#sometimes i try to articulate how happy these characters make me and i just end up yelling or running around my room

[kazoozie]

Ok if you're like me and you're procrastinating watching dead boy detectives, I'm here to prompt you to watch it. It's seriously so good, I can take any relationship between characters and yell about it for hours. There's an insane witch who talks about the stretchiness of teen girls skin. Literally every character is so interesting, even the side ones who are only there for one episode. At least three people are canonically in love with a repressed edwardian ghost boy, and they're correct. The boy who fights with basically only a cricket bat is also one of the sweetest characters ever. The woman who walks around with meat cleavers is the closest thing to adult supervision these kids have. You'll want to marry/be best friends with most of the characters and hit the others with your car.

[lizdive]

I don't know if you've watched demon slayer but could you do kanao!reader x aventurine and boothill, platonic separately?

Or a chlorinde!readerx aventurine and boothill, romantic( also separate) tho? I've had these ideas for a while but I don't know which one I like more so I'll leave it to you.

Hihi anon !! Don’t worry, I’ve watched demon slayer and finished the manga too :3 I really want to write both, but I need to do some research Clorinde’s personality first,, was never too invested in her character </3 once I do somehow figure her out, I’ll definitely try and write her !! For now, I hope this satisfies you and if not just tell me and i’ll redo it <33 tysm for requesting !!

notes 𐙚 gender-neautral reader — "you" used to refer to reader ,, reader is a teenager — being 16 was the reference ,, reader is based off of "kanao kocho" from the demon slayer series ,, platonic relationships ,, veritas ratio mentioned in aventurine’s part ,, dan heng and trailblazer mentioned in boothill’s part ,, this isn’t proofread ,, ignore typos

⭑ You were a new recruit, young in your teens and barely even reaching adulthood, and given to AVENTURINE as an apprentice and assistant. At first, he worried that it was his situation all over again, however whenever he tried to ask you anything, you just blankly stared at him.

⭑ You filled out duties diligently and followed everything he said by the letter. You never complained, you never expressed exhaustion, you were a doll. Following orders like his words were that of an Aeon’s and you were the devout follower.

⭑ It took some digging, but AVENTURINE had finally found what he wished to know. A young teen, sold into slavery by their own parents since childhood. He could only feel pity — you were, in some way, the same as him.

⭑ It only makes him want to talk with you more and get you to open up more. He notices quickly how you struggled to make decisions for yourself, so he decides to give you one of his golden coins to use. The heads or tails method, the same one Kanao used thanks to Kanae.

⭑ Sometimes he’ll try and corner you to make you give an answer out of your own will, but it’s rare as he doesn’t want to make you uncomfortable or feel distressed.

⭑ You practice swordsmanship? AVENTURINE will let you train for as long as you want! He’ll get you the finest blades! You use a specific sword type? You now have a collection. You have a hobby / talent, and he wants you to excel !! He’s very supportive, a bit too much so, but he’s just happy that you have something you genuinely enjoy.

⭑ Sometimes you act like his protector which makes him a bit embarrassed because he has someone younger than him beating ass to keep him unharmed and he’s just standing there dumbfounded but at the same time proud,,

⭑ If you ever wish to open up to him about your past and the hardships you’ve faced, he’ll always be there to listen. He’s patient with you and will try and help you articulate your feelings. If you’re upset with your parents, he’ll encourage you to cry and let it all out — it’s not healthy to keep it in, after all.

⭑ If you ever express a desire to further your education (the IPC only taught you what was needed to be useful), he’ll leave that to Dr. Ratio. He trusts the scholar enough and explains the situation to him. Congrats! You have become an official student of Veritas Ratio!

⭑ Veritas is very pleased at the fact you’re very diligent and a quick learner. You quickly become one of his top students.

⭑ If you ask to learn about gambling and how to gamble, AVENTURINE will be a bit hesitant but he’ll teach you in the end. Again, with your diligence and quick learning, you’ll become a pro in no time. Maybe you can gamble with him sometime! Don’t worry, no serious bets!

⭑ It was during a bounty that BOOTHILL had found you, all alone in a shed, attire tattered and hair a mess. You looked to be on the brink of life and death. That only made him finish the bounty even quicker.

⭑ He didn’t ask too many questions when he noticed that you were silent, instead helping you up and escaping quickly so that there would be no casualties. You made no noise of pain or protest, and while that concerned him greatly seeing all your wounds, he was too focused on getting away.

⭑ He books a hotel that night. He’ll get someone to help you bathe since you seem incapable of doing so yourself, and while that’s happening he’ll get you a nice change of clothes. He finally has use for the bounty money he has.

⭑ It’s very awkward at first for BOOTHILL because no matter what he tries you just don’t react. Your wide eyes are dazed as they just stare at him — he feels like you’re going to carve a hole through him with that gaze of yours,,

⭑ He has no idea what to do with you,, you don’t respond to anything unless he orders you around, you lack basic survival skills as seen when you tried to make something in the hotel’s microwave only to fry the microwave, and you just,,,, couldn’t do much.

⭑ What you could do, though, was fight. And, you were a quick learner. BOOTHILL, not wanting to risk the chances of you getting hurt as he decides to bring you along for his missions, teaches you how to defend yourself. You’ll end up being very good with firearms. Would get you a revolver like his.

⭑ He would also duel with you to help you improve! A moving target is always good practice, and he’ll be fine anyways. When you get more and more skilled, he’ll do actual duels with you but will still he cautious so as to not hurt you. Your speed is very admirable!

⭑ Will try to make your own choices, which with his line of work, won’t be too hard as every step requires quick thinking and decision making. In a way, literally being with him shoved you out of your comfort zone and forced you to make your own decisions.

⭑ If you open up to him, trust that he will be comforting you like he’s your own father. Speaking of fathers and parents, he has zero respect for your parents and hopes they’re rotting away. As a man who was once a father, he could never imagine doing that.

⭑ Congrats, BOOTHILL is your unofficial official father now !!

⭑ If you ever want to pursue a better education, he might not be the best guy to ask,, but he’ll figure something out! Might ask the trailblazer for help, who then asks Dan Heng for help. Dan Heng will teach you the basics in reading and then he’ll leave the rest up to you. If you have any questions, he’ll answer, but it’ll take him some time as he’s a busy man.

⭑ Loves it when you go sadistic mode and verbally destroy the enemy, ESPECIALLY if the enemy works under the IPC. Will cheer you on. Also you’ll swear for him. It soon becomes reflex and it’s just very humoring to see a cyborg man absolutely wrecking someone and then there’s this innocent looking teen with a calm smile saying the most vile words in the cyborg’s place,,

[m1ckeyb3rry]

hii! so happy for you and your 500! ^_^

i really loved how you wrote isagi! could i request something like listening to music and sharing earphones with him? and while he's commenting about the music reader told him to listen, reader finds herself staring at him. and maybe isagi's friends are secretly filming them bc of how cringey (lovingly) their relationship are HSHS feel free to ignore, thank youu!!

── READ IT AND WEEP!

Synopsis: You and your boyfriend listen to some music together, while an unlikely trio of strikers watches in disgust/fascination/apathy at the scene before them.

Event Masterlist

Pairing: Isagi x Reader

Chapter Word Count: 1.8k

Content Warnings: fluffy to a corny extent tbh but it’s okay it’s cute, chigiri and bachira are dumbasses (affectionate), nagi is an unwilling accomplice, karasu converts nagi into a subway surfers kid offscreen

A/N: anonnnn i’m so glad to hear you liked pathways isagi!! and tysm for the congrats 💖 i hope you didn’t think i ignored this, i’m sorry it took me a bit to get to! i did incorporate your suggestion at the end hehe i love a good opportunity to write shenanigans…i wasn’t sure which characters to pick but for some reason the three i chose were calling to me HAHA they just felt like they would be the ones to do smth like that!!

Additional: part of my 500 follower event! see the event description and rules to make a request of your own.

“It reminds me of you,” you explained as Isagi made a face at the bright pink album cover of the song you were trying to convince him to listen to. “Stop trying to be all macho and cool! It’s not like your friends are around to judge you for listening to basic pop music instead of your normal stuff. Come on, I know you’ll like it.”

“Okay,” he said hesitantly. “Let me read the lyrics first.”

“What kind of spoiler is that? Just listen to the song!” you said.

“I can’t understand the lyrics if I just listen to the song, and you said that it reminds you of me, so I want to know what you mean by that,” he said.

“How about you read the lyrics afterwards?” you bargained. He shook his head resolutely.

“No, because then the listening experience won’t be as strong,” he said. Sighing, you looked up the song’s lyrics and handed him your phone, holding onto his bicep and reading over his shoulder as he scrolled through the singer’s downright over-the-top articulations about how much she loved her boyfriend.

“It doesn’t sound as crazy when she’s singing it,” you muttered when Isagi’s ears turned red.

“No, no, this is sweet,” he said, pretending to cough in an attempt to disguise his laughter. “I can’t believe you think so highly of me.”

“Of course I do,” you said. “You’re my one and only boyfriend. You’re not the only one who gets to be cheesy, you know. I do as well — though only sometimes. Certainly not anywhere near as often as you are.”

“Right, being cheesy is my role,” he said, his cheek resting against your hair as you slumped into him. “Okay, since this is your way of showing affection, and since the lyrics are so charming, I guess I should probably listen to it. Give me one of your earbuds.”

“Gross, you didn’t bring your own?” you teased even as you handed one over to him. He rolled his eyes, shoving it into his ear, kissing your forehead as he did so.

“Super gross, I know,” he said. “You can play it whenever you’re ready.”

The familiar notes of the intro played, but you had played the song a million times before, so you hardly paid attention. Instead, you focused on Isagi, the way he frowned slightly as the first verse began, like he was concentrating very hard. It was endearing, that he was putting so much effort into the simple task; you knew it would’ve been much easier for him to pretend to be interested so he could get it over with, but he had never been like that. If you asked him to do something, he would put a hundred percent into it, a hundred percent or sometimes more, just so that he could make you happy.

You noticed, idly at first and then on purpose, that his body was different, his face angular in a way that it hadn’t been when he had left for Blue Lock. It was these changes you took stock of as he sat in peace, eyes shut as he listened to the music. He looked less like a boy and closer to the man he would one day become. You wondered how much he would change the next time he left, if you would even recognize him when he came back again.

In the end, though, you concluded that no matter how he had grown and how he was yet to grow, he was still at his core your Isagi. Isagi who listened to your music and gave piggyback rides to your younger siblings. Isagi who stopped in convenience stores so he could buy snacks for the stray cats and helped you pick what clothes you should wear for any given event. Isagi who loved you and who you loved in return.

“It’s really good,” he said, startling you out of your daze. “I liked it more than I thought I would! She has a really good voice, and you’re right — it does all sound much more natural when she’s singing it.”

“Is it getting added to the playlist?” you said.

“Hm,” he said. “Maybe the one I listen to at home, but I don’t know what the others would say if I was on speaker duty during one of our workouts and that started blasting. I think Barou and Raichi would probably die.”

You didn’t know that much about either of those two, but from what little Isagi had told you, that sounded in character enough, so you nodded in agreement.

“Good enough for me. It’s okay, I’m not mad! See, I have different playlists for different occasions, too, so it only makes sense that you would as well,” you said.

“I’m glad you’re not upset. I really do like it, just so you know. Send me more songs like it when you get home — I want to make a playlist of ones that remind me of you,” he said. 

“Why, so you can play it during your group workouts and make your single teammates jealous?” you said, elbowing him in the side. He chuckled.

“Nah, that would be cruel. I think I’ll bring my own pair of headphones to Blue Lock — I’ve definitely scored enough goals that they’ll let me keep them at this point — and whenever I miss you, I’ll listen to it,” he said.

“Oh,” you said, swallowing, taken aback at the casual way he always said such romantic things. “Um, well, if you have your phone, you could also just text me…”

It was his turn to be taken aback. “Oh, right. I guess I could do that too…but if you’re asleep, then I’ll listen to it! We get up pretty early, you know, and I don’t want to wake you when you should be resting.”

“Sounds like a plan,” you said. “But let’s not talk about you leaving right now. For the moment, I’m glad you’re on break and can spend time with me.”

“Me, too,” he said. “I love you, Y/N. Just as much as that singer loves her boyfriend. Actually, more.”

“I love you, too,” you said. “More than that singer could ever love anyone. Way more.”

He exhaled through his nose, and then he wrapped his arm around your waist, scooting impossibly closer to you on the park bench the two of you were sharing and humming the melody of the song as you watched people walk by. 

“Nagi!” Chigiri hissed from where he, Bachira, and Nagi were hiding in a bush — or at least, they were trying to. It was somewhat difficult to hide the towering Nagi, who was also not exactly cooperating in their covert mission or participating in their attempt at masterful disguise. “Did you get it?”

“What?” Nagi said with a yawn, still holding his phone up, pointed towards where Isagi and his girlfriend — the girlfriend whose existence they had all been convinced was a myth or tall tale — were sitting together. “Get what? Why are we even here? You guys told me that we were leaving the bowling arena to get snacks.”

“Give me that!” Chigiri said, snatching the phone from Nagi, who whined in protest. Bachira hushed him, reaching up to pat him on the head, though that only made Nagi pout like a child. “What? Why is this open to Subway Surfers?”

“Oh, Karasu downloaded it on my phone while we were all in the arcade, and I’ve been playing it ever since,” Nagi explained. “It’s kind of fun. I’m trying to get the national high score.”

“You were supposed to be filming Isagi and The Girlfriend!” Bachira said, emphasizing the words ‘the girlfriend’ as if she was some kind of legendary being. “That’s why we brought you along! You’re always playing on your phone, so it wouldn’t be suspicious for you to have it out, but you were secretly supposed to be taking videos as blackmail, not actually playing on it!”

“You guys didn’t tell me that,” Nagi said. “You told me that we were all going to buy chips and fruit jellies together.”

“We literally told you,” Chigiri said, face-palming. “We said when we got here, ‘look, Nagi, that’s Isagi and his girlfriend. Take a video of them.’ Anyways, why else would we be standing in a bush so creepily if we weren’t doing reconnaissance?”

Nagi shrugged. “Dunno, maybe it’s a common hobby or something.”

Chigiri narrowed his eyes at him, unable to discern if he was being serious or not. He decided to err on the side of caution, given how genuinely strange most of his Blue Lock peers were. “It’s not.”

“Okay, you know what? It’s fine. They’re still there, so we can get some footage now!” Bachira said, taking Nagi’s phone from Chigiri and using it to take pictures of Isagi and his girlfriend as they curled up with one another on the park bench.

“Use your own phone,” Nagi said, though he didn’t try to take the device back by force — it would be a hassle, and he was pretty sure that Bachira would give it back soon.

True to form, Bachira sent the photos to a group chat he created with himself, Nagi, and Chigiri, and then he gave Nagi his phone back, earning him a quiet cheer as Nagi was finally able to return to Subway Surfers.

“These are perfect,” Chigiri said. Nagi, whose little avatar had just been caught by the policeman, scowled slightly.

“By the way, why do you guys think that these are worthy of being used as blackmail?” he said.

“Uh, because it’s embarrassing that Isagi of all people is so lovey-dovey?” Bachira said.

“Exactly,” Chigiri said.

“I think it’s more embarrassing that he has a girlfriend and no one else does,” Nagi said conversationally, without even looking up from the screen. Bachira and Chigiri exchanged horrified looks and then, in unison, whipped out their phones to delete the offending material, Chigiri also taking the liberty of doing the same on Nagi’s.

“I can’t believe we didn’t consider that angle,” Bachira said, shaking his head. “Nagi, man, you’re a lifesaver.”

Nagi grunted, obviously uninterested in Bachira’s praise. 

“This is why they call him the lazy genius,” Chigiri said in approval. “Listen, the three of us are the only ones who can confirm the existence of Isagi’s girlfriend. That means that the next time he brings her up, we have to double down on denying it. You guys in?”

“Yup, sounds like fun!” Bachira said. “Nagi?”

Nagi looked up at them. “Will you guys pay for my chips and fruit jellies like you said you would?”

Chigiri and Bachira glanced at one another before nodding, silently agreeing to split the bill. 

“Sure, we got it!” Bachira said.

“Just don’t expect anything on the same level as whatever Reo buys you. We’re not that rich!” Chigiri said. Nagi shrugged.

“Whatever,” he said. 

“Then it’s a deal!” Chigiri said.

“Deal!” Bachira said.

“Deal,” Nagi agreed, shoving his phone in his pocket as the three of them traipsed towards the closest convenience store, leaving Isagi and Y/N blissfully alone and unaware that they had ever been there in the first place.

[metorea]

HP boys as Hozier Songs

All characters aged up + smut & fluff separated

Harry: Like Real People Do

♡ Harry has always felt alienated from others. That is, until he met you.

♡ You have always made him feel like a real person. Like he existed beyond his reputation as the boy who lived. To you, he was no one but Harry.

♡ “We should just kiss like real people do” Harry finds a home in you that he's never had anywhere else. When things seem impossible you are a light at the end of the tunnel, a persistent reminder that sooner or later, it will all be okay.

♡ You were so beautiful that it made him want to cry. Sometimes he'd catch himself gazing at you and forgetting to breathe, entirely enraptured.

♡ This morning was one of those mornings. He'd seen horrible things the night before, being an auror and all- but you, at the counter, fumbling with eggs he assumed you'd intended to cook for breakfast… the cruelty of some wizards was lost to him in the flow of your movements.

♡ Gentle, gentle touches.

♡ He worships you and he wants you to feel it in every brush of his fingers. The bend of your elbow, the back of your knee, it was all so perfect. So magical.

♡ His hands on your hips from behind felt like worship, your gentle moans a prayer.

♡ “So good, so perfect”, He'd murmur, nose buried in the crook of your neck while other parts of him were buried elsewhere- eggs long forgotten.

Ron: Movement

♡ “When you move I'm moved” Ron watches you and is inspired by your every move. For you, he wants to be so much more than he is. You make him want to be better, smarter, stronger- all while making him feel loved just as he is.

♡ He admires you. He always has. You look to him with these big, gentle eyes and he knows at once that nothing could ever make him happier than a home with you.

♡ He dreams of a quiet life but he gets lost in your motion as well. In your excitement, your passions- it's infectious. He builds his life around you and he doesn't mind one bit; he never could.

♡ He shows everything he feels for you that he can't articulate in every move he makes inside you.

♡ Your hands pinned above your head and his face flushed, he's determined to be the best he can be for you.

♡ It's wild, it's passionate, just like the two of you. The fire of his hair matches the fire of his heart as he trails bite marks and kisses down every bit of you that he can reach.

♡ The room grows warm with the fervent way he moves, not that you'd ever dream of complaining. You love it, every bit of it- your legs wrapping around his hips to drive him impossibly further

Cedric: Would that I

♡ Cedric loves every bit of you, in all your duality and ever shifting parts. If anything, it makes him love you more. And you do the same.

♡ He's a consistent man. He likes things to stay the same. His schedule, his plans- but you wreck them every time. You blow in like a breeze from the sea and he watches as you tear up all he thought he knew, smiling all the while.

♡ And God, he loves it.

♡ He would never dream of taming you, of trying to control you. The wildness is what he yearns for, it keeps him alive.

♡ He'd never try to tame you. Except when you're beneath him. That, is a different story entirely.

♡ He knows how powerful you are. How smart, how driven, how dedicated- he tells you every day. This only makes it that much more enjoyable to see you fall apart the way you do for him.

♡ “Go ahead honey, let go for me.” He'd whisper, moving you up and down against his hips with strong hands.

♡ He loves relieving you. He sees you carry the weight of the world on your shoulders every day, nothing brings him more pride than affording you this release.

♡ Getting his dick wet is just a happy bonus.

Fred: Nobody

♡ “I wouldn't fall for someone I thought couldn't misbehave”

♡Fred is mischievous, reckless, impulsive. He's a hazard, a concern, a risk. And he's content being all these things. Hell, he takes pride in the labels stuck to him by his parents, professors, and other authorities.

♡ He is certain that he will never meet anyone who can match his energy the way George does, until he meets you.

♡ You, a firecracker. You, who speaks without thinking. You, who casts jinxes like you were born to do it, faster than even he can.

♡ The first time he sees you inflate someone's ears he is in love. Absolutely head over heels heart eyes.

♡ He knew he had to have you right then. And have you he did.

♡ As recklessly as the two of you did everything else, you did this. But this was not haphazard, like the assignments you both so often failed to turn in. This was precise and messy, gentle and harsh, satisfying and yet always leaving a need for more.

♡ His lips crashed into yours and fireworks erupted in your belly. He shoved you against the wall and you hooked your fingers through his belt loops, grinning wide into the kiss.

♡ “You're gonna be the end of me, baby” He'd whisper against your lips. “Not today,” You'd reply, leaning in to kiss him again. He is more than happy to oblige you.

George: Damage gets Done

♡ Life is full of surprises, and George has always preferred to go with the flow. You have been his favorite surprise by far.

♡ He fell in love with you slowly. He fell in love with your smile first, and from the first time he saw it, it has been his personal mission to see it as many times as he possibly could.

♡ You fell into his life all at once, without any sort of warning. And as shocked as he was that he was so taken with someone, he knew at once that this was not something to be wasted. No, with you, he could not go with the flow. He could not just let things happen. By some stroke of luck you came into his life, he could not let you go.

♡ You fell into his life,

♡ And now you fall into his lap.

♡ He buries his head in your chest while you move up and down atop him, nails digging into his freckled shoulders as your head falls back.

♡ He looks away from his ceaseless kissing and sucking to look at you, taking in the art that was you falling apart for him. He'd grin at you, wrapping his arm around your waist to lean you back so he was on top once more.

♡ He'd bury himself inside of you with each thrust, nipping at all the skin he could reach before tracing a gentle hand over it, completely lost in you.

♡ Your hands tangle in his ever messy hair and he feels more purpose than he ever has before, right here, with you pressed against him.

Tom: NFWMB

♡ “Give your heart and soul to charity, because the rest of you, the best of you, honey- belongs to me.”

♡ It shouldn't come as a shock that Tom is a possessive man. You aren't just his partner, you are his. Period.

♡ “Nothing fucks with my baby” As cruel as he can be to you, he would never tolerate such behavior from anyone else.

♡ Someone glares at you, and they have been cursed. Someone dares to insult you, and it's the last words they ever say. And God help anyone who ever hurts you, really hurts you. For them, death would be merciful. You are his, and nothing hurts what belongs to him except for him.

♡ He fucks you with that same spirit of ownership. This is not necessarily a good thing- unless you're into that.

♡ He cares little for your pleasure. It doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things- you're his. You couldn't leave if you wanted to, not that you'd ever want to. Right?

♡ He fucks you to clear his head, to clear his body. You're a dumping ground, but you're his dumping ground. You're pathetic, but you're his. Perhaps that's enough. For him, that is enough. For you, it has to be.

Blaise: It Will Come Back

♡ From the first shred of kindness you showed Blaise he was weak for you. Rarely were people sweet to him the way you were without an ulterior motive. A taste of love was all he needed, and he was hooked.

♡ From then on, to pry him away from you was difficult. Though he kept his physical distance the majority of the time, his thoughts never left you.

♡ He had a reputation to keep up, but you knew what it all meant. The gifts, the letters, the looks- he was all yours. Once or twice you forgot to reply to him, and there he was the next day, outside your dormitory. Like a moth to a flame, he was, and is, drawn to you.

♡ He makes love to you like a ritual. You are a God and he is your humble servant, this is the only place in his life where he is anything but in charge. For you he is weak, he is malleable.

♡ His eyes hold a depth you drown in as he stares at you from just above, forehead pressed to yours.

♡ His thrusts are slow and steady, always sure and confident in what he's doing.

♡ His hands make quick work of you, again and again and again. He's amazingly controlled as he moves. He is locked in on you and every reaction you're giving him, completely unbothered by his own growing arousal.

♡ “It can't be unlearned, I've known the warmth of your doorway. Through the cold, I'll find my way back to you.”

Draco: To Be Alone

♡ “When you kill the lights and kiss my eyes, I feel like a person for a moment of my life.”

♡ Draco is a bad man. He knows this, his friends know this, everyone knows this.

♡ Except you. You don't seem to understand that the arms that hold you are soaked in unfathomable amounts of blood, that the eyes that stare into yours have seen unimaginable things.

♡ For this, among other things, Draco loves you.

♡ With you and you alone, he feels innocent. He feels pure for the first time since he was a child, bathed in your light and temporarily absolved of the guilt he carries.

♡ The voice that reminds him what he's done will always be there, but so will yours, always there to quiet it. He has found a sanctuary between your lips, a gift he never could have dreamt of, but something he no longer knows how to live without.

♡ Your bedroom is a sanctuary of sorts, for the same above reasons

♡ You put your mouth on him and the tension leaves him all at once. His knees nearly buckle, he has to seek support from the desk you have him backed up against.

♡ He has to stop his hips from bucking forward of their own accord, not wanting to startle you

♡ His hand moves down, stroking your cheek and tangling in your hair while you move up and down his length, staring up at him

♡ How could you ever expect him to last when you look at him like that?

[l-crimson-l]

I'd love to get into girlpla, I'm just a bit too broke to afford any kits; however, if you'd like to talk about it as a whole, I'd be more than happy to hear.

So…let me try this again. I had a whole nice post written up and I swapped off for a moment to check something and I completely lost the post.

Mecha Musume has a pretty long history that I’m not going to go into but here’s a little video if you’re interested.

Now when most people think of Mecha Musume there’s basically one standout line above them all: Frame Arms Girl.

This line is a bit old now but its popularity has set the aesthetic style for the market as it stands now. The build of these are…ok. Kotobukiya was definitely learning with these kits but they’re still solid at the end of it.

Now if you’re like me you’re not too much a fan of the pantsu out look, and other kits in the line don’t exactly do anything to mitigate that feeling (looking at you Durga I).

The next line Koto would release would be better at this tho. The Megami Device line features all original designs as well as collabs from new and old mecha musume brands alike.

First thing off the bat this is that they’re pricey. At an average cost of $70 you’re basically buying a Bandai MG gunpla. That said, they all typically come with a bunch of option parts. These are usually in the form of unarmored limbs, different chest pieces, face plates (with water slides to make your own) and extra connectors to help with kitbashing. Koto also has released option body segments to let you swap any part of the body you might want to if the right option isn’t available in the box (~$12). It should be noted the newest kits in this line have brought the price down to $50 as well as reengineered the build to add a lot more articulation and pose-ability.

Also in this lines favor is the articulation and build quality. You’re going to get a nice range of motion with or without armor and some of the smaller details also sometimes come pre painted.

That said Kotobukiya is a company that favors more complex character design over an Out Of Box experience so there’s some smaller details that are etched into the kit but unless your paints them won’t be color correct. I would say this is pretty common across most Koto lines.

Both the FAgirls and Megami Device are scaled at 1/12 so Little Armory guns and the whole market of 3rd party accessories will work with these kits.

Next up is Koto’s Sousai Shoujo Teien which is simple girls as plastic models

A little cheaper and at 1/10 scale instead of 1/12. I’ve not built any but I do know they can bash with Megami Device and Hexa Gear lines just fine. If you take a peek at the JP girpla community there’s actually a niche but healthy group dedicated to taking nice photos of their kits dressed up in everyday scenarios.

Finally the newest line of Koto girl kits is the Arcanadea line.

Purely in a fantasy take these are Incredible kits. I’ve only built one (Lumitea) but it was far and away a much better build experience than the FAgirl kits. These are actually designed by a vtuber artist iirc which is why the designs are so different than other Koto kit lines. If you have the cash and want to try something different I would highly recommend.

Now finally we get to Bandai. After learning from their failures with the Hg Build Fighters girls they went back and designed something solid and what got me into mecha musume: 30 Minute Sisters

Right off the bat with an average price of around $30 the barrier to entry is much easier. While not as refined as the Megami Device line, these simple kits cram in a lot for the price. You’ll get an armored and unarmored form, as well as face plates. However the biggest selling point is How Damn Easy they are to bash. Being apart of the 30M line means they’re completely compatible with the 30MM line of mechs. Which also means all of those extra weapon and armor sets transfer over for the most part. And that’s not even talking about the dedicated 30MS option sets like hair parts, body parts, etc.

This is a Very beginner friendly line of kits and the place I would suggest most people starting if they’re looking to get into mecha musume.

This example I think uses about 5 different kits to build and I don’t believe any serious modifications were needed.

Another Bandai line to mention is the Standard Figurise line which you’ll be familiar with if you’ve picked up the Sulletta, Miorine or ChuChu kits. Typically pretty solid kits (uma musume excluded, only get the 30ms version of that one) they usually include characters from a variety of different shows. These are still of course bash-able but not without modification.

With the explosion of popularity with these kits means we have even more companies now joining in the race. ATK and MS General have a bunch of kits to offer and we see new companies pop up some really sick looking kits (see tgat Galahad)

We even have Plamax giving us the really cool looking GODZ ORDER kits and soon character kits from Blue Archive, Konosuba and others.

For these smaller/third party companies I would suggest doing plenty of research before buying one. The ATK kit that I made was Especially frustrating and required a lot of extra work to make parts fit right or to clean them up so they fit at all. Not to mention the extra detail work required to really make them look like the box example. Just do your homework.

I hope this helps!! It’s a growing market so there’s always more kits being announced. This should have covered the majority of kits out there but IMPORTANT! Check sites like AmiAmi for sales or resales on kits. You can sometimes find an unbuilt kit that retails at $70 going for $30.

USAGS will regularly get Koto kits in and new releases but by no means believe them when they say a kit is USAGS exclusive. Remember to check HLJ as well. Let me know if you have any other questions and I’ll do my best to answer them!!

[felixcosm]

Thought about your Edgar post for like 5 seconds too long, and I wanted to say how much I think that it seems that Mike is really judging their characters based on personality rather than actions if that makes sense?

They've both done some truly awful and heinous things - Edgar especially - but when not caught up in time travel bullshit, Edgar is a genuinely kind and compassionate person. Something that, as his boyfriend, Mike sees a lot of. Mike on the other hand, can be a bit of a bitch sometimes. (said with all the love in my heart of course)

Obviously Mike Walters is the true champion at seeing his loved ones through rose-tinted glasses with Edgar being one of the two most blatant examples (the other being Anne imo), but I do think there's something about the Mikes saying that the truth is what they feel to be emotionally true. They have flaws that they don't like about themselves, whereas Edgar is someone they love, and someone who loves them back. They see a lot of cruelty from the both of them, but they also see a lot of kindness and love from Edgar. Therefore in the Mikes' eyes, they are a worse person than Edgar.

Not sure if I quite articulated this great, but your post got me thinking!

(also when I say Mike, I mean Mike Walters as a species)

No no you're absolutely right and I am obsessed with how Mike says things that feel true in the moment even if they are blatantly wrong or impossible to prove (him telling Matt he loved him may be a bad example since later Mikey says he was only trying to be nice but I feel like there is certainly more to that whole scene than Mikey was willing to admit to Matt or his podcast listeners at the time)

And I feel like even though Edgar has obvious personality flaws as well, like he can be petty and mean (re: Rugby) he often speaks over Mike as if Mike's feelings don't matter (making decisions for him, disregarding his opinions and emotions during missions, treating him like a warm body to be sent out into the field), or manipulating him (Dylan mentioned in the commentaries how often Edgar puts Mikey in a position where he's the "adult" and Mikey's the "petulant child" re: 118) - and it seems like the Mikes do sort of know about it. Like Michael's still holding a grudge about Rugby so he's clearly not blind to Edgar's less than savory moments.

But that won't matter to them because in the end they will look past facts.

I'm also fascinated at how much of an unreliable Narrator Mike Walters is. Even when we have an episode where he's speaking to other Mikes or to himself, we can't fully trust what he says because he will apply his emotions to a situation and make decisions based on that.

We rarely do see Edgar and the others alone in scenes where they are themselves without Mikey interjecting with his own narrative. Which makes sense, as this is WOE.BEGONE and its the story of Mike Walters, so we see the world through their eyes.

I think you can probably say Edgar is a better person than Mike though and I am completely agreeing with your points. But at the same time I do think its funny how Mikey leads us to believe that Edgar is perfect and holy while his boyfriend just can't fucking wait to get his hands dirty.

WOE.BEGONE is a show about power and how it can corrupt someone and I think Edgar is just as good of an example as Mikey. Mikey might've started as someone who was very happy to get into the time-travel murder game as he accuses himself of being in Episode 21, but Edgar goes from being scared and unsure to the actual leader controlling the fates of all of Base.

[raayllum]

I'm torn with Claudia. The humane part of me wants her to stop walking her dark path before she destroys herself completely and find some measure of peace. The fucked-up part of me wants to watch her to lose it and go on the warpath and cause lots of chaos. Is that last one wrong to hope for?

Not at all! I do think we'll see her warpath arc next season, since as Ezran stated/foreshadowed

We all want peace and we all want love. But violence tests us. In a twisted way, it converts us to its cause. Because pain and loss feel so terrible inside, you want to hate. You want to hurt someone else.

Given that Rayla cut off her leg and the trio cost her the chance to save her father's life (since if/when Viren survives, I don't think Claudia will know for a while), I think she'll start chasing Revenge. (Which may lead to even more fracturing with Terry, as "I always believed in you because you had a reason" but we shall see...) And then maybe Soren and Viren will work together to try and bring her home, but maybe only in s7 - so who knows?

But yeah, I don't think ever wanting characters to go through "negative character development" or "fail" means we don't like them or don't understand/sympathize with them. Too often, I think, fandoms can have a tendency to moralize, well, everything, but in this case the choices writers make regarding their favourite characters, i.e. "This Bad Thing happened to Character A so therefore the writers hate them / are punishing them."

And don't get me wrong, I've definitely seen shows where a writing team just did not know what to do with a character, so they just heaped tons of pain on them and/or under utilized them, and who is shown on screen with discussed/processed trauma vs who isn't is definitely a discussion worth having, because none of that exists in an apolitical or aracial space.

However... by no means is the "punishing" angle what's happening all the time, either. What I think it comes from is like, some base assumptions and also a lack of literary understanding for some key aspects I'm gonna do my best at articulating clearly:

1) Operating under an assumption that if you like a character you should only want 'good' things for them, and for them to be a 'good' person, because you are also a 'good' person. This doesn't seem super moralized on the surface, but it explains a lot about "how could anyone like that villain" or offense to "how could anyone want that character to fail" and it's like, idk how to explain that failure and therefore conflict and tragic figures are Just Interesting, Brenda, even if they aren't your personal cup of tea. (I say, as a diehard Macbeth and literary Judas enjoyer lmao.)

2) Ignores catharsis and tragedy as elements of storytelling / as its own desirable genre. Sometimes, you want to watch a thing where you know the whole time everything is going to go horribly wrong for certain characters, or all the characters, and that's what's fun about it. The desirable outcome for every story or character is not a happy ending, nor are all characters or stories built for a happy ending, either. It can be upsetting, of course, when a character we like doesn't get the (happy) ending we hoped for, but that isn't necessarily always the same as a bad ending, y'know? Substantially bad things happening to a character doesn't always mean a narrative hates them; a focus on them is still a focus.

All of this to say: I don't think it's wrong at all to want, or be interested in, Terrible Things happening to a character. It's a thought experiment like any other, and pushing characters to their limits, revealing how they respond under intense or painful experiences - whether than pain is physical, emotional, or something else entirely - is fun and interesting. There's a reason there's are entire genres for Horror and Drama and tearjerker films after all.

Like I've been waiting and wanting for Claudia to snap and become a fully fledged villain since S2 because it was very clear to me just how much she was already Skewed in S1 and S2 made it clear to me that, unlike her brother, she would not be getting on a better path any time soon. Sometimes mess and hurt and mistakes is more interesting than healing, and sometimes it's the opposite (and those things aren't mutually exclusive either).

Like going into S6, I want everyone to Fail so badly (except, arguably, Claudia - who still isn't going to be getting what she actually Needs - and Aaravos, who's going to get exactly what he wants). Watching how characters and their relationships can fall apart, how their own consistent flaws and patterns, can lead them to make awful but understandable mistakes? That's my shit. And getting to see how they do, or don't, come back from that in the season, and in season 7? Chomping at the bit, I'm so excited.

I also don't think that hoping for another end, though, is worse than being excited for a tragic end, because while tragedies are about sadness, they are also - at their core - about Hope that maybe it won't end badly this time. If a tragedy cannot provide catharsis to a viewer, for some reason, then they are still fulfilling their purpose in nurturing hope and indignation in the face of perceived unfairness - that a character could try so hard and still be doomed; that we ourselves often take on tasks that feel insurmountable, that we can take on what looks like a losing battle and still, somehow, win. And maybe we don't - maybe they don't. But tragedies, if nothing else, teach us resilience and the merit of telling a story when you already know how it ends, and the skill of it lies therefore entirely in the execution (sometimes literally).

Basically: hope for whatever you want for whatever character you want, even, or especially, when it's 'bad'. It's what we've always done for a reason.

[being-of-rain]

I wasn’t really a big fan of The Giggle by the time I finished watching it, and I liked it less the more that I thought about it. Which is a real shame, because I think it was full of a lot of great ideas that were squandered with poor execution. I didn’t really want to just post pages of negativity, so I’ll quickly skim through a list of things I think could’ve been done better, and maybe I’ll expand on some of them later or if I’m asked about them. Still, this is your warning for negativity.

The whole 'screens are evil and making everyone think they're right' felt so shallow and cheap, especially because it was set up as the main obstacle and then largely ignored. A lot of the characters at UNIT really didn't do much (I totally forgot about The Vlinx after my first watchthrough) but I think that didn't bother me much while watching because I was used to Chibnall regularly ignoring characters like that. It was nice to see Mel again, but she didn’t really serve much purpose.

RTD’s take on the Toymaker is quite similar to his take on the Master, which was sometimes fun and sometimes annoying (specifically the German accent, which lost its appeal pretty quickly for me). But he felt pretty hollow and full of wasted potential beyond that, feeling like he was there just to give the episode a villain. Although speaking of the Master, his brief inclusion was hilarious and an easy way to write him back into the show later, nicely done.

The last third of the episode had some many intriguing and potentially awesome ideas behind it. The new Doctor turning up partway through a story? Cool! The Doctor defeating his final villain alongside the next star of the show? Fun! The Doctor getting self-care and words of wisdom from his next self? So heartwarming! One Doctor retiring to be happy while his next incarnation travels off to continue the adventures? A fun use of the show's format!

But for me these ideas just didn’t work or didn’t fulfill their potential, and it’s mostly because there’s no narrative justification for them. No cause and effect. There’s no given reason for the Doctor to bigenerate, it just happens. There’s no particular reason that it was the Doctors rather than the Toymaker who won the game of catch to save the world, it just happens. Without any narrative reason the third act feels so unsatisfying, like spectacle for the sake of spectacle, and (I don’t say this lightly) incredibly lazily written.

That lack of story reason also undermines the ending, clearly the thing RTD was most interested in, by making it feel unearned. Like a first draft script that worked backwards to make it happen. The retirement ending itself I have mixed feelings about, which I’m not sure I can fully articulate. One thing I love to see is that RTD can actually do a genuinely happy ending rather than making every ending a tragedy. But said happy ending feels a little too ‘married-with-kids-and-a-white-picket-fence’ to me – though obviously I can’t stress enough how relieved I am that romance didn’t factor into it. It just felt like it wasn’t set up well enough. I’d probably like it a lot more if they made clear if Tennant’s Doctor was going to turn into Gatwa’s Doctor or if they’re just separate people now. It was sweet of RTD to try and bring a conclusion to the ‘Doctor is traumatised’ thing that he introduced to the show 18 years ago, but he did it poorly. At least it offers interesting new possibilities for the show going forward!

With all that said, in the end The Giggle felt to me like RTD retreading some of his biggest flaws as a writer, and throwing in a few borrowed from other showrunners for good measure. It was a disappointment both because of the good ideas just below the surface, and because it came after a very fun first episode and an incredible follow-up.

But like I said, I’m excited to see what the show does next! I saw talk that there’ll be lots of mythical and unnatural creatures turn up due to the Doctor’s salt thing, which is super cool. And obviously I’m excited for more Gatwa! I haven’t really felt a lot of reason to be excited about Ruby yet, but as always I’m ready to fall in love with the new companion quickly!

[atoriv-art]

asks

putting these above the readmore because otherwise i will be speaking into the void

fave. grouping these together to say: i do read fanfic on occasion but it's usually filtered through a friend of mine who reads far more than i do! ie, she reads stuff and sends me what she likes

however she did say that i could tell people to link me things so she can read through them. so feel free to link me whatever in the replies/asks/idk. no promises i will be the one reading it LMAO but we have very similar tastes in characters/pairings and also the types of fics we like 👍

i actually gravitate towards gen fics which are a dying breed lol but you can link whatever you want <3

--

anyway. under the cut: misc asks, sasuneji 💕, also a tiny hyuga ramble

this is so late LMAO sorry, its all in my old blog @atoriv-moved ! haven't deleted any of it so if anything happened it's tumblr's fault. i miss kingdom hearts i need luxu to be in things again so i can go crazy :/

--

thank you so much!!! 😭😭 it always makes me happy to hear the emotional weight of my work comes through! it's what i'm always trying to improve to make the little scenes in my head real :)

--

thank you!!!! i never know what to say to these but they always make me smile 8)

--

thank you so much!! honestly noses still give me trouble sometimes but as someone who is particular about trying to properly translate 3D shapes, especially of the face, in my rendering it's probably one of the most important landmarks :P and i think you can enhance a design sooo much with them, despite my struggles they're one of my favorite things to draw now!

i totally encourage you to start drawing again if you want to! but i'm biased of course hehe

--

cute i never know how to answer these... maybe a little boring but i'm of the opinion sasuke is the clingier one in the rs :)

he's a very loving person but because of both his personality and collection of issues he struggles to fully articulate his thoughts in a manner that doesn't come off as rude or detached, but imo sasuke esp once he's out of his spiral would hate to have his love go unexpressed. so i think him having trouble with words and making up for it with flopping onto the people he loves like a large dog is sooooo cute, and i always think about how clingy he was as a baby.. he is made for latching onto people and wiggling them with a 😐 face

neji on the other hand is Weird About Intimacy since he's trained himself to be self-sufficient, and is hyperaware of how other people might perceive him due to him having to calibrate himself around his family. neji is very principled and especially when he's older won't let his anxieties keep him from doing something he believes in, but it gets a little more complicated when it comes to his personal relationships because for 90% of his life he had no hope of fostering those. so he ends up in a weird middle ground where he Does allow himself to express some of those feelings, but not fully, and often in a very self-conscious manner. his default answer to vulnerability is fluffing up like a cat because that's what's he's trained himself to do lol

so with these two in particular i think it'd combo into a lot of "flopping onto you like a weighed blanket because you're upset and i don't know what to say but i want to be here for you" situations, especially with sasuke doing it to neji because neji struggles with verbally articulating when he needs comfort like that. i think it works wonders for them because sometimes words get really messy when you have their combination of issues... it doesn't mean they can't talk through their problems of course, it just means that if something can be solved by the cat loaf maneuver it will be :)

--

not reading too much into it at all, i love it! i like how much people talk about my kabuto hahaha i really want to draw him more often, i think he's a way more interesting character than he's given credit for (and this is coming from someone who really didn't like him at first :P), and his hairstyle change is one of the most obvious ways to explore that visually imo!

tysm for this, i really enjoyed reading it!

--

i do! i wish more was done with her because i'm really fascinated by the implications of how she's presented, and how she could've shown that being the favorite child of someone like hiashi isn't necessarily a good thing! i always thought she seems like she's a little dissociated from life outside of the clan, which is really fun to work with (and definitely sucks for her because the clan is Not good lol)

i haven't gotten through the arduous task of watching all naruto filler (lmao) but one of my favorites is the one about hanabi and her relationship with hinata, especially the first half, episode 389 i think? i'm really obsessed with the way that episode shows what day-to-day life was like for the kids and the way the hyuga structure themselves, and how it creates distance between them. i'm pretty sure it implies hanabi (pre-plot) didn't know who neji is, for example? which i get isn't canon but i looove that thought. and on a less deep note hanabi is one of the few characters who gets a design i actually like in boruto! i think she looks soooooo cute

since i spend a lot of time thinking about them i actually am fond of all of the hyuga to some capacity, hiashi definitely in a "wow this guy sucks so much it's impressive" way but still lol i think his relationship with his brother and how it informs how he regards neji is very fascinating, or at least the directions it could have taken (if kishi cared at all.) are!

see my problem is that i wish naruto was about weird families and their issues (i am also obsessed with the suna family <3), but it is a shonen anime made for normal audiences

[wraithsoutlaws]

Then & Now the (x: perfect drug) edition:

Inspired by the fandom to look back and celebrate the boys' journey as well as my own in terms of vp.

March 2021, ps4.

I never created Dagger with the intention to ship him with anyone, but by the time I got here on his file it felt strangely natural. He was still a very fresh oc but things began to click immediately and genuinely felt like it was meant to be. The development of him as a character began to happen side by side with this silly little ship and both ended up becoming really personal and special to me.

It's hard getting decent shots on ps4 with anyone. It's especially hard when it's a minor npc with extremely limited screen time available! You have no idea how many times I went back and played these two quests trying to get something interesting. Honestly I'm really grateful for my time on ps4 not only because it helps me appreciate what I can do now a little more, but I think a lot of my growth happened here, stretching the limited resources I had available.

July 2021, ps4

Learning how to work within the confines of totally vanilla photomode, getting creative with base game poses and skipping time to find the best natural light, etc. I'm still proud of these pictures, they capture an intimacy that I think is really special, and at the time were some of my favorites I'd ever taken, and even now I can note the growth between these and the first ones I'd taken.

April 2022, laptop

The first pictures taken on my laptop and my first time posing them with AMM/setting up a scene. I might like to retake these some day. I'm more critical of them than I am of my ps4 pics tbh but they're still an important part of my journey. Over time I noticed red lighting had become my comfort zone, or more specifically, a crutch! So I've tried really hard since then to improve on that and push myself in different directions.

February 2023

It took me almost a year to feel comfortable enough with posing to attempt some goddam kisses. I'm still not very good at these but at least I improved in other ways. Honestly, I struggle with these two at times because they aren't your typical outwardly loving, cute couple, and I'm usually very strict with myself to keep them as in character as I can. That can make it hard to think of couples poses/ideas, both cute and spicy, but. they can be lovebirds as a treat.

May 2023

Only recently have I begun to feel a strong sense of style in my own work. Playing with lighting and scenes, and trying to jam as much personality as I can into these slice of life pictures is really important to me and is one of my favorite parts of doing this. They can be sweet together but it's important you see the other side of that (the blood, the knives, drugs, etc. Also Dagger resting his ashtray on Dum Dum is one of my personal favorite quirks). I really try to put a lot of their life into pictures like this. I want to convey all the parts of who they are together, even if nobody else notices.

June/July 2023

Its pretty hard to articulate how important these two have become for me over the last couple years. I've been playing this game since release and haven't had this sort of steady inspiration or creativity for years. Even on the bad days, just thinking about them is enough to get me through as silly as it sounds. I've grown so much not only in VP but my own art (something I had all but entirely abandoned until I picked up this game). They've provided an outlet I've been searching for for a very long time, and I'm really grateful for that. It's kinda wild looking back at where it started, and seeing how far it's come. Sometimes I still struggle with my perception/the worth of my work but I can't deny the happiness its brought me either.

Including a couple other character ship pics under the cut c:

I'm always a little insecure about my ship pics specifically, I'm very bad at comparing myself with others! But I put a lot of love into these and I can see the improvement when I look at them over time. Regardless of anything, they were all made with lots of love and I hope that comes across.

[goosemixtapes]

max's top books of 2023 :3c

as usual, these rankings are based on some arcane mix of objective quality + my personal enjoyment (previous year's lists)

it was another weird reading year! i did a lot of reading for school, more so than in the past; some of it was really good and some of it was, uh. well, some of it was william wordsworth. nothing i absolutely loathed, though (most of the reads i disliked were books i could at least appreciate on an art/history level), which is cool. so i'm bringing back the runner-up category. did not make it onto my top ten list but were really good anyway: beartown by fredrik backman (books that no joke made me understand why people are insane about sports) and the GORGEOUS re-release of my dear @yvesdot 's debut, something's not right, which i have read before but will always gladly revisit again.

my top anticipated release for 2024 is alecto the ninth again.

(but shoutout also to just happy to be here, king cheer, and henry henry. trans people! shakespeare, even!)

and the list! in increasing order of enjoyment, with pictures this year!

10. The Common Liar by Janet Adelman

no, i can't believe i'm doing this either. i can't believe i did all that preamble and the first book on my list is an academic thesis analyzing shakespeare's antony and cleopatra. but also? it's the only book anyone ever needs to write about shakespeare's antony and cleopatra. janet adelman said it all. which is cool, because i have a fixation on that play, but also sucks, because i was also trying to write an essay on it and mine wasn't nearly as good. btw if anyone wants to buy this for me, somehow, for the $120 it costs on amazon because academia is awful, i will send you my address,

9. Robert Icke's Oresteia

i don't need to say anything about this play, because it's the source of "this was always going to happen. she's been dead since the beginning." that should be enough. but after becoming deranged about the oresteia last year, i finally read this, and holy shit, this adaptation of the story is so fucking genius and icke's writing is so fucking good. it's antiwar! it's about mental illness! there's gender! the fucking ENDING! (i have a pdf if anyone would like it. anything to plug this play bark bark bark rufrufruf grrrrrr)

8. Down Girl: the Logic of Misogyny by Kate Manne

this is a little bit cheating, because i haven't finished this book yet, so maybe in the final chapters manne will say something like "what if we blew up every orphan" and i'll have to retract this. but right now it's fucking excellent! i've been making an effort to read more nonfiction lately, and this one shines; manne sets out to analyze misogyny not as a personal hatred of women that some men harbor, but as an intricate and structural system forcing women into the role of Giving (attention, affection, power, etc; sometimes their lives). and it's sooooo smart. some of it is stuff i already know (and some of it is Academic Philosophy TM that goes right over my head), but manne articulates her point excellently and i can feel it rearranging my brain, so it's going on the list for longevity and skill!

7. Dictator by Robert Harris

does this book objectively deserve to be on this list? you know what, yeah. i'll say it with my whole chest. i don't like how harris writes women and there are plenty of things to pick at in his cicero trilogy, but i had so much goddamn fun reading it that i can't not put it on the list. this was my year of being really really into cicero, and this was fun to read alongside e-pistulae. harris is sooooo good at making ancient roman politics gripping. the last scenes of this book. augh. ack. ough!

6. Detransition Baby by Torrey Peters

there are a lot of valid critiques of this one (a lot of bad critiqus, too, but such is writing literally anything about transness), but i fucking adored it. i LOVE dual timelines, i LOVE unlikable characters, and i FUCKING LOVE TRANSSEXUALITY! moreover, i love that peters isn't afraid to Go There, to poke at the messy ugly sides of transness (and queerness in general) that i think a lot of us don't like acknowledging, especially to cishet people whose view of the community is already skewed. i don’t think this is the One Great Trans Novel; i think there are a lot of great trans novels, and we need more. but this one did hit me RIGHT in the chest, and i couldn't put it down.

5. Wrath Goddess Sing by Maya Deane

the iliad but achilles is a trans woman and she's fighting the war on both mortal and divine levels and she and helen have an insane homoerotic half-god rivalry and everybody is fucking crazy. pitched as "for fans of TSOA" but as i said in my review if TSOA is a pleasant but watery iced tea then this book is gasoline laced with crack. there is a bisexual transgender threesome. i fucking love women. book of the fucking summer

4. White Teeth by Zadie Smith

i probably enjoyed wrath goddess sing more, but i can't not rank this book highly on this list. this book is such a fucking masterpiece. it's tolstoy for the modern age. it's a sprawling multi-familial multi-cultural multi-generational epic about race and gender and religion and science and humanity and britishness. smith's prose is fucking amazing; her character work is even better; this book has no plot but it uses its length sooooooo well. the first zadie smith i've read, but by god there will be more. she wrote this at TWENTY-FIVE. that's fucking CRAZY. do you know how much control over your craft you have to have to write this at twenty-five. bonkers. it is also the only enjoyable book i read in my modern literature class, so shoutout to white teeth for keeping me sane,

3. The Secret to Superhuman Strength by Alison Bechdel

this book is ostensibly about bechdel's relationship with exercise. it is actually about bechdel's relationship with her own body, her own soul, her desire for individualism in the style of the transcendentalists, transcendentalism in general, mortality, and aging. i can't really tell you more than that because i didn't actually "read" this so much as i absorbed it through my skin like a frog while trying not to tremble like a little purse dog. i am not gonna lie man i did not have a very good. um. august. or september. or october november december. so this book really could not have come at a better time. alison bechdel i am obsessed with you

2. The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For by Alison Bechdel

ALISON BECHDEL I AM OBSESSED WITH YOU!!!! this one narrowly edges out secret to superhuman strength because... well, i'm sort of rating the entire comic strip's run, and dude. holy shit. i love lesbians so much. this strip is such an important piece of lesbian history; it reminded me that a lot of the things lesbians (and LGBT people in general) argue about and deal with today are... the same things we've always argued about and dealt with, from intracommunity label discourse to global politics to hitting on women badly. but history aside--it's also just really fucking good! it's really funny! if you are a neurotic leftist, as so many of us are, it's hysterical! it's smart! it's hot! it's heartwarming! i read it over the first half of the year, in little bits and pieces, and by the end i felt like i really had gone decades with these characters. really just. so good. the power she has the range she has

1. the suzanne collins reread

okay. this one is definitely cheating. because i usually like to keep this list to books i'm reading for the first time, and i HAVE read the hunger games and the underland chronicles. but i read them, like, almost ten years ago, and i was not prepared to be so thoroughly fucking bodied by them this time around, now that i have critical thinking and analysis skills. we all know the hunger games is a fucking banger, so let me pitch the gregor the overlander series: something of a modern alice in wonderland setup, where the eleven-year-old main character falls into an underground world full of strangeness, except this world isn't whimsical, it's dangerous and stuffed with giant talking animals like bats and rats and cockroaches. there's a war on. there are plagues. there are war crimes. there is a plotline that is extremely explicitly about ethnic cleansing. there is some of the most heartbreaking fucking shit you've ever read in your goddamn life. there is also a rat who quotes macbeth and the underlanders revere a guy named bartholomew of sandwich. this series is for middle schoolers. i cried. not when i was a middle schooler reading it the first time; i mean now. so i'm breaking my no-rereads rule, because it really would be a lie to say that my best reading experience wasn't revisiting all of collins' work with my friends (yes, i read TBSOS; i think it's fine but not great). sorry to give publicity to an author who definitely doesn't need my help, but a few years ago my #1 spot went to shakespeare, so.

if you've read this far: thank you! please tell me your thoughts! tell me your favorite books of 2023! tell me which books you're excited for in 2024! and have a very lovely new year :)

[hyrulesfav]

i think 🐈‍⬛ and 🐆 having a type in the same type of man on different spectrums is both funny and speaks to their characters actually

(this is also deeply interconnected with my thoughts of the bp and gj considering themselves to be the same person, their other half, the one who both compliments and completes them, etc)

🐈‍⬛ is with♟️ who's a stark contrast to herself.

she's always up and doing something to keep herself busy because, technically, she thinks her worth is tied to how useful she can be. she doesn't want anyone to be treated the same way she was as a child (even if scenarios are different, the similarities are still there, to her), so she always makes sure those she loves wants for not and are always feeling fulfilled.

on the other hand, he's selfish. he'll do what he wants when he wants because he runs on his own clock and doesn't want to go back to doing this, that, and the third just to please someone who will never look. while stubborn, he does things for his own gain (and sometimes others, if he cared about them enough, in a poorly disguised "well, if this isn't working for you, you won't stop bugging me until it does, so.." type of way). and, while this is also, he's also, for lack of a better word, lazy. once again, he runs on his own clock. so what if you needed him somewhere yesterday? he'll get there when he gets there and you'll be happy when he does.

🐈‍⬛ loathes being stationary for to long. who's going to make sure her boys are fed? who's going to remind muhammed that he needs to take it easy? who's going to take care of that stack of essays mr. mozus can't do because his eyes get all strained and start making up issues that aren't there? who's going to keep her nation safe from that new villain of the week? who's—

♟️ forces her to lay down and actually sleep for once, even if she doesn't need to. yes, she's basically a hyperactive mess who's just a little better than cheka, but she doesn't need to be. while she is the bp, she is also elvira, of w.akanda. as much as it may seem to be, it isn't her only identity and she doesn't need to constantly be doing things for other people. she needs to slow down and actually live normally, and, no, traveling across dimensions like it's a field trip doesn't count.

🍰 is so different from 🐆, no words can properly articulate the shock everyone felt when they got together.

🐆 is a combination of 🐈‍⬛ and ♟️. she's always doing something, but it's always for her own gain (supposedly). that museum she robbed? she really wanted to try that necklace on for herself (she returned it to it's rightful owners). that gang she and group jumped? they were talking shit about her and she couldn't let them go around thinking they could do whatever (they were planning on fear-mongering every business in this mall she frequents)! she's a bad person and she owns it. she'll do whatever she needs if it means her dreams are realized and it doesn't matter what it is.

meanwhile, he's just some human who happened to meet her through a mutual friend as kids. he's the son of a couple who are bakers who has an interest in tooth health. he's nowhere near her strength or wealth and could only dream of coming close to the pedestal she stands on. he's only used to the mundane life that comes with living a life like his. the level of violence she's exposed to and bleeds out is something he'll never have to deal with and tanya's sure to make him thankful he won't.

when her day finally comes to an end, he always ready for her with open arms. he's patient and always keeps the light on his porch on for her whenever she's ready. he's the domesticity the excitement in her life can't serve to her on a tray in the mornings, or lift her feet into their lap and massage at her ankles after months of standing.

🍰 is as boring as they come, and 🐆 could never be more glad.

[darklordofthesimp]

Actually I think Birdy, Sunshine and Doctor(?) characters are in a way alike. What I mean is they’re completely different yes, personality wise, reaction wise. Each character is very complex and unique (great job by the way) but if you put yourself (reader) in each of these situations separately (as a character)I think all of them are alike, in a way that you feel the closure. You feel the sense of familiarity. It’s hard to explain but I would assume if you get it you get it, if you don’t - you don’t and that’s okay. I just wanted to share my opinion because for a second I was like: how could you hate birdy, but then I thought: you could. Anyone could because no one really knows the character unless they’re in a situation of said character (does it make sense?). I also love it how you (as an author) gave us such a range of emotions. Like. You feel one thing towards the character but then you get to know them and the deeper you go the more you feel the rights(or wrongs or reasons) of their actions and that changes the view on them. Which is so realistic and so natural for us to do. Because no one’s knows other unless the other wants us to or we are the other. My, anyway I can’t really explain things without talking nonsense and going all around everything so excuse me for that. Happy new year anyhow!!!!

No its not nonsense I absolutely understand what you’ve said! Im so happy that youre able to see it from the Perspective of being in their shoes - as the author its so easy to immerse yourself into the characters as you write that sometimes I forget that readers will relate to one character so hard that they cannot fathom the other end but I honestly love that as well because they’re so devoted to one that they DONT wanna hear the other out and I think that means ive done a good job as well.

I love that you’ve picked up on what I was trying to do and you were able to articulate it so well!!

I hope this year is treating you welllll

[letters-to-rosie]

talk revolution to me: arcane fanfiction playlist

there are few moments more exciting as a fanfic author than when someone makes something inspired by your work. in this case, we have a playlist made by @arrowdite, and in this post, because there were rationales for every song picked, I wanted to respond! the playlist is a work in progress, and this post is, too! thanks again, friend! 💖💖💖

check out the fic here!

1. Black Sheep - this is pulled from my regular Timebomb playlist. I think it fits the state we find Ekko and Powder in, regardless of the universe. Now that the truth is just a rule that you can bend / You crack the whip, shape-shift, and trick the past again

I really like the lines you pulled out on the past for this one. The vibe of the song, like sonically, is very Powder I feel, and the lines about the past really fit with how I just kind of drop the reader into the story, into Powder and Ekko's relationship in the main timeline, before I bothered to explain how they got like that in the first place lol. Their own lack of understanding about what really happened between them and the other's motivations when they were kids is such a big part of their arc, so these lyrics really fit, not just the ship in general but this... articulation, I guess lol, of them.

2. Run Wild - I imagine Powder listening to this song to hype herself up as she heads to The Last Drop in chapter 2. I think some of the lyrics in the chorus fit her when we first meet her, too: determined, but aimless. I’m on a mission and I won’t stop / No destination but it’s worth a shot

For two, she wasn’t going to go. She wasn’t. But then she got back to her apartment, dumped her bag out on the floor, and saw that stupid green eye staring back up at her. She has nightmares about green eyes, sometimes waking, sometimes sleeping. Her worst ones are the what-ifs—if she had just done something different that day, or any of the days preceding it, what kind of life would she be living? Some of the what-ifs hurt for their immateriality, while others make her happy for what she’s got. And with Viktor, the human manifestation of her meager impulse control, gone for the weekend, Powder put on some music, dolled herself up, and got on the move.

She'd be playing this while getting ready haha, dancing in her apartment and feeling angry in a way she can't express right. She really is wild in that chapter. And that aimless state is so important, because Ekko is kinda right when he says she's not offering any alternative, but that's not even what she's trying to do at that point. Plus, this song is just fun, and I feel like Powder would like it lol. I also really enjoy the Thutmose reference, bringing it back to Ekko!

3. Pathetic - Powder’s opinion of Ekko at this point in the story, revealed when he makes his first appearance in chapter 2. …It's been / 1460 days since we were alright / You're having trouble sleeping and I think I know why / 1460 days since we were alright / But now you're just pathetic, I said it

Okay, I just really like this one hahahahaha like?? I can't even describe what exactly it is about it, but after a couple listens, it just stuck in my head. But considering "pathetic" is a word Powder uses in their fight at the end of chapter 2, it gets that other layer of meaning. The irony here is that Powder doesn't know why Ekko has trouble sleeping—and in Ekko's POV, we see how different that night plays out to him. In her head, he's just this posturing villain, and he is like that a little bit, but she has no idea the cognitive dissonance she's about to inflict on this man. Until later, hehehe. It's also fun to imagine Powder dancing to this one with a hairbrush as a mic. I'm sure y'all get the vision.

4. Pieces Of The People We Love - A character song for Powder. She has lost a lot of people and carries their memories with her, across distance (Vi), change (Ekko), and even death (Vander, Tovan, Mylo, Claggor, her parents…). As much as it can pain her, she keeps those people close to her heart. I think this is one of her strengths. She may not know how to express it, but she has a lot of love to give. Like when her empathy is on display at the hospital; though she doesn’t know the people there, they get to her. She takes them with her. Decides to stop looking away. Start her club. In short, the pieces of the people she loves are what drive her to build a better future. And all our time together is tearing me apart / I can't hold you tomorrow but I hold you in my heart

I remember I was actually really nervous about writing Jinx as a main character, just because I tend to relate more to Vi in canon, but working on this fic led me to appreciating things that hadn't stood out to me before. Jinx literally keeps versions of the people she lost near her because of how heavily the trauma weighs on her. I wanted revolution!Powder to have some of that same energy. The song has this kind of anxious energy, and I feel like that connects well with how Powder feels throughout the chapter. She's really knocked off-kilter in chapter 3, and she has to decide how she's going to deal with not only what Ekko said but what she's going to do with these "pieces of people she loves," and that really is what motivates her. She takes off the blinders and decides to empathize with others. I'm like a proud mom lol I love her!

5. Memories - Chapter 5, Ekko and Powder’s reunion at the community center. How Powder remembers Ekko and how he appears to her now juxtapose each other in her mind’s eye. And it’s reciprocated: Ekko is baffled to see her. I imagine they’re both confused about how to rectify the discrepancy in their minds. My memories came back in the form of someone else / …Why won’t you love me now? Why won't you love me now? / …You shouldn’t be on your high horse, we’re not so stable anymore

Yeah, they were both very confused lmao. They both have very preconceived notions of who the other is, and they don't really take well to the disruption to that. I alluded to it in the notes, and he says it outright in chapter 20, but Ekko really thought Powder was following him lol. And Powder accuses him of stalking her, even though she's able to put together that he went to school in that neighborhood way back in the day and would probably have some connections in that part of the city. She's also very much on a project to knock Ekko off his high horse after he retaliates with that threat. But as the creator of this playlist pointed out in a comment on this chapter, Ekko's not the only one being self-righteous! Plus more Thutmose! Yayyyyyy (for those who might not know, he's one of the people who provides Ekko's voice for True Damage!)

6. Hard Times - Chapter 6, but applies to Powder’s whole situation. “Vi huffs. ‘You gotta stop being so hard on yourself, Pow.’ ‘Tell life to be softer on me.’”

Is this the time to admit that I fully fit into that stereotype that black people love Paramore? I have a friend who's black and Brazilian and apparently the stereotype travels lmao. But I actually hadn't heard this particular song before, and I really enjoy it! Another one for Powder to dance and have a crisis to. But the funny thing about the particular quote from chapter 6 that was pulled here is it was actually inspired by another song with kind of similar enegry? "Softer to Me" by Relient K, because I grew up during a time when "Sadie Hawkins Dance" and "Be My Escape" were big hits, and that band was pretty formative for my teen years. I used to listen to them and Paramore on playlists I made in the late 2000s, so the connection was really fun for me!

7. Same Soul - Another song pulled from my Timebomb playlist. This one is kinda meta. They’re in a different universe, literally, since this is an AU, so it’s like they’re meeting again in different bodies. But it also works in-universe, since they’re meeting again after so much has happened and they don’t recognize who they were to each other. Figuratively—but also, Ekko’s eyes are green now. Would your heart know if I met you in a brand-new set of bones? / …I’m just somebody that you used to know

Also just really love this one, particularly the chorus, and especially the one after the bridge. I also thought of it in connection to Powder's feelings about Vi and meeting her after her years in prison. There are places where I make it explicit that Powder's feelings about Ekko and Vi are interlinked in some ways (particularly the poem at the end of chapter 17). This also fits well with Powder's gradual realization of how different Ekko's life is and how he has different people in it, which comes out strongly in chapter 12.

8. Starboy - This song makes me think of Revolution-verse Ekko. He’s under so much pressure and has to present a particular image to be effective in a lonely, high-stakes role he doesn’t like to play. And from Powder’s perspective, he does certain things just to hurt [her]. Look what you’ve done / I’m a motherfuckin’ starboy

Ekko definitely plays mind games. It's one of the traits I pulled out of his Arcane portrayal and turned up to eleven to make an "antihero" version of him. The first verse of this song I feel like connects to that part of him, and the second connects to the part that is tired of the games that are part and parcel of the shimmer business and take up so much of his time to push back against, even if he dismisses them as uncreative (and even if that comes back to haunt him). Everything he does is pretty much calculated to keep that inner universe steady and keep his head on amongst all Silco's allies as he comes into that more... administrative role. And Powder does see him as having particular tools to hurt her because of their history, as well.

The mac and cheese is baked as it should be. It is Powder’s sole consolation in this stupid, awful world. She ought to be able to enjoy the scene in front of her, but she can’t. Every time she interacts with Ekko, she comes away feeling like trash. Their history gives him a unique ability to make her miserable, and she knows, somewhere deep in her bones, that Ekko isn’t going to let this lie. Their little peace is over, and as long as she keeps coming to the community center, she’ll likely have to prepare for battle on a regular basis.

9. Undo - Chapter 8, the argument on the bridge from Powder’s perspective. You've been pouring gasoline in your living room / Light a cigarette while you complain about the fumes / Who are you to talk? / …Oh, come on, just say something / No, go ahead, tell me, what do I need?

Some of these lyrics kind of parallel a song I am trying to advance as a timebomb song, "Percogesic" by Gallant. But I think the lyrics here— You're so shook when I look right past you So surprised you don't get an answer Guess no one told you, now I told you We're not living in the forties Ain't it weird to feel small 'n stuff? —connect very nicely to Powder not answering Ekko's question at the end of chapter 8, even though it doesn't surprise him. He will get an answer, just not directly, and that's the surprise! But the lyrics in general remind me of them, how Powder is unwilling to give him that power over her; even though Ekko's presence does make her upset, he's far from the only problem she has. As she says at the end of chapter 9, "...she will handle Ekko. But first, she has to handle herself."

10. < Coping Mechanism > - Powder lost a lot the night of the explosion, including Ekko—from her perspective, willingly—to Silco. She sees Ekko as an adversary, but it’s because she feels betrayed. Now that he’s back in her life, she’s forced to look at some ill-timed big feelings in chapter 9. I've wasted so much time / Hating myself for trying / ...Had your eyes locked on someone else / No, you couldn't help it / Or could you?

Somehow this playlist beat me to announcing my headcanon that revolution!Powder would be a Willow fan, haha. Their energies match in my head. Plus, bi solidarity! But anyway lol, the song mentions voices in her head, which is very relevant for chapter 9, and there's this sense that the lyrics are questioning whether the situation in the song is predestined or not. I also like these lyrics for them: Fun fact, I really wanna fuckin' make you cry It just isn't right, so enticing just like you Mastermindin' every fight Rivers flowin' from my eyes No emotion from your side Fun fact, I'm the worst, it's true Fun fact, I learned it all from you I need a coping mechanism now, every night

11. An Honest Mistake - Chapter 9. Powder’s Anniversary feelings catch up to her. My old friend / I swear I never meant for this / I never meant— / Don’t look at me that way / It was an honest mistake

Powder really does see the accident as an honest mistake (because it was!!!), and I haven't written it yet, but there's a reason Powder doesn't see Ekko's expression in the scene where he finds her mid-breakdown. She's assuming he's looking at her a certain way, and she doesn't even know. I love drama lmao

12. Our Own House - Chapter 12, the porch scene. Powder’s group becomes official. It’s the culmination of and launching pad for so many things in Powder’s life, and for Powder as a character. We built our own house, own house / With our hands over our hearts / And we swore on that day / That it’ll never fall apart

The porch scene!! It really solidifies Powder's friendships with her club, and it so much of the politics I've been trying to explore is about that "own house" building. There are a lot of things we can't change, but building solidarity with people around us and working to build something that will take better care of us than the current system does is certainly a place to start. This gets a nice theoretical resonance in a book I recently read for class, Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò's Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (And Everything Else). The theory is doing a lot lol, but he advances it in the hopes of putting forward this idea he calls "constructive politics," which is about building new rooms and houses, as he puts it, where we can create more equal ways of relating to each other and the world. A tall order, but I like to dream big. He also talks about how Pedagogy of the Oppressed was used in the liberation struggles of Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau, and that is just super fucking cool haha.

13. Zanies and Fools - Chapter 12. The porch scene is such a pivotal moment for Powder, it deserves two songs. It may sound corny, but together, anything really is possible. (This song is a real-life reminder of that truth for me and I get emotional nearly every time I listen to it.) This song also recounts how Chance the Rapper met his future wife and I’m not saying that’s Ekko and Powder but I’m not not saying it 👀 I'm so powerful every time I look at you / No  memory of anything I couldn't do / …Everything will go right as it can / It's possible

It's true! If it weren't, there wouldn't be so much effort put into preventing solidarity on the part of the powers that be. If y'all will allow me a theoretical moment, there's this part in the Bible that says the wisdom of God runs contrary to people's wisdom, and I think that's interesting if we think of that in terms of how often we're told that humans are rationally selfish and human nature is greedy and violent and everything else. Acknowledging this is considered common sense, but we also know from practical experience that people are also often kind and generous, and we can choose to lean into that and cultivate it. Believing anything is possible is considered foolish, but how else do we change things, you know? Outside of the connection this could have to the porch scene itself, there's also a link to the way that Ekko sees Powder as constantly pushing what he thinks is possible, which is why she inspires him so much. They're so cute. Help lol

14. Montage - Chapter 13. Powder reminisces about the childhood she shared with Ekko. Tears soaked, we still make each other laugh / Fabricating a montage of our love / All the things we were gonna do fade away / We grew up and apart and we’re not the same

This one is a little funny to me just because it's so different from the song I chose to quote at the start. But it's a nice little flip side, because where I had a more... I almost wanna say cynical approach to that chapter, not necessarily in the content, but because I was the only person who knew where that moment would lead, it was almost like I was poking fun at it, but that's not how it is for Powder and Ekko. And she does make him laugh! That's how she gets through to him. The idea of the montage pairs really nicely with the play and the curtains that frame Powder's reminiscing in the chapter.

15. Let Me Down Easy - A song from Ekko’s perspective of chapter 13. Ekko expects Powder to tell him to fuck off forever when he offers, but it’s not what he wants. Despite how awful they’ve been to each other, despite expecting rejection, his care for her comes through. He holds her in higher esteem than she believes. I also like that the song mentions lemonade, a callback to the porch scene. It’s not a, a bad time, time spent with you / There’s cool lights and songs with good lyrics / We never have to talk again, whatever, up to you

Lol the lemonade needs to come back to tie things together in the plot. But this is a pretty good summary of where they are at this point. Ekko certainly doesn't think they'll be friends again, and he's willing to give Powder peace even if it means closing the door on the possibility that they could become close later. His care comes through, and he really doesn't expect the slightest bit of reciprocation, but Powder surprises him again (and gets ice cream for her troubles, lol).

16. Get Free - Another character song for Powder. I feel like this one could be Powder’s/this fic’s thesis statement: Not trying to get by / I’m trying to get free

I need Mereba to drop a new album because she keeps clowning us on instagram, and I have complained about this with a friend before lol. That said, I really think the title of the project this song (and "Black Truck," which gets quoted in chapter 25) comes from is really apt as well: The Jungle Is the Only Way Out. That phrase really sums up Powder's journey very well, and she really is trying to free herself from the structures that come more and more sharply into view as she applies herself to helping others and working towards change. And while this can be discouraging, she keeps pushing because she wants to be free. Very relatable feeling. Side note, I feel like "Sandstorm," another one of her songs featuring JID is a good timebomb song.

17. RICKY - An Ekko song. Particularly obvious in Chapter 16, at the hospital. “‘Catch more flies with honey than vinegar.’ Ekko scratches at his scalp. ‘But jealousy makes people do crazy things.’” His success doesn’t secure his safety. He has to deal with people he’d rather avoid or, at worst, would see him killed. But he’s successful because he takes wisdom from multiple—even contradicting—places, uses it the best he can, learns quickly, and doesn’t forget who he is. First they mockin', now they hoppin' / All on the wave 'cause they see me poppin' / Big-big-big large pockets, they start flockin' / Here's what I say when they ass keep knockin'

This is so funny to me lol. For reference, I quoted the title song from the ZUU album in chapter 6, and this is the track that follows it. There are a lot of themes (and I have a lot of feelings about Denzel's music, but this is not the time because otherwise we'll be here all day) about family and parenthood in Ekko's side of the story, so I think this is a good fit, even though it never occurred to me! He keeps things that belonged to his parents close and thinks about them often. Advice they've given him features in his inner monologue as well. But it's also true that people are trying to get things from him, and it's all catching up. (Chapter 16 also has a Denzel Curry song quoted in it, "Chrome Hearts" ft. Zacari and the Cold Blooded Soul Band; extra fun fact, I can rap this whole song lmao).

18. Dancing in a Daydream - Chapter 18. Ekko and Powder see each other at the club, on the balcony and dance floor respectively. This is, admittedly, the more angsty of the song options I had for this moment. I chose it because the lyrics describe a moment as temporary as the one they share. We've reached the palace but I'm betting that it won't last / Bright lights and mirror ball / We might be hurting but I'm ready for the free fall

It's fine if this is an angsty choice, because Powder's pretty angsty by the end of the chapter as she develops her plan to set things straight with Ekko, lol. The dream imagery of the chapter pairs nicely here. The song I picked for it is a pretty different vibe, and so is the song I could have picked but didn't think of in time, Kehlani's "Hate the Club," which is also a nice match. Between the three songs, you can choose your fighter lol. I like the name of this band, though. Fits the vibe, and me lol

19. Ego - Chapter 20. Ekko and Powder have a difficult conversation in Ekko’s hotel room. They’ve both been working on their egos, going by their ability to have one at all. (Thank you for recommending me this song forever ago, btw, it’s lovely.) Easy for me to care and you want me there / …I’m working on my ego

Y'ALL. This is my current favorite song. It has been since I first heard it. You gotta get like almost 4 minutes in before that switch comes in, but the strings and the bass... like it's truly magical. If you have headphones, I recommend using them. Done advertising lol. But that part at the end has nice lyrics for them too, as well as the beginning: Is that you, baby? Check when you're makin' no sense In this hotel bed Feels like, "What are we doin'?" Which is pretty on the nose lol, but I like it, and then toward the end: Don't wanna run Every time I get that feelin', I just rather be stuck Putting my favorite song at the most pivotal chapter, I'm emotional haha. The instrumental catharsis it provides matches the way the chapter is designed to build, too.

20. My Friend - By the end of chapter 20, Ekko and Powder clear the air. They reach a new understanding of each other. You’ve seen me from every side / Still down for the ride

These lyrics also capture part of why they work well as a couple; they work on most of their major issues before they even date, haha. On a more serious note, Powder really does get a real picture of what Ekko's dealing with, and to his surprise, she decides to stick by him and extend kindness. Just like in other situations throughout the story, Powder changes things by choosing to be understanding and kind. Perhaps it is cliche, but Powder/Jinx is a character who feels very deeply. I think it works.

21. Same Heart - You know I had to pick a song by Reed Shannon. This one has themes of reconnection while there’s action out in the streets. The moment Ekko and Powder part in chapter 21 feels like the start of something new, so I thought it fit. Baby, maybe we can do it again / Let’s restart, I’m your friend

In case you didn't know, Reed Shannon is Ekko's voice actor in the game AND in Arcane. As far as I know, he's the only voice actor from the game who reprised his role in Arcane. I love the 2000s r&b vibes on this one, very me. The fun thing is that Ekko realizes his feelings for Powder when he wakes up after the whole... hotel thing, and so there are a couple layers of meaning here. And it was just the night before that Scar was doing the stuff, so there was very much action in the streets! Really fun easter egg-type song to include.

22. Dirty - Caitlyn’s reveal in chapter 22 absolutely gets a song on this playlist. Full disclosure, I’m not convinced this is the one. But I like that it asks the question, “Do you love your neighbor?” because it has multiple meanings here: Piltover and Zaun are neighbor cities, and the rent strike is about helping your literal neighbors. And I like that some lyrics sound like they’re written by a schemer, like Caitlyn. I got a skeleton under the floorboard / I got a secret I need you to keep / …Aren't you fed up yet? / Do you have enough love in your heart / To go and get your hands dirty?

Caitlyn still has stuff up her sleeve in the plot! But she is very much a schemer, both in canon and the fic. Caitlyn's arc is very much about learning how the systems of exploitation that keep Piltover and Zaun in their places operate and using her influence to mess with that. Even if she doesn't get everything from the outset, she's determined to learn from Powder, and she's motivated by love, primarily for Vi, but also for the fellow people who are suffering under the name of the City of Progress.

23. Choose Me - Chapter 27, Powder and Vi’s fight. Powder is working hard to build a life she and Vi can be proud of, but they need different things. Vi doesn’t see what Powder does for Zaun and why, so Powder wonders how Vi can see her for who she is. How can Vi want her? I know there are places that I can't go with you / …I'd rather you choose me every day

OH BOY, there's a reason chapter 27's title has "tragedy" in it. Powder does want to be chosen by Vi, all of her, and not just the parts Vi understands. Vi's own trauma really does prevent her from seeing things from Powder's perspective. There are places she can't go because of how much pain they cause her, and while Powder's working on reaching out more, she wants the same from Vi. At the same time, Vi feels like Powder is choosing Zaun over her in a sense, so it works on both levels.

24. Call You Mine - Chapter 30. “Yeah, she decides later, lying in bed and looking up at the ceiling. She’s going to tell him.” Baby, can I call you mine, mine? / ‘Cause you're always in my mind, mind

This one is so hopeful! It's a big shift after the content of chapter 30, but Powder really is at that point where Ekko represents a bright spot in her life. They've been working to know each other better, and Powder's friends are cheering her on to go after something that would make her happy. It speaks to how sweet these two turned out to be in the fic, which was probably a surprise to everyone (including me lol, since it grew out of things I came up with as I was writing).

25. Hummingbird - Ekko and Powder steal moments when they can, resulting in long text convos and late-night phone calls. Pen pal on the night shift / She’s who I get away with / …And hummingbird, I know that’s our time / But stay on / Stay on, stay on with me / And hummingbird, I can never unsee / What you've shown me

The OG interlude! Even if it makes them both tired, they prioritize each other in those long convos and calls. You could almost imagine this playing in the background while the two of them are shown split-screen talking on the phone, lying in their beds.

26. Like 90s R&B - Ekko spends the night at Powder’s place and already she can’t wait to see him again. Feel like I was only seeking you, already got me feening for more / I spend all my time daydreaming, got me living for the weekend, oh no

I am an r&b girlie, what can I say. This one was a lot of fun! Powder really is in too deep, like the lyrics say. But so is Ekko, haha. I think the song will only fit more as they keep getting closer, getting frustrated with the things that make it so they can't be as open with their relationship as they'd want.

27. Offense - End of chapter 33. Powder announces herself to the wealthy of Piltover with her excellent award acceptance speech. Figured I should say some', but you don't wanna hear me vent / You can talk bad all day long, I will never be impressed / Dunno what I did to make you feel that you be earnin' my respect / …I said it with my chest and I don’t care who I offend, uh huh

Simz always has so much confidence in her music, haha. This song goes really nicely with the title of chapter 33, "polemics in free verse," which implies that Powder is attacking someone else's ideas through poetry. It really fits perfectly; Powder refuses to be taken in by the glitz and glamor, choosing instead to point out the people who make it all possible. All Power to the People indeed.

gif was sourced from here

[overheaven]

🍕🎹🎯❤️✂️💚🧠 for Everett please! 💜💜💜

THESE ARE FUN QUESTIONS LET’S GOOOO (sorry for the delay lol had my surgery as u know xD) 💗💗💗

under the cut since i got a little rambly!!

🍕 — What is their favorite food?

I haven’t been able to nail down a FAVORITE-favorite for him yet! But I do know he likes meat & rich foods. He’s really not afraid to get messy with some saucy barbecued meat which is kind of a charm point for him imo >w>

🎹 — Do they have any hobbies?

He has a few! Some are really dry, like reading medical journals and other professional development. Other are more lively and less focused on his field of study— collecting records and oddities like taxidermy pieces, reading fiction & poetry. He also really likes going to concerts or seeing live music, and visiting art galleries and museums. and of course then there’s the casual sex and the killing and the necrophilia :yikes emoji:

Bonus: I have an AU where he’s a musician, he plays bass guitar (which Lucy also picks up later)!

🎯 — What do they do best?

His job! He’s chief medical examiner for a reason. :> That title is a recent achievement at the time of his ‘canon’ story (2008-2009ish), but overall he’s been in the field and climbing the ranks for about 19-20 years by then. He sincerely likes figuring out the puzzle of a death and is very articulate in presenting his findings.

❤️ — What is one of your OC’s best memories?

Cheating a little bit on this one because he doesn’t have a singular best memory. Some of his most treasured memories are Lucy visiting for summers & then eventually getting full custody of her! He’s very fond of watching her grow into her own and bonding with her over music; taking her to concerts is something he recalls fondly often. ;w;

He also holds memories of his teenage sweetheart dearly, but that’s part of his esoteric history that he doesn’t share with anyone else. ;)

✂️ — What is one of your OC’s worst memories?

Cheating again because the years he wasted being married are all a miasma of ennui and frustration. 😬 He did love his ex at one point (at least, he thinks he did), but their relationship soured pretty quickly and both of them resented each other a LOT by the end of it. The silver lining is he got Lucy out of it all, at least.

💚 — What is your OC’s gender identity and sexuality?

He’s a cis man and like 99.9% straight lol. he’s experimented sexually with men (and maybe he’s kind of still open to that?), but yeah overall he’s attracted to women.

🧠 — What do you like most about the OC?

This is tough because I like everything about him xD I guess a good answer to encompass that feeling is: I like how indulgent he is! I made him & Lucy because I wanted to find a very specific flavor of a dark setting & taboo relationship, and I thought, “Holy shit I know how to write and draw. I can just make what I want myself!!” And I did! I’m giving myself everything I want with him!! So I’m ESPECIALLY happy that others enjoy him too ;w; I’m always thinking of new things about how his brain works and how he moves through their world, he’s challenged me to be creative but also trust my own process!

Part of that is also being proud of his design & personality, without trying to hold back on making him a really attractive character— sometimes I second guess character design because I don’t want to be corny or ‘mary sue’-ish with someone who is TOO attractive or perfect, but… no, we’re going balls to the wall and making a really fucking hot goth dad who is really smart and dangerous and it’s so sexy of him to be so fucked up LOL. I wanted to make a serial killer character who has babygirl sexyman vibes (think like, how fans lust after Hannibal Lecter or Patrick Bateman lol) as a sort of cheeky way to honor that type of fan xD Everett is my love letter to slasher fangirls, yandere fanatics, bad end lovers, people who understand the eroticism of sleazy horror movies, and so on. 🫶

[nobodysdaydreams]

Okay listen: I know Show!Curtain adopting SQ leaves us with enough to talk about, but hear me out:

AU where all of the executives (Jackson, Jillson, Martina, and SQ) are Curtain’s adopted kids.

Because the way their characters act would fit perfectly in that context.

✨ Unhinged Rant Below: ✨

I think that you’d actually change very little about the show characters, and they would fit perfectly into the dynamic that would develop if Curtain adopted all of them:

SQ: SQ would be the favorite (because he reminds Curtain of Nicholas) and yet, this causes his siblings to resent him and SQ still feels inferior for not being as good as the rest of them at things he’s been taught to value (e.g., being strong, good at exams, emotionally invulnerable, etc.). It also makes his special moments with his dad (when they do art together) feel less special, because he wishes it didn’t come at the expense of his siblings. Curtain, because of his relationship and experience with Nicholas, tries to cultivate separate relationships with his children individually and does nothing to encourage them to bond with each other (because in his messed up worldview, Curtain actually believes that this is doing them a favor). This leaves SQ feeling even more guilty, misunderstood, and isolated. And yes, as a little kid, he did draw pictures for everyone in his family, and everyone (Curtain included) still has the crayon drawings little SQ made of the five of them together looking happy (though no one, Martina especially, would ever admit to saving the drawing or wishing that it could be their family’s dynamic in reality).

Martina: Martina, as the youngest, would constantly fight to be the best, be the favorite, and win her dad’s approval. Unfortunately for Martina, she’s the one Curtain relates to the most, so he unconsciously projects himself onto her, except Curtain hates himself, so he’s both proud of and disappointed in Martina but can’t articulate why (and he can’t tell Martina how proud he is of her without being vulnerable, so he never does). Martina is super jealous that SQ is clearly the favorite, and although she’s not as good at art, makes sure she’s better than him at everything else. Curtain recognizes her talent and has her in mind to be his successor, but ends up putting more pressure on her instead of giving positive feedback, which makes Martina more desperate to win his approval, and all the more devastated when she fails. Plus, Martina never gets the chance to question whether being Curtain’s successor and following in his footsteps is really what she wants, she just feels like it’s what her dad values her for so she’s afraid to let it go. So naturally, when Kate, Reynie, and Sticky get to the institute and start showing her up academically and athletically, she does not take it well (and might even actively try to sabotage SQ’s friendships with them, and have a very “I told you so” attitude when they are all revealed to be spies).

Jackson and Jillson: Jackson and Jillson don’t get projected on quite as strongly as Martina and SQ (although the fact that they are so close sometimes reminds Curtain of himself and Nicholas). They’re the oldest and technically adults at this point, so while they still try to win Curtain’s approval, they aren’t as desperate, plus they learned a long time ago that competing to be better than Martina or more beloved than SQ is a losing game, and there are benefits to staying out of the spotlight. They also have a close relationship because once Martina and SQ were adopted, Curtain started viewing Martina as the one best suited to be his successor, and SQ as his favorite, so they both got kinda ignored, but at least they had each other. Curtain’s not thrilled about how close Jackson and Jillson are because he assumes one will eventually betray the other, but he allows their dynamic to develop because it happened naturally, and he’s too focused on his other children to do anything about it. Plus, since they are older and not under so much pressure, Jackson and Jillson try to be good and encouraging older siblings to Martina and SQ, but it’s hard when Curtain has such a strong hold over them, and Jackson and Jillson themselves are still loyal to their father.

Now how did Curtain end up adopting not just one but FOUR children? Because he has the same adoptive instincts that Nicholas has, ESPECIALLY when it comes to children labeled as “unwanted” or “undesirable” or when they remind him of himself or Nicholas (but Curtain would never openly acknowledge that). So he sees Jackson and Jillson, and how all they have in the world is each other (just like him and Nicky once), he sees SQ, who is so sweet and kindhearted (like Nicky), and Martina, who insists on being the strongest and best at everything (like baby Nathaniel), and Curtain’s like: “hm. Yes. I see. These orphans are my children now.”

But even though it comes from a place of love, terribly misguided love as it is, Curtain still struggles to be a good dad. He obviously hasn’t gotten over his own past, and unlike Nicholas, who has Number Two, Rhonda, Milligan, and Miss. Perumal, all Curtain has for help is Garrison, who would probably feel too guilty to even want to get near those kids, and Jeffers, who I’m pretty sure would lose them all after five minutes of babysitting (which would result in Curtain screaming at him over the phone because there are four of them, how do you lose all four of them on an island, SQ is a wanderer, sure, but he can’t run that fast, and Jackson and Jillson are always together, so surely you could have just kept track of one of them? Ok, Martina is a troublemaker, but still, it’s an island, how can you not find her? And then I imagine Jeffers mumbling something about a game of hide-and-seek that got “out of hand”).

Now, of course, there would be a plot line where the siblings come together and actually start acting like a loving family (and Martina and SQ would parallel the twins FOR SURE if that wasn’t obvious already). And Jackson and Jillson, when push came to shove, would finally stand up to Curtain if it meant protecting their younger siblings. And Curtain, after some therapy and hard work (and a stern talking to from his brother) would realize that the way he treated his children was toxic for all of them, apologize, and work towards developing a healthier family dynamic with them. I apologize for all spelling and grammar mistakes. I typed this up very late at night. But I hope you enjoy my incoherent thoughts.