#the first 3 are in order... i couldn't find numbers on the last two but if you have a keen eye and you spot one let me know

[nishiki-e]

Fifty-Three Stations of the Chushingura, Utagawa Kuniyoshi, 1851

[cattynamie]

Babysitting with Leona Kingscholar

+ Cheka.

Author's note : I've had this idea for a while and i'm actually going to embrace it this time :3, AGAIN. i had to do a little research on Cheka's character, so i hope i got him and Leona correctly.

Warnings : None! Completely SFW and anyone can read if they want. Also, the reader has no specific pronouns as far as im aware and can or can not be seen as Yuu! The choice is up to you ;)

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At first, Leona wanted to keep you away from Cheka as long as it was possible. Mostly because he doesn't want his brother smothering over you or asking you to tag along everytime there's a family dinner... Is it selfish wanting to keep your attention on him? Nah, he doesn't think so, you two are dating after all.

So, once in a blue moon, Leona text his brother asking when is Cheka coming over to avoid Cheka from meeting you personally as his partner. And also accidentally making Farena think that Leona's asking because he misses the little rascal (Yes he does, but just a bit and he'll never tell that to anyone.)

So Farena lies and tells him that Cheka's coming next week on Friday. And just decides to send Cheka that same day just to surprise Leona. Unknowingly to Leona, of course. Who was just having his nap number 427 BUT!! this one was special. You had managed to finish your school work in time and decided to take a nap beside Leona. (Which ended up being completely smothered by his body while he layed comfortably on top of you, but you had already gotten used to it at this point, but if you had some problem breathing, you'll just have to pat his back a couple times to change sleep positions.)

That is until Leona starts to hear impatient knocks on the door, almost a if they were hitting the door with both of their fists. Making one of his ears twich and his tail sway in annoyance before he grumbles an "What now?" Loud enough for the person to hear but still smothering your face with his body so you don't hear.

As a response, the door flies open, revealing the so called rascal with sun hair color and slightly tanned skin with a bright smile on his face at the sigh of his Uncle Leona who lies flabbergasted at the sight of the youngling, quickly putting all of his weight on you and smothering you awake before using the blankets to cover your figure.

"Uncle Leona! I finally found you!"

At the sudden raisse of voice, you start to fight Leona in order to geth the blanket that of in front of your face. (You were suffocating ;()

"You- What are you doing here?!" Leona growls as he continues to hold you down, hiding you from the sight of his nephew and suffocating you affecionately <3

"Weren't you supposed to come next week?!"

"Yeah! But you missed me and i also missed you! So i couldn't just wait anymore!" Cheka says with a bright smile as he jumps on Leona's bare back with a laugh, making Leona distracted as he let's go of the blanket and you pull it down, taking a fistfull of air as you try to push air back to your lungs.

Unknowingly to you, Leona was staring down at you curiously with wide eyes as he hold firmly from Leona's back.

"You're one of my Uncle's friends?"

And that was the last thing you heard before you were smothered by the youngling too.

-

As soon as Cheka found out who you were, he wanted to run to his attendants and tell them EVERYTHING.

When his plan were instantly thwarted by Leona who grabbed the back of his shirt and lifted him up to the air significantly before he could run and speak about the both of you to the attendant's.

Leona already knew that he could not buy Cheka's silence with ANYTHING but if he was going to tell, he'd rather Farena finding out late at the night. (so he can ignore his messages with a excuse.)

In order to keep Cheka busy, you offered a friendly chess game, which Cheka instantly agreed to spend time with his uncle, and Leona... was not so pleased with it, but he'll make the sacrifice.

So, it basically was you and Cheka vs THE Leona himself.

Cheka didn't really know how to play correctly (And you aren't that much a great player either...), so it was Leona's duty to teach you both correctly. (Not that he'd let you both win, but he did teach you both helpfull strategies so he doesn't or anyone win instantly.)

After that, you let Cheka rant all about his hometown as he lays on Leona's stomach while he plays with his braids. (Which you're kind of grateful for since Leona doesn't really speak about it) While youre massaging Leona's head in your lap.

...Which quickly lead on into Cheka and Leona playfighting on the bed. With a little bit of struggle, Leona managed to win the fight (unsurprisingly) and just slumped into the bedsheets because "He was already tired". Luckily, the little rascal grews tired too and slumps into Leona's back too, earning a groan from Leona as he grabs your elbow and starts to tug you into lay down too.

And you three ended up sleeping until the evening <3 Until a soft knock comes and an attendant peeks his head into Leona's room, saying that its time for the young prince to go home, (trying not to ask about your sleeping form as much as they can) But as soon as Leona steped out of the door, Leona could hear how he starts to tell them EVERYTHING about what you all did today.

With a soft groan and a sway of his tail, he embraces you once again and not EVEN ten minutes later, Farena tarts to spam message's into his brother's phone about you. Just as expected, Leona ignored them all and threw his phone at the other side of the bed, snugling his fcae into your neck as you both drift up to sleep <33

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OKAY that's all!! i had fun writing for this too, a great wy to pass tijme. once again, please forgive me if i got any of the character's wrong in this post, any kind of note or criticism will be very well welcomed!! thank you for anyone who's reding this i love you xoxo byeeeeeeee!1!!!!11!!

[elumish]

My Experience With Digital-First Royalty-Only Publishing (Part 1)

Disclaimer: this is just my experience and my not reflect everyone's experience with this story of publishing.

The Concept:

The are two major distinct components of this sort of publishing: that it's digital first and royalty only. Digital first means that their primary business model is based in selling ebooks rather than physical boks. They don't sell in brick-and-mortar stores, but for my publisher, at least, you can buy physical copies of the books, which are made to order. Royalty only means that authors aren't paid an advance for the book. Instead, all of their payment is directly from royalties, which they start getting paid immediately (as opposed to needing to earn the advance before you get paid any royalties). Generally, these royalties are higher than for traditional publishers.

This is considered indie publishing, as opposed to traditional publishing through one of the Big Five (Penguin Random House, Hachette, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan). I have basically only seen this for romance publishers, though there may be others that I haven't seen.

This is not vanity publishing--I don't pay my publisher, they pay me.

My Publishing Story:

In 2023, I wrote 10k words of a new story in three days, mostly on my phone. After a bit of random internet hunting, I decided to send it in to the publisher with a series plan for another three short pieces (10-15k words) that would together make one full story. A couple months later, they responded and asked if I would make it a full novel and also write another two in the same series. I agreed.

In April 2024, the book was released.

The Submission Process:

A number of digital first romance publishers (including those that give advances, like Harlequin) accept both agented and unagented submissions. That means that you don't need to already have an agent to submit to them, as opposed to most more traditional publishing companies, which only accept agented submissions.

Pro: lower barrier to entry, you get to avoid the querying process

Con: you have to advocate for yourself

Every publisher has a different submission process and different guidelines--some have broad word/topic guidelines and anything within that is fair game, some have specific calls for stories (e.g., we want stories of 30-80k words about billionaires), some have specific imprints or subgenres with different guidelines (e.g., historical romance for 50-80k words, fantasy romance for 60-100k words).

Generally they also request a summary, an equivalent of a query letter, and sometimes also some verion of a series plan.

The Contract:

Probably my biggest issue with working with this publisher was the contract. After a bunch of back and forth after they sent me the contract, they told me that they don't negotiate their contracts with unagented authors.

This is a sort of nuts line to draw, and to be totally honest I almost decided not to publish with them because of it. It would be totally reasonable for you to not publish with anyone who has that policy.

Ultimately, I decided to still publish with them for three reasons: 1) I did a lot of internet sleuthing and couldn't find anyone talking about issues with working with the publisher any time in the last decade, 2) I was comfortable enough with the contract terms to agree to them, and 3) the book is a niche enough subgenre that there's basically no chance I would get it published elsewhere.

If it was a different book or I was in a different stage in my career, I might have made a different decision.

Editing:

The editing I received was primarily copyediting rather than developmental editing. There was a little bit of developmental editing, but the vast majority was copyediting. I'm not so arrogant as to think that that's because my writing is just so perfect that it didn't need developmental editing.

There were ~3 rounds of editing that I went through with my editor. She would make a combination of edits in track changes and comments, and i would either accept, reject, or change. There were some things I rejected because they were intentional stylistic choices, and there were some things I accepted even if I didn't love them because they were part of the publisher's style guide. Everything else was a negotiation.

Overall, I didn't give in to something that I hated, and I don't think my writing suffered for the editing. There are choices that I wouldn't have made, but that doesn't necessarily mean that I'm right.

Part 2 will include marketing, payment, and my path forward in publishing

[air--so--sweet]

Legion and the TUA of it all

I didn't want to become a Legion recap blog, especially when no one is reading these (except @soshadysoquiet despite knowing nothing about the show outside of these posts 😂) so I had planned to combine my thoughts on the last three episodes of season 2 into one post. AND THEN SO MUCH HAPPENED...so there's going to be multiple posts after all.

This post is about the parallels with The Umbrella Academy because I thought the shows were vaguely similar in regards themes and some minor character details...and then I watched season 2.

Also, just to be clear, I am not accusing one show of copying the other or anything of the sort, I think a lot of this stuff is down to coincidence and I'm pointing it out for fun. I'm also discussing the plots of both shows in pretty broad strokes here, once you start digging into the specifics of both, they diverge a lot more.

Initially, when watching season 1, David reminded me of Klaus - he's an addict, plagued by voices no one else can hear and seeing things no one else can see. I've also read several fics where Klaus' powers are mistaken for schizophrenia so I also connected that aspect of David's character to Klaus as well, missing the glaringly obvious parallel to the actual character within TUA canon who spends most of his life unaware of his powers and believing he's mentally ill - Viktor. Also, like Viktor, when David loses control, his powers have the ability to be highly destructive.

So, based on season one, David's got similarities to both Klaus and Viktor. The general themes of the show are similar, though the larger plot isn't . There's also this shot of David which is actually from season 2 but I had to include it because in the original TUA pilot script, in which Klaus still has his telekinesis powers of the comic, this is how he is introduced -

GIF via @tvshowfeels

I know neither show created the floating in lotus pose thing, but I still thought it was a fun coincidence for two already somewhat similar characters.

Then we get to season 2, and David is warned that the apocalypse is coming by a time travelling version of Syd, who is trying to stop it. Syd doesn't say the exact cause of the apocalypse, just talks of a darkness that comes after David defeats Amal Farouk and says they need Farouk alive so that they prevent the apocalypse. So, we have an impending apocalypse due in the next week or so (we're not given an exact time frame but Syd says David killed Farouk in her timeline a week from now) with the main characters learning about from a time traveler, very much like TUA season 1.

We then find out the exact cause of the apocalypse in Future Syd's timeline, and that cause is David. So now you've got a main character being the cause of the apocalypse your characters are trying to stop, like Viktor in TUA.

Then, David's loved ones finding out how dangerous he truly can be, try to stop him - with Syd almost shooting him and then with Division 3 trapping him in an energy forcefield he supposedly can't escape...but he's more powerful than they think and he breaks free. By trying to lock him up to prevent him causing the apocalypse...they may have caused the apocalypse. If you switch the order of the escape and almost shooting and swap out the forcefield for a sound proof cell you've got Viktor's arc in the season 1 finale.

And lastly, before leaving Division 3 David teleports into Lenny's sell to free her and take her with him and I couldn't help but notice the number on the wall behind them.

Number Seven, just like Viktor. This being in Lenny's cell, I believe any symbolism about the number actually relates to her, not David, but it's still a wild coincidence. Also, David who has up until now always dressed in colour, is wearing all white. Viktor, in becoming the White Violin has his clothes turn white.

Maybe this why I found Legion on a list of shows to watch if you like TUA...

Also speaking of Lenny - this is the first time in the show we've spent significant time with her where she is actually herself and not a mask for Farouk and she, not David, is the Klaus Hargreeves of the show. There are actual character similarities between the two - both are queer addicts who are seen by many fans as genderfluid. Klaus is immortal and can speak to the dead and, while Lenny doesn't have powers she is resurrected after dying and she sees the ghost of Amy (or something akin to a ghost, it's not super clear). But aside from that, there's just an energy to the character that feels very Klaus to me? I don't know how to nail it down beyond that, she just has big Klaus energy.

Also, the outfit she wears in the desert is a Klaus Hargreeves ensemble if I ever saw one.

No one can play Klaus as well as Robert Sheehan does but I think Aubrey Plaza could come close if she were to try (honestly her performance in Legion makes me feel like she's wasted in so many deadpan roles).

Also as if I wrote this many words about similarities and parallels and somehow didn't mention the dance numbers.

Specifically, the dance battles...

Oh my God I cannot believe how long this post is. Even by my standards, this is wild...I don't know if even @soshadysoquiet will make it this far...

It's also just occurred to me maybe I should have waited until I watched season 3 before talking about all the parallels...too late now! 🙃

[thistaleisabloodyone]

Heya, I couldn't help but notice that you have a lot of Rampage merch. I am a new fan and I would like to buy some of their merch. So I wanted to ask you, where did you buy it? Could you give me some recommendations?

Hope you have a nice day

Love ya!!!��🩷🩷

Hello! Welcome to the fandom, I hope you're enjoying your stay 😊

For RMPG merch, I get them through three primary sources (long, rambly additions in indent so you can skip if you want):

CDJapan - albums, DVD/Blu-rays, books; does offer proxy service

This is where I buy my discs, like my CDs and my Blu-rays (... and that one time I accidentally bought the DVD version of Gene's United Journeys tour [/regrets]). I've also gotten a few books and magazines through here - my (first) copy of Riku's photobook, the 16Future book, the Anan magazine, etc. I have used their proxy service (where they act as the intermediary to buy things from Japanese stores for you) once. It wasn't the 'here's a thing I want to buy, can you buy it?' method, but they had a listing for the Exile Tribe Station edition cover of Etoile that you could buy through proxy and I was like "Hi, yes, please, I'll take that." They are letting you search Mercari on the website now, which is interesting. Have not used that aspect of their proxy service.

Exile Tribe Station Global - Tour merch, calendars, books

This is the official international merch store for Exile Tribe - you can buy tour merch here, as well as the yearly calendars and miscellaneous other things. Things tend to be out of stock here, unfortunately, especially the cheap things like the cards, but they do apparently restock occasionally because I just finally got Likiya's coin purse and Takuma's cup set for CyberHelix There is a Japanese store which has better stock, but you have to use a proxy service to use it and I am Lazy:tm:. Also, I want to use their global store so they keep it running - going off of my order numbers, they've had 219 orders through the global store since May 23rd last year and I account for six of those, so. If I can't get what I want through the global store, I go to stop #3.

Neokyo - proxy service, works with a number of websites. I typically use the Mercari listings

There are other proxy services - obviously CDJapan has added a search to their website for doing Mercari proxy purchases - but Neokyo is the one I use and I'm at 95 out of 99 purchases successful. (I've had 3 cancelled by seller, 1 cancelled because the seller never took the payment) They are a little expensive, there is a service fee on every purchase, but I find it worth it because I don't have to deal with buying things through a language barrier 😂 This is where I got most of my acrylic stands, basically all of my photo cards, my Ravers jersey, etc. Any disc I can't buy off of CDJapan - like Shokichi's first album, the High&Low soundtrack, etc. - I buy from here. This is how I got my first press copies of the first two albums. I also have the playing card deck in a shipment on its way, which I'm very happy about.

Quick notes - keep an eye on what cannot be shipped internationally. CDJapan's list is here, Neokyo's list is here. Whatever proxy service you use, if you choose to use a different one, should have a copy of it. Apparently the photo acrylic key chains from the new CyberHelix merch are magnetic, so you cannot buy it, it cannot be shipped internationally (at least according to CDJapan and Neokyo). Keep an eye out and don't accidentally buy a listing with it in it.

[isablooo]

Happy Twelfth Night!

Here are some Viola/Cesarios to celebrate! I've rambled a bit about the play and these different versions below~

Although it may not seem particularly festive to modern audience, the title of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night actually references the twelfth night of Christmas (marking the coming Epiphany), with some scholars theorising that it was first performed on the 6th January 1601 for Queen Elizabeth's Twelfth Night celebrations. Christmas in the Elizabethan period was associated with revels, misrule and inversion of the social order - where servants were the masters for the day and children could be crowned mock-bishops. Therefore, the play's deconstruction of social roles, particularly gender roles, would have come across as very christmassy to Elizabethan audiences.

Johnny Flynn and Anita-Joy Uwajeh's perform as Viola/Cesario in my two favourite performances of Twelfth Night: the 2012 and the 2017 Globe performances! I think they both showcase polar opposite styles of adapting the play and how they can both shine: the 2012 production is more traditional in that it reproduces much of the original performance context (Elizabethan setting, all-male cast etc) but is very watchable and honestly hilarious. Mark Rylance as Olivia especially is a highlight - he is so very elegant but is also able to make Olivia on par with the other characters in terms of comedy, despite her usually more serious role. You might recognise Johnny Flynn as Mr Knightley in Emma (2020) but he also slays hard as Viola! The 2017 production, on the other hand, showcases the strengths of modernisations of Shakespeare - I actually saw this one in person in 2017 as I was doing Twelfth Night for A-level at the time, and it was just unforgettable! The setting is shifted to 1970s Scotland and imho translates a lot of the original elements in ways that would resonate in a similar way for contemporary audiences- with songs, dance numbers and some hilarious added dialogue/quips. Even the comic characters (Sir Toby Belch and co) who are often hard to translate for modern audiences were hilarious and I found myself excited to see them come on stage. A huge stand-out is Le Gateau Chocolat as Feste, who has an incredible voice. Having a drag performer play Feste is honestly a great modern analogy as she's a performer who takes tips, is able to question social norms with her art in ways that allow her to be the most insightful character, and is also inkeeping with the play's exploration of gender. Of course, Anita- Joy Uwajeh was absolutely fantastic as Viola too. You can watch recordings of both productions on the Globe-player if you're interested!

I couldn't find anywhere to watch the 2009 Shakespeare in the Park production of Twelfth Night starring Anne Hathaway as Viola/Cesario but honestly I just wanted to draw her anyway <3 In the last few years a promo shot from this production became a really popular 'draw your OT3' meme which I myself have indulged in - it'd be cool if there was a way for more people to watch this given the resurgence of interest!

[dc-polls]

They Would Not Fucking Say That! Preliminary Poll

Guy Gardner (Green Lantern)

From: Justice League (1987) #2, New Earth Context: Three supers from a world destroyed by nuclear weapons were dismantling nuclear missiles

Guy says only "Ronnie-boy" should have nukes

Guy Gardner is a character all about physicality. He fights with his fists first, his heart second, and his brain last. This is because he was in a vegetative state for two to five years (the number varies) and now he must move as much as possible. He hates psychics. He hates mind reading. He hates predictions of his future. He hates being boxed in. He prioritizes personal freedom above all else.

When Keith Giffen and JM DeMatteis started writing Guy Gardner for the Justice League/Justice League International/Justice League America, they did not work collaboratively with Steve Englehart, the writer who was establishing Guy's post brain damage personality, to make sure that Guy Gardner was consistent across both books like they did with Dan Jurgens for Booster Gold. Giffen has even gone on record to say that he never read ANY of Guy's books before writing him. There were 20 issues with his new personality as written by Englehart.

If you read those 20 books you find that Guy reacts poorly to authority after he followed the orders of the Guardians of Oa (Green Lantern bosses) that "restored" his brain and was the only one who got punished. Even more interesting is the fact that Green Lantern Corps #210 (cover date March 1987) has Guy Gardner explicitly say he doesn't like nuclear weapons and prefers fist fighting. Something contradicted in Giffen and DeMatteis Justice League #2 (cover date May 1987).

[Image ID: Two panels, each from a different comic. The first is a panel of Guy Gardner, Martian Manhunter, Batman, and Blue Beetle (Ted Kord) standing in a line. Guy says "I love it! Let's hope those three take out every two-bit country that's packin' nukes! Nobody but Ronnie-boy should have his finger on the button! Then we'd have the world where we want it, huh?" Martian Manhunter thinks "Pathetic!" Batman thinks "Infuriating!" Blue Beetle thinks "Jerk!"

The second is a panel of Green Lanterns, Hal Jordan, Arisia, Saalak, and Ch'p, flying above Green Lanterns, Guy Gardner and Kilowog, who are on the ground with Green Lanterns, John Stewart and Katma Tui, who are currently unconscious and on a stretcher. Russian military officials approach Guy and Kilowog, who are looking at the dead body of the original Rocket Red, Josef Denisovich. Hal says "It couldn't have been any worse than what we faced. Keeping World War 3 under wraps!" Arisia says "Relax, Generals-- no missiles are coming!" Guy says "Missiles! Nuts! That's not man-to-man stuff! There's no glory without man-to-man stuff!" /End ID]

As always, remember to check the notes for info others may have shared, and reblog to help increase reach!

Submissions close Wednesday August 23, 11:00 pm EDT

[comshipbracket]

Antis DNI

Remember, you are voting for the ship you prefer, not the ship you find more problematic

Propaganda for both ships under the cut.

Velphi Propaganda (Pseudo-Incest - Laphicet is the reincarnation of Velvet's unborn nephew, Age Gap - Laphicet is 10 while Velvet is 19, MinorxAdult, Possible Abusive Dynamic - Velvet initially not quite treating him as a person, and then proceeding to treat him as a replacement for her dead brother. She also pulls Laphicet's hair when angry and doesn't apologise for it)

"Their character arcs are inseparably intertwined. The two of them push each other to be People (Laphicet gaining individuality after spending most of his life a partially brainwashed Literal Slave, and Velvet remembering that Positive Emotions Exist after being traumatized and then immediately spending 3 years in solitary confinement).. At first their dynamic is genuinely terrible (at least for Laphicet); Velvet starts out barely seeing him as a person, and when she does start to see him as a person, the person she's seeing is her dead brother. But as the two of them grow, Laphicet gets more assertive and Velvet starts to see him as himself."

"Anyways, have a transcription of one of their best scenes: `No, I don't 'understand'! You snap at people! You're scary! You--You tried to eat me! But… you're also kind… and you're filled with life! I don't understand a single thing about you! But you gave me a name, when I was a number! You gave me that compass! You taught me what it meant to be alive! That's why I care about you, Velvet! I'll protect you for my own sake! I don't care if you're malevolent! Or if it was pointless! If the world says it's a mistake to love you, I'll fight the whole world! I don't care HOW much pain you feel! It doesn't matter! A world without you, Velvet… is the one thing I couldn't bear!`"

"Additionally! The big scene the night before you head into the final dungeon is Laphicet combing Velvet's hair while they talk about the future, and for a bit they pretend everything's going to work out fine and plan out a life together. (video!!! https://youtu.be/golhLiuq78g?feature=shared&t=3273 )"

"Their last scene together is Laphicet telling Velvet he loves her, and Velvet agreeing and making him promise her that he'll live out the rest of his life to the fullest."

"LESS SERIOUSLY

Velvet uses a really gentle tone of voice when she talks to Laphicet that she never uses for anyone else.

Laphicet gets teased by another party member about being motivated by caring about Velvet and he just blushes and agrees

The hot springs sidequest ends up being a bodyswap plot, and the two of them ended up briefly swapping bodies (while naked). Afterwards, Velvet teasingly asks him if he peeked.and he truthfully says he covered his eyes the whole time, to which velvet just goes :I didn't :)" -- Velvet also invited Laphicet to bathe with her at a different point in the game, but he was too flustered and refused

In Rays (a crossover game), the two of them try to live together in peace before the plot ruins it" -- After the end of the initial story of Rays they do manage to live together peacefully, and the game won't stop reminding us of it in event stories"

MakoYuma Propaganda (Selfcest, Cannibalisation, Questionable Dynamic)

"Makoto and Yuma are the same coin, just different sides. Different paths. Makoto continued isolating himself, Yuma opened up and let himself risk being hurt in order to make connections with people. Makoto turned his back on the truth, Yuma fought to expose it. Also, Makoto is simply Yuma's flesh-eating homunculus clone. So they're literally the same person, genetically."

[savebatsartedition]

A little more Scratchcraft after the scare. :3

Warnings: Fire, cartoon death

(Oh, also, btw, the colors are so off from the screens because I exclusive drew and watched videos with my "red light" on the screen ALL the way up. Lol.)

(Tbh, that last one of Kenpoviper is still the best of the best, honestly.)

This seems to be four years old?

(More notes under the cut.)

Instructions:

2022 Edit: 1, I can't believe this was two years ago, and 2, I don't like this art anymore ahhhhh-

Original Instructions: I AM NOT ENCOURAGING GOING ON YOUTUBE! DO NOT GO NEAR IT IF YOUR PARENTS SAY NO!!!

Press the green flag and use the space key/click/tap to look through my fanart.

PLease don't steal my art, I spent a while on this.

Please don't start an argument in my comment section again.

Here is the first project: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/402453541/

This is technically the third Scratchcraft fanart project I made, but the first one got taken down, it's on my Youtube channel (SavebatsFromScratch), but be warned, it got taken down for blood, and I didn't take it out.

Fanart numbers, BoyMcBoy = 3 Hunted = 6 Potato = 2 Kenpo = 5 AK = 2 Storm = 4 Misq = 2 Magnileve = 1

I didn't draw any of WildCrazyGoose or Mallonations this time because I couldn't find any content that really had anything to do with them, I'm so sorry about that.

Also, the fanarts are arranged in order of which I like the most, the best ones being at the end of the collection.

Sorry, there are not equal amounts of fanart for everyone, some people I was inspired to draw many times, others less so. (not in an offensive way.)

Sorry, none of the lighting makes much sense.

I swear I don't know what is up with me drawing so many drawings of various people falling.

Before anyone reports the project, can you please tell me in the comments what is wrong with it? I'll see if I can fix whatever that thing is after being notified. (Last time a project of mine got taken down, the scratch team didn't explain what was wrong with it well enough for me to be sure what it was.)

I should mention I'm not a furry before someone assumes I am what with all the cat faces I'm throwing around it the comments.

Notes and credits:

The people who made the 15 different songs. Scratch for the place a drew everything. The Scratchers in Scratchcraft.

The Scratchers in Scratchcraft are these guys, go follow and sub to them! @-BoyMcBoy-: McBoy Studios @huntedskelly: huntedskelly @Magnileve: Magnileve @PotatoAnimator: PotatoAnimator @WildCrazyGoose: WildCrazyGoose @unknownscratcher1234: KenpoViper @Haunted_Enderman: StormLordZeus @Misq: Misq @ArcanisHD : Janklin @Mallonations: Mallonations

Also extra shoutout to @unknownscratcher1234, @PotatoAnimator, @huntedskelly, @Misq, @-BoyMcBoy- and @ArcanisHD for looking at the project and saying it was cool (or whatever), it's really awesome to get compliments from the people you are drawing. >^-^<

fanart #art #scratchcraft #ihatehashtags

[videogametako]

indie stuff: boardland

cute dice board game. link here:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2735620/BoardLand/

[this game is completely free]

the music and art set the really cozy vibe of the game

this type of tutorial is kinda great, works really well for a turn-based game. lacks a bit of flair and flavor but i like how straightforward it is

cute sitting sprite

oh hey, it was published on my birthday

overview

boardland is a turn-based combat dice- board- game where you fight monsters. it's a pretty short game, i got through one run and credits rolling in 30~ minutes, but seems the monsters might be randomized for every playthrough? gonna check again just to be sure.

there's uh not really any story as far as i can tell, so let's just get to the

mechanics

combat takes place entirely on this board. you can upgrade it by using dice while on a tile, sometimes changing the base action of the tile (fire > attack, earth > defense, water > heal). it's got roguelite elements too so, it's what you'd expect, items and blessings. potions aren't too difficult to come by, and a playthrough is short enough that you can be liberal in using them

a player turn consists of you moving, then taking dice actions. you can only use multiple dice on a tile if they're in increasing order (2 > 3 > 4, for instance), otherwise, you have to move to use another action. you draw 5 dice every turn, and leftover dice are discarded. sometimes it seems you can use an action dice at the start of your turn immediately, but sometimes you can't..? i'm a bit confused but it might be dependent on whether you used an action last turn or not

now, by using a set number of dice, you can level up a base tile to upgrade it (its 3 dice for the first level up). this gives you bonus actions, and synergizes with the elemental dice you can find sometimes. this gives you a way to customize your board depending on your playstyle and build.

additionally, every other turn a random event occurs. you have to land on the tile to activate 'em. same goes with curses that enemies sometimes do. if something on the board only needs you to make contact with it, it'll say in the description (like enemy spawns)

the game punishes you for taking too long by giving most (if not all) enemies a passive that increases their stats every 10 turns. this did not become an issue for me (except for that one tedious round where i got to 10 turns because i kept messing up my actions)

you can get buffs and debuffs too. there was one where i was supposedly able to use two dice on one tile or smth, but it was either poorly worded or broken bc i could never proc it. there's a confusion debuff that sometimes makes you move backwards too. the main way to get debuffs on enemies is by using elemental dice on their corresponding tile

OH i completely missed the reroll mechanic, you can spend gold to reroll one of your dice, kinda handy, i suppose? gold is rarely used anyway

aesthetics

this game is pretty slow paced, not to say it can't get challenging, and while i'm more of a fan of faster games, i found this one to be relaxing to play. i'm gonna do one more run before finishing this up.

the music is extremely cozy. even when a bit frustrated, i couldn't find myself getting too worked up, i like it

i enjoy the artstyle as well, the monsters and the player character all have a soft and charming vibe about them (except that frog in berserk mode, pictured earlier, i like that too). very cute!

misc

gimmick fight, i respect it.

another gimmick fight, the reroll mechanic is especially useful here if you wanna fight more efficiently, especially since the opponent just sits there until the tiles get locked (i died bc i didn't realize my health was too low (oh, you can load up the autosave and retry, neat))

closing thoughts

i could honestly see myself spending a lot of time on a fully fleshed out adventure mode for this game. i'm super engaged by the mechanics, and with a bit more content there's room for a lot of strategy in this kind of game. different board lengths, branching paths, character skills.

i already enjoy board-based games a ton (stuff a la mario party or 100% orange juice) and also dice as cards in games (die in the dungeon, is the most recent and only example to come to mind (i haven't played library of ruina yet) i should write about that, i enjoyed the demo and i need the full game) so this game is very much my thing

if the game sounded like fun, give it a try, it is completely free

[bearpillowmonster]

Bad Batch S2

I figured finish 2 before starting 3. 2 just wasn't appealing to me because I didn't like the first one enough, it seemed like it was littered with too many cameos, some enjoyable but some way too pandering, it felt like it couldn't stand on its own two feet. It wasn't bad overall though so I gave two a shot after some many months and while it sounded appealing with them being treasure hunters, I just couldn't get behind it. S2 is like every good episode has two bad ones but they aren't necessarily in order so you might get 4 bad ones before you get 2 good ones.

People pit Dave Filoni as the master of the franchise now but I'm not necessarily convinced because this was all him, as far as I can tell. Picking a successor to lead Star Wars is like picking a quarterback to win your Super Bowl, while Dave has experience and has produced the most enjoyable bouts (especially having Atla under his belt) he hasn't necessarily been consistent in my opinion. Sometimes I wonder if expanding the Skywalker era is even a good idea in the first place because they're at planning retirement for the clones...with pensions and all that junk. They're trying to solve the veteran problem...in Star Wars. While that digs deep into the lore, it treads close to what I was saying about Andor with it showing us too many unnecessary bits. Don't get me wrong, that was one of the good bits, I feel like the Bad Batch sort of started showing the actual transition of clones to stormtroopers and I really like that idea but it's few and far between a lot of the time.

But it feels like you're out of luck if you don't like a character, Cid for example is pretty unlikable for a lot of people, maybe she's meant to be that way, whatever but we see a good bit of her. Organa? We see him almost every Star Wars series now, I get that he jumped the rebellion but isn't there something about bringing about the remaining scraps of the alliance on Alderaan after its demise to take down the Empire in the first place? Now there's a billion rebels, now there's a billion lost jedi, which I've complained about before but I'll do it again. Again, if it's the point of the series, it makes sense, Jedi Fallen Order did a great job with this because it was the point, to get the list of jedi, attaching a number to that could only make it more tense and I believe at some point, it was George's plan was to have a Vader saga where he hunted these jedi down. All those ideas sound cool but if they show up time and time again in a story unrelated, it just seems like you have a jedi there to have a jedi, like it's some sort of propaganda similar to the ending of the Last Jedi. The best episodes here are ones that don't involve lightsabers. It's all overexposed.

With that said, I dropped S2 until I saw S3 was coming and brought back Asajj. So, their propaganda worked in a way. And really, S2 didn't have as many cameos as I thought it might, in fact, I found myself getting attached to one of the characters. I've always liked the crew ever since I saw them in TCW but I thought about who I would be most sad for if something happened, it's Echo. He just has always stuck out in my mind, Hunter too, but Echo has the story. The others were born that way and grew to be brothers but Echo was an accepted family because of his condition and I just find that so loving. I also really love where they leave this season off, it has a lot of potential for this next season, having Omega sort of visit another side of everything, so I can at least say that while S1 didn't get me hyped for S2, S2 got me hyped for S3.

[boldlyvoid]

ooo can you elaborate more on the Jeid drama? i’m invested😅😅

okay i have to preface this with i am not a jeid shipper i don't think they'd be good together i just love drama. like greys anatomy level drama where everyone has dated each other and it's wild, okay? good, glad we got that covered... anyway i think that Spencer is Henry's real father.

so in season 1 you see spencer has a crush on JJ (i think he had one on elle to i mean who wouldn't? and he's such a little nerd he's just desperate for some lovin') and everyone knew too, that's why Gideon gets him two tickets to see JJ's favourite team play baseball so the two of them can bond... but then JJ brought Penelope along and it became a friends thing.

in the beginning of the series, JJ is one of those tomboy girls who picks on the boys she likes. you see it in S2E14 The Big Game when she's playing darts with those boys and she beats them both and ruffles their hair before going out to answer the phone. that's her way of flirting. so every time she's "mean" or "rude" to spencer (not letting him speak, calling out his inability to stop talking when the convo gets "boring" etc.) that is her trying to be cute and funny with him but he never picked up on it. he didn't understand that her basically bullying him was her way of flirting.

in the next episode, when reid has been taken by tobias, she is distraught. she feels as though failed him as a teammate and it was her responsibility to watch out for him. it's also the first time she realizes just how much she loves him. be it as a friend and teammate or something more. she even tries to get derek to yell at her to validate her feelings but everyone knows it's just a bit of bad luck and could've happened to anyone.

when they find reid, she rushes to hug him and she follows hotch towards reid, watches as hotch lifts him from the floor and she holsters her weapon. she clasps her hands together tightly and waits to know if he's okay. Hotch hugs him first and then she's quick to wrap herself around him and hold him close and she apologizes to him. but then she retreats, it's too much for her, so she walks away and leaves him with derek and gideon until he asks to be left alone (to steal the drugs)

spencer struggles a lot for the remainder of season 2, he's addicted to drugs, he's trying to prove that he's strong and confident and he doesn't want to be babied anymore. he flips on derek, emily and butts heads with Hotch but never JJ. in this time she meets Will and observes spencer ditching the team to go be with an old friend, he's not good at following orders at the moment. While JJ on the other hand is at a bar with Will, wanting to follow the rules to a T and when he asks if she hasn't had much practice flirting or dealing with being jealous, she replies "its a culture thing" and by the end of the episode she gives him her number. -- i think this is because she's tried her way of flirting with reid for 2 years now and it's gone no where, so she's moving on.

she gives Spencer his space until the last episode of season 2 when they've partnered up again and JJ makes sure to look at him and say "woah, hey. no matter what happens this time, we don't split up. clear?" and he responds, "crystal clear." she doesn't want to ever lose him. no matter whats going on in her personal life, she loves him. she couldn't handle losing him.

Season 3 episode 1: Doubt. JJ and Reid are sent to talk to the girls at the dorm about the serial killer on campus that is killing girls with brown hair. the girls trust them and when JJ tells them they have a suspect in custody, they think that means the killer has been caught and that they're free to go about their days as normal. when another victim dies, one of the girls on campus takes her anger out on JJ and spits in her face causing spencer to come running to her side and tell the cops to clear the area because he's concerned for JJs safety, he makes sure she's okay, she waves him off but it's still impressive how he went into protector mode so fast for her.

in episode 2 Gideon quits the FBI and in episode 3 spencer is distraught but keeping it together, i believe this is when he officially gets sober, joins AA and starts to live the life Gideon wants for him. he's back to his normal self, sharing facts and putting pieces together without any mental fog. he wears short sleeves again(S3E4), which is a big piece of proof because his injection marks must have faded enough for him to feel comfortable. he's getting his confidence back, he's trying to return to the way he was the night before he got kidnapped. happy, free, confident and himself.

in season 3 JJ is also secretly seeing Will, although everyone has already guessed it. they fly back and forth to see each other but it's hard on them both, they almost break up over it. Will wants them to be in 1 place together and JJ isn't willing to give up her career for a man (rightfully so) in episode 5 Seven Seconds, she's asked if she has kids and her response is "not yet." so she's thinking about kids, she knows she wants them and soon.

as of 3.16 spencer is 10 months sober, he's doing really good even with the cravings. in this episode we see him leave his NA meeting because they've been called to a case and when spencer arrives late Dave jokingly says "i hope she was worth it?" Derek throws in "i hope it was a she" and JJ says quiet, but as soon as she starts to explain the case further she keeps staring at spencer. he has a hard time for most of the episode and she's the only one who doesn't say anything about it.

3.17 we have Will joining them for a case and JJ still hasn't told the team about them dating which is a point of contention for them. he feels like she's ashamed to be dating him and she's claiming that once the team knows her personal business then she has nothing that's just hers to know. they basically break up for a good portion of the episode. the theme of the episode is cheating. Wills buddy is gay and cheating on his fiance, and most the other men were also cheating on their wives.

When Will brings up the fact she's basically got "one foot out of the relationship" he says "what is there another guy? do you want to see another guy?" and she gets the most defensive you have ever seen her. then he finally asks "do you wanna break up?" and she says yes.

I think either she was fucking spencer on the side. or she fucked him once she was single. one of the two.

and based on how pregnant she is at the end of the season (when Hoch finds out) it would seem like this is the episode in which she gets pregnant. (AJ is clearly very pregnant on day 2 of the case in that purple drapey top)

but, at the end of the episode after everything is said and done, she goes back to Will because he's a sure thing. he's the safe option. no matter how scared she is to love who she really wants to, Will is the best option for her. and she probably thinks he might be the father of her baby. it's the right thing to do.

And then there Spencer’s reaction when he finds out she’s pregnant…

flashforward to when shes giving birth to Henry, spencer's in the middle of a case thinking his own father is a pedophile and a murderer and even though JJ is in active labour, she doesn't want to stop helping him. the whole episode is basically centred around what would a parent do for their own child... and it ends with spencer being made Henry's God Father. cause if he can't be her kids dad, she still wants him to be around if god forbid anything happened to her r Will.

like i'm sorry but this kid is a Reid.

I'm just saying that it would be a wicked plot for Henry to do that blood test thing in science calls and find out his blood type doesn't make sense with who his parents are, but it does work if you match his mom and spencers....

[jinlizz-dragondrama]

Chapter 3

Curious Development

(Italics are a persons thoughts)

F/TV/S- favorite TV show

F/D- favorite drink

Author POV

Y/N has just encountered her green mysterious boy, man...person...well she'll find out more about who the purple hooded enigma is soon enough but let's get back to the trio.

Y/N POV

Othello Van Ryan well that's an interesting name

"Othello here is a good friend of mine and good with technology. So he comes in handy now and then" April says while smiling

"Uh scoff, is that all I'm good for helping you with computer troubles?" He says faking being hurt

Did he just say the word scoff?

"You know you're my best bud too" she adds while spinning around in her rolling computer chair

I look between the two and giggle quietly. Othello doesn't really make eye contact with me which I don't mind. He asks questions about our first day, once I tell him about my encounter with Mr. Miller he turns to me and our eyes meet.

"Some professor he is, it shouldn't matter how you got the answer so long as you can solve it. What it sounds like to me is that he's jealous of your superior intellect" he says while crossing his arms behind his head and leaning back in his chair.

I smile at that and shrug my shoulders.

"Well hopefully tomorrow he won't wake up on the wrong side of the bed, or I'll have a thing or two to say to the man" April adds

We finish our computer lab assignment just in time for the last bell to ring. April and I pack our bags while April's friend follows us out of the school.

Once outside I clink my sneaker heels together and the blades pop out from under my shoes, I slowly skate around the pair and smile. Othello looks at me in awe and I couldn't help but blush.

"No way, you created retractable rollerblade sneakers?" He says while Fangirling.

"Y-Yea, it's a lot easier to get around like this. It's nothing special" I say shyly

"Scoff, well it's nice to be acquainted with a fellow inventor" he smirks playfully

"Alright, you nerds. Let's go get something to eat" April shouts as she runs ahead of us.

We chuckle and rush after her, after going down a couple of blocks away from the school we arrive at a hole-in-the-wall pizzeria. The smell of freshly cooked pizza hits my nostrils and drool almost slips out my pink lips. Othello opens the door for us, I clink my heels again the blades retract and we grab a table while April orders for us. I insist on giving her money to pay for half of the pizza but she tells me I'll buy it next time.

"So you're a tech guy huh? I bet everyone comes to you when their microwaves or computers break down"

"Heh yea you can say that, I'm also a bit of a mad scientist when it comes to that....evil laugh," he said while chuckling shyly

This boy just said evil laugh instead of laughing evil like def a mad scientist

"Oh really pray tell what kind of experiments and gadgets have you created?"

His eyes immediately light up and he pulls out his phone to show me pictures of his inventions aka his babies, especially his baby boy S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. He was quite proud of this particular one and I was more than happy to listen to his info dump. April came back to the table with our pizza and she smiles at the two of us knowingly. But I don't catch her look as we each grab a slice of Pepperoni. We chat and eat. I learn about both my new friend's lives such as April's life with her mom, Othello has 3 brothers and a dad. But it feels like they are hiding something from me but I shrug off the feeling. I texted my papa's to let them know what I'm doing and they told me they'll be out late. Once we finished our pizza, we walked outside the warm August air washed over my body, and I sigh and stretch my arms.

"We need to hang out again, hopefully soon," I say happily

"Ditto" April says

"Uh huh yea," Othello said while typing away on his phone

April and I roll our eyes playfully, April gives me her number and nudges Othello to do the same. Saying our goodbyes and heading off in separate directions to our home. I decide to walk instead of rollerblading home to check out the sites I missed. I get to the hideout, make sure no one is watching input the code and quickly slip inside. Pushing my bedroom door open, tossed the heavy backpack onto my bed, and kicked off my sneakers. I decide to take a shower and start on my homework.

Jaw twitching and teeth grinding as I stare at my math homework still getting a bit worked up about today. Quickly finishing said homework, I toss it into my backpack. Flopping onto my comfy bed, I grab my fluffy blanket and turn on the TV to (F/TV/S). I must have fallen asleep because when I woke up a news broadcast was playing some conspiracy theorist was going on about how aliens live among us and a picture came up to show "proof". The picture was blurry all I could make out was green bodies and each one had a colored cloth over what I'd assume to be their faces. One was red, another was blue, the third was orange and lastly was purple and it looked to be hovering from how high off the ground it was. Something about the purple one made me smile subconsciously. Turning off the TV I can't help but think of my new purple-wearing friend and doze off back to sleep.

The next few days of school went by pretty slowly but thanks to April she made it better. At lunch on Friday we sat in the outside courtyard under a tree, munching on my sandwich and (F/D). Some cheerleaders walk by and very loudly start gossiping but once they see us one of the girls started talking about my eyes. The comments shouldn't have had the effect they did on me but they did, I look down at my hands, moving my hair to cover my eyes and I sigh. April tells me to ignore those "bimbo Barbie dolls", I smile faintly at her comment but ever since that day, I became very self-conscious of them. At the end of the day, I'm walking down a hallway and I see a board filled with club posters, a poster advertising a Swim Team caught my eye. I did enjoy swimming (for obvious reasons 🙃) I take a picture of the poster to add the try-out day and time to my phone. April had to go run an errand for her mom so I was by my lonesome. But when I got outside the building a familiar person was waiting outside, he had yet to see me so I quietly snuck up behind him and shouted "BOO!" Oh, the sound he made and the expression on his face was priceless I couldn't help but laugh and almost fall over.

Donnie POV

I'm on my phone texting April letting her know I'm here at the school to walk Y/N home. All of a sudden a sweet but loud voice is shouted behind me and I jump. Turning around I see who the culprit is, I couldn't help but smile and blush slightly as I see Y/N laugh and double over from how hard she's laughing. I instinctively flick her forehead and chuckle as she clutches her head and glares at me.

Y/N POV

"Ow that hurt, you're gonna pay for that!"

"Catch me if he can," he says with a hint of mischief as he takes off running

I quickly run after him and we laugh as I chase him. He's pretty fast but I'm just as fast, I take the opportunity to tag him when he looks behind him to see how close I am. But when he turns around our noses almost touch, and a blush creeps up from my neck to my cheeks I tag him and take off running again.

Why does this girl make me feel this way? Feelings are...gross

After our game of tag which took longer than I thought the sun was starting to set. The beautiful orange, purple, and pinks color the sky. I sit under a tree with Othello and try to catch my breath. I have my eyes closed while a soft breeze blows my hair, unbeknownst to me he's watching me from the corner of his eye.

The way the sunset shines on her face....it's...well...

I hear him clear his throat, opening my eyes slowly I smile at him, standing up I brush off my black skirt and outstretched my hand to help him up.

"I'llwalkyouhome" he says quickly

"Oh there's no need"

"I insist, it's not safe out here this late"

I quickly think of what to do. I can't let him see the hideout but thankfully there is a safe house of sorts not far away from it. So I decide to walk there, once we arrive I grab my keys out of my bag, thanking him for walking me home.

"Well it wouldn't fit my bad boy image if I let a pretty girl walk home alone"

I roll my eyes and flick his forehead.

"Yea save your flirting for someone it works on"

He stutters and tries to think of what to say as a rebuttal

"Goodnight Othello"

"Goodnight Y/N"

I walk inside the apartment and decide a little evening stroll will be nice. I shower, braided my hair put on some black leggings with a black T-shirt, and place my phone in my small backpack. I climb out my bedroom window, and climb up the fire escape, once I'm on the roof there is a gentle breeze, and take in a big breath of fresh air. Doing my stretches and some meditation I start to think of my purple hoodied friend, blushing slightly I slap my cheeks gently to snap out of it.

I start to hop from rooftop to rooftop until I come across a party of sorts. I decide to take a break, watching a man with tons of bodyguards being handed a briefcase full of gold. Not far off in the distance a grappling hook is shoot from a nearby roof towards a construction site 4 figures slide across thinking they were about to crash the party I look on but they slide past the partygoers. Once they are hovering close to the pool on a different rooftop they let go and I'm able to see what the figures looked like.

The blue one falls and says "Cow!"

The orange one follows with "wa!"

Next, the purple one who is falling like he's unbothered says "Bung!"

Then the last one was red and yelled "Ga!"

Then the all shouted "Cannonball!"

They all crash into the pool and splash an onlooker that seems to be filming the whole thing. All the water is emptied from the pool after their landing and they start all start to happy dance. I chuckle a bit, grab onto the cable and I slide across it as well. Jumping down from the cable l, landing on the entrance to the rooftop. I take a peek and I can see that those people...big question mark have green-colored skin and shells on their backs.

"No way are those....turtles? Wait they look very familiar to the ones I saw on the news that one day. Also, that purple one sounds very familiar" I say quietly to myself

The onlooker high-fives the group and they discuss what they plan on doing next. I look at the person and I couldn't believe my eyes. The person turns around after putting the wet floor and dry pool signs.

"April?!" I say out loud instead of in my head.

April turns around and she points at me, "Y/N?"

We both stare at each other with our mouths open and I hesitantly jump down to her and give a quick wave.

"Nice night for a dive huh?" I say shyly

Authors Notes!!

Oh yea, time for some action!! What will happen in the next chapter? Sorry to leave yall with a cliffhanger of sorts 😋

[bnhaobservation]

Fanfic: Love is a fire - Characters’ ages

So, in order to write my fic and make it as canon compliant as reasonably possible, I researched over the character ages as BNHA gives them but in a way that keeps into consideration the character's birthday (example: Natsuo in the manga is shown as having 3 and 4 age of difference compared to Fuyumi, that's because the first time he already had his birthday but the same couldn't be said for the second time, although Hatsume is also in the 1st year of high school, same as Midoriya and Co, her age is given as 16 as she already had her birthday).

As, in addition to the age they've in the fic, I listed all the calculation process as well as the age they would have in the manga, even who's not reading my fic might find this of some interest.

Characters’ ages at the start of this fic (30 December, which also means 2 years and 4 months before Midoriya and All Might meet in the manga):

Todoroki Enji (轟 炎司) aka Flame Hero: Endeavor (フレイムヒーロー エンデヴァー): 42 as he’s born on the 8th of August (Near Shizuoka). In the manga in May his age is given as 45.This makes him a little more than twice as old as Tōya. Other relevant facts about him are before high school his father died, at 20 he was already Number Two and that Tōya should have been conceived in spring when he was still 21, meaning by that age he had already married Rei. By how Rei is wearing a scarf on their first date, we can assume it was in winter. Quirk: Hellflame (ヘルフレイム), Height: 195 cm, Weight: 118 kg, Blood: AB, Favorite food: Kuzo Mochi.

Todoroki Rei (轟 冷) aka Himura Rei (氷叢 冷): 38. Canonically we don’t know how old she is. I assume she’s younger than Enji. Since Horikoshi usually makes wives much younger than husbands, I’ll assume it’s Horikoshi’s trend and that she is younger than Enji. I might be wrong. Quirk type: Ice (氷結 Hyōketsu).

Todoroki Tōya (轟 燈矢) aka Dabi (荼毘 Cremation): 19 but about to turn 20 as he’s born on the 18th of January. In the manga in mid-December his age is given as 23. Other relevant facts about him are that, in order for Tōya and Natsuo’s age difference to work Enji started training him at 3 and he started burning around the summer of that year with Natsuo being conceived on November of that year, that when he was 8 he attacked Shōto, that when he was 13, in December (or in January prior to his birthday) his flames turned blue, Rei snapped and was hospitalized and Tōya burned himself and ended up in All for One’s hands and comatose. He woke up three years after, likely when he was 17 or about to turn as such. Quirk: Blueflame (蒼炎 Sōen), Height: 176 cm, Hated food: Fish.

Todoroki Fuyumi (轟 冬美): 19 as she’s born on the 6th of December and, canonically, Fuyumi is supposed to be 1 year younger than Tōya which, considering the months in which they had birth, would mean if they’re born in different years, would make her almost 2 years younger than her brother (to be exact 1 year 10 months and 20 days). However the manga shows an image of her being an infant while Tōya is still learning how to walk. As kids learn to walk at around 1 year of age, I assumed they were born in the same year and are in fact only 10 months and 20 days apart. It fits with how in chap 187, in November, her age is given as 22. Quirk type: Ice (氷結 Hyōketsu), Height: 160 cm, Favorite things: Soap opera.

Todoroki Natsuo (轟 夏雄): 15 (last year of middle school - Corusan Middle school (凝山中学校 Corusan chūgakkō*) as he’s born on the 1st of July. Canonically… we aren’t sure of Natsuo’s age. In chap 187 he’s 19 and 3 years younger than Fuyumi, in chap 302 he’s 4 years younger than Fuyumi and 5 years younger than Tōya. However the difference might be explained by assuming that chap 302 took place before July, so neither Natsuo nor Fuyumi had turned 9 and 13 respectively, while we know chap 187 takes place around November so Natsuo has turned 19 but Fuyumi isn’t yet 23. Quirk type: Ice (氷結 Hyōketsu), Height: 181 cm, Favorite things: Sashimi, the sea,

Todoroki Shōto (轟 焦凍) aka Shōto (ショート): 11 (last year of elementary school - Corusan Elementary school (凝山小学校 Corusan Shōgakkō*) but about to turn 12 as he’s born on the 11th of January (Near Shizuoka). Canonically Shōto is 8 years younger than Tōya and, since he’s 11 this would place him at his sixth year of elementary school, which would mean he has more than 3 years before he would attempt the exam for U.A. High school. Quirk: Half-cold Half-hot (半冷半燃 Hanrei Han'nen), Height: 176 cm, Blood: 0, Favorite food: Zaru Soba.

Kurumada Untenmaru (車田 運天丸): 43 as he’s born on the 4th of March. He is 47 when he’s introduced in January, meaning he’s about to turn 48. Height: 180cm, Favorite things: Flowers.

Kamiji Moe (上路 萌) aka Burnin (バーニン): 21 but about to turn 22 as she’s born on the 18th of January. Canon states her as 25 in January, when Shōto and his classmates begin to work in Endeavor Agency, meaning she should be about to turn 26. This makes her 10 years older than Shōto therefore this would also mean she was 15 about to turn 16 when Tōya supposedly died, which places her at the first year of high school which, considering her line of work, was likely a Hero high school. Quirk: Blazing hair (燃髪 Nenpatsu), Height 169 cm.

Kidō (キドウ): Canonically we don’t know how old he is. Quirk: Traject (軌道 Kidō).

Onimā (オニマー): Canonically we don’t know how old he is.

Yagi Toshinori (八木 俊典) aka All Might (オール マイト): 52. Canonically we don’t know how old he is but he’s born on the 10th of June (Tokyo) and in chap 397 he says he’s more than 55 and in chap 304 that he had All for One for 40 years. According to the script for Episode 49 Yagi is 14 when he meets Shimura Nana and she likely passed him One for All before he went to Hero high school, which, considering he’s born in June, he started at 15 years and 10 months. Due to this I’ll say 56 is a good approximation and this makes him 10 years older than Enji. Other relevant facts about him are he was 18 when Nana died and, once he finished U.A. he moved in the states and came back in Japan when he was 23. 5 years before meeting Midoriya he got seriously wounded by All for One. In the canon of this fic, if it happened in April, it would means he was 49 about to turn 50. 5 years before being hurt, he accepted Sasaki Mirai as his own sidekick. Quirk: One For All (ワン・フォー・オール), Epithet: "Symbol of Peace" (平和の象徴 Heiwa no Shōchō), Height: 220cm (muscle form), Weight: 274kg (Before injury)/255kg (Muscle form), Blood: A.

Sasaki Mirai (佐々木  未来) aka Sir Nighteye (サー・ナイトアイ): 34 but about to turn 35 as he’s born on the 2nd of January (Tokyo). In the manga he’s introduced after October started and his age is given as 38. Other relevant facts about him are he was All Might sidekick for 5 years but their partnership dissolved when All Might got hurt by All for One. Quirk: Foresight (予知 Yochi), Height: 200 cm, Blood: AB, Favorite things: heroes, especially All Might.

Moashi Jūzō (百足 従造) aka Centipeder (センチピーダー): 31 as he’s born on the 4^th of June.

Torino Sorahiko (酉野 空彦) aka Gran Torino (グラン トリノ): Canonically we don’t know how old he is but he’s born on the 28th of January (Yamanashi Prefecture). Quirk: Jet (ジェット), Height: 120cm (Currently)-200cm+ (Formerly), Blood: B.

Hakamada Tsunagu (袴田 維) aka Fiber Hero: Best Jeanist (ファイバー ヒーロー ベスト ジー二スト): 32 as he’s born on the 5th of October (Okayama Prefecture). In the manga he’s introduced in between May and summer and his age is given as 35. Quirk: Fiber Master (ファイバーマスター), Height: 190cm, Blood: AB.

Toyomitsu Taishirō (豊満 太志郎) aka BMI Hero: Fat Gum (BMI ヒーロー ファット ガム): 25 as he’s born on the 8th of August (Osaka). In the manga he’s introduced in October and his age is given as 29. Quirk: Fat Absorption (脂肪吸着 Shibō Kyūchaku), Height: 250cm (Fat form), Blood: O.

Nezu (根津): Canonically we don’t know how old he is but he’s born on the 1st of January 1 (Tokyo). Quirk: High Spec (ハイ スペック), Height: 85 cm, Blood: A.

Shūzenji Chiyo (修善寺 治与) aka Youthful Heroine: Recovery Girl (妙齢 ヒローイン  リカバリー ガール Myōrei Heroine Recovery Girl): Around 62/66. Canonically we don’t know how old she is but she’s born on the 4th of April (Tokyo). Age of retirement in Japan is currently 70 but I’m not sure if it applies to Heroes in BNHA, however, considering she was working as a nurse when Enji was in high school I’ll assume the youngest she could be back then as a teacher is 20 and which makes her age in canon range from 65 to 69 in the final arc. Quirk: Heal (癒し Iyashi), Height: 115cm, Blood: B.

Cook Hero: Lunch Rush (クック ヒーロー ランチ ラッシュ): Canonically we don’t know how old he is but he’s born on the 17th of June (Niigata Prefecture). Height: 160cm, Blood: AB.

Aizawa Shōta (相澤 消太) aka Erasure Hero: Eraser Head (抹消 ヒーロー イレイザー ヘッド Masshō Hero Eraser Head): 27 as he’s born on the 8th of November (Tokyo). In the manga he’s introduced in April and his age is given as 30. Other relevant facts about him are he started his work studies when he was 16, during summer, under His Purple Highness at Purple Revolution Agency, along with Kayama and Shirakumo. Quirk: Erasure (抹消 Masshō), Height: 183cm, Blood: B.

Yamada Hizashi (山田 ひざし) aka Voice Hero: Present Mic (ボイス ヒーロー プレゼント マイクVoice Hero: Present Mic): 27 as he’s born on the 7th of July (Tokyo). In the manga he’s introduced in April and his age is given as 30. Height: 185 cm, Blood: B.

Kayama Nemuri (香山 睡) aka R-Rated Hero: Midnight (18禁 ヒーロー ミッドナイト Jū-hachi-kin Hero: Midnight): 27 as he’s born on the 9th of March (Saitama Prefecture). In the manga we’re told in April her age is 31. Quirk: Somnambulist (眠り香 Nemuriga), Height: 175cm, Blood: A.

Kurose Anan (黒瀬 亜南) aka Space Hero: Thirteen (スペース ヒーロー 13号 Space Hero Jū-san Gō): 24 as she’s born on the 3rd of February (Kagoshima Prefecture (Tanegashima). In the manga she’s introduced in April and her age is given as 28.Quirk: Black Hole (ブラックホール), Height: 180cm.

Inui Ryō (犬井 猟) aka Hunting Dog Hero: Hound Dog (猟犬 ヒーロー ハウンド ドッグ Ryōken Hero Hound Dog): 29 as he’s born on the 15th  of November (Tokyo). In the manga he’s introduced in mid-August and his age is given as 32. Quirk: Dog (犬 Inu), Height: 196cm, Blood: A.

Shirakumo Oboro (白雲 朧) aka Loud Cloud (ラウド クラウド): Canonically he died at 17 during his second year of high school while he was at his work study and he was born on the 5th of May. This means his death happened by already more than 10 years ago, around October since it was short after the start of the new semester.Quirk: Cloud (雲 Cloud), Height: 187 cm.

Shimura Nana (志村 菜奈): Canonically we don’t know how old she was but she met Yagi at 31 and died at 35, killed by All for One. Quirk: Float (浮遊 Fuyū), One For All (ワン・フォー・オール). Family: Shimura Kotarō (志村弧太朗) (Son).

Takami Keigo (鷹見 啓悟) aka Wing Hero: Hawks (ウィングヒーロー ホークス): 19 as he’s born on the 28th of December (Fukuoka). In the manga he’s introduced in November and his age is given as 22. Other relevant facts about him are it seems in an Interview of Honyasan MA with Kohei Horikoshi’s current editor they said he was taken in by the commission and trained hard under them when he was six years old*, he started his own agency at just 18 and made it into the top ten of that year’s second ranking which takes place in November (meaning he might have opened his agency in January). Then in the ranking before All Might retirement, he became Number 3 and in the one post his retirement Number 2. Quirk: Fierce Wings (剛翼 Gōyoku), Height: 172 cm, Blood: B.

Kamihara Shinya (紙原 伸也) aka Ninja Hero: Edgeshot (忍者ヒーロー エッジショット): 29 as he’s born on the 22^nd of February. In the manga he’s introduced during the summer break and his age is given as 33. Other relevant facts about him are during his first year at U.A. he opened a textile arts association (手芸 同好会 Shugei dōkō-kai “Handicraft club”) with Hakamada. Quirk: Foldabody (紙肢 Shishi), Height: 170cm, Blood: A.

Tsukauchi Naomasa (塚内 直正): 32 as he’s born on the 4th of April (Iwate Prefecture). In the manga he’s introduced in April (likely after the 4th) and his age is given as 36.Code name: True Man (トゥルー マン), Height: 180 cm, Family: Tsukauchi Makoto (塚内 真) (Younger Sister).

HERO kōan iinkai no kaichō (ヒーロー 公安 委員会 の 会長 “Chairman of the Hero Public Safety Committee”), Kōan iinchō (公安委員長 “Public Safety Commission Chairman”) for short: the title in Japanese is gender neutral so it applies for Madame President and her predecessor as well (currently referred as HERO kōan iinkai no zen kaichō (ヒーロー 公安 委員会 の 前 会長 “Previous Chairman of the Hero Public Safety Committee”) and Horikoshi didn’t bother giving either of them a name. As I usually do in this sort of circumstances I’ll assign them the name of their voice actors (if possible), so, in this fic, Madame President is named Kinoshita Sayaka (木下 紗華) while the previous president is Sekiguchi Eiji (関口 英司). If Horikoshi will assign them names I’ll change it. Canonically we don’t know how old they are.

HERO kōan iinkai no kanbu (ヒーロー 公安 委員会 の 幹部), kōan iin kanbu (公安 委員 幹部 “Public Safety Commissioner Executive”) for short: Horikoshi didn’t bother give him a name. As I usually do in this sort of circumstances I’ll assign them the name of their voice actors (if possible), so, in this fic, he is named Yamauchi Kenji (山内 健嗣). If Horikoshi will assign him a name I’ll change it. Canonically we don’t know how old he is.

Mera Yokumiru (目良 善見) aka kōan iin shokuin (公安 委員 職員 “public safety commission staff”): Canonically we don’t know how old he is.

Keisatsuchō chōkan (警察庁 長官 “Commissioner-general of the National Police Agency”): Horikoshi didn’t bother give him a name. As I usually do in this sort of circumstances I’ll assign them the name of their voice actors (if possible), but he actually had two, Sekiguchi Eiji (関口 英司) first and Tanzawa Teruyuki (丹沢 晃之) after. Since Sekiguchi Eiji also voiced the unnamed and deceased Chairman of the Hero Public Safety Committee and I’m using his name for him, for the Commissioner general of National Police Agency I’ll use Tanzawa Teruyuki (丹沢 晃之) as his name.

Tsubasa (ツバサ): 11 (?). He’s likely the same age as Midoriya Izuku and Bakugō Katsuki. Other relevant facts about him are he was in Midoriya Izuku and Bakugō Katsuki’s circle from preschool but disappeared during middle school and that, back then, Garaki Kyūdai used to claim to be his grandfather. Quirk: Unnamed wing Quirk.

Shigaraki (死柄木) aka All For One (オール・フォー・ワン): Canonically we don’t know how old she is but it’s said to be over 100. Main Quirk: All For One (オール・フォー・ワン), Alias: Master (先生 Sensei), Epithet: "Symbol of Evil" (悪の象徴 Aku no Shōchō), Ruler of evil (悪の支配者 Aku no shihai-sha), Emperor of darkness (闇の帝王 Yami no teiō), Demon Lord (魔王 Maō), Height: 225cm, Blood: B Family: Shigaraki Yoichi (死柄 木与一) (Younger brother).

Shimura Tenko (志村 転弧) aka Shigaraki Tomura (死柄木 弔): 16 as he’s born on the 4th of April. In the manga in mid-December his age is given as 20. Other relevant dates about him are he gained his Quirk at 5, probably in summer, and, on that same day, he ended up murdering his whole family by mistake. Quirk: Decay (崩壊 Hōkai), Epithet: "Symbol of Fear" (恐怖の象徴 Kyōfu no Shōchō), Height: 175.26cm, Weight: 59.8kg, Family: Shimura Kotarō (志村 弧太朗) (Father), Shimura Nao (志村 直) (Mother), Shimura Hana (志村 華) (Older sister), Shimura Nana (志村 菜奈) (Paternal grandmother), Chizuo (千津夫) (Maternal grandfather), Mako (真子) (Maternal grandmother).

Kurogiri (黒霧 Black Fog): 10, assuming that Shirakumo was turned into Kurogiri immediately. Quirk: Warp Gate (ワープゲート).

Garaki Kyūdai (殻木 球大) aka Ujiko Daruma (氏子 達磨) aka Tsubasa (翼): Canonically we don’t know how old he is but he’s supposed to be over 120 years. Quirk: Life Force (摂生 Sessei).

Sun-Sun Haruaki (スンスン 晴明): Canonically we don’t know how old he is.

Akaguro Chizome (赤黒 血染) aka Hero Killer: Stain (ヒーロー 殺し ステイン Hero Goroshi Stain) aka Stendhal (スタンダール): 28 as he’s born on the 14th of June. In the manga he’s introduced in May and his age is given as 31. Other relevant dates about him are he attended to a private high school for Heroes but despaired over “the fundamentally corrupt view of Heroes within the educational system” and dropped out the summer after his first year. Until the end of his teen years he made speeches on the streets calling for the return of the old idea of heroes until he decided words have no powers and, for the next ten years began learning killing techniques on his own. During those ten years his parents died and he took the identity of Stendhal, becoming a Vigilante who kills Villains. After his meeting with Knuckleduster, which happens after All Might was injured by All for One, he decides to become Hero Killer: Stain and target Heroes as well. Before he’s stopped he murdered 17 Heroes and put 23 Heroes permanently out of commission. Quirk: Bloodcurdle (凝血 Gyōketsu), Height: 182cm, Blood Type: B.

Yotsubashi Rikiya (四ツ橋 力也) aka Re-Destro (リ・デストロ): Canonically we don’t know how old he is. Quirk: Stress (ストレス).

Kizuki Chitose (気月 置歳) aka Curious (キュリオス): Canonically we don’t know how old she is. Quirk: Landmine (地雷 Jirai).

Hanabata Kōkū (花畑 孔腔) aka Trumpet (トランペット): Canonically we don’t know how old he is. Quirk: Incite (煽動 Sendō).

EXTRA (as they didn’t appear but I still checked on their ages)

Toga Himiko (渡我 被身子) aka Toga Himiko (トガ ヒミコ) aka Yakuza Toga (ゴクドー者のトガ Gokudō-sha no Toga): 13 as she’s born on the 7th of August. In the manga in mid-December her age is given as 17. Other relevant dates about her are she runs away after middle school graduation, therefore when she was 15. Quirk: Transform (変身 Henshin), Height: 157cm.

Bubaigawara Jin (分倍河原 仁) aka Twice (トゥワイス): 27 as he’s born on the 10th of May. In the manga in mid-December his age is given as 31. At 16 he ran down with his motorcycle a young man and got fired from his job. His parents were killed while he was in middle school by a Villain. Quirk: Double (二倍 Nibai), Height: 178cm.

Iguchi Shūichi (伊口 秀一) aka Spinner (スピナー): 17 as he’s born on the 8th of August. In the manga in mid-December his age is given as 21. Quirk: Gecko (ヤモリ Yamori), Height: 174cm.

Sako Atsuhiro (迫 圧紘) aka Mr. Compress (Mr.コンプレス): 28 as he’s born on the 8th of October. In the manga in March his age is given as 32. Quirk: Compress (圧縮 Asshuku), Height: 181cm.

Notes:

- In canon we only know that, according to "Ultra Archive", Todoroki Shōto went to Corusan Middle school (凝山中学校 Corusan chūgakkō). I assume it's actually an institute that has Elementary and Middle school and sent all the Todoroki kids there

- I didn’t get to read the interview, so take this with a grain of salt.

[fourseasonsfigs]

1129 Birthday Jun

Since we've been on a roll with the other figs in this series, let's keep going! Here we have Junjun on his Happy Birthday cake.

The other figs in this series so far have been:

Ice Cream Cutie

Cute Nezha

Huo Yan (I feel like I'm missing a "cute" in this title!)

If you've been following my posts, you already know my extreme weakness for figs on desserts, so this was a must have.

All these figs in this series were before my time, so I've had to buy them all off of Xianyu. The other 3 are commonly sold together, as well as individually, but there's never a lot of these birthday cakes for sale for whatever reason. Maybe it was a smaller run or more expensive, or both. I imagine it would have been a more expensive fig because of all of the detail.

You can see he arrived extremely tightly wedged in the polystyrene, and his crown in particular is stuck right up there. I've had this happen a few times with figs, and always makes me worry that they'll sustain some damage being pushed into the foam like that. So far no breakage though, so either I've been lucky or the resin is tougher than I give it credit for!

I do cut these out rather than than risk pulling them out. I take a box opener and cut down a line from the bottom of the fig to break the box open. That loosens up the area a lot and I can gently ease them out. I had to be particularly careful of this one because those candles are so delicate, and I couldn't have a clumsy finger snap one off.

Here he is! It all arrived perfectly after all - crown, candles, candies and all.

This is the first birthday cake that was done in this style by this maker. It's one piece - he's not removable from the base like the other Happy Birthday Junjun dessert cakes of this style (Cream Mousse and Chocolate Mousse). I don't mind at all that this one is one piece - it's more secure and I don't have to worry about attaching it myself.

The candles also look like they might be removable, but they are not. I'm guessing when they manufactured the fig, they cast the cake with holes and inserted / glued the candles in by hand. I've seen progress videos of factories making figs, it's kind of incredible all the hand work that goes into the assembly. I'll have to ask a fig maker if they'll let me port over a video or two so I can show you all.

Based on the number of candles, this is 6-year old Gong Jun! We'll say each candle counts for 5 years to get to his current age.

I really like these design of all of these cakes she's done. This is one is delightful with the little candies trailing all the way around.

And his little party hat! Super cute. The soft pastels of this whole fig with the pops of yellow make it colorful yet sweet at the same time.

And we're back around! He's just adorable.

This is a nice view of his birthday bouquet and how beautiful it is with the details of his flowers and the pleating on the paper wrapper. We also get a nice angle of his happy laughing eyes and mouth!

And one last shot from the back from the top. This fig is too cute not to get all the angles!

Here's the OG birthday cake with the 30th birthday Cream Mousse cake. You can see the original Junjun figure himself is a bit smaller in order to maintain the overall size of the complete fig itself. I love them both!

I bet you're getting very used to seeing the pic of this box! It really was the same box art for all these figs. I'd be remiss if I didn't have my usual dramatics about the image on the box of the Pokéball Jun fig that I'm still woefully missing (and still completely unable to find the slightest hint of on Xianyu).

Anyway, as you can tell by the list of figs on that box, this is the last one in this series until I am able to track down (and catch!) the elusive Pokéball Jun.

Material: Resin

Fig Count: 254

Scene Count: 18

Rating: We'll be the first ones to wish Gong Jun Happy 31st birthday in advance!

[link back to Master Fig Index for more posts]

[dragonslaved]

I just had so many painful flashbacks reading this entire explanation, this isn't even getting into the big soup vats if the restaurant has any kind of soup or gravy. The number of times I (120lbs, 5' nothing) had to physically climb into the thing to scrape cooked and dried on bacon fat and whatever else may have been cooked in them (usually 2 or three vats, each one specific to whatever was cooked all throughout the day) was never less than 2 times a day.

and this isn't as simple as just cleaning the bowl itself. These big industrial ones also have a drain on the bottom that, because of fat and grease, gets kinda. Caked in there. So I'd have to grab some kind of scrubber brush with a long handle and really, really dig in from inside the bowl and outside. And pray I didn't have to rinse it out four or five times in one go. And because they are draining out the bottom, there's usually a physical drain built into the floor with a food trap you better remember to clean out and wash.

I was also a dishie for years and let me tell you, the two-to-three times a week to really scrub down those hood vents and stove tops took a long ass time. My specific kitchen had specialized chemicals to spray on and then leave on for a while. So you couldn't even just hop right in to scrub. You sprayed it on, set them aside because breathing in any bit of that chemical cleaner would cause you long term lung and throat problems, find something else to clean and then come back to rinse it all off with a hose, hand scrub it all, rinse again, and then somehow finagle the things into the dishwasher for one final clean and then get them somewhere to dry while you did everything else. So you've got the kitchen bringing you their dishes throughout that last hour and a half to hopefully not have to use again, the actual EQUIPMENT that needs to be washed and scrubbed for the night. And then the rest of the dishes used by patrons and things for the servers.

This isn't even going into what servers had to do to close up when I was a server too. While not as physically intensive, it was still a lot of nit-picky work. Refilling all those little salt and pepper shakers (yes my managers checked a specific amount), counting all the different sugar packets in specific orders (your pure sugar, brown sugar, splenda, whatever 4th alternative sugar your area has), of course wiping down tables and chairs. If you had a booth then you had to take the booth physically apart and clean underneath in case any food or crumbs fell through cracks. (If you ever sit on those cushioned booths and wonder why they slip a little? It's because they literally physically come off to be cleaned later). If the restaurant has carpet? Gotta be vacuumed. This isn't even touching on the restocking servers do as well. The last place I served at had us do back of house restocking of: bottle drinks (root beer, sarsaparilla), carton drinks (those little kid's cartons of milk, chocolate milk, orange juice, apple juice) all from the dry stock storage in the back to the front fridges on the line (again specific count and order). And also if anything spilled in those fridges? Clean it up first. Weighing out and counting sugar into bags (1lbs of sugar per bag, 15 bags was mine it's been 10 years and I still remember) and you couldn't just bring the big 25lbs bags of sugar up to the front. No, gotta do it all in dry storage and bring the small 1lbs bags up. And of course refilling any condiment square containers like the line cooks have in the pictures above and it could range from 3 standard (ketchup, ranch, thousand island) to.. so many more if your place had any kind of salad menu. Cleaning up and out all the pitchers, and empty dressing containers, the actual soda equipment which was its own kind of hell (fuck fountain soda machines honestly) and then any containers they used to clean in (the red buckets you always see everywhere for towels and the like). Cleaning floors and hope no one drops any of those dressing/condiment bags they're using to refill things with. And then the very bog standard counting out and rolling silverware which would only be in a timely manner if the dishie isn't backed up to hell and back from everyone else tossing their dishes at them trying to get done and clocked out.

The way restaurants I worked at handled it was you did front of house (cleaning tables/restocking table things) first, get checked out by management, then go do back of house restocking. One person walking in after it's been checked out? You have to do it all over. Please just go easy on restaurant staff in that last hour of operation.

it was too much i had to make my own post

line cook here. ACCURATE

if you don't get the hate, here's what you don't understand.

it takes up to 2 hours to close down the kitchen.

The last 60-90 minutes before closing time you do almost no cooking because the restaurant doesn't have many people in it and you've already cooked most of their diners.

So if someone walks in during, like, the last hour, the cook is in the middle of an industrial deep clean of the kitchen.

(these numbers can vary quite a bit from place to place but i have worked several restaurants with these actual times and the concept remains the same)

Say the place closes at 10. If you wait til the restaurant is already closed to start all your cleaning duties, you'll be there until at least midnight.

More than that your boss knows that on an average night you can start your clean up as soon as the last rush ends and get out of there around 10:45, even 10:15 on a slow night if you get lucky. That means there are plenty of restaurants where if you do take until midnight the manager is going to come up to you at some point that week and ask you what went wrong that night, and you'd better have an answer.

So this example restaurant closes at 10 pm. The dinner rush ends around 8:30, and shortly after that the cook is going to start getting every single dish possible over to the dishwasher because the dishwasher always gets hit hard and late, and the machine runs for 2 full minutes and only holds so many dishes, so the way that works out is if you wait an extra 30 minutes to give the dishwasher all your stuff it can mean adding like 60 minutes to the end of his shift. And you're gonna KEEP finding shit to send to the dishpit right up until you leave probably.

all these little square and rectangle containers in this cold table have to be pulled out and changed over into new containers, replaced by new full ones, or in some cases filled from larger containers in the back, which can result in even more empty containers to send to the dishwasher.

while it's all pulled apart to do this, you have to clean up all the spilled food and sauce and juices and stuff from the joints and ledges and shelves and drip trays

Once you get your line changed over in this way, and fully stocked, anytime someone orders something that makes use of a bunch of that stuff, you have to restock and re-clean it some. It might already be covered in plastic. Some of it might already be stuck in the back to make room to take apart your cutting board counter to clean. To cook a dish isn't TOO much of a problem at this point, but you're really hoping for zero orders because you still have so much other cleaning to do.

Meanwhile the salad bar and appetizer section and server station and everybody are all doing the same thing. Even the bartenders are stocking olives and lemons and sending back whisks and stir spoons and shakers and empty 4quart storage containers that used to hold the back-up lemons and olives and things. Every section is dumping their must-be-cleaneds to the dishpit as fast as possible because early and fast is the only thing they can do to to help that dishpit not absolutely drown into overtime.

The poor dishwasher is always the last to clock out, soaking wet and exhausted.

Around this time you probably scrub the flat top, which has turned black from cooked on grease and is still about 500 degrees. Line cooks are divided in opinion on water-based or oil based cleaning methods for this, but they all involve scrubbing with (usually) a brick of pumice stone using every ounce of your strength while you try not to burn yourself

you scrub it from fully blackened to gleaming silver and now if somebody orders something that needs the flat top to cook, you can either fuck up your cleaning job or fake it in a couple frying pans and pass that tiny fuck you down to your dishwasher (who usually understands, especially if you help them take the garbage out or clean your own floor drain later)

If there's deep fried stuff on the menu then the fryers have to be cleaned out, which includes straining the oil out into enormous and super-heavy pots full of oil so hot that if you spill on yourself then it's probably a hospital visit and if you slip and fall face first into it it'll be the last thing you ever do.

Then you gotta scrub out the fryer. Like you gotta take the (hot) screen out and reach your arm down into the weird rounded pipes and curved areas (so hot, burn you if you brush against them hot) and scrub off whatever is down there

Depending on your kitchen you might have to do up to four of these. Then you'll have to pour the (dangerously hot) oil back in

oh, and if you didn't dry the pipes and get ALL the water out of the trap and tank?

water reacts with hot oil in a sort of mentos and coke way that can send a tidal wave of oil past the open flame of the pilot light ...HUGE dangerous mess and/or burn down the kitchen if the oil lights up.

Unless! If the oil has been used too hard and needs to be changed, it's time to carry those open topped super heavy pots full of will-kill-you-hot oil and dump them in the barrel outside by the dumpsters so you can put room temp fresh oil in the fryers. whew!

The clean up is not just some light wiping down that can be easily interrupted, is what i'm saying.

You might have to do some kind of walk-in duty (moving around 50lb cases of lettuce and 50lb bags of onions to get to the stacks of five gallon buckets full of salad dressings and sauces to move so you can reach the giant metal pots and bus tubs full of prep and get it all organized and make sure it's all labeled and i have to stop now i'm having flashbacks)

THE POINT IS

by 15 or however many minutes to close, the line cook is doing an intense deep clean and probably has the whole stove taken apart to detail.

For some industrial stoves this means lifting off large cast iron plates that weigh like 20 lbs each and are still quite hot. Whatever metal burners are on there, you gotta take off and clean, you can see here the lines that indicate the large thick cast iron rectangles that sit on top of the burners to allow heavy pots to rest on. Those five (each has one front burner hole and one back burner hole, see?) have to be lifted off and cleaned with soap and a wire brush usually, and then the underneath area also has to be cleaned because a lot of shit falls through the burner holes on a busy night.

if you didn't do it when you did the flat top you have to do the grease trap (which can be like a full five minutes and is always disgusting).. You gotta clean out all the little gas jets in each burner with a wire or something so the burners all flame evenly, and sometimes you have to remove some of the natural gas piping that connects the burners to access where you have to clean.

you gotta clean out the bottom of the oven and the wire racks, and, oh gods, you gotta take down the filter vents from the hood fans above the stove.

See all the lined parts along the top of the wall?

those are hood vents, and as they pull air up they also pull a lot of grease and they have to be taken down and cleaned, then you gotta climb up there and scrub where they go before you put them back...

And then there's the mopping and floor drains and...

Anyway, that's what the line cook is doing when you walk in fifteen minutes before closing and order something that needs to be cooked on that stove. They are doing an entire industrial cleaning of a professional kitchen.

In some restaurants maybe one or two of these jobs will be every other night or even only twice a week, but in many, possibly most kitchens, ALL of these things happen EVERY night. You don't want to leave any food mess that might attract insects or rodents for one thing, so a really good kitchen is as close to brand new as you can get it every night.

IF YOU ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO ORDER SOMETHING ANYWAY, HERE IS WHAT TO DO

open with an apology and ask the server to go ask what the cook would prefer you to order.

Any good server will already know what the cook is hoping for and what will make their line cook go into the walk in and scream. If it's significantly less than an hour to close and they say some variant of "oh anything is fine" they are either telling the lie their boss wants them to say, or they actually do not know what their line cook wants, and you can either use human connection and a conspiratorial just-between-us tone to get them to drop the customer-is-always-right act, or get them to actually go ask the cook.

It might be as specific as "the lasagna is easiest on the kitchen" or it might be a simple guideline like "nothing that requires the flat top" or "any of the sautés are easy" but a good line cook will probably have a system for if they have to make a couple of the most popular items after they start their close, so the answer is likely to include something most people like and you should be good to order that.

but for the love of all that's holy, please only do so at great need. Leave that last 30-60 minutes to the truly desperate and the crew's duties.