#sorry for taking the funny post way too seriously (in case op sees this)

[brookstolemybrand]

Saw this post and I don't really want to respond to it directly because 1) it's old, 2) it's clearly meant to be funny and not taken overly seriously (and I don't have any actual beef with it to be absolutely clear)

But it did get me thinking

Like firstly yeah it makes sense that Sabo would be the real hoodlum and Ace the more respectable one at heart, just because Ace was never even given a chance to be a Good Kid while Sabo actively chose not to be one

We have no way of knowing what Ace would have been like if he'd been (for example) allowed to grow up peacefully with his biological mum without being persecuted for his biological dad's crimes. He was given no choice except to become a delinquent, that was the only option available to him

Sabo had every chance in the world to grow up to be a respectable and polite gentleman, he was given all the education and training and a status that was apparently high enough to even rise all the way up to royalty (as proven by Sterry), but he didn't want it so he said fuck that and actively chose to become a Bad Kid

So yeah, it makes sense Sabo is the more rebellious one, the one who has less respect for authority, because unlike for Ace, for him this was all a choice

Under different circumstances, maybe Ace would even have become a marine like Garp wanted, who knows. Sabo was never going become a respectable gentleman, much less a king

That said, it's worth noting that it's not like Sabo was doing well at home. He was unloved, he struggled fitting the mould he was expected to fit, he felt trapped. He was driven to lash out just like Ace was, just in a different way. In Sabo's case it was about him not fitting into society because of who he was. Ace wasn't allowed to even try to fit in, because of who his dad was

I don't actually think either of them is the more "responsible" one, though. Because they're both responsible in different ways, they just have different priorities:

Like that post I reblogged earlier talks about Dragon sacrificing his personal relationships for the cause, that's kinda what I think Sabo is doing too, at least to some extent

Here's my take:

Ace is the more responsible one when it comes to interpersonal relationships, but Sabo feels a responsibility for the whole world

I mean he IS still reckless about it but well, so was Ace about his own responsibilities

I get it though, this is more about making the point that Ace is not the rude miscreant of the two and Sabo isn't the polite and peaceful one, Ace just looks like a hoodlum (... which he is, to be fair, he's a pirate) and Sabo like a gentleman (which he also kinda is but only due to an accident of birth) but that doesn't indicate anything about their personalities

Ace is the polite one, and Sabo is the rude one. Ace is friendly and caring despite appearances, and Sabo is kind of vicious and ruthless despite his gentle demeanour. And Ace might be a pirate but when we meet him he's trying to maintain stability and order (among pirates, but still), while Sabo might be a nobleman but when we meet him, he's actively trying to start a revolution to overthrow the government

And Ace is the one who stepped up to take care of Luffy and to look after him, while Sabo fucked off to the sea and joined a rebel militia

I just don't think "responsibility" is the right term for the distinction, I guess? Because as I said, I think Sabo is actually still motivated by a sense of responsibility. I mean that was also why he decided to leave Luffy and Ace in the first place, thinking that him being friends with them was putting them in danger, but I also think he was feeling a more general sense of responsibility as a member of the upper class who caused all this suffering in the first place

I actually wonder if it's a thing with both Sabo and Dragon because one was born a noble and the other is a former marine (and son of a navy hero), that they feel like they have to commit to the cause to make up for their origins?

And Sabo cares about this even to the point where he's willing to sacrifice his own dream of freedom to fight for the freedom of others. This wasn't what he wanted after all: he wanted to be a pirate, just like Luffy and Ace, and he could have chosen to follow that dream when he regained his memories but he didn't, because he decided that the revolution was more important

[aratribow]

I love how your art stays almost stagnant in a homey way. I scrolled down a bit to look at some of your art (I'm obsessed sorry I hope you don't mind) and while you did improve on lighting quite a bit, you still have such a distinct and uniquely beautiful artstyle that makes me feel at home whenever I see it. Everyone talks about how an artist's work tastes (I do too) but what about FEEL? Yours feels like a warm fireplace in the coldest winter. Tysm for posting when you don't have to. Everyone appreciates the beauty of your art, but I also want to take the time to appreciate the time you took to create your art (proofreading this particular sentence was really funny LMAO). How many YEARS it took to get to your desired style. You are an amazing artist and I hope you enjoy drawing, however please prioritize your life (school, jobs?) so you can prosper. Perhaps I'm making this too long but what I mean to say is will you marry me

(I wanted to end it at that but just in case you think I'm serious this is a joke a JOKE I jest haha 🙏 unless...)

seriously though! I mean every word! You and your art are amazing!! 💕)

M so sorry op but this is SOOO JINGHENGJING ASF I SWEAR, fan jy and artist dh frfr and i make no rules

Me 👆 reading this wall of LOVE THAT U TOOK TIME OUT OF YOUR DAY TO WRITE LIKE AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AND NO OP HOW CAN I EVER MIND U SCROLLING THROUGH MY BLOG WKSBKSNS M JUST ISNSJSSJW NOT ENOUGH WORDS. I've just been WAILING the entire time reading this and and YOU'RE SO SWEET OMG, validation is OFF THE ROOFS WITH THIS ONE.

M so happy my art feels like a fireplace on the coldest winters op....KSNSJSN SOBS

No shit but the sentence that made U laugh while proofreading? That's A LOT FOR ME. M JUST RESPECTFULLY DYING IN A CORNER, THAT'S SOOOO AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA TwT

And I do prioritize my studies op, thanku for your concerns ^^ also KSHDJENSKEJJE I AM SO SORRY BUT THE "what I mean to say is will you marry me?" HAD ME IN SHAMBLES. I WAS NOT EXPECTING THAT BUT OMGGG DAS SO CUTE OF U

THANKU SM FOR YOUR ASK OP ur so adorbs omg. Have a great day/night!! MWAH

[artificial-absinthe]

Crazy, how you ask for understanding and end up being slightly vilified by the entitled ppl who are too lazy to litteraly tag a post...

Btw great point with ooc tag. I'd also love it. I'm just scared of rebloging your post as it seems whenever you want personalization, you may be seen as queer fobic and the worst evil, while it's just a preference to see the canon. Like litteraly ppl don't get that if they'd start making Megatron in green colours just because they like it, the ooc tag would be nice too.

But of course it's a gender thing so ppl will get offended... and I'm saying this, being in favour of your post, and being fuken queer... It's just sad, cause it's always going to the "oh consider xyz because we feel offended" while the op requesting this may be the nicest ally or queer themselves. But because their bubble is touched, they can't understand that they pierce your bubble as well, in the end turning into the conservative thinking of "I'd not tag my post, cause my idea is more important, or it makes me happy, so fuck you I'm free citizen, and allowed to do what I want"... and then they try to say, they are the opened, inclusive ones... while their thinking is litteraly the same as those, they oppose. It's just funny to me... how ppl just can't take a simple, kind request... they need to go balistic on both sides over it, as I'm also disapointed with those who just ran to harras the person... they are also guilty of asshole type of thinking... It's just sad how even in seemingly progressive place, there are still so many "conservative thinking" assholes...

Eh sorry for the long ramble. Just wanted to tell you, that you're not alone with this thinking. Just wanted to let u know, even that I know you'd say you don't care if someone agrees or not. But still, thank u for this post. Maybe it will change something for the better despite countless idiots who can't take a request like a civilised human beings...

No need to apologize at all. You absolutely understand it all and make very accurate and relevant points, and I totally agree with you.

I didn't even knew that this was still going. I figured some people had, though begrudgingly, accepted to use a tag, and some others would flood the Megatron tag with their occ content without a tag to filter out of spite (exactly with the mindset that you described), because people speaking ill of me doesn't even come to tell me directly, perhaps because they know I genuinely won't be affected by their hate and misplaced adjectives, and so I only know of this when someone else tells me.

On the other hand, while I do not crave for understanding, it's very nice that the people who agree with me voice it, because this request and pointing out is not only for me, but also for everyone else who is tired of the OCC thing flooding the content about a character.

Indeed, you are not the only one who has said this to me, and even before I made that request I had held conversations about how people was tired of it, but also feared voicing it because they, like yourself, were wary about getting the "queerfobic" hate. Which is no more than a shield that people abuse of whenever someone disagrees with their headcanons or anything else. That way they make themselves to be "on the right" and rally sympathizers to share their grudge with and attack the ones disagreeing with them. Which is a very unbecoming thing to do, and I wish they just acknowledged the reasons for what they are. (In this case, not everyone likes mischaracterization/Occ content. Period)

Thus, I decided to be the one to voice it, but it would be good that all the anons and people agreeing with me in private would do it publicly, without being haters themselves as some had been (which was counterproductive, actually), because that way it could be taken seriously and only for what it is... Perhaps... hopefully.

Of course I'm not saying that I don't appreciate that you say it also like this, since I understand that not everyone can be as cold as myself.

[bakugoukatsuki-rising]

I'm. The new covers, op. The new covers. Gosh. Both of them hold so much symbolism. And technically they both are canon, they are both original ideas that could perfectly be valid. Horikoshi simply found something better. But anyways, I'm going to go ahead and ramble about it because Im- Op, prepare for a long ask! Hope you like it!

So!

On the one where Katsuki's the one in the picture, he's not on his knees like he is in the other two covers. Instead, he has his face down, body forward, one hand on one leg, the other one holding out for something...He's bowing. Bowing in Japanese culture is a pretty big deal. Hes not just tilting his head a bit, his head and body are on full on commitment.

Such a tilted bow means a LOT, specially from THIS guy, Mr dont let anyone walk in front of me. Even more when hes not just bowing, but accepting such an open display of given help, Mr shonen anime lone wolf. Accepting something he always has trouble admitting to. Accepting the past, accepting the wrongs. Accepting Izukus help means so much, and that's what these three covers have in common.

His hand is sctretching out. He's ready to say yes to that hand out in the air.

(Ps. I wonder if he's watching his own reflection on the water in this panel, as well?)

Hes in middle of the picture with those childhood friend at the back, which means audience. It means letting people see what hes done, what he's sorry for. He is being open and exposed and vulnerable. That's no fighting stance.

Remember guys, in case you haven't noticed before, Horikoshi puts lots of metaphorical value in his manga and on his covers. Sometimes you've got to dig in deep and think to get the bigger picture. And in this case, the bigger picture screams regret and wanting to make things right from the start.

This cover occurs in the past, at the moment where everything started, and Katsuki fully remembers this. Katwuki has thought of this, is thinking about this. He's had eye bags for gods sake, he's clearly troubled by all of what it means.

These three covers are the visual explanation of what's going on inside Katsuki's head, because this is clearly focused on him and his perspective.

(Ps. Rivers symbolise the massage of time. If that doesnt add to everything else, I dont know what to tell you.)

So! Next!

Wow, if this isnt one of my favourite things ever. Okay. Christ.

I have two options here. Scratch that, three options. Scream into the void, scream into this post, or actually make a good presentation of my inner turmoil. I'll have to go by the third option. (Haha. Just like horikoshi did. Dont # me, I'm funny in my head.)

This cover melted my insides, froze them all over, and hit me with them like a hammer.

I know they're kids, but let me get this straight-so kids seriously look at their friends with these looks in their eyes and think "ah, yes. This is my very good friend. This gentle smile and kind look I'm giving him as if he was my whole world? Well, hes just a very good friend."

I looked at my childhood crush this way, I dont know what to tell you.

Anyway, let's actually jump to the information at hand.

This panel seems like it's making a reference to what Katsuki wishes could have been. And if that's not absolutely soul-crushing...this cover is Katsuki's feelings, guys. These are probably his very thoughts. This scene has gone through Katsuki's head at some point.

We've got Izuku in his stuck up pose all over again, in just an awkward angle. It's like katsuki isnt looking AT this katsuki right now, but at the spot where the actual past Katsuki, at some point, was. As if this Isuku is frozen in time. Dont believe too much in this paragraph, I still have my doubts about that, but I feel it's a possibility. Izukus eyes seem to be focused on the water, while Katsuki is just the tiniest bit back, reaching for Izukus hand. And gosh.

I dont think I've ever seen older NOR child Katsuki have this look plasted into his face before. He's...sheepish. Kindly, awkwardly sheepish. No hate, no anger, no shame, no nothing. His face is clear and sweet and has this "Whoops. You got me. But thanks." kind of expression on.

The hand behind his head, just the tiniest but embarassed? That little smile? It's all so soft.

Rambling about softness though- I really liked the hand scene in this particular panel. If you close up your view, you realise that theres no effort to pull anyone out of nowhere. In this panel, they are simply holding hands in frozen time for no purpose at all.

Katsuki has his hand around Izuku...simply holding there.

Again, because the angle is awkward, it's kind of messy, but you get the point.

It's all simply beautiful. Horikoshi clean likes give me life.

And lastly. The actual cover.

I screeched so hard when I saw this. My first instinct when seeing this for the first time was to straight up go trigger happy fingers and write about it to my friends. Christ.

Everything is so...SOft. horikoshi made a good decision by mixing both previous drawings in one. We have parts of the two covers in one, which is amazing. In this one, Katsuki isnt alone, as Izuku's there too. But we dont have the audience either. Probably because the main focus on this panel is no one else except them two.

Again, Katsuki looks like he's bowing, but instead of looking all the way down, he's in the middle. Not looking at Izuku nor looking at the ground, like it shows in the previous covers. Instead, Horikoshi found a middle ground. He's looking at his hand. At the gesture.

Hes not holding hands quite yet, but his hand is there. At arms reach. Not close enough but there. Wanting.

Theres so much regret and again, softness.

Again, like you Op said a bit bad, the angle is off here. This is present Katsuki remembering his past. The angle is off because this Izuku isnt holding out for our Katsuki. This is a memory. A wish. Katsuki's wish.

(Ps. Izukus trousers drenched in the rivers water. This detail was so nice. It's a subtle action that describes Izukus characterization so much. Izuku went in the river with Katsuki in mind, not caring if he got his clothes soaked in the process too. For Izuku, only Katsuki was there. And for Katsuki, only Izuku is.

As a plus, I can't believe the cover of this is literally called Bakugou Katsuki rising. They named the entire thing after that one chapter. Actually, I very much, totally believe it. It's the moment so many people have been waiting for, after all. The moment so many scenes have been amounting for, little by little.

*dreamy sigh*

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed this little thing, I had to get it out of my system and dont want to bother my dear friends anymore than needed.

Have a good day, OP! I'll stay updated!

You kinda just...took my heart and curb stomped it, not gonna lie. Your observations are so beautiful and so accurate. The sketch with little Bakugou taking Izuku’s hand is so...raw, and yeah, that expression is definitely one of love. Those eyes, the way he is HOLDING Izuku’s hand, not TAKING it. He isn’t taking it to stand up, he is literally just...holding it. 

That isn’t the way you take someone’s hand when you’re trying to pull yourself up. It’s an awkward angle and just...wouldn’t work right. No, he is literally just holding his hand, and that’s exactly what Bakugou wishes he did all that time ago. He wishes that he not only took Deku’s hand, but held onto it. Held it as if it were something precious, something to be cared for and protected. 

These are Bakugou’s true feelings expressed in these drawings, and I think Horikoshi released them on purpose, to show us more of what he wanted Bakugou to be feelings through all of this. Since after all, we know that Bakugou expresses himself in action, not so much words. And because Horikoshi is an absolute genius, he thought to give us these other glimpses in how he feels through these actions. 

And the other sketch with him bowing his body to Izuku, and the way the log looks like it’s on his back with his ‘friends’ on top of it. 

The pressure of needing to be the coolest, the strongest, the best. Those kids put that kind of pressure on him, even if they never realized it. They encouraged his behavior and fed his ego, and it never allowed him to see how he was wrong. But now he is realizing it, and he is bowing himself in light of that acknowledgement. He is lowering his head and putting his pride away, so he can get back what he lost all those years ago; the opportunity to take Izuku’s hand.

To take the hand of the only one of those kids that ever loved him unconditionally. Who never pressured him or expected him to be invincible. Who saw all of his flaws and was completely prepared to support him despite all of it. The only one. 

I’m just a mess over all of this, and I am so incredibly thankful to Horikoshi for creating this beautiful relationship. AND IN A SHOUNEN MANGA, NONETHELESS!!  

Thank you friend, for your beautiful thoughts. I think they’re spot on, and I am so emotional all over again because of this. 

[volfoss]

how about ranking bucciarati's team?

regret to inform you that ur gonna get a very long answer bc i have passionate feelings about them all! also trish is in this bc she is part of the team and no one will tell me otherwise and will also include some rambling bc it is me and i have so many feelings towards these characters and none of them r cohesive

under the cut just in case (post writing yes it was long)

Giorno Giovanna:

way way more complex than ppl normally give him credit for (i will not go into feelings on how a majority of the fandom treats him unless ppl want me to then i will in fact make a very long ranty post and will not be stopped)

mildly op (esp at the beginning with how hes kind of able to just use his stand really well w no problems altho i think thats true of most of the jojos that we have seen animated?)

i am emotionally attached to him and want to give him a big hug

hes just a kinda goofy kid and is maybe a bit not good with figuring out hey this is a semi dangerous situation maybe i shouldnt be taunting him (leaky eye luca for example)

has the actual best theme

i love how he works off the rest of the team so well (even w members who do not like him)

is in my top 3 jojos i love this kid sm i would adopt him if he was real

7/10

Bruno Bucciarati:

the fucking way his character develops from licky man to best dad material is my favorite thing

his outfit is so so so good i would die to wear it

in general this man is one of my fave jojos characters and i get a lot of comfort from him

hes just really neat and has a good taste in music

he did his fucking best and i will always love him for that

imo the way that his death was drawn out was genuinely one of the most heartbreaking deaths in the entire series and fucks me up each time i think of it

i feel like he really is the one to hold the team together in a way that everyone feels cared for and saved

def has a savior complex tho for sure

dilf but im ace

also manga superiority bc he either makes the stupidest faces or looks very nice (anime has a lot of weird animation in regards to his face) and also because its lingerie there instead of a tattoo that changes thickness and placement every second

10/10

Leone Abbacchio:

guilty pleasure liking man

i am obsessed with his vibes and wish to become him

i cannot physically express just how much i love him but hes one of my faves of all time (not obvious by my theme at all wdym)

i miss his manga palette but also the colored manga isnt my beloved but also black lipstick abba

hot take maybe but anime abba looks better than manga minus the lipstick debacle

hes so so tall and i will steal his height in a nice way

his past man his past it fucks me up

his death fucks me up normally but when i was rewatching recently, i saw he gave this tiny lil smile after helping the kids get their ball and i could not take it anymore

him and brunos relationship (canonically and out of canon too) is one of my favorites in the series

also fandom hot take as i guess i am doing those for everyone- but ppl either have him as cosntantly trying to murder giorno or being like good son and v out of character, and it is really weird? not sayign that ill do better when i write them but also like im convinced some ppl havent seen the show or smth

i will steal both him and bruno and marry them both <3

this man is beloved i love him to death

10/10

Pannacotta Fugo:

i cannot spell his first name to save my life

also fandom take- ppl make him constantly only angry boy all the time and it really irks me. ik araki did not give him 2 much to work w in terms of canon personality but its frustrating

the light novel purple haze feedback is so so so good and adds sm to his character and i really like it for that!

fugo is one of those that imo deserves a lot and didnt get that

genuinely the vibes between how he treats narancia is v interesting to me, like its clear he cares about nara but nara not doing great w math really frustrates him

i love their interactions and how he is genuinely a kind person at times

the manga colors r superior here, my strawberry boy <3

i just really love and appreciate him a lot and wish that ppl gave him more love

i keep getting assigned him on kin quizzes

very smart good boy

ALSO ok fugo did not do any wrong by leaving

unsure if thats a hot take but i genuinely dont blame the character one bit for leaving and again purple haze feedback really delves into that and why he did it

if ur a fugo fan go read it

his past is really upsetting esp in the anime i will cry over it

his stand is adorable and i wanna hug it

his vibes r fun and i wanna gift him strawberry dangly earrings

8/10

Narancia Ghirga:

this boy i am also adopting (i am adopting most of them sorry)

i really hate how ppl act as if hes stupid bc bad math skills do not equal stupid like did ppl not see the fight w formaggio??

the way he just fucking dove into the water after the boat and how brunos face went all soft and happy it will never not make me cry

he is constnatnly making me wanna cry if i think too much about him for 2 seconds i love him sm

how can anyone not adore him when he set an entire street on fire yk

hes just happy despite his past and it makes me sad i love nara sm

torture dance is one of my favorite memes from the show

ALSO ok the way he died so suddenly absolutely broke me bc the remaining team members r really just seeing everyone die in front of them so quickly

his goofy and laid back moments r my fave

i love just how loyal and caring he is to his friends

his stand is really cool and again the fight w formaggio was so fun to watch

8/10

Guido Mista:

probably my least favorite member of the team for a semi good reason:

the jokes towards trish are really really uncomfy and how fugo doesnt wanna be involved but he is pushing him to do something that makes him uncomfortable did not make me like him a lot

hes goofy but not goofy enough for me to be ok with the repeated jokes about that esp in the body swap episode (ik it was supposed to be funny but it just felt off)

his vibes r good but i wish we got to see his hair

the fandom interpretation is normally pretty good of him overall?

despite not loving him a lot, i really enjoying writing for him (one day might open up headcanon requests or smth but unsure)

hes someone id wanna watch movies w but his taste in movies and mine r very different

love how he and his stand get along

honestly has very very good comedic potential

i really like how he and giorno interact as the series goes on (in a platonic way i need to clarify that i love their friendship)

again him in purple haze feedback was really interesting

probably a 5/10?

Trish Una:

beloved and deserved better

her first outfit in the manga > outfit in the anime

actually in general i believe in manga trish superiority like her hair in the manga looks so cool

her stand her stand her stand i love sm

if u dont include trish in the group i am murdering u <3

HER CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT!!!! IS SO GOOD!!!!!!

fandom gripe is how people either pretend she does not exist or has the trish first introduction thing where shes using her defense mechanisms and acting a bit spoiled

OK but her in purple haze feedback!!! mild spoilers but how bruno was taking care of her post the ending of vento aureo makes me so happy each time i think of it

very mad that she canonically didnt really get an ending and yet again PHF my beloved actually gave her that

how spice girl starts out as a stand thats helping her thru a very stressful situation is so cool and i love it

DAD BRUNO DAD BRUNO DAD BRUNO *frothes at the mouth*

but more seriously how she leans on bruno and begins 2 trust him and nearly point blank is referring to him as a father figure always fucks me up

esp because of the resulting fight afterwards

and the very ending of the arc that ends w bruno being like bye gonna go in the clouds and look ethereal now, oh man it makes me so sad

bc giorno is the only one that knew what happened and people that were closer to bruno due to knowing him longer didnt

i wanna see how trish coped w that personally

despite being introduced not at the beginning i think her arc and character in general were as well paced as it could be!

9/10

finally done! sorry that took so long but oh man i have so many feelings towards these guys its not even funny

[steve0discusses]

S5 Ep 14: So If You Put a Fraction Into a Duel Disk, the Card Explodes

We left on quite the cliffhanger last episode, so I’ll fill you in:

I did not get the haircut.

Like I seriously considered getting a Zigfried for a cool 3 or 4 minutes there, but then I decided to wait a couple of days and I basically forgot.

But, back to the arc finale, Seto has decided to walk, not run, to the Kaiba lab in order to fix the virus rapidly eating his entire company.

I just want to point out that Zigfried went through a LOT of work to get Seto Kiaba to go “uggggh” turn around, and pretend to calmly walk away. I’m used to Seto losing his nut kind of a lot and blowing things up but this season he’s like “be chill be chill be chill” so that the entire world doesn’t think he’s a spaz on TV.

And little aside about Seto’s design choices here, I fell down a hole of interior design videos, and can I just say: apparently these wood frame things on the wall are back in style? Good on you, 2002(3?) Seto Kaiba. Don’t think that current designers are painting them purple but...we’re halfway there to Yugioh fashion.

Meanwhile, Pharaoh decides to remind everyone that these stakes are hella low. The worst that happens is that Zigfried deletes the plane that Yugi needs to fly home...which would be an impressive virus.

Like it’s hard to tell if Yami even has a solid concept of “capitalism” and whether or not he cares about or understands the makeup of Seto’s company (which up till now has operated like a small country and not a business...which is a little more Pharaoh’s understanding. Either way...hard to tell if Yami would shed two tears for the loss of Kaiba corp.)

And, despite what I say in the caps, I feel like Leon and Zigfried are the first villains we’ve ever had that Yugi and Pharaoh didn’t unintentionally disclose that they are 2 people to. Zigfried and Leon are just...completely oblivious to how effed up Yugi’s bean is. They think that’s just a normal kid and lol no dudes...y’all got distracted by Seto Kabia but you have a literal Egyptian God just hovering around in the background and dating 3 people by accident.

Like when the show shelves the main storyline, it is very funny how it’s all “And we’re gonna put the Pharaoh crisis on hold--just put a pin in it. No one will notice this child is two nervous wrecks stitched together” and then Yugi and Yami just kinda hold it in and watch all patiently until it’s their turn to get off the bench.

(read more under the cut)

In the giant computer tower, Seto Kaiba shouts out a string of orders and numbers, admired the many sonar detector looking windows open on every monitor, and then sat down at his desk to like...check the firewall, I guess?

The virus is past the firewall. It’s um...it’s inside the firewall, pretty sure that was the point, but youknow, it’s a kid’s show so they’re just throwing out computer stuff that has no meaning to the writers of this show.

Mokuba thinks fondly of how Seto Kaiba has never screwed him over (which I mean...maybe not on purpose, ((except for that one time he did screw him over on purpose to get Gozaburo Kaiba to accidentally give Seto Kaiba the company, but you could say that was a grander scheme that he knew Mokuba would see through, which...)) but Seto certainly has screwed Mokuba over accidentally. At least once.)

And meanwhile, Yami fixes everything through card shenanigans.

So here’s the shenanigan this episode: I don’t go over cards here but this one requires a limited amount of explanation.

So every round the golden castle deletes half of Yugi’s cards. So he was like...I’ll just draw down to one card. They can’t delete half a card...so that means the card must delete one of the two cards on the field which means it must delete itself.

...which is like the closest Yugioh will probably ever get to abusing a glitch to do a speedrunning tactic like GDQ.

Anyway, like I stated in the title: there are no fractions allowed in Yugioh. If you do that to your priceless one-of-a-kind card you got from winning one of Pegasus’ murder tournies, it will irreparably bust the card.

I’m sure at least one of you will correct me with the proper way to insert a fraction into your duel disk. Cuz like...as I say multiple times so we never forget, I barely pay attention to this card game and I’m just flying by the seat of my pants.

I want to say Seto and Mokuba were in the hacker chairs for like...3 minutes maybe before they realized “oh...Yugi fixed it...” and walked the half a mile back to the duel arena.

and also, as I’m looking at Seto’s glasses here, I just realized...all of Kaiba’s team wears sunglasses all the time. Inside, outside, night, or day...

They haven’t outright said this...but what if those aren’t sunglasses?

Is Roland and that other Roland wearing fancy cyber glasses? They are, right? Because they wear them indoors?

Damn, they can’t take a piss without being on call with Kaiba Corp, can they?

Now the problem is...Yugi played all of his cards (he has two in front of him face down, but none in his deck) and after milling himself, this means he’s now basically a sitting duck for Leon to take the title of “King of Games.”

Leon insists that he defend whatever scraps are left of his card honor and not duel a person who is carrying no cards and Yugi was like “COME AT ME BRO THIS IS THE ONLY WAY I KNOW I’M ALIVE.”

He didn’t even have to do a horror on Leon, he just...played cards good? I skipped it, I’ll be honest, but overall Leon’s card honor was...saved? Maybe? I mean he also go destroyed when his competitor had not a single card in his duel disk so...

...Leon will have to work on his card honor off screen because he’s pretty well humiliated at this point.

But stumbling onto the playing field like he’s half dazed/daydrunk, Zigfried is like “You forgot I already won, bastards!”

Which is when we find out that Zigfried’s “delete all” virus failed to press “enter” and deleted basically nothing. Just like when my Mom attempts to send something in Gmail but doesn’t press “Send” and tells me that Google is down and broken.

Sorry my bro has informed me that he ALSO has had to help my Mother locate the “Send” button and I just...I know she absolutely did that but I’m in denial that this Riddle of the Sphinx has happened to her multiple times.

Honestly, the pep talk we get from Leon at the end to cheer up his bro was a whole lot of “we will pick ourselves up and we’ll do better next time. Together.” and sure you can translate that as “we’ll be honest next time” or you can translate that as “next time we will be not nearly as obvious about inserting a virus into their computer until it is done doing the job, bro.”

Just like Dartz, we didn’t really get a whole lot of retribution or closure when it comes to Zigfried. But, unlike Dartz, Zigfried didn’t do too much murder, so I guess this is fine. He tried to cheat in a card game...

...and I guess tried to delete Kaiba Corp but youknow...

...people let him have that. The police saw the ticket of “this man tried to delete Kaiba Corp” and they just...didn’t arrest him. The judge saw that ticket and didn’t put out a warrant. They just let Zigfried have this, almost like “better luck next time, ya?”

And then Roland clocked out for the day and went home, thus ending this arc.

Look at all these characters, most of which we never saw duel even one card.

We also got one shot of Mai for some reason although she was not in this arc.

AAAHHHH. Every time I’m like “the show is done screwing geography” we get another freakin geography spook!

But we went back to California in order to get a scene of these guys in an airport to get a flight to Japan...

which means Rex and Weevil just...were they shipped home by the Kaibas? Because way to ditch getting arrested by the American Government, hot damn. They are...literally terrorists who destroyed a Caltrain in a plot to kill everyone in the world so like...really surprised Rex and Weevil are in public...but maybe all the FBI were dead at the time so they just didn’t know?

Meanwhile, Duke has to go back to Death Valley and call a tow truck for his car, RIP.

I sure hope he got PTO during this stunt and isn’t going home to a pink slip.

I’m not sure of Dukes life or anything going on with Duke. I’m sure the thing about Serenity is him joking because we have all forgotten about that girl by this point...but also...is Duke...still living in the Tenderloin? The crime rate is very, very high and the ground isn’t solid, so it will liquefy if there’s an Earthquake, but it is one of the few places in the Bay Area that doesn’t light on fire every year. He has that going for him.

I just really hope Duke moves out of the Tenderloin one of these days, he needs a better life.

Meanwhile, Rebecca does one last crime.

This is like a post-epidemic reaction to a hug, but in 2002(3?).

I don’t think I’ll miss Rebecca too much. Wanted to like her more, but she was under-utilized, like most of the characters on Yugioh. Not even just talking girl characters here--most characters on Yugioh are super under-utilized, just Tristan Wallflowers doing nothing, but also being selectively OP as hell about very specific things they never, ever need to do.

Speaking of the devil:

Yugi...just saved his entire company...

But Mokuba is just has to make sure to make it seem like they owed Mokuba and not the other way around. Just in case.

So off they go on this massive plane. It’s probably more to do with the length of the trip as to why the plane is so big but also...

This plane is overcompensating.

But before we analyze that, lets close the book on Seto Kaiba’s very short therapy arc. Overall, it was a nice distraction, but I can see why people call it a filler arc, as it really doesn’t affect...anything going on in the major plotlines, which makes me think it could have been a movie or a game or something. But overall, it’s not bad, it’s just not what you’d expect if you were a Western audience.

Like I’m preaching to the choir, but typically, Western stories are entirely plot focused, and so our arcs always give or take away from that plot. But in a Eastern story arc, it may instead be character focused, where the climax is a character evolving or coming to some sort of cathartic realization, which this arc was, in a big way. We still had some plot, because this is a Shonen, but overall it was about characters, and specifically whether or not Leon and his bro would reconcile or change--which they did.

We did get to see a little more growth on Seto in that he...didn’t go bonkers and hallucinate during a card game. It’s been a while since we’ve had him not do that. Seto was very chill this arc, which makes sense, it was a very chill slice of life arc for everyone involved.

So, next we move on to the next one, which bro has informed me...is

still not Bakura.

According to Bro, the next arc didn’t even air in the Japanese version of the show? Like he’s got a lot of spicy Yugioh headcanons so he could be wrong (He did tell me that he thought that Zigfried was Seto Kaiba’s ex boyfriend when he saw this as a kid which...that sure is a way to interpret this arc, and it probably wasn’t just my little brother who went down that thought tube there...)

(Bro Note: To be fair, I didn’t watch much of this arc as a kid.)

But he says the next arc was originally a movie. But they released it in the States as episodes to be part of S5, just to put more episodes in there. Which, if he’s correct, makes it seem like we’re getting like the Mulan 2 experience kind of shoved in between this arc and the next

But um..

according to bro it has virtually no card games.

.......

I’m so used to only capping 10 minutes an episode, what?

Anyway, until then, here’s the link to read the rest of these from the start in chrono order:

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

I’m kinda itching to do a Season Zero, it’s been a hot minute--so those take a little longer to do, especially since I need to go to a different site I haven’t...checked out yet...I’ll be back...eventually? I just know that at some point in Season Zero they fight it out with yo-yo’s and I want to see it.

[alatismeni-theitsa]

Do you have any sort of, words of encouragement, for a Greek-American who is struggling to learn Greek? My family is pretty connected to our heritage but I was never taught to speak Greek. I am an adult now, and I know I'm at an incredible disadvantage trying to learn a new language. The most discouraging thing is when I try to pronounce a word with a sound that isn't really in English (like γ) and I KNOW I am not saying it right, but no matter how hard I try I can't pronounce it correctly.

Hello! I'm very sorry for delaying this answer for some days, but as we see here, Zeus was fucked this week 😅

I will pin my answer so you can see it when you return, and the rest will be under the cut.

I believe there are MANY reasons for hope in this situation. Of course it feels very discouraging that you don't know the language already and you might feel left behind in this process. Plus, learning a new language is not an easy thing to learn. But worry not!

You are grown, and that means you can learn a language better and with more consistency and discipline. Have trust in your skills as an adult. What is more, you have grown up around Greek speakers and you will pick up certain things faster.

You are not alone in feeling this way. Most of the world has to learn a second language (and a third, as it's usual for many) and that would be the language most dominant in the wider area. Almost every person in the West who is not an English speaker has to learn English and learn it well, otherwise we feel embarrassed every time we try and form a sentence. For example, we apologize to each other about our accents in English German and French, even though we speak Greek.

Surely there are some differences between your situation and ours, but I mentioned this to show you that most people will be very understanding with accents because they have the same struggle. I mean, I'm not going to make fun of someone for having an accent in Greek when I sound like a demented chicken in German, despite taking years of lessons 😵 I have more confidence in my English but even now that I'm writing to you in this language I have to quadruple-check my sentences and phrasing. The amount of times I apologized in advance for my accent to English speakers is higher than my credit.

I relayed your situation to other Greek speakers and non-English speakers, and ALL agreed the accent is not anything they would pay attention to and told me to write you that you shouldn't feel bad about that. I did that because I knew they would have words of encouragement for you. And it turns out they believe exactly what I'm writing in this answer.

Accents are natural. You cannot expect not to have an accent when you have been speaking a different language all your life. Beating yourself up for having difficulty with the Greek pronunciation is like beating yourself up for something normal like walking or laughing when hearing something funny. You lack practice with the pronunciation due to circumstances beyond your control. You are doing what you can to change that, and every small win is worth celebrating!

I found this post the other day:

The notes? The likes?

And NO disagreements in the comments and reblogs for OP’s statement! Look how many thousands are supportive in this! (And that’s a small fraction of people who understand accents are natural.) And some of the responses:

Sure, some mention they have met native speakers who made it more difficult to feel comfortable with their accent and phrasing. But those people are assholes in general, and not the people you want to surround yourself with. If a relative expresses disgust about your accent remind them you didn’t have any control of how much and how well you were taught Greek when you were a kid, and then tell them that if they are a true friend and relative to you, they should support you in your journey. And even if you had some control and chose not to learn, you are learning now. So they should leave their resentment behind because, honestly, what do they have to lose from you learning the language better??

For the embarrassment you feel for yourself: you wouldn't make fun of a Greek for having trouble with the “r”, "s", “ch”, and possibly the "h" when speaking English, so extend that kindness to yourself when you speak Greek. Not to mention that with enough practice and time you can nail the accent!

Worst case scenario, if the accent never leaves, that's no problem whatsoever. Anyone who thinks badly of you for your accent is probably a PoS and they don't deserve your time. No matter where you are from, if they make you feel bad for having an accent in Greek, block them from your mind forever.

But chances are that (from experience) if anyone laughs with how you said something, I guarantee they are not laughing at you but because of how strange the sound or phrasing was. The person doesn't think badly of you because of this. Making mistakes of any kind when learning a language is very natural and it's something everyone must accept. If you are not willing to make mistakes and expose your language vulnerabilities to people who know the language better, might as well not try improving at all.

If anyone corrects you, they are not doing it out of pity. The majority of Greeks do it because they are very happy you speak the language and want you to be even more fluent. Like, they are doing it as an act of backing you up, they are feeling like they are giving you that extra XP to reach the next level! Others - like me - get that rush of happiness when they get to share their language with others 😁

I remember a guy on Tiktok who was learning Greek and ordered a coffee "without sugar" in a Greek cafe but instead of saying σκέτο ("without") he said σκατά ("shit"). I mean damn that was funny! I remember it weeks after I saw the video of him telling that story and it always cracks me up. Do I still appreciate him the same as before and follow him? Absolutely! He just had an unfortunate - and funny - incident, not something that lessened his integrity as a person.

From tiktok again: An American girl wanted to pronounce γύρος correctly when ordering it, and she was mumbling to herself on camera: “yeero, yeero, yeero!!” When her time to order came she shouted “May I have a gairow? FUUUUCKK FUUCK FUCK I SAID IT WRONG” 🤣

Another example is Athena from the Bachelor 2! She has given some gems throughout the show because she doesn't know the language that well, but everyone still loves her because she spreads positivity and is so cute!! If we, as viewers, disliked her it would be because of her character, not because she doesn't know the language well. And if some of the other girls in the show don’t take her seriously is because she laughs too much and mentions feta too often, not due to her Greek level of literacy. Athena, even when she is hurting someone else’s feelings, is always so genuine and you just can’t be mad at her!

I really can’t stretch enough how people laugh at the mishap, not the person! Please don’t feel discouraged if you ever see a Greek laughing with the pronunciation of an English speaker when it comes to Greek words (which I have done as well) because we never laugh at the speakers. We don’t even know them! We might laugh at one mistake but then instantly want to become this individual’s friends because we think they are amazing (see the three examples I mentioned above, the sugar guy, the gyro girl and Athena). Because that’s the normal thing to do; laugh at fun stuff and not judge people for their small mishaps. (In a casual setting, and not to an uncomfortable degree ofc!)

There are so many things to a person other than their accent and the accent becomes old news really fast. What remains is how the presence of a person makes you feel and if they are a good individual. If an English speaking friend says yatakai instead of γατάκι that opens the way for sooo many jokes! Greeks will laugh, do some YATAKAAIIII screams - ninja style, and then continue being friends with that person!

Greeks makes these mistakes as well... A Greek once said "arrive arrive" (φτάνει φτάνει) instead of "enough" when an English speaker was filling his glass. A Lower English degree caught fire that day 🤣 I have many bad examples of Greeks’ mistakes in English but I can’t remember a lot. But I’ve seen many videos of Greeks mocking themselves for how they sound in English. You can take a look at Tsipras’ (our former prime minister) mistakes on youtube if you are feeling brave 😂 (Ο Τσίπρας μιλάει Αγγλικά)

So, own your possible mistakes, laugh at them and move on because everyone makes them and we better have some good while we are struggling!

(( For the record, we are not making fun of Tsipras because of his accent, but because 1) he doesn’t know γρι English and yet he rarely brought a translator with him in international meetings with world leaders, 2) he could absolutely not hold a conversation with negotiating or discussing 3) he didn’t take steps to improve or fix the situation (like bring a translator). 4) Instead, he chose to torment us all with mind-numbing hours of reading English texts and making other world leaders struggle to explain to him what they meant for the nth time and meetings move at a snail pace.))

Alright, now that I cringed with the memory of Tsipras speaking English, I’ll go though the recommendations for improving the Greek pronunciation.

1) Go to my resources for learning Greek (#learn greek) where I have many videos where you can hear the sounds individually or withing other words very clearly. Easy Greek on youtube has excellent videos about pronunciation!

2) Seek practice as much as possible. Some Greeks switch to English when they hear an English accent to make the conversation smoother for the other person. If Greek speakers insist on talking with you in English tell them that you would wish to speak in Greek. I've seen that people often mirror the accent of the native speaker when they speak to one, so this might work for you as well with hours of practice. If no Greek speakers are available to you now, you can find Greek Americans online – or go to their festivals – and start talking to them.

3) Listen to Greek podcasts, songs and shows. (In my blog you’ll find them at #greek youtuber #podcast #greek tv #greek movie #short film #greek music). You know when you hear a catchy foreign song and then it’s stuck in your head and you say all the words perfectly without even knowing what it means? Well, this helps with pronunciation!

4) If you had Spanish in school or have Spanish friends mimicking the Spanish accent might help you. (Our accents are extremely close! The Spanish are the best at Greek pronunciation, and vice versa!)

5) Find sounds in your native language that sound close to the sounds you want to say in Greek. In German lessons I had trouble with “ch” in certain words because I made it sound like χ and it was horrible. My Greek teacher told me to remember how χ sounds in χήνα (it sounds a bit flatter) and make that sound when I encountered “ch”. It worked actually!

To people who have English as their native language I often suggest they remember the sound of w for γ because, although not used the same in the word, at times they have the same intensity. Γ is pronounced more “to the front” of the mouth, so if you can bring that sound forward in your mouth you’ll be very close, if not accurate, to γ. (But don’t bring it too much forward, sometimes it can sound like a “y”, unless you are saying a word where γ sounds like “y”).

Greeks pronounce σ more closely to “sh” than to “s”, so you also might want to keep that in mind since σ often distinguishes the Greek accent in English for me :p

That’s all! If you have more questions or want to tell me anything else about your experience with learning Greek, feel free to send another ask or a DM!

[imreallyhereforkataang]

Hey you don’t have to answer this if you don’t want but do you not have issues with zut*ra? The parallels gifset you made was from a zut*ra saying that it was Aang’s fault Azula hit him. I really like your blog but zut*ra fans shit on Aang at every opportunity. Why put up with that?

Hey yourself! Appreciate that you censored Zu/tara, there.

Do I have issues with the ship. The way I see it, there are two ways to view romantic Zu/tara. One is simply given their canon personalities and dynamic -- acknowledging both characters' values, their motivations, their still-significant relationships with other people -- and then imagining Zuko and Katara trying something together in the future/an AU. The second is to view romantic Zu/tara in the ways it's commonly depicted in popular fanon; things associated with yin/yang notions, etc.

I don't really take issue with people shipping Zu/tara in the former case, because that’s often not affiliated with the unpleasant tendencies of aggressive Zu/tarians (and, keeping canon in mind, hopefully defuses the appeal to some common trends like Fire Lady Katara). I'm sure there are people who like to play around with the ship just for fun, like any other non-canon ship, not because they actually think Katara and Zuko are soulmates in-universe (or maybe they do but they're chill about it) but because their characters offer a premise that seems like an interesting idea to explore. And some people ship things casually, without thinking about it too hard or meticulously weighing characterizations. I don’t personally have a problem with that. Write fics, make art, play around and have fun while respecting the characters -- that's what fandom's supposed to be. Do I think Zuko and Katara are romantically compatible? No, and context is one contributor, but if people find a way to make it work for themselves, or they want to rewrite some elements of canon while staying aware that they are, in fact, rewriting canon, or if they want to focus more on what than who and would admit to doing so, then I understand. Some people are just more drawn to different dynamics, and they can still be respectful and maybe even appreciative of how the story actually played out regardless.

It becomes another scenario for me when people claim that Zu/tara was "robbed" in canon or that it had more development than the canon ships -- essentially, when people are adamant about applying their fanons to what we know in canon. Honestly, the depiction of Zu/tara that most people call for in the actual work does not sound like it involves Katara and Zuko at all. I often find people remolding Zuko and Katara to fit an aesthetic/dynamic/trope that, again, matches more with what they are than who they are, if anything, and then proceed to call that interpretation canon or "missed potential." When people forget canon, when people neglect Katara's trauma, when people dismiss her justifiable anger as "sexual tension," when people ignore how little Katara actually saw of Zuko's journey in comparison to the viewer, when people make claims that attraction had anything at all to do with Zuko's motivation to forge his path in becoming a better person, plus a whole lot of other things I've heard, that's bothersome. (In fact I'm probably going to write about Katara's anger, particularly in the back half of book 3, in the future, and why it's neither "OOC" like some claim nor indicative of attraction, though sometimes it's funny to me how fandom's driven me to think this is an actual debate worth having.)

I'm a fan of Katara and Zuko's canon relationship. They make a kickass duo and they demonstrate a great story about redemption/forgiveness, but it doesn't amount to a love story. In fact I would argue that making it about love (ignoring the fact that they never had feelings for each other) detracts from the story's effectiveness, because it would suggest ulterior motives for Zuko and that Katara had superficial reason to forgive him more easily. You may have noticed I tag platonic Zu/tara as "aang's yangs," because that's ultimately how I view them as a pair. In my eyes, they're the deuteroganists of AtLA, and since Aang’s the protagonist they branch outwards from him and reflect different parts of his journey while still standing on their own. Of course, their own story together is important as well, but I honestly feel like most of every argument for canon romantic Zu/tara is actually better suited for either Ka/taang or Zu/kaang (I could give an example but I'll refrain for the purposes of this ask).

Oh my, and double standards. Double standards everywhere. Such cold takes. Just today I was laughing over a brief "Aang is an abuser" /evidence/ post so ridiculous that it's impossible to take seriously. I suppose that's indicative of how I view Aang and Mai slander these days -- I know I'm on the correct side of the argument, if these complaints even warrant one, and so I've come to not let them weigh me down much too often, but I'm very probably going to hold a bad impression of you if you believe those sorts of things. And I don't think I'm being unnecessarily rude in saying so -- some people really just go to outlandish lengths to promote a ship whose merits are based on speculation and whose potential issues are traceable within the canon work. And if someone disagrees and says it could work, and that they want to play around with it, they can go ahead and explore the dynamic for fun, for sure. I just don't enjoy people who are aggressive/insensitive about it.

Rest assured -- and you've probably seen from the sort of content I reblog -- Aang is my fxcking cinnamon apple. I’m probably not going to bother engaging with people not worth spending the energy on, but of course I’m going to show support and love for my boy in spaces where that’ll actually mean something, and perhaps that can spill over into other areas by sheer number. It’s way more likely I’m going to judge someone for dissing Aang than for shipping Zu/tara, so if I reblogged a gifset from someone who shits on Aang, I probably wasn't aware of who the OP was outside someone who made a gifset for something I wanted to reblog. I’ll be honest, though, Anon, I’m really not sure which gifset you’re referring to, because I know I reblogged one recently, but I looked through the OP’s blog and didn’t find anything myself besides the fact that they ship Zu/tara. They even made a gifset for Aang. Suppose it’s just something I’ll have to watch out for.

Appreciate that you like my blog! As well as that you didn't want me to feel pressured to answer, that's kind of you. Sorry for the long response.

[courage-a-word-of-justice]

Iruma-kun 10 - 12 | Shinchou Yuusha 9 - 12 (FINAL) | Dr Stone 22 - 24 (FINAL) | BnHA 72 - 74 | Stars Align 9 - 12 (FINAL) | No Guns Life 10 - 12 (FINAL)

Iruma-kun 10

That mascot is still around to annoy poor Kalego, huh? (LOL) I also noticed the demonstration demons have horns like oni.

Oh no! This means Azz-Azz is a prime target for Iruma!

(I was going to write something. Then I got so engrossed in the action, I forgot to…)

LOL, Sabro’s too heavy for Team A to lift!

Oh, Iruma’s hair isn’t tied anymore…

“…pruning this cactus.” – Does Eggie-sensei like plants?

Ooh, the first double-parter ever for this show, I think it is.

Shinchou Yuusha 9

Apparently ep 10 got delayed…*sigh*

LOL, thre’s product placement for a certain ice cream brand in this episode, huh?

Can we not with the boob grope???

*Rista takes care of Mash and Elulu* - Rista’s such a mom sometimes…

Stars Align 9

This one scene with Nao looks really blue…it’s almost unsettling.

Oh dear…I understand the sentiment of an inferiority complex all too well.

Dr Stone 22

Now we’re back to good ol’ science vs. survival of the fittest philosophy clash. Now, see, that’s the Dr Stone I like best!

Torricelli’s law.

Why is mica like baumkuchen? Probably because it has a lot of layers…

Wow, for WSJ – which encouraged fangirls all over the world to make yaoi/shonen ai ships – they sure tossed out the yaoi/shonen ai option real fast…

Skarn. I’ve never heard of it until now.

Magma, staring at the product of magma…LOL.

I…don’t get it. Even after watching the bit again, I don’t understand why Magma was trying to save Senku.

So…as is said for most WSJ series, the treasure was the friends we made along the way…LOL, what a way to acknowledge a trope.

Lemme guess…surprise birthday party? (Sorry, when I was reading up on Magma earlier, I saw that Magma helps with a birthday surprise for Senku and I found out what it was.)

I wonder if Rei is still up there at this point…? (Who’s Rei? You’ll find out if you read the Byakuya reboot…)

Well, “Rock Day” only works in Japanese. The language would’ve drifted over thousands of years so it shouldn’t work in the year 5731 (or whatever year Dr Stone is set).

Dr Stone 23

One episode until the end…but I’m away over Christmas, so I’ll have quite a bit to catch up on when I’m back. Update: I never did end up going away over Christmas.

Senku is much more of a trickster hero than an action hero. That’s been pretty obvious all the way through, but here it’s at its most obvious.

Oh, so Kaseki made the village bridge? Is that a correct assumption…? Update: I think the answer was yes from the manga.

How much chemistry does Gen know, anyway? Assuming he’s a humanities person because of psychology and his tricks, it must only be basic, right?

Thse intense stares…I’ve been reading JJBA: DiU lately, so I’m expecting an 80s-style “!!” to appear over someone’s head at this point, LOL.

Ooh, hardware. In fact, it looks like the inside of a computer…or, more relevant to this case, a phone.

So it’s not “rules are rules” anymore? Now Kinro’s changed his words to reflect his faith in Senku…hmm! Interesting! (Update: A quick google says Kinro is 18. Senku is about 18 (+ 3700 years). Plus, after they start dragging Ginro away, Kinro says his trademark line.)

Wouldn’t the coal smoke alert Tsukasa of the village’s location, though…? Then again, thanks to Homura and Hyouga, Tsukasa already knows their location…oops.

Rochelle salt.  

I saw that one shot of the world from the 1st OP and I thought there was meant to be a post-credits segment…LOL, nope.

Dr Stone 24 (FINAL)

The “acquisition message” basically said “We didn’t (just) need one cell phone, (so) it was useless!” Notably, it uses the counter for large items (like computers) for the phone.

Having finished the Byakuya reboot now, I wanna cry every time I hear about the guy…

Oh! The eyecatch is a record!

Basically, what records do is that they recreate sounds by using vibrations created by the grooves of the disc. Sound is a set of vibrations.

“Astronauts are science elites…” – Except maybe Lillian Weinberg…

I like Shamil out of the guys from the Soyuz the most. He’s a cross between Tsukasa and Senku. Stoic yet skeptical, a voice of reason for Byakuya’s sillier outbursts.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the shield was made with CGI, tbh.

Byakuya’s humour here is betraying the emotional capacity of the scene…it’s gone from “100% tear-inducing” to “confusing”.

Please sing Tsubasa wo Kudasai, Lillian…*crosses fingers*

I didn’t get what I wanted, but oh well. This song is good too. (I wouldn’t be surprised if most of the record player was CGI too. It’s good CGI for sure.)

LOL, Puyo Puyo! Even Sherlock Holmes! Dragon Ball, Nintendo Switch, VR, Saiyuki! It’s like a treasure trove of references!

Normally the s2 announcement comes after the credits, so I was thrown for a loop when it was announced before the ED…anyways, this is the end of the s1 coverage. See you for s2!

BnHA 72

[no notes, sorry!]

Iruma-kun 11

Robin looks like Iruma…(this vaguely annoys me.)

I noticed Keroli (sp?) is in the back left, alone…that’s kinda sad.

Sabro is hella tall…even taller than Azz-kun, and that says something.

Ah…I love Eggie-sensei. He’s so funny!

Really? I thought Sullivan wrote them (the rules).

I wanna see an episode where Eggie-sensei can’t turn into his fuzzy form and has to do familiar activities with Iruma. That, or an episode where Eggie-sensei has some human parts and some familiar ones (although that would scare some little kids, I think…)

What a Machiavellian mindset Eggie-sensei has!

Iruma’s got wine, people! Underage drinking is a no-no! (partially joking)

Good on ya, Clara! Go kick those girls to the kerb!

The butterflies are so beautiful in this show!

So basically school clubs.

Hmm…it’s almost a Fordist approach. I mean, “freeing yourself up to do other things” is basically the entire ethos of that.

NGL 10

I was reading JJBA: DiU today and Colt seriously looks like a Jojo’s character…

“Your face is just like…”

N-No way! You mean, the Victor Mary’s wanted to see all along…is the other gunhead…?! Geesh, what a plot twist!

Stars Align 10

“We all play to win.” – That’s very Maki of you, Maki.

Shinjo/Oshimi???? That must be Ryoma…! By the way, what’s up with these Itsuse twins…?

Who’s Hatanooka? Update: That’s the team with Joy in it…and those fangirls who busted Mitsue up.

F*** it…Arashi, I wanna pummel you someday.

LOL, you can sell your temmates out with chanpuru, huh, Arashi?

Did Maki suggest something subliminally…?

*Maki and Toma run around* - LOL, this play is completely unorthodox, haha. I can tell even if I’m no expert.

Shinchou Yuusha 10

We’re back after another week’s break…

Come to think of it, how do fantasy worlds have concepts of “hours”?

LOL, how convenient it was that there just happened to be a dude needing healing walking past! (partially sarcastic, partially meaning it since the circumstances foreshadowed it)

“Talent”, eh? *stares at the camera, which is showing Rista’s boobs, with disapproval*

The Demon Spirit Orb is basically a monster cell from OPM 2, isn’t it…?

If Seiya came from our world…then I’m sorry, Wolks, but whoever told you is completely and utterly wrong. *gestures at all the conflicts around the world, including political turmoil*

“Are you calling…”  

No Guns Life 11

Second-last ep!

Oh great…another yandere?(I read JJBA: DiU hardcover vol. 2 yesterday, so I’m still thinking about Yukako Yamagishi…)

There’s a convertible in the OP, though…I wonder if that will come into play later. Update: Even if it does come into play in the future, it doesn’t happen in ths cour.

Stars Align 11

It was like Joy was showing off to the camera…LOL.

Apparently, Joy’s name is a weird reading for yorokobi (happiness).

This feels like a final episode…

Hmm. I thought Yonex sponsored this. Turns out that’s a parody logo after all (or at least, here it’s a parody).

One of the Itsuse bros looks exactly like Maki, so it’s confusing…

I’m still confused as to why Shijo Minami’s shirts say nantei on them. The minami might be nan in another way of reading it, but…the shi can only be read kokorozashi otherwise and while the jou can be read many, many ways, tei isn’t one of them.

Ume = plum blossom, so that purple-pink colour really suits them.

BnHA 73

Eri’s name means, literally, “to break reason”.

This scene with the stars and the dancefloor…that’s new.

Iruma-kun 12

Sometims you forget this dork *points at Azz* is more powerful than Iruma and Clara…

You can see Clara and Iruma in the shot of Azz-kun.

The reason why I like calling Kalego “Eggie-sensei” is because he doesn’t like it! 

I love how the narrator is even aware it’s been mentioned several times Iruma can’t decline requests.

New Magic is basically science…?

Oh, it would be hilarious if this character Iruma just bumped into and he (Iruma) would be in a Battler together…but I’ve read spoilers, so I know what Iruma will join…

Is this some kind of allegory for technology…?! *eyes sparkle* Yes, I want in! Iruma! Join this club!

Even this demon’s clip is a book! Amazing!

Clara! She dab! In a pot!

Come to think of it, in the basic premise, Iruma-kun (the show) is Kenja no Mago, right? The Wise Man’s Grandson…sort of.

Shinchou Yuusha 11

Almost at the end…I’ll sorely miss this show.

Is Tiana some former version of Rista…?

How old is Seiya again…? Update: Apparently he’s 17…and if he’s the same age as he used to be in this flashback, then…kinda squicky, no?

Stars Align 12 (FINAL)

I heard this show dropped the ball and that Nao’s mother got a rant, but otherwise I don’t quite know what happens here…so let’s finish what we started. Update: Nao’s mother’s rant was in a previous episode.

Oh hey! It’s that running thing Nao and Taiyo were doing…I think. (I don’t think I’ve grasped everyone’s names, even over 12 eps, so I had to check Taiyo’s name up.)

Oh, these gremlins…*sighs happily but also exasperatedly* No wonder this show took out a top 10 position for my 2019 list.

I’m worried now…there’s always a last minute thing to ruin an episode on this show.

I always thought Ryoma’s hair was pretty nice…(small LOL). That’s just my bias for bishonen showing though.

I’m…scared now…Maki’s dad must’ve come back and the red in the sky really sold that moment…

Maki…no!!!!!!!! Aw, f***, that’s the final seconds…geesh, way to end the series. If this were a 2 cour, I’d definitely watch the next one, but since I heard through ANN that this is all we have so far, really, the only thing I can do for a passion project is hope another cour gets funded and (maybe) purchase what I can to help out. Well, that’s it, folks, skedaddle out of here until next time.

No Guns Life 12 (FINAL)

This pendant reminds me of the mana compass I saw in Fate/Zero yesterday.

I bet Danny planted those footprints…or something like that. Update: Yup, he did.

Come to think of it, is Juzo still missing his arm from last time…?

“You weren’t my client, little lady.” – There’s one of two possible options here, I think: 1) the hands guy was or 2) Danny was.

I wonder, will the hand Extended ever become his (Juzo’s) left hand? Or will he get an Extension for it?

Wow, second huge end-of-season cliffhanger! Juzo got a new buddy, it seems…anyway, see you in spring!

Cautious Hero 12 (FINAL)

If the Valkyryja (sp?) isn’t magic…what is it???

That one guy lying on the side of the fountain, looking all drunk…LOL.

Geez, you make me wanna cry, show!!!

Even the alarm clock is dejected…geez…

This is…the best conclusion of the fall season in that Seiya defeated the Demon King and the story wrapped up properly, but the worst in that Seiya died. No one died in Stars Align, even if they failed a tonne! So…I dunno. I guess it should be happy it ended optimistically…anyways, enough of my moping. See you next time.

BnHA 74

Shin Nemoto = “the truth of the origin of the sound”, if you stuck the particle no between each character.

Tintin got scary, LOL.

Lemillion, making “no capes” go out of fashion again (LOL).

Wow, talk about a clip show…! This is really one.

Check the end of the episode, don’t forget to watch the post-credits segments, people.

[mightylauren]

Avengers Endgame SPOILER FILLED Thoughtstream

Pretty much a blow by blow reaction stream straight from my mind in list form of the entire movie from beginning to end. Clearly full of spoilers so it’s below the cut and tagged to death. There’s some all caps screaming. A few keyboard smashes. A fair amount of cussing. Probably a fair amount of typos as I typed this while totally not rewatching it in the comfort of my home. 

Totally not.

I don’t really expect anyone to read all of this but it was all festering in my mind and now it’s out. 

SERIOUSLY I SPOIL LIKE EVERYTHING BELOW THE CUT DON’T CLICK IT UNLESS YOU’RE SURE YOU WANT TO SEE IT.

Who put’s mayo on a hotdog?

Oh man hawks didn’t even see it happen nooo. I knew we were opening with Barton family dusting but ouch.

Tony calling Nebula the blue meanie!

Nebula refusing the last of the food and making Tony eat it makes me love her even more. 

Tony somehow keeps his sense of humor even in the face of death. God I love him. I know he’s gonna make it off this ship.

HA, that Internet joke about Carol showing up right after the trailer scene is true. That’s hilarious.

They never explain how Carol knew to look for them, but I’m going to guess she came to earth ala the scene after Captain Marvel and then went back out to see if she could find him.

Or she got REALLY lucky

I’m unclear does Nebula need oxygen and food? Or just significantly less than a full on human? She seems much better off than him.

Steve shaving did we miss seeing the beard one last time by like seconds? rude.

OMG Rocket sitting down and taking Nebula’s hand. The last of their family. Everyone else gone. My heart is aching.

23 days so we’re less than a month past Vanishing Day

Ha Tony calling Rocket Build a Bear is my first genuine laugh this movie.

I honestly was dying on the inside the whole time Tony is losing his shit on Cap. I mean he needed to say it all but seeing how sick he is and falling apart. He rips off his reactor and hands it over then collapses.

My heart.

Rhodey man. “That’s cute, Thanos has a retirement plan.”

Man this is the least planning they’ve ever done before a mission. They’re just gonna pack up, hop in a space ship and go kill Thanos? Cool. Coolcoolcool.

Okay it’s pretty good to see a lot of that trailer stuff is from very early on in the movie.

“Who here hasn’t been to space? You better not throw up on my ship.” XD

How does this big ass planet that can clearly sustain life have no life on it? Just Thanos some birds and some Meiloorun fruit?

That’s a Star Wars reference for those of you who don’t cross fandom lines.

So his snapping arm looks completely borked.

OH SHIT THEY CAME IN SWINGING

FUCK THOR CHOPPED OFF HIS ARM DAMN

ASDFKSAJDOFIUA THE STONES ARE GONE

Wait why is Banner still not Hulking out? How is that suit still running?

Damn he destroyed the stones. He knew they’d come.

DAMN THOR WENT IN HARD.

We are like twenty minutes in and Thanos is dead? I… what?

*crumples up and throws away all predictions she had before going into the movie

FIVE YEARS LATER?!?

FIVE

FIVE YEARS

I should have brought a paper bag to breath into.

Okay there’s the support group. Yup a lot of the footage from trailers and stuff is front loaded at the beginning of this. Which is good, because no clue where this is genuinely going.

Did… did a rat just bring Ant-Man back? A rat?

Shit how long has it been for him?

Oh wait, he’s looking for his people maybe not that long.

P-professor Chang?

Can you imagine how disorienting this all is for Scott? Pops out five years after a tragedy like the snap with no idea what the hell is happening.

My sister literally turned to me and said “no trash service but they built a monument?”

Valid question. Very valid. 

OMG CASSIE IS ALL GROWN UP I CAN’T.

I don’t think he fully realized how much time had passed until he saw his daughter.

“You’re so big” just made me tear up a little.

I just had a baby daughter four months ago. So I’m trying not to imagine what it would be like to vanish along with a bunch of other people and then turn back up five years later.

CAROL’S HAIR.

I’m sorry some of this is probably going to be completely incomprehensible unless you’ve seen the movie it just needs venting.

I am liking that they’re all reporting to Nat. That Rocket and Nebula are clearly teamed up.

OMG rocket made a joke about the haircut and Carol called him Fur Face

In case you didn’t know I have a ridiculous love for Rocket so I’m just glad he’s got a support system right now with almost the entirety of his found family dusted.

Capt. Marvel is basically saying she’s out for most of this movie isn’t she? I guess that makes sense she’s OP as hell.

Rhodey is tracking Clint but reluctantly. Clint’s clearly gone off the deepens a bit. Vigilante. Nat isn’t taking it well. Oh no she’s crying. 

This movie is gonna kill me.

I’m trying to imagine seeing a pod of whales in the Hudson River and I can’t imagine it. 

Okay so I’m guessing Scott’s about to turn up covering another major point from the early trailers. Yes yes yes. This is good.

Nat explaining that the Avengers gave her a family and a life and made her feel like she was a better person. Oh girl. You’ve done enough. It’s okay.

HA THE LOOKS ON THEIR FACES ARE PRICELESS

Scott doesn’t know science. He’s trying so hard. We need the Science Bros. Where are they?

FIVE HOURS

FIVE FUCKING HOURS?

HE WAS IN FOR FIVE HOURS AND LOST FIVE YEARS????

“Scott, I get e-mails from a raccoon so nothing seems crazy anymore.” LFAO

Tony has a daughter I’m dying. It had to be a little girl. 

Wait is he serious about eating crickets on lettuce? He might be this is semi post-apocalyptic.

Tony does not look happy to see them.

YES LET’S PULL A TIME HEIST. Tony isn’t feeling this but I am.

Oh, Scott, honey. Back to the Future? 

Though Tony your protege Peter used movies to make plans all the time. Maybe it’s not that laughable.

Okay I would die for his daughter. “Mommy sent me out here to save you.” Don’t think you were supposed to just say that outloud kiddo but props on a successful mission.

I know Tony too well for this. He’s saying no, because he loves his family. He needs his family. He’s scared to lose his family.

But now this idea is going to itch at the back of his brain aching to be solved.

Come on Tony lets go back to the future and pull off a time heist.

Hulk in glasses and a sweater is was not even on my theory bingo card what is happening. Is this his diner? They had to find him so he’s clearly not working for Nat right now. I have so many questions.

This whole thing with the kids is awkward. 

Come to think of it I have questions about how the infrastructure that is supporting things like cell phone networks is still functioning after the vanishing. Maybe because it’s been five years.

Is Nat flirting with Banner to get him to help?

Tony looking at a picture of Peter he’s got to try.

OH MY GOD HE GOT IT IN ONE EVENING.

EVEN HE LOOKS SURPRISED.

SHIT! 

I’m glad there is laughter in this movie and it’s not entirely heavy. I mean it’s Marvel I should have known.

He calls his daughter Little Miss. And she just extorted a juice pop out of him. I love Dad Tony. 

This is gonna hurt later I just know it. I can feel it in my gut.

“I love you 3000” My heart.

I’m glad that Tony is just going to have a straight up honest conversation with his wife about this.

He’s grown so much.

Oh Pepper, she’s telling him to do it. There’s some unsaid deep communication happening in this conversation. Bless this pair so much. She’s going to let him go and he’s going to go even though his gut his telling him that the road is not going to end well for him.

That’s why he wants to put it in a lock box and drop it to the bottom of a lake.

This is just so damn good so far. No complaints yet.

I kind of love this Hulk. He has no idea what he’s doing here but I love him. He’s like only half taking this seriously.

BAHAHAHA THIS TEST. HE comes back as a baby and Hulk is like “He’ll grow” I mean he’s not wrong but not the right answer buddy.

Another genuinely funny scene. 

“TIME TRAVEL!” With his hulk arms held wide.

Tony is literally speeding in his car there. Cap doesn’t even look that surprised.

Oh this is the Tony and Steve getting back on the same page moment I’ve been waiting for. I love it. I really love it.

HE BROUGHT THE SHIELD.

I love that it was in the trunk buried under kids stuff.

Tony is back and I love it even if I’m scared it’s gonna mean his end.

“Rhodey, careful on reentry theres an idiot in the landing zone.” As if I couldn’t love Nebula more in this movie.

Wait “New Asgard Please Drive Slowly” just threw me for a total loop. Good to know all the Asgardians didn’t actually die in that ship.

VALKYRIE!!!!

She’s like not acknowledging the Raccoon LMFAO

Holy hell what is happening here. Oh man Thor what have you done to yourself.

Actually, I get it. 

Are they playing Fortnite? 

This whole scene is super surreal right now. 

I actually kinda dig it but I did NOT see it coming. This movie has gone places I never would have predicted.

Thor kept strong for so long. He lost so much. He got all the way to the point where he’d done all he could think. He killed Thanos and there was no way to undo all that could be done so he just settled and existed. He drank and played video games with his buddies.

I get it.

Rocket just lured him onto the ship with beer. 

Was good to see Korg and Miek are alive. And there for them in their own ways.

RONIN ALERT.

Oh dude he’s just fucking people up does he even have a bow with him?

Nat waited until there was some way to undo the snap before reaching out to him. She’s just been silently tracking him waiting for a good reason to bring him in. 

In a matter of seconds Tony calls Thor “Lebowski” and Rocket “Ratchet” and I have always lived for his dumbass nicknames. 

Lebowski Thor is officially what I’m referring to this iteration of Thor.

Oh look a classic time travel trope a limit in the number of trips they can make. Makes sense though, Hank Pym was always very protective of how to make the particles so they only have what was made before the Vanishing.

I love the team debating how time travel really works. Listing all the time travel movies. Bill and Ted even snuck into the list. 

Not sure sending Clint back for the test was the best choice this is gonna be rough.

Okay he started to lose it at the end but he made it.

YES brainstorming session this’ll be fun.

Tony’s gentle handling of Thor says a lot. Tony’s been to rock bottom and recognizes the symptoms. At the same time I laughed when he offered breakfast and Thor said no he wanted a Bloody Mary.

ROCKET CALLING SCOTT AN EXCITED PUPPY BAHAHAHA

Nebula is so dramatic I’m here for it. 

Laying all over the desk brainstorming for Nat to finally figure out that there are three stones in one place at one time. This is the content I came for.

TIME HEIST LETS GO.

And just like that its 2012 this is surreal.

LMFAO HULK DOESN’T WANT TO SMASH.

Interesting seeing what the Ancient One was doing during the battle of New York. On a roof defending the sanctum from Chitauri.

OH SHIT SHE JUST PUSHED BANNER’S SOUL OUTA HIS HULK BODY

I didn’t see that coming.

Just a glimpse of Loki. :-(

It was almost cruel to send Thor to Asgard to do this. I mean someone had to go with Rocket, but damn this is tough to watch.

DAMN Rocket smacked him. And also just called Mantis “the chick with the antenna”. Pep talk’s not bad but Thor is crying I don’t think he can do this.

I don’t know why they want to do it that way anyway, Jane would have taken one look at him and known it was the wrong Thor.

Wait… they’re sending Nat and Clint to Vormir… oh God… oh no…

Okay so that’s going to suck in a few minutes lets just put a pin in that.

Nebula you waited a bit to tell Rhodey that there’s another you out there looking for the same infinity stone you’re there to fetch. 

Oh look its like just barely pre-Guardians Gamora, Nebula, and unfortunately Thanos.

I have a bad feeling about this.

OH SHIT I HAVE A VERY BAD FEELING ABOUT THIS.

Turns out two Nebula’s in one place is bad voodoo. She’s seeing video from the other Nebula which means THANOS can see video from the other….

Yeah this is all gonna go bad.

HAHAHA Tony just checked out Steve’s ass. 

AMERICA’S ASS!!!

It’s hard to remember that this shit is going to fall apart when I’m laughing.

Tony just flicked Ant-Man to his target and all I can think about is Gimli an “toss me” from LOTR.

Is Cap about to fuck up a bunch of people in the elevator again?

STEVE YOU SNEAKY BASTARD YOU JUST HAIL HYDRA’D AND STOLE THE SCEPTER.

2012 Time heist is about to hit a hiccup isn’t it. OH MAN they just gave Tony a heart attack.

LOKI NO

I mean yes but no. Loki just nicked the Tesseract and dipped with it. 2012 Loki is just gone.

There’s like timeline repercussions there. Not entirely sure what they are but there will be repercussions.

Cap fighting himself! CAP CHECKING OUT HIS OWN ASS!

Man the Time Heist is so rapid fire there’s too much to absorb.

“I’m totally from the future.” - Lebowski Thor breaking a law of time travel

Thor’s heart to heart with his mom is giving me feels. He needed this.

YES MJOLNIR IS COMING WITH HIM!

Ok it’s never occurred to me how ridiculous Quill would look dancing around without the music. That’s hilarious.

AH SHIT THANOS KNOWS AND HE’S THERE AND THIS IS WHERE IT GOES TO SHIT.

NEBULA </3

It’s so good seeing Steve and Tony back on the same page trusting each other. And clearly completely throwing Scott “Piss-Ant” Lang for a loop. 

I didn’t expect a detour to the 70’s. AAAND that’s his Dad. Tony’s just run into his own father. 

This movie is a roller coaster I’ll tell ya.

This is all mush if you’ve read this far you deserve an award. Or a sticker. One of those.

What a weird decision to have Tony have this whole meet up with his father here. And now Steve is taking refuge in Peggy’s office. Like this is almost mean to do this to these two. 

Why is it the Russo’s never could decide if Steve had gotten over Peggy or not gotten over Peggy. Back and forth and back again. I take it we aren’t going to see the niece at all in this one?

Alright boys lets get the hell out of the 70s this felt like a weird trip without the drugs.

Damn Nebula why is past you such a bitch when I love present you so much. I know I know that’s because you grew and what not but shit I don’t know what you and Thanos are about to do but it’s about to suck.

FUCK I FORGOT ABOUT VORMIR BECAUSE THERE WAS SO MUCH GOING ON

I’m not ready for this. I’m not ready for this. I don’t want either of them to die. This sucks. No No no no onoanfnaondaksldfj;lasdkja;

God we’re going to have to literally watch them fight over which one is going to sacrifice themself.

Here it is, I’m crying now. Me and Barton are just going to cry here in this puddle if you need us. 

They’re all back, except Nat. Which means that’s the wrong damn Nebula and no one notices because NO NAT. Shit. Shit shit.

This movie is going to give me a heart attack.

“Did she have any family?” “Yeah. Us.” :’-(

Okay Thanos like fucked up a whole mining community and shut down a star afterwards to forge a gauntlet to put the stones in and here’s Tony Stark plopping them into like an Iron Man armor piece like its nothing.

Looks sleek too. I dig it.

And they’re all too busy with the glove to notice fucking Nebula. SHIT. 

Man it’s hurting Hulk just to WEAR the damn thing. Thanos was just strolling around wearing it, which doesn’t bode well considering I see Nebula is bringing Thanos here. 

Cool. That’s cool. This is fine. 

How long of a moment of joy are they going to get. Clint’s wife is calling. Birds are singing. Shit is inches from a fan.

THERE’S THE SHIT. HOLY SHIT HE’S BLOWING AVENGERS HQ COMPLETELY OFF THE MAP NOOOOOOO

There’s like a whole hour left. Tell me they all survived that. I was not ready. I WAS NOT READY.

Oh here’s that shot of Hawkeye in the tunnel. Much later in the movie than a lot of those trailer shots. Fascinating. 

So 2014 Thanos is here with his whole crew and there’s a complete gauntlet here. Shit.

Well, they’re all alive. They’re not together entirely but they’re all alive.

Double wielding dad bod Thor just braided his beard with lightning and I’m here for it.

The stakes are at maximum. Now Thanos wants to destroy it all not just half. So failure here can never be undone there won’t be anyone to Avenge anything if he gets the gauntlet this time. That’s not terrifying at all.

Fuck that’s the wrong Nebula. BUT THERE’S THE RIGHT NEBULA WITH GAMORA.

Clint is like in the middle of this stand off like “wtf is happening I should have kept my hands on the glove”

Nebula just killed her own past self. And she didn’t vanish so no Back to the Future rules here for sure.

Damn Thanos is giving the boys a run for their money even without a single stone. 

Shit is Thor gonna die?

HOLY SHIT CAP HAS THE HAMMER AND THE THEATER JUST MIGHT EXPLODE FROM THE SOUNDS OF THE AUDIENCE SCREAMING ABOUT THIS.

Damnit Thanos is calling in the whole army. Cap is like the last one standing on the front line and he’s not backing down because he’s Captain “America’s Ass” America. Thor is down Iron Man is down. The others are trying not to drown. Shit.

OMG ON YOUR LEFT I JUST MIGHT CRY.

HOLY SHIT ITS EVERYONE I’M CRYING. 

PEPPER FUCKING POTTS IS HERE AS RESCUE HOLY SHIT.

TALK ABOUT THE CALVARY RIDING IN AT THE LAST POSSIBLE SECOND HOLY HELL.

HE’S GONNA FUCKING SAY IT

AVENGERS ASSEMBLE!

It’s a good thing they sound proof these theaters now or you’d hear this across town the audience is going fucking nuts.

There’s too much to touch on all this chaos I’ll hit the highlights because it’s so much.

Pepper and Tony fighting back to back.

Thor and Steve switching weapons, Thor telling him to keep “the little one” aka Mjolnir.

Tony and Peter reuniting and the hug.

Quill seeing Gamora and it’s the wrong Gamora and actually that broke my heart a little bit because his Gamora is gone forever.

Playing hot potato with the gauntlet.

Scarlet Witch fucking Thanos up to the point he panics and starts firing on his own troops to get her off of him.

Spider getting the gauntlet and for the first time ever activating instant kill on purpose.

Peter becoming the hot potato along with the Gauntlet.

OMG ROCKET FOUND GROOT AND HE’S BODILY BLOCKING HIM FROM FIRE MY HEART.

When the ships started firing up my sister elbowed me and legit was like “She’s here.” 

All the women assembling around Captain Marvel!! Even Gamora is with them holy shit!

Damn it the glove is back within his reach and I can’t with this. 

GET HIM CAROL DON’T LET HIM DO IT AGAIN.

She took a headbutt to the face like it was nothing and he panicked like a bitch pulled the power stone and punched her with it. 

OH MY GOD TONY

My sister silently handed me a tissue and I fell the fuck apart.

I never thought in a million years they would have it go this way. Tony snapping. Dusting Thanos and his army. 

I can’t even comment more on this scene I’m too sad. Everything after is too sad. The funeral.

There are infinity stone colored stones in the “proof that Tony Stark has a heart” setting. 

I love you 3000 Tony Stark.

Thor leaving Valkyrie in charge and heading off with the Guardians.

Quill clearly looking for new old Gamora. I doubt she was dusted so she must have just faded away after the battle to do her own thing.

Glad that Nebula is with them though.

I feel a loose beginning set up for the actual Asgardians of the Galaxy.

Bucky said goodbye to Cap like he knew Cap wasn’t going to be back with them in five seconds. He knew.

We’re lucky he didn’t come back as a baby though. ;-)

I mean I’m surprised they went this route with Cap but I’m happy for him.

I’m happy for Sam too. We knew at the end of this the mantel had to get passed and here it is, old man Steve passing the shield to Sam.

I bet that show about “Falcon” and Bucky is really about the new Captain America and Bucky. Just saying.

Steggy shippers rejoice and the cries of a million Stony and Stucky shippers can be heard round the world.

Is that a sentence I just wrote? I never got into MCU shipping stuff personally.

And then all there is at the end is the distant sound of Tony forging that first armor.

A reminder that Tony Stark built all this in a cave.

From a box of scraps.

TONY….

I’ll be mourning Tony for a long while. I was always team Tony.

They did him right tough. His arc was satisfying and RDJ performed beautifully in this one.

My heart aches. They had to give him a daughter. I’m watching my daughter sleep totally not thinking what it would be like for her to lose her father. 

I’m gonna go hug my partner when I’m done with this.

Over all I am happy with Endgame. I mean with time travel they obviously left loose ends all over.

They say they can’t change time and the whole present becoming your past when you go back while the past is your future blah blah blah

But like clearly things are changed. 2012 Loki got the tesseract and escaped

2014 Thanos is no longer in 2014. So the Guardians movies happened but also couldn’t have happened? I dunno it’s confusing.

So basically the MCU has finally caught up with it’s comic book roots of being a confusing jumble timelines. How poetic.

Anyway if you read this you are amazing and feel free to private message me if you want to scream about Avengers Endgame and have no one else to do it with.

I feel better having vented this all out.

[runningwolf62]

SURPRISE IT’S UPDATE TIME! It’s so bizarre being writing this at the same time Larry is because there’s like this weird overlap, we’re like ships passing in the night he’s finally caught up to my time and now is about to pass me.

Anyway, there’s some lovely art in here and a reference to a blog that actually exists, @ask-potoo-firestar. Art belongs to @lavendersongs, thank you for your amazing contribution to the Warrior Cats fandom and for giving me permission to include references to it in this fanfic.

Beep.

Larry curls up deeper under his blankets.

Beep.

He covers his head with his pillow.

Beep.

Fine, he’ll crawl out of his nest and see what had happened, maybe Nick was in trouble again, that Godot guy seemed to have a grudge against him for something.

u ok?

Only Nick texts like that.

haven’t seen u in few days

u alive?

Larry almost fires something back before thinking better of it, Nick had far too many people around him die to joke about that.

Yeah I’m fine, and you usually don’t see me for awhile.

yeah but u had a rough time

Larry hesitates before deciding to just call Nick. The phone rings a few times before Nick answers.

“Hey Larry,” he greets him, Larry can hear voices in the background, he thinks one is Maya, the other is young and high so probably Pearl.

“Hey Nick,” Larry runs a hand over his jaw, aw gross he’d ended up with that scraggly beard, he never looked good with that, he needed to go shave, “you in a crisis?”

“No?” Nick has the gall to sound offended, “I do not only call you during crisises!”

“Mmm might wanna check you phone bill there Nicky Boy,” Larry teases him, his voice is rough, he should haul himself out of bed and start putting himself back together.

“You want to talk about having a crisis you sound like you’ve been on a bender,” Nick fires back, Larry frowned and groused at him.

“Don’t be an ass Nick, I’ve been taking a week off, chilling and relaxing before I remake myself! You called while I’m still in the cocoon man!”

“That metaphor started strong but you took it somewhere very weird,” Nick replies, Larry laughs roughly.

“Alright, alright, you’re the one who texted me,” Larry points out, wrapping his blanket around him like a cloak to hide his shame from the world and stay warm from the chillier October day. He crossed to his laptop to open his resume, he’d need to update it and he might as well do that while chatting with Nick rather than sit around feeling shitty about it.

He chats with Nick, and Maya and Pearl when they demand a chance to chat with him. He interrogate Nick, or tries, but he doesn’t know what’s up with Godot either, other than he’s got one hell of a caffeine addiction, came out of nowhere and claims to be from hell.

Given half the stories Larry’s heard about Nick’s cases he’s tempted to believe it.

“Maybe you ought to have an exorcism performed,” he teases, he’s on speaker phone now and he’s sure they can hear him typing away as he adds his latest job to the long master list of jobs he’s held, “Maya, Pearl, can you do that?”

“I’d have to exorcise the entire Prosocution’s office!” Maya bemoans, Larry grins as she outlines everything she’d need to do to Nick.

“Maybe you should, it sounds like it has a few too many demons over there even before this guy,” Larry muses, saving his resume and opening Fanfiction.net. His stomach drops and his jokes trail off. There’s several messages from XxWolfDragonxX. Shit, he’d just dropped off the map after talking to the guy daily.

He immediately types a response, assuring the guy some stuff just came up, he got fired from work, etc. but he’s doing alright. He misses a question Nick asked him until he repeats his name.

“Larry.”

“Sorry, what?” He tosses the message to WolfDragon off, his friend is probably off work it’s well after six for him.

“I asked what were you typing?”

Larry glances at his messages and then at his minimized programs. “My resume.”

He refreshed FF.net and got a message from WolfDragon.

Man it’s fine, life happens! It’s just good to hear from you again. I’m sorry for all the shit that keeps happening to you.

Again I’m so sorry, and yeah, it’s just been that kind of year.

Do you have a discord? I have something to show you but I don’t think ff.net will send it.

Oh? Uh yeah actually, one second let me find my ID number.

It takes him longer than he should be tosses the information to Wolfdragon. After a moment he gets a friend request on Discord, from a XxWolfDrgonxX surprising absolutely no one. The avatar is a gray anime wolf with yellow eyes snarling, which also doesn’t surprise Larry though he wonders where it’s from.

However he’s still on the phone with Nick, so he accepts it and turns away from the computer, “so what are you all up to asides from calling me?�� He hears Pearl giggle and Maya’s voice in the background, they’re moving away, “how are they Nick?”

“They’re good,” Nick sounds happy and Larry can’t help but hurt even as he’s happy for him.

“We’re probably going to do a few things today before they have to head back,” Nick’s chair creaks audibly, “do you have plans for Halloween?”

“Uh, not really?”

“Do you want to come over to the office and hand out candy with me?”

“People come to your office for candy?”

“Surprisingly yes,” Nick sounds equally baffled by this fact, “so, are you in?”

“Do you want me to bring anything?” Larry asks, glancing at his Discord occasionally, where he can see WolfDragon typing. “Beer, Soda, popcorn and terrible horror movies?”

“Popcorn and let’s go with lighthearted movies,” Nick suggests, and Larry wonders if Pearl will be there. He’ll bring soda then, just in case. That or Nick’s gotten to be more of a scaredy-cat since their last Halloween movie festival.

“Have you seen that one cartoon thing that everyone raves about?” Larry’s seen so much art for it for Inktober so he needs to actually sit down and watch the show obviously is what that means.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Okay, I’ll find it, it’s some kids show but everyone who’s seen it loved it,” Larry sends a quick message to WolfDragon while Nick talks.

You sure are dedicated to your brand.

It’s who I am

Furry.

WHAT IN GOD’S NAME IS THAT?!?

That’s Potoo Firestar you fool

I want to hate it but I’m laughing too hard, it’s amazing.

“Larry are you okay?” Nick asks, and Larry can’t answer, he’s wheezing at the damn Potoo Firestar, he cannot believe WolfDragon got his discord just to send him this, and that it’s somehow made him feel so much better.

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine,” he wheezes, and clicks the link that WolfDragon sends him to this person’s blog, “just saw something funny.”

He hops off the phone with Nick promising to see him on Halloween and bring candy and popcorn and the cartoon he’s seen everyone drawing if he could just remember the name.

He spends the next hour teasing WolfDragon on Discord for his avatar and username, all the while scrolling through this blog, which WolfDragon has dubbed “the only pure Warrior Cats blog”.

It doesn’t take long for him to agree though he does have a few questions.

So I miss all the discourse but I also miss blogs like this?

Listen man, some people are still stuck in the can cats be gay discourse?

Seriously?

Yeah, like sure the Erins just made a mistake making some tortoiseshell cats toms. OR they made several trans icons.

I can’t believe Tigerstar was transphobic.

Firestar made the first call out post

“OP is literally a Transphobe and murderer but go off I guess.”

Scourge: *goes the fuck off *

Listen, he wear dog teeth on his collar he can do what he likes, I’m not gonna be the guy to try and stop him.

Oh you do know they made Scourge and Firestar half-brothers right?

THEY WHAT

Yeah they have the same Dad

Oh shit I’d heard that theory but I thought it was just a fan theory

Nah they confirmed it. Also Tallstar was super gay for him

Like canonly gay or the fandom has shipping goggles glued on

Like so canonly gay that the publisher calls them good friends

What?

One of the authors says Tallstar’s heart always belonged to his Jake, but the publishers say they’re just good friends

What’s better than this, guys being dudes.

You’d probably like Tallstar’s Revenge actually, there’s a lot of your fic in it

Seriously?

Yeah man, like leaving the Clans to discover yourself the themes of forgiveness and parents and family there’s a lot of good stuff in there

I guess I’ll have to read it then.

Yeah, that blog I linked you even did fanart of Jake and Tallstar

Oh my god.

Did you find it?

Not yet, but I’m looking.

FOUND IT!

THAT’S IT

Okay that is gay.

Much like my fic.

Now I gotta man.

He did just lose his job but Larry’s got some money saved from his last paycheck and the commissions. What the hell. He makes a note to buy Tallstar’s Revenge next time he’s at the book store, and gets up.

Thanks for this.

Of course!

Is this the best way to contact you, or should I howl out the window?

Haha

FF.net or Discord works I’ll probably review your fics on FF.net still but we can chat here

Larry grins and tells him he hopes he has a good evening. He needs to clean himself up and try and rejoin society.

He showers, shaves, and pulls himself together. He also draws Wolf as a Potoo and sends that back to WolfDragon which is obviously loved, if the fact he turns his avatar into it was any indication.

-

Larry spends Halloween crashing on Nick’s couch, Maya and Nick fighting over candy while he snags some and occasionally slips a piece or two to Pearl. The kid’s clever and smiles shyly at him every time he does so.

They do settle down to watch the cartoon though Maya grumbles at points about how she wanted to watch the Steel Samurai Halloween Special.

They enjoy Over the Garden Wall though, even if it sends the girls diving to hide behind Nick at one point from the Beast. He lets Nick comfort, while he cleans up some of the trash into the popcorn bowl which he sets to the side, making sure it will not be grabbed by mistake by someone hurrying to give candy to trick-or-treaters.

He’s honestly astonished at the number that turn up at the office, until Nick says he thinks Mia used to hand the candy out, which makes sense. It’s tradition now. And Nick must’ve gotten paid because he’s got the good candy and he’s letting kids take handfuls.

He doesn’t touch that stuff only the bag Nick bought for them to share and the stuff he traded Pearl for because she didn’t like nuts in her candy. Said they got stuck in her teeth which Larry felt was a valid reason to not like them.

He tells himself that means they have protein as he pops a handful in his mouth. While Nick’s busy with some teens at the door and Maya’s tucking Pearl in on the couch he sends a message to WolfDragon.

Happy Halloween.

Technically it’s November, and I didn’t grow up in America

Spoilsport.

WHY ARE YOU AWAKE?

Work

Work can suck my dick, it’s what- oh

It’s six in the morning

You’re going to work

Yup

Listen, I don’t need your sass

It’s not sass I just woke up Writer boy

Don’t you sass Wolfman

Tell me you at least watched terrible werewolf movies in my honor

I did not.

Watched kids cartoons instead.

Warrior Cats Authors

There was an actual child in the room!

Ah what’s being introduced to fear at a young age?

Trauma I believe, and the kid’s had enough of that

You’re a good guy you know that, don’t let people tell you otherwise

“Texting a girlfriend?” Maya’s teasing voice made him jump, she wasn’t peering over his shoulder yet but she might’ve been. She might’ve seen the teasing and… no, she was looking at his face.

“Nah, just a friend,” he shoves his phone back into his pocket, she and Nick are both staring at him intensely now, he’s not sure why but they are.

He swears he sees Nick counting to three but he’s not sure why that happens either. He and Maya share a look, and Larry feels himself tense more.

He looks to Nick, whose eyes pierce him as he looks at Larry, “I thought you said you were taking a break from dating.”

“I am!” Larry insists, careful to keep his voice low, glancing to Pearl because however much they want to interrogate him he knows they’ll kill him if he wakes her.

Nick and Maya look confused again but it’s not his fault they can’t accept that he’s just friends with some people. He’s not even into guys anyway!

He shakes his head and grins at them, “glad to hear you think I have that much game though Nick.”

Maya smothers a laugh, while the edge flows out of Nick’s eyes and a smile takes its place, “you keep getting girls to date you somehow.”

“It’s that I have an artist’s soul,” Larry pulls himself up and rests his hand over his chest, grinning at the two of them.

“I went to art school too you know,” Nick points out, relaxing and smiling.

“And who taught you all those tricks for backgrounds?” Larry fires back, he’s always been the better artist for backgrounds and forms, Nick just had more practice with human anatomy. Nick huffs and shakes his head.

“I showed you how to draw men’s jawlines, ‘cause you only paid attention when the model was female-”

“Nick I’ve accepted my heterosexuality and horndog ways will be my downfall,” he fires back which obviously takes his friend by surprise, Maya too, “hey, I can have some self-awareness you know.” He glances over at Maya, “Nick, Edgey and I are allowed the common sense of one person but we have to share and Edgey came back and took it all from Nick.”

“Excuse me?” Nick looks so genuinely offended and Larry laughs, shoulders shaking.

“You took some back, TSA wouldn’t let him take it all with him.”

Maya’s grinning and apparently not taking sides as he and Nick begin to playfully jab at each other about who has more common sense, and it’s nice to be able to talk about Edgey again without Nick’s anger, to have him laugh as he talks and recounts stories from elementary school to Maya is worth the few bits of his dirty laundry that Nick airs.

They end up on the other couch, Maya curled up on Nick’s one side, Larry on the other; with jackets draped over themselves as make shift blankets.

“Larry?”

“Yeah Nick?”

“Who were you texting earlier,” Nick’s not judgmental now but he is obviously curious, maybe hoping that in his exhaustion Larry will let something slip.

And he does.

“He’s a guy I met online, we talk about like books and stuff. You wouldn’t understand, you nerdy lawyer.”

Nick laughs softly as Larry slumps against him, “that so?”

“It is,” Larry lays his head back against Nick’s shoulder, “very so.”

-

They wake up in various states of aching and trying to hide it, all of them trying to deny they’re getting old while Pearl buzzes around the office. Larry wonders briefly if she’s gotten into the Halloween candy for breakfast.

He checks his phone and there’s a few messages from WolfDragon.

You still there?

Don’t eat too much candy, aren’t you doing NaNoWriMo this year?

Larry only barely manages not to curse in front of Pearl as he realizes that he’s going to have to write his first 1667 words with one hell of a crick in his neck.

[astoldbyacertifiedunicorn]

Santa Baby

SURPRISE! this is a not so great, SUPER SMUTTY (don't come complaining after) fic I wrote thanks to @japril12 and @doctorkepner <3 MERRY CHRISTMAS :) This is AU, based around season...9? :)

disclaimer: I don't own this stupid show aka grey's anatomy.

"We need a Santa." Arizona chirped, walking into the ER as the residents packed around the nurse's table, groaning into their coffees. No one wanted to be here during Christmas week, but Jackson had decided to take Christmas off after spending last year getting stalked by three girls who'd injured their feet ice skating. Apparently, the injury didn't make them immobile enough to not follow him down every hallway.

"I think you're supposed to be looking for him in the North Pole. I hear he's got a sweet gig there, working once a year." Alex said, rolling his eyes, and stopping halfway through when he saw Arizona's menacing frown.

"I'm serious. We always have someone dressed as Santa, go around the paediatric unit to give the sick kids presents. It's tradition. They're counting on it." Arizona replies, dipping her hand into the bowl of peppermint canes.

"I did it last year so I'm out. This kid Thomas wanted a nerf gun for Christmas and I promised him he could get one. He went around the hospital drenching all the nurses, and they took it out on me. I didn't get a good case for a week." Alex says, shaking his head at the memory, "Avery, it's your turn."

"Uh no thank you. Plus, I don't think I trust all the parents here to be fine with Black Santa. It might be a little too soon, especially for Jen and Peter who insisted I rid my hands of the devil spirit before I touched their daughter." He grimaced, recalling that particularly disturbing turn of events. The pledge he'd taken to cure everyone wasn't always working in his favour.

"That's not the problem. Mark said he'd do it, but we don't have a costume. We waited too long and now all the stores have run out of them." Arizona pouted, sticking the candy in her mouth.

"Hm, maybe they're all jewish!" Alex exclaimed, earning a chuckle from Jackson and scorn from Arizona.

"Got one!"

They all looked up to see a heavily pregnant Meredith waddling towards them, carrying a plastic bag.

"Oh yay! I am so happy. Good job!" Arizona praised, claping her hands in glee.

"You might not want to praise me yet. They were all out of santa ones, and the only ones they had left were Mrs. Claus." She said, shrugging her shoulders.

"Oh, well… that's something!"

"Nobody wants Mrs.Claus to come deliver them presents. That's like discount Santa." Alex muttered.

"Sexist much?," Jackson asked, working his way through his 3rd candy cane, "Mrs.Claus is just as cool. She probably does half the work, let's be real."

"True." Meredith nodded. "Plus, the kids only care about the presents anyway."

"Fine, okay, well…. Who's gonna do it?" Arizona asked, staring at Meredith.

"Uh, excuse you, my bump rarely fits into maternity clothing." She scoffed.

"Well, I can't wear it. They all know me, it takes away the magic." Arizona said, and slyly turned her gaze on Cristina.

Cristina turned her attention towards the group, having steadily ignored them all along while flipping through a medical journal, "Funny. First of all, I hate happy children. Second of all, I'm with Avery on this. These parents aren't ready for Santa's Korean wife who only says ho ho ho when she is talking about Meredith over there."

Meredith laughed, and Jackson wondered that the whole idea of twisted sisters was becoming more and more clear to him.

"Fine! Then who on earth am I going to find who is willing to do this?!"

"Hi guys. Sorry I'm late. I was up the whole night baking gluten free, vegan cupcakes for all my patients. I can't use rich ingredients because of their bowel movements, you know."

Jackson looked at her and smirked. She was too adorable. Just adorable enough to actually do this. And he didn't seem to be the only one who was thinking that, because looking around he noticed that all eyes were on her.

"Uh…. guys?"

Mrs.Claus it was.

"Um, are you sure this is a Mrs.Claus outfit?" April called out from inside the bathroom.

They were all sitting in the attendings lounge having their lunch, while she went into the bathroom and tried the costume.

"Yes, April. It says so on the label." Meredith yelled back.

"Ergh, okay." She made a frustrating sound and Jackson pondered for a second why she was being fussy. He thought about her a lot lately. They've been having this… thing. He didn't know what to call it. A few drinks later on his birthday back in August and his face was buried between her legs and she'd touched him in ways he never knew was possible. And then that happened a few more times after that, and a few more.

"Kepner, come out, we have to go!" Arizona said, tapping on the door.

"Oh, okay. Just…. Um, okay."

They all shifted their attention to the door, which slightly opened ajar, and saw a small redhead peek from it.

"Ho, ho, ho Kepner."

Mark's wolf whistle behind him barely brought him to his senses.

Hot damn. This was wrong. This was so so wrong, but fuck him if it wasn't so right. She stepped out in a thick red satin dress, off the shoulders with a short flowy skirt. It was short, and wildly inappropriate. There was fur lining the edges of the skirt and her wrists and the line along her shoulders. She'd worn a Santa hat on top and black boots.

Well, fuck.

"Nice, April." Arizona said, "You look great. Okay now let's go."

April walked off, shooting him an uncomfortable smile and pulling on her skirt.

They looked out the window as she approached the first room, smiling and walking in, and he watched the little kid's face beam.

"We all agree that we have realised our Mrs. Claus fantasies for the first time, right?" Mark asked, his eyes gleaming.

"Dude, no." Jackson chastised, shooting him a disgusted look.

"I wonder how many 16 year olds are going to experience their first ever boner in this hospital today." Alex chirped in, as he chuckled under his breath.

"Seriously, I am going to sock you in the face." Jackson muttered, aggressively eating his carrot stick.

"What you don't think she looks good?" Alex asked.

"Of-of course she does!" He exclaimed, sneaking in a peek. Truth is, she looked so good that all he wanted to do was rip that dress and unwrap her like a present, before gulfing her down. He could practically feel himself growing at the thought, and now he was thinking about how much of a teenager that made him.

"This is just so wrong dude. It's a children's fantasy character that we are sexualising." He groaned, when she bent slightly to give the 2 year old cleft pallet patient he had that morning a hug. If there was a hell, he was going to be first in line.

"Uh, there's a sexy minions costume. I think we're beyond that." Mark commented, "It's just… so…."

"So what?" Lexie asked, plopping down on the seat next to Mark.

"Kepner as Mrs.Claus." Mark said.

"Oh, yes. I think I was mesmerised for like a good 10 minutes. I just stood there and stared." Lexie shrugged, and Mark's face lit up.

"Ew no, you're disgusting," Lexie said, sensing what his glee might be about, "But… I don't necessarily blame you."

"That's my girl." He said, leaning forward and earning a kiss from her.

"Can we please stop talking about my…April… like that." Jackson said, clearing his throat at the slight slip.

His colleagues stared back at him with their brows raised.

"Your April?" Meredith asked, a heavy grin to her voice, that could have been because she had walked in on them during her 'drunken' baby shower last Thursday, where everyone had to drink themselves senseless because she couldn't, and had caught them in a very compromising position. Let's just say, Meredith realised there's more than one thing April does on her knees.

"Shut up." Jackson muttered, turning his attention back to April. Bad bad idea.

"Hey, Avery."

Jackson tore his gaze away to glance at Alex, "Yeah?"

"You might wanna look away before you tear through those pants."

The room burst into laughter, and Jackson scorned. He wasn't about to tell Alex he wasn't wrong.

Jackson heard Christmas music the moment he entered the apartment and smiled to himself. Although Alex was pretty much the Grinch's human cousin and he himself was an enthusiastic bystander only willing to participate because no one could beat April's mince pies, April alone had turned their apartment into what looked like Santa Claus's vacation home. It was so…. much. Well, if she liked it. Plus he did like the advantage of using the mistletoes that were lying around the house.

He walked into the kitchen to find her bending over the oven, pulling out what looked like Christmas cookies. She still hadn't taken the costume off and he realised now just how short that dress really was. He could see the edges of the red lace panties she'd worn underneath, her butt peeking through, from the fact that it was one size too small. This costume was something else.

"Hey, I was wondering when you'd get home." April smiled, when she saw him and he realised he had slightly drifted off into his dirty fantasies.

"I finished all my post ops," He smirked, knowing she had caught him staring at her ass. It happened a lot more than he would care to admit. No that's a lie. He had no trouble admitting it. "Alex isn't coming home today."

She grins, knowing exactly what he's insinuating from that.

"Hm. Good to know." She shrugs, stepping towards the counter, "I was baking cookies."

April runs her fingertips on the edges of the bowl, and slowly dips her finger into the batter, coating her finger with the mixture. She brings it up to her lips, and with her eyes fixated on his, she opens her lips, slowly sticking the finger inside her mouth and dragging it out as slowly as she can.

His eyes widened, and he subconsciously licked his lips, entranced by her actions.

She beckoned him forward, and he stepped towards her, watching as she dipped her finger in the batter once more.

"I'm not sure if it tastes good. Can you try?" She asks, innocently batting her lashes.

He nods, leaning forward to take her finger into his mouth, when she moves it away and smears it across her chest, the chocolate getting caught to the ends of the furs lining her dress.

"Go on." She urges him, and he is shocked to say the least. April is by no means innocent, but she was never usually this much of a tease. Maybe it was the costume.

He leans forward darting his tongue across her chest, and groans when he hears a strangled moan escape from between her lips. He licks the skin, taking the batter completely off, and faces her again to find her flushed. He grins. He hadn't even touched anything particularly sensitive yet.

"You like?" She asks, her bottom lip caught between her teeth.

"I love." He says, not knowing what he meant when said that.

She smiles.

"You know when I was in high school, my friend Brianna's older sister taught us this dance routine for Santa Baby, but they didn't let us do it at the talent show," She says this while taking his hand and leading him towards his bedroom, opening the door and ushering him inside, "Apparently it was too suggestive. Maybe you'd like to be the judge of that?"

She pushes him back roughly on the bed, and he can't do much except be the witness to whatever it is that was happening to him. He had never been this ready for anything ever. She walks to the turntable he bought her a couple of months ago, and lowers the stick, letting the song play into the room.

Santa baby, slip a sable under the tree for me Been an awful good girl Santa baby, and hurry down the chimney tonight

No matter how prepared Jackson thought he was to see April Kepner strip dance to Santa Baby, he had no idea how to deal with it when it actually happened. She was intoxicating. The way she moved her hips, slow and soft and so elegant. Her arms moving across her body so seductively and the way her long, creamy legs moved, almost as if they were floating on air. She was breath taking and devastatingly sexy. Oh she was going to be consumed tonight. He would live and breathe April Kepner. No wonder they were almost suspended for this. He needed to find whoever Brianna's sister was and send her a care package thanking her for this gift.

When she turned around, and bent over and wiggled her butt in his face, well then, he wasn't responsible for his actions after that. The tight rip of the clothing is all they heard.

"Jackson! Did you… did you rip through your boxers?"

He looked at her cheekily, "It was an old pair. They were tight, I swear, I shrunk them in the washer."

She laughs loudly, her head thrown back, and he mimics her expression. She had the most beautiful laugh.

He falls back on the bed, dragging her with him. She giggles, placing her legs on either side of his torso, and running her hands up his chest, slowly unbuttoning his shirt. He grins, palming her ass and watching her dainty fingers meticulously work. He waits patiently until she slips the last button off, and pulls himself up slightly, so she can push the shirt off his body.

"I'm gonna try something different, okay?" He asks, because he's been wanting to do this for a while now, but she's still new to the whole thing so he didn't want to scare her.

She looked unsure for just a second, her fingers absently scratching his facial hair, but eventually she nodded, smiling brightly after a while, "Okay."

He grinned,"Turn around."

She furrowed her brow for a second, but obeyed him, turning around, her back facing his front. He lay back down again, fully horizontal, and put his hands firmly on her waist, slowly pulling her towards his face.

"Eh Jacks- Oh. Shit."

He chuckles, as much as he can considering the fact that his mouth was placed on her core, already exploring with his tongue.

"You like that?" He mumbles against his, his lips finding her clit, and slowly sucking it into his mouth.

"Uh huh, baby, oh God, baby." She cried out, possibly a little shocked at the new angle, and the nerves he was able to touch when his tongue was buried deep inside her with his nose rubbing up against her opening.

But he was smiling at the fact that she called him baby. They weren't really together yet, so she hadn't really used terms of endearment around him. This was her first time. Something about that turned him on more than anything else.

She fell forward slightly when he stuck his tongue inside her, slowly pushing in and pulling out in a steady rhythm.

"Just… yes, like that. Just like that." She moans, holding on to his thighs, leaning her face against his stomach.

Just when he thought it couldn't get sexier, he felt her small hands on him, holding on to his length, rubbing up and down.

"Baby, you don't-" He was going to tell her he'd wait his turn, because he had no idea that 69ing was something April knew how to do but all he got as a reply was her tongue flicking the head.

"Fuck, baby girl." He inhaled through his teeth, fingers digging into her hips as she rubbed herself on his face, silently letting him know that he should continue. He wasn't one to deny.

He felt her lick him, from the base to the tip, one long lick after the other. Her thumb traced the tip, and he could feel her taking the pre come on to her thumb. She turned her face slowly, pulling her core away from his face for just a moment to lock her eyes with his, before she sticks her thumb into her mouth.

"Mm… delicious." She smirks, and before he can have an aneurysm thinking about what he just witnessed, she lowers her core back down and places her mouth on him, taking as much as of him as she could, which was a surprising considering everything.

So that's what she meant when she called him delicious.

He concentrated on the feeling of her head bobbing up and down his length, while her fingers toyed with his balls, and tried very very hard not to come two minutes into it.

"Uh, Jackson, I am going to be- I will- on your face" She breathed heavily, her voice rising higher and higher as he delved his tongue deeper into her.

"Wouldn't have it any other way baby." He replied, grinning against her.

She laughed breathlessly, "Well then… I'll keep my mouth right here until you're all done."

And if that wasn't it to end him, she carelessly grazed her teeth down his length, careful not to bite, and that was his undoing.

While her hips throbbed erratically against him, his tongue lapping at her core faster, he felt her swallow every last bit of him.

Exhausted she flopped on top of him, her face on his upper thigh, her breath blowing against his now soft member. He opened his eyes, heart beat thumping heavily on his chest, as he eyed her pink, swollen clit, smiling at how adorable every single inch of April was. Even down here.

"Jackson….. I know I haven't really had sex, but that is some of the best sex of my life." She sighed, not bothering to move just yet.

"You will. Have real sex, I mean. Soon." He replies.

"Today?" She asks, craning her neck to look at him.

He laughs, "So enthusiastic, but no. You need the works for your first time. A date, flowers, candles, the works."

"Yeah?" She asks, and he can hear the smile in her voice.

"Yes."

There's a beat of silence before April sighs, "I can't feel my legs. I might have to stay here for like… forever."

Chuckling, he shrugs, "I mean I have a great view so…"

"Jackson!" She yells turning her hand behind to swat at his chest.

She waits for a second, and he can tell what's coming.

"Wanna go again?" She asks, well, gasps more like, before his mouth is already on her.

"What are you waiting for?"

THANK YOU FOR READING!

p.s: the title is the song Santa Baby by Earth Kitt. It is S U C H a disturbingly sexy song, I swear.

[dotshiiki]

remember that old GA AU?

In honour of the new season of Grey’s (season 14, seriously?), I thought I’d dust it off and continue the ‘episode’ (posted here). 

Like before, surgicalintern!Annabeth, surfer/patient!Percy, and douchebag-attending!Luke--now with a side of intern!Piper, Sally, and cameos from Hazel, Frank, and Will. The total rip-off of the pilot episode of Grey’s Anatomy continues ... (Also, please don’t squint too hard at the medical stuff. I have zero medical training. Everything comes from the show and my adaptations are probably crap.)

(Still rated T for swearing.)

She watches Percy Jackson's surgery from the gallery.

It's a twelve-hour surgery and she has to keep popping in and out because she's on labs today, but she catches enough of it to see that the nerve repair is going well (of course—smug bastard though he is, Dr Castellan is good at what he does) and the prognosis for Percy is good.

Annabeth gets to be the one to tell his family when it's over. She picks out Sally Jackson right away—a brown-haired woman with tired lines and a worried expression on her face, whose tense, unsettled position on the edge of the hospital chair instantly gives her away as a woman whose loved one is under the knife.

Annabeth is willing to bet she spent the night in that chair, worrying over her son.

She recognises the sweet-looking girl with caramel-coloured curls as the third passenger in the car crash, the one who's ostensibly Percy's friend's girl. She has a vague recollection of Piper leading her out of the ER while they treated Percy and Sally … or maybe it was Frank. There's nothing outwardly objectionable about Callie's rosy cheeks, or her pouty mouth, or her button nose that wrinkles in a way that can only be described as cute.

Annabeth dislikes her anyway.

She tells herself it's because girls like that have always been the bane of her existence—all sugary sweet and bursting with the security of being unconditionally and unmistakably loved. She thinks her dad has two new daughters like that (not that Annabeth's bothered to keep in touch with him or the new family he made after he walked out on her and Mom).

But personal feelings have no place in the practice of medicine.

Still, she addresses herself exclusively to Sally Jackson when she explains the surgery and how it went. The woman is Percy's actual relative, after all. (Best-friend's-girlfriend doesn't legally count, whatever crush Percy might nurture for the girl.)

Oh god, is she seriously jealous of Callie? This has to end now.

'He's okay?' Sally looks ready to cry. 'He'll be fine?'

'Yes, ma'am, he's—'

Her pager goes off right then. Percy Jackson, 911.

Oh crap.

She turns and runs without giving Sally or Callie an explanation. She doesn't even bother to wait for the elevators, instead taking the three floors to post-op at a sprint that would make Dr Ramírez-Arellano proud (rule number two, you answer every page at a run!) When she bursts into Percy's room, he's seizing violently, even worse than the one he had when he first came in, a grand mal to end all grand mals. The nurses are struggling to hold him down.

Annabeth freezes—actually freezes, what's wrong with her—at the sight of him flopping around like a dying fish on the bed.

'How do you want to proceed, Dr Chase? Dr Chase?'

'Dr Chase, are you listening to me?'

The nurse that waves her hand in front of Annabeth's face is short and buxom, with a wild Afro. For some reason, Annabeth's eyes sharpen on her nametag—HAZEL LEVESQUE—and it brings her back to her senses.

'Diazepam,' she says, grabbing the chart. 'Give him diazepam.'

Hazel loads him up, but there's no change.

'Try two milligrams Lorazepam. And page Dr Ramírez-Arellano and Dr Castellan!'

'Already have, Dr Chase.'

The machines are all beeping in earnest now. Think, Chase, concentrate!

'Full on Lorazepam, Dr Chase.'

'Phenobarbital,' she says desperately. 'Load him with phenobarbital.'

'Pheno's in.'

'No change.'

Why is she the only doctor in the room? It's only her second day, for crying out loud!

'You paged Dr Ramírez-Arellano and Dr Castellan?'

'I just told you—'

'Well, page them again, stat!'

Percy goes into flatline then and Annabeth's own heart may have just stopped.

'Code blue!' Hazel yells. 'Code blue! Get the crash cart.'

Everything is a blur of voices and swarming green scrubs as the nurses get the crash cart in. Annabeth grabs the paddle, operating on autopilot now. Her mind is screaming as loud as the flatline tone on the heart monitor, but somehow her hands know what to do.

'Clear!'

She presses the paddles to Percy's chest.

'Still v-fib.'

'Charge to 300.'

Someone's counting the seconds since he crashed. Nineteen. Twenty-seven.

'Anything?'

There's still no rhythm.

'Come on, Percy,' Annabeth pleads. She's only got a minute to get a response. 'Charge to 360!'

Still nothing. No, dammit, this can't be it.

'Sixty seconds!'

'Charge again!'

'At sixty seconds you're supposed to—'

'Charge again!'

At the third shock, the deadly dial tone jumps into a beat again.

'Sinus rhythm,' Hazel confirms.

'Blood pressure's coming up,' says another nurse. 'He's back.'

Dr Castellan chooses that moment to show up. 'What the hell happened?'

'He had a seizure and his heart stopped,' Annabeth gasps. 'What did you do to him in surgery? I thought you fixed him?'

'I did! I—' Dr Castellan stops and stares at her. 'Get a hold of yourself, Dr Chase. What the hell's wrong with you?'

The world is sliding in and out of focus—Luke's face, Percy's, the nurses swarming his bed. Annabeth can feel the gorge rising in her throat. She turns and leaves the room, her ears ringing with the beeping of the heart monitor and the sound of the flatline and What the hell's wrong with you? She barely notices Dr Ramírez-Arellano striding up the hallway, yelling, 'You get a 911, you page me immediately!'

It's all she can do not to break into a run. She doesn't stop until she's left the hospital building, walked right out to the carpark, and that's where she lets go, puking her breakfast out into a clump of bushes.

When she finally turns around, Piper McLean is staring at her. She hands Annabeth a tissue.

'If you tell anyone, ever,' Annabeth threatens, though she doesn't know how she's going to follow that up.

She wipes her mouth with Piper's tissue and, not looking at her fellow intern, heads back into the hospital.

OoOoO

'What was that?' Dr Castellan asks her when she reappears on the post-op floor.

'Nothing.'

He grabs her shoulders. 'You were completely overwrought.'

Annabeth shakes herself free. 'It was my first code. And I just told his mom he was fine.'

His eyes narrow at her.

'Look, I'm sorry. I just panicked. I didn't mean to—sorry.'

Dr Castellan crosses his arms. She can tell he doesn't believe her completely, and can she blame him? She's not even being altogether truthful to herself.

There's just something about Percy Jackson that makes her feel a little crazy.

She picks up the chart. 'It won't happen again.'

'Fine,' Dr Castellan says. 'And the surgery was perfect. He's awake and responsive now—and his eyes are fixed.'

'Sorry,' she mutters. 'I didn't mean to suggest you screwed up.'

'I'll let it go this time. Although if it were any other intern …'

'Don't,' she tells him. 'Don't do me any favours.' The last thing she needs is to be accused of sucking up. She flips the chart. Percy's post-op scans are on the second page, and they're clean. In fact, they're hardly different from what the pre-op CT showed, besides the now-fixed optic nerve impingement. 'The seizure wasn't from the accident?'

'Seems like it.'

'Do you think it … caused the accident?'

Dr Castellan shrugs. 'Could be.'

'So what's causing the seizures?'

Dr Castellan sighs. 'I don't know.'

OoOoO

Evidently, the mystery of Percy Jackson's seizures is something Dr Castellan can't figure out, because he calls a meeting that afternoon.

Annabeth sinks into a seat between Piper and Will Solace, who's practically inhaling the coffee cup in his hands.

Silena Beauregard leans over from the row behind them. 'Anyone know why we're here?'

Frank Zhang opens his mouth, but Dr Castellan addresses them before he can offer his speculation.

'Good afternoon.'

There are mutters of 'afternoon' in return. Dr Castellan surveys the room. His eyes linger a bit too long on Annabeth for her comfort. (She sinks lower in her seat, hoping no one's noticed.)

'I'm gonna do something rare for a surgeon,' he says at last. 'I'm gonna ask interns for help.'

He lays out the bare facts of Percy Jackson's case—car accident, head trauma, the optic nerve impingement that he fixed, and the seizures that don't appear to be due to the accident like they assumed. 'He's not responding to meds. Labs are clean, scans are pure, but he keeps having seizures—grand mal seizures with no visible cause. If it goes on like this, he's gonna die.'

He doesn't mention the calloused warmth of Percy's hand, or the light shade of green of his eyes that puts you in mind of waves crashing on a Mediterranean beach. Or the gentle smile with the dimple in one cheek that he bestows when you agree to stay a while. Or the funny story he tells about the time he tried to jump over a dolphin on his surfboard, only to have the dolphin leap at the same time and—'Well, I don't have to tell the rest, do I?’

Of course not. These are things only Annabeth's noticed, and they aren't medically important. She shouldn't even be thinking about them. He's a patient. A case. A number in a file.

'I need you all to play detective, find out why Jackson's having seizures,' Dr Castellan says. He holds up a hand to stop the grumbling before it starts. 'I get it—you're tired, you're busy, you got more work than you can possibly handle. So I'm gonna give you an incentive. Whoever finds the answer rides with me. You solve this, you scrub in on the surgery, on an advanced procedure no intern ever gets the chance to see.'

She can almost feel the excitement as the entire room straightens as one, all weariness forgotten now. Except for her. The tiredness weighs down on her shoulders and the fear drags her lower still.

She desperately wants to solve the case, too, but it's not a surgery with Dr Castellan she's angling for.

Solve the case, Percy survives.

How the hell has a guy she's known for barely two days become this important to her?

OoOoO

Piper finds her in the hospital library, scouring through case files and histories.

'Hey,' she says. 'You wanna work together on the Percy Jackson case? If we find the answer we have a fifty-fifty chance at scrubbing in.'

Annabeth peers at her over the top of the New England Journal of Neurosurgery. Two heads are better than one, she figures. 'I'll work with you,' she says, 'but I don't want in on the surgery.'

Piper's jaw drops. 'Are you kidding? It's the biggest opportunity we'll ever get!'

'It's Castellan's surgery,' Annabeth says crisply. 'I'd rather avoid scrubbing in with him.'

Piper's eyebrows shoot up so high, they nearly disappear under her roughly-cut brown bangs. 'What do you have against Castellan?'

Annabeth winces. It may have been better if she hadn't said anything. 'Look, if we find the answer, the surgery's yours. Do you wanna work together or not?'

Piper whistles through her teeth and begins to pull books off the shelf at random. 'Deal.'

Five hours, nine espressos, and eighty-six case studies later, they're sitting on the floor of the library, leaning against the shelves. Annabeth's eyes are watering from all the text she's read—no mean feat for a girl who grew up dyslexic—and they still haven't found the answer. She could hope that one of the other interns have, but somehow she knows it's still a mystery.

Piper groans and closes another book. 'I can't read any more of this.' She rubs a hand over her face. 'You seriously aren't gonna tell me why you won't work with Castellan?'

'No.' Annabeth traces the spine of the American Journal of Infectious Diseases. 'Infection, maybe?'

'No white count,' Piper reminds her. 'Just tell me.'

Annabeth ignores her and grinds the heels of her palms against her eyes. 'No CT lesions, no fevers, nothing in the spinal tap.'

'Come on,' Piper wheedles. 'I'll just make something up otherwise. It can't be worse than what my imagination can come up with.'

'Wanna bet?' Annabeth mutters.

'I won't tell anyone.'

Annabeth sighs. 'He was my mom's protegé.'

From the way Piper takes this as a matter of course, Annabeth knows the stories about Dr Athena Chase's daughter have already made their rounds. So much for keeping a low profile.

'That doesn't sound so bad.'

'We just—we have a history, okay?'

'Ooh, a history. What, like a you-were-sworn-enemies history, or a you-slept-with-each-other history … oh my god.'

Annabeth buries her face in her knees.

'You slept with him.'

'Say that a bit louder, would you?' she hisses.

Piper opens and closes her mouth a few times, and finally comes up with, 'I guess he is kinda cute. I dig the blond, superman look.' She considers a moment. 'Is he good? I mean, he looks like he'd be good.'

'Kill me now,' Annabeth mutters.

'Oh, come on, so you slept with the guy before, it's not like—oh geez. You haven't stopped, have you?'

'I'm not gonna answer that.'

Piper thinks a moment, then goes back to their earlier conversation. 'What about an aneurysm?'

'No blood on the CT, no headaches,' Annabeth says automatically. She thinks they've covered this already. They're going round in circles—how are they ever going to find an answer? 'What if no one comes up with anything?'

'You mean, if he dies?' Piper kneads her forehead miserably. 'I guess no one gets a surgery.'

'He'll never win the nationals,' Annabeth says, thinking about all the dreams Percy shared with her last night.

'The what?'

'Surf Nationals,' Annabeth explains. 'He's a surfer. He was driving back from the regionals when he—' She freezes as something clicks in her head.

'What? Annabeth, what is it?'

'Get up.' She hauls to her feet. 'Come on.'

OoOoO

Percy's awake when they get to his room, chatting with his mom. Callie is nowhere to be seen at the moment, but Annabeth is, for once, not concerned about the cutesy not-girlfriend.

'Dr Chase!' Percy says when she and Piper burst in. 'And a pretty colleague. Wow, the doctors here sure are hot!'

'You didn't tell me he's such a flirt,' Piper says.

Annabeth ignores both of them. 'At the regionals,' she says to him, 'did you do anything out of the ordinary? Like a bad fall, or taking a hit, or—'

'He crashed into another surfer's board,' Sally Jackson says.

'Mom!' Percy looks mortified. 'I swear I'm not usually such a klutz.'

If Annabeth weren't so thrilled that he's basically confirming her theory, she might appreciate how cute he looks when he's blushing and obviously not wanting her to think he's a crappy surfer.

'Is that what caused this? The other doctor said it was something besides the car crash—'

'We don't know,' she tells Sally. 'But we're gonna find out. Sit tight.'

'You've solved it, haven't you?' Piper asks as they shut the door behind them.

Annabeth nods. 'But you're gonna have to tell Castellan.'

OoOoO

Piper insists on dragging Annabeth along, even when she promises to present their diagnosis. Well, Annabeth's diagnosis, but much as she wants to claim credit, she's not going to this time.

The moment Piper opens with, 'Percy's a surfer,' Annabeth knows she's going to have to step in after all. Luke shares her mom's view on competitive sport—which is to say, it's a waste of time and lands too many idiots in the hospital, wasting doctors' time. (No wonder neither of them went into ortho. Annabeth allows herself a moment to consider the possibility—it'd seriously piss her mom off, which makes it equal parts attractive and terrifying.)

Dr Castellan raises an eyebrow. 'That's a shame, but we have to save his life anyway.'

'Well,' Piper says, looking nonplussed, 'he could have burst an aneurysm.'

'There's no indications,' Dr Castellan says, and Annabeth can tell from his face that he's about to brush them off.

'I know,' Piper says quickly—she's persistent, Annabeth has to give her credit for that, 'but what if he has an aneurysm anyway?'

'You're suspecting an aneurysm on the basis of no medical proof.' Dr Castellan is at his most derisive. Annabeth's always hated this side of him. She wonders why she put up with it for so long.

(Probably because it never seems to show when he's charming the pants off her.)

'He fell,' she says sharply, cutting across Piper's babbled explanations about a botched surf wave. 'Crashed into another surfer. It was minor, he didn't even hit his head, but he did fall.'

Dr Castellan frowns at her. 'You know the chances that a fall could burst an aneurysm? One in a million. Literally.'

She crosses her arms and stares him down.

Dr Castellan sighs. 'Order the repeat CT and an MRI. Let's see if Jackson's one in a million.'

OoOoO

'I'll be damned.'

They're peering at the scans, which clearly show a tiny line of blood leading out into the left ventricle. 'There it is. Minute, but it's there.'

'He's bleeding into his brain,' Piper whispers.

Dr Castellan nods. 'He could have gone his entire life without it ever being a problem. One tap in the right spot—'

'Ka-boom,' Piper finishes.

'That's what comes of competitive sport,' Dr Castellan sneers.

'He could have burst it tripping down the stairs,' Annabeth points out.

Dr Castellan rolls his eyes. 'Well, either way, I have to fix it.' He guides them out of the viewing room. 'I'd better go schedule the surgery. Good job, both of you.'

'Um, Dr Castellan, you said you'd pick someone to scrub in if we helped,' Piper says.

'Oh yes. Right.' He looks at Annabeth. 'Sorry I can't take you both. It'll be a full house. Annabeth, I'll see you in the OR.'

Annabeth s too stunned to even protest. It's not until Piper turns on her heel and stomps away that she realises what just happened.

'Piper—'

Fucking hell.

OoOoO

'So let me get this straight,' says Percy as she runs the razor over his head. 'You're saying that I made it out of the car crash okay, but because I wiped out bad I might die?'

'First of all, I wouldn't call coming out of a car crash practically blind okay, and B, you're not gonna die, because we're fixing your aneurysm.'

He waves his hand in the air, like details. Annabeth buzzes off another chunk of his hair and he makes a face. 'And you have to shave my head for this?'

'Your hair is a bit of an impediment to surgery.'

'Bummer. Although I never tried the skinhead look. Maybe it'll be cool. Can you make it a mohawk? Or will that be an impediment as well?'

She laughs. 'I promise you'll still look cool.'

'Still, huh?' He gives her that saucy smile with the single dimple and she tries to ignore the way her heart is hammering against her chest.

It's because she had to tell Dr Castellan she's opting out of surgery. That's all.

'So, you gonna be in my surgery this time?'

'Uh, well, actually …'

'Ah, don't tell me. They don't let you interns get to cut? How do you guys ever learn? I mean, I'd never have nailed an aerial if I hadn't got out there and tried it.'

'Well, if you screw up, no harm done. If we screw up, people die.'

'Fair point. Not dying sounds good. So the guy operating on me—I think I've met him like a total of once, and I'm not even sure I was lucid at the time. He's good?'

Her hands pause over his head. Percy frowns. 'Should I be worried?'

'No, no, I don't mean to—sorry, just spaced out for a moment. He's good. He's one of the best.'

'Huh.' Percy scratches at his chin. 'You don't like him, though?'

'Where did you get that idea?'

'You sound like I just spat in your coffee.'

'It's—I'm not—' She sighs and puts down the razor. 'I just have to tell him something and I'm not looking forward to it.'

'What's that?'

'That I can't be in a surgery.'

It's Percy's turn to go quiet. Annabeth picks up the razor and continues her work while he tries to work this out.

'But you said you weren't allowed—huh. Huh.'

'What?' Her voice comes out slightly defensive.

'Nothing.'

She doesn't believe for a second that it's nothing, but she really shouldn't continue down this conversational path. She shouldn't even have let it take this direction in the first place.

Dr Castellan shows up at the door just as she's finishing up.

'Hey, doc,' Percy says. 'How's it going?'

Dr Castellan doesn't answer. He just beckons Annabeth to the door.

'Wow, he is a douche,' Percy says softly. 'Hope his operating skills are better than his bedside manner.'

Annabeth gives hi a tight smile and goes to the door.

'We're in OR two,' he says. 'Patient prepped and ready?'

'I'm not scrubbing in,' she says, before she can lose her nerve. 'You should ask Piper. She won the competition, too.'

Dr Castellan looks at her long and hard. Annabeth meets his eyes for only two seconds before she has to stare at her feet.

'This is because of last night, isn't it?' he says.

'Last night, and two nights ago, and—' She grits her teeth. 'The point is, I don't want to get picked for surgery because—because I slept with the boss.'

Dr Castellan holds up his hands. 'Okay, stop there. That's not the reason I picked you, and you know it. I know you, Annabeth. This was your solution, not McLean's.'

She lifts her chin. 'So what if it was?'

'So—' He grits his teeth. 'You know what, I can't deal with your insecurities right now, Annabeth. You're a good doctor, and you know it. Scrub in, don't scrub in—you decide whether you want to be a surgeon or not, okay?' He gives her a little shove back towards the bed. 'Finish prepping him. If you want to give away your shot for some lame reason, you go find McLean and tell her. If not, I'll see you in the OR.'

Percy arches his neck so that he's looking at her upside down. 'The guy's a douche, but he's right. You're a good doctor.'

Annabeth feels her face heat up. 'You heard us?'

'Well, yeah.' Percy drops his head back to a comfortable position. 'And you should scrub in.'

'You know, most people wouldn't want the newbie cutting into their heads.'

'I trust you.'

'You've known me two days!'

Percy shrugs. 'I'm a good judge of character.'

'Well, as long as it's an accurate reflection of my surgical skills …' She sighs. 'It's not about whether I'm good or not. It's—'

'I get it. You don't want to be picked for surgery because you slept with your boss.' He winces as if the thought of it pains him. 'But you were here from the start. I'm your patient. And from what he said, you were the one who solved my case, not the big shot douchebag doctor. You should get the chance to stick with me if you want it.' Percy's face reddens. 'Um, I didn't mean stick with me as in stick with me, I meant—uh, never mind.'

Annabeth smiles. 'I know what you mean.'

'Good. 'Cause you shouldn't let the fact that you had sex with the guy get in the way of you taking your shot.'

'I … didn't think of it that way.'

'And if you're worried about getting picked for the wrong reasons, maybe—' He bites down on his lip so hard, Annabeth can see a tiny drop of blood form.

'What?'

'It's … not really my place. Sorry.'

'No, tell me, what?'

His brow furrows, and she get the irresistible urge to put her fingers on it and smoothen it out. The words spill out of him quickly, almost tripping over one another. 'Maybe sleeping with Dr Douchebag isn't the best idea? Not that I'm judging or anything, and obviously you have your reasons, and you're really great, and … crap, I need to shut up, don't I?'

Annabeth's breath leaves her in a little puff that might be laughter. She can't tell—Percy's honest, bumbling advice is both endearing and a stab in the gut. 'No, you're right. Nothing ever good came of sleeping with your boss.'

'That's not the only reason I'm saying it.'

'It's not?'

He shakes his head. 'It's because you deserve someone better than him.'

The nurses must have been sleeping on the job when they cleaned this room, because the dust is besieging her eyes. And her throat. Goddamnit, she can't even swallow properly because of it.

'Let's get you prepped,' she says.

[geek-gem]

Dead Space And Isaac Clarke

Kind of difficult to think of a title that fits. But just saying wanted to make this after OK KO was done yet was on laptop for a bit not much it's 4:09 pm

Basically what I wanted to talk about a few days ago. I had found out Visceral Games the developer who made the original Dead Space trilogy was shut down. That night or something I had watched some videos and honestly saddened. That I even talked to myself about just my thoughts.

I have mentioned Dead Space before just as my earlier text post today in the morning about some aliens and shit. But I wanna get to this.

I've been wanting to make this and now I have the feeling to make it something interesting. Also spoilers for the Dead Space series just in case.

Seriously I really liked the Dead Space mainly the trilogy never played the other games or seen the animated films. Yet I seriously liked the series. Including the 2nd game. But also the character of Isaac Clarke himself.

Seriously Isaac Clarke was a bad ass mother fucker. I honestly liked it that they developed his character for the first sequel. Including when I was in the shower an hour ago or something. I thought about why I seemed to like the character very much. He's a character that's always stuck in my mind.

Including in a weird way I wanna mention I don't know if I should say Dead Space 2 is a masterpiece. I shouldn't but it's because it's the only game I've completed while I watched the endings of the 1st and 3rd games. Yet got far in them a bit I guess for the first. Seriously I was young a bit. Including I kept replaying Dead Space 2 because it had a new game option where I can have all my equipment I had and I loved that. Along with I honestly loved the story and Isaac in that game.

I thought of possibly the reason why I honestly like Isaac a lot. Including why he's stuck as one of my favorites. Is because despite the series being set in the 26th century in a scifi setting he is seriously a normal guy a engineer who got caught up in shit with the nercomorphs. In a weird way I've kind of compared him to something similar like the protagonist's of the Silent Hill games. Where Resident Evil that series the characters are mostly trained for any sort of situation. Yet that doesn't mean Chris Redfield, Leon Kennedy, and others aren't bad characters. But compared to the likes of Harry Mason from the first Silent Hill game and James Sunderland from Silent Hill 2 had to check Youtube for his last name and again right now in case. But those guys were normal people. Including Silent Hill 2 from what I've know and see is a more personal story compared to Harry while it's another story but also looking for his daughter Cherry.

It's a weird comparison but it's something I feel is like that with Isaac. But this time in a science fiction setting. Including Dead Space 2 is where their was the story about the Sprawl but also Isaac's personal struggle.

Including what amazes me and I can't believe I'm still stunned by this discovery very long ago. Remembering reading a YouTube comment surprised and went to the wiki revealing Isaac was 49 years old during the events of Dead Space 2 and 3 because 3 takes a few months after 2. Meaning he's almost 50 when in the first and second I thought he was in his 30's or 40's not mid to late 40's.

While I'm not surprised by Bill from Left 4 Dead who's age is unknown and some of the Overwatch characters. I think I'm so surprised and enlightened by the character of Isaac of how much shit he goes through. While having some narly suits okay a friend sent a photo but the guy is seriously a normal person. Including someone who's not trained for combat. Something similar to the characters of the first Alien and other stuff. Because people compare Alien and Dead Space.

Also seriously the voice of Gunner Wright is amazing and him voicing but also being the model for the character. That I was looking up some videos while waiting for the OK KO such as this sounds video of him from Dead Space 2 just mainly screaming, groaning, and breathing.

Funny thing I said this when I was in room said I'm 49 fucken years old trying to be Isaac yet he never says that. But it does relate to just....I just love it when he swears or just... seriously. Including my favorite line from the series and kind of want this as a meme it's from the ending of Dead Space 2.

"FUCK YOU AND FUCK YOUR MARKER!" seriously I love that line Including all the shit leading up to that.

Seriously some people don't seem to like that Isaac got a personality but I'm sorry or not I fucking loved it that the 2nd game went that direction.

Also let's talk about the games themselves the games are awesome. They have awesome gameplay and honestly scary at times. Including the Nercomorphs these brutal undead mother fuckers that do scare me and are just awesome. Along with how gruesome they are and tough. Including the whole dismemberment of arms and legs. Really I feel Dead Space 2 takes the cake as the most fucked up in the series. It's been a while since I've played the first and the third is a different story.

I wanna talk about the shutting down of Visceral Games and that I even thought about and concerned of me buying another EA game. You've heard their terrible. Along with I remember the last EA game I bought was Titanfall 2 got that for Christmas of last year i think. It's a game I really enjoy but been a long while since I've played it. Including fans talking about the possibility of getting a new publisher please.

Also about Dead Space 3 I'm okay with it. Yet yeah I feel the action direction basically people talked about this and it's maybe similar to that of Resident Evil and how it went down that route.

Seriously I liked the addition of John Carver the other character you could play as. A soldier compared to Isaac who is a engineer. I didn't play the co op because I do not wanna get an EA account. Just okay looked twice tv on yet I wanna say I have seen his cutscenes. I seriously felt like and talked to someone who's on Deviantart and on here haven't followed them. We both agreed and I would of personally liked it if John's personal missions where he's basically kind of going through well yeah the same thing as Isaac in the first two games. Including that it mainly stays to the horror side of things.

But seriously their was some stuff I was bothered by with certain directions they went with. Including that story DLC Awakened while nice but this stupid cliffhanger.

Yet will say would of liked it if you could played as John Carver in single player at times instead of... honestly this co op it's a nice idea just....the action direction and just this one video s gaming Jim Sterling I looked on YouTube. Found this video too this is where I found out about the information but just at the part where they talk about Visceral Games shutting down. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HJ4eie-e2hc

Including that guys video I mentioned was the 2nd video I watched.

Really I wasn't all that sad at first but then even thinking about it more. Okay I was sad at first. But then I got to think about it more and it just sucks. Basically a video game franchise I liked and respected. Including a video game character I loved I said is now dead in a way.

Including I think yeah I wanted a Dead Space 4 but seriously even a HD Remaster of the first three games because I love those games and I honestly live for remasters because it's difficult to let go of certain games unless you have the system for it. Just yawned yet not everyone wants to do that.

Even today I thought of can we give Dead Space to a new developer or just reboot Dead Space and give it to a new developer.

Yet honestly realistically that's not gonna happen. Including Dead Space is one of EA's games as Visceral Games was built up with EA. But seriously I'm sure I don't want another EA related game again because I don't wanna give them money.

Really it's sad seeing a series like Dead Space go. A series I honestly liked and would of loved to see more games. Including again me liking the character of Isaac Clarke.

Basically during my time before I wanted to try to make this like I mentioned. But also looked on Wikipedia a bit of Dead Space not Visceral Games. Yet I also watched that funny yet nice Random Encounters musical of Dead Space and honestly would love a 2nd part.

Including decided to listen to it's called award winner a the music playing for the Remembering SpongeBob from well SpongeBob SquarePants. Just thinking of Isaac Clarke mainly. Honestly something like that surprised more people haven't used that as a joke but also a nice thing to remembering something you liked a lot dearly. It should be a meme in a way. So without further a do.

Remembering Dead Space and Isaac Clarke.

*gonna find music https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=p6DKzNRdwyI now gifs oh God it's playing the song*

After the 7th wanted to type but wanted to put more. Yet wanted to say for that part I put there 3rd gif by mistake. Including I even said to myself after I found out the news.

That Isaac Clarke in PlayStation All Stars Battle Royale was honestly awesome and I guess beautiful I'm thinking now. Because I'm a fan of the series and the character. Including it was my first DLC I ever downloaded on my old PS3 when I joined PlayStation Network. Now I can't play my old PS3 and can't get Isaac or any of the other dlc characters. Seriously no complete or ultimate edition definitive edition I wanted to say and spell right before ultimate. Also the music rarely plays like that and tried it again but couldn't lol. Now got tags down wanted to share this lol just wanted to talk just okay to smile. Yet sad but just breathe I wanted to talk about this oh stomach a bit my thoughts on this I'm stalling now 13 just 5:13 typing too fast and smiled a bit even now

[chromemuffin]

Shoukoku no Altair: Episode 1 Review

As promised, a full review rather than a liveblog. My thoughts are still a bit scattered even after watching this episode twice, but I’ll try to keep it organized.

The long and short of it is:

It was definitely enjoyable to see this world animated and the characters moving about. I had a few issues with the reordering of the events compared with the manga, but this is mostly a personal gripe, I suspect. If you liked it, don’t take what I say to heart. I compare it to the manga a lot, because why not. I’ve read/seen both versions. Might as well.

Not spoiler free. You’ve been warned.

OP/ED: I’ll reserve any comments about the songs for when the official lyrics (and unofficial fan translations) are released. It’s too difficult to make out every line and I’ve sworn off doing song translations because they are hard.

I do have to say, I prefer the visuals in the ending theme. The choppy, fast-paced opening doesn’t do it for me. The ending, however, manages to show off some of the glorious detailing seen in the manga, this time in full color. If you follow my manga liveblog, you’ll know that I gush over the details every chapter. Knowing an anime has to cut some of the intricate details out by nature of the medium, it was very nice to see them in the ending sequence.

I also noticed that the cover art for several volumes are used in the ending:

^ Volume 2

^ Volume 9

It’s a nice touch. the-golden-city has a post with all of them + the volume covers here.

Visuals: I’m no film/animation connoisseur, so on the surface everything looked neat and clean to me. No glaring faults in the animation yet, although I do have to admit some of the transitions between scenes were jarring (especially where events were reordered from the manga).

Sound: I am also not and never was a music student, the last time I played an instrument was the recorder as a kid. I know even less about music than animation and film. So, I like the soundtrack, especially the one that plays in the first few seconds of the episode. 

Voice Acting: I am not sold on Mahmut’s voice, surprisingly. I appreciate the fact that his VA is actually a man, which is quite surprising seeing as his voice is soft and a bit feminine when he isn’t in a serious mood. The VA’s acting itself is fine, and I especially like the opening lines: “What is it that I know? About this kingdom...About war...About what I must do...” There is a certain vulnerability in his tone, especially at the end of “about this kingdom” and “about war”, that I like.

The rest of the time, it sounds too soft, too gentle. Though this is perhaps because I read the manga first, and the manga emphasizes different aspects of his personality in the opening chapter that has built up a concept of what I think he should sound like in my head.

The rest of the voices are good, and I’m quite glad they didn’t give Iskender a sharp eagle cry (apparently golden eagles are rather quiet).

Plot: Normally, I’m not one to gripe about changing the order of events around to suit the anime better (and in some cases, it actually works best the way the anime presents it), but not this time. Sorry.

For the record, this presentation is probably fine if this is your first introduction to the series. And I wasn’t too bothered by it overall (though it did contribute to my dislike of Mahmut’s voice).

I suppose I understand the reason for introducing Ibrahim and Shara at the festival now as opposed to after the assassination fiasco. However, as I stated above, the transitions where events were reordered from the manga are a bit abrupt.

My main gripe, then? Is that the first real insight we get into Mahmut (the shot of him in the council room doesn’t count, he doesn’t even speak) is that of the soft-spoken boy hiding from the excitement of the festivities, who is by his own admission bad at dancing and gets flustered by women easily, and is childish enough to sleep on the roof when Shara insists she stays.

Only then do we get to see him taking his duties as a Pasha seriously, and jump into the assassination plot.

This is solely my own opinion, but I preferred it when Mahmut was presented as a serious young man (Halil even says so) trying very hard to do right by his title as Pasha. You see moments of vulnerability when he is frustrated by the council meeting and in flashbacks to his past, and again when he panics and finds out Halil has gone to as a human sacrifice to avert war.

This way, I really felt ‘ah, this kid is qualified to be a pasha, a bit impulsive though he might be’. Only after all of this is over does the narrative start to peel at the layers of who Mahmut really is, as a person, a kid really, trying his best to fill really big shoes.

I just wasn’t as impressed with his introduction in the anime. I instantly latched onto his voice, and while he does sound great when he’s serious, when he is off-duty and relaxed, his voice just doesn’t fit with the first impression I got of him in the manga. By the time the serious parts came in, I was already out of sorts.

(knew I should have waited to see the anime before reading the manga lol, I don’t think I’d be annoyed as much if that was the case)

Other Tidbits:

FINALLY figured out what the bauble on the end of that red jeweled chain Mahmut wears is. I thought it was a whistle to call Iskender, as falconers usually use whistles to call their birds back, but it was hard to tell in the manga. I like the sound it makes when he spins it in the air.

The anime also added in a scene of little Mahmut exploring the rocky outcroppings by his home and opening the whistle to store some small red gems or something in it, which is how I reached the epiphany of how that thing works. It bothered me for a while, ok.

A minor detail, but I appreciate that the anime tells you this takes place in the 3rd month of the year instead of the manga’s very ambiguous labeling of it as ‘Seker’ (meaning ‘sugar’). I’ve been assured that there is seemingly no pattern with the names of the months other than that they are all food or drinks, so I was happy when I saw they actually let watchers know right off the bat instead of guessing based on events that happen later.

I ALSO LOVE SEEING EVERYONE DANCING ANIMATED.

The best, smoothest transition in the entire episode was when Shara was pointing at Mahmut and thinking back to when she first saw him. I really liked that one, despite some of the later transitions being a little iffy.

I liked this scene for sure, but felt like it belonged in the chapter I’m currently reading (chapter 7)? I won’t spoil it, but yeah. Mahmut’s soft expression here was nice too.

The amount of details on the character designs! They didn’t simplify them.

The damage Iskender’s blow did to the thief omg. Including not mincing on the blood from his talons.

They left out some of Mahmut’s cute interactions with Iskender, which is understandable, but some of them were really funny (after the council meeting, he’s ranting directly to Iskender which is cute he talks to his bird, plus Iskender was kind of o.o)

Extra scenes of tiny Mahmut is always a plus. The fact that they didn’t voice those parts with him and just played sad music was A LITTLE DEPRESSING THOUGH. And him feeding water to his mother even though she was dead. I wonder if some of those scenes were revealed later in the manga, or are they anime-original? Either way, it is meant to tear your heart out and it succeeds. (why do they need to keep flashing back to tiny Mahmut crying/his village burning and dead mother STOP TEARING OUT MY HEART)

Speaking of painful, Mahmut’s expression when Halil bows to him in apology was much more uncomfortable borderline mortified in the manga (and Halil bows much lower, don’t know about Turkish customs but in Japan at least that level of apology is a Big Deal). They also skipped the hug, but well, they were sort of running low on time.

Yes, I enjoyed it, despite my complaints. And I’ll continue to enjoy it, even if we get CGI soldiers and horses along the way, because this is one of my favorite series now.

[saxophonekory]

Unpopular Pro-Trans Opinions:

Hey there, Kory here; and to celebrate having reached 130 followers, I have a milestone special that's going to cost me a lot of followers! Yay! So, I've been meaning to make this post, for a while, because as a supporter of trans-rights, I see a lot of ideas thrown around that group of activists that make me kinda understand why people think the whole concept is so crazy; but I was torn over how it may be alienating to my followers. But now that I have a big enough following where losing followers shouldn't be that big a deal, let's get into the list! #1. Minors Should Not Be Allowed To Transition - Sure, many would compare this to minors getting tattoos, but minors transitioning is a completely different ballpark. Tattoos are cheap, and so is removal, when you compare it to most sugeries. Transitioning, on the other hand, is mind-numbingly expensive; and when you transition, the odds that you could afford to reverse it are slim. Plus, even if you could, with medicine's current abilities, it could leave the transitionee with unsatisfactory results. You may roll your eyes at me for saying this, but people transitioning and feeling unhappy with their choice not only can actually happen, but has actually happened; and in many cases, people have killed themselves over it. Transitioning is a tough decision, and is one that you need to think over, a lot; and hence, I don't feel minors have feasible responsibility to make such a tough decision. #2. There Are Only Two Genders - I know, you're probably getting annoyed with hearing this one, but hear me out. I believe trans identities are valid, because studies have shown up demonstrating such. If you don't understand what I mean, humans a sexually dimorphic species. Sexual dimorphism is a trait of certain species that causes biological charecteristics to differ between the two sexes; for humans, at least, dimorphism exists in both how the body and the brain are built; and the brain is the particular focus of the point I'm framing. This difference is hence, accompanied by a noticable difference in behavioral tendencies exhibited, between the two sexes. The importance of this fact to my point is that there are recorded instances in which people have shown signs of brain development patterns extremely similar to the opposite sex. For nonbinary people, no evidence has surfaced to show that such is also the case fo them. In fact, whether/not that's even possible is strongly debatable. Sorry, but at the end of the day, the concept of nonbinary genders seem less valid, and more just like an arbitrary response to seeing trans people be validated. #3. Transitioning Should Not Be Free - (This one is more centered in the United States, but there are other countries where this priciple applies) It pains me to say this, but the United States can't afford free healthcare; with our current debts, the brink of war, and the already ongoing wars, our economy may not be able to survive making healthcare free. And as long as such is the case, I believe it's only fair that you have to pay for your transition. Like the rest of our economy, medicinal practice also has a line between needs and wants; and as is, there's procedures that are far more important that are twice, five times, or ten times, if not twenty times as expensive. Keep in mind, kidney transplants cost over $200,000.00 dollars, heart transplants cost over $700,000.00, and if you're unlucky enough to need an intestinal transplant, you could be paying more than a wopping $1,000,000.00 just to save your life. If you can acknowledge that fact, and yet still tell yourself reassignment surgery is a special exception, you're less of an activist, and more of a selfish prick. #4. Transtrenders Do Exist; It's Not Just A Dickish Slur - Do not take this the wrong way, I'm not saying all trans people are just being trendy; hell, I'm not even saying most are. However, there are people out there who do fake being trans to fit in, especially in areas where the idea of trans pride is a more popular movement. There do exist people out there who unwittingly do it too; essentially, being given the wrong idea about the concept, and treating it like it's some sort of fashion material. #5. It Is Safe To Assume - As a gay man, I face similar experiences with assumptions; and even having those experiences, I can still safely say assuming is not such a fucking crime. Such is the case, because statistics show that the majority are straight, and that cis are also the majority; people generally make those assumptions, because the odds of their assumption being wrong are little to nothing. In my experince, politely correcting them usually works; and if that doesn't work, I dunno what to tell you, except they're just dicks. #6. Gender Is Not Just A "Social Construct" - The concept of gender is the observation of the biological and neurological difference between the sexes. That's not a social construct, it's a scientific fact. Plus, even if it were just a "social construct", why would the transgender concept even be a thing, in the first place? #7. Older People Have An Excuse To Misunderstand - Transgender rights are only only very recently being validated; and just a few decades ago, not too many people even considered the concept. Not to mention, the elderly were brought up in a time when even racism was socially-acceptable; so, you can't really blame them for misunderstanding this concept. If a baby boomer doesn't understand the concept, you should be especially patient with them. #8. Children Should Be Raised Cis, Until They Suggest Otherwise - Children, especially ones of very early childhood will most likely not properly understand the concept; and raising them cis, until they begin to understand the concept of trans identities will allow them to consider it with much less confusion. For you to simply force trans identities will only distort their understanding of it. #9. Just Being Trans Is Not An Accomplishment - I'm looking at you, Caitlyn Jenner! As a gay guy, I can relate to this situation. When people find out I'm gay, their typical response is to congradulate me; and if their was anything to make me roll my eyes any harder, I would probably pull a muscle. Seriously, I like dick, it's not like I cured prostate cancer; and like being gay, being trans is just a birth circumstance; it has no indication over how you are as a person. Possessing such traits does not make you any superior or inferior to others. #10. Getting Treaten Like Shit Does Not Justify Demonizing Cis People - Even as a cis person, I am still gladfully supportive of trans-rights. Yes the people who antagonized you were cis, but to throw them all under the bus paints them all as transphobic, which is simply not the case; this is the same logic used to justify most modern hate groups' ideologies and actions. #11. Simply Being Unattracted To Trans People Is Not Transphobia - Y'know, it's funny too, because I've seen most of our movement complain about "fetishization". Being unattracted to you is not a personal judgement of you; people are not obligated to find you attractive. As a gay man, I obviously am a pretty big fan of the dick, and I'm personally disgusted by the vagina; and I would personally prefer a relationship that is both romantic and sexual. Having said that, I would not date a pre-op trans boy; and for post-op, that depends on how well the trans penis resembles a regular penis (I personally see a visual perfection to the structure of the penis that can be very easilly ruined.). For a pre-op trans woman, it depends on whether/not they plan to become post-op; and for post-op, no. I don't have any personal issues with trans people; it's just, for sexual partners, if you don't have a dick, you're not gonna stick. I think people who call it transphobia are basically on level with people who act like little bitches, because they got "friendzoned". Keep in mind, these people don't choose to find you unattractive; I think the gay rights movement has made that fact explicit enough, the past fifty years. #12. If You're Developing A Sexual Relationship With Someone, Your Gender Identity Is Their Business - If you are in a sexual relationship with someone, and you are knowingly hiding a trait of your body that you know for a fact would automatically make your partner uncomfortable, that is an act of rape; birth-gender is not an exception. These people do not choose to be uncomfortable with that, and they have every right to sexually disconsent that you do. If you don't let your sexual partner know this, and proceed to sexually interact with them, I'm sorry, but what you are doing is wrong, and you should be ashamed of yourself. They have every right you have to diconsent to sex, it's not all about you, their consent matters just as much as yours.