerous popular Erasermic fics, along with other fandoms. Around the end of May/start of June she deleted a large number of her stories, specifically those that featured either police, or those set in the My Hero Academia universe where they work as Pro Heroes.

To quote her post:

as you may have noticed, roughly half of the fics on my ao3 have been deleted.

i’ve deleted all my fics about police officers. also, after some thought, i also deleted my non-AU bnha fics, because although they might not be “cops” in name, they are law enforcement. i do not want to be a part of the system that glorifies the police.  

at the moment i haven’t deleted other profession AUs and high school era fics, but i will continue to reflect on their relation to the source material. even if you enjoyed the deleted fics, please do not circulate them in other formats (PDFs, EPUBs, etc).  

i also encourage other writers to think about cop fic they’ve written. while it may be fun and escapist for you, it still encourages the idea that antiblack and killer cops are just “bad apples” and that good cops exist. let’s dismantle that system of thought.

I have some very, very mixed feelings on this.

To start: I respect her reasoning, but I don’t agree with it. I fully agree that it’s not just a bunch of “bad apples”, there’s a serious issue with the system and how the police operate in the United States. I’ve always been bothered by how the police let other officers get away with horrible BS, even as a kid, and that rage has only grown as I’ve grown older and found out more about how screwed up it is on every single level.

But the way that last paragraph is written rubs me the wrong way because you can’t paint every single person in an entire career field as unequivocally corrupt, bigoted and all around callous murderers. Good cops DO exist. Plenty of people go into the career hoping to fix things, or just genuinely want to help their community in whatever way they can. But the thing is, they’re fighting a losing battle because the system is working against them. When they DO speak up against the corruption, bigotry, violence and other issues, they tend to get fired and blacklisted from the field. Or sometimes, they get outright murdered and it’s treated as a “suicide.”

A shitty fact of life: sometimes, the people who are more willing to resort to underhanded tactics and willing to turn a blind eye to corruption are the ones who climb up the career ladder furthest. And in the case of the police, it’s deep-rooted enough that it can’t be fixed internally anymore. But that doesn’t make literally every police officer corrupt.

I’m not posting this to make some political point or argument though. I obviously disagree with Kurikuri’s opinion, but I respect it. I can even respect her decision to remove the stories featuring the police, or even the ones heavily focusing on the characters’ jobs as pro heroes. I can see how heroes are just another version of law enforcement, because honestly, they are.

As a writer and a reader, I fully respect that it’s ultimately her choice to delete her stories. It’s not my place to make demands. She’s the one who created it, and as a writer I know the hard work and time that goes into crafting stories, so I believe she has a right in how it’s used and shared. The fact she shared it in the first place was something she didn’t have to do.

But the thing is, she DID share it, which is why I have this conflict.

As a writer, I’ve always believed that fiction can be more powerful than fact.

Fiction can give readers a window into mindsets you’d never imagine before, because you can connect more easily with fictional characters than real people on the news. That’s why Uncle Tom’s Cabin was so critical in the battle against slavery: it didn’t just gave a face to slavery, it let readers experience the characters’ lives directly. People got to see the struggles and suffering firsthand, feel the rising crescendo of hope each time freedom is in reach, and the soul-crushing despair every time that hope gets dashed by outside forces.

Fiction may not always be “true” or even “accurate,” but it can help us understand other people, see them as fellow humans, in ways that nonfiction just can’t. It can evoke emotions, empathy and familiarity in a reader that a news story or biography can’t capture because it draws you directly into their world.

And it’s that part—the part where readers enter this fictional world to connect to characters they’ll never meet—that leads to the other power of fiction that many people overlook:

Fiction has the ability to help readers persevere.

How many people reading this have used books to get away from trouble in their lives? To take a breather from all their anxieties and stress, and dive head-first into this other world for just a moment, where nothing else matters? How many people reading this had their whole lives changed by reading a story where a character’s words resonated with them? Where it helped them come to an epiphany about how to do better, how to be better.

Sometimes, the world is too overwhelming and we need to escape it. That’s the beauty of fiction. It lets us go to a world where our problems just don’t matter. Even if the world in question is worse than our own, it can still be a relief and give us hope because hey, at least we’re not living in 1984 or the Hunger Games, right? Stories are what keeps many people going through the hardest time, what gives them hope that life isn’t utterly hopeless.

And even after a story is finished, whether it’s fan fiction, a book, a show, or any other medium, that story will have a special place in people’s hearts. Many people will go back to those stories years later when they’re faced with immense stress and need a break from the real world, so that they can dive into the world that helped them persevere the last time they felt so bad. Just having a copy of it on hand can be a source of comfort even if you never read it again.

I want to highlight one phrase Kurikuri used in her post to describe how people feel writing stories about police and heroes: "fun and escapist”. That’s honestly so accurate, those stories are escapist, and that is why I’m so conflicted.

Stories about superheroes, while technically revolving around themes of law enforcement, are a form of escapism FROM police corruption.

There’s a reason that superhero comics are so popular in America. Superheroes appeal to a natural desire for justice because as so aptly pointed out, the real world doesn’t always HAVE that justice. It gives an ideal for people to aspire to, a glimpse of what could be, what should be. (Come to think of it, that’s probably why I hate the DC cinematic universe so much, it’s skewed way too much to favor the villains/antagonists and maximize suffering for the good guys.)

Right now, the world is full of more injustice than ever before. I can’t turn on the news without feeling my rage and stress boil over. Every day it gets worse and worse somehow, and I (and many others) genuinely fear that the United States may be heading towards a civil war this November. Donald Trump’s voice alone is enough to make my blood boil at this point.

I, and many others, turn to fan fiction so I can break away from reality because that amount of rage and fear just isn’t healthy.

I don’t have depression, or anxiety, or an abusive family, or a chronic illness. I’m not at risk of being made homeless anytime soon, nor do I need to worry about bills right now or going hungry. I’m a privileged white girl who has barely anything to worry about. What I’m saying is I’m fucking lucky and I know it, but I STILL can’t stand thinking about the state of the world and need to get the fuck away from it to take a breather for my own mental health.

And I also know that many people don’t have that option because their situation is so bad, they NEED to be aware of it at all times.

In the past when writing for other fandoms, I’ve had people tell me my fan fiction was the reason they did not commit suicide.

In my early college years I fell into the creepypasta community and was pretty active in it, especially on deviantArt. I don’t know if that particular fandom’s subject and focus makes it more appealing to teenagers going through rough times or what, but I swear, more than half the people I spoke to suffered from some form of mental illness, abusive or broken family and home situations, bullying, and every other way the world can screw someone over through means beyond their control.

During that time, a few readers left comments that waiting for my stories to update were what kept them going. They didn’t explicitly say that it was the only reason they didn’t kill themselves. It was more just remarks like, “Your writing is the only thing keeping me going.”

I’m not vain enough to believe my stories are so good, it made people decide to continue living JUST to see what happens next. Suicidal thoughts and urges are much more complex than that. But it’s still not something you expect to hear on something you write for fun.

I’ve thought about it a lot over the years, and I’ve come to the conclusion that it probably wasn’t because my stories were "just that good.” I think it was because they needed something to cling to in bleak times. That sometimes at the lowest point where all seems lost, people need just one little thought, just the smallest thing to push away those dark urges before they could fully overwhelm them. Something like, “If I die now, I won’t get to see how that story ends.” It’s such a small thing, but having something to look forward to can be so powerful in fighting off impulsive decisions.

It’s made me hyper-aware of just how powerful writing is.

To me, I see writing as a way of helping others. I give people that option for escape. It’s a large part of why I update on a regular, weekly schedule, and why I published extra chapters when the pandemic got announced and when the riots started. People need that comfort, that little break from reality to just sit and breathe so they can get through the rest of the day. I can’t do much to fix the world, but I can at least give people that.

Right now, people need that escape more than ever.

And deleting the stories is taking that escape away and causing MORE stress.

In times like this, people often turn to the stories they know will help most, and plenty of people in fandoms will first search up their favorite ships. They look for fluff, smut, angst... It helps people feel better to focus on these two people who are obviously in love as they work through their troubles.

Many times, readers will be more drawn to stories in the canon universe than radical AUs set in other universes. That’s how they were introduced to those characters. I myself can enjoy no-power and fantasy AUs sometimes, but what I really crave are how they interact in the canon world because that’s the world and versions of them I want to see the most. By deleting EVERY SINGLE STORY IN THE CANON UNIVERSE, that option was removed.

In many of the stories that were deleted, the characters’ careers were honestly a minor facet of the story. Some used it to establish the setting, such as treating injuries after a patrol. Some just simply used it to explain they work at UA, a school for teaching kids with superpowers. Some just had them work as heroes because it’s set in the canon universe, and never directly show ANTTHING about the work.

I’m not always looking for a story about how being a hero shapes and impacts their lives, and most of those stories that got deleted AREN’T about being a hero. That’s just one piece of their character, it’s far from the focal point. It could honestly be removed from several of them without changing the rest of the story.

I can get wanting to make a political point and I respect that, but by deleting those stories, you’ve taken away a key source of comfort from hundreds, thousands of people. By deleting the stories, you’re making the stress worse.

On Saturday night, I realized several of my favorite stories are suddenly gone. I knew Kurikuri had deleted a bunch of her stories, but I hadn’t realized just how many of them I liked. Some of them I’ve specifically sought out to reread multiple times in the past, never really paying attention to the author. Realizing they’re just gone caused me heavy stress because it made me paranoid about all these other stories I like to reread. I don’t expect those stories to be around forever, but I still didn’t expect them to vanish so suddenly. I never thought I’d need to download them to make sure I’d still be able to read them while the site is still up.

I spent hours searching out specific stories to see if they were written by her, and make sure they’re not gone forever. I have no way of knowing which ones she’d written and deleted because there’s not exactly a list out there anymore. My desperate search for those stories and one in particular (which I still haven’t found) contributed to the lack of sleep I got that night.

And I need to reiterate: I am mentally healthy and have no major stresses in my immediate life. And that’s why I’m hyper-aware of how this stress will affect people who AREN’T as lucky as I am.

If an author decides to delete their stories because they feel the stories themselves push harmful values or themes, fine. If they’re getting harassed, or it reminds them of a bad time in the lives, or they just don’t like that story anymore, okay. I can respect that and accept it.

But these stories were deleted for the EXACT reasons that people will be looking for them now more than ever, and that’s where I draw the line.

This applies to ALL fandoms.

If you as a fan fiction writer have more than, say, 100 kudos on a completed story or one-shot, there’s a good chance people will read and reread your story in stressful times. If you have a reasonably popular story that updates on a regular or even semi-regular basis, there is a chance that someone is using it as a lifeline to have something to look forward to while the rest of their lives go to hell. Maybe not because they specifically love it, but because it gives them something routine.

I want to make it clear that it’s not our job to care for other people’s mental health. Fan fiction writers don’t have an obligation to people, we’re doing it for fun first and foremost. We’re not some sort of saviors, and we shouldn’t think of ourselves that way or we can honestly screw people up worse. We’re not obligated to write these stories JUST for our fans.

At most, our stories are sources of support and comfort for readers. A little break from reality. If writing a story is causing you more stress than enjoyment, stop. Fan fiction, and all other fan media and stories in general, is ultimately created for the creator’s enjoyment more than anything.

Your own mental health comes first. Don’t set yourself on fire to keep other people warm.

But with how utterly fucked and unfair the world is right now, people need those stories now more than ever. So if you’ve got a story out there that’s fairly popular, please, please, PLEASE be mindful of your readers before deciding to delete it. Now is the absolute last time people need more stress trying to find a single story. And if you’re going to delete it, maybe give readers a heads up so that those who need it or have some powerful attachment to it for all the reasons I’ve discussed here can download a copy for their own personal use.

Don’t hurt your readers to make a point.

#fanfic #fan fiction #fan fic #fandom #my hero academia fanfiction #boku no hero academia fanfic #kurikuri #letaizawarest #erasermic #maizawa #writing #stories #aizawa shouta #yamada hizashi #my hero academia #boku no hero academia #tw suicide #superhero #superheroes

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probably-writing-x · 5 years ago

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Short Distance

Arón Piper x Reader

Request by anon: heyyy I saw you're taking requests again, can I request something where the reader is in a long distance relationship with Aron Piper and she is based in Mexico City since she is Mexican and he has a listening party for the release of Sigo and she surprises him there with the help of his friends :) your writing is so good I literally go on your blog just to reread them because its that good

Gif is not my own

Requests are open🤍

“It’s all going to be fine, of course it is!” You encourage down the phone as you stir the pasta in the pot for your dinner, “You’ve planned everything, everyone’s going to be there to celebrate with you. And they’re all going to love the song, Arón.”

He groans and you can just imagine him flopping down onto the bed as he does so, “I’m just not good at stuff like this. I’m an introvert! It’s basically my personality to avoid situations like this!”

You laugh down the line and lean back against your kitchen counter, “You’re an actor! Just act like you’re comfortable and confident and people will believe you.”

“I normally have you here with me to help out, you’re better at this stuff than I am.”

This stuff was referring to the listening party for his new song that he’d been working on and perfecting for months now. Since you were still in Mexico City and he was still back in Spain, you hadn’t seen him in a few months now apart from your regular FaceTimes whenever you had the chance. It killed you that he thought you wouldn’t be there with him... but that would pass soon enough.

“I know babe, but you’ll have all of your friends there and your family.”

“I don’t want any of them,” You can instantly picture the pout on his face.

“You’re killing me Arón!” You laugh, “Now please get some sleep, it’s way too late over there and you and I both know you don’t work well on a lack of sleep.”

“Okay, I miss you,” He sighs through a stifled yawn.

“I miss you too. But it’s not long now, right?” You encourage, feeling the tug at your heart at the thought of not being able to tell him it was a lot sooner than he knew.

You say your goodbyes and hang up the call, instantly feeling the pure regret of not simply telling him that you’d be there tomorrow night. It would be a wonderful surprise, but you wanted nothing more than to ease his stress by being there for him.

It’s then that your phone starts to ring with a call from Omar.

“Honey you better be leaving your flat as we speak - that flight won’t wait for you!” He exclaims down the line, “Are you ready?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m just taking some dinner for the road,” You explain as you dish up your macaroni into a Tupperware box.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” He laughs, “I’m not wasting my time on macaroni! Do you want to get to the launch party or not?”

You laugh back, “My Uber has only just arrived, I’m literally walking outside now.”

You only needed a small suitcase and your rucksack as you close up your flat and walk down towards the outside of your building where the car was waiting.

“Okay, do you have your passport? Boarding pass? Keys?”

“We’re not doing this,” You roll your eyes, “I’ve had my bags packed since this morning. I’ll get to the airport with enough time to spare, I’ll get my flight, and I’ll be in Spain with enough time that we’ll have an hour before the launch party even begins. This is going to be fine Omar.”

“I still think you should’ve got the earlier flight,” He defends, “What if your flight is delayed?”

“Positive affirmations Omar! I’ll see you soon, this is going to work out fine!” You encourage, “I’m in the car now, and I live ten minutes from the airport. I’ll text you when I’m there, I’ll keep you updated - okay?”

“Okay, okay, come and surprise your man!” You can practically imagine him grinning proudly down the phone.

- - - - - -

Only a matter of hours later, you’re through all of the typical processes of the flight and you’re just coming in to land on Spanish ground. It’s a relief, having flown through your hours of night to get here, that you were able to sleep on the journey. Thanks to the time difference between here and Mexico City, you were now landing in Spain as the sun was starting to set. It still all felt a bit confusing but the most important thing was that you were now only hours from seeing Arón.

You get through security and passport control before coming out into arrivals and instantly reaching for your phone to call Omar.

“Okay, I’m through, are you at the airport?” You ask, glancing around to search for that familiar face.

“Yeah, yeah, I was just grabbing a coffee, which side of the airport did you come through?”

“I’m right by the sunglasses shop,” You look around you, “And there’s a McDonalds here.”

“Okay, I can see you!” He hangs up instantly after that and you still search around the crowd to find him.

Right up until when he’s ten metres away and his hands stretch out to wrap you in a big hug.

“It’s been way too long!” He chuckles as you stumble back with his force.

“Way too long,” You agree, “Thank you so much for planning this with me.”

“Are you kidding? If it will stop that boy moping around about how much he misses the love of his life, Id do anything,” Omar jokes, grabbing your suitcase, “Now you’ve got a party to get to.”

- - - - - -

It’s hardly a glamorous idea when you and Omar end up stopping at a gas station to use their toilet for you to get ready in. For the black and red dress code, you’d found the perfect outfit to match. But you didn’t have time to get to Omar’s place and get ready before going to the party - so this would have to do. You sort out your hair and general appearance, change your clothes and just about manage to look as you’d hoped you would just as Omar is finishing getting ready too.

“Let’s show that boy what he’s been missing,” Omar grins as he links arms with you and you head back to the car.

Your heart hadn’t stopped racing since you’d first landed from your flight and you were praying that Arón wasn’t suspecting anything so far. He’d sent you a few texts and you’d tried your best to reply to them like normal, eventually ending by saying you were going to work when it would’ve been your normal time to do so in Mexico City.

“God, I’m so nervous,” You admit as Omar drives the last twenty minutes to get to the venue.

You’d be there about an hour after everyone else would’ve started arriving so it would give Arón enough time to mingle with the guests before your surprise.

“It’s fine, he seems like he has no idea.”

You check your phone again to make sure that your phone location was turned off, though Arón would never be the type to check it. But it felt like one less thing to worry about if there was no way he could see where your phone was.

The screen lights up with a text from him.

‘Hey babe! It’s going well so far, hope your shift is going okay x Text me when you get the chance <3’

You smile gently at his words, loving how he’d still thought of you even on a night that was meant to solely be for him.

“Shit is that him?” Omar glances over quickly as he turns at a junction.

“Just checking I’m alright,” You shake your head, “He isn’t suspicious.”

“Ugh you guys are so sweet,” Omar rolls his eyes, “But... we are almost here!”

It’s already dark by the time you get to the venue, the large hired house that they’d booked for the evening. There were a few cars parked outside but most people had booked taxis for the event or were staying over the night - like you and Omar would be. There’s a huge garden out the back of the house that was what made Arón choose this place in the first place, instantly envisioning the idea of having everyone out there after dark like those American frat parties. From the blasting music, you could tell his dream had been made into a reality.

“(Y/n)!” Miguel yells from the door as he sees you step out of the car, he ducks his head back into the house, “Guys she’s here!”

“I did not get this girl from the airport for you to just ruin the surprise with your yelling,” Omar points at him accusingly, a smirk toying at his lips.

Miguel rolls his eyes, “Arón is out the back.”

You let him engulf you in a big hug and watch as Mina, Danna, Ester, Álvaro and Itzan all follow out behind. They greet you all with warm hugs and express how excited Arón would be to see you.

Long distance relationships were never easy, time zones were an absolute killer. But this surprise actually being pulled off would be proof to you that nothing would stand in between that bond you’d found with your boyfriend - even if he lived halfway across the world.

“Alright, what’s the plan?”

- - - - - -

In a few minutes, you’re concealed in the middle of the cast as they make their way through to the garden to find Arón. Somehow, the weird formation works as you find yourself in the middle of their bodies like they were shielding you.

“Hey! Arón!” Álvaro grins as he sees his friend and the group all come to a halt.

Arón stops his conversation with another friend and turns to make his way over, his smile faltering as he sees the weird formation of the group.

“Hey guys! What are you doing?” He laughs, “You look like you’re about to break out into song.”

You admit it to yourself when you see how attractive he looks, wearing the outfit you’d both loved most when he’d tried on the options over FaceTime.

“Just here to support you buddy,” Miguel clasps him on the shoulder, “All your favourite people.”

Arón scoffs, a gesture to himself that there was certainly someone at the top of that list that he was yet to see, “Thanks for coming guys.”

“We actually got you a little present...” Omar wiggles his brows, winking to the rest of the group as they part to reveal you.

You watch as your boyfriend dissolves into shock at the sight, “(Y/n)?”

You grin and find all words seem to fail you in that exact moment, any cute phrase you’d planned on the flight over became completely irrelevant as you became consumed by the excitement of seeing him finally.

He reaches out and grabs you into his arms, lifting you up like it would bring you impossibly closer, “What are you doing here baby?”

“I got a few days off work so I could be here for your big night,” You explain, “I couldn’t imagine missing this.”

He sets you down and glances back at the group of prying eyes, “And you all set this up?”

They grin proudly before Omar speaks up, “We’ll give you two a moment.”

And just like that, it’s the two of you. For the first time in months. His hands on your waist, his eyes focused only on you, and his lips curling into a smile that was brighter than anybody else could get out of him.

“You’re incredible, you know that?” He shakes his head, “I can’t believe I had no idea!”

You laugh and run your hands over the mesh material of his top, “I wanted it to be a surprise.”

He dips his head to kiss you firmly, a kiss that had waited for months longer than he’d ever want it to. He’d spend everyday kissing those lips if he could.

“You flew all the way over here...”

“Well, wherever you go, sigo.”

He laughs that kind of laugh that crinkles his eyes as you reference the title of his song, wrapping an arm around you firmly as he steps around to look at the growing crowd.

“How about we blow off this party huh?”

“Your own launch party?” You scoff, tugging his hand in the direction of his waiting friends, “Our after party can wait Piper...”

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arwenkenobi48 · 3 years ago

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The Fiend and the Fugitive Character Profiles: Stardust, Drakon and Smokey

I found the traditional format for these character profiles a little too taxing, so I’ll simply describe each of these characters with a little bit of prose and dialogue, then include trivia relating to each of them.

Stardust

He removed the crash helmet and goggles from his head, revealing two small conical horns upturned on his forehead, with two smaller ones aligned vertically on the bridge of his nose and between his eyebrows. The young man swished back a rich crop of hair, the colours of which were most striking, starting out with a deep purple and ending in an electric turquoise. The area around his eyes and halfway down his cheeks were marked by what appeared to be some sort of ritual tattoos, a rich crimson in colour, forming abstract shapes closely resembling crescent moons, only more angular. His bright purple eyes sparkled happily as he adjusted his parka, bowing modestly from side to side as the crowd cheered. “Thank you, thank you all, thank you very much,” he beamed, his voice rich and cultured. There was no doubt about it; this eccentric figure was indeed Robin’s childhood friend, albeit going by a different name. How on Earth did he manage to earn so much money? Surely not by becoming a human snowball every time he went skiing.

——————————

“Mephistopheles, hold this for a moment, will you?” Stardust placed a large object in the demon’s hands, so heavy he nearly dropped it, then calmly took it back and placed on the now immaculate shelf. “Thank you, old chap,” “What was that thing?” Mephisto demanded. “Oh, just a giant cosmic pearl gifted to me by a relative,” Stardust replied casually. “Why, whatever is the matter, Mephisto? You’re looking awfully peaky all of a sudden!” “I think it drained my dark energy,” Mephistopheles gagged. “Well, that’s certainly something else, as they say. I’m sure it’s not as bad as that. You know those things absorb energy like spherical sponges,” “I didn’t know that,” grumbled Mephistopheles, who now felt like he had just been cured of a cold, but in the worst way possible. As much as he felt bad for his rival, Stardust couldn’t help feeling rather amused that what dragons considered medicine had made a demon sick.

Stardust is one of my oldest OCs

His name is actually an English translation of the Draconic name Esrah, which quite literally means “essence of the stars”

Stardust is demisexual and panromantic

He’s a philanthropist who protects dragons that have been made homeless and have suffered discrimination from humans

Many assume that Stardust’s odd appearance is due to body modifications, but he is actually half dragon and can shift between human and dragon forms. This is technically called a Dragon Angel

Stardust’s only relative that he’s in contact with is his grandfather, Mitsuo, who is a 1000 year old Japanese water dragon

The only thing Stardust and Mephistopheles can healthily bond over is table tennis. Regular tennis is out of bounds after Mitsuo got knocked out during a rather heated match (quite literally, the ball was going so fast it was gathering heat)

Despite having sold his soul to Mephistopheles, Stardust repents and is able to retrieve it. He has already proven himself to be a good person after donating his riches to support his fellow dragons

Stardust enjoys listening to heavy metal and opera

Drakon

The dragon was around the same size as a Shetland pony, but at first glance nowhere near as cuddly. The dark blue scaly skin contrasted with an armour-plated golden underbelly, the curved horns, spines and barbed tail also indicated that this was a creature you wouldn’t want to mess with. Although he had sharp, owl-like claws, his hands and feet were bizarrely humanoid in shape and the powerful muscles seemed to indicate that this creature could be both bipedal and a quadruped, although being an all fours appeared to be the more comfortable of the two. His golden eyes peered up and his nostrils flared. He was clearly trying to appear intimidating as he stretched his wings out, but he somehow failed in spite of himself. “Now, listen ‘ere, human,” he warned in a voice with a strong regional accent. “I don’t know exactly what you’re up to, but let’s get one thing straight, yeah? You don’t wanna be starting any fights, especially not with me!” He bared his teeth, but they didn’t look as though they were capable of doing damage to anything other than a shawarma.

—————————

“Eh, who am I kiddin’?” Grumbled Drakon, sinking to the floor like a depressed panther. “I let you down. All cause I got the collywobbles seein’ them humans all at once. I wish I didn’t scare so easily, Smokey,” The baby’s reaction seemed to indicate that he not only understood his guardian, but empathised with him and wanted him to feel better. Even in his sadness, as a lump formed in his throat and a tear in his eye, Drakon couldn’t help but smile.

Drakon’s name is the root word of “dragon” in Greek

Drakon and Smokey are implied to be brothers from different clutches but with the same mother, although nobody knows for sure

After his cave was destroyed by humans mining for gemstones, Drakon resides in the House of Stardust. He thinks highly of Stardust and considers him his best friend. The feeling is mutual and they frequently protect one another from the cruelty of humans

Drakon loves shawarmas to the point that he put on quite a few pounds and now has a build similar to a bear

The inspirations for Drakon came from the Cowardly Lion in the book version of The Wizard of Oz and Captain Haddock from The Adventures of Tintin

Drakon hates trumpet music. Whenever he sees a trumpet he will do everything in his power to destroy it (and by that he’ll usually yell at it, stamp on it or at worst, set it on fire)

Smokey

With a loud whine that sounded like a cross between a baby bird chirping and a kitten mewing, Smokey came galloping down the hallway. His round body was shaped like a squashed pear and his limbs were short and stubby, although he could function perfectly well. He clearly still had a lot of his baby fat, but despite that, he was surprisingly fast. His mottled skin was so dark grey it was nearly black, although a bright red belly and round eyes resembling those of an owl stood out from this. His wide yet snub beak gave him a strong resemblance to a potoo bird and his wings hadn’t matured yet. The most striking feature of this infant dragon, however, were his floppy, comically lopsided ears, which flapped around like ribbons as he galloped along. He didn’t speak, as he was much too young to learn how, but simply uttered his trademark “nee-nee-neesh!” noise as he hugged Stardust’s leg.

Smokey is five years old in human years, but that’s closer to two years old for his subspecies

He can’t breathe fire yet, but manages to sneeze out a fireball to protect his friends from the forces of Hell

Being so young, Smokey cries very easily. Possibly as a result of losing his parents, he also gets upset whenever someone leaves the room, as he thinks they won’t return. This results in him running after them and clinging to their legs while ‘neeshing’ loudly.

I was originally doing to give Smokey some dialogue, but decided against it, as I felt he’d be much cuter without it and his actions would speak louder than words

He gets his name from the fact that smoke always blows out of his ears whenever he tries to test his fire breath

Smokey hates Mephistopheles and can sense his evil aura from a mile away. Whenever he sees him he makes a noise like an angry teapot coming to the boil

Despite being little more than a newborn in dragon years, Smokey is capable of great empathy and comforts his friends when they’re feeling down

His favourite album is Shepherd Moons by Enya

Smokey was based on a plushie I use for emotional support

His favourite food is Greek honey cake

Apologies for the absence again; mental health really hasn’t been great at all, but I was still determined to deliver some of the content I promised. I realised that there was nothing stopping me from writing the first draft of The Fiend and the Fugitive, so I made a start on that and I’m looking forward to officially beginning the project in September!

#the fiend and the fugitive #original intellectual property #OC: Stardust #OC: Drakon #OC: Smokey #dragons #original characters

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nellied-reviews · 5 years ago

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Cigarette Candy Re-listen

Okay, it’s episode 5 of my epic Wolf 359 re-listen, and that can only mean one thing:

Cigarette Candy

In which Eiffel is ill, Minkowski and Hera are out of the picture and I have way too many thoughts about how Hilbert is totally not making Eiffel sick. Nuh-uh.

Where do I even begin with this episode?

Maybe I'll start with the obvious: Cigarette Candy is a very different episode on a re-listen. It was a sinister, tense episode to begin with, sure. But knowing that Hilbert really has been making Eiffel sick adds a whole layer of uncertainty, for me at least.

Because what is the point? Largely, I think it's an episode about whether or not Hilbert can be trusted. We heard last episode, after all, that the good doctor was willing to leave Eiffel to die in space. It's natural that we might now wonder where his loyalties lie. And so we get this, an episode that teases us with the idea that Hilbert might, in fact, be a bad guy. And of course, the answer we are left with, at the end of the episode, is that no, Hilbert’s creepy and weird and a million kinds of unethical, but ultimately he is one of the good guys.

It's a brilliant misdirect, and it relies entirely on us misunderstanding what an evil Hilbert would look like. We, like Eiffel, assume that Hilbert, if he were actually evil, would be the archetypical mad scientist. And mad scientists aren't generally subtle. They certainly don't do regular things like help Communications Officers overcome the flu. And so we assume, since Hilbert isn't cartoonish in his villainy, and does, ultimately, help Eiffel, that he mustn't be a villain at all. We're wrong, of course. The episode doesn't give that away, though.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Because as Cigarette Candy starts, it's not immediately clear that that's where this is all going. Instead, we tune in to a weirdly happy Eiffel, who claims he's trying a new, more optimistic approach to life. It's odd, and doesn't exactly bode well, especially with the occasional, gross coughing that Eiffel insists is no big deal. But it still feels like a light-hearted, comedy set-up. And hey, at least Hilbert seems to be doing something helpful, this time, right?

Of course, it's worth mentioning that Hilbert's "help" involves the titular cigarette candy, which are what Eiffel calls his nicotine lozenges. These, we quickly learn, are the reason for Eiffel's new, sunny outlook on life. They're sugary, they're soothing and - oh, yeah - they taste like "day-old ashtray". Which... eww! But apparently Eiffel prefers that to the default cinnamon? Enough that he's consuming them in unwise quantities? I don't know, it certainly wouldn't be my choice. But you do you, Eiffel.

In any case, it leaves us in this weird situation where Hilbert is actually in Eiffel's good books, which is fun to listen to, until the doctor suddenly lets slip that hey, Eiffel, it's strange how you aren't experiencing any myalgia... yet.

It's super unsubtle, and part of me really wants to believe that Hilbert did it on purpose, just to troll Eiffel. "English such inelegant cudgel of a language", my ass. I see you there, Doc.

Funny as it is, though, it also marks the point at which the episode takes a sharp U-turn into psychological and medical horror, as Eiffel slowly begins to suspect that Hilbert has been poisoning him. Things only get worse when Eiffel faints and is taken to sickbay, and when Hilbert admits that he's not really a proper doctor, bound by all of those pesky ethics, it's downright chilling.

One phrase in particular, I think, tells us everything we need to know about Alexander Hilbert's motivations: "Always saw Hippocratic Oath as leaving one with a very limited scope. True science mustn't be so severely hindered." Hilbert, in the end, is all about the science, and he'll break the rules to get results, if needs be. It's a single-minded, pragmatic focus that we’ll see from the doctor over and over again as the show wears on. Here, then, although we don't know it yet, we're actually getting our first proper insight into what makes Dr. Hilbert tick. Pretty neat.

That said, on a first listen-through, before we learn about Decima, it just sounds like your standard mad scientist rant. It's followed up by some more mad scientist antics too, as Hilbert confines Eiffel to sickbay, ties him up and claims total authority over Eiffel's schedule, cutting him off completely from Hera and Minkowski. It's textbook nefarious, and so it sets Hilbert up perfectly as a properly sinister, if slightly cliché villain.

Of course, it's also just about plausible. We can just about see how confining Eiffel might help him get better soon, and we can just about see that he's not fit to be working, and we can just about see how a lack of distractions might be helpful. Add Eiffel's potential delusions into the mix, and we can see how the whole business could just be a misunderstanding, a product of Eiffel's fever and Hilbert’s lack of people skills. We can't 100% write the doctor off as a villain - and so the episode manages to maintain the tension, all the way through the back end of the episode. Is Hilbert really as evil as he seems? Or is Eiffel imagining it all?

It's at this point that the first season's log format works in our favour, because if we're only hearing the personal logs of Douglas Eiffel, we're only getting the story from one very limited, potentially delusional point of view. We aren't getting Minkowski or Hera's more balanced perspectives, and so the suspense is preserved - is Hilbert trustworthy? We can't know. It's the sort of thing the show won't be able to do as easily in later seasons, at least not without finding a plot-related reason to side-line the other, more objective characters. Here, though, the nature of Eiffel's logs creates a more claustrophobic, tense bottle episode, where we can never quite be sure what's going on.

The absence of Hera and Minkowski is also ominous in and of itself. The pause after Eiffel calls out to Hera and she doesn't answer, in particular, is really eerie, at least for me. I don't know, I guess I'm just used to Hera being there? It certainly cranks up the tension, especially when Hilbert foils Eiffel's attempt to contact Minkowski, and even more so when he reveals that he also knows that Eiffel hasn't been taking his drugs - that's why he's been giving him them intravenously.

And look, I know we've said that Hilbert isn't bound by the Hippocratic Oath. Being shady and unethical's kind of his thing. But can we just stop and appreciate just how messed up it is to drug Eiffel like this? It's not even like it's the first time this has happened, either. Remember the halothane gas? What we're seeing, in that light, looks more like an emerging pattern - a pattern of incidents where people are messed with, physically or psychologically, without their consent.

It's something we'll see again and again, throughout Wolf 359, and more often that not, it's linked less to individuals like Hilbert, and more to Goddard Futuristics, and their general ethos of dehumanising callousness. Hilbert is possibly evil, sure. But he's backed up by a whole, sucky-ass corporation, who have created an environment where consent - and all of the respect for human dignity and life that that implies - is not encouraged or valued. It's a gross, corporate attitude that is linked directly to moments like this, where Eiffel can be drugged and held captive against his will precisely because Hilbert knows there will be no official consequences for it. Goddard Futuristics do not care about human minds or bodies. They just care about the profits. It's not the same thing that drives Hilbert, as a character. But it aligns with his goals. Hilbert wants answers. Goddard wants money. Neither care much for actual humans.

That's actually one of the most frightening things about this episode - that, and the recording that Eiffel makes for Minkowski, urging her not to trust Hilbert once he's dead, which is funny, in a dark sort of way, until you think about Lovelace's old crew, and how Dr. Hilbert - sorry, Dr. Selberg - picked them off, one by one. That's essentially the exact same scenario that Eiffel's imagining here, when he worries about Hilbert going after Minkowski next, so perhaps he's not too far off the mark. Yikes.

Still, all is well in the end, as Hilbert reveals that Eiffel is cured! The knife was only for cutting Eiffel's restraints - way to not terrify your patient, doc! - and now Eiffel is cleared for duty, effective immediately. Phew!

It's a relief, for Eiffel and for us, and it's very easy to just see it as a heart-warming ending. The mad scientist turns out to be a good guy after all, Eiffel learns a lesson about judging people, and everyone goes back to their routine. Crisis averted. The episode asks, "Can Hilbert be trusted?" The ending tells us that he can. Case closed.

Only it's not that simple, is it? For one, Hilbert admits that Eiffel was infected with a tropical flu from his lab; knowing how much we now know, how likely is it that that "tropical flu" was actually Decima, or somehow Decima-related? In this respect, Hilbert's trustworthiness is actually far from established.

Secondly, though, and perhaps more interestingly, there's also the idea that Hilbert might have genuinely cured Eiffel, but might still be up to no good. A dead Eiffel, after all, means no more Decima research, and that would be a disaster for Hilbert. Keeping the crew alive and healthy is in Hilbert's best interests, and so, to a degree, he is actually trustworthy, or at least reliable. In fact, Hilbert is probably one of the most reliable characters in the series, if only because he can always be trusted to protect his own interests. Unlike the others, whose goals sometimes shift, and whose actions are often determined by their emotions or their underlying characters, Hilbert almost never acts in such a way as to compromise his goals and his work. His focus is single-minded, and it makes him very, very reliable - trustworthy, almost. But good? Ethical? Not so much. It's at best a parody of integrity, a twisted, brutal code that doesn’t care much for other people.

The story, I think, is more interesting for it. Instead of a story about how Hilbert secretly has a heart of gold, we get a more unsettling story about how Hilbert can be relied on, but only to a certain extent. Instead of a story about a good person being good, it's the story of a bad person doing good - and that is infinitely more compelling.

And of course, all this is only really obvious in hindsight. Listening to it blind, we get an episode that is funny, tense and just about the right kind of creepy. It's simultaneously the darkest thing the show has done so far, an excellent black-humour-filled bottle episode and (almost) a heart-warming tale. To have that and all the bonus, retrospective Hilbert characterisation?

*shakes my head*

This episode, man.

Miscellaneous thoughts:

I said already but cigarette candy sounds so gross!

Zach Valenti does such a good job of sounding properly, horribly ill throughout this whole episode

"Officer Eiffel, you look terrible." Aww, no need to sugar-coat it, doc!

"You're not making me sick, are you?" "What possible reason could there be for doing that?" *whistles innocently*

Ugh when Hilbert says "Good night!" like that :O

Heh, the ticking clock in the background when Hilbert gets the kife out is a nice little touch

"Bedside manner is like anaesthetic. It just gets in way of what needs to be done."

#wolf 359 #wolf359 #w359 #wolf 359 relisten #cigarette candy #nellied reviews #so many thoughts about Alexander Hilbert #too many thoughts about Alexander Hilbert #but at least I posted them on the right blog this time

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a-duck-with-a-book · 4 years ago

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REVIEW // Seven Blades in Black (The Grave of Empires #1) by Sam Sykes

★☆☆☆☆

Disclaimer: while I was reading this book, I found out that Sam Sykes has been accused by numerous women of sexual harassment. You can find more information about it below: - a post listing several accusations of misconduct - twitter post responding to the situation - one of the accusations against Sam Sykes - his quickly-deleted apology Suffice to say, I have no intention of continuing this series or reading any more of his books.

I have a lot to say about this novel, so I’ll begin by making a quick bullet point list outlining what I liked and disliked:

Liked:

Cavric <3

Lisette deserved better

Some interesting concepts in the world building

Disliked:

Sal as a narrator

Sal as an antihero

Sal as a person in general

Writing style

Constant interruptions

Meandering narrative

The “narrator knows something but the writer avoids revealing it until the end for the drama” trope

This is a Big Tough World and Nobody Gets To Be Happy

Lesbians written by a man who harasses women

Unnecessarily long

// image: official cover art Jeremy Wilson //

Let’s begin with the full review by starting with the (few) positives, shall we?

First and foremost, I genuinely enjoyed Cavric and Lisette. It is unfortunate that they had to deal with Sal for the entirety of the novel, but we’ll get to her later. If this book had been a buddy adventure with these two, in which Cavric slowly shows Lisette that she is in a toxic relationships and deserves to move on and find someone better for herself, I probably would have enjoyed it a lot more. Secondly (and finally), Sykes introduced some genuinely interesting world building. The background of the Empire and the Scar was fascinating to read, but unfortunately did not save the rest of this mess.

Alright now let’s rant.

I have 35 notes and 52 highlights from this book, so this might get block quote heavy. (Go check out my notes if you want to see me slowly lose my sanity)

Sal is awful. I know she’s meant to be awful, but she’s not flawed in the way that I think Sykes was trying to write her. I believe she was intended to be a scruffy, lovable antihero who fought her way through a dangerous landscape with her sharp blade and even sharper tongue. A girl who had wrongs committed against her in the past, who did terrible things but is now on the road to an epic redemption arc. She shoots bad guys, she says f*ck and a*s a lot, and she is morally complex. That’s the character that Sykes was trying to make. The one he created, however, is a genuinely terrible person who I had no desire to see come out on top. I have a myriad of issues with her, but let’s outline a couple below: (1) She is incredibly toxic for Lisette. Am I getting a bit too heated about a fictional relationship? Sure. Was I happy to read a toxic lesbian romance written by a man who sexually harasses women? Nope. It kind of grossed me out, actually. Anyway, let me give you a run down of their relationship. Sal arrives. Sal and Lisette sleep together. Sal asks Lisette to give her weapons and or fix things for her. Sal sneaks away, telling herself no good will come of this relationship and they will only cause each other pain. Sal needs something. Sal comes back. Repeat over and over. She constantly says, throughout the book, that it would be better if they just left each other, but then again Sal is the one who goes back to Lisette over and over, causing her renewed heartbreak. I don’t know if Sykes thought that simply making Sal aware of how terrible this behavior was was enough, but it just made me incredibly frustrated. At one point Sal says:

”Intellect like hers is a curse. The more you understand of the world, the less of it you trust.”

Yes, Sal, that’s what’s giving her trust issues. Her intelligence. Nice. By the end of the book, it seems that they are on the mend-I’m getting end-game vibes from these two. But honestly, I spent the entire time thinking that Lisette deserved so much better than Sal. Like literally a chicken would have provided healthier companionship. I’ll end with this quote, in which Lisette outlines perfectly why Sal does not deserve her:

“What am I doing wrong that you’d choose this over me?”

(2) Sal is annoying. Really, really annoying. I kid you not, half of this book is made up of Sal’s snarky comments. She is badass. She has a gun. She is an outlaw. And she will never, EVER shut up about it. Imagine a quirky line after an otherwise dark or action-packed sequence. Funny, right? Might break the tension, make the narrator more endearing, etc. Now imagine one such line after every. Single. Paragraph. Picture a violent battle scene where the protagonist is fighting for their lives against a ruthless opponent. Now insert a snarky comment after every other paragraph and watch the entire flow of the scene fall apart with constant interruptions. That’s what this book is-which brings me to my next point.

The writing isn’t great. There are constant interruptions, meandering narratives, and the trope that haunts me in nearly every dark fantasy novel I read-This is a Big Tough World and Nobody Gets To Be Happy-is shoved repeatedly in your face. Let’s start with the interruptions, returning to my previous point (ie. Sal never shuts up), by looking at this sequence:

I followed the shrieking wind. I had come here prepared for something bad. But I wasn’t prepared for just how bad it was. I rounded the corner of the hall, came out atop a battlement. The wind struck me with a screaming gale, forcing me to shield my face and cling to the stone for purchase. My eyes squinted against the harshness of the light, the kind of offensive pale you only see in your nightmares. And through them, I could see the bowed shapes of towers sagging, the flayed flesh of banners whipping in a wind that wouldn’t cease, the shadows of figures frozen in a death that had brought no peace. And I knew where I was. There was nothing that had ever made Fort Dogsjaw special. It had never been crucial for defense, never a hub for trade, it hadn’t even been named for anything special—the commander just liked the sound of it. It lived its whole life a regular, boring Imperial fort on the edge of the Husks. It only got important at the time of its death. Over three hundred mages and a few thousand regulars had assembled here in one day—some to receive assignments, some to man the garrison, some to head back to Cathama on leave. They had been laughing, cursing, drinking when the news came that the new Emperor of Cathama was a nul, born with no magic. And then there had been a moment of silence.

I’ve bolded for emphasis, but do you see what I’m talking about? The paragraph-line-paragraph-line format is so annoying to read, I had to put the book down at certain points because of how frustrated I got. It interrupted the forward movement of the story, making the novel drag on and on.

You know what else makes this feel like the nightmare version of the Never-ending Story? The page count. I don’t mind long books-The Priory of the Orange Tree is one of my favorite reads so far this year, and it’s longer than this one-but they have to have a reason for being so hefty. As I mentioned earlier, a considerable chunk of Seven Blades of Black is Sal making her awful, awful, AWFUL asides. I literally cannot express how much I despise those comments. Okay, let’s move on before I get hung up on THOSE STUPID COM-*cough*

This novel is marred by unnecessary lines and a meandering plot that drag out the story. One instance is the amount of times that Sal is a second away from killing someone and, for some reason (usually not a good one), fails in her goal. She places a gun at someone’s head and goes through a whole monologue in her head until the person miraculously escapes. This type of subversion of expectations is fine every once in a while, but if you are going to build up to a crucial moment and then take away the satisfaction of the defeat of some villain (or mini-boss, as many of the antagonists in this book feel like), then you need to have a good reason for doing it upwards of twenty times in ONE BOOK. Secondly, if you spend almost the entire novel setting up more and more villains and stressing how hard they are to kill and how dangerous their powers are (and presenting them separately and isolated), then when you have them all in one place at the end, at which point the protagonists starts going through them like a plate of french fries at a seagull convention, then you’re kind of taking away the satisfaction of the death. Somehow, this book manages to do both. We are constantly teased with almost-kills, then at the end Sal just blows through everyone in five seconds, easy-peasy.

I’m almost done, I swear-just two more gripes.

So much of the tension of this book rests on the fact that Sal, our narrator and our main viewpoint into the story, knows something that we don’t. I’ll be upfront with you-I hate this trope. If our POV character, the one whose mind we are in constantly, is entirely aware of something that happened before the beginning of the novel, and the author keeps from revealing that something for the entirety of the story solely to add drama, then I will not be a happy reader. Where is the logic. We are in this person’s mind. Just show us already and add tension ELSEWHERE.

And FINALLY (as painful as it was for you to read this, it was worse for me to write it), another issue I have with a lot of dark fantasy (see my review of Nevernight) is that the author really, really wants us to know that this is an incredibly dangerous and dark world by filling it to the brim with edge lord narrators, Big Guns, and, usually, women being harrased-because why not force all your female readers to constantly have to read about women getting assaulted? Apart from Sal’s 300,000 comments explaining to us that she is an asshole, that the Scar is Dangerous, and that she has Killed A Lot of People, we as readers must sit through hundreds of lines of dialogue and exposition that beat us over the head with the fact that this is DARK fantasy. This isn’t your nice little fairy adventure-no sir. Here we have Swear Words and Violence and Men writing Queer Women. To emphasize just how blatant Sykes is with the dark part of dark fantasy, let me tell you about an exchange Sal has with three old ladies who run a criminal empire. In the 2-3 pages that these women appear in, we are told, in some form or other, that they are grandmas who kill people, a grand total of, I kid you not, ELEVEN TIMES. Here are some excerpts from that whole situation:

”“Now, now.” Yoc, old and white haired and sweet as a grandmother—if that grandmother also had people killed on the regular—smiled at me. “I’m sure she has a good reason for being here.” She raised the hand that had signed the contracts that had killed a thousand men and women and took up her whiskey glass. “After all, I’m sure she knows how much we don’t like having our game interrupted.”” *I counted this as one since it’s in the same exchange but technically he mentions it TWICE

”…one didn’t waste the Three’s time if one didn’t want to end up with their teeth pried out.”

”How often do you meet the three old ladies who have people killed for money?”

”I said we should kill her on principle.”

”“But you know how many orphans I’ve made, don’t you, dear?””

”“He’s not so unlike us, is he? A murderer, yes. A monster to some. But, at his heart, a businessman.”

”Theirs were the hands that signed a thousand death contracts a year.”

”When they could be bothered to look up from their game, they decided who lived and died with a stroke of their pen.”

”At a word, they could have me stripped, tied, tortured, and cut up…”

”the Three don’t lie. Their assassins do. Their thieves do. But they don’t.”

”I had already wasted their time and I knew the Three were being generous just letting me fuck off instead of having me killed for the effort.”

TL;DR - Sal is annoying, Sykes is a bad writer, and Someone should have stopped me from reading this book

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