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phoenixmaiden-gaming · 6 months

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The Wolf Among Us part 2

I finished 3 more chapters this time and the mystery is starting to unravel. I first found out who the victim was and what her Fable was. I'd never heard of it before, but at least I knew who she was now. There was also a new suspect, her husband. I then went to Toad's apartment since he called with a problem and I had to get it out of him to find out what it was. Here is what happened.

Episode 1: Chapter 3 – Mirror Mirror

The next chapter starts with Bigby going down to the Mayor’s office and he just walks in, ignoring the line and finds Snow talking to the acting mayor, Crane, who I found out was Ichabod Crane. He wasn’t too happy to hear about what happened to one of the Fables. And he blamed Snow for the unpleasantness.

I had a choice of what to say, and I chose to cut in and say that instead of blaming everyone, they had to focus on figuring out who did this. Yet, Crane just turned around and blamed Bigby because he was supposed to protect the citizens of Fabletown and he had failed. Wow, what a douche.

Crane then asked if they had any suspects and I said that the Woodsman was one since he knew the victim. But he wasn't certain yet, it was just a lead. Crane said to keep this quiet since he didn't want everyone to know there was a killer among them. He then left, telling Snow to tell Vivian to clear his schedule as he was going for his massage early...really? Someone died and he's going for a massage. This guy should not be mayor, acting mayor or anything.

Once Crane was gone, a green flying monkey called Bufkin came out of hiding and he was drunk off some wine that belonged to Crane. Snow then asked him to go get the first three volumes of the Book of Fables to try and find out who the victim was and off he went.

Snow had to call Vivian and told Bigby to take a look around and maybe ask the Mirror if he could see anything. They had to wait for Bufkin to come back for them to find out who the girl was. So I looked around and eventually talked to the Mirror and Bigby had to talk to it with it's rhyme...Mirror Mirror...etc.

I asked the Mirror about the Woodsman and he showed me that he was drunk and going to a bar. I also asked about Bufkin who was drinking in the back isles and Bigby told him to get back to work.

I went back to the center of the room and Bufkin came out with some books. We took a look and I could look at images of different fables, and one in the center with a king and a person dressed as a donkey was the right one. The person dressed as a donkey had a ring with the same symbol that was on the ring in the girl's mouth. Then we looked through another book to find different symbols and found one that matches.

Bufkin had to look up the Fable that the symbol belonged to, and it was called Donkeyskin...never heard of it. It was basically a story of a girl that had to wear a magic cloak made of donkey skin to hide from her father who wanted to marry her because she was the most beautiful woman, after her mother died. That's messed up. She eventually married a prince from a neighboring kingdom and lived happily ever after.

Now that we knew who the woman was, we found her fable and it said that she went by the name Faith. She was then marked as deceased in the book. She was married to Prince Lawrence and Snow's thoughts went to maybe he did it, but Bigby said they didn't know that yet. They will at least have to inform him of his wife's death. I then went to talk to the Magic Mirror again and asked to see Faith, but she was dead. Her father was dead as well after looking, and lastly, we looked at Prince Lawrence and found him sitting in a chair with a bloody knife at his feet. That's not a good sign.

Episode 1: Chapter 4 - Choices

I went back to the middle of the room and Snow got a phone call and passed it to Bigby. It was Toad and he said that someone was upstairs going through the Woodsman's things and to get over here quick. I then had to make a decision to either see what was going on at Toad's apartment or go to Lawrence's apartment. I chose to go to Toad's apartment since something was going on at that moment, so Snow and Bigby caught a cab to go to Toad's apartment.

Episode 1: Chapter 5 - Consequences

We made it to Toad's apartment and from the street, Bigby could see someone in the Woodsman's apartment through the hole in the wall. He then ran all the way up the stairs and to the top apartment but whoever was there was gone.

Bigby caught back up with Snow and went to see Toad and his son was crying. Toad said that he thought he saw someone up in the upstairs apartment but he had been wrong and his son had just stubbed his toe and was fine. Toad was acting a little suspiciously, trying to get rid of them especially since he had been frantic when he had called. Snow then asked the son if he could see his insect collection and they went to his room to calm him down so Bigby could look around.

I took a look around the apartment, and found that the lock at the front door was broken, but Toad had an excuse that it had been broken for a while now and he had to bust the door open when he had forgotten his keys. Looking further, there was blood on the wall that was still fresh, but again Toad had an excuse saying he cut his hand.

Bigby checked in on Snow and while she didn't get anything out of the son, she could sense that something was off. So I had to search the rest of the apartment. One other thing that was off was that there was a table with a circle of dust that matched a broken lamp that was now across the room. Yet Toad denied that anything happened. Looking further, Bigby found a fire poker with fresh blood on the tip.

Toad said that he had dropped it on his foot and cut him, but Bigby caught him in his lie. He had said he cut his hand earlier, not his foot. Toad got defensive saying he cut his hand and then dropped it on his foot, but it was too late, Bigby didn't believe him. and he said as much, but Toad still wouldn't budge.

The next thing I found in the apartment was that there were scratch marks on the windowsill. Yet Toad had his excuse ready. He said that since he was locked out of the apartment, he had to get in through the window. Bigby said that his son was there, so why not ask him to open the door, but Toad said that his son was asleep and didn't want to wake him up. He then said that he just wanted to to have a nice day with his son and wanted Bigby to just leave. But Bigby didn't believe him, his story didn't add up.

Snow came out with Junior and he was doing better. Toad turned to give him a hug and we could see blood coming from under his hat. Bigby had him take it off and we could now see the gash on the top of his head. Now the truth finally came out. One of the twins, the butcher, Tweedle Dum or Dee had done it. He came running in saying the Woodsman had something or thought he had and started to beat him up looking for it here in his apartment. Toad tried to go out the window, but they had pulled him back in.

Toad said that he wanted to tell me, but the Tweedle twin said that if he got word that Bigby or Miss White found out, he would come back and kill his son...wow, no wonder he didn't want to talk. Toad went on to say that he tried to give him her coat but wouldn't take it. Junior said that he borrows things from the neighbors sometimes. Snow said that they would take it as it belongs to next of kin.

I found the cloak in the chimney and it was the donkey skin cloak that belonged to Faith. It also had a note that was addressed to Lawrence, her husband. I had the choice to read it or not, I chose to read it and it said 'I'm sorry.' from Faith.

Now that we had gotten the truth out of Toad, it was time to go. Next stop was to go to Lawrence's place, he was their only lead.

A lot has happened. The girl that we saw in the first chapter who's head ended up on the steps of the Woodlands apartments was Faith from the Donkey skin Fable. There are two suspects, the Woodsman who attacked her in the first chapter, and her husband who was at home and had a bloody knife next to him. Now I do know what happened, since I did complete the rest of the chapter, but couldn't fit any more images since Tumblr put a smaller limit so the rest of it will be in another post. I don't want to give away too much before I got to it. Until then. Happy Gaming!

#phoenix be gaming #gaming #gameplay #video games #games #gamer #gamer girl #gamer fun #game #entertainment #The Wolf Among Us #PC Games #Steam Games #gamer life #playthrough #nothing is queue everything is permitted

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amphxtrite · 4 years

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george weasley x fem!reader

warnings: smut, oral (male receiving), swearing, spelling/grammar mistakes.

do not read if you are not comfortable.

summary: When the twins and the reader move into their new apartment in Diagon Alley, you finally confess to George about the feelings you’ve accumulated through the years, which eventually leads to more.

a/n: This was request from anonymous for a george weasley x reader, first time smut, thank you for requesting, I had a lot of fun writing this!

word count: 4k

enjoy <3

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“Give her hell from us Peeves!” Three voices cry before soaring away into the clear blue sky.

Everyone knows of the Golden Trio, Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley. The students who disobeyed every rule, every year to save the wizarding world.

In the Hogwarts walls there was another group of students, while not as heroic, were just as well known. George Weasley, Fred Weasley and Y/n L/n were the notorious pranksters of the school. You couldn’t walk ten feet without someone being a victim of their work. For years, the school was their playground, pranks ranging from covering students in feathers, slipping belch-powder in professors’ tea and making products of their own that would take the world by storm in the years to come.

Every student at Hogwarts knew their group by name, swiveling heads in alertness when one of your voices was about, or running the opposite way when a familiar laugh rang out. There was never one without the others, so when your grand scheme of fireworks and sparks flew through the air, no one was surprised to see three brooms zipping about, accompanied by laughter and the screams of the pink toad who had terrorized the school of magic. Your names would go down in history among the students and as you zipped away through the clouds, a giant ‘W’ in your wake. The joyous feeling of freedom breaks free and you join the twins in the life you’d been dreaming about since you met the two in your first year, and away from the hell you’d endured.

With the help of Harry’s generous donation, the three of you set up shop in Diagon Alley, making the most bizarre and far-out designs the three of you could think of. Working long and hard to perfect each and every one of your products for your grand opening in a couple months.

The three of you spent most of your time in the apartment above the shop, concocting your brews and relishing in the new-found freedom you had taken for yourselves. The three of you worked, laughed, high-fived and dusted each other off after bad days, you grew even closer to the twins and with the new atmosphere and life, and feelings you’d accumulated through the years came about that had your stomach erupt in butterflies around your best friend.

If you were to ask anyone in Hogwarts about the mischief trio, first you’d see their head swivel and panic cross their eyes, next they’d tell you. While you were all close and the twins were practically connected at the hip, George Weasley and Y/n L/n had an unspoken ‘thing’ between them, and it was quite obvious to everyone, but them, and although cliché it was one of the castle’s favourite subjects for drama.

While oblivious to the gossip, George had fancied you since the moment he met you in first year. Watching your eyes light up at him and his twins’ antics and then showing them some tricks of your own. He must’ve been blushing beet-red because at that moment he fell. He fell for your sarcastic remarks, your love for books and muggle movies, he fell for the way your nose scrunched when you were concentrating and the way your eyes lit up whenever it snowed. George could go on for hours about all the things he loved about you, but actually telling you was a whole other story. You were such a positive, bubbly person, he could hardly tell the difference between a romantic or platonic action. Did you mean to brush his hand like that? Was that little smirk for a reason? Did you know what you did to him when you bit your lip like that? Or when you walked with a little more swing in your hips.

George wanted nothing more than to wrap you into his arms and hold you close against him, murmuring every moment he fell in love with you into your ear, listening to your heartbeat and pressing kisses across your temple, but at the same time he wanted to make you squirm beneath him, make you scream his name and take away your ability to walk, leave his mark across your skin and taste you. He just wished he had a hint to how you really felt about him.

“Oi, George! Get down here, we need some help with this stand!” Fred’s familiar shout shakes the daydreaming red-head out of his daze, cutting his thought of you short.

“Alright ya twat, no need to yell!” George huffs, speeding down the stairs to the shop area and walking towards you and Fred.

“How can I be of assistance, my dear brother.” George smirks as he approaches. “Well this stand won’t fit in between the other displays, we just need help pushing it in.” You shrug, jabbing your thumb towards the empty display stand.

George claps his hands together and the three of you get to work. You did your best to pry one of the displays to the side while the twins push the stand into place. Everything was going well, you made great progress and the display case was starting to slide in. It wasn’t until the twins gave a final heave, that you lost focus, your eyes dropping to a certain twin’s toned bicep, peeking out from his skin tight shirt, and you failed to remove your finger from the crevice.

“Bloody Hell!” You cry as your fingers are crushed in the closed space. Quickly yanking your digits out of the gap, you hold them close to your chest, you double over in pain. “Fuck, that hurt.” You groan, examining your fingers to be lightly scratched and bruised.

George can only just register your pained yelp before he’s fussing all over you just like his mother would. “Oh my goodness, are you alright love? I left my wand in my room, come on, I’ll fix you right up.” George gently takes your arm and hurries up the stairs leaving a confused Fred behind.

“Hey it’s alright Georgie, it’s just a small cut!” You try to reason with the persistent ginger, but George doesn’t let go. “Nonsense darling, your finger is bleeding, I’ll heal it in no time.” He continues, sitting you on his bed as he picks up with wand from his bedside drawer and takes a seat next to you.

You extend your hands to George and without a beat he murmurs the healing spell. “Episkey.”

Your cuts begin to close and the bruises fade away, leaving no pain and no sign of injury. “Thanks George, you’re the best!” You giggle wrapping your arms around the tall Weasley and inching closer to him.

It had become something of a tradition for the two of you to heal each other if one of you were to get hurt back in school. Whether you’d scraped a knee or had come to the other bearing Umbridge’s scar, you’d done your best to help one another, learning new healing spells for this specific reason.

A smile spreads across your cheek as you think back to the days you’d run to George with a burn or a cut, only coming to peace once he’d had a go at it, or at least wrapped it in a bandage.

“Do yo remember, back in Hogwarts, when we’d come to each other just to heal our little wounds.” You pull back from the hug and take George’s hand in yours.

“Of course darling, how could I forget.” George grins, reminiscing of the days not so long ago.

Back in your days with the pink toad, George would be the first person you’d run to after detention, small sobs racking through you as you showed George the first of many scratches in the back of your hand.

‘I must not laugh in class’

George had helped you reduce it to a pink scar, but the pain remained with you for long after as the memories of that horrid quill raked your brain.

George was always your comfort, he’d stuck by your side and was there for you when you needed it the most. Long nights of star-gazing, studying, planning and laughing had also helped you come to terms with the love bubbling inside you for George Weasley.

“Thank you for everything, back in school I mean.” You sigh, leaning onto George’s broad shoulder, a light smile gracing your face.

“There’s no need to thank me love, if anything I should be thanking you for saving me from detentions.” George smirks, wrapping an arm around you. You begin to laugh a bit as you think back to when you’d trick filch into leaving his post before pulling the red-head through the long halls.

“Feels like so long ago.” You murmur and look up towards George, finding him already gazing back at you. “Last time you did it was only a year ago love.” The younger twin smiles, leaning closer.

Your eyebrows knit together and your face heats up at the sudden closeness and a question that has plagued your mind for years spills from your lips.

“Not to be nosy, but why do you always call me darling or love, Georgie?”

This was it, George’s thoughts began to race. This was the moment he could finally confess to you, finally know how you felt about him.

His lips turn up into a huge smile, as he pulls you closer to him and looks down for a moment, gathering courage.

“Y/n, I’ve fancied you since the moment I saw you on the train. You immediately caught my attention, but once I really got to know you, I knew that I was done for. You’re so funny, beautiful and absolutely perfect, but you’ve never really showed me you fancied me and-” George pauses for a moment, trying to pick his words right. “Well, I just want to know how you feel.” He simply states, looking deep into your mesmerizing e/c eyes.

Your smile widens as George finishes his confession, and tackling the red-head onto the bed you hug him tight against you.

“I fancy you too idiot! Why else do you think I’d only go to you for my scars and bruises, why I’d save you from detention all those times, I’ve fallen in love with you!” A melodic laugh rings from your lips as George wraps his arms around you with a hearty chuckle, pressing kissing on your head just like he’d dreamed of doing.

Rolling the two of you over, George now on top, the blushing ginger admires your laughing form beneath him. You were positively angelic and he couldn’t help himself from what came next.

George leans down and captures your lips in his, snaking his arm up to hold your hand against the mattress while the other cups your face. The kiss is chaste at first as George familiarizes himself with your lips, truth be told he hadn’t had his first kiss yet, only daydreamed of doing it with you. Now, with your lips finally against his, he wanted it to be perfect.

Running his tongue against your bottom lip, George wordlessly asks for permission to deepen the kiss, nipping lightly on your soft pink lips. Parting your lips you allow George to run his tongue around your mouth, as your teeth clash and your tongues swirl around each other.

George eventually pulls away to catch his breath, never letting go of your hand and stroking your cheek with his thumb. “You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to do that love.” the prankster smiles, pressing a small kiss to your nose.

“Oh I can imagine, especially with that pressure on my thigh.” Your eyebrow raises in a teasing tone as George goes a brilliant shade of scarlet, his freckles seemingly disappearing under the dark hue.

“I- uh, I’m sorry. It’s just-” George begins to ramble, trying his best to explain himself to no avail.

A small smirk plays on your lips as you capture George’s lips into a loving kiss again.

“It’s alright Georgie, I want this too.” You sigh onto the gryffindor’s lips, circling your hips around underneath him.

George lets out a low moan at your action, squeezing your hand and looking back into your eyes, pupils dilated and dark with lust. “I’ve never done this before.” You admit, running a finger up and down George’s side, glancing down at his lip caught in between his teeth.

“I haven’t either, but I’ve imagined doing this with you before.” George shrugs, removing his hand from your cheek and placing it on the waistband of your shorts. “That makes two of us.” You tease, running your free hand up the beater’s toned chest.

George doesn’t hesitate to crash his lips onto yours again, rolling his hips against you. Your mouth parts enough for him to slip his tongue past your lips again and explore every inch of your opening as his hand pulls the waistband of your shorts down your thighs before promptly flicking them to the floor. George uses his long digits to tease your clit through your panties as he kisses down your jaw and collarbone nipping and sucking, leaving a path of pink marks down your upper chest. “So wet for me already love?” He smirks as his fingers find the soaked patch on your heat, eyes darkening as he pushes harder against your clit.

“Yes George, f-fuck, right there.” You plead softly as George continues to ravage your clit, hitting the sensitive bud perfectly and sending waves of pleasure through your being. The gryffindor obliges, rubbing your heat faster and harder as your eyes shut and your head falls back against the soft pillows, allowing George access to your neck, sucking dark hickeys onto your skin as you writhe beneath him from the stimulation from his fingers and lips were granting.

Slowly inching your fingers up, you pull the beater’s shirt up to his chest, motioning him to take it off as your fingers move lower to the waistband of his trousers. George removes his fingers from your panties to teasingly pull off his shirt, sitting up a bit to show off his toned abdomen, taking his sweet time to throw the shirt aside and fix up his short hair, sending a wink down at you.

Your hands seem to gain a consciousness of their own, slowly tracing down each muscle, drawing dangerously low before George leans down to push your shirt up your chest. Raising your arms, your shirt joins George’s on the floor. “You’re absolutely stunning love.” George praises as he reaches behind your body to unclasp your black bra, quickly throwing it away and pressing kisses across your breasts.

You begin to run your hands up the toned red-heads chest when he takes hold of your hands and pins them above your head against the soft cushion, his grip soft, but firm, unabling you to move despite how hard you squirmed.

“Don’t bother darling, now stay still like a good girl.” George smirks, lust evident in his low rasp as he kisses down your naked chest, swirling his tongue around your nipples and massaging them with his calloused hand. Your attempts to escape George’s grasp are forgotten as his teeth begin to nibble on your sensitive buds. Head falling back between your arms, you arch your back against George, silently begging for more. George grins into your skins and pulls back to admire your pleading form, reaching down to undo his belt with a small fumble, eventually pulling his trousers and briefs down completely. Your eyes fly open at the feeling of George’s hard cock brushing up against your inner thigh as George’s dark, brown eyes display a playfulness as he teases his tip against your clothed core.

You begin to struggle against George’s grip again, wanting to take his throbbing length into your mouth and make him beg beneath you. Unfortunately, George has different plans and his clutch stays firm.

“Ah ah ah, just let me make you feel good y/n, save that for another time.” George purrs, hooking his fingers into your panties and pulling them down your legs. Your arms grow limp as George uses his hand to spread your thighs apart and place himself between your thighs. Right in front of where you needed him most. “Please don’t tease me anymore George, I-I need you.” You beg shakily, desperately rolling your hips to gain any friction, your timid demeanor being overthrown by overstimulation and need.

“Patience darling, you’ll get me I promise.” George smirks, closing the space between you to press another heated kiss to your lips and continuing to coat himself in your slick, sliding himself up and down. Bringing his free hand to your clit again, George pushes his thumb to your sensitive bundle of nerves, swirling it around with a light pressure, swallowing your loud moans into the kiss. Once you were squirming beneath him again, back arched and hips thrusting up for more, he finally begins to push himself into your soaked core.

A feeling of ecstasy and satisfaction runs through your veins, bringing a whole new feeling of pleasure and clouding all your senses as George pushes deeper into you, awakening an intoxicating new feeling you could get addicted too.

George pauses for a moment, pulling away from the kiss for a moment to check in on how you were. Your eyes are shut, your mouth agape in a small ‘o’ and with the loss of his lips, desperate moans spill past your lips, mixing beautifully with George’s name.

The toned red-head begins to thrust in and out, incoherent groans falling from his lips as your core clenches around him and your hips buck up to greet him. Picking up the pace. You cry out George’s name over and over again as he continues to snap his hips in and out of you, your body growing limp and your eyes rolling into the back of your head with each thrust. George continues to pound deep into you using all his strength to go deeper and harder, reintroducing his fingers to stroke your clit as he desperately swirls and thrusts his hips.

“Fuck, you make me feel so good darling.” George growls against your ear, peppering kisses to your jaw and burying his face into your neck to try and stifle his loud moans.

With George whispering sinful praises into your ear you can feel a knot tighten in your lower stomach, and your hips begin to buck again and again, begging for release. “Oh fuck George, d-don’t stop, I’m gonna cum.” You mewl breathily.

George, fueled by your moans pushes himself even more, thrusting and swirling his hips until he feels your core clench deliciously against him and your shaky moan cry out.

As your coil snaps, spots flood your vision and your body tenses as shockwaves of euphoria shake your body and your hands beg to grip onto something, cries of pleasure mix with the sound of George’s skin hitting yours as the beater continues to snap his hips into your throbbing core, his cock twitching and pulsing deep inside you as you ride out your orgasm and his release builds up.

George throws your leg over his shoulder in a desperate action for release, using the new angle to push deeper into you and feeling your core contracts to grip his cock, driving him absolutely insane.

“Oh my Godric, George you make me feel so fucking good, please let me help you.” You look up to your constricted hands and back into George’s dark orbs, pleading with him to release you.

George gives a couple more lazy thrusts before he releases your hands and pulls himself out of you. Despite your legs being unsteady, you lay George’s head down on the other end of the bed and begin to kiss down his sweat stained body, slowly making your way down his long body.

Licking a stripe from the base to the tip of his cock, you slowly take George’s length into your mouth, swirling the pulsing tip around your tongue and hollowing your cheeks before going deeper. George’s eyes shut once again as you take him, burying his fingers into your hair and helping you to guide your lips down. Taking what you can’t fit into your hands you start to bob your head up and down, using your lips and hands together as you lick and suck at the sensitive skin. George begins to spew profanities and buck his hips into your mouth, pulling your hair up and down a little more forcefully as you begin to gag lightly. George continues to buck and moan, your name being sobbed from George’s lips as he feels his orgasm taking over him and hot cum floods your mouth. You try your best to swallow every drop, only a couple beads sliding down your chin as you lift your head from George’s length.

“God you look so gorgeous with my cum dripping down your face.” George smirks pulling you onto his bare chest and kissing down your cheek. Your only response is a blush as George continues to stare down at you as if you were his last meal, drinking in all of your post-sex features. Messy hair, flushed cheeks, heavy breathing and swollen lips. Sighing, he pushes those thoughts away as he pulls you up to see him face to face.

“That was amazing love, thank you.” George grins, pulling you against his chest and playing with your soft hair.

“Of course Georgie, but Merlin my legs are sore.” You groan into George’s chest as his chest vibrates with a chuckle.

“I’m afraid Episkey won’t cut it for that darling.” The red-head prankster teases, reaching down to caress your legs lightly. “That’s too bad, have you got any other remedies?” You joke, wrapping your arms around George’s torso, a smile growing on your lips.

“Just lay here with me darling, Relax.” George sighs, pulling back to gaze into your eyes again with a growing smile. “Sounds good.” You respond, a small yawn falling from your lips.

“I-I love you y/n, I’ve fallen in love with you so many times over the years and the fact I still haven’t asked you this question yet is killing me, would you be my girl? Please?” George pouts, giving you his best puppy eyes as you giggle and cuddle closer to his chest.

“I’d love nothing more, my love.” You sigh happily as George’s eyes light up and he peppers your face with butterfly kisses.

“Next time the two of you shag, at least put a silencing charm over the room!” A disgusted shout, causes the two of your to flinch. “Sorry, Fred!” You laugh at the older twin’s plea and turn back to your love. “Guess we were a bit loud, weren’t we?” You tease.

“Me? Oh no darling, that was all you.” George smirks. “And who’s fault was that?” You reason, pressing a gentle kiss to George’s lips once again.

“All mine, I can say that with honor.” The red-head smiles victoriously and pulls you against him again with a chuckle.

“Godric, I can still hear you!” Fred’s annoyed scream rings through the room again.

The two of you only laugh at Fred’s interjection, too busy staring into each other’s eyes to care. The two of you had come so far, from pulling pranks in the Hogwarts halls, running to each other for a spell you could easily perform when you were hurt, to moving into the same apartment to follow your dreams and making love to each other after your confessions of love. You’d only dreamed of being able to hold the boy who’d stolen your heart with each Episkey and prank, and here you are lying in his arms with love bites scattered across your chest and legs too tired to move, slowly drifting to sleep as all your dreams came true.

#george weasley fluff #george weasley imagine #george weasley smut #george weasley x reader #george weasley #weasley twins #smut #harry potter imagine #harry potter #fred weasley #weasleys wizard wheezes #cedricsbrowncurls #george weasley x you #george weasley x y/n #x reader #harry potter fandom #weasley family #fred and goerge weasley #nsfw.anya

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cimmunist · 3 years

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Decided to make a comparison between my usual interpretation of Cimmerian, the one from my (and my friend's, @bluethepearldiver ) main AU, Gods and Pawns, and the @ask-dr-cimmerian version of him. You can read more in-detail explanations under the cut, but avoid the blog version if you don't want spoilers. I'm gonna be doing Clef next, who arguably has more design changes than the golden good boy.

The one on the right is the @ask-dr-cimmerian version, but I drew him with his natural hair and eye colour, he usually wears coloured lenses and dyes his hair.

GaP/Usual interpretation of Cimmerian:

Species: Most of the time, regular, non-anomalous human. Becomes immortal later on. (Can vary depending on version of the AU)

Age: 37-45 during the main events of the AU

Gender: Trans man

Orientation: Bisexual/Bi ace

Pronouns: he/him

Nationality: Ukrainian/American, Ukrainian from grandfather's side, raised in the South of US

Job: Ethics Committee Chairman

Appearance: 5'8'' lanky man with little to no body hair, gains some weight as he ages. Naturally brown eyes and hair, dyes his bangs a darker colour. Has both eyes, but is blind in his left one. Doesn't mind his blind eye but wears an eye patch out of habit.

Personality & health:

Sly, cocky bastard of the ethics committee

Petty

Strict and kind of unpleasant if you're caught on the receiving end of his complaints, but generally an overall charming guy

Kind of a mess with social interactions because of social anxiety, but he does his best

Struggles with PTSD, but mostly has his mental health under control

Relationships:

Love interests: Usually Clef, Bright and Kondraki, but varies depending on the AU version (other notable examples would be North, Mikell, Pierre (friend's o5 oc) or Tiffany (my oc))

Family: Two biological mums, orphaned from an early age, adopted by his aunt and uncle whom he considers his parents. Lots of adoptive siblings/cousins. Has two half-siblings who hate his guts. Usually childless during the ages listed above, but not always, has a bunch of kids later on.

Friends (depends mostly on versions of the AU): Sheila & Philip Foster (college/close friends), Richard Gerald (childhood/college/work friend), Tiffany Okely (college/work friend), Han/2913 (close friend), Karlos North (close friend/ex-love interest), Loretto/035 (close work acquaintance), Pierre/o5-4 (boss/friend), Sophia Light (close work friend), Megan (ex/friend)

Other: Works closely with the o5 council, and as such has somewhat personal relationships with some of them. Has a father/son relationship with at least one or two of them (Philosopher Scientist and The Mailman have a custody battle, Philosopher's husband Founder stands awkwardly to the side). Has an (abusive) ex, Kennedy Howard.

Trivia:

Has amaxophobia, is slowly working through it

Very caring and fatherly in nature

Has a fear of eternity, kind of awkward since he becomes immortal, oops

Got picked for the Ethics Committee Chairman pretty early on to joining the Committee, was very stressed about it, not very popular with some elder members of the committee for this reason

Recovering alcoholic

Suffers from chronic pain

Allergic to fur

Very ND, learned to mask it over the years, but will fail to do so if he's extremely tired, distressed or in pain. Will just, forcing himself not to stim, making himself feel miserable at the end of the day.

Got his scars from a car crash

Blog version of Cimmerian:

Species: Demigod (credit to @bsathesilentartist for the idea and letting me use it)

Age: 37

Gender: Genderqueer, currently identifies as trans man

Orientation: Oriented ace, demi-biromantic

Pronouns: Currently he/him, later on any

Nationality: Ukrainian/Turkic, raised in South US

Job: Liaison for the Ethics Committee (notable places of work: Site-19, Site-88, Site-17)

Appearance: 5'7'' lanky man with little to no body hair. Naturally silver/white hair that he dyes brown (including the eyebrows). Blue/golden eye with central heterochromia, changes colours over time, hides it with brown contacts. Lost his left eye, wears glass eyes and/or eye patches. Likes to wear make-up.

Personality & health:

Grumpy, mostly at work, gets worse at the end of the day

Petty

Strict and serious at work

Used to be more outgoing and cheerful, nowadays more anxious and snappy

Struggles greatly with depression, PTSD and suicidal thoughts, which causes him to be overall unpleasant and tired most of the time, overall relapsed A LOT

Very devoted to the things he believes in and people he loves, would actually die for his family and friends

Actually pleasant to be around if you get to know him well

Sometimes kind of a big hypocrite

Relationships:

Romantic interests: Clef, later on Bright and Iceberg

Friends: Sheila & Philip Foster (college friends), Gerald (college friend), Tiffany Okely (close friend, met at work), Han/2913 (friend), Megan (friend/ex-girlfriend), Karlos North (close friend, ex-fling)

Family: Son of Ak Ana/White Mother. Adopted by two mortal women, orphaned early on, adopted again by his aunt and uncle who he considers his parents. Has a bunch of adopted siblings/cousins. Two adopted/half-siblings that hate his guts. Has 3 children. Eldest, adopted daughter May. Middle kid, Eliza, who he had with his abusive ex Kennedy Howard. Youngest kid, Melody, who he had with Clef.

Trivia:

Semi-omniscient, a walking lie detector, kind of a slow idiot who doesn't realise This Is Not Normal

A mutualistic relationship with water, so to speak, doesn't fully understand it or grasp it quite yet

Can just...breathe underwater, I guess

Has goose wings, babyyyy, he can't see them though (not yet

Has fucked up dreams where he relives events from different timelines (which can be quite traumatic), a side effect of his omniscience

Very stressed about his children being anomalous like him or Clef, keeps a copy of unredacted Foundation files as potential blackmail if things do south for them

Lots of allergies

Has amaxophobia, you will not catch him anywhere near a car, no thank you sir.

Has a fear of eternity and drowning/deep waters (yes, I know, ironic)

Used to be recovering alcoholic, relapsed hardcore lately

Suffers from chronic pain

Neurodivergent, but masks/pretends to be neurotypical, will fail at it spectacularly under distress, pain or if he's tired

All of the hate he feels for Bright is just 100% projection 💜

Somebody get this man a therapist

Got his scars from a car crash

Has a toad named Potato

#scp #scp foundation #spooky arts #dr cimmerian #yes i made blog cimmerian loterally just an inch shorter than his usual equivalent #what of it

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vaguely-concerned · 4 years

Text

X-men Evolution; the great 2021 rewatch liveblog

exactly what it says on the tin, about halfway through the show I had TOO MANY FEELINGS and had to start writing some of them out haha (gets quite gambit & rogue/gambit heavy in the latter half, Because of Who I Am as a Person)

- this is my childhood’s x-men, my formative experience with them, and I’m happy to report that still seems like a good thing. the little eleven year old within me gets to geek out and have a good time with the characters and the surprisingly good animation and writing, adult me gets to CACKLE at regular intervals at the fashion/technology/absolute bonkers hot garbage comic book nonsense they use to justify a storyline every now and then, it’s been a good time

- I was like ‘ah well it is super dated it probably won’t be quite the same now’ and then rogue’s HAIR did the THING in the opening and ‘it’s all coming back to me now’ started playing in the background... the little baby queer in me swooning across time and space

- such a good beast, both his design and the writing, my heart aches for him all the time. he’s just so passionate! about being a teacher! helping young humans learn the stuff they’ll need in life! the most wonderful nerd man, just let good things happen for him

- I’m going to go ahead and assume that rogue’s ‘crush’ on scott is more of a deeply complex psychological process about desiring normalcy and intimacy and trying to figure out if she’s queer and dealing with her emerging sexuality and latching on to the first and best safely unavailable and nonthreatening older boy to project these issues onto rather than actually being a real thing, because I respect her so much as a person and I cannot bring myself to imagine she’s honestly attracted to a man who has POSTERS OF CARS on his bedroom wall. (I’ll give jean a break just because she seems to have a longer deeper history with him that might counteract some of that libido-kill, and also she’s a jock so lol)

like I am very sorry but can u imagine being a teenage girl with any interest in a boy with model cars in his bedroom when gambit’s swanning around being a much, much, much worse choice on almost every possible level but in a teen girl kryptonite kind of way? inconceivable

(I drag scott quite a few times in this and it’s not because I don’t love him, it’s just his tragedy to be the most draggable man in the world)

to be fair by the time gambit shows up that whole Situation has mostly played itself out I suppose but still

- toad’s design is so ineffably brilliant, I can’t quite tell you why but that ugly cute charm has really stuck with me, he’s one of the characters I remembered the best to this day just visually

- poor evan... he truly never had a chance, did he, they just saddled him with the most 90s teen bullshit they could come up with like he’s some kind of ‘what adult writers think teens like’ frankenstein’s monster ;______; it’s not your fault honey

- poor poor POOR storm, she gets one focus episode and they were like ‘we’re going to make an episode so racist -- ‘

I’m still STUNNED at how bad it was, but undeniably I laughed hysterically to the point that my neighbours were probably worried when that dude was earnestly like ‘He [stunningly breathlessly racist caricature of a ‘witch doctor’ guy] has stolen her powers, and he’s going to use them to take over Africa!!!’ fhajsdlfhsakjldfh oh really? tell me more, like how the fUCK this could be on television within my life time fasdlfhsdkjfhsad f just... fahjksdfh

- it’s a testament to gambit’s appeal as a character that his charm can survive what they’ve done with his hair and beard choices in this one fajskfhs regrettable but true I still fuckn LOVE him and in my highly biased yet Correct opinion he should have been around much more. get you a man who manages to stay hot through sheer Vibes even with a bowl cut

- aw scott/jean is kind of sweet in this show even if it’s taking them forEVER to get there, I like it

- it’s very nice of rogue to not mention magneto’s romantic daydreams and nostalgic memories about charles xavier after touching his face that one time... or maybe her brain did her a service and repressed it, there’s some stuff you shouldn’t have to know about your father figure

- the danger room is the very definition of ‘why do we even have that lever’ and I wonder what the fuck prof x does to have enough money to replace everything that gets busted all the time

- I’d say that a lot of the writing holds up surprisingly well! (but some of it is also incredibly inexcusably racist in ways that beggar belief, so... not full marks here) the characters have distinct voices and their arcs are set up and delivered on solidly for the most part, and there’s a lot of love showing through in small moments that are just there to have a funny/interesting thing to say about the characters and how their powers work separately and in combination. listen, sometimes I get so thirsty for like. basic goddamn competency in storytelling, let me have this

- ugggggh why is there captain america in my x-men have I not suffered enough... very very funny when prof x goes ‘sounds like you knew rogers personally’ and logan is like ‘I did ;)’ *all the students ganging up on steve rogers* “did you fuck our teacher, captain america?!”

- fskadfhas WHY are you showing me hot young-ified magneto’s ass fksjahfskj charles is not even here to see it, what a tragic waste erik

- ...I was sort of kidding before but uh I think logan genuinely did fuck captain america (or at least wishes very much that he did lol)

- wanda can have a little watching the world burn. as a treat for the way every single adult in her life has fucking failed her (’aren’t they treating you well here’ professor x she’s in a straightjacket)

- poor rogue tho can you imagine finding out after your biggest crush on a girl yet that she’s your fucking MOM in disguise... I would break out in cold sweat every time I thought about a boob forever after

- well seems like they really just had all that homoerotic rivalry stuff between quicksilver and spyke in their first ep only to never do anything with that again ever?? I mean even without the gay undertone that seems like a dynamic you spent most of an episode setting up writers what the hell haha

- dslhfkasjlh GAMBIT THERE HE IS MY BOY IS ON THE SCENE THIS IS NOT A DRILL!!! I don’t even care about his awful hair situation or the fact that his eyes are wrong here (coloured contact lenses, maybe, for a watsonian explanation? though he’d probably have to get them made special, considering he needs the sclera and the iris covered up in different ways, I’ve seen some comic panels indicating he has been known to?)

(cute little detail: when he shuffles the cards the first time we see him he ends with removing the top card to show the ace of hearts beneath <3 foreshadowing baBEY he’s a... good-ish boy deep down. hey he tries okay shit gets complicated sometimes lol)

- cracking UP at gambit perched cheerily on the edge of a crate dispensing cards in the middle of the battle... he’s like ‘eh it’s a livin’ sfsajkhf remy stop working for supervillains just because you had nothing to do on a thursday afternoon and they said they’d pay you

- I’m guessing magneto must have imposed a strict order of silence on these guys or something because I cannot imagine any other reason for him to shut up, especially once he notices rogue is a QTE (or, far more likely, they hadn’t settled on any voice actors for the new characters until next season haha. it is kind of odd that they’re all keeping up near monastic silence, though, even sabertooth lol)

- WHAT an epic first meeting for us rogue/gambit fans here... first his shadow like there’s fireworks going off behind him lighting him up and then he gives her the fuckn king of hearts and she’s so enchanted by his dumb handsome face she doesn’t even notice it’s about to blow up in her hands and it all happens in heavily meaningful silence afjsdfjashjk no wonder this ship ingrained itself in my hindbrain

yeah look smug while you can remy she’s gonna have you on your knees one day and you’ll be happy about it lol

- god storm is so COOL, everything just fading out of focus when she really gets going... give her more screen time, show!!

- mystique is every person... this person... that person... that bird... that cat... that wolf... I’m not even sure she’s not also me... are you sure she’s not you?

- holy fuck I respect the hell out of the decision to just... blow up the entire status quo in a season ender, I only vaguely remembered that (actually in general I appreciate how good the continuity is -- buildings and places that get damaged in battles need to be repaired or rebuilt, it makes the consequences feel more real even when no one gets seriously hurt. where they get the money to restore scott’s car and logan’s motorbikes every time they go cablooie is still an open question tho lol is it credit card fraud, professor? is it telepathically acquired blackmail???)

- I first watched this when I was nine or so, so it’s a real experience to go from my starry eyed intrigued ‘oh my god... they’re teenagers’ to my horrified adult perspective of ‘oh my god... they’re TEENAGERS D:’

that goes double for the brotherhood boys honestly, I’m here with tears in my eyes like ‘I’m sorry the system has failed you so badly you’re all just a bunch of dumb kids whose caretakers clearly fucked up spectacularly’

like lance is always waiting for mystique to come back because she’s the closest thing he has to a safe parental figure, may we speak about how crushingly depressing that is

- rogue is so ready to throw hands at literally any moment and for that I love and treasure her immensely (I think getting to see her be so surly and unreasonable and sometimes difficult and jealous, like any teenager, meant a lot to me as a kid who was not really allowed to be any of these things, this version of the character has stayed with me so deeply. she holds on so fiercely to her right to feel what she feels and be what she is even when it’s ‘ugly’ or unreasonable, which I think plays in really interestingly with how her powers involve getting invaded by other people’s thoughts and memories to the point of overwhelming her own sense of self and the fact that she clearly has a lot of self-loathing and self-consciousness and confusion about her identity as well. I love her so much)

- oooof this is the ‘the gang experience a microaggression’ episode huh (well more like macroagressions really)

hits a bit different with adult eyes and perspective huh

- hearing jean sound almost like a child when she says ‘that’s so unfair!’ somehow has me like ;______; -- she has to be so adult and responsible all the time, and having her be reduced to the kid she still is and should get to be in front of this awful awful man she could squash like a bug with the flick of a thought... ugh I’m Big Sad (it is funny that jean seemingly plays Every Sport tho djfhaskj)

- MY BOY IS BACK!!! this time with the duster coat and his eyes the right colour, im so happy (too bad about the subdued colour scheme tho; I adore his dumb bright pink getup with my whole heart)

it’s kind of adorable that he takes the time to take the bullies aside and go ‘I know these guys can’t wreck you without getting expelled, but I think you’ll find no law set down by god or man would stop me from doing so whenever I wanted to. so piss off and leave them alone’ lol he’s looking out for them, in his own way

- in this episode: remy lebeau wrangles some kids while looking bored yet mildly amused the whole time. what the fuck does magneto have on you for you to agree to this level of babysitting duty buddy

- fun detail I noticed b/c when I get a fave I hyperfixate: he gave rogue the king of hearts before, but he ‘introduces’ himself to the brotherhood here (lol) with the jack of hearts, probably to symbolize he’s here as someone who works for magneto in this setting and not as his own man? it’s a demotion he’s given himself there, anyway, might be he’s not very pleased about his current position huh

- I like it when rogue and kitty team up, they’re not very effective together but their squabbling is so cute and non-aggressive

- pietro is what draco malfoy would be if I ever found malfoy interesting to watch for even one moment, every time quicksilver talks I’m like ‘what wonderfully insufferable thing is going to come out of your mouth this time you little shit :’)’

- a) why are scott and logan shirtless for this scene? I am not complaining on the logan side of things at least but why and b) I laughed so hard I almost fell off my couch when scott asked logan if he’d ever been in love and he was like ‘once. she was the most beautiful bike I ever saw’ falsdfhaskjfhsakjlfhasklhjfd THE BEST VERSION OF WOLVERINE EVER, ACCEPT NO SUBSTITUTES

- mystique’s sheer dedication to being a petty bitch is kind of inspirational tbh, almost makes me want to go on a completely bonkers and extra crusade of personal revenge myself

- oooh they’re doing some genuinely cool things with vision/lack of vision in this one (it’s the scott left on his own in the desert without glasses one btw) even visually, dang! I’m so sad this show didn’t get more seasons than it did, honestly, it deserved it

- hell yeah jean wreck her, go get your man with the suspiciously specific clothing damage normally done to female characters

awww :’) okay yeah they’re super sweet, I love the tiny loving animation details like how he leans his head against her and her stroking his hair away from his eyes

- nooo don’t bully evan leave my t0tally r4dical sk8er boy alone :(

- I love the running joke of people fleeing in blind panic only to reveal that what they’re running from is kitty’s cheerful well meaning little face fskfaskh

- scott and jean are already peak married after officially being together for one episode and it’s adorable, and they just stone cold threw logan under the bus, rip wolverine we hardly knew ya

fjasdlfasldfhslajdkfhsadkjlfhsdkjalfhsdakfh h jean establishing herself as the alphabitch of this relationship by throwing her man to the wolves right after dsjfhaskjfhaskjhfsakjdhfaskjhfaskdhfskjahfskdajhf get smarter or get volunteered scott

- ...eyepatch lady is so hot ngl

oh evan went to the place hank used to go to calm down ;________; (honestly he’s kind of won a place in my heart just by being a pretty normal teenage boy haha)

- jesus fucking CHRIST can you imagine being storm having to look her sister in the eye as she tells her ‘I lost your only child, he’s *vague gesture* somewhere in the sewers we think’ this poor woman

- amanda the self admitted monster fucker you are so VALID (I love her and her family’s design so much tho!)

- it’s so cool that even in his human ‘disguise’ kurt’s fingers follow the shape of his actual hand beneath it rather than moving like a five fingered hand, it’s such a lovingly consistent little detail

- magneto and mystique in a breathless race to see who can be the shittiest parent... tune in next week for yet another parental nadir (also some low-poly gambit appearances in this one, for those at home keeping score (me), he’s in the background looking like someone drew him with their eyes closed fakjldfhasd look how they massacred my boy)

- someone please teach the brotherhood boys about consent huh

- jean ‘soccer mom before her time’ grey and her SUV dfhakjlhds :’)

- im sobbing rogue baby girl i’m so sorryyyyyy, this voice actress is so good, my parental instincts suddenly kicked into overdrive hearing the crack in her voice :( (bb me was right tho rogue centric episodes ARE the best episodes. that tension between ‘do I identify witn this character or am I crushing on her?? both???’ now has the fun new addition of ‘oh god oh no you are a baby I want to shield you with my body from everything trying to hurt you’)

- mystique is like ‘so you see despite you telling me you never wanted to see me again I completely disrespected that and posed as a friend your age, manipulated you by offering you the mirage of direly needed emotional intimacy and belonging and added some sprinkles of homoerotic tension to it just to massively worsen your already existing grievous psychosexual trauma and identity issues... out of love’

god go jump in a black hole you fucking monster

- there’s some very interesting and quite subtle subtext about the people she’s morphing into and what that says about her mental state/how it shows off some of her emotional baggage with the rest of the team. it’s like she’s switching between people/powers that fit the purpose as if she’s going through cycles of fight/flight (and then bursts of freeze where she’s herself, which is... so sad)

- this whole episode is hurting my heart but rogue at full power is undeniably epic

- ‘professor x get your goddamn act together and get this poor girl some fucking tHERAPY’ challenge

- SAFE PAPA LOGAN ;_____;

- EYYYYYY opening straight on My Lad, I cannot stop winning!!!!!

fasdfhsad disintegrating the window with a smiley face... remy I do love you more than my heart can bear honestly, hello may we speak about the fact that his urge to be a little shit is so deep and strong it survives mind control (that little breathed out ‘hiah!’ as he vaults the fence too dsakfjsd)

hahaha and he does up the coat fhsalfdsaj

- magneto dismissing other telepaths like ‘puh-lease, your Meaningful Looks have got nothing on my ex-husband’s’

- :’) rogue and kurt sibling timeees

- say what you want but this pyro guy’s got job satisfaction in being a creepy arsonist with a weird recurring horse theme (well at least twice but still weird)

- I love how beast is the kindest man to ever walk the earth but also straight up savage, this man drags people so hard their ancestors wince in their graves

- gambit taking the time to complete the guard’s game of solitaire -- this episode is giving me everything I want. u little disgrace mr lebeau

and THEN he takes the spider out in the most hilariously bonkers way my heart is so FULL

(I love that when magneto moves by he looks startled and has to quickly move his head out of the way to avoid getting kicked in the temple too that’s a fun detail)

I’m so INTO how this sequence shows off that his greatest strength isn’t even his powers (which are pretty straightforward, really, he makes go boom, longer time and bigger thing bigger boom) but that he’s clever and creative and always extremely ready to be the most harebrained-bananapants-extra-in-a-deceptively-laidback-sort-of-way person in the room (I actually have some genuinely Deep Thoughts about how his whole character does a really interesting thing with having the straightforwardly destructive nature of his powers yield to what his nature as a person is, and how using the playing cards play (heh) into it, maybe I’ll write it out some day. just the fact that he could use anything, but he deliberately chose something that adds style and playfulness and corny charm to it and that also limits the damage of the explosions compared to if he habitually used something with more mass... I find it fascinating how much he’s made a story around himself with it and how deeply it shows he does have a good heart, at the end of the day, in almost a metatextual way. he doesn’t want to destroy things or people, he’s at worst (and best lol) a thief.)

- I honestly have literally no memory of white nick fury (which seems so weird now isn’t it funny) in this series from when I was a kid, he clearly did not make an impression on me lol

- mr wolverine ‘assigned canadian at birth’ x-men

- oh man I dig the androgynity of x-23′s outfit (even tho they had to compensate with the long hair, which... kind of doesn’t make sense in-universe but does on a design level because it’s a crucial thing that she’s a female clone of logan so yeah okay fine whatever have your arbitrary gender markers if you must haha)

ooooooh that’s actually really clever, they make her gender gradually more obvious as she unravels through the episode and her outfit changes -- first the mask coming off, and then her jacket opening to show her silhouette more clearly, that’s cool!

- my god what really sets this show apart is how much it invests in little character and relationship moments, it’s just so fucking GOOD! it gives laura looking in on those moments such depth and weight because it’s new to her but established to us as an audience, this is how you make found family devastating people (storm growing bonsai trees is so charming too haha)

- ooof this is honestly quite harrowing

SHE’S SO SMALL COMPARED TO HIM I’M CRYING (at least that part of his genes translated over faslkfsjdh short king, I say this with all the love and support of a fellow short monarch)

- tabitha seems to just be running around doing precisely whatever the fuck she wants and you know what I support her even if she is an asshole her father left her a bunch of trauma and no fucks left to give

- still thrilled about professor x explaining the spider key fuckup to magneto after the fact like ‘magnus you dumb bitch this is why we split up’

- awww kitty has anime and movie posters on her wall and sleeps with a stuffed toy :’)

- remy rogue

🤝

doing completely unnecessary parkour around the brotherhood living room seemingly just for the hell of it... I’m not saying soulmates but fucking soulmates

- fhsadkjlfhsakjldfhsadjkfhsdajkfh just as gambit’s soul-level need to be a little shit survived his bout of mind control, rogue’s deep and urgent desire to kiss gambit full on the mouth survived hers I can’t breathe

she looks so pleased with herself too GOOD FOR YOU GIRL at least get something out of this other than more trauma

also not only the fact that he’s smart enough to figure out what’s going on (though he’s only partially right about who’s behind it. I do so enjoy gambit/mystique deep and sincere antipathy as a constant across all universes tho lmao pure wlw/mlm hostility) but also that he keeps fending her off like he’s not trying to hurt her even though she’s in nigh on unstoppable and invulnerable terminator mode... awww

- gambit having absolutely no patience for wolverine and sabertooth’s bullshit macho-off and consistently being this little biker trio’s one brain cell is adding years to my life with every passing moment

his voice is a little different in these scenes too, a bit softer and less like he’s trying to impress someone, it’s nice

- hank: well I barely recognize any of these (completely made up) ‘ancient egyptian hieroglyphs’ but from what I can make out -- *proceeds to infodump a perfect coherent narrative* fjdhfak

listen this whole thing is such nonsense on so many levels, I’m just turning my brain off so I won’t have to think about it okay, the compulsion to put ancient aliens in egypt haunts us as a culture

- I am CACKLING about gambit in the snow after having to listen to these two chucklefucks ooze testosterone at each other for hours

he started out taking it in good cheer and is now reduced to ‘dieu would both of you just jump off this fUCKING mountain please’

- ah. a little oops-a-daisy there, we seem to have unleashed the apocalypse. please stand by (they really don’t pull their punches with the season cliffhangers in this show haha)

- opening the season on gambit’s merrily grinning face is the easiest way to gain my favour. yes good this season may commence

baby u r my

ANGELLLLLLLL

(he’s so cute here tho haha I think it shows the design isn’t unsalvagable, just get him better hair and stubble more like logan has and you’ve basically got it)

love his exasperated eyeroll when the dude gets spooked (by his eyes? or just the general weirdness?) too

he’s just trying to keep this crazy family of evil mutants together and unmurdered by one another until they’ve managed to avert the end of the world, bless him

- oh NO rogue’s LIP wobbles my hhhhhheart ;____; such a good animation detail to put in

- like... I know kurt is just a sad scared teenager with a lot of shit going on and all the adults are too busy averting the end of the world to help him... but buddy maybe don’t ask your sister to wake her abuser (who forced her to kickstart the end of the world!!!!!) when she feels utterly unsafe even with her statue version around huh

- ...wanda is good and I want only good things for her. and for her dad to be disemboweled for what he did to her both the first time around and when he forced her to forget I mean what

- magneto throwing an epic satelite-slinging tantrum b/c ‘no I am the biggest sexiest strongest mutant of the pack :(’... erik fucking get over yourself

- yes boys absolutely go along with a plan suggested by a dude who looks at you like this

nothing bad can come of this surely asdfkhsa

- lance’s quarter of a braincell always trying to go ‘hey wait, maybe... not do this???’ and it never helps lol

- in this episode: Logan Has A Bad Day

...some very specific bondage positions he’s held in here, I am sure this episode awakened something in someone once upon a time lol

- logan shielding x-23 with his body... im fine it’s okay I’m not crying don’t look at me

- afsdhlsdfjasdlk those sure are some ‘scottish’ accents flsadkjhkdsjahfsd

- scott relieved to finally be able to cede the position of ‘charles xavier’s least favourite son’ to someone else fjsaklfhsajd (poor scott it’s not your fault honey)

supremely cowardly to suggest there is an ex-wife involved rather than charles slutting his way around the british isles back in the day but okay

- kurt with a cold is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. it’s okay kid it’ll get better soon

- ...is there an implication here that professor x is naturally blond. because I am losing my entire little mind about it (i mean he at least has to carry the gene, as does this lady?)

ETA: upon doing some research into this I can indeed confirm that charles xavier does seem to be naturally blond, and after this knowledge I will never be the same

- “listen, dracula” fskdafghasd oh scott you sweet baby angel I love you

- I know jean’s abilities are a bit ‘as strong or as weak as the plot needs right now’ at this point (so you can have the setup for what’s going to happen with them eventually and she’s basically invincible ;____;), and normally I’m cool with it but god I want her to just squash lucas like a little bug

- ewwwww please don’t ever say ‘daddy’ like that again

- ...what the fuck is even going on this episode’s a mess

like okay the split personality thing could be something but the way it’s done... what just happened lol

- MY BOY EVAN IS BACK! with a real glowup too (...though kind of weird how he suddenly looks like a grown man)

- augh scott’s eyes are so pretty oh my god ;__________________________;

- that episode in the first season where evan makes the ‘this is my new family!!’ video is so sad now (also, again, his poor poor parents)

- time for: life affirming road trip with gambit (involuntary) faskljdfhaskjd

stunt therapist remy lebeau

- I mean the way he goes about it is batshit insane and it’s very much secondary to what he’s actually up to but this is the first time rogue’s sounded genuinely hopeful and confident and like herself in like a season <3

- he is disconcertingly pleased about her nearly throwing him off the train, and may I just say I agree it’s so nice to see rogue with her old fire back

- the first time I watched this it was of course dubbed into norwegian, so I had no idea either of these characters were southern lol (though to be fair I probably wouldn’t have had much context for what it meant exactly either, I was like ten at the time and not too interested in america) I seem to dimly remember the norwegian voice actor did a little more of a ‘french’-tinged accent for gambit all over tho haha

- you know what respect where it’s due, pyro dude knows to live his life for the lols and one has to admire his sociopathic dedication to it

interesting that he, too, seems to have fucking hated magneto -- I wonder if the implication here is that he kept all the acolytes in line with blackmail or by keeping something/one hostage? (except sabertooth maybe he’d just have to say ‘you get to fuck shit up and fight wolverine’ and that’d be enough)

- fsdakfhsd he’s so focused on her he doesn’t notice that guy about to hit him fkafhsa

- fuck everything else except whatever the hell these two’ve got going on

- it’s weirdly cathartic to have rogue have a conversation with someone who was not happily adopted as well, I don’t think kurt like. gets it because his parents loved him unconditionally and still do

birds of a feather motherfucker

- fun detail: when the x-men team are on the shore and logan is sniffing around scott is stepping in something and trying to wipe it off his boots in the background

- when he wakes up after passing out from the touch he’s smiling even though she’s standing over him looking like the rage of god outlined by the moon fsajfsa well the last time he passed out like that it was from a kiss, maybe he still has some hopes and dreams in that direction lol (also he recovers from the tumble down the hill first and is checking on her before accidentally brushing her cheek with his hand, which I thought was sweet)

and it was in that moment he knew he fucked up *passes out*

- ‘I can explain’ can u remy. can u

- did it ever even occur to you to just. ask her. to help you. I mean I know it didn’t but like rogue’s always one second away from throwing hands with some bully and is stupidly ride or die, if you’d given her the puppydog eyes she would have crumbled immediately (fair enough I guess this entire episode is telling us he’s not from a background where he has much experience with people just helping him without a price haha)

- his eyes glowing when he’s angry or upset or using a lot of his power is undeniably cool as all hell. I’m just saying it would be Big Sexy if they sort of flickered with light in moments of genuine vulnerability okay

- his coat... his coat is what makes the Silhouette tm and I could not be happier about it

- another parent of the year contestant enters the running lol “hey remy have you ever considered that you’re more of a walking bomb factory than a person? that’s certainly how I think of you hahaha c’mon kid let’s go”

- the running joke of jean luc getting dollar signs in his eyes seeing the other mutant powers and gambit being like ‘nO!!!!’ and pulling him along is amazing haha

- from the way he looks when he touches rogue accidentally and the way he talks to his dad I’m sort of getting the feeling this gambit might actually be a bit younger than he looks?

here too -- idk why but it’s making the ‘wait is he baby???’ alarms go off in my head haha. very early twenties at most.

- and we’ve officially seen him with all the face cards in the heart suit folks! (yes this is the sort of thing my brain notices no I don’t know either)

- poor logan running his ass off this whole episode in a panic and then she’s like ‘nah he’s fine (in several meanings of the word ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ) please put him down’ hfaskfsda

- rogue without makeup!!! her eyes look so naked like this haha <3

- oooh here’s a really interesting thing that tickles my brain a bit in this specific part of the scene where gambit frees his dad -- the part where he’s leaning against the door frame waiting for jean luc, who’s about to suggest using the opportunity to ruin the rival gang from the inside rather than slipping away while they still can

from his expression here he knows what’s about to happen, what jean luc is about to say, and it’s clearly a ‘man who thought he’d lost all hope loses last additional bit of hope he didn’t even know he still had’ sort of situation. he KNOWS what jean luc is like, and it still hurts that he really, honestly can’t give him even this, can’t appreciate that remy’s already done all this shit for him when he extremely didn’t have to, without immediately (no really, it took him less than ten seconds to go there? jesus) demanding more.

remy tells him “I’m just here for you” and jean luc does not understand it. remy seems to be sincere in this motivation -- rogue certainly thinks so, having experienced it second hand and found enough at least emotional merit in it to decide he was worth saving even after all his bullshit (lol a bit of a running theme maybe. I think it’s very telling that after she absorbed mystique she was like ‘what the FUCK you’re a fucking monster’, and after she absorbed gambit she went ‘you did the wrong thing for the right reasons’ after she got over the first wave of outrage)

there’s also what he says as he stands there: “You don’t need me for that”, with the distinct implication that jean luc would only keep him around because he has a use for him and for no other reason -- and then jean luc shamelessly doubles down on that by specifying that it’s not even him he’s got a use for as such, just his powers. that’s some kicking puppies level of deliberately missing the point, it’s almost impressive in how cheerfully mean it is haha

this idea of using people is really important in this episode because remy’s doing basically exactly the same thing to rogue to begin with; it doesn’t really matter to his plan that it’s her that’s with him through this, just what her powers are. (I think it’s p r e t t y solidly implied that he does actually like her a lot outside of that too and maybe there is some comfort in having her around for this, but mostly he’s behind a smokescreen of lies through the whole thing sooo I doubt he’s even aware of it, honestly)

but then it does matter that it’s her when she comes back for him, even after what he did. and unlike jean luc he understands what that means, that she did that for him, and that she didn’t have to. and instead of asking her for more, in return he gives her the thing it’s been established is what he considers the most valuable thing he has; his ‘last card’, the thing he’s credited with keeping him alive many a time, basically. it’s gone from using to mutuality, a tentative place of friendship, and at the end of the day he is a different man than his adoptive father, with a capacity for selflessness and love he lacks. which is of course some of the same stuff going on with rogue and mystique too, except rogue acted from a more fragile and unstable place and did something she regrets, or at least has a LOT of doubts about now, and she found some catharsis in helping someone make a different choice in a similar situation. man there’s some Stuff going on under the surface here haha

(by the way it’s a weirdly... meaningless yet intensely meaningful thing, the gifting of a symbol? of an idea? but he’s putting something very crucial of himself into her hands, is the subtext, and he expects her to understand, which she also does seem to do. at the beginning of the episode he’s proving that he’s seen something true about her -- “You’re such an unhappy girl”, knowing where she comes from, the way she’s mourning her lost confidence and autonomy with her abilities -- and here she’s proving she’s seen something true about him. :’) I wish this show had gone on long enough for this dynamic to progress, it’s really interesting and touching)

- gambit dragging himself up onto dry land seeing someone approaching (to help?!): :D

gambit seeing that it’s logan and the look on his face: D:

- rogue using her powers so confidently and fearlessly in this episode tho!!!!

- *me crying* and then her FAMBILY comes to take her home and he says he’s looking out for her too and kurt still loves her even though they’re having a conflict thing between them and she’s finally able to use her powers without so much fear again and --

- ...did I just watch some baby lesbian love at first sight shit right now???

- okay last two episodes let’s go

- HELL YEAH STORM (I love that she’s like ‘don’t give me a dumb order like that and I won’t have to disobey it’ too sdfjsaj) her voice has such command I’m usually very much not the ‘step on me’ type butttt

- y’know I feel like apocalypse’s main fault across all versions I’ve seen of him is that he’s like an immortal superpowered god king and he’s not even sexy. like at least make him hot if he’s going to be insufferable in every other way

- also callout post for apocalypse: one time he made gambit into the Horseman of Death... and didn’t even make him sexy!!! you were handed remy lebeau, supreme bi disaster slut of the x men universe, and you couldn’t even make his brainwashed superpowered evil side hot?? a beautiful stubbled twunk with glowing red eyes and extremely charming :> face practically delivers himself into your hands and you do that to him???? I mean I’m sure apocalypse did some other bad stuff too but that was the worst one

(comics are so dumb y’all)

- having to watch jean cry is emotional terrorism!! ;___; she has such older sister/mom energy, whenever she gets sad and helpless it hurts

- oh, OH so PROFESSOR X you’ll make into a hunk and ~*strategically*~ rip his clothes to show off a nipple and a flawless pec in a way that makes me extremely uncomfortable because he’s like The Dad??? apocalypse you are rotten to the core this is unforgivable

- so wait wanda never actually gets her real memories back. what the FuCk I hope that was a dropped storyline because they ended the show tragically prematurely rather than like. the plan

- why is spyke calling storm ‘storm’ show that’s his auntie o!! >:(

- as a society we need to acknowledge that apocalypse looks like a fucking clown

- ooooh yeah I have been thinking that this show’s greatest visual weakness so far has been not having a visual way to show telepathy/battles of the minds, but this is a pretty cool way to do it! better late than never

- I’m so happy rogue gets to end this herself, since she was forced into starting it against her will, it’s just nice and neat storytelling

- YEAH FUCKING TELL HER KURT AND ROGUE I AM SO PROUD OF YOU and she has the temerity to look pissed off oh my god

the only valid thing mystique has done in her entire life is be in love with destiny. literally everything else she gets up to is a travesty. like I know objectively she’s hot but my loathing for her stops me from even appreciating it. I do enjoy loathing her tho so please don’t change her haha

(a bit odd to have kurt’s attitude to her swing so much but I’m just going to assume he and rogue had a good long conversation after ‘cajun spice’ and that he understands what’s going on better now)

- this last part is such a cruel tease faskdfhsdaj ‘here are all the cool-ass things we had planned. sucks you never get to see it huh’ im devastated

- magneto without his helmet and playing charmingly with children like charles is going ‘well at least I saved my marriage finally’ fsadkhfjsd (honestly tho I would be super interested in seeing how they’d redeem this magneto because he’s been a real bitch the whole time lol)

there’s an interesting thing here where magneto looks down at wanda as the last thing he does on screen before this epilogue part (yeah I hope it fucking haunts you forever what you did to her erik you absolute piece of hot garbage) and the last thing charles does is look at jean b/c he knows what’s going to happen to her and it breaks his heart... Dramatic Parallells

- just the hint of jean as the phoenix has me in full D:D:D: mode tho maybe I wouldn’t have survived it

- gambit in the last groupshot with his arm around rogue ;^) I mean I’m sure they’re headed for some turns and roundabouts along the way but what’s that thing she says as her wedding vow, that she’ll always find her way back? anyway that got me in my heart

- man I really wish this show had been given more seasons, we were barely even getting warmed up here :’(

#x men evolution #x men #gambit #rogue x gambit #aaah this is like therapy for me... just dumping all my emotions into a tumblr post and then let them go into the ether #I am now wondering if I'm desperate enough to go all the way back to the x-men animated series (which I've never seen before!)#like am I willing to go there for more Contente. time will tell I suppose #happy tag #...this is very long #MAN why can't I channel this dumbass energy into fiction writing I'd get so much DONE

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quirkwizard · 4 years

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Spoiled Sushi

For a while, a certain article has been vexing me. One that seems to have a great misunderstanding of the series it was writing about, missing obvious points and core parts of the worldbuilding. No, it wasn’t by CBR, nor was it by Screenrant. But it was by Cruchyroll of all places. They decided to make an article about the Top 5 Misused Quirks in My Hero Academia. It was not good and has been bugging me. So I decided to give them a taste of their own medicine. I mean they try to shut down whoever even attempts to do what they do, so why not make fun of them for trying to do what I do? Plus you guys seem to like it when I’m snarky, so this could be fun for everyone.

For clarity’s sake, this was written at the beginning of 2019, when the most recent chapter was Chapter 214 and the the anime had only reached Season 3. I’m keeping that in mind as I write. I will also be skipping around some of the parts of the article as I am talking about it. If its not worth mentioning, I won’t bring it up, simple as that. For instance, I’m skipping the intro because it is completely superfluous and would only serve to make a completely different fanbase mad. Might as well, most of what I am passing up are just dumb jokes. But if you are curious... don’t waste your time reading this. Your time is valuable and you have better things to do then read this article.

5. Kurogiri Can Create Free, Renewable Energy

“In all seriousness, though, Kurogiri is probably one of the most powerful characters in the anime, with their being virtually no limit to how far he can extend his Warp Gate portals.”

I mean there are certainly limits for his Quirk. Besides the need to know the coordinates or see where he is moving, there’s obviously a limit to how much he can spread out his body.

“Why then doesn’t he use them to create near-infinite energy? Open two portals one above another, throw in a heavy object inside and watch it fall endlessly. Devise a way to hook a dynamo or something to it and, bam, you have free power that would make Kurogiri a billionaire overnight and a hero to the entire planet.”

This idea has so many problems that I don’t even know where to begin.

One, if this could work, it likely wouldn’t make a lot of energy. Besides the various physics problems involved in this, Kurogiri would just be one guy doing this, meaning that it’s unlikely he’d be able to make enough power to matter.

Two, Kurogiri would still need rest as he is a living being, meaning he wouldn’t to keep up this theoretical contraption forever and you’d get even less energy relying on him. At most, it would work best in a small bunker as a last resort.

Three, that sounds like it would be a lot more dangerous then it would be worth for the energy made. If Kurogiri would to lose focus for a moment, the portals fall apart and there would just be a lot of damage from this heavy object moving at high speeds.

“Even if Kurogiri only cares about taking down All Might, it would still be much easier to do if he had a literal mountain of money/public goodwill at his side.”

What kind of bizzaro universe are you living in where the guy who makes energy could possibly turn public option about the very well liked Number 1 Hero that saves lives every day? That’s literally what Lex Luthor does and people hate him for it.

4. Koji Koda Could Help Feed Billions Of People

“Koji is the resident Class 1-A stoner (get it? he's made of rock? come on) with the power to control ANY creature in the animal kingdom. This would logically also include spiders, meaning that Koji could literally end all street crime in, like, 5 minutes tops by swallowing all the criminals up in a giant arachno-tsunami.”

While this article is infuriating in many ways, it did give us the mental image of an “arachno-tsunami”. Which is totally worth sitting through this jumbled mess of words and ignorance.

“But, you see, Koji is just too shy and nice to be an effective hero. He wants to do good but he just doesn’t have that fighter instinct in him. Which is why he should instead use his Anivoice Quirk to revolutionize agriculture all around the world.”

You can be an effective hero and not beat people up. Sure, it certainly can come up in the job description, but that isn’t all of what a hero is meant to do. Koda’s Quirk makes him great at information gathering and rescue work, two very important aspects of hero work that suit his personality perfectly.

“Give him a megaphone and fly him over American fields, telling feral pigs to stop causing $1.5 billion worth of damage a year in destroyed crops. Fly him to Australia to tell the invasive cane toads and rabbits to kindly lemming themselves off a cliff. Have him tell the aggressive lionfish the get the hell out of the Atlantic. FORCE HIM TO GET OVER HIS FEAR OF BUGS AND MAKE AGRICULTURAL PESTS A THING OF THE PAST. “

There is no possible way Koda could be everywhere at once to pull that off. And considering that the average human voice can only carry for about a mile, IE, about the average size of a single farm. You know, because animals need to hear his voice in order to receive his commands. So even if it was limited to a single farm, its unlikely to do much to help. But by far the biggest issue with this entire plan is that what Koda does to an animal is not permanent. The second his control is interrupted, the animals return to normal, bound to just go back to whatever they were doing before.

So if Koda tries to change anything, its just going to end up undone by the time he leaves, just delaying the inevitable problem that comes from these animals. So even if Koda told the pigs to go away, they’d likely be back by the next day, destroying farmland like nothing happened. Even then, because of the previous limitations, he’d still have to go farm by farm to pull it off. That’s not even mentioning all of the other suggestions. Honestly, if you wanted to do something with Quirk, you should just convince all the animals to line up during hunting season. Dark, yes, but it least it would offer a more permanent solution then what the writer is suggesting.

“If Koji was utilized properly, he could travel the world undoing mankind’s mistakes and creating organic, pesticide-free crops instead of doing what he does now, which is largely sitting around on his ass roleplaying Snow White.”

Which, in spite of many fans joking about his Quirk, has shown to be very helpful quite a few times.

3. Inko Midoriya Would Have Made A Great Nurse

“Izuku’s mother in My Hero Academia has mainly done two things so far: jack and squat.”

I mean she did design Izuku’s costume, even if it got replaced, its is still a corner stone of his design, and she offered a good amount of drama after the fight with All Might and All For One.

“She did try to be a good mother but kind of failed at that when she tearfully apologized to her son because he was born without a Quirk, essentially telling him: “I’m so sorry I gave birth to such a loser.””

Would you believe that this one line was what really prompted me to talk about this? Because that is probably one of the worst takes I have ever in relation to this series. If you honestly believed that is what Inko was doing, the woman who practically raised her child by herself and constantly talks about much she cares for him, you must be watching the wrong series. That’s the only way I could explain why that is.

“So, she doesn’t really have much going on in her life. That’s why she should try nursing instead. I realize that becoming a nurse takes a lot of hard work and dedication, but Inko would be a natural fit for it. Despite her initial shortcomings, she is a very caring person with loads of empathy.”

Inko’s empathic? Could have fooled me. I mean she did feel the need to apologize to her son for giving birth to a loser. No, I am not over that, how could you have possibly gotten that from the scene?!

“She also has the power of limited telekinesis. Inko can move small objects over short distances, and while that would not be helpful for stopping crime, it would be great for, say, removing kidney stones. Or things stuck in people’s throats. Or coins from children’s stomachs.”

Trying to use a Quirk like this in any kind of medical procedure is laughable at best and dangerous at worst. Imagine if Inko had to remove a bullet from someone. From what we see, the process of her moving objects is slow and need several pulls from her to attract the object to her. So if she’s going to try to pull it out and its going to get caught on something, causing more damage to the person she is trying to save. She’s basically going to be keying the insides of whoever she is trying to operate on.

The entire reasons doctors, especially surgeons, train for so long is because the human body can be extremely delicate. It needs a lot of care and time so the doctors don’t make things worse for the patients. It’s why surgeons need to have such steady hands and a lot of time even to due minor procedures. But trying to do that with a Quirk is just going to cause more problems then it can solve. Doing that with a Quirk like Inko’s just lacks a lot of the precision and dexterity necessary to pull this off.

2. Uraraka Should Go Work For A Shipping Company

“Ochaco Uraraka has one of the most well-rounded Quirks out of all the main characters: Zero Gravity. With it, she can make objects and people float, which is great for offense, defense, and rescue operations. As a superheroine, she is doing everything right with her Quirk.”

I mean “Zero Gravity” can kind of be used offensively, but not effectively as other Quirks. Its why she did all of that training with Gun Head to make up for her lack of an offensive presence. Eh, two of three ain’t bad. I’ll take what I can get.

“I just think Uraraka should never have become a superheroine in the first place. Uraraka has actually always been honest about her motivation: she wants dem YEN YEN BILLS YO (for her struggling family.)”

That’s because hero work is an extremely frugal business even super minor heroes can still seem to make a decent living out of it.

“But regular jobs also exist in that world, and that must include shipping companies that would instantly hire Uraraka to Zero-G their freighters, trucks, and planes. Even if she cannot make them float, she can still remove enough gravity from them to save the company tons of fuel. Company profit margins are razor thin.”

First off, its mentioned several times that if you want to use a Quirk for a job, you need to have a hero license. Its to make sure you know how to use your Quirk properly so you don’t end up hurting someone with your powers. So for her to even try this, she needs to go through hero school anyway. Might as well get the most out of it. Second, Uraraka cannot lower the gravity of her target. Either the object is floating or it isn’t floating. There is no in between for Uraraka.

Third, given what we’ve seen from Uraraka, there is no possible way that she could ever lift that much. She’s barely able to lift three lower numbered robots and that was only for a few seconds. So, at the most, she can lift a few tons. How exactly do you expect her to work with something like a cargo plane, which, on its own, can weight over forty five tons, not including fuel or any extra cargo?

Which is another thing I noticed throughout the article: the writer seems to severely overestimate how effective Quirks actually are. The range and scope of Quirks is much smaller then other power systems, even when compared to similar “low level” series like HunterxHunter. Like every kind of application listed goes far beyond what most Quirks are capable of, such as forgetting certain drawbacks. And that is most notable with the last suggestion.

1. Momo Could Solve Literally All The World’s Problems

I bet Kohei Horikoshi was really proud of himself when he came up with Momo Yaoyorozu’s design: No, see, she HAS to dress scantily because her Quirk is Creation, i.e. the ability to create any object she wants through her skin, which must be constantly exposed. Peachy.”

Oh boy, it wouldn’t be any sort of discussion about Momo without beating that long dead horse. What’s next? Bakugou angry? Izuku cry?

“Momo can apparently create anything as long as she understands its composition, and seeing as she’s made an ethanol spray can, infrared goggles, a lighter, and a tracker, it seems like there’s nothing she cannot make.”

Oh boy, it wouldn’t be any sort of discussion about Momo without a grievous misunderstanding of how her Quirk works either. Maybe they are in the fandom. As I have mentioned in my Momo Misconceptions post, Momo needs fat to make what she does. She’s not an alchemist where she can just clap her hands and make whatever she wants. If she doesn’t have enough fat, she cannot make items. By those very rules, some things are just out of her reach because it would just take too much fat. It’s why she limits herself to simpler items.

“Cool. MAKE US SOME HELIUM THEN. The world is running out of the gas and we need it for MRI scanners and the like. Momo could make more of it.”

Actually, we don’t even know for sure if Momo is capable of making gases. All we have seen her make is solids and a few liquids. There is the lighter she made, but that could easily run on lighter fluid.

“Or thorium. She could make thorium that we could use to make thorium-based reactors that are apparently way safer than uranium ones.”

Thorium isn’t even that rare, just as about as common as lead and three times as common as uranium. Even if it was a problem, it would likely kill her, either from burning through all of her fat or from the exposure to radiation.

“Medicine, fresh water, cheap electronics that we could send to developing countries: Momo could crank all of those out in an afternoon.“

Yes, in theory, Momo could do that, but not the extent that she would make a major difference in the world like they are suggesting. There are just more practical and better long term solutions then trying to force a single person to do all of that. It’s almost as if Momo is a regular human being who has limitations you need to keep in mind when making these ill informed suggestions.

“And while spending your life as a walking Everything Faucet might not seem that glamorous, it actually has the potential to change the entire planet for the better.”

Given the kind of set up and effort that would be required to even attempt that, I think “horrific” would be a more appropriate descriptor since it would be done to a living, thinking person.

Honestly, I think that most of these people are doing more with their Quirks now then with any of these suggestions. At least, when you actually think about the rules and limits of the characters. Sure, Inko isn’t doing much, but she is a civilian with a fairly weak Quirk. Kurogiri acts as a major player within the League, getting them around quickly and evading capture. I mean he is using his power to help out a bunch of villains, but my point still stands that he is not “misusing” his Quirk.

In fact, a majority of the people on this list are doing more to help people and save lives by being heroes. Given the limitations of their abilities, using them to stop superpowered criminals who risking damaging the people around and helping victims of these crimes is doing then any of those roles in spite of the fact that the article tries its best to downplay that these people are already saving lives. So, in reality, they are doing far more to help people then doing any of these ideas, you damp sock of a writer.

#My Hero Academia #Quirks

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rainandhotchocolate · 4 years

Text

Blackout - Part 4

A/N reckon I couldn’t have gotten more angsty? HA take a whole weekend of intense anxiety and a desire to write sad shit and you get this fun ol chapter. I hope you like it <3

Sirius came by two days later. Y/N could hear them hissing at each other in the hallway before Lily pushed the door open and closed it in his face, smiling brightly at the sight of Y/N sitting fully up in bed.

“Hey! How are you feeling?”

“Ok, they’ve given me more potion for the broken ribs and rebandaged me this morning and I seem to be able to move my ribcage upwards – you might say that’s progress,” Y/N smiled back at her.

Seeing Lily each day was definitely one of the highlights. Her other two ‘roommates’ weren’t the chattiest bunch – one would reel off a set of potion ingredients every few hours as the nurses recorded them to see what they made and if it means anything. They think she was tortured for the perfect Felix Felicis but managed to give incorrect potion ingredients until there was some sort of explosion. The other hasn’t said a word since Y/N got here, just staring ominously up at the ceiling with wide, green eyes.

“That’s great progress, you’ll be walking in no time!”

“If I remember,” Y/N snorted, eyes darting anxiously back towards the door. She could see the shadow of his feet pacing up and down along the corridor.

“Don’t worry, I’ll walk you around like a puppet until you figure it out,” Lily grinned at her, sitting down in her usual chair beside Y/N’s bed and large table that was now covered in assorted sweets and flowers. Y/N found she had a particular fondness towards the Peppermint Toads which jumped a few times around the bed before going limp enough for Y/N to eat them.

They fell into a silence, Lily looking at her over-picked fingernails.

“So.” She looked up at Y/N with a face Y/N couldn’t quite pick. Worry? Pity?

“So.”

“He’s here today. Outside.”

“I heard.”

“Right of course,” Lily breathed out a laugh, flicking her hair back with one hand. “Are you ok with him being here? I’ve told him not to expect anything.”

Y/N took a deep breath in. She didn’t really know what to feel.

“Honestly, the weirdest thing is just that I can’t believe Sirius Black is waiting outside my hospital room. We just, well in my messed-up mind, we don’t have any history to warrant this. And yet I still don’t want to disappoint him.”

“Well maybe that’s residual memory? That could be a good thing.” Lily looked hopefully up at her, but Y/N knew that wasn’t the case. She felt like she was failing someone she didn’t even really know.

“Yeah, maybe.”

“So, I can bring him in?”

“Go for it.”

Lily squeezed Y/N’s hand and got up to head back towards the doorway. Y/N fidgeted in her bed, pulling herself up slightly and back onto the pillows against her head. The door opened slowly, and Y/N forced herself to smile at the two of them moving towards her, Sirius looking up at her and then dipping quickly as Lily placed a hand on his shoulder and guided him towards her. It was a very odd experession, Y/N had never seen Sirius look so uncomfortable. That you remember.

“Hey Y/N,” He walked to the other side of the bed, pushing back his curly black hair so it flopped to one side with the kind of ease Y/N was sure James envied. He was wearing a leather jacket and black jeans and felt like the complete opposite to the white walled existence she’d been living whilst in the hospital.

“Hey B-Sirius,” Y/N cleared her throat as she avoided calling him his last name. What did I call him when we were together? Sirius’s face clearly fell but he looked down to the books he was carrying to attempt to hide it.

“How you feeling?”

“Pretty good, can move now,” Y/N smiled at him, feeling a little uncomfortable seeing him watch her so closely. She wasn’t sure if anyone had ever looked at her like that before.

“You’ll be running the Thames in no time.”

Y/N laughed, “I’d be lucky to walk across London Bridge and not be out of breath.”

“I can think of other ways to get you out of breath,” Sirius grinned at her, but Y/N felt her heart jump and eyes grow wider at him. She cursed internally as her cheeks began to redden. Sirius grimaced and leaned forward to touch Y/N’s hand before thinking against it.

“Fuck, sorry, I just… I’m not used to this yet, sorry.”

“No, I just… not quite used to being flirted with, by you, yet,” Y/N hoped her smile was somewhat kind or calming. Sirius still looked flustered.

“Yeah, speaking of I brought some stuff from home for you – our home… I don’t know if Lily mentioned that?” He seemed to read Y/N’s mind, or likely very surprised expression.

“No, she didn’t,” Y/N gave Lily a look. So you live with him, you don’t remember the partner that you live with. She tried to ignore her chest getting tighter, “But thanks, what did you bring?”

Sirius picked up a large bag from under his chair and placed it in his lap.

“Oh, you brought the whole house?” Y/N teased as he began pulling books and clothes and trinkets out of the back and placing them all over the bed.

“Shut up,” Sirius rolled his eyes but Y/N was sure she’d made him smile. “I was speaking to the healer the other day and he said it would be at least another week, so I figured you’d need some more supplies. I grabbed some of your clothes, there’s comfy stuff and then a nice top since you always say to pack one even though you definitely won’t need it.”

“Hey, I could be invited to a hospital ball,” Y/N traced a hand over the silky red blouse and tried to imagine what she would look like wearing that. He folded them by the bedside table, placing a large Gryffindor jumper on top. Y/N hated that what she really wanted was her cosiest Ravenclaw jumper but she kept her mouth shut.

“Brought some books too – got that muggle one you were… you uh said you wanted,” Sirius handed over a red hardcover book, the letters Alice in Wonderland over the cover. Y/N felt a flicker of memory, a thought, something. It was more frustrating that actually knowing, like she was about to sneeze, and it kept disappearing.

“Thanks, I can’t wait to read it.” Y/N turned it over in her hands, looking up to see Sirius watching her again. “Uh, everything ok?”

“Sorry,” Sirius looked away again, “I keep going to say something and then realising you might not have the context.”

“Yeah that has been annoying.”

“I can’t even imagine how you are coping right now,” Sirius shook his head, sitting back in his chair.

“A lot of jello and roast potatoes.”

“Do they at least give you butter?”

“Nah, they are the driest potatoes to ever live,” Y/N laughed. It was nice to have an easy conversation with him, given the countless visions of Y/N stuttering in front of him or sitting in silence together that Y/N had been having nightmares of. “Can I ask a question?”

“Of course, anything,” Sirius leaned in slightly.

“Why did you ask me out? Sorry that’s a weird question for you. I know we were… friends,” Y/N grimaced as she spoke. “I just, I’m trying to fill in the gaps you know? I don’t know how much Lily has filled you in?”

“I told him what you remember,” She gave a kind smile to both Sirius and Y/N. or pitiful smile.

“Yeah, no, it’s fine.” Sirius grabbed another book on the bed, pulling his chair in closer to the bed so that he could sit next to her and see the book together. He smelled like cigarette smoke and… a sleepy dog?

“You put this together for our 6-month anniversary,” Sirius was smiling wistfully at the papers in front of him. There was a photo of the two of them dancing in a circle before Sirius dips Y/N dangerously low towards the ground. Y/N was laughing, head thrown back full-body kind of laughter, arm opening up into a fake dance pose. On the next page was a dozen different receipts from different stores around London.

“I might have acted like a bit of a tool when you came to the first order meeting, shut it Lily,” Lily had snorted loudly as he spoke. “A huge tool, trying to pretend I knew a lot more about muggle stuff than I might have.”

“Right…?”

“And so you may have asked me to pick up supplies for you since I knew the muggle world so well.”

“Supplies for what?”

“You told me they were muggle necessities,” Sirius was laughing now, “I went all around London collecting things – the weirdest was the body pillow which you told me was something all muggles fell asleep with and I ended up in a sex store being lectured at by an old guy who was debating the different – anyway, that’s when I realised you had been messing with me.”

“Took you that long?”

“Apparently I was a little distracted,” Sirius grinned, “Anyway, I got back, got on one knee and gave you your body pillow and asked you out.”

“That’s a good story,” Y/N said, before she could stop herself.

“Yeah, I guess it is.”

And there was the silence Y/N had been dreading. Y/N curled her hand into a ball, digging her nails into her fists to try to avoid showing the panic that was building slowly in her chest. She wanted to make him feel better, to not be the reason that he was watching himself twirl her around over and over again in a large notebook, but it also felt like a stranger was lying to her.

“I think that’s probably enough for one day.” Lily stood up suddenly, taking hold of Y/N’s curled hand and unfurling it beside the bed where Sirius couldn’t see.

“Oh, oh right of course um,” Sirius looked like he might hit something. And also like he was hoping for Y/N to ask him to stay. When she said nothing he stood up.

“Can I come by again? If that’s ok?”

“Yeah, yeah, you can.” Y/N smiled at him, holding Lily’s hand tighter.

“I’ll bring some Peppermint Toads next time, so you can stop eating the pathetic jello,” Sirius teased half-heartedly, giving a look to Lily.

“I’ll walk you out.” Lily squeezed Y/N’s hand and let go, “I’ll be back in a minute.”

“Take your time.”

They walked out of the room slowly, Sirius turning back at the doorway to wave goodbye and then disappearing behind the door. Y/N took the momentary lapse in people to suck in a deep, shaky breath. It hurt, her chest physically hurt as she took in another, and another, knowing they were speeding up uncontrollably but unable to slow herself down all the same.

Taglist:

@averytruerayofsunshine @siriuslyjanhvi @blushingskywalker @blackpinkdolan @thebabblingbookworm @cherrie511 @imlukesnirvana @avengersassemblee @maraudersandco @sly-vixen-up2nogood @sirius-lysad @evyiione @minerva26love @aikeia @gollyderek @greatwombatblaze @songforhema @your-typical-giggle @myownviperroom @hermionie-is-my-queen @demiwitch527 siobhanhope delightfuldela nadinissavage fleurmoon treestarrrrrrrr @with1love1anu @findzelda @brighteyedmichelle a-dorky-book-keeper placeforcoolusername damalseer @approved-by-dentists @placeforcoolusername

#rainandhotchocolate #sirius x reader #sirius black x reader #sirius x y/n #sirius black x y/n #maruaders fic #marauders x reader #lily #lily evans

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secret-engima · 4 years

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Today in “SE works through the Chuunin Exam Arc and gets increasingly incredulous over how a show so beloved can have so many GAPING PLOT HOLES and also wow you can actually tell when the animators were getting paid to be enthusiastic or not can’t you”:

1. Sarutobi why did it take you so long to realize that the stadium and village were under attack.

2. Sarutobi why did you let Orochimoron take you hostage for even a hot second KAWARIMI IS A LITERAL ACADEMY BASIC TECHNIQUE JUST SWAP OUT WITH A NEARBY TILE YOU IDIOT I’VE SEEN IT DONE BEFORE FROM THAT CLOSE RANGE. KAKASHI DID IT. SO CAN YOU.

3. Sarutobi I don’t want to say you DESERVE to be trapped in a giant purple death box with your failed student and two dead guys trying to kill you but honestly you deserve to be trapped in a giant purple death box with your failed student and two dead guys trying to kill you.

4. Anbu. My guys. My dudes. I KNOW that the barrier is deadly and made of horrible purple fire and you can’t jump in but like- the barrier holders are right there. Wasting chakra to make an extra barrier around themselves. The barrier protecting them can’t be that thick. You have these lovely things call FLAME RESISTANT STEEL SWORDS you could be using to try to crack open the barrier. Or if you were REALLY smart you could, I don’t know, TUNNEL UP THROUGH THE CEILING??? The barrier is just a box that’s been turned upside down, there is no sign of a barrier floor underneath the tiles and even if there is you guys could have checked. You don’t need to just- sit there. Watching an old man, two dead guys, and a snake wearing makeup beat each other up.

5. Who let Kakashi make the plan. Why did Kakashi decide that it would be better to send the civilian girl he hasn’t bothered to train, the loud blond who he also hasn’t bothered to train, and the boy who tried to fake sleep to get out of helping go alone with just a tiny pug as escort. There were other genin RIGHT THERE who could both help AND be conveniently out of the line of fire in Kakashi’s fight. He was sending them after Sasuke, who was chasing three genin we’ve already seen wipe the FLOOR with the average genin. Having more numbers would be HIGHLY ADVANTAGEOUS.

6. And don’t tell me “he did it because Stealth” he sent the girl with bubblegum hair and the boy in neon orange out there, stealth is a non-factor and also it’s AN INVASION, nobody is going to care about a bunch of wacky kids running by they’re too busy trying not to die to the blur of green spandex that is Gai.

7. Where is Lee in all this anyway he just kinda vanished from the screen. Or was he passed out on the floor and I just missed him. I know he can’t fight, I just wanna know if he’s okay.

8. Was it bad that I didn’t know Asuma could actually fight? I knew he was one of the Guardian Twelve or whatever but mostly fans only talk about him getting owned by Itachi or murdered by Hidan so I guess I just assumed he was ... kinda a sucky fighter. I have been proven wrong. Nice job saving your deer boy, Asuma, I’m impressed.

9. There’s an actual budget for the Hokage fight? Nice. Also who gave Sarutobi the right to actually be cool NOW when he’s been acting senile for the past 10+ episodes excuse you.

10. EXCUSE YOU SARUTOBI YOU DON’T GET TO MAKE EPIC FEELS-INDUCING SPEECHES ABOUT THE WILL OF FIRE AND THE VILLAGE AS YOUR FAMILY, NOT WHEN YOU HAVE FAILED ON BOTH THOSE ASPECTS SO HARD.

11. How dare you make me regret your impending death even a little bit Sarutobi. How dare.

12. There’s a monkey king? That’s an actual THING? I mean I knew there was a monkey king but I didn’t expect him to be so amazing. Now if he would just stop waiting for Sarutobi to grow a spine (because we all know he won’t) and actually kick Orochimaru while the snake was distracted taunting his old sensei maybe we’d actually get somewhere with this show.

13. Seriously Monkey King you turn into a adamantine pole or whatever that can change shape and size, just play dead on the ground for a minute then expand and extend to the size and length of a tree. You don’t even have to do any damage yourself you just have to shove him/wack him into his own barrier and let him go up in flames. It probably won’t kill him, since Plot and also Orochimoron, but hey at least it will do damage and distract him for a few seconds.

14. Turning to Naruto real quick because clearly Sarutobi’s Senile Damsel Syndrome is contagious- Naruto. You are an Uzumaki. You have so much chakra you can barely do chakra control exercises. I know you’re tired from the Neji fight, but I ALSO know via fandom that you’re going to summon a freaking Boss Summon in a few episodes. When Shikamaru says “someone needs to stay behind and be a diversion” why didn’t you, I don’t know, SPAM A FEW SHADOW CLONES? You didn’t even have to use only shadow clones for the diversion, you could have just dropped off a few to help out Shika in his rare moment of self-sacrifice. Half a dozen screaming orange genin would go such a long way in providing a distraction so Shika could make a plan (may I suggest, catch the sound ninja in shadow possession and then have the Naruto’s slit their throats before their ninth member has a chance to catch up?). But no. We can’t possibly spam clones the one time a comrade could find them terribly useful, let’s go back to running through the trees worrying about the boy who knows an A-Rank assassination jutsu and would be totally fine surviving on his own for another several episodes of dialogue and reaction shots ten minutes.

15. Where the ACTUAL freak is Jiraiya. He came to Konoha specifically because he heard Orochimaru was planning something. There is an INVASION HAPPENING. GIANT SNAKES. BUSTING DOWN THE WALL. ENEMY NINJA EVERYWHERE. YOUR SENSEI IS TRAPPED IN A BARRIER JUTSU WITH THE GUY YOU SPECIFICALLY CAME HERE TO LOOK FOR. You don’t suppose you could leave your drinks and women and pity party long enough to- I don’t know- HELP? I mean I know it would be hard for someone who has such niche skills like SUMMONING GIANT TOADS and USING FUUNJUTSU THAT COULD PROBABLY BREAK THE BARRIER YOUR SENSEI IS TRAPPED IN but come on man, put forth a little effort.

Maybe you show up in a later episode miraculously doing something important to help stop the invasion, who knows.

Pros of this arc tho:

1. When they decide to actually use their animation budget THEY REALLY GO FOR IT. The fights that have a budget are epic.

2. Sakura got to be useful! For 20 seconds! She fended off a genjutsu and woke up Naruto and told him what was going on! That counts as useful! *devolves into sobbing because why are the girl characters not allowed to be both good guys AND competent onscreen*

3. I genuinely cheered when Asuma swooped in to save Shika. That was cool.

4. Some of the exam fight bits were cool. Naruto vs Neji dragged on a bit but the ending tactic was as rewarding as I’d hoped it would be from reading about it in the fandom. Also I really enjoyed the Shikamaru vs Temari fight. A-tier victory from the resident Deer Boi.

5. Sasuke using Chidori first time on screen was cool, and even though I’d read about it ahead of time, Gaara wigging out over seeing his own blood genuinely startled me.

6. I was glad to see that Sasuke still remembers how to use other jutsu than Chidori. When Temari started fighting him I was afraid the show writers would forget he HAD any jutsu other than Chidori tbh. Like Naruto and his many versions of the same jutsu (see: all the clone spam variations, all the harem jutsu variations, and all the many MANY different rasengan variations).

#Secret Engima Rambles #SE rants #naruto #SE watches anime #Salty SE is Salty #surprisingly I am actually enjoying the show #i just get a steady build up of salt and eyerolling over the plot holes #and need to expel it before continuing to watch the show #still confused why people think this is somehow better than boruto #at least boruto remembers that its characters can DO THINGS #other than sit and look shocked at different angles for minutes on end

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jeremy-ken-anderson · 3 years

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A Too-Dang-Late Guide to Blue Mage

Blue Mage has been a thing for kind of a while now. Here’s an ideal route to success.

After 50 on some other class, you can become a Blue Mage. The quest giver is a Zealous Yellowjacket in the lower decks of Limsa. She thinks some deadbeat’s out to bilk people out of cash for fake job stones. She’s wrong. Sort of? Maybe?

This gets you the class and your first spell, Water Cannon.

Go out to the river in Lower La Noscea and kill things at random until a FATE called You Call That a Toad? pops. Take part in it. This will get you a few levels and also the spell Sticky Tongue.

Go up to Middle La Noscea and find the goblin camp. Pull one of the goblins from as far as possible using Sticky Tongue. Shoot him once or twice with Water Cannon but don’t kill him. Wait until he uses Bomb Toss, then kill him.

This is the general rule. If you see them use a spell you can learn, they’re fair game and you’ll probably get the spell. It’s high odds but not guaranteed, so if it fails pick another enemy of the same kind and try again.

Okay, that was all just sitting near where you started, but that’s enough of this regular stuff. It’s time for the Blue Cheese. Go to a high-level zone with level Xty-nine enemies (Northern Thanalan has 49s, Azys Lla has level 59s, and The Lochs has level 69s) along with a buddy who’s at least 10 levels higher than the zone (80 is ideal). You and your buddy shouldn’t be partied up. Discord might help you keep track of where each other are. RDM or SUM is especially useful for this because they can rez you if you die but have good damage.

Use Sticky Tongue on a target. Then the buddy kills it.

FFXIV has a “dibs” system where attacking a target someone else has damaged or hit with an effect first may give you rewards if your portion of the damage was high enough, but always gives them the rewards. Sticky Tongue pulls an enemy to you and stuns them for 5 seconds. So if you use it to pull an enemy over, your buddy has some time to get aggro off of you so you won’t die. AND you get full xp for the kill (because you’re not partied up it’s not split proportional with your relative levels but treated like you killed it). So you get 5+ levels per kill for a bit. The whole process of getting to 50 with Blue Mage takes less than half an hour with a good buddy and this system.

While you can use this trick to get to level 70 (the cap for Blue Mage), the truth is you won’t need to. 50 is the absolute highest you might need to cheese your level up to. For one thing, every spell you learn gives you a hefty chunk of xp. For another, most of those spells are found inside dungeons, and you’ll get a LOT of xp doing synced runs for spells. DO perform the runs level-synced. When you run a dungeon synced to the proper level, your learning % for everything in the dungeon with learnable spells jumps to 100%. You also get xp for the Carnevale, once you unlock it (If you’ve jumped to 50 you have a LOT of plot to read/play through all at once. The story’s pretty fun, so take time to watch the cutscenes!)

And if you succeeded at all this, all you need for these dungeon runs is...3-7 more people interested in doing Blue Magic stuff. The trouble with Blue Mage is that it can’t use the Duty Finder to join dungeons or trials, and when you run it with non-blue-mage characters they often don’t know what to do to help you (they’ll frequently kill enemies before the enemy uses the spell you want to learn from them). So you’re likely to spend a lot of time looking for people willing to run this or that dungeon. But if you can get 7 fellow blue mages who are on your friends list and/or in your Free Company? You can form an 8-person full party for big trials, and two 4-person light parties for dungeon content, and you can clear everything at whatever pace everyone’s willing to show up.

If you can’t get that group together, look forward to a lot of time with Party Finder trying to get a crew together while you do something else. Make sure you have a keyboard attached to whatever system you’re using, even if it’s a PS4. You’ll want to be able to type quickly to be friendly to people so you can keep them around long enough to go into the dungeons.

This social slog is, in general, The Problem with Blue Mage. It often feels like you spend more time begging for players than playing, which seems apropos given the kind of pathetic lot of the first Blue Mage you meet but also isn’t as much fun as the rest of the game, including Blue Mage gameplay.

As for exactly what the spells are and where to find them, I recommend the Blue Mage Spells Learning Guide on consolegameswiki. Type in those words and it should come up. It’s comprehensive on what the spells are, the different enemies who drop them, and (where applicable) what dungeons those enemies can be found in. Clicking “World Mob Level” at the top of the list on that page will order the spells lowest to highest by how low-level a monster there is that can teach you the spell. This can be used as a rough guide for what order to get spells in. You can get a whole lot of them just by bouncing around the overworld and harassing regular monsters, which gives you a pretty solid skill set before you have to start asking fellow players for help with dungeons.

#ffxiv #blue mage #guide

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infinitelytheheartexpands · 4 years

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Topic that I KNOW will prompt a rant from you if I send you an ask about it: Carlotta from Phantom of the Opera - did she deserve the way she was treated?

You got it. 😉

The short answer: absolutely not.

The long answer: absolutely not, and here’s why.

So first things first, Carlotta Giudicelli has been the prima donna of the Paris Opéra for five years. This is a huge freaking deal, the prime position, and also a career that wasn’t exactly long-lived in 19th century Paris, where musicodramatic demands and the hyperattention of the public (and yes I did just slap together a couple words) were so great that many a soprano either fell apart, was replaced by a more fashionable (read: younger and prettier and different), or both. (Case in point: Marie-Cornélie Falcon was the prima donna of the Paris Opéra from 1832 to 1837, or five years— the same length as Carlotta’s time up to the start of the musical—, until she very publicly and embarrassingly lost her voice during a performance of a new opera created partially for her, virtually ending her career overnight. She was 24 years old.) So this is an absolutely brutal business, a very, very fragile place to be.

This doesn’t mean that being prima donna doesn’t have huge perks; it just means that it has huge potential downfalls. And she’s painfully aware of these downfalls, and though she does try to stay optimistic, eventually enough is enough. Keep in mind that Carlotta has been harassed by the Phantom for three years prior to the events of the musical.

And why? Two reasons:

1. The Phantom just doesn’t like her.

2. He wants Christine to take the spotlight and replace Carlotta.

The latter is one of the things Carlotta is afraid of most: being replaced. The former is something she cannot control either.

There is no actual evidence given in the musical that Carlotta is in any way a bad performer; the only ‘evidence’ is the Phantom’s continual collection of snarky comments about her. Are they true? We don’t actually know. More than likely, it’s just a matter of opinion.

Also, I will say this: her music? That is not messing around. Her music is brutal to sing. And if you’re able to sing that, then you’re a damn good singer in my book. But anyway.

So like I said, she’s been getting all these threatening notes and actions against her person and her voice for three years, and of course, as you would expect, she’s absolutely done with it. And since she’s not able to directly confront the source of all this harassment (although wouldn’t it be cool if she did?), she lashes out at...just about everyone else, especially Christine. Admittedly, this is absolutely not cool. But it’s understandable. And the Phantom’s toad-croaking revenge is really very funny and perhaps on one level she deserves it a little bit because Christine wanted nothing to do with any of this.

But then the Phantom goes absolutely way too far.

Carlotta almost completely disappears from the story after Act I (in the synopsis written to be included in the program for my school’s production, actually, Carlotta wasn’t mentioned at all in Act II).

The three major things that she does in Act II are:

1. She gets upset again about the casting of Don Juan Triumphant, blames Christine for this, but then realizes it’s not her fault (more on this later),

2. She drags the opera during a rehearsal at which the Phantom may or may not be present, and

3. She performs in the opera only to later find Piangi’s body backstage.

Let’s start with #2, which I find a little inconsequential. We get it, Phantom. Pretty much everyone hates your opera and they’re only doing it because they hope you’ll get off their backs. When you hear people dragging your work, it hurts. I get it. Carlotta and Piangi aren’t the only ones who hate it, though. Everyone hates it, and you don’t do a whole lot directly to them.

#1: Carlotta is still understandably severely PO’d about the entire situation, especially because it looks like her worst fear is coming true: her career is going down the drain and Christine is replacing her.

But then she realizes it’s not Christine’s fault. Christine is not trying to destroy her career and her life— she’s just as much a victim and pawn as anyone else. Those two little words, “she’s mad,” say so much. While Carlotta may still be missing the point a little, she does get that Christine isn’t trying to hurt her, so she shouldn’t be trying to get back at Christine. And she never makes so much as a side eye to her after that. She gets it. She’s learning. She’s getting off her high horse a bit.

And now #3. She doesn’t let the Phantom get her down. She may have only a small part but by God, she will sing and act the hell out of that small part. The Phantom can’t take that spirit away from her. That is exactly what the Phantom hoped for when he made her croak in Il Muto, and while he got her to run offstage and quit the show then, she’s not staying off the stage for long (also interesting to note that virtually the exact same thing happens with the Hannibal to Il Muto jump).

He hated her. He wanted to ruin her career. He wanted her permanently out of the way to make room for Christine, but he didn’t want to kill her.

He knew that it would be worse to take away everything Carlotta cared about and make her live without it than to kill her. He tried to take away her art, her career, her passion, her way of living— and he failed.

So he targets the one person in the world Carlotta truly cares about. Perhaps that will break her, to lose the one true friend, fellow larger-than-life artist, compatriot, and confidant she had— and the person who in many productions (including the one I was in) is billed as her husband. The two of them work together, live together, have the same fiery energy, and are a package deal. (He also storms off when she quits Hannibal, although to be fair, he probably does the show anyway. But they pretty much always appear at least somewhat together in musical numbers, so my point still stands regardless.)

The Phantom doesn’t need to kill Piangi to get onstage. Literally, he could probably scare Piangi into giving him his cloak. Or even just steal the cloak and go onstage without even dealing with him at all. Besides, without Piangi, there is no leading tenor at the Opéra, and then there’s really no show. And the Phantom wants the Opéra to keep running.

He just kills Piangi to hurt Carlotta. That’s it. And she does not deserve that.

She’s not perfect. But she doesn’t deserve to lose him, or her career, or both.

And that is today’s rant. ❤️

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goodticklebrain · 5 years

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Q&A August: Kevin Condardo and Dan Beaulieu

It’s the final installment of Q&A August! I hope you’ve had fun meeting some of my Shakespeare friends. I know I’ve had a lot of fun asking them these questions, and I’m definitely going to do this again some time, as I have SO MANY MORE cool Shakespeare friends for you to meet. But for now, let’s turn to my closers, my last and least, Kevin Condardo and Dan Beaulieu, the bros behind one of my favorite Shakespeare podcasts: No Holds Bard!

I was skeptical about No Holds Bard at first. Launched in 2015, it appeared to be two white dudes yelling about Shakespeare at each other, which did not particularly appeal to me. I didn’t even start listening to it until I met Dan and his partner in crime, Christine Penney, in person at the Shakespeare Theatre Association conference in 2016. Tousled and bewhiskered like a pirate, Dan was overwhelmingly brash, loud, unruly, obnoxious, insufferable… and somehow inexplicably charming. After meeting him, I finally started listening to No Holds Bard and found that the podcast was also brash, loud, unruly, obnoxious, insufferable… and somehow inexplicably charming.

Two things are immediately apparent upon listening to No Holds Bard: Dan and Kevin (his slightly less unruly and obnoxious co-host and the brains of the operation) both know their Shakespeare and love their Shakespeare. Their highly entertaining arguments and bro-y banter are backed up with serious knowledge of Shakespearean text and performance, and, in spite of their best efforts to contrary, you can actually learn a lot from them. Also (and this is important) they regularly make me laugh out loud.

In 2017 Kevin and Dan invited me to be their first ever guest on No Holds Bard. With some trepidation, I agreed and discovered that Kevin and Dan in real life are EXACTLY THE SAME as they are on the podcast. Recording with them was a blast, and since then I have thoroughly enjoyed keeping up with the podcast (occasionally falling months behind and then frantically trying to catch up) and interacting with them and other No Holds Bard listeners (a.k.a. Bardflies) on Twitter.

And so, it gives me great pleasure to present that charmingly insufferable duo, the joint top bananas of No Holds Bard, Kevin and Dan!

1. Who are you? Why Shakespeare?

KEVIN: I’m Kevin Condardo: host of the NO HOLDS BARD podcast (The Shakespeare Podcast Shakespeare Would Have Listened To*), performing arts administrator, Boston sports fan, and lover of all things theater. I’m the managing director of the Seven Stages Shakespeare Company based out of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and I work on the business end of the Off-Broadway theater industry in New York City.

My first introduction to Shakespeare was a terrible production of Romeo and Juliet that I saw on a school field trip in eighth grade, most notable for everyone being in Elizabethan costumes and having Mercutio thrusting himself seemingly on every other word in a failing effort at convincing school kids that Shakespeare was making dirty jokes and is therefore relatable. I loathed Shx until my sophomore year of college, when I auditioned for Cymbeline in college because it was a shared audition for the play I really wanted to be in (Twelve Angry Men). I was required to prepare a Shakespearian monologue and so I memorized and performed it with a British accent (as a sophomore in college!!), and about ten seconds in my professor Deb Kinghorn stopped me and asked me what the hell I was doing, and I said Shakespeare, and she said no I wasn’t. Somehow I was cast as a boorish, fratty Cloten, and over the course of that production I fell in love with Shakespeare and never looked back.

DAN: Hey! I’m Dan Beaulieu: I’m an avid Shakespeare lover, performer, director, student of the game. I am CO-host and top banana on the aforementioned No Holds Bard podcast with my fellow CO-host Kevin. I am the co-founder and Artistic Director of Seven Stages Shakespeare Company, a former Ambassador for the Shakespeare Society in NYC, member of the internationally renowned Passion in Practice and The Shakespeare Ensemble (both helmed by the incomparable Ben Crystal), and frequent collaborator with the New York City based company Rude Grooms (led by the always lovely Montgomery Sutton).

Why Shagspeare? I deeply admire his sprawling exploration of the human condition, his probing of Magick and Witches, his Timelessness, and perhaps most importantly the fact that it IS in fact for everybody, if you let it be.

2. What moment(s) in Shakespeare always make you laugh?

KEVIN: It’s more of an incredulous cackle than a laugh, but...after the Richard / Lady Anne scene, after we think we’ve seen the bunch-back’d toad bare his soul in expressing his love for his lady, he tells us “I’ll have her, but I will not keep her long” - cueing the audience to hopefully boo and hiss - after which Shakespeare gives him “What?” to respond to the disgusted audience. What a joy for an actor! (And if you have a Richard that doesn’t elicit at least one gasp on that line and thus has no audience members to give that “What?” to, you know you’re in for a long evening of theater.)

DAN: I think Petruchio’s entrance to the wedding, when costumed properly, is pretty hilarious. I also get a good chuckle out of “That’s a shelled peascod” from King Lear. Something about the phrase “Shelled Peascod” just gets me. Hamlet’s sardonic humor in the scene leading up to The Mousetrap is also stacked up with great laugh lines.

KEVIN: Do you mean country matters?

3. What's a favorite Shakespearean performance anecdote?

DAN: As a raging egoist, I’ll share my favorite anecdote from a performance I was in. I was playing Titus and in the scene where I lose my hand I was given a messenger bag to carry around with me. They actually had me carry it for the whole first half of the play so it wouldn’t be weird when I had it in this scene. The dummy hand was stored in there so when the “theater magic” moment happened I’d dip the hand out of the bag and TADA! I’m handless! Well, one night the hand fell out of the bag several moments before it was supposed to be cut off. I jumped on the hand like a fumbled football and took my rant from the floor of the stage. (It was a three quarter thrust, 70 seat black box so there wasn’t anywhere to hide.) After the show, several members of the cast commented on how I was “really feeling that scene”, not realizing I was not feeling it at all...I was simply scattering to figure out a way to justify a random hand lying on the ground moments before the audience would see it again.

KEVIN: When I was a company manager at Shakespeare in the Park in NYC, it was my responsibility to cancel or hold the show in case of inclement weather - which meant my “job” all summer was to sit in the back of the house and watch every performance while refreshing about five different weather apps and calculate if we were going to be able to get the show in. During The Merchant of Venice, we were flirting with a rainstorm all night - the sky looked very ominous from the start but nothing had fallen, even though I and the entire audience knew it was coming. The weather held all evening, up until Portia’s “The quality of mercy is not strained / It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven…” at which point, the gentlest rain you ever felt began to droppeth from heaven, allowing Portia to turn her palm up to feel the rain fall and the entire crowd to “ooh” in unison. Goosebump city.

4. What's one of the more unusual Shakespearean interpretations you've either seen or would like to see?

KEVIN: I’m no director, but I’d love to see an As You Like It set around 1910, where the music at the court is all Sousa marches and barber shop (basically The Music Man), and then when they go to the country you have the same musicians and instrumentations playing Jelly Roll Morton and the jazz and dixieland that was exploding at the same moment. (Artistic directors: I’ll be waiting by the phone for my call.)

DAN: I called you to do this several years ago, but...musicians.

I’d like to direct a production of Twelfth Night in a very large warehouse immersive experience where the central design conceit is a House of Mirrors….possibly around Halloween or in Coney Island during the winter. Full creep zone. Similarly, I think it’d be fun to do an As You Like It in a corn maze or a Jacobean influenced pageant production of Midsummer Night’s Dream as a haunted hayride that starts around 6pm and goes til midnight, getting scarier and scarier as the night goes on. Bring the little kids early for fun fairies and come back at 11pm for the weird ones.

5. What's one of your favorite Shakespearean "hidden gems"?

DAN: I’m a sucker for the fact that when Romeo and Juliet meet for the first time their exchange is a shared sonnet. It’s not necessarily “hidden” but I love when I see a production that is clearly “going there” with that moment.

KEVIN: I talk about it all the time on the podcast but I LOVE the King of France in All’s Well that Ends Well. So deferential, kind, funny, but also strong and forceful when required - along with some endlessly quotable lines. Perhaps more “underrated” than “hidden gem?”

DAN: I like that we both just couched our answers in “this isn’t exactly what you asked, but it’s the answer we’re going to give anyway”. If you enjoy this kind of response to questions, you’ll love our podcast!

6. What passages from Shakespeare have stayed with you?

KEVIN: Ironically and annoyingly, the Shakespeare quote I use the most is actually a misquote that got locked into my brain during my only professional gig - a production of Antony and Cleopatra at the Theater at Monmouth. There’s a sequence where Antony is waiting for an update from the field, and when the messenger arrives the actor playing Antony would turn violently to him and spew out “The news from Sicyon, ho!”. I loved the way he delivered the line and started incorporating it into my life every time someone entered a room with information that the rest of us were waiting on. Unfortunately, that line doesn’t exist - either the actor learned it wrong, or the director inverted it - and the actual line, “From Sicyon, ho, the news!”, doesn’t quite have the same allure.

DAN: I suppose I have to go with the two I have tattooed on my body, as they literally stay with me. They are “To Be” and “This above all, to thine own self be true”. I’m grateful that the verb in both lines is Be, which is deceptively simple. As an actor, it’s really what we’re asked to do---just be.

7. What Shakespeare plays have changed for you?

DAN: I used to make Pericles the butt of all of my “Shakespeare made mistakes too you know?!” jokes. Admittedly that was before I ever read it or worked on it. Now it is easily one of my favorite Shakespeare plays and one that I expect to see more and more of in the future. Disney is sleeping on a gold mine, though I hope Pixar beats them to it.

KEVIN: I have to ask: which play is the punchline to that joke now?

DAN: Henry VIII or Measure (come at me Measure lovers!)

KEVIN: For me, it’s the histories. A few summers ago, Seven Stages Shakespeare Company (helmed by Dan, Christine Penney, and myself) did a one-day, fourteen-hour reading of all eight of the linked history plays one after the other. After seeing the way the storylines feed so deeply one into the other (most particularly Margaret’s arc), I don’t think I’ll ever be able to see any one of them individually the same way again.

Mya interjects: The Seven Stages history day is definitely on my list of “productions I’m kicking myself for missing”. If you do it again, boys, let me know. I am available for any bit parts that don’t require replicating actual human emotions.

8. What Shakespearean character or characters do you identify the most with?

KEVIN: I feel the deepest connection to the seconds-in-command, but to choose the one that encapsulates that the most I’ll say Gloucester from King Lear. Ever since childhood I’ve always considered myself a second rather than a first - I took pride in Little League being the catcher that served as the psychologist for the pitchers, I relate much more to Tom Hagen than to Michael Corleone, and in Shakespeare I’m much more connected to the person who holds the ear of the person everyone is looking at rather than being the center of attention myself.

DAN: I feel a deep connection to Jaques- especially his description of melancholy and the cynical way he sees the world around him, as witnessed in the Seven Ages speech. I fancy myself a fool and appreciate Jaques function in the play, both as a countervoice to the romanticized experience of Arden so many have, his dismay at the murder of the deer, and his departure from the rest of the group at the end.

9. Where can we find out more about you? Are there any projects/events you would like us to check out?

KEVIN: I bare my soul weekly* on the NO HOLDS BARD podcast, which Dan frequently appears on as co-host / second banana. The show is available for download on iTunes and Stitcher, and also the full* archive is available on our website at noholdsbard.com. You should also follow us on Twitter @NoHoldsBardCast and on Facebook at Facebook.com SLAAAASSHHHH NoHoldsBardCast!

DAN: If you are the market for stuff about the top banana specifically check out my website at www.danbeauknows.com. Seven Stages has a ton of exciting projects coming up including season eight of ShakesBEERiences in NH and a full production of MacBeth this autumn near Halloween. If you want more luscious No Holds Bard Content, check out our Patreon at www.patreon.com slash noholdsbard. Also, I’ll be touring Japan with several dear friends, including Dylan Kammerer, Tim Jacobs, Andrew Codispoti, Ben Crystal and The Shakespeare Ensemble this September playing Hamlet in Hamlet, Banquo in MacBeth, and Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet. It’s a dream track with an incredible ensemble so if you are in Japan, come check it out!

(Back to Mya) Thanks so much to Kevin and Dan for answering my questions and helping me out this month! Confession: when I was scheduling my guests for this month, I deliberately penciled Kevin and Dan in for the last slot, not because I thought they’d be a particularly boffo ending (although, obviously, they are) but because I was sure they wouldn’t get their answers in until the very last second. To my shock, they send them in well over a week early, which, I can only assume, involved a great deal of personal sacrifice and discipline on their part. For that, and for constantly entertaining me as I drive around town, I am very grateful to them.

You can listen to me banter with Kevin and Dan on the following episodes of No Holds Bard:

#86 - Holy Sh*t It’s Mya Gosling

#138: The Fantasy Shakespeare Season Draft II

Also, do consider chucking a couple bucks their way each month on Patreon, as I do.

Thanks once again to EVERYONE who helped me out this month: Austin Tichenor, Kate Powers, Sam White, David Prosser, Kate Pitt, Christy Burgess, Kevin Condardo and Dan Beaulieu! I am so lucky in my friends and in my Shakespeare community. My life is still kind of crazy at the moment so I’m taking next week off, but I’ll be back after that (hopefully, and at last) with some new comics!

#Q&A august #shakespeare

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friendshipcampaign · 5 years

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Session Recap 3/11/19: Abandon Toad, All Ye Who Enter Here

The group had less difficulty getting back down the gears and decided to try to take a short rest before they dove into the trial based off of the Nine Hells, assuming it would be a very difficult one. It at least gave Amaranth time to sober up a bit. They then stepped through the portal and found themselves in a circular room, with walls absolutely covered in red and black Infernal script. From what Erwyn and Amaranth -- and Voski, once she cast Comprehend Languages -- could read, it was mostly fragmented legalese, and signs of some dispute between individuals named Zarzon and Salmal over scheduling. Even the sconces that lit the room had been scribbled on, causing them to project words onto the walls. The chamber had two doors -- one of polished bone, and another of stone.

In the middle of the room was a squat, tiny devil, writing even more script on the walls with their long, pointed nails. They had been singing under their breath, but quickly spun to look at the party, revealing a gaunt face. They said it had been some time since they last had any visitors, and assured the party that they could ask for help at any time, but it would come at a price. Of course, the devil also promised they would be happy to help if that were the case. For now, the only information the group received about the trial was that they would have to travel to a different room to find the portal key.

Kriv noted some viscous, acrid liquid leaking from the lock of the stone door. The bone one didn’t have a lock, but the writing above it seemed to have been swiped at by something. Amaranth noted that some of the writing mentioned that “neither Zarzon nor Salmal are supposed to be too close to the doors” and, perhaps more importantly, “none of you shall approach or interfere with the true door,” which lead the party to guess there might be a hidden one somewhere in the room that they’d actually want to go through. Amaranth went to investigate the empty wall of the room. Her hand went through a part of it and hit something solid, revealed to be another bone door with a lock. She picked it easily. As the party moved to pass through it and onto the next portion of the trial, the devil seemed disappointed that they’d figured it out on their own.

Behind the door was a corridor, which stretched to a bend to the right. Following it, the party hit a T-intersection after not too long, though one side seemed to lead towards a dead end. Ditto checked it for another illusion, but revealed nothing new. Voski took note of some pockmarks on the wall across the corridor that were dotted with a strange, inky substance. Erwyn noted that it seemed suggestive of devil’s blood. Cautiously, Voski tossed the mask she’d taken from the kobold in the Acheron simulation down the corridor, triggering a series of darts to race towards it and clatter against the wall.

Testing what would cause the darts to go off, Ditto cast a Minor Illusion in the middle of the hall. Nothing happened. As the party discussed other methods of testing it, Erwyn decided to test something himself and Misty Stepped into the middle of the corridor, past where Voski had thrown the mask. The spell triggered a surge of Wild Magic and summoned a giant frog in front of him, which took the brunt of the new wave of darts that emerged. Distraught, Erwyn healed the frog immediately.

Voski suggested that Erwyn investigate the floor where he was -- though it was clear that everyone thought he’d done something unnecessarily reckless. As he went to do so, he triggered the darts again, getting hit by all three of them himself this time.

“Does anyone have anything like a shield?” Voski asked.

“I have a shield,” Kriv said.

“...Yes, like that,” she said.

Ditto flew down the corridor herself, which didn’t trigger the darts (though the frog did eye her contemplatively), and asked Erwyn if he was alright and if he would heal himself. He insisted he was fine and seemed a little indignant at the latter question, though she could see the darts still sticking out of him. Nonetheless relatively satisfied he was okay, she flew down the rest of the length of the corridor -- narrowly avoiding getting nabbed by the frog as it tried to catch her with its tongue.

“I won’t hold that against you,” she said to it.

At the end of the corridor, she placed a hand on one of the mechanisms the darts seemed to be coming from and sent a Fire Bolt into it. It sizzled slightly and she tried it with the other two. Kriv offered up his shield to test if she’d been successful. Ditto flew back and grabbed it, then held the shield to the wall. (The frog tried to nab her again, both on the way to grab the shield and as she returned to the mechanism.) When the mechanism was triggered, one of the dart chambers failed to fire, but the other two hit the shield. She told the others they could head down safely.

By the time the others had caught up with Erwyn and the frog, the wall had started to whine a little, as the backlog of darts from the chambers that were still firing jammed the entire mechanism. Voski healed Erwyn using Cure Wounds, as he still hadn’t done that himself. The frog followed them as they went onwards, and at the end of the path, Kriv helped Ditto cautiously remove the shield. After that, they kept moving as a group down the next corridor on the other side.

“So, is the frog just here now?” Voski asked.

Erwyn replied that he wasn’t just going to leave it in the middle of a simulation of the Nine Hells, and they’d have to take it with them until they found a good place to deposit it.

Further down, they came across what appeared to be loose chains on hooks hanging over a large pit. Ditto tried conjuring a ball and tossing it into the pit in front of them. It appeared to throw itself back at the party and the frog caught it in its tongue -- causing it to faintly glow from the inside thanks to the light of the conjured object.

Ditto shouted a greeting and a bored-sounding voice called back. When she asked how its owner was doing, the unseen devil responded that things were incredibly dull, and that the party might as well know that they would have to kill them if they headed down the next corridor. They complained that, because they and the other devils in this simulation had been captured from the real Nine Hells, the looping scenarios in the demiplane meant that they would revive and remain stuck here if killed, so fighting would mean basically nothing. They then went on about how some of the other devils in the simulation had a better deal.

Voski asked who was technically in charge here, and learned it was the devil named Scriptiva, whom they’d met at the beginning of the demiplane. The devil they were now speaking to, named Aphator, complained wearily that they used to be the most powerful around here until the Gatekeepers brought in an abishai, who was waiting up ahead. The party noted this.

Erwyn suggested maybe they could make a deal, where they offered Aphator some suggestions about how to improve their situation in exchange for safe passage. He pointed out that Voski had successfully defeated a devil in court herself, which Aphator seemed cautiously impressed by. Nonetheless, Aphator explained they had pretty explicit instructions to rip the party to shreds with the chains nearby as soon as they got within range. Voski proceeded to cast Shatter on the chains, causing three of them to explode.

“Oh no, look at that,” she said. “Some of your materials have regrettably been removed...It’s possible you just won’t have the materials you need to work with.”

“Oh, that would be terrible,” Aphator said, sounding delighted. “Oh...I like you -- I mean, woe is me.”

The frog had been distressed by the loud noise, but Erwyn gently patted the creature to calm it. In the meantime, Ditto Magic Missiled the last remaining chain into oblivion.

#session recap

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peacefulheartfarm · 3 years

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Coyotes on the Homestead

Coyotes are a plague when you have sheep. Today’s podcast is going to be all about coyotes. Probably more than you ever wanted to know. Some things about coyotes might surprise you.

I want to take a minute and say welcome to all the new listeners and welcome back to the veteran homestead-loving regulars who stop by the FarmCast for every episode. I appreciate you all so much. I’m so excited to share with you what’s going on at the farm this week.

Our Virginia Homestead Life Updates

So why is the topic today about coyotes? Well, we have had issues and I need to talk about it. I’ll try to keep it mostly factual and as upbeat as possible. In the end though, sometimes homestead life has tragic consequences.

Sheep and Lambs

Over a span of about 3 or 4 days we lost more than half of our sheep. All six of our lambs, including my bottle baby, Susie Q are gone. Five adult ewes are also gone. We have 10 sheep left out of 21. Yeah, it’s a big loss. I’m still heartbroken about losing Susie Q. I still look for her. When I look out the window, momentarily I’m looking for her. Especially in the evening, when I go to create bottles for the twin calves, I briefly look for the very small bottle we use for lambs. Then I remember. She’s gone.

I was unusually attached to Susie Q. We’ve had bottle lambs lots of time. But I’ve never been so attached. Well, perhaps it’s that we have never lost one. And after they are grown and no longer need me for daily feedings, I naturally let go of them. Like Lambert. He’s still out there with the boys and he was a bottle baby. I just don’t think I would miss him the way that I miss Susie Q. And we’ve had others that ended up at freezer camp. I don’t know what’s different except that she was still so young dependent on us.

Cows and Calves

We moved all of the animals out of the back fields where the attacks were occurring. Scott brought out a couple of guys that hunted the male leader and we also used poison. That’s a really harsh method, but sometimes it is necessary.

The twin calves were also quite vulnerable to coyote attack. Scott moved them to a sheltered area. Virginia is also with them. We had to pull her out of the general herd because she was nursing on Cloud. If you remember, Cloud is already feeding two calves. Adding Virginia was definitely more than Cloud could support. You can likely guess that the ones who would suffer would be Princess and Winston. Virginia is about a year old and would definitely wipe out all the available milk and the younger two would be left hungry. So, Virginia is safely away from the other cows and hanging out with the twins.

Keeping the various calves out of one or another milk supply has really been a challenge this year. I don’t know if I mentioned that we briefly had all the calves and cows together. It’s much easier to maintain the pastures if there are only two groups of animals. The boys and the girls. However, having all the cow girls together immediately failed. Rosie came in for milking down a couple of quarts of milk. We suspected Princess as Rosie is her mom, after all. Now I’m wondering if it was actually Virginia and after she got a taste of milk she started looking around and found Cloud after Rosie was gone. Who knows? Rosie and Butter are in a field by themselves. The twin calves and Virginia are in the loafing space. And the rest of the crew which includes Violet, Claire, Buttercup, Cloud and her two calves, are out front. The boys, of course, are in yet another place. We have cows all over the place.

Everyone is relatively safe at the moment. Let’s talk about coyotes. I didn’t want to know all of this and I’ve left out the most gruesome of details. But the gist of the story is here.

Coyotes

The coyote is a species of canine native to North America. It is smaller than its close relative, the wolf. It fills much of the same ecological niche as the golden jackal does in Europe and Asia. Though the coyote is larger and more predatory. Other historical names for this species include the prairie wolf and the brush wolf.

The coyote is listed as least concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, due to its wide distribution and abundance throughout North America. Coyote populations are also abundant southwards through Mexico and into Central America. Even now, it is enlarging its range by moving into urban areas in the eastern U.S. and Canada. The coyote was sighted in eastern Panama (across the Panama Canal from their home range) for the first time in 2013.

Coyote Subspecies

There are 19 recognized coyote subspecies. The average male weighs 18 to 44 lb and the average female 15 to 40 lb. Their fur color is predominantly light gray and red, sometimes interspersed with black and white. The colors vary somewhat with geography. Coyotes are highly flexible in their social organization. Sometimes living in a family unit and sometimes in loosely knit packs of unrelated individuals. Primarily carnivorous, its diet consists mainly of deer, rabbits, hares, rodents, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and invertebrates, though it may also eat fruits and vegetables on occasion. Its characteristic vocalization is a howl made by solitary individuals. Humans are the coyote's greatest threat, followed by cougars and gray wolves. In spite of this, coyotes sometimes mate with gray, eastern, or red wolves, producing "coywolf" hybrids. Genetic studies show that most North American wolves contain some level of coyote DNA.

Coyote Folklore

The coyote is a prominent character in Native American folklore, usually depicted as a trickster that alternately assumes the form of an actual coyote or a man. After the European colonization of the Americas, it was seen in Anglo-American culture as a cowardly and untrustworthy animal. Unlike wolves, which have undergone an improvement of their public image, attitudes towards the coyote remain largely negative. I’m in the group with that attitude.

Hunting and Feeding

Two studies that experimentally investigated the role of olfactory, auditory, and visual cues found that visual cues are the most important ones for hunting in coyotes.

When hunting large prey, the coyote often works in pairs or small groups. Unlike the wolf, which attacks large prey from the rear, the coyote approaches from the front, lacerating its prey's head and throat. Although coyotes can live in large groups, small prey is typically caught singly. Coyotes have been observed to kill porcupines in pairs, using their paws to flip the rodents on their backs, then attacking the soft underbelly. Only old and experienced coyotes can successfully prey on porcupines, with many predation attempts by young coyotes resulting in them being injured by their prey's quills. Recent evidence demonstrates that at least some coyotes have become more nocturnal in hunting, presumably to avoid humans.

Coyotes may occasionally form mutualistic hunting relationships with American badgers, assisting each other in digging up rodent prey. The relationship between the two species may occasionally border on apparent "friendship", as some coyotes have been observed laying their heads on their badger companions or licking their faces without protest. The amicable interactions between coyotes and badgers were known to pre-Columbian civilizations, as shown on a Mexican jar dated to 1250–1300 depicting the relationship between the two.

Vocalizations

The coyote has been described as "the most vocal of all wild North American mammals". Its loudness and range of vocalizations was the cause for its binomial name Canis latrans, meaning "barking dog". At least 11 different vocalizations are known in adult coyotes. These sounds are divided into three categories: agonistic and alarm, greeting, and contact. The lone howl is the most iconic sound of the coyote and may serve the purpose of announcing the presence of a lone individual separated from its pack.

Habitat

Prior to the near extermination of wolves and cougars, the coyote was most numerous in grasslands inhabited by bison, pronghorn, elk, and other deer, doing particularly well in short-grass areas with prairie dogs, though it was just as much at home in semiarid areas with sagebrush and jackrabbits or in deserts inhabited by cactus, kangaroo rats, and rattlesnakes.

Coyotes walk around 3–10 miles per day, often along trails such as logging roads and paths; they may use iced-over rivers as travel routes in winter. They are often more active around evening and the beginning of the night than during the day. Like many canids, coyotes are competent swimmers, reported to be able to travel at least 0.5 miles across water.

Diet

The coyote is ecologically the North American equivalent of the Eurasian golden jackal. Likewise, the coyote is highly versatile in its choice of food, but is primarily carnivorous, with 90% of its diet consisting of meat. Prey species include bison (largely as carrion), white-tailed deer, mule deer, moose, elk, bighorn sheep, pronghorn, rabbits, hares, rodents, birds (especially young water birds and pigeons and doves), amphibians (except toads), lizards, snakes, turtles and tortoises, fish, crustaceans, and insects. More unusual prey include young black bear cubs and rattlesnakes. Coyotes kill rattlesnakes mostly for food but also to protect their pups at their dens. They will tease the snakes until they stretch out and then bite their heads and shake them. Birds taken by coyotes may range in size from thrashers, larks and sparrows to adult wild turkeys.

If working in packs or pairs, coyotes have access to larger prey than lone. In some cases, packs of coyotes have dispatched much larger prey such as adult deer, cow, elk, and sheep, although the young fawn, calves and lambs of these animals are most often taken. In some cases, coyotes can bring down prey weighing up to 220 to 440 lb or more. When it comes to adult animals such as deer, they often exploit them when vulnerable such as those that are infirm, stuck in snow or ice, otherwise winter-weakened or heavily pregnant. Less wary domestic animals are more easily exploited.

Although coyotes prefer fresh meat, they will scavenge when the opportunity presents itself. Excluding the insects, fruit, and grass eaten, the coyote requires an estimated 1.3 lb of food daily, 550 lb annually.

The coyote feeds on a variety of different produce, including blackberries, blueberries, peaches, pears, apples, prickly pears, persimmons, peanuts, watermelons, cantaloupes, and carrots. During the winter and early spring, the coyote eats large quantities of grass, such as green wheat blades.

Other interesting diet components

In coastal California, coyotes now consume a higher percentage of marine-based food than their ancestors, which is thought to be due to the extirpation of the grizzly bear from this region. In Death Valley, coyotes may consume great quantities of hawkmoth caterpillars or beetles in the spring flowering months.

Livestock and Pet Predation Statistics

As of 2007, coyotes were the most abundant livestock predators in western North America, causing the majority of sheep, goat, and cattle losses. For example, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service, coyotes were responsible for 60.5% of the 224,000 sheep deaths attributed to predation in 2004. The total number of sheep deaths in 2004 comprised 2.22% of the total sheep and lamb population in the United States, which, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service USDA report, totaled 4.66 million and 7.80 million heads respectively as of July 1, 2005. Because coyote populations are typically many times greater and more widely distributed than those of wolves, coyotes cause more overall predation losses. United States government agents routinely shoot, poison, trap, and kill about 90,000 coyotes each year to protect livestock. An Idaho census taken in 2005 showed that individual coyotes were 5% as likely to attack livestock as individual wolves. In Utah, more than 11,000 coyotes were killed for bounties totaling over $500,000 in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2017.

Livestock Guardian Dogs

Livestock guardian dogs are commonly used to aggressively repel predators and have worked well in both fenced pasture and range operations. A 1986 survey of sheep producers in the USA found that 82% reported the use of dogs represented an economic asset.

Protect Yourself and Your Pets

Coyotes are often attracted to dog food and animals that are small enough to appear as prey. Items such as garbage, pet food, and sometimes feeding stations for birds and squirrels attract coyotes into backyards. About three to five pets attacked by coyotes are brought into the Animal Urgent Care hospital of South Orange County (California) each week, the majority of which are dogs. Cats typically do not survive coyote attacks. Smaller breeds of dogs are more likely to suffer injury and/or death.

Coyotes are one of my least favorite parts of God’s creation. I’ve probably given you far too much information on these creatures. But as I said earlier, I needed to talk about this. Thanks for listening.

Final Thoughts

Living on the homestead is not always pretty. Survival is always relative to the environment. Many times, survival is a competition between humans and other species. All animals have a right to live. God made them and there you go. They have a right to live. And we also have the right to protect our other animals. Sometimes it is a small parasite – which is also deadly at times. And sometimes it’s larger animals such as coyotes and bears. Everyone is just trying to survive. I miss my Susie Q. And when I look at our decimated flock of sheep, I am filled with sadness. However, in the end, some of our flock has survived and we will rebuild. It’s what we do. Our flock will rise again. In the fall or next spring, we will have lambs again. The life cycle continues.

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Thank you so much for stopping by the homestead and until next time, may God fill your life with grace and peace.

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