#the high school arc was meant to be only a few chapters

[yumeka-sxf]

According to this tweet from Endo, today's new chapter will be the final installment of the "Henry x Martha backstory" arc...and it definitely went out on a high note! The part where Martha meets Henry's wife was absolutely heartbreaking...in particular the below page, starting with an upside down view of the scene, showing how the world is literally warping for Martha, followed by shards and shreds of her various memories with Henry, all the while the "throb, throb" of her heart is overlaying all the panels. Definitely one of Endo's best portrayals of a truly shocking moment.

It's also interesting that we never see Lucia's face, despite her having a big panel when she first appears.

Endo has done this before with other characters, Loid's parents being the other big example. We also never see their faces, despite them appearing several times during his flashback arc.

With the few examples we've had, to me it seems like Endo hides the faces of characters who 1) appear as flashbacks only and 2) who have had a significant emotional impact on the character whose memories they appear in, but at the same time, that character has since done their best to get over the painful memories associated with them. So they basically represent some past trauma for the character (even if they don't necessarily dislike them) but in the current time, they've more or less left that part of their past behind. Hence why their faces are obscured in the character's memories. This is also why I think we'll never see Loid's parents or Lucia's faces outside of flashbacks. This is just my interpretation of course, and I'm curious if there will be more examples in other characters' flashback arcs.

But back to Henry and Martha, I also liked the fact that, despite her broken heart, Martha still saw Lucia as a good person and became friends with her. Henry seems to love her as well. This actually ties back very well to what Martha tells Becky at the end of her story about how dangerous it is to latch onto preconceptions and prejudices without knowing the truth.

In Becky's simple world, she would see Lucia as the "evil seductress who stole Henry away" and Martha has to get him back. But as Martha said, things aren't always that simple and don't always adhere to our preconceived notions. Sometimes things can't end up exactly how you want or expect, so you have to be grateful for what you have and see things as they truly are, despite living with lingering regrets. In fact, this whole speech from Martha at the conclusion of her flashback was extremely deep and profound. Not many people can write both comedy and drama so well, but Endo is certainly one of them.

Also, is this Wiesel's first appearance? Still waiting for the doggy play date chapter with Wiesel, Bond, Max, and Aaron! 🐶

Since it's been so long since I read the first chapter of this arc, I couldn't remember if Martha had actually revealed the identity of her lover in her story, but makes sense that she didn't. I can imagine Becky storming into school yelling at Henderson and causing total embarrassment for all 😅 Funny that she almost guessed correctly though.

I'm surprised we never found out how Martha started working for the Blackbells, but that's an easy enough mystery to solve - she needed work after the wars were over, and being a bodyguard suited an ex-soldier. Also seems like she never told Henry her true feelings either...maybe by the time Lucia died, it was too late and they had both grown somewhat apart by then, and/or they had some additional falling outs about Martha joining the other wars, etc. It just wasn't meant to be and the message of the story was Martha coming to terms with that and being wiser for it.

In conclusion, this was a great arc that really shows Endo's range as a writer who can do both comedy and drama very well. Despite Henry and Martha being side characters, I have a feeling that the struggles they experienced will have relevance later in the series. But for now, I look forward to seeing the Forgers and other characters again (and getting back to the last major uproar of Anya telling Damian about her powers...seems like ages ago, lol). Endo will be taking a well deserved break, so the next new chapter will be on August 19th!

I also have some new posts planned in the coming weeks, so stay tuned for those as well 😀

[kaibutsushidousha]

Any piece of media you’ve changed your mind on significantly? Bonus points if the only thing that caused the change was passing of time and not other material.

I really rewatch, so I judge things mostly according to what my mindset was back when I experienced them. The closest I have to a proper answer here is how Katekyo Hitman Reborn and Fairy Tail were my least favorite manga around high school and years later I had a sudden "Oh, I understand this part now" realization about a few things a decade later.

Reborn's example is, unsurprisingly, about the final chapter. It made the extremely controversial decision of ending on Reborn musing about how Tsuna learned nothing and is still the same person he was in chapter 1, except with friends now. Everyone hated that because the overarching narrative provided plenty of evidence to the contrary and because if the statement was true, the manga would be calling itself a waste of the reader's time. That was a sentiment I shared immensely.

My random epiphany on this one was that the "Tsuna learned nothing" quote comes from the perspective of Reborn, the character who wanted to teach him to be a mob boss and a killer, so it's celebrating that Tsuna remained a good boy through and through. It's thematically consistent despite the poor communication. In hindsight, Reborn couldn't have ended any other way.

And Fairy Tail's case came from looking back at the series through the lens of its core theme of mourning. Zeref was the one character I always considered good despite the rest of the series, and his deal was ultimately that he got cursed because he failed to cope with his brother's death and the curse causes him to autokill everything around him until he learns to get over it. Throughout his long life, Zeref created many tools that were exploited by half of the villains that came before him, and looking in hindsight, all of those were tools meant to cheat and control death.

And these ideas delivered in one of the main villains are obviously reflected in the main characters as well. Gray kills and mourns his dad 3 times in addition to carrying the guilt of indirectly killing Ur because he had mourned his dad properly the first time. There's a timeskip that sorta only exists kill off Lucy's dad and make her deal with that. And most importantly to make FT feel thematically consistent, Natsu's initial goal to find his dragon dad is ultimately revealed to be a quest to finally accept he died.

Grief is a constant theme in the series, but its importance only becomes evident in the final arc. Which is not something I can complain about because the only reason I stuck with Fairy Tail until the end is because I liked Rave that much to trust it to have at least a great ending, and Rave is another manga whose main theme is prevalent but only gets super evident with the final arc. Maybe the great difference in enjoyment came down to simply reading Rave as a finished story and reading Fairy Tail as an ongoing story. Who knows?

Does that mean I like those two now? No. I never reread them, so my first experience is still what counts. But at least now I believe I have a more fair and good-faith perspective of their flaws. And maybe an interest in checking Eden's Zero after it finishes (I'm not checking if it already finished because I think this post is funnier if it already finished 3 years ago and I don't know about it).

[justalildumpling]

⇢ the waiting game

synopsis: chenle had always described his life as a game with multiple chapters and characters, with you being a discontinued part of the franchise that he had always hoped would be renewed. but who knew that one drunken phone call would be the story arc that brought you back?

pairing: chenle x reader genre: ex best friends to ???, angst, fluff word count: 1.4k warnings: mentions of alcohol/drunkenness, the word “ass” was used once note: wrote this ages ago to fuel my angsty writing mood after listening taylor swift too much but wanted to finish writing it to upload it for chenle’s bday🥳🥳(also the way this was meant to be <200 words…)

After sharing a dorm with six chaotic grown men, Chenle had thought to have experienced many weird situations in his life, ranging from witnessing Hyuck running out of the apartment building in nothing but his underwear at 2am due to a faulty fire alarm to Jisung dropping all 4 dozen eggs on the carpet right before the landlord came to inspect their housing situation.

But never did he expect to get a call from his ex best friend from middle school, 2am on a Saturday night.

He hesitated at first, his fingers hovering over the green button on his phone. His heart slowly picked up speed as he eventually decided to answer.

He didn't exactly know why his hands started to get clammy as he held his phone to his ear waiting for you to speak. Despite the title of "ex best friend", the two of you never ended your friendship on bad terms, nor did you exclusively end the friendship at all.

The two of you initially became friends in fifth grade when your teacher had sat you together at the back of the classroom for talking too much, though they soon realised their mistake as you passed each other very artistic doodles of each other and failed to contain your laughter.

Your friendship continued all throughout middle school however as you ended up in different classes, lunchtimes that were once spent together playing tag grew into him playing basketball and you settled down on the school's courtyard with the friends that you had made during class.

The occasional waves and hellos in the corridors during high school turned into awkward glances and eventually disinterest in one another.

Though it wouldn't exactly be a lie if Chenle said that he didn't miss your lively presence at times, maybe when he came across your doodles as he cleared his desk out for the first time since primary school or when he accidentally came across your contact page instead of someone else.

He could hear blaring music from the other end of the line, almost a little too loud for his liking as he held his phone further from his ear than usual. Though there was only the sound of the cheering crowd and a lack of your voice.

Maybe you had buttdialled him by accident? It was something that he did a bit more frequently than he should or maybe your voice was overwhelmed by whatever was happening at the club.

"Hello?" He had spoken up cautiously, turning off his computer game.

There was no response for a few seconds, almost proving his butt dialling theory. Almost.

"I want my best friend back." Your voice suddenly spoke, the silence lingering between the phone lines once again. The words which were stubbornly stuck at the tip of your tongue, graciously falling like a rapid stream.

"I miss talking to you everyday about the stupidest thing, I hate how this was how our friendship became. I hate how I used to tell you everything but I felt like I can't even say hello anymore. I miss everything about us."

Chenle sat silently on the edge of his bed, taking in your abrupt confession. There was a feeling of relief in his chest, as butterflies fluttered around his stomach.

You also felt the same way.

"Y/n, are you drunk?"

"No of course not!" You slurred before muttering, "Maybe…"

Chenle rolled his eyes, "Y/n where are you?"

"Not gonna lie to you, I have no clue." You replied, a laughter bubbling up in your throat, "I think we're at the new JYP club? Why? Are you going to pick me up?"

"How are you going to get home otherwise?"

An infectious laughter escaped his lips as your voice disappeared from the other end once again, he could imagine the pout you had always held with him. Your eyebrows slightly narrowed, your cute little nose scrunched up and your bottom lip partly jutted out.

It was a facial expression that he was used to seeing, most definitely due to his hobby of teasing you every other second. But how could he not? Not when everything you did seemed so loveable in his eyes.

Not that he ever admitted it or ever planned to admit that to your face.

The feelings he harboured for you oftentimes felt like a game, the one with the never ending story arcs, new characters appearing in every version and eventually discontinued, leaving all the players in desperation for any news for a renewal or an update at the least.

But who knew that the game he had been waiting for since middle school would be randomly updated on a Saturday night with the starting dialogue of:

"Chenle, I really want McDonald's. Can I please get a happy meal?"

Yeah. Not him, that's for sure.

l♥︎ ♥︎ ♥︎l

Chenle didn't exactly know what he was doing, nor did his roommates when he told them he was heading out in the middle of the night without any explanations.

"I'll explain later," He sighed, grabbing the car keys and his bucket hat from the coffee table avoiding the suspicious glances from Jaemin.

He should've figured that the resident night owl would be up at this time of night, and definitely should've expected his motherly instincts to kick in, causing him to wake up the rest of his roommates to bombard his phone with concerned messages.

He drove down the empty streets of the city, the old Lauv songs playing on the aux with the occasional text notifications from his friends. He really considered putting his phone on silent or better yet, blocking their asses for interrupting his playlist every few seconds. But he resisted, taking a deep breath in.

Focus. The faster you get there, the faster you'll know she's safe.

Much to his relief, you stood outside of the club's entrance in one piece, tentatively glancing between your phone and the incoming cars pulling up in front.

You had gotten prettier since the last time he had met you, losing most of your baby fat on your cheeks and the long hair that was once tied back into a ponytail was let loose to sway against your back. Though, your smile remained the same from high school, the type of warmth which reached the eyes. It was always one of his favourite features about you.

It was pretty, as it always was.

But who was he kidding, you were always breathtaking in his eyes. Never failing to make his heart trip and tumble around the inside of his chest whenever you giggled at his stupid antics.

So when he met your twinkling eyes as he got out of his car, it felt like his middle school days all over again. You running up to greet him with that captivating smile of yours that he grew to love, with his damn heart threatening to spill out of his chest.

Pulling him into a tight hug, you buried your face into the nape of his neck, "You actually came."

"I did."

As the two of you stood in the middle of the road entangled in each other's arms, it felt as if time had paused for you. The booming music from inside the club was muffled, the street lights paving through the darkness and illuminating your figures.

It was like everything had fallen back into place, just like before. When it was only you and him, Y/N and Chenle. The main characters of this nameless series of this prolonged game. The game where the male protagonist was pathetically in love with his best friend with no hopes left of her ever reciprocating it back.

But perhaps it was the fact that he was running on four hours of sleep the night before or perhaps it was the nervousness of reuniting with you again that was kicking in but as your body clung onto his, he swore that he could feel a faint quickening heartbeat that rivalled his own.

And maybe, just maybe, the waiting game wasn't so bad after all.

taglist: @xxxx-23nct @maeumiluv @produmads @polarisjisung @wooyoung-a @w3bqrl

[krystelovesanime]

From Izuku to Katsuki, chapter 119.

I really love this little quite done by Izuku. To me it shows that despite being bullied by Katsuki from kindergarten all the way to their first year at high school, he still admires Katsuki. In my eyes it's so Izuku that I love it. He himself stated int he very same chapter, just a few panels before this: "As and as your bad side was... your strengths were just as impressive,"

He knows Katsuki has a bad side (and all to well sadly) but he seemed to focus slightly more on Katsuki's strengths which he called impressive. Basically, admiration.

Another example of Izuku's admiration for Katsuki is in the final exam mini arc where Izuku and Katsuki were paired up to fight All Might. There was this mini flashback of Katsuki standing for himself against two seniors at the age of 6.

Izuku is seen admiring Katsuki's bravery behind a near by tree, admiring at how Katsuki, like All Might, always wins at the end. Again, he had said that he could only admire All Might from a distance, but Izuku is is here admiring Katsuki just behind a nearby tree.

Izuku's admiration had stirred somewhere around the age of 4 a deepened later on. How I can conclude this, is because, there was another flashback where, the two of them were in a forest, Izuku telling Katsuki how amazing his Katsuki's quirk is. Once again I repeat, admiring Katsuki. I feel that Izuku's admiration shall never stop and that even when Izuku becomes the No.1 hero, all while Katsuki is the No.2 hero, he will still find something amazing about Katsuki.

So you can see how much Izuku admires Katsuki and how significant Katsuki is in Izuku's life, so when in the infamous chapter 362, Katsuki seemingly dies, you can see the impact it brings upon Izuku.

See how his eyes change? From how the light in his eyes slowly but surely disappears as he sees a dead corpse on the floor, and how his pupils vanish the moment he realizes it's Katsuki. He doesn't believe that the person he admires just as much or possibly even more than All Might, is dead. Because he admires Katsuki for Katsuki's bravery, and sprit of always winning. Hence, Izuku's image of victory being Katsuki.

Katsuki has come a really long way as well. From bullying Izuku to 'admiring/accepting' Izuku. I feel his biggest change as a character towards Izuku was when he apologized in the rain, and for the first time in ten years or so calling Izuku by his given name.

How Horikoshi draws and depicts their development by drawing the two of them when they were toddlers, to middle school, then high school, to the moment where he's apologizing, brings forth a mountain of indescribable feelings and emotions. How Katsuki said he looked down on Izuku because Izuku was quirkless, and therefore thought that Izuku was meant to be classified as beneath him.

But even so, he always felt that Izuku was above him, and he hated that. So Katsuki bullied Izuku, to keep Izuku at arm's length,but Izuku kept running and chasing after him, as I have said, because of how much Izuku admires Katsuki. He tried to act all superior by rejecting Izuku, but as he says, he kept losing that fight if trying to act superior. And through out the whole first year at UA, he was forced to realize Izuku's strengths and his weaknesses. And he apologizes, along with saying Izuku's name in front of all his classmates.

For Katsuki to show even some sort of weakness is hard enough but the fact that he willingly and ooenly shows his weakness in front of at least 20 people, is a lot to say on its own. And Katsuki continues by saying how he and everyone else will be there to help Izuku when Izuku can't handle everything on his own.

His apology to Izuku was one of the final pieces needed to bring back Izuku to UA, the efforts of Ochako, Tenya and everyone else in 1A will not go unnoticed. And as Izuku falls from exhaustion, all his emotions starting to cave in, we can how fast Katsuki runs to just catch Izuku from falling.

You can't even see the remainder of Katsuki's leg due to the speed he was running at to catch Izuku from falling, while muttering how he and everyone else in 1A gets how Izuku feels. From how Katsuki used to bully Izuku to now 'admiring/accepting' Izuku shows how far Katsuki has come, and there are still others out there stating how Katsuki has zero character development.

And another thing I should point out is how Katsuki is trying to change his habit of calling Izuku, Deku. Katsuki is trying to make the effort of calling Izuku by his given name, instead of a nickname he had made up that meant how useless Izuku was. Why he stops calling Izuku by his given name was due to him saying, "Deku-Izuku," And Izuku had replied, telling Katsuki that if calling him by his given name was too hard, then he doesn't want Katsuki to force himself to call him Izuku.

And Katsuki took that as a rejection. Therefore, he stopped calling Izuku, well... Izuku, anymore. Until of course the last few moments before Shigaraki crushed his heart, and killing Katsuki.

His final thoughts were about Izuku, his final words were also about Izuku. Katsuki has come a long way from bullying to 'admiration/acceptance' While Izuku has continued to admire Katsuki despite the consistent bullying.

"So Izuku... can I... still catch up to you?"

~Bakugou Katsuki, chapter 362.

This is just my thoughts by the way, I was just merely reading chapter 119 again, and Deku's single sentence just prompted a whole analysis in my mind. It's more of a focus on Katsuki and Izuku's friendship-rivalry than actual bkdk.

[cadybear420]

Cadybear's Reviews- My Two First Loves

Welcome to the twenty-seventh official Cadybear's Reviews! Today I'll be talking about My Two First Loves, which I have ranked on the "Rotting Flesh Tier" at 2 stars out of a possible 10. My last and only playthrough of this was back in April-June 2021.

Oh boy! Oh boy oh boy oh boy! I could write a whole essay on everything wrong with this…  

So I will. 

To put it briefly: this story feels like it was adapted from a Wattpad story that was written by a 12-year-old whose only ever exposure to high school media and depictions of teenage sexuality was Glee, and then had serious queer and mature themes slapped onto it in order to make it seem better. Y’know, the equivalent of trying to polish a turd.

Or, heck, it’s probably PB’s attempt at ripping off “The Kissing Booth”, seeing as both have a MC in a love triangle between her childhood best friend and a bad boy named Noah, after all. Which, funnily enough, was also originally adapted from some tween’s Wattpad story. That’s about the equivalent to a dog eating some rotten food, shitting it out, then another dog finds it, eats it, and then shits it right out again. And THEN that second dog’s owner comes along to try to polish that double-toured turd. 

Number 1: The LGBTQ+ tag is clearly an attempt to appease the queer players that they probably think are being whiny. 

Ava’s arc about realizing she’s a lesbian who had been experiencing compulsory heterosexuality is pretty solid in a vacuum. But her being an LI was so blatantly only a last-minute decision PB made during the writing process, and it shows because Ava’s CG just uses her game sprite while Mason’s and Noah’s are fresh art. 

MC starts to fall for Ava sometime around at least 30 chapters in, but we don’t get to officially pursue her as a romance option until about 70 chapters in. I get delaying her as a love interest a bit because of the whole thing with MC realizing she’s bi, but even then, there’s just so few opportunities for building any kind of relationship with her that it hardly feels authentic. 

Speaking of, MC’s supposed bi awakening is completely rushed and treated with about as much value as a Family Guy cutaway gag, even outside of Ava being sidelined. As someone who realized I wasn’t straight three years ago and is still questioning if I’m bi or straight, I understand that people take different amounts of time to figure out their sexuality. But this MC does not spend any period of time figuring out her bisexuality. She basically just goes “Welp, guess I’m bi now”, and then it’s back to being indecisive as per usual except now there’s a female love interest in the mix too.

To add insult to injury, "discussions of sexuality" is placed in a "player discretion" warning, alongside "racial tensions" and "occasionally violence" to boot. How the fuck is discussion of sexuality even remotely on the same level as either of those? If they meant discussions or depictions of homophobia then maybe I could understand… but I don’t even recall seeing any depictions of homophobia in the book, so including this in the freaking warning tags is pointless at best and kind of insulting at worst. 

Not to mention, plenty of other Choices books like MOTY, ILS, D&D, etc. have had discussions about sexuality/LGBTQ+ stuff before, and didn't have to warn us about it. Not even MAH, a later book which had discussions about freaking conversion therapy for Christ’s sake. Sure, some of those books did have content warnings, but they were generally vague and/or mainly warned for violence, and didn’t warn specifically for depictions of queerphobia or discussions of sexuality. Yet for some reason, MTFL feels the need to include a player discretion warning for sexuality discussions, even though it contains far less harsher queer themes. 

Number 2: The portrayal of teen sexuality in this does not feel earnest. 

Let me just say, I found it very jarring how this one was much more sexually charged compared to PB’s other high school books. PB is usually way more “safe” and PG-13 at most when writing high school characters. Even in books like ROD and WEH, where the characters are 18+ and do have smutty scenes, it’s clear that those books are a lot more restricted compared to the adult cast books.  

I mean, with WEH, the safeness makes sense– it was meant to be a serious and tender story from the start, and it does actually follow through on those themes. But ROD feels like it could have easily been as horny with its writing as MTFL was, what with being about a studious “good girl” who goes rebellious. In fact, the story’s loading screen was pretty infamous at first for looking “steamier” than other covers and loading screens.

In actuality though, ROD had only, what, one smut scene? And despite a lot of MC’s outfits being revealing or arguably sensual, there are practically no moments where MC fawned over how “sexy” a revealing diamond outfit looked. Like, I’m pretty sure there were just little to no sexually charged scenes in general. 

My point is, whatever compelled PB to make MTFL *this* sexualized is beyond me. My guess is the fact that PB called this one a story about “navigating sexuality” and thus wanted to focus more on the aspects of sexuality, but if that’s the case… hoo boy, did they do a terrible job at it. 

I don’t really care about the hypersexualized writing of the teenage characters on its own, or how the characters were initially not confirmed 18+ when the earlier smut scenes were written. What I find far more important is the fact that this sort of cliche and formulaic hypersexualized writing is in a book that markets itself as being about “a young woman navigating love and sexuality for the first time”.

Teens do indeed have sex and can be all over the place with their hormones and sexuality. A lot of us have been there in some way, myself included. And there are ways to talk about that type of stuff in a manner that is silly and/or exaggerated, but still earnest and respectful. But the particular way that MTFL handles super-horny teen sexuality, specifically while claiming to be a coming-of-age story, is neither earnest nor respectful. 

The way this story handles these sorts of topics is the writing equivalent to doing a surgery with Fisher-Price toy surgery tools. It’s genuinely difficult to take MC “navigating her sexuality for the first time” seriously when has to constantly blubber about how Mason and Noah are so muscular or how a diamond outfit has “naughty little thigh highs” or how she wants to do a “down and dirty” cheer routine with Ava for Mason and Noah. 

That last one especially feels like the kind of stuff we’d see more in a campy chick flick that doesn’t take itself seriously. Honestly, if this was a more campy high school book with the tone of DLS or the 2023 movie “Bottoms”, it probably wouldn’t be as glaring. But in a book that markets itself as a coming-of-age story, the tone feels completely off and the whole book honestly felt like it couldn't decide what it wanted to be. 

(Also, while we’re on this topic of MC’s premium outfits, I really fucking despise how MC gets so upset about wearing "mom clothes" if you choose to wear the free modest clothing instead of the revealing diamond outfit in Chapter 2. Ugh. Yes, the dad was being shitty about not letting MC dress how she likes, but all it does is it just makes you feel like shit for not wanting to dress in more revealing clothes. Stop making me feel bad for wanting to wear simple non-revealing clothing. Same goes for you, Chris Romantic Getaway story with your “the regular jerseys aren’t cute enough for girls to wear, we have to cut one up into a cleavage crop top in order to make it good for us girls to wear” bullshit.) 

And it just slaps you in the face with these sexual moments too, placing them in frequently whenever it feels like it, and the amount of it that actually contributed to any coming-of-age navigating-sexuality are few and far between. Honestly, it felt like it was trying way too hard to look "mature" with how it handled sexuality (as well as some of the other stuff like them drinking alcohol). Like it maybe was trying to portray teens realistically, but it only does so at a very shallow level. 

It's literally just "Look at the teens that talk about sex and like doing sexy things and having sex and doing grown-up stuff like drinking alcohol, see how MATUUURRREEE they are!" and they don't do anything more with it. It's just tacked on so they can pretend their book is a realistic story about maturing/being mature, when it fails at actually doing so.

I mean, I guess you could argue that the MC is meant to be seen as more messy and hormonal. And in that case, I could give it a pass. But, again, MC’s supposed arc of “navigating sexuality” never goes anywhere from that until the very last few chapters where you choose which LI she ends up with. It’s pretty much the same crap all throughout the book. MC doesn’t navigate sexuality, she just runs around aimlessly in it like a chicken with its head cut off.

Number 3: All the serious themes they try to have in the story are overshadowed by MC’s stupid indecisiveness plot. 

I’ve already said MTFL tries way too hard to make its story seem “mature” with the trashy way it sexualizes its characters. I’ve said it feels like it doesn’t know what it wants to be. Honestly though, this just sums up MTFL’s writing in general. 

MTFL has quite a handful of subplots, and I will admit, all of them are pretty compelling. You have Ava figuring out she’s lesbian, Mack dealing with gang drama, and Mason and Noah dealing with their past and Mason’s dad’s abusive behaviors. And an admittedly decent arc about MC discovering her love for photography instead of cheerleading. 

And then you have MC going on about how she can’t decide between her love interests, which is just the bad apple of the bunch that ruins the rest. It just makes it very hard to take everything else seriously. You ever seen that one meme where the Power Rangers put their hands in a circle but then a Teletubbie tries to join in? It’s the writing-equivalent to that, and MC’s indecisiveness plot is the Teletubbie. 

And maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if MC’s indecisiveness wasn’t the main focus plot of the whole book. I want to take these other storylines seriously. I want to take this story as a whole seriously. But how can I when the main focus of the story is so god damn shallow? No matter how many "soft positive heartfelt" piano tracks and “so sad and tragic sad” piano tracks from WEH they try put over it, it doesn't change the fact that the focus is MC going on and on about being unable to choose between Mason, Noah, and Ava. 

I get teens are shallow and can have shallow issues, but did we really need it to be that big of a focus of the story? Especially when the way it handles it is completely empty? Something like OG HSS was great because even though a lot of the issues the characters had were seemingly shallow and basic (such as the band fighting over which song to play), they do give a little more depth to it and reason to care about it (ie. Aiden starts to feel like a failure at music because of the band infighting). MTFL just throws MC’s indecisiveness at you for 95 chapters and expects you to take it seriously with nothing else surrounding it. 

And they try to pull the twist on the title at the end where it’s all like “LI and photography, the two greatest loves of MC’s life”. Which is an interesting idea in concept, except it feels so artificial and non-earned when MC’s romance plot was spending 95 chapters being unable to decide between the LIs. 

Number 4: It reuses way too much from HSS. 

I know this is a less severe issue, but I just can’t get past it. Sprites, backgrounds, school colors… even plot points like the corrupt principal embezzling from the school, or MC and LI(s) being locked in a large school room (remember when HSS:CA MC and Ajay were locked in the auditorium?). Heck, even MC having lost her mom and having a photography passion connected to that, rings way too similar to one of Autumn’s arcs from the freaking HSS PRIME GAME! Oh yeah, and both of those characters have a love triangle with a golden boy and a bad boy. Holy hell. 

Easily the most noticeable part is the sprites. In my playthrough, I counted 7 whole HSS sprites that were used in MTFL: Sydney became Iris, Payton became Toni, Frank became this random kid in a flashback for Mason and Noah's past, Morgan became a kid in Elijah's gang named Lucy, Lorenzo became Chad, Aiden's mom became Asian Noah's mom, Skye's dad became White Mason's dad (PB really said use that sprite for abusive dads huh). And there’s probably more, I’m sure. 

And the worst offense? They even reuse the iconic bird's-eye view of Berry High in MTFL. Call me petty if you must, but that's just criminal. It's one thing to reuse and alter a bunch of the sprites, uniforms, and backgrounds from the series but to reuse another book series' iconic background like that? Honestly, it feels rather insulting. They couldn't even be arsed to change the "Go Tigers!" on the football field, that’s how little sense it makes to use that background outside of HSS. Fuck’s sake.

I know it’s kind of the norm for Choices to reuse assets throughout different series, but the fact that they do it so much here and majority of it is from HSS just rubs me the wrong way. At best, it’s jarring and lazy. And at worst, it comes off as trying way too hard to be a “more mature” version of HSS. When in reality, it makes HSS:CA’s side characters look like Citizen Kane in comparison. I mean, at least Clint and Natalie and MC stopped whinging about Rory ⅓rd of the way through the series. 

At least when other high-school-setting books like ROD, WEH, and ILITW were made, they at least somewhat bothered to change up a few things and make it feel like an actually different school. They changed up the backgrounds a bit, used different school colors and uniforms, and didn’t reuse nearly as many sprites from HSS.  

In MTFL, all they did was make new cheer uniforms for the non-reused sprites and remove the Berry High logos from everything HSS that they used. Yeah they made some changes, but it’s clear that they didn’t put nearly the same amount of effort into it as they did in the other high school setting books. 

All it does is just make me miss HSS. Like, stop toying with my heart by piggybacking off of a better series (that has better queer rep too) so much. It’s to the point where it feels like they should have just used the time making this book to instead make a HSS senior year (Which, y’know, would be nice, especially since the sendoff we got in HSS:CA 3 was absolute flaming fucking garbage). 

So… in all honesty, I don’t hate this book. But it had a lot of things that annoyed me to no end and it sure as fuck is disappointing wasted potential. It had a great opportunity to be a nice queer coming-of-age story. But instead it felt like a Kissing Booth rip-off with serious themes only hamfisted in order to make it seem more “mature”.

[pepperonijem]

iv. a truth universally acknowledged || all my love

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” – Pride and Prejudice; Jane Austen

Summary: two idiots walk into the lego section at target... Pairing: high school!bucky x f!reader Warnings: cursing and food mentions Word Count: 3.6k A/N: can u imagine seb stan as mr. darcy bc now i can and i can't stop. happy easter to those who celebrate!

previous chapter || back to library || next chapter

“I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.”

Bucky set his book down to take a sip of his coffee. The chime of the door opening was followed by the sound of wind howling and Bucky tightened his grip on the warm mug in his hands. He let out a contented sigh as the taste of coffee filled his tired mind and relaxed his thoughts.

The end of the football season and the hues of oranges and reds painting the tree tops meant autumn had finally arrived. This was the time of year Bucky looked forward to the most, when his Saturday mornings were no longer reserved for football practice, but rather for spending time alone in local cafes after his morning run.

Most Saturdays he would spend hours working on homework, two danishes on a plate (one was free for being a regular) and a half-empty mug of black coffee (with two pumps of brown sugar syrup, a secret between him and the barista). However, on some Saturdays, like today, he could spend time rereading one of his favorite books, Pride and Prejudice. By now, his copy of the book was well-worn. After reading it for his literature class his freshman year, he had fallen in love with the book and reread it often. Most of the books in his collection were in the same condition, the margins covered in tiny and messy scrawled notes, and various colored sticky notes sticking out of the pages of the books. “Well-loved,” he liked to call them. 

Much like his coffee order, his inclination towards classic romance novels was indeed a secret. Even Bucky himself wasn’t completely sure why he felt so attached to these stories. Was it because he related to Elizabeth’s character? Or maybe to Mr. Darcy? Or maybe it was the way Jane Austen’s humor seemed to jump off the page. Whatever the reason was, it was probably written somewhere among the margins and sticky notes that littered his book. But until he could figure it out himself, he refused to let anyone else know. 

“Hey Bucky,” a cheery voice called.  At the sound of his name, he looked up from his book to see Wanda smiling and waving at him with an iced coffee and a box full of pastries in her hands. He smiled and greeted her in response as he put his book down, making sure to slip his bookmark into his spot.

“Are you gonna eat all those croissants yourself?” Bucky joked, pointing at the box in Wanda’s hands. 

Wanda let out a chuckle before replying, “I wish, but this is for the party tonight. What are you bringing?” Wanda laughed again at the blank look on her friend’s face. “Did you forget Tony asked us all to bring something?”

Bucky pushed his glasses up and tried to remember when Tony brought it up. It was a few weeks ago, the night of the last football game… the night he had to spend taking care of you after you sprained your ankle. To be honest, he thought the call he got from Tony that night was a part of a dream he had. 

He remembered arguing with you about whether or not professor Snape deserved a redemption arc and why he was so much better in the books, and that was about the last thing before the sound of his phone cut through the silence. The bright light of his phone illuminated the room and Bucky had to squint his eyes to read Tony’s name under the time – 2:38 a.m.

“Bucky!” His voice came through the phone as an ear-splitting scream and Bucky pulled his phone away from his ear, only to hear a quieter grumble on the couch next to him. He looked over to see you sprawled out on the couch, your arm and leg hung over the side and he scoffed a little bit at how peaceful you looked despite what might have been a very uncomfortable sleeping position. He grabbed a pillow that had fallen off the couch and gently placed your leg on top of it, concerned about how your ankle would feel in the morning.

”So are you coming?” Bucky briefly snapped his attention back to his friend on the phone.

“Uh sure,” he replied, not totally sure what he agreed to, more occupied with finding a blanket to cover you up. He found one on the other couch and delicately placed it over you, making sure to even cover your feet. Over the phone he could faintly hear Bucky going on about the crazy pancake abomination that Peter and Scott were making. “Okay,” Bucky cut him off, clearing his throat to hide the sleepy rasp in his voice. “I’m uh, studying so I’ll talk to you guys tomorrow.” Before Tony could protest, Bucky had already hit the end button. 

The last thing Bucky remembers from that night was leaving a glass of water on the side table next to you before heading to his own room and flopping down on his bed.

“It’s fine if you forgot,” Wanda’s voice brought Bucky back to the conversation. “I can just say it’s from all three of us.” The smile on her face was so genuine that Bucky almost felt guilty for still being confused.

“Three… of us?” He asked, unsure of who the third person was. “Us and Steve?” 

Wanda laughed again. “Buddy, you really don’t remember anything from that night at all huh?”

Bucky let out a sigh of defeat and invited Wanda to sit down across from him and once she sat down offered her the extra danish. “Honestly,” he began, unsure of how much detail to offer. “I was up pretty late taking care of your friend that night, and when Tony called me I was half asleep.”

Wanda gave a nod of understanding before a mischievous smile made its way onto her features. “So I’m guessing you also don’t remember that he invited your roomie as well?” The color drained from Bucky’s features, causing Wanda to let out a pitied chuckle. “I’ll take that as a no.”

“She’s coming too?” Bucky stumbled over his sentence, annoyed at his own lack of composure. 

“Yes sir,” Wanda mimed a salute at him. “I was on my way to pick her up…” she trailed off for a second, looking around and then down at her bare wrist as if she had a watch on. “But uh, I forgot I have to go get Steve actually, so if you could take her that would be great.” 

Before Bucky could protest, Wanda was headed towards the door, stuffing the rest of the danish in her mouth and uttering a “Thanks Buck-o!” as she pushed the door open with her hip. 

Dumbfounded and alone, Bucky shook his head and looked back down at his coffee in front of him. For a second, he thought about going straight home to get ready for the party, but he changed his mind – opting instead to open his book back up to read a little bit more. He let out a sigh at the sight of the pink envelope that stuck out between the pages. He continued to read for what felt like hours, but upon looking down at his watch, he saw that it had only been one and headed to the counter to order another pastry and a cup of tea before he left the warmth of the cafe. 

The red and orange leaves falling down in the cool autumn breeze was enough to make Bucky want to spend a quiet day out in the park rather than surrounded by his often obnoxious and loud friend group. As he walked home however, he couldn’t help but feel… well, bored. He was walking the same route he always walks, through the main street so he could appreciate the halloween decorations that were beginning to pop up in the small storefront windows, but he couldn’t help but feel like something was missing this year.

Instead of thinking too hard about it, he clasped his hand around the warm to-go cup of tea even tighter and walked the rest of the way home.

Before he even unlocked the door, Bucky could hear the faint sounds of… his dad singing Celine Dion? He let out a chuckle and opened the door, kicking his shoes off before walking into the kitchen for a glass of water. He didn’t bother turning on the lights, the kitchen was illuminated enough by the colorful lights emanating from the living room television. As he headed towards the concert that was happening live from his living room, he laughed at the sight of you being his dad’s number one hype man, amused that you hadn’t noticed him yet.

At the end of the song, he finally made himself known when he clapped, letting out an enthusiastic “Encore! Encore!” to which you finally turned around and gave him a wave. He walked over to the other side of the couch that you were sitting on, handing you the pastry bag and the still warm cup of tea from the cafe. “They had a special autumn blend of tea,” he explained as he watched you take a sip. “I thought you might wanna try it.”

You let out an appreciative hum. “It’s pretty good,” you affirmed, and Bucky nodded in response. “Sorry we started Karaoke Saturday without you, your dad was really excited about singing Celine Dion today.”

“Yeah,” Bucky’s dad chimed in, wiping at his head. “Steve and Wanda came by while you were out to let me know it’s Scott’s birthday and that both of you would be attending.” 

Bucky raised his eyebrow at his father’s comment. “Oh they stopped by?” He remembered his conversation with Wanda earlier, and he realized what was going on. “Why didn’t you go with them? Aren’t they also going to the party?”

He wanted to laugh at the way your eyes widened just the slightest bit as you refused to make eye contact with him. “Uh,” you began. “I wasn’t ready to go yet, and they had to go pick up the specially made cake Scott requested.” Although the reasoning itself made enough sense, Bucky still couldn’t help but smirk at the hint of panic in your voice. 

“Oh?” he replied. “That’s perfect, you can come with me instead.” The shade of red your cheeks turned was indication enough that he had you flustered. Bucky continued as you coughed in shock at the comment. “Since you and Scott are besties now you can help me find a gift.”

“Did you just say besties?” you scoffed at his comment. “I wouldn’t say besties per se…”

“So does he not invite you over every week to try different boba places with him? You guys haven’t watched every piece of content that has a minion in it together?” he questioned. It was true that you had become quite close with not only Scott, but most of the other people in Bucky’s friend group. At first, most of the gang were coming over to bring you food and to check on you after your injury, but at this point you were pretty much just in the group. All of them were dying to hang out with you. Bucky didn’t really understand why everyone wanted to be around you so badly, and honestly, it did annoy him. He wasn’t completely sure why this would bother him at all, but the more he thought about it –

“Keeping tabs, Bucky? If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you sound jealous.” Your words snapped him out of his thoughts and now it was his turn to scoff and look away, now pretending to be busy on his phone as he rolled his eyes at you.

Of course, Bucky didn’t miss the not-so-subtle thumbs up his father gave you from the side of his vision. He could see it, but was he going to acknowledge it? Of course not. He wasn’t oblivious to the way his dad seemed to encourage your crush on him, but it didn’t really bother him at all actually. So instead he cleared his throat and announced that the two of you would be heading out after he put his stuff away and got changed.

“Have fun you two,” his dad replied. “Stay out as late as you want, I’m going out with my book club.”

Before Bucky could even question his father, he had already left the room, leaving you and Bucky in the disco-lit living room with a Mariah Carey song playing in the background.

“When did he join a book club?” you asked Bucky, who shrugged his shoulders in response. 

“Beats me.” He replied, checking his watch. “Can you start the car? I’ll be down in a second.” Bucky opened his backpack and tossed you his car keys as you nodded and made his way upstairs to his bedroom, throwing his backpack onto his bed and running back out to the car. The two of you still had to stop somewhere to get Scott a gift and Bucky was not the type of person to be anything short of punctual. 

As Bucky entered Target, he had a mission in mind – to get a Lego set like Scott mentioned to you, grab a card, sign both of your names on it, and get the hell to the party. If everything went according to plan the two of you could be in and out in less than ten minutes. 

However, as Bucky had come to see in the last few weeks, nothing with you ever went according to plan.

Fifteen minutes after entering the store, the two of you were still arguing in semi-hushed tones in the middle of the Lego aisle, each of you holding a different build set in your hands. 

“Just pick one,” he sighed, watching you pick up yet another set in consideration. He couldn’t help but roll his eyes at the inefficiency he was seeing. “We’re already late.”

You shook your head at him as you furrowed your eyebrows. “I don’t care,” you replied. “I need to make sure Scott’s gift is perfect.”

“Why? It’s a Lego set,” Bucky said. “You literally can’t go wrong.” He leaned against the aisle, still watching you look at the picture on every single box, as well as the number of pieces.

“No, you don’t get it,” you sighed, looking up to face him. “It has to be the right Lego set. If it has too many pieces, or it’s something he doesn’t care about, he won’t want to even open it.” You explained this as you showed him examples of which boxes you were not going to get – boxes with excessive piece counts as well as a Van Gogh set.

“But if we get him the perfect one,” you explained as you reached your hand to the back of the shelf and grinning as you showed the box to Bucky. “He’ll be excited to open it, and he’ll think of us every single time he sees it. That’s how you pick the perfect gift.” You handed Bucky the box with a Lego version of Spongebob’s pineapple house on the front. 

Bucky took it with a sigh, placing it in the basket that was also filled with a gift bag, an assortment of candy bars and a cheesy gift card with a silly pun on it. “Why do you care so much?” He confessed, sounding a little more on edge than he meant to let on. “You barely even know him.” 

To be honest, the same annoyance that he felt earlier was bubbling back up to the surface. But before it got any further, you snapped back at him. “Why don’t you care enough?” Bucky was so caught off guard that he had nothing to say back to you.

Needless to say, the drive to the party was silent. 

“Welcome! You guys are nearly an hour late,” Scott chastised them as soon as he opened the door.

“Sorry,” Bucky heard you apologize to him as you handed the gift bag of Lego and candy to Scott. “Somebody had a stick up his ass so it took us a little longer to get around.” Bucky scoffed at the pointed look you gave him over your shoulder as you walked past Scott and into the party.

However, before he could follow you in, Scott raised his hand up to stop him. “What did you do to piss off my best friend?” He asked Bucky with his arms crossed.

“Nothing,” he sighed, rolling his eyes. “Best friend?” 

“Duh,” Scott smirked. “How could I not be best friends with the only other hottie in this friend group.” Laughing at his own remark, Scott finally let Bucky through the door. He put his hand on Bucky’s shoulder as he walked him through the house and into the kitchen and Bucky found himself fighting the urge to brush his hand away. Something about Scott’s comment left an ugly feeling in his chest. Luckily, before he could let out the snappy remark building in his mind, Natasha waved at Bucky through the window and called him over to join their group at the patio outside. Scott handed Bucky a soda and sent him out to join them.

“Bucky,” Natasha called with a smile as he approached. “Help us settle a debate.” 

“Sure,” He agreed. “What’s the debate?”

Rhodey let out an aggravated sigh as he began to explain. “Sam and Tony are trying to tell us that you can’t drink soup.” Bucky couldn’t help but chuckle at the way his eyebrows scrunched together as he explained why you definitely can drink soup.

“Why are you guys even discussing this?” Bucky asked curiously. 

“Sam and Rhodey’s friends were arguing about it over brunch today,” Natasha began to explain.

“Yeah, this girl from our physics class tried to tell us that you don’t drink soup, you eat it,” Rhodey continued. “Which doesn’t make any sense. Soup is a liquid. So you drink it. And it didn’t help that Natasha was too busy chatting with the girl from the tennis team about some celebrity drama to defend my honor.”

Natasha raised her hands in defense. “It was her birthday, you should’ve just let her have that one,” she chided her friend who continued to animatedly defend his position to an equally animated Rhodey. She turned to Bucky instead to speak to him in hushed tones. “We were actually talking about your drama, not some celebrity.” Bucky raised his eyebrows at Natasha who was grinning but looking away. “My friend said she saw you reading at the cafe this morning.”

“And?” Bucky questioned. “I always read at the cafe.”

Natasha finally turned to face him. “She thought your bookmark looked a little familiar.” Bucky could not hide the shade of red that crept onto his cheeks as he quickly turned his gaze away from Natasha and found himself looking in your direction instead. 

“When she told me about it,” Natasha continued, smirking as he followed his friend’s gaze. “It did seem a bit odd to use someone’s confession letter as a bookmark.” 

Instead of staying to try to deny Natasha’s insinuations, Bucky quickly walked away instead and headed back into the kitchen to take a break from what started to feel like a very stuffy party. Was he the only one who felt like the walls were starting to get smaller?

As he stood back inside the kitchen, he took a deep breath and leaned his arms against the sink. He looked back up to the window facing the backyard, where all of his friends stood, having a good time. Naturally, his eyes landed on you, laughing and resting your head against Steve’s shoulder and that icky feeling that had been slowly climbing up in his chest like ivy growing on a stone wall had finally taken over every last inch.

His grip on the edge of the sink tightened, and so did his resolve. He chugged the rest of his soda and gathered the courage to go back out to where everyone was, to where you were. He opened the door, and took two steps out before he stopped in his tracks like a deer caught in the headlights. Were you crying? You were laughing just minutes ago.

“Bucky,” Rhodey called quietly from beside him, putting an arm around his shoulders. “Let’s talk over here.” He led Bucky away from the spot he was glued to and instead back towards his friends. Whatever debate they had earlier seemed to fall to the backburner as soon as Bucky walked toward them.

“Is she okay?” were the first words to leave Bucky’s mouth and Sam turned to look at him in surprise.

“Your friend?” He asked and Bucky winced at the label but nodded anyway. “She’s uh… she’s fine.” Rhodey looked to Natasha for support, who let out a sigh and looked over to where you were standing. 

“No,” Natasha confessed. “I don’t think so.” On instinct, Bucky turned around ready to bolt over to your direction. He had no idea what he would even say to you, but every neuron in his brain was just telling him to run. But before he could move, Natasha’s hand was on his wrist.

“I wouldn’t head over there,” Natasha suggested, giving Bucky a sad smile. “Your name came up just before you came outside.”

The stone walls in his chest suddenly crumbled under the weight of the ivy growing, and he wondered if his walls were really that strong to begin with. Did I make her cry? he thought to himself. He looked over to you, your head once again resting against Steve’s shoulder as he rubbed circles on your back, rising and falling in time with your quiet sobs. 

Bucky no longer felt angry or frustrated, but he did feel confused at the way his heart sank at the sight. He looked down at his own feet before he let out a quiet “Oh.” at Natasha’s comment. He only looked back up once again when he heard her call his attention, leading him just out of earshot of the group.

“Do you…” She began to ask tentatively. “Like her?”

[felixcloud6288]

Higurashi: Cotton Drifting Chapter 1

This arc is intended to be the second one a person reads, however, the opening chapter is designed in such a way that it could still be the reader's first experience.

Unlike the last arc's initial chapter, this one is much more focused on introducing us to the characters rather than the mystery. The series of murders are never even brought up and we're just told of the ominous Oyashiro-sama's curse at the end of the chapter to clue us in that this is not just some slice-of-life high school series.

And the first person Keiichi introduces is Mion this time so we know this will be a Mion focused arc.

Keiichi changed into his gym shirt because Satoko's trap drenched his normal school outfit. But he changed back sometime before the end of school.

The moment I read that the punishment game was the loser has to carry the winner's bag while wearing a maid outfit, I saw how collusion could occur. The thing is, Keiichi wanted to win and he roped Rena into the game by pointing out she could get Rika or Satoko in the maid outfit. But Mion - and Rika and Satoko most likely - wanted Keiichi to lose. And if the goal is to make someone lose rather than to win, you have far more game options.

What I'm saying is everyone else wanted to force Keiichi in the dress. And they would self-sabotage if it meant he stayed in last because they all won if he lost.

Keiichi's dad fully supports his son's lifestyle.

A little bit of world-expansion. We now have a nearby town called Okinomiya.

The grand prize for the game tournament everyone was attending was ¥50,000. Based on this chart I found, the conversion rate from yen to US dollar in June 1983 was $1 ≈¥240. So the prize in US$ would be $208.33. Then if we adjust for inflation, the prize would be $637.34 in today's money.

Tomita and Okamura were in the crowd of onlookers during the game in Abducted by Demons chapter 2, and they were noticably in the background on some panels focused on the girls they like.

I'm pretty sure the second image is a copy of the first. Even the finer details seem to be exact. The only differences I could find are some of the line work in the left image are thicker than in the right.

Keiichi, you screwed up. That was an easy win you could have made. Mion got nothing so you should have given her the doll. You even considered it before giving it to Rena!

NIPA BEAM!!!

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Spoiler Discussion

There are a few meanings I can think of with Frederica's poem.

In this arc, we get an answer to the cause of the murders, and Keiichi cannot accept that Mion has been involved in them and refuses to believe it even though that is ultimately how the case concludes.

But in a later arc, we find out the answer we get is false and the "Mion" who confessed to all the crimes the Sonozaki family did was actually Shion who is certain they killed Satoshi and refuses to believe otherwise.

But this poem could also be addressed to Rika. Rika dies and jumps to new timelines with new possibilities looking for one where she lives past June 1983. Frederica may just believe there is no such timeline and has been trying to tell Rika and provide some degree of reprieve and help. And she may just feel a bit guilty for forcing Rika to wander this 'desert' of timelines.

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[rappaccini]

something more notes.

only one masterpost this time, because this thing isn't nearly as dense as arachnophobia.

first of all, this is a companion fic to arachnophobia.

everything that happens here is canon to that story, and everything that happens there is canon to this. each chapter roughly syncs up between fics as well (arachnophobia 1 takes place at the same time as something more 1, etc).

the canon divergence can largely be summed up as 'gwen isn't into miles; she gets her own arc that centers her and not her relationship with him' and 'miles's arc is extended over a year to give him time to befriend more characters and dwell on certain plot beats.' if you want the month-by-month breakdown of where his atsv elements are rearranged, it's here, under the 'miles tangent' section.

chapter 1

margo goes to the peter parker institute of science and technology in the comics. (it's not clear if it's a high school or university)

spider-byte is her alter ego, who fights crime and helps people in virtual reality.

"her parents world" -- in atsv, margo always refers to her dimension as her 'parents' dimension' -- i try to do that here.

in margo's comics, she's introduced hunting down an identity thief. her vigilantism is more small-scale and mundane, being online.

so, things like password recovery, hacking, identity recovery, getting rid of bot farms. not really combat based.

the cyber crimes investigation is a police force in margo's comics. we so incognito is on a poster on movie margo's wall; it's either an organization or a piece of pop culture.

atsv-margo lost a captain of her own. she's one of the figures in that canon event montage. no clue who it is though so i simply made the rest up. (makes you wonder: how exactly does someone die in a virtual world?)

margo's rootkit will come back.

margo's tiger: tiny, tiny ref to mj's 'face it, tiger' line.

i spent a lot of time thinking about how a world where people spend all their time online works. people work and go to school at home, they receive all their purchases by delivery, and odds are, family dinners aren't really a thing, at least for the kesses.

major motif for this fic: margo feeling unentitled to her own feelings, both as a side character in a story she isn't allowed to have a major role in, and as a girl who's always interacting with people through a screen.

i'm not sure when earth-22191 is meant to be. presumably in the future, further ahead than miguel. my guess was 22nd or 23rd century.

margo sees miguel as a father figure.

miguel recruited margo for her coding skills in atsv. there's more to it than that in this fic.

being invited: miguel finally gets margo what she wanted from the organizations in her own world. she is seen, valued, and included.

ultimately, margo joins the ss because she wants to find people who care about her. all it would have taken to stop her was her parents being concerned.

"won the jackpot" ... tiny tiny ref to "face it tiger, line" x2.

according to atsv, margo's already in the ss by the time gwen joins.

web-slinger and spiders-man were featured with margo in vault of spiders, the comic where she debuts.

margosoft is in atsv-- it's on a few of the ss screens. presumably the software the watches, portal tech and go home machine operate on was designed by her.

'blow up the building'-- tiny detail on one of margo's screens. she's not just operating the go home machine; she's sending orders to members in the field.

margo wears glasses in this fic. she's blasting blue light into her eyeballs at point blank range 16 hours a day. that eyesight's fucked.

miguel stops paying attention to margo after he's gotten his os out of her, and once he knows he can trust her to follow orders. it actually has nothing to do with gwen's arrival, but margo doesn't know that.

there's no info on gwen-22191. made it up for this fic. presumably she dies young, as usual. and she's peter's science whiz girlfriend, as usual.

peter-22191 has no details about his life, apart from him being dead by the time margo's going to the school named after him. being an arachnologist was just a spider reference.

mary jane watson-22191 is a dead end instead of dead because she's not dead; she's margo.

i figured margo would probably be very protective of her little workspace so she does not like other people touching it.

margo's first impulse being to reach out to and befriend gwen is going to come back later.

gwen looking up her dead selves is expanded on in arachnophobia; this is just margo's side of that event. margo avoids gwen because 1) it understandably freaks her out.

2) she has very low self esteem and has picked up on how the society has put gwen on a pedestal; she assumes (wrongly) that gwen wouldn't want anything to do with her.

3) she's jealous. i think the margo-gwen jealousy onion is fascinating, and everyone does it a disservice by reducing it to ~two girls fighting over a boy~ or overcorrects by insisting they be ~two girls being bffs because they're two girls~.

no. let's peel this thing: margo and gwen both want what the other has, and that tension would've existed even without a boy in the picture. we'll go more into gwen's side later, but for now--

a) margo wants functional parental figures, and she views being discarded by miguel and ignored by jess, right as they give gwen special attention, as them choosing gwen over her.

b) margo joined the society to feel included, and everyone ignores her and lines up around the block to see gwen.

c) margo's uniqueness in the society is ignored. gwen's is celebrated. no one cares that there's only one spider-byte. everyone is invested in the one spider-gwen.

d) margo comes to hq to get away from a shitty home life and a dimension she feels like she doesn't belong in, but she hasn't actually physically left earth-22191. the society let gwen stay at hq full-time. margo would kill for that.

e) margo believes society propaganda about suffering being what makes you a better hero. there's no way she wouldn't look at gwen abandoning her world and her responsibilities as a moral failing, and being bitter that gwen is being 'rewarded' for it with special treatment.

f) margo wants to be loved by spider-man. gwen is the famous dead girlfriend on a pedestal. the same attention that gets gwen killed and makes her miserable would make margo happy, and she's bothered by how gwen takes it for granted.

margo is a teenage girl with low self esteem. she isn't considering that the attention and special treatment gwen's getting isn't a good thing, or that everyone would have ignored margo anyway. that's still to come.

on margo being a nobody: she's not, but she doesn't know it yet.

we end where we started: on margo, alone, feeling like her emotions about the way she's being treated and her desire to connect with people isn't valid.

chapter 2

i'm guessing the society started a little after itsv, so by the time gwen joins, it's been just under a year since it was founded, and by the time miles arrives, it's been a year and a few months.

one of margo's skills is creating digital doppelgangers of herself to outsource her work and be more efficient.

margo's fully tuned out. she has the work figured out and she knows no one's paying attention to her, so she's numbing herself to the situation by distracting herself.

she's watching streamers and reactors as ways to pantomime human interaction.

great, okay, fine comes from arachnophobia chapter 2. a motif that worked here too.

like in chapter 1, margo joined the society to lash out at her parents and test if they'd care. they still don't.

the web. play on world wide web and web of life and destiny.

thought i'd expand on how the spider-society has a hierarchy. yes, elite spider-people are members, but there's another rung up that ladder, and that's miguel and his inner circle-- the best of the best, who actually make the decisions. if the ss is obsessed with preserving canon, it follows that the people whose lives check off the most canon boxes are higher up on the totem pole.

so margo's at the bottom.

margo isn't the only one of her kind at the society. you'll know who they are by the end of this chapter.

like gwen, margo's an outlier in the society. unlike gwen, nobody cares about finding a place to make her fit. they've already dismissed her as only good for grunt work.

"pushing buttons and making vague gestures of support" -- what i'm worried the sv movies will make of margo. also, what the fandom thinks of margo.

margo's an avatar, yet she can interact physically with objects in hq. using miguel's holosuit as a reason why-- her avatar's made of the same stuff.

spinneret and the spider-women from 2301, 8545, 42124 and 12041 are all mj variants. they can tell she's one of them, even if they don't know what it means yet.

jessica's motives get a big exploration in arachnophobia 4, but the gist is: she decided to put herself over solidarity with her fellow jessica variants so she could get a high rank in the society. she's the only jessica and the only spider-woman, who matters. ignoring margo is an intentional choice on her part.

miguel dismissed margo once he was through using her. at least he's consistent. and hey, if he doesn't pay attention to you, he can't hurl verbal abuse at you.

look you can't tell me there wasn't at least one time where peter b accidentally handed margo the baby on autopilot, and margo accidentally accepted, and both forgot for a split second that margo can't actually hold mayday so they ended up technically dropping her.

taking that tiny moment of margo being annoyed at miles walking into her and pumping it full of air? hell yeah i am.

first moment of true canon divergence reached: miles joins the spider-society formally instead of inviting himself there.

the moment of ~mysterious connection~ between miles and margo set my brain on fire. this fic exists largely because i just wanna tinfoil about what the hell that is.

margo's constantly on the society computers, overseeing the anomalies. she has to know miles is one. which means she's also complicit in the big lie about him.

margo has no peripheral vision in a vr headset.

miles is the first person who can actually capture margo's full attention because of that connection. she wants to be fully engaged by and vulnerable with him.

spider-byte is a pun on spider bite. great name!

miles likes smart girls: thinking gwen was a fellow gifted kid helped him develop his crush on her. it'll draw him to margo too.

overall in this fic i'm trying to balance margo's actual behavior at home with how she presents her avatar. since she spends all her time alone online, this girl's gonna be awkward.

margo has no spider-powers. the avatar has all her abilities.

you can't tell me miles's lightning palms wouldn't absolutely fuck margo's gear up. or that she wouldn't be pissed about it.

when margo's moving so fast she spits out other versions of herself, that's called an echo trail.

i simply think it's relevant that miles has the power to turn invisible, and margo's invisible whether she likes it or not.

margo's trying to warn miles that miguel and the society aren't great company.

remember, miles wanted to join the ss and thought the place was awesome at first. i'm just taking that beat and expanding it since his arc's getting stretched from a few days to a few months. therefore, he's gonna drink the society kool aid.

... it must take gwen and hobie fucking forever to put those shoes on, though.

it's a running joke in this fic that people keep fucking with margo's hq workstation.

there's concept art floating around of miles watching titanic and crying. referenced that here because i think it's funny.

one of the most important things about miles as a character is that he's all about inclusion. thematically, and in terms of personality: if he sees somebody being left out, he wants to bring them in and make them feel like they belong.

it's also a compelling flaw: he wants to be included. miles doesn't just want to be a good spider-man. he wants to be the best. that meant wanting to join the society. that'll mean, if he did get to join, wanting to be one of its leaders.

background note: in this fic, the ss does have mileses in it. they're just minor members who have little sway and are typically looked down upon.

had to bring up the 'is miles spider-man' debate. the ss is an allegory for society as much as it is for the spider-man canonmakers and fandom. they'd get into discourse about it.

in arachnophobia, miguel lets miles in because gwen kept asking him to. more on that there.

the source of gwen's jealousy's going to get a focus later.

at least in arachnophobia, gwen's comphetting her way through her miles crush.

"no one notices because there aren't many girls in the society" -- sorry! getting salty! you can tell gwen's written by dudes in these movies.

this fic is a metatext on how margo's treated by canon and fandom. she knows she's the disposable second girl in the love triangle who'll be expected by the fans (... and possibly written by the writers) to inexplicably be the supportive bestie who wingmans her crush into getting with another girl.

gwen and hobie. margo knows about them. more to come on that.

detailed earth-8 hate can be found here under "earth-8 notes"

margo having a courtside seat to this drama means she can be objective about it: the earth-8 speed date is creepy, cringy and gross. and gwiles as a couple are not the fairy tale ending everyone wants them to be.

salt! of course a bunch of white nerdy guys think the best canon subversion for spider-gwen is swapping out what guy she belongs to.

salt! it's not a coincidence that the white nerdy guys writing these movies (and the comic the gwiles romance is based on) gave miles a white girlfriend, or made their kids (their daughter specifically; their son's just blue-eyed miles) racially ambiguous. when writers create bad romances, its often because they force the character they identify with to pair off with the one they're most attracted to.

settler and sellout: what gwen and miles-8 are.

the unbreakup is much more detailed in arachnophobia ch 2.

the society were listening.

a hill i intend to die on: margo is an mj variant.

chapter 3

characters in alternate comics worlds tend to appear in cohorts. peter, gwen and mj are usually always a set, as are miles and ganke.

but there are exceptions: on earth-65a, flash thompson is gwen's high school gym teacher instead of her classmate, for instance.

and on earth-22191, margo is 200-ish years behind all her friends.

margo-is-an-mj is just a headcanon (for now 🤞), so knowing her peter parker is definitely dead led to a bit of extrapolation: if margo's totally alone in her world, then the rest of the empire state gang are probably gone too.

being left to one's devices. wordplay is fun.

in an all-online world i figure memorials are probably interactive. like facebook pages full of messages, videos and photos.

fic-gwen-22191 died in the 80s (her birthyear is the year of her first appearance, 1965. add 19 years to get to her death age), so she would be gone before that would have been possible. therefore, she doesn't get one. (+another gwen who's totally in the shadow of her boyfriend.)

in a world where everyone interacts via avatars, i figure facetune/image manipulation is the norm. nobody shows you their actual, unmanipulated face until you're very close friends.

so margo had a lot of culture shock at the society. being around masked people would've felt more normal than seeing all those faces.

and therefore, seeing the gang in photos pre-image manipulation, around the 1980s, would have a strong effect on margo. in a way, she is getting to see her friends' faces.

people typically aren't gorgeous in their natural states. they look better that way, when they're real.

ai: i figure margo's world is so deeply entrenched in tech that it's taken over entertainment. there aren't any career actors or musicians anymore; you just prompt an ai to give you what you want.

therefore, an 80s sitcom starring margo and her dead friends. it's very macabre.

the silver spoon is where the 616 empire state gang hung out during the college years in the late 60s.

i figure margo's probably programmed herself a few artificial boyfriends and friends over the years. if she's that talented at coding and she's that lonely, she would.

margo isn't thrilled about going to college because in her world, it just means staying at home even longer.

mj and harry both have dysfunctional families.

if mj and peter parker are such a universal pairing, margo would wonder if she and her peter would've fallen in love.

... and if she and her gwen would've fought over him. it's wild that the mj-peter-gwen love triangle was two best friends who are technically dating the same guy and competing for him. it is WILD that peter and mj get together because she swoops in on her best friend's boyfriend right after she dies.

"painting our nails and sharing secrets" will come back.

margo's the hero of her world. she wouldn't assume peter's the spider; she'd assume she still would be.

margo trying to make a connection in her world and failing was important to include.

in a world where everyone's online, the city's probably very quiet.

the fact about stars is true.

miles morales is an anime fan. there's no way he wouldn't try to get peni to watch it with him.

and there's no way peni wouldn't have opinions about it.

real friends aren't people you can turn off or reprogram when they annoy you. getting to know them takes effort, which is why the connections matter. margo's starting to learn that.

margo probably gets no sleep. that girl's chugging monster like it's water and making energy drink jungle juice in her spare time.

margo would probably be a gamer. thought it'd be fun if she and peni swapped recs. (the one they're talking about is hatoful boyfriend. the doctor route is indeed batshit crazy.)

i think peni and margo would be great friends. i wanted to give them that here.

chapter 3 ii

also: miles hanging out with peni and margo is a ripple effect from arachnophobia-- i hate that the writers made ambiguously queer girls' girl gwen into someone who only interacts positively with men and has only male friends. the bare minimum would've been giving miles a female friend group to balance it out. so for these fics, that's what i did.

post-unbreakup miles is not taking it well. there's one more big event between it and this scene between margo, peni and miles that'll be mentioned later.

as a reminder, this is a canon divergent au where gwen and miles do not get together, and gwen gets an arc on par with miles's. that's in arachnophobia.

and since this is a companion to arachnophobia, a lot of character and plot beats rhyme-- like miles and gwen both interacting with their earth-8 selves. in miles's case, he admires him and wants to emulate him.

because he views gwen's rejection of him as a sign that she thinks he's an incompetent hero who can't save her, he's trying to overcompensate by showing everyone how great a spider-man he is. it's wearing him down.

ss as an allegory for the writers and the fandom: miles getting gwen as his girlfriend makes him more impressive to them because she's the shiniest, most conventionally-attractive, most unattainable love interest. if he can't land her, they'll look down on him.

(which is why earth-8 miles is both gross and fascinating: literally, when the writers created their ideal miles, they made him joined at the hip with his gwen. creepy implications.)

kid arachnid, spy d and spin are all alternate names miles has had in continuities where he and peter are heroes together.

the spider-society only legitimizes miles-8, the palatable one who sold out his authenticity for greater appeal and uses gwen as a symbol of that.

there's no way margo doesn't have a folder of security footage highlights featuring the cringiest spider-person moments.

jess in the comics eats butter to cope with pregnancy cravings

hobie's facial hair: ref to earlier concept art of him. it did not look good.

hobie's doing disruption in plain sight: intentionally covering up security cameras while pretending it's just vandalism.

re: miles and hobie. people forget that miles spends all of atsv hating on the guy (he only changes his mind when hobie helps him escape). extending that out = miles wasn't exactly friendly with him for that month before the earth-8 blowup. and there's no way a 15yo boy is gonna be nice to the guy he thinks his crush rejected him for. there's a bit more that happened there, but that'll be discussed later.

"betrayal" -- salt about the fandom's take that gwen and hobie having a relationship would somehow make them traitors to miles. what betrayal? she was never miles's girlfriend (if anything she friendzoned him) and hobie never met the guy. they don't owe him shit!

re: miles's feelings. one of the biggest issues with atsv is it wants so badly to critique the spiderman canon without acknowledging that it is a part of that canon and not the exception to it. miles is spider-man, a superhero who takes after that old western storytelling tradition of 'super special male protagonist whose actions and desires are more important than everyone else's.' if he really wants to be different, we have to unpack that idea too.

so, miles, like miguel/peter b/jess/the elite ss members, thinks that his feelings are inherently more important than everyone else's-- important enough to somehow convince gwen, who hasn't seen or spoken to him in 1.5 years, to put her entire life on hold and never move on with anyone else.

he's also a 15yo boy. he woulda thought that regardless.

people keep calling this ship 'star-crossed.' it can't be star-crossed if fate itself is trying to get them together, which it is because the writers are.

margo's in high school. shakespeare's gonna be one of the things she studies. even if she has to translate it first.

'star-crossed' comes from romeo and juliet. you know the one.

and the taming of the shrew's another of shakespeare's plays. ostensibly a romance, about a powerful man who psychologically breaks down an independent woman's sense of willpower until she agrees to marry him and be the most perfect obedient wife, where the only consolation to the reader is, hey, at least she has a respectable position within patriarchy now. that's exactly what the spider-society's doing to gwen, what miles-8 did to gwen-8, and what miles is being encouraged to participate in and would have to do to be with her. more on that in arachnophobia.

another plus of miles hanging out with girls: they can help him understand how bullshit the gwen stacy hero complex is (no girl would want to fall off a bridge so her bf can look cool saving her) and how creepy being tied across dimensions is.

gwen-65 canonically hates babies and has no maternal instinct. motherhood is something she isn't interested in and would never choose. makes the 'perfect future' where she has a nuclear family with miles all the more questionable. it's not HER perfect future, it's his.

it also makes comics-gwen's reaction to it (confusion, then immediate revulsion) make sense. the best possible future for her and miles is one that would make her miserable so of course she runs for the hills.

comics-miles, though, gets most of what he wanted out of it, so naturally, he keeps a torch lit for a while.

examining that here: fic-miles can kind of tell that something about earth-8 is off, but since that future still looks on the surface like everything he thinks he wants (respect and renown from his public and his peers, a team of heroes to work with, kids someday, and a romantic partner who is a fellow superhero), he's clinging to it.

margo regresses to tabsurfing to pull her attention away from this conversation because it's too emotionally draining.

and miles notices because it's unusual for her to do that with him.

i'm sorry! i hate gwiles! gotta point out all the problems with it! shit like, they genuinely don't know anything about each other except vague superficial things they both share.

gwen doesn't go to visions in the comics, she goes to midtown. the fic marries those two by saying 'gwen's temporarily going to visions because midtown was destroyed when she fought peter'

fandom salt: the fans loooove ballerina gwen, even though gwen never once mentions being a ballerina, ditches the pointe shoes and only discusses her love of music. and there are more drawings of gwen dancing than drumming in his sketchbook, so i guess miles prefers that side of her too. he's telling on himself.

salt: kinda hate that the movies totally neglected gwen's female friend group and made her a guys' girl.

salt: the 'self-love' coi leray song played over gwen's intro is gorgeous. it also doesn't sound like anything gwen would listen to and is massively out of place in earth-65, the rock music dimension. it sounds like something miles would listen to while thinking of gwen. very... apt. given that the movie totally rewrites gwen to make her more compatible with him.

fandom salt: no way would that queer punk girl listen to taylor swift you idiots.

gwen's middle name is actually a secret thing. sv gwen is transcoded, and fic-sv gwen is explicitly trans. her deadname was femmed up and turned into her middle name. miles is technically right: she does not want people using it.

one of the reasons i want mj variant margo so bad is the thematic relevance it would have. one would think that the logical next step in a trilogy of movies all about the importance of a black spider-man would be including a black mj.

miles and miguel are alike in a lot of ways. including how they both think they're better than their own canons and want to be the exception to it (in order to obtain or keep a gwen/gabi).

miles is mostly offscreen in arachnophobia, so his arc is mostly implied. since margo spends most of her time with him, this was a chance to touch on it: he needs to understand that he isn't the exception.

22191 worldbuilding: one would think in an all-online world that social interactions can be archived. ergo, margo can watch her parents chatlogs and social media posts like they're home movies.

and in an all-online world, you meet and date online too. meeting up in person is probably like moving in together, if not synonymous.

and as is often the case... sometimes, the person you think you're meant to be with turns out to be someone else when you spend more time with them and your mental picture of them has to reconcile with the real thing.

and sometimes it's too painful to admit that, so people don't, and they keep clinging to their idea of the person even as it gets further from the truth.

miles and gwen are this in a nutshell. the most positive i can be about sv gwiles is that they seem like they would've made great high school sweethearts post-itsv. if they'd stayed in contact, they would've paired up, stayed together for most of high school (... to me, that 17 month timeskip feels like the amount of time they'd have lasted), and eventually drifted back into friendship.

but they didn't. they spent a year and a half with zero contact, romanticizing the idea of each other. now that idea is stronger than the connection they made originally because they don't know each other at all. if they get together now, they'll just be chasing romances they made up in their heads, and the longer they stick together the more unfulfilling, stagnating and ultimately toxic that dynamic will become.

add that to miles's spider-man complex: he thinks of himself as a good person, and is mistaking that for being good for gwen. those things are different.

margo gets this. she is a product of that kind of relationship.

margo making ai boyfriends is a parallel to miles sketching gwen: it's art, but it's also not the real thing.

margo's ai sitcom of her dead friends is what solidified that for her.

miles has further to go before he gets it. his feelings for gwen are so wrapped up in a need for belonging and validation that he has to satisfy that first before he moves on.

we arrive at the part where margo's supposed to give that motivational speech that gets gwiles together.

this is a meta text, and margo's role in the story, at least as of atsv, is 'disposable second corner of the love triangle.' the expected outcome for her character is that she'll do something selfless to make gwiles get together, step out of the way for them and/or conveniently no longer be competition.

saying the quiet part out loud: the one time mj's black, spider-man skips her for gwen? okay. it's like that.

if the sv movies really want to break canon, then they should do the opposite. let the hero and his designated girlfriend decide to stay friends, and make margo the endgame love interest instead.

taking shots at the fandom for reinforcing the idea that margo's a supportive bestie, ~sister-coded~ (gotta go for a pun there), a matchmaker, the butt of some joke about miles wasting his time before he pairs off with the fandom-preferred girl, or the disposable black love interest. (... and possibly firing off a warning shot at btsv if that's what they do with her)

discovering she's an mj made margo realize she isn't a nobody and gave her the confidence to demand better treatment. she might not be miles's mj, but she still is one, and she's going to claim all the things mj is entitled to.

so she uses some of that mj fire and stands up for herself. no, she's not going to help him make nice with gwen, and she's making it clear that she's a contender for his feelings.

miles can clearly tell that margo likes him. so if in btsv he treats her like that disposable friend, keeps flirting with her, and gets with gwen anyway? dick move.

dick move here too. he isn't maliciously playing with her feelings, but he is hanging out with a girl he knows is into him (and doesn't think will stand up to him about it) to make himself feel good.

"don't be mean" = subconscious little women ref.

because it IS mean. the mj-spider-man-gwen love triangle is, when not written well, such a shitty treatment of these girls. the sv movies are making it even worse.

margo's given miles a lot to think about. more on that soon.

"knowing it's not supposed to count, wanting it to, and doing it anyway" will come back too.

and ending on a note of self-confidence. yes, margo told him how she feels. more importantly, she's realizing she'll be fine without him and won't tolerate bad treatment.

chapter 4

'abyss' is a term that comes up a lot in arachnophobia. thought i'd add it somewhere in this fic

so's 'i'm you and you're me'

margo getting on with her life and focusing on her own situation will pop up again soon.

this chapter concerns why margo's status as an mj is so controversial and why even her own alternate selves can't wrap their minds around it.

for better or worse, margo's more visible now. which means she's visible enough for miguel to get angry at her.

re: jess. one of the biggest things about her canon characterization is her lack of solidarity. she didn't protect gwen, she didn't protect miles. she wouldn't protect margo. at least in these fics, jessica drew-332 cares so much about the mission that she'd throw anyone under the bus for it, and she believes as long as she personally gets a comfy spot at the top of the hierarchy, she doesn't mind what happens to anyone else.

also given timeline creep, jess had her baby by now.

the anomaly that's dimension-jumping will come back.

margo's home is minimalist and full of soft things and dull colors because for people who are constantly stimulated by the internet, they'd probably want somewhere calming to escape to. gotta extrapolate those white bedroom walls somehow.

touch as a motif pops up again here.

peter having photos of gwen in his house is first mentioned in arachnophobia.

peter parker gives me overworked ta vibes, and if mj's based on raimi mj, then she would've been a model/actress for a while.

og 616 gwen stacy was a football fan.

peter b recognizing his wife in margo is what made him stick up for, and bend the rules for her.

had to use that hologram effect of the portal watch for something. why not margo making house calls?

... something tells me margo makes ai art. and miles has opinions about it.

margo recording her conversations for later comes back at the end of this chapter.

mj facts: she was originally intended to be a running joke about 'the girl next door peter's aunt keeps trying to hook him up with' before she became The Love Interest, so mj has a history of knowing about peter but being unacknowledged by him until college. i've always really liked this. important people creep up on you.

'she's not the only one'-- another arachnophobia motif

in this chapter, we need to demolish the gwen jealousy. best way to do that is 1) let margo have a big jealous rant to get those feelings out, and

2) have the source refute that idea and tell her that the situation's more complicated: gwen isn't some superior girl waving her boyfriend in mj's face; they were best friends who respected each other even when they liked the same guy, and while gwen and peter were together, mj got on with her life. the ~catty jealousy~ was a misunderstanding of the situation, usually by the men reading and writing those comics who like watching two hot girls fight over their self-insert.

since the society's based on those guys, it follows that margo would learn about the love triangle in that context, and her insecurities would be inflamed by it.

(i'm not thrilled about mj chastising margo. but if a girl starts talking shit about your murdered best friend, you're gonna shut her up. especially if she's a tenth grader.)

'love's not a competition' comes back in 5.

'in name only' -- margo isn't. the more you examine her character and where she appears in the sv narrative, the more in common with mj you find.

it's important to note that the mjs aren't rejecting margo out of malice, like miguel is. they're just so set in their perceptions of themselves that it's hard to imagine something different-- much like how margo was in denial about being an mj at all.

(sidebar: or like how it took gwen months to realize gayatri's a gwen variant)

in these fics, meeting your alt-self tends to be a good experience. that's you, after all. of course they're going to instantly empathize and care about each other. but there are going to be bumps in the road.

also. fandom salt! at the people who won't let a certain black spider-man character be called by that title, and keep insisting, sometimes with good but misguided intentions, sometimes knowing damn well what they're saying, that they should ~be their own person.~ you know who i'm talking about.

miles babysitting mayday comes up in arachnophobia. fun to see it here.

bringing back margo's eavesdropping habit.

if miles is at the society, he's gonna ask at some point why his universe is 1610b. which means he's gotta learn about a.

new holes in the multiverse: coming back later.

btsv is absolutely going to do a metacommentary on how shitty it was to destroy 1610a to force miles into 616a. thought i'd incorporate that here: miles is starting to catch on that nobody wants him to have his own world, and now that he knows that the last miles-1610 lost his, he's getting paranoid.

and peter b, while well-intentioned in wanting to look after him and promising him a place in 616, doesn't get it.

atsv salt: makes no sense to me that peter b would be so hands-off when he had such a great bond with miles in itsv. part of the reason for having him join the ss was so they could reestablish that mentorship.

including miles dropping into peter's dimension when he needs space, like he does here.

peter and mj are 100% talking about miles and margo. and putting it together that they aren't giving them the best advice.

the captain event: in this fic, miles's father is promoted a few months later than normal, and his death event is even further ahead (and not calculated yet). this was so he wouldn't flip his shit and ditch the ss before he could explore it.

the earlier mention of margo breaking her own distancing rule to help miles figure out when he'd die referred to this. she's been there too, she's a kind person, and she cares about him. she would.

now, after months of drinking society kool-aid, running himself ragged trying to prove himself, slowly realizing he'll never belong, and now learning that one of the deaths he's most afraid of is on the horizon (but not imminent), miles is cracking up. hence, wearing his spider-suit all the time, fighting with his dad to get him to quit. ignoring that he's grounded to keep spider-manning.

another divergence: pav's captain event is pushed back too. you'll see why.

... look if miles finds out an alt-him has a baby sister, he'll definitely put his foot in his mouth trying to figure out if he's gonna get one too. especially if he's running on ten minutes of sleep, thirty redbulls and a looming sense of existential dread.

mj and peter b put together what they were doing wrong. "i feel it" is both an apology and an acknowledgment of what margo's looking for.

margo not being physically present in any of her interactions with miles, and the disconnect that causes, comes back at the end of this chapter. the lack of reaction to the humidity is just setting that up.

fun fact: back to the future was originally meant to star eric stultz. michael j fox replaced him.

the 1610 to 616 salt was also a way to help margo put together that she wouldn't mind sharing a world with someone.

however, she still believes the ss doctrine about being miserable making you a better hero.

margo doesn't look at the love triangle as a competition anymore, so she's able to talk about gwen without getting mad.

'doing both' -- motif from atsv. and what all the society mjs are in fact doing-- being love interests AND heroes.

an aside, to list all the things margo kess has in common with mj watson.

both are spunky young women from dysfunctional families who badly want affection and a functional, loving home.

both are introduced in the narrative after spider-man has already formed a romantic attachment with gwen stacy, and though they have instant chemistry with spider-man, he prioritizes gwen over her.

both are pitted against gwen stacy over spider-man's affection. sigh.

both already know spider-man's secret identity (... in margo's case, that miles is an anomaly) when they meet him. and both quietly keep this secret.

both have a love of fashion and visual aesthetics-- mj's a model; margo's constantly changing her avatar's hair and makeup.

both keep spider-man's secrets and intimately understand his struggles in a way nobody else does.

both have the capacity to become superheroes in their own right.

both aren't at a risk of being fridged.

both are up front about their crushes on spider-man. sure they start out as friends but it's clear they're into each other.

(beyond here's all relevant to the fic only.)

both take a while to be noticed by spider-man. in mj's case she was an invisible neighbor for years. in margo's, she's a friend who isn't taken seriously as a romantic option for months.

both get on with their lives while they wait. mj sees other people, margo hangs out with peni and tries reaching out to the mjs.

gwen ultimately brings them together. for mj, it's her death. for margo... it'll be something else.

it's a rocky road to getting together, but at the end of the day, spider-man always comes back to them, and they end up together.

thank you. back to 4:

anyway. it's insane to me how textbook an mj variant margo is.

which makes you wonder: why doesn't anyone talk about this? i'm absolutely not the first person to come up with this idea (i got it from a convo with a friend), but it's very rare to see anyone consider it.

rhetorical question. if margo were a white girl with red hair, or even just a white girl, the margo's-an-mj theories would be a lot more popular and so would interest in her character.

the disconnect is that margo's black (and not ambiguous, not light-skinned or biracial. she's a black girl with afrocentric features, a heavier body type, brown skin and natural hair.). this is a meta fic. had to bring that up. the ss is a stand-in for the writers, audience and fandom, so all the hangups they have will be reflected in the society.

if spider-byte's an avatar that can look like anything, then margo made her recognizably black for a reason. it is important to margo that the people of her world know their spider-hero is a black girl.

it's important for the people watching these movies (especially the kids) to know that mj can be a black girl too.

miles and margo are in the same boat. both of them are their canon's incarnation of an iconic character in the spider-man story, but both are disrespected and ignored by both writers and fandom because they're black.

therefore, margo's the person who can help miles piece this together. not gwen. not even hobie.

which is where the meta comes in: yes, it matters that margo has her own world and her own identity as byte... but that world and identity aren't particularly respected. it would be very easy for her to fall into obscurity and vanish, which is often the fate of marginalized characters with original stories; they get an initial push, then fall away and vanish.

spider-man and mj are indisputably vital characters to the spider-man canon. they'll always exist, and always be retold and reinterpreted in new stories. they have gravity and reach. their stories are agreed upon by EVERYONE as important.

and if the story's important, then anyone should be able to take part in it. that is why a black spider-man matters.

mj, in spider-man stories, is typically the pinnacle of love and desirability. she's not just a love interest; she's the love interest. she's the girl the hero ends up with who's so irreplaceable and beloved by the writers and fandom that they keep being drawn to each other whenever the story's retold, and when she takes a minute to show up, she's demanded. when you gatekeep what mj's allowed to look like, you are telling people what kind of person is worthy of love. that's why a black mj matters.

it's also why a romance between a black spider-man and a black mj would be so groundbreaking. (... more groundbreaking than the black spider-man sticking with the white gwen stacy he barely knows and puts on a pedestal.)

sidebar: diverging from sv canon here to change the ss's perception of miles. it was important that he be able to interact with other mileses, so they had to be in the ss, but also to acknowledge that even though miles-1610b was blocked from entry because of 42, they're all dealing with the same shit.

... even miles-8. even the ~perfect future~ for miles is one where he can't keep his own world and has to move to a new one he has to share with his white wife. she's definitely not his equal there, but he still has to have her (aka proximity to a white person) to have the status.

sidebar over. that staticky feeling is miles's hand zapping margo's with a bit of bioelectricity. he's trying to hold her hand, but she doesn't pick up on it.

(... yes, miles and margo sitting vertically on the top of a skyscraper at dawn, and him trying and failing to hold her hand is an inversion of miles and gwen, upside-down on a clocktower at sunset, where he tries and fails to hold her hand. one is a relationship that's topsy-turvy by nature, one's putting miles right side up again. one's at the end of the day/when time's running out, one's starting a new one. one involves miles totally misunderstanding his female love interest and imposing his feelings on her. the other's when he finally listens to her and finds the understanding he needs.)

anyway, because of this conversation with margo, about the importance of claiming these legacy titles in spite of who's gatekeeping them, miles is ready to ditch the society.

he's just got one more hangup: he's worried that on his own, he won't be able to help his father and gwen, people he cares about, from dying.

which margo helps him with as well: the society won't help, so you might as well do it yourself.

which brings us to pav. when miles interferes with his captain canon event in this fic, he's making an intentional, informed decision.

and he's also fully aware that he'll get kicked out for it, so he's trying to let margo know that he has feelings for her without leading her on given that 1) she just chewed him out for doing that, 2) massively misreading shit with gwen fucked up two friendships and he doesn't want to repeat that with margo, and 3) he thinks he's getting kicked out. bad time to start something you can't finish.

"seeing me" -- lifted from the atsv script.

margo watching her old conversations returns. more on what exactly she's doing this for next time, but essentially, with distance, margo now realizes that miles has reciprocated her feelings.

chapter 5

"wrecking ball" -- lifted from arachnophobia.

margo was rewatching that rerun to look for signs that miles was going to fuck up pav's canon. she found them, and now knows he did it on purpose.

the fic-equivalent to miles's conflict at hq is him returning after intentionally ruining pav's captain canon event, getting chewed out publicly by miguel for it, starting a fight with him, and getting suspended.

changes as follows: miles isn't a rogue anomaly who escaped his dimension, turned up in another, and fucked up the story there after a nuclear threat to the multiverse (the spot) escaped; he's a well-known member of the society who broke a big rule-- don't interfere with someone else's story. and the spot wasn't responsible for the captain's almost-death, so there wasn't even an anomaly angle to it. and, jeff's death doesn't have a set timer on it to lock miles up to keep. therefore, there's no hundred-spider chase to the moon. it simply never gets to that point.

also, peter b pulls rank to protect miles because i'm salty about how atsv made him useless when he (not gwen) should've been the one most in miles's corner.

hobie gets involved in the fight to preserve the element of hobie having miles' back in this moment. here, instead of refusing to take part, he intervenes to protect him.

miles is getting a suspension... that miguel will never end.

this fic extends the narrative elements of atsv-- like hobie immediately wanting to befriend miles... and miles disliking hobie out of insecurity and jealousy until hobie sticks up for him at hq. this was that moment.

hobie brown was the original 616 prowler decades before miles (and aaron) came along. he was almost always the prowler, and punk is the only time he's a spider-man. contrast to miles, who's usually a spider-man and rarely the prowler.

all hobie's big disruptive actions are to cover smaller strategic moves.

i figure the same solidarity margo and hobie feel towards miles they'd feel towards each other. hobie's always in the field and margo's always at hq, so they don't interact much, but they won't tell on each other.

hobie's from '78. he's a genius, but he's still gonna take a second to adapt to future tech.

running joke: people fucking up margo's computers.

miles was avoiding hobie. hobie wasn't avoiding miles.

in the comics, jess uses a donor to get pregnant.

arachnophobia goes into this more, but the angle i'm going with for gwiles-8 is that they are not the happy supercouple everyone thinks they are.

in these fics, i'm swapping gwen's feelings for peter, miles and hobie. ergo: she's comphetting her way through her friendships with peter and miles, and she wants a real relationship with hobie. more on that in arachnophobia.

i do find it fascinating that both gwen and hobie are so physically affectionate with all their friends... except each other. probably the animators wanting to make sure miles's designated gf can't get too touchy with the guy he's worried about. but fuck it i'll make it mean something.

also, margo fixating on touch.

meta time: margo is ignored or looked down on by fandom at large because she's a black girl. hobie was perceived as a threat because he's a black boy.

(miles is also treated badly for this reason and a lot of his character's execution is the way it is to make sure the white audience remains comfortable with him. including the gwen ship. his atsv metanarrative's about a black boy struggling to find acceptance from white people, and weighing how much of himself is worth giving up in order to get it. translated here as miles' antics to get the society to tolerate him.)

with hobie, that's a steeper hill to climb (on top of racism, there are the added factors of classism and homophobia), and it's built into his character that he'd never climb it.

it's not surprising that people reacted to the possibility of gwen and hobie being a couple (which is teased in the comics) with confusion that they would be capable of being attracted to each other, shitty jokes about the relationship being superficial, or disgust at the thought of them being together.

all that pearlclutching about hobie being an adult somehow... gee. wonder why people have trouble believing he's a teen.

plus all the 'boys and girls can be friends' statements that only ever get thrown at them and margo/miles and never at gwen and miles, who ended itsv by telling each other they wanted to stay friends. nice sentiment, but if you apply it selectively, all you're doing is trying to police shipping.

fandom treatment of hobie's a seesaw: to some fans he's a hypersexual predatory douchebag who only keeps gwen around for sex, to others he's a wholesome, nonthreatening, asexual ~big brother~ who'd never lay a finger on her.

the second camp sprung up in response to the first, and are so busy patting themselves on the back for not being blatantly racist that they haven't considered that they've done nothing to address the actual problem: the expectation that a relationship between gwen and hobie would be inherently predatory. (if anything, all they're doing is agreeing with that statement, and sidestepping it by saying "but don't worry, it didn't happen...")

... if it did, it wouldn't be a bad thing. it just wouldn't.

miles will be defined by his achievements, so a romantic endgame that isn't the preferred option will be looked down on, but not overshadow him as a person. gwen will be defined by her relationships, and her role in the story (in the society) is dependent on choosing the right boy to be with. if she ends up with the 'wrong guy,' people are gonna be pissed.

(and on a societal level: consider how society reacts when white girls and black boys pair off. especially white girls with overprotective patriarchs who have 'reserved' them for someone else, like gwen, and black boys who look and act like hobie.)

feeding that meta into the spider-society metaphor = if hobie and gwen pair off, there will be consequences. likely violent ones, with the violence being taken out largely on him.

hobie and gwen know this, and are evasive for their safety.

margo and hobie are in the same position: they're the disposable corners of the love triangle who have better chemistry and stronger potential with the main pair than they do with each other. they're here to incite jealousy and then be wingmen.

if the sv movies really want to challenge canon, they should be the ones to win out in the end.

credit to atsv for subverting the idea of hobie as a mean older ~bad boy~ rival for gwen's affection by making hobie supportive and kind to miles (and gwen. he's not a manipulative or shallow bad boy miles needs to ~save~ her from. he's a good guy who DOES have her best interests at heart, probably more than anyone in the entire film, including miles).

... that being said (@ the fandom:) hobie is not a yes man. look at how he treats gwen when she does things he disagrees with: he voices his disapproval, encourages her to stop, and refuses to go along with it... while also not freezing her out.

if he's like that with a girl he's been friends with for months, who's slept over at his place many times, who he has romantic feelings for, he'll probably be tougher on a boy he doesn't know well.

especially when that girl is the topic of conflict, as it goes in this fic.

so: when miles comes to hobie and asks him to respect society hierarchy and end whatever it is he's doing with gwen so miles can have her, and to help get them together, hobie refuses.

there's more to the fight, but that's the basis of the falling out.

chapter 5, ii

people have a kneejerk hatred of love triangles. part response to bad writing, part twilight backlash, part wanting the couple to get together with no competition or conflict.

it's also that people want for the character they project onto to end up with the character they're personally attracted to the most. which is why internalized bias is so important to confront: it's real fucking clear why margo and hobie aren't considered as serious contenders.

margo's peter and hobie's gwen are both dead. technically, they're out of the running.

hobie's dealing with the same shit as margo. both joined the ss looking for community, found out it's full of bullshit, met someone who sees and appreciates them, start to develop a bond with that person... and are told by everyone that what they have isn't legitimate, because it's not the romance the general audience want.

hobie seesaw vent ii: even the less misogynistic corner of the hypersexual hobie brigade see him as a shallow fling for gwen to ~get her bad boy phase out on~ before she departs for a 'respectable' relationship with miles. never mind that spider-gwen doesn't want and doesn't do well in 'respectable' heterosexual relationships.

(which is ironic because in atsv, hobie's the one who actually fulfills the tradition of meeting the dad of the girl he likes and gaining his respect before giving her a ring-shaped piece of jewelry in a little box that makes it possible for them to be together. albeit, in the very hobie way of yelling at that dad for mistreating his daughter, facilitating their reunion and giving her the watch so she can leave him if she doesn't want to stay.)

the other end of the seesaw: hobie's a chaperone to keep gwen in line until it's time for miles to come take custody of her. there's such a strong 'gwen needs to save her body for miles' vibe to the way people talk about her relationships with other guys that i find disgusting.

and nonsensical. why would the spider-punk believe in bro code.

miles-hobie fight dripfeed 2: the falling-out was over gwen, but it was about hobie's disappointment in miles for becoming the kind of guy who'd view a girl he likes as a prize to win. that's why he put his foot down and said he wouldn't budge.

hobie and gwen's dynamic is more central in arachnophobia 5, but the gist is they're doing relationship anarchy. no labels, no commitment, no exclusivity, no making a big deal of it. if being spider-man's girlfriend kills gwen stacy, if she's not his girlfriend, then technically she's safe, right?

in these fics i to walk hobie's development back from the atsv incarnation to give him an arc. he's great in atsv! he just doesn't grow or change at all. not doable here.

he starts these fics as an isolated kid with a martyr complex ready to devote himself to spider-punk and the ideology he represents. through gwen, he realizes how harmful his death wish is, pulls back, starts embracing his humanity again and fine-tunes his mindset into the "love each other" message he has by the time miles shows up (which is what he has in atsv).

hobie's methodical nature probably makes him an overthinker. which leads to being a worrier.

the h/g emotional angst is an onion:

layer 1: it's very punk to take in a homeless queer girl and deprogram her so she'll leave the abusive heteropatriarchy cult that's grooming her. it's not very punk to catch feelings and want her around just because you like her.

layer 2: the meta. he's spider-man and she's gwen stacy, and this relationship tends to end terribly. he's firmly in the camp of fuck canon, but on the off chance that he's got it wrong, the girl he loves could die a terrible death because of him. challenging canon has high stakes.

layer 3: the miles. gwen falls for spider-man, but hobie's not the one people think she's for. he hates the idea that some spider-society-approved guy's entitled to her... but then that guy shows up and it's miles. and miles is great! and hobie wants to be his friend! it's a mess!

margo's never actually considered if the attention she envies gwen for getting was a good thing, or if it was ever wanted. now she understands that it isn't.

mega salt: they're definitely gonna do the death of gwen stacy canon event in btsv. whether she dies, or gets a death fakeout, it's coming. and it'll almost certainly be miles, who barely knows her, who's given the greatest emotional weight in that scene. as opposed to (possibly jess or) hobie, the person who has the deepest bond with her, who will probably have to comfort miles.

mega salt: hobie can have a girlfriend AND take down the government, guys. your personal connections fuel your politics. it's not one or the other.

but hey. it's a cool flaw to give hobie. realizing that is essentially his arc in these fics.

and it circles back to margo. punk and byte are important, but so are hobie and margo. their societies (and the society) only care about punk and byte because they can use them for their labor, which means they have to work especially hard to protect their human sides. they can do both.

and by holding on to these relationships, they can. being in love humanizes them.

that is why flipping the outcome of the love triangle would be so subversive. whoever 'wins' at the end is the person the story deems the most attractive and loveable. margo being preferable to miles over gwen, and hobie being preferable to gwen over miles, makes you reexamine your ideas about what makes the best relationship and who makes the best partner. miles and gwen getting together only reinforces our expectations.

comics-hobie is informed by an extradimensional being that he's doomed to die young. it happens in these fics too.

his arc, mostly offpage in both fics, is about rejecting that idea and accepting shades of gray into his philosophy that'll make it possible to live long without losing hope.

margo needs confidence and hobie needs contradiction. both find and embrace those qualities in spite of the society. both find it because they fall in love with someone they're not supposed to.

what is love? it's not a competition. it's not chasing your crush into another dimension because you can't bear not being near them. it's making a choice over time to build a relationship with them with care, intention and effort. it's accepting that doing so will change you. it's putting what they need above what you want.

.... in across, hobie is the person who does this for gwen, not miles.

the portal watch exemplifies this: he spent months showing up at a place he hates because gwen's there, supporting her, bonding with her, building trust with her, listening to what she needed and getting it for her. and then he gave it to her with no strings attached (and even made nice with her cop dad, who he'd probably hate) and got out of the way so she could use it for whatever she wanted, and trusted her to do what was best for herself even if it meant they wouldn't be together.

miles, in comparison, hung out with her twice and got her some plantains and a can of grape drink once. @/male writers: come on. use your fucking brain.

margo's jealousy towards gwen getting to leave her shitty home life ends, along with the last of her society indoctrination. no, suffering is not sacred.

comics-earth-138 has radionet. whatever that is. margo's too dependent on the internet to want to shelter there.

part of hobie's motive for making the watch was making it possible for them to stay together without the society as a go-between. but mostly, it was about giving her autonomy.

the miles-hobie fight: in the sv movies, miles is the protagonist. hobie's likability is literally written into the story as dependent on how supportive he is of him. if hobie denies miles something he wants-- like gwen-- he will be framed as a bad person.

chapter 5 iii

... if in btsv the anti-authority spider-punk encourages a girl to enter a het relationship that'll only end in her losing her autonomy... that's some bullshit.

so when he's given that choice in these fics, he tells miles as much. that's the start of their fight.

hobie has miles's back. he is not miles's yes man. he would not do that shit.

"when two girls fight about a guy, it's never actually about the guy" -- something margo's realized after visiting mj-616b. it's true of any relationship squabble: it's about the underlying issues in the two people doing the fighting, not the person they're fighting over.

miles and hobie were using the topic of gwen as a way to get mad at each other about their respective insecurities, and how they've failed to help each other get over them.

the rootkit returns: miguel canonically noticed margo for her coding skills. in the fic, he chose her because he realized she was capable of zoning out, following shitty orders and desensitizing herself to their consequences.

hobie needs no persuasion to rebel against the society. margo does, and got it from their conversation. conversely, margo needs no persuasion to embrace her feelings for miles, but hobie's not quite there yet with gwen until margo gives him a push.

hobie making the portal watch is paralleled to margo making miles the admin key. both consciously choose to build something that will give the person they care for what they need, and are changed by the process of building it. both are in love.

margo loves miles, but she's not dependent on him. if letting him go leads to him never returning, she'll move on. she's affirmed in who she is, she's confident, she knows she'll find someone else.

miles got his ass kicked by miguel. not as bad as in atsv, but he's still a little fucked up.

miles is fully past his need to prove himself to gwen.

part of me still wanted to preserve that plot thread of a girl who loves miles needing to come clean to him about the society's deception. couldn't be gwen, because she's on a completely different plot of her own. margo ended up working well-- she's a member of the society, she definitely knew, and she's a secret-keeper.

and margo, as in atsv, is the one to send him to earth-42.

"i'm glad i met you" is as close as these awkward teens can get to "i love you" at this point.

gwen's arc in arachnophobia was constructed in part to mirror miles's in atsv and btsv, and miles's in turn was altered to mirror hers-- but they differ in a few key places. for instance: both need to find validation in themselves and not the society. gwen's arc is about finding her autonomy and going it alone, miles's is about embracing his community. so in this moment where they both are given something by their love interest that offers them a chance to meet their villainized alternate self, gwen goes alone. miles brings some friends.

chapter 6

earth-42's as much an anomaly as miles is.

margo coming in person is a culmination of her arc: she's finally ready to fully commit physically and emotionally instead of keeping herself detached emotionally and behind a screen. all the more impactful because as far as she knows, this world is dangerous.

margo's also never been in another dimension where she can smell, taste and feel. up until now all the sensory details in other worlds she's visited have been restricted to sight and sound. naturally, she's gonna be a little weird about it.

since she's never gone worldhopping before i figure she'd probably come prepared. she's got a big bulky backpack full of stuff, including the tech she needs to access her powers.

miles pissed off his parents a lot this summer.

it's a given that they'll be found out and punished for coming to 42.

margo's never been in the same physical space as the boy she likes. it's gonna make for some charged interactions.

tied in with margo's eavesdropping habit: yup, she heard gwen and hobie getting nasty. before, she didn't get it at all. now, when she can experience touch for herself, she gets why it's so appealing.

margo and miles are awkward teens. naturally they're gonna stammer their way out of a Real Date and end up inviting a friend as a buffer.

and miles is all about inclusion. he wants to be on everyone's team. he wants to bring everyone along with him. of course he'd bring as many friends as he can... which unfortunately is just two, in this fic.

also i wanted peni and margo's friendship back in focus. important for margo's first time physically in another world to be about more than just romance. it's connection of all kinds, including friendship.

the parallels between miles winning the visions lottery AND getting bitten by the spider, in both cases technically 'taking someone else's spot/opportunity' make me insane.

they're teenagers on a spur of the moment mission. of course they're gonna fuck it up.

so much of the city in earth-42 is on fire. someone's gotta bring it up.

margo's the guy in the chair. she has no idea what to do in the field. it's safer for her to be away from the action.

thought it'd be funny if all the outlets on 42 don't work on her tech, so she's truly depowered.

this is a world where there presumably aren't many heroes. people would probably assume the worst of peni.

this being margo's first outing, she's naturally going to be insecure about not being able to operate as byte. and this chapter's all about the importance of margo sans powers-- just her personality is enough.

margo, like a lot of terminally online teens, is a lot more confident online. in person, she's much more awkward.

boy it WOULD be some bullshit if btsv confirms that margo's an mj only to say 'whoops! this is the ONE time spider-man doesn't pick her!'

it's bs that gwen, hypercompetent spider-hero, wanders around 1610b for a whole week without accomplishing anything when she's so on the ball during her screentime in itsv. justified here as an effect of being in a different dimension without a portal watch: it kinda fries your brain for a while. it's not your story, so the default is you're not allowed to make choices that matter. it takes time to break through that boundary when you're new at it. like margo currently is.

also adding a bit more creep factor to the society: hq's in 928 so miguel can be extra sharp in comparison to everyone else.

margo's a spider-person. she might not have the powers, but she's got the nerve for what they do.

tiana toomes is miles's current love interest in the comics, and far and away the best one he's ever had. she's not in these movies because she was created after atsv was too deep into production to add her, but there's a chance she could be in btsv. i want that badly. she's the vulture's antiheroine granddaughter, and 42's run by the sinister six cartel, including him, so earth-42 presents a great opportunity for tiana to cameo.

since miles is a hero and tiana's an antihero in the comics, and miles g is (probably) an antihero on 42, i figure tiana also gets a slide down the morality scale. here, she's an antivillain. working for her grandpa, but with conflicted feelings about it. (miles can fix her.)

thus her cameo here: if she sees an unidentified mecha zooming past her grandpa's business, she's gonna knock her ass out of the sky and steal her shit. but she also won't let margo die.

margo dropping a tiana ref in her salty call to miles is what gets g to pick up. that, and mentioning his dad in danger: it confirms that miles is being honest about his intentions.

speaking of, presumably g ambushed miles like in atsv. not for being at his mom's, but for being an unfamiliar villain (he thinks) in his territory. and presumably, there's still a punching bag interrogation from which miles escapes.

past that, who knows. insert the events of btsv here. this chapter was a nightmare to write, and all of the miles/g stuff was kept off-page for that reason. that's also why the girls take ages to find them-- so they have time to fight, gain each other's trust, and bond.

that's g on the line. the girls are close enough to miles to recognize that it isn't him instantly. they're gonna come looking.

the hoops i jumped through in this chapter to avoid writing miles g bc i don't know what his personality is yet. whew. i'll never be satisfied with chapter 6, but it'll age better because of that choice.

anyway off the crumbs of info we have on him, we know that he acts similar enough to miles1610 that rio can't tell the difference when they interact at first, therefore miles g is, at least around his mom, sweet, nerdy and a bit of a dork. and the prowler act is just that-- peacocking to make himself seem tougher than he is.

all the same, i figure he's probably a bit more cynical/suspicious. he comes from a rougher world, his dad died recently, and he's taken on the prowler mantle to (based off some concept art:) engage in vigilantism against the cartel. he's hardened a bit as a result.

anyway: tianamiles crumb. in this fic, i think these two have a situationship going on on the side. something batcatty. uncle aaron finds it hilarious. miles g is touchy about it.

he also doesn't know what tiana looks like, so he's going to assume margo is her.

which means miles g can let his mask slip around a stranger he'd otherwise be cautious around.

no dramatic face-off between 42miles and the spidergang here. the fight's over before margo even turns up. her confidence and determination is what matters, not an actual threat of violence. she's fully formed.

first hug! first kiss!

the original plan was for margo to draw the davis's attention away so peni could move into position to bust up the apartment. narrowly avoided.

chapter 7

bringing back the flash drive from chapter 1: margo's first trip to another dimension didn't rely on a watch. she still has the code, so she can replicate it. therefore, she can drop in on miles and peni even without a watch, but she's stuck as an avatar again.

miles is an artist. he's gotta hate ai art.

irony: margo's right back where she started, an avatar with a digital boyfriend.

miles reconciling with hobie happens after his conversation with gwen in arachnophobia 7.

which means he's getting a bootleg, and margo's about to get one too.

cue margo getting to explore the multiverse in person. and she's less dependent on constant distractions and a life of constant internet stimulation to keep her from feeling bad. she's starting to embrace real life too.

which makes her an oddity in her world.

timeline: miles and margo are juniors at this point. which means their futures are starting to loom.

and since school's online on 22191, margo's not getting a break from her family situation... unless she decides to go elsewhere.

enter gwen: arachnophobia goes into why she's like this. the gist is, she and a group of her alt-selves are planning to take out the spider-society. also she has a symbiote.

rootkit returns. gwen needs it to fuck up the computer system, and margo's bitter that her software's being used without her.

timeline jump: and now it's the end of the school year.

the jealousy's gone. margo doesn't want approval from the society or its leaders anymore, and has no desire to stay there. she doesn't need validation from anyone but herself, and the boy she loves isn't putting her behind gwen.

gwen's em jay in the movies is black. it makes sense that she'd catch on first; the thing that makes margo being an mj unbelievable to most people is a given to her.

gwen and miles were never together in these fics, but they behave like they went through a breakup, so they might as well have been. they're never not gonna be roasted for that.

gwen's end of the jealousy: gwen never wanted to leave her world or her family, so she resents that margo gets to go home at the end of the day. she doesn't like the attention she's getting and would rather be left alone to do her job, which is exactly what margo gets.

and margo's an mj. editorially, gwen was killed off because the writers were bored of her and wanted to make room for mj (and instead of letting gwen move on with her life, they had to make sure she'd never move on from peter. ugh.). so in a literal sense, mj's introduction to spider-man starts the clock on gwen's death. that's the source of gwen's hostility: feeling like if margo and miles get close, her time will start running out. it's less jealousy, more self-preservation.

love triangles done wrong are about fluffing the ego of the person in the middle by making two people fight over them. it's especially gross when it's two girls being pitted against each other for a guy. bro, you're not that impressive.

when two girls fight over a guy it's not about the guy. it's about the girls feeling inadequate. the boy's not the reason, he's the excuse.

there is actually a world where mj kills gwen with fireworks. wild.

margo and gwen don't have to fight because they're girls. they also don't have to be besties just because they're girls. there are months of cold shouldering to get over, and they have very different personalities.

but gwen CAN help margo with a unique problem.

(gwen-457's in arachnophobia. i figured two tech-based heroes would get along, thus the mention of a margo friendship)

gwen fled a dysfunctional situation into another world... but who also eventually went home. if margo's going to do the same, she needs to know why she went back.

gwen's dad having a potential cop relapse is a ref to the spider-gwen mcguire run, where george... sigh. goes back to being a police chief.

so's the "commuting" ref. gwen does this in the mcguire run-- going to school in 616 and living in 65. it does not work!

as this fic is written, gwen's getting tossed into 616 'for good' in the comics to synergize with the sv movies. it's going to be a disaster for her character because she doesn't function without her own world.

it absolutely feels like they're planning to force her and miles together. major salt at that.

more salt: you can't call gwen a hero in good conscience if she ditches her world for an easier one. that's not heroic.

spider-gwen, and arguably gwen stacy as a whole, is simply not a character a married-with-kids ending works for. hobie's the same, which makes him one of the best options for a love interest for her. both aren't the domestic type, both aren't ~relationship~ people, and both need their own worlds. they're on the same page.

gwen in general can't find that balance between hero and love interest. movie salt: even when she's the hero, all it takes is for one spider-man to get a crush on her to strip that away.

mj can make that balance. she's been a hero, she's been a love interest, she gets much more agency in her appearances.

margo approaches gwen for advice on her plan to move dimensions.

but she's apprehensive because she's worried about how doing it for a relationship will land with gwen, given her baggage with that motivation.

another dig! this one's at the fandom: the council of spider-women is an all-spider-gwen secret society from the comics. it does not exist so they can wingman gwen as she feeds herself to a relationship that'll take her autonomy away. it is literally there to do the opposite. they wouldn't support gwiles, they'd get her an escape plan out of that relationship.

possible preemptive salt at btsv: i swear to god. if the council appears there, and gwiles support is the purpose they serve, i'll go rabid.

if miles g is how we nickname miles42, gwen m would be the nickname for an alternate gwen. a pun on gwenom, too. i didn't think of that when i was writing arachnophobia, but i have it now! damn!

tianamiles crumb. gotta give em where i can.

it is worth noting that "everyone gets a gwen and an mj" is a shitty idea. that's for peter. let the other spiders have their own distinct love interests... like tiana, for miles.

the counterpoint, for this fic, is that margo does qualify as something new, since miles has never had an mj, and there's never been one like her before.

margo loves miles and they're great together. they're also 16 and each other's first romance. it's better not to assume they'll last forever. thus, apprehension is appropriate. moving dimensions for a relationship is shaky. doing it for a variety of reasons is much more stable.

finally, gwen stacy gets mj and spider-man together in the end. that still happens here. and instead of margo having to wingman gwen and miles together, gwen performs that role for margo.

chapter 8/epilogue

i feel it in my soul that margo would hate irl concerts. she's short, it's loud, it stinks. no thanks.

koca-soda= miles's coke.

the bugs margo prefers are digital ones. excuse for spider-puns.

i'm recycling the rooftop party scene from atsv here: it happens a year later, and it's not about jeff's promotion, but it still happens, and miles still awkwardly introduces his girlfriend to his parents.

margo's gonna be awkward in person if she spends all her time socializing online.

miles drew gwen. he'd draw margo too. and rio would definitely look at his sketchbooks.

a year ago, after gwen dumped miles, he went home and cried about it. thus, rio wants to hunt gwen for sport.

miles counts the relationship from when they started meeting in person, in january, when he got his bootleg watch. margo counts it from the earth-42 mission.

recycling miles's 'my interdimensional girlfriend is just from out of town' excuse from atsv

like in atsv, rio's initially hostile to miles's love interest because she's afraid she'll take him away from her.

rio comes around to margo because margo also wants miles to be happy and close to home. jeff comes around to her because she seems practical.

... miles did a lot of unhinged shit over the summer to protect his dad after his promotion. stuff like trying to get him out of the captain position by screwing him up on the job.

the spot's back! more on this in arachnophobia 8.

didn't write the fight because idk what happens there other than that miles definitely saves his dad and reveals he's spider-man to his parents. we'll wait for btsv i guess.

anyway, margo's tipping point for deciding to move to 1610b after graduation is meeting his family and realizing that she wants to be a part of it.

(if you'll recall, margo comes from a world where meeting with a romantic partner in person is indicative of serious commitment.)

she's taking from gwen's commuter idea, and the assertion that a relationship/dimension move doesn't have to be permanent as well. margo will live and go to school in 1610b, and perform vigilante services as byte on 22191. she can do both!

again, margo and miles are 16/17. they're great together, but they still might not last. and that's okay. margo can have a full, rich life on 1610b or beyond, without him if she needs to, and since this is a margo fic before it's a flowerbyte fic, i wanted to underline that one more time. getting the guy is second to finally feeling good about herself and like she belongs somewhere.

movie night's from the spider within short film. it's a tradition miles and his dad have. by including margo, jeff's letting her know he's accepted her and wants her to be a part of the family.

[bnhaobservation]

The facts taking place during BNHA second year: April & May

So, in order to write my fic, I spend much time observing canon scenes, comparing the manga and the anime version, take note of details, translations and info in them as well as finding out how are some things called.

Since what I noticed/speculated/found out can be of use for other fic authors I thought to share as well.

OBSERVATIONS, SPECULATIONS AND ASSORTED INFO:

You might notice a special focus on the Todoroki family as all their birthdays and statuses are listed. That’s because this timeline was originally meant to focus solely on them and then I included info about the other characters.

LEGENDA:

BNHA: “Boku no Hero Academia” manga.

TIMELINE (JANUARY, FEBRUARY & MARCH)

DARK HERO ARC

APRIL (end of the first week): Spring break is over. [Usually this is the date in which it ends in Japanese schools]

APRIL’S SECOND WEEK: Todoroki Enji (46) is Number One Pro Hero of Japan. Todoroki Rei has been evacuated at U.A. high, along with Todoroki Fuyumi (23), who likely can’t work, and Todoroki Natsuo (19), who likely can’t study. Todoroki Shōto (16) is also at U.A. High but he’s being kept as a 1st course. Todoroki Tōya (24) is hiding with the rest of the League.

APRIL (THE DAY BEFORE MIDORIYA LEAVES U.A.): Imasuji Gōto/Muscular shows up in the south ward [BNHA Chap 307]

APRIL (SECOND WEEK): Midoriya Izuku leaves U.A. Academy. Shindō Yō/Grand and Nakagame Tatami/Turtle Neck try to persuade the people holed up in the Taguchi building to leave the place and take shelter at Ketsubutsu Academy High School without success and, when they leave the place, they're attacked by a jailbreaker, Imasuji Gōto/Muscular. Midoriya spots a huge Villain, likely talking about Muscolar and runs there just in time to save Shindō Yō and defeat Muscular. Makabe Shikku/Mr. Smith and Tōteki Itejirō/Boomerang Man run to help only to see Muscular having been defeated, Midoriya then handing him to the police and then joins Yagi Toshinori/All Might. Midoriya leaves as Todoroki Enji/Endeavor and Hakamada Tsunagu/Best Jeanist are defeating the huge Villain of chap 1 and Takami Keigo/Hawks is phoning to All Might. [BNHA Chap 306 to 309 Likely we're on the second week of April, as the scene is meant to match the one of the 1st chapter]

APRIL (A STORMY NIGHT): Civilians attack a giant heteromorph which Horikoshi simply calls ‘ordinary woman’ but Midoriya Izuku saves her and then entrusts her to All Might who gives him a Bentō. [BNHA Chap 310 This might be taking place on the same day as before… or not. We don't know]

APRIL (A STORMY DAY): Todoroki Enji/Endeavor captures more escaped convicts but the civilians chase him away. At night Tsutsumi Kaina/Lady Nagant attacks Midoriya Izuku but she’s defeated by him and when she considers helping him All for One causes her to explode. She still tells him she was supposed to bring him within two months to a mansion in Haibori woods. Chisaki Kai/Overhaul, who was with her, is captured. [BNHA Chap 311-316 This might be taking place on the same day as before. We don't know]

APRIL: Punching Hero: Death Arms quits on being a Hero [BNHA Chap 317 It's two days before the Heroes reunion]

APRIL: Midoriya Izuku and the Heroes go to the mansion in Haibori woods but only see a video of All for One before the house explodes. Midoriya still manages to save them all. [BNHA Chap 316]

APRIL: The Heroes have a little reunion in which they discuss what to do. Todoroki Shōto/Shōto phones to his father who however doesn't answer. As the Heroes have their reunion Midoriya Izuku runs into a second hired gun and easily defeats it then tells Yagi Toshinori/All Might to stop tailing him. Akaguro Chizome/Stain spots All Might. [BNHA Chap 317. It could be in the same day in which the Heroes went to the mansion in Haibori wood. We don't know.]

APRIL (A FEW DAYS AFTER MIDORIYA LEFT U.A.): Class A talks about what to do in regard to Midoriya Uraraka Ochako/Uravity proposing to bring the matter to Nezu. [BNHA Chap 319]

APRIL: Todoroki Enji informs Midoriya the official dispatch dates for the foreign Heroes will be decided soon. Midoriya defeats more Villains. [BNHA Chap. 318]

APRIL (A FEW DAYS AFTER CLASS A'S APPEAL TO THE PRINCIPAL): Nezu summons Todoroki Enji/Endeavor at U.A. and let class 1 A face him. Ultimately he relents and gives them the means to locate Midoriya. [BNHA Chap 319]

APRIL (35 DAYS AFTER ALL FOR ONE'S PRISON BREAK): Midoriya faces Dictator, his classmates join him, helps him defeat Dictator and try to persuade him to go back to U.A. high. Hawks phones to Todoroki Enji asking if they should have Best Jeanist pull Midoriya out of that situation but the latter say to not interfere. Class A finally manages to persuade Midoriya to rely on them and come back to U.A. high. There however, the civilians doesn’t want to let him in but then, after Uraraka’s speech, they accept for him to stay. All Might leaves U.A. high and meets up with Stain who hands him the information he got from a Tartarus guard and then tells him to come for him as he’s the man who murdered 40 Heroes (since when he was arrested they were only 17, I guess he murdered more once he left prison). All Might hands the information to Tsukauchi Naomasa, patches things up with Midoriya Izuku and then joins again the police. The info says Shigaraki Tomura’s body will be ready in 38 days and not in 2 months as they believed it would. [BNHA Chap 318 to 327 Since they would still have 3 more days before Shigaraki would be ready, and it’s late in the evening, it means we’re at the end of the 35 days]

STAR AND STRIPE ARC

MAY (IT’S 36 DAYS AFTER THE TARTARUS PRISON BREAK AND ONE DAY AFTER MIDORIYA IS AT U.A.): While at a world conference they discuss All Might, Endeavor and Hawks plea for help,Cathleen Bate/Star and Stripe, U.S.A. Number 1 Hero, leaves for Japan without asking for permission. All for One discusses his plans with Iguchi Shūichi/Spinner, whom Chikazoku Tomoyasu/Skeptic is trying to promote as the new liberator. Toga Himiko and Todoroki Tōya/Dabi are outside the leagues’s hideout. On the way to Japan Star and Stripe

faces Shigaraki Tomura, who’s under All for One’s control. The two fight and while he manages to decay her and steal from her New Order, as her last order was for New Order to revolt against other Quirks, with the result it starts destroying the Quirks inside him. This forces him to pass New Order to Kashi Kashiko. At the same time, as the other nations learn about Star and Stripes defeat, they refuse to dispatch their own Heroes. [BNHA Chap 327-334]

U.A. TRAITOR ARC

MAY (THE DAY AFTER – TWO DAYS AFTER MIDORIYA RETURNED TO U.A.): All Might informs class A that Shigaraki should have obtained a perfect body the next day but now it would take him a week to recover. Toga Himiko and Todoroki Tōya/Dabi are back at the leagues’s hideout, where Shigaraki is painfully recovering. All for One shares with them how he has friends to spare. Todoroki Shōto is working on perfecting Phosphor. Hagakure Tōru and Midoriya Izuku overheard Aoyama Yūga’s parents talking with him and discover he was All for One’s mole in class A as All for One granted him a Quirk 10 years ago and so he and his parents are arrested. Midoriya Izuku and Īda Tenya ask Hatsume Mei for more support items. Once they’ve them they join the search team. In Kansai, Amajiki Tamaki/Suneater, Hadō Nejire/Nejire-chan, Toyomitsu Taishirō/BMI Hero: Fat Gum and Tatsuma Ryūko/Dragoon Hero: Ryukyu are also hunting convicts. All Might and the League of Villains/Paranormal Liberation Front counterforce discuss their plan while Central Hospital is checking if there are explosives in Aoyama. Once none is found Aizawa Shōta/Erasure Hero: Eraser Head talks to him and persuade him to fight. In the evening Toga Himiko visits her old house and, once she has left it, Todoroki Tōya/Dabi burns it down for her while Shigaraki Tomura is ‘conqueering the Quirk doomsday theory’. Chikazoku Tomoyasu/Skeptic pressures Iguchi Shūichi/Spinner to lead the Heteromorphs to revolt while All for One gives him one of the detatched hands Shigaraki Tomura used to have along with two extra Quirks. All Might informs the kids at the dorms of their battle strategy. Shinso is also added to their group as Mera, the acting HPSC president gave him special permission to act even if he doesn’t have a license. Takami Keigo/Hawks informs the Heroes of their battle strategy. Aizawa asks Monoma Neito/Phantom Thief’s cooperation, telling him to learn to copy Kurogiri’s Quirk. [BNHA Chap 334-342]

MAY (THE FOLLOWING DAY): As the school principal announces All for One is going to make a big move in 4 days Midoriya Izuku leaves U.A. with Class A and transfer in the fortress Troy. Once there he talks with Usasaka Ochako about their feelings toward Tomura Shigaraki and Toga Himiko. Todoroki Shōto spends the evening with Bakugō Katsuki and Īda Tenya. All for One talks with Aoyama Yūga’s parents and decides to attack the day after. [BNHA Chap 342]

FINAL WAR ARC

MAY (THE DAY AFTER): The Final battle starts. The Villains are split in various locations. All for One ends in Gunga Mountains Villa ruins to face Endeavor and Hawks. Shigaraki Tomura ends in U.A., Sky-High Tomb, to face Best Jeanist, Edgeshot, Suneater, Nejire-chan, Dynamight, Eraser Head, Phantom Thief, Lemillion. Deku should have also ended here but Toga Himiko, who ends on Okuto island to face Uravity, Froppy and Gang Orca, manages to drag him with herself. Dabi ends up in Kamino Ward, to face Shōto, Ingenium and Endeavor’s sidekicks while Spinner was near Central Hospital to try to free Kurogiri and some other Villains were already as Jaku ruins trying to free Gigantomachia. Deku manages to leave Okuto island, trying to go back to where Shigaraki is. Shōto apparently defeats Dabi with his new move but he’ll be up again short later and capable to use Shōto’s new move, Endeavor gets seriously wounded and loses his right arm but then manages to burn All for One seriously enough to force him to use a rewind bullet. Dynamight’s heart gets fatally wounded but Edgeshots works to revive him. Deku reaches Shigaraki and the two start fighting. Toga Himiko uses Twice’s blood to create doubles. Although Tentacole’s words stop the Heteromorph revolt near Central Hospital, Spinner reaches and free Kurogiri who brings Dabi to his father and spreads Toga Himiko’s clones. Uravity and Froppy manages to tail her though. Gentle Criminal will save U.A. from dropping from the sky and La Brava will override Skeptic’s control on U.A. computers while Skeptic will be arrested. Endeavor leads Dabi away from the battle ground, only to discover his body will explode soon. Unable to stop him he tries to have him explode in the sky, planning to die with him. His family joins and try to freeze Dabi, but they’ll succeed only when Shōto will join them. His family and Dabi though will be seriously burned. Uravity will try to stop Toga Himiko and gets stabbed but finally she’ll manage to calm her down. As the effect of Twice’s blood ends Toga Himiko, in order to save Uravity, gives her all her blood and dies. All Might will fight All for One, causing him to further rewind and will be saved by a revived Dynamight who’ll manage to trigger All for One’s final rewind. Deku will fight against Shigaraki, he’ll manage to reach out to Tenko only for All for One to take control of Shigaraki. Eventually though, through the combined efforts of Deku, the Heroes, the previous owners of One for All and even Shigaraki All for One will be defeated, Shigaraki’s body disintegrating, even though Kurogiri tried to protect it, which will lead also to Kurogiri’s death. [BNHA Chap 343-423]

EPILOGUE

MAY (ONE WEEK AFTER): The other countries show up to help Japan’s reconstruction. Bakugō Katsuki’s armi s declared permanently damaged and prescribed bed rest for a while. All Might and Midoriya are also still in hospital, but Midoriya now only has One for All’s embers which will eventually die out like they did with All Might. Bakugō, who has just gone to him, cries as he hears about him and All Might told them they are his greatest Heroes. [BNHA Chap 424]

MAY: Midoriya is enough healed he can go back to school and attend to the graduation ceremony of Togata, Amajiki and Hadō, which had been postponed till now. Aoyama drops by to say bye to his class as he’s going to leave U.A. while Shinsō instead will join class A. The whole Todoroki family go to visit Tōya who’s held prisoner in a contraption and slowly dying. They tell him they want to talk with him as long as he’s alive. Before they leave Shōto asks him which is his favorite food and learns it’s soba, same as him. Once alone, thinking back at this, Tōya cries and apologizes to Shōto. As the Todoroki are outside Natsuo informs them he doesn’t plan to see his father ever again and that he has decided to marry his girlfriend. Endeavor’s sidekicks and Hawks, who’s the new HPSC president, offer Endeavor their support, Lady Nagant let Hawks know she prefers to stay in jail while La Brava and Gentle Criminal reunite. [BNHA Chap 424-426]

MAY (THE DAY AFTER): Midoriya visits Spinner to bring him Shigaraki’s last words. Spinner tells him he’ll write a book about Shigaraki to let the world know who he was. As for Chisaki Kai he meets the Shie Hassakai boss. Meanwhile a boy has left the basement of his own house and is wandering through the city. The new students start their first day chasing after Bakugō and Todoroki Shōto. Class A helps in the reconstruction of the city and the new students join. People also support them. In the evening Class A discovers Uraraka isn’t there as she claimed she wanted to go back home. She’s instead on a cliff thinking back at how Toga Himiko died to save her life. Midoriya reaches her and the two of them talk. Class A joins them. [BNHA Chap 426-429 I would have thought Midoriya meeting Spinner would take place in another day but Midoriya commented that was the same day in which the new first years would join so...]

MAY: Aoyama’s farewell party. All Might and Hawks talk about broadening the scope of the billboard chart. Meanwhile the unnamed boy continues to wander through the city in desperate need for help until the old lady who didn’t help Shigaraki when he was a child volunteers to help him, Uraraka and Midoriya seeing the scene. [BNHA Chap 429]

JULY 1: Todoroki Natsuo turns 20.

AUGUST 8: Todoroki Enji/Endeavor turns 47.

DECEMBER 6: Todoroki Fuyumi turns 24.

[kazuyumi1412]

Welp, I'm bored, and my mind is running, so I'll just be going on one of my OC rambles for once. If you want to stick around, you can.

Anywho, let's get into the OC rambles! But not just my usual OC rambles (I'll probably talk about my Big 3 series later on.), but rambles about characters that I haven't thought about in a very long time.

The Archives

To be honest, I can't remember all of my OCs, because 1. I have way too many to keep track of, and 2. Some of them are from series that I've long since deleted. The ones I'll get into are from a series that I developed a few years ago (about 2018-2019), ramble about the basics of their character, their relation/effect on my current work, and maybe how I'd revise them if I rewrote their stories.

...

You still here? Okay then. My rambles will be under the "read more".

...ALRIGHTY! Let's get this show on the road.

Crystal Monsters

Vague title, I know, but it's an old work. Originally created back in early 2019, this was about two high school students, Kenya and Kairi, and their attempts to retrieve the rogue Crystal Monsters that Kairi accidentally released out into their hometown of Windbrook. It was a bit of a mix of Pokémon, Digimon, and (if you know it) the Magi Nation series, with the Crystal Tamers being able to summon captured Monsters in order to help them fight other monsters and, later on, the Crystal Hunters.

I actually wanted to ramble about both of the main characters, since I have a lot on my mind for both of them, as well as three of the secondary characters.

~~~

Looking back, Kenya Yuudachi was the first of many similar protagonists, being a reserved, black-haired young man with one or two close friends that meets a mysterious person and gets pulled into an adventure that helps pull them out of their comfort zone. (Harley Quinn from "Heart Thief Harlequin" also plays into this archetype, and to some extent, so does Vesper Queen from their titular series.) He was mainly left on his own due to his parents being away for work, so he had to take care of himself, which also meant dealing with his bullies with very little help aside from his friends, Mizuki and Hiroki. Although Kairi is the main instigator of the story, I liked focusing on Kenya's viewpoint due to how he changes Kairi's. While Kairi uses force in order to seal away the escaped Crystal Monsters, he talks them down and tries to get to the root of why they're doing what they do, even if it puts him into sticky situations. Even though his arc is about earning self-confidence and learning to stand up for himself, he doesn't stray away from his kind and pacifistic nature.

If I had to change him in the future, I'd definitely emphasize his own struggles a bit more, since with the story concept that I had, it focused more on the "Monster-of-the-week" shtick. Also, I'd try to get into why Kenya has his "Crystal Sense", where he gets a chill up his spine when a previously uncaptured Crystal Monster is nearby, as well as why this makes him more resistant to the Crystal Monsters' abilities. (Admittedly, I wrote "Crystal Monsters" without any real plan outside of bare-bones chapter notes and a list of 50+ monsters.)

~~~

As for Kairi Amemori, Kenya's foil and the deuteragonist/secondary protagonist of the story, she's contributed to quite a few characters, even if they don't play the same role as she does. One of them would be Raito Himura from "Kaiju Kid" due to their willingness to fight and short temper, as well as Chèvre Fontaine from "Hero Syndrome" due to their cocky/snarky nature, though she more directly influenced characters like Elena Ryder from "Heart Thief Harlequin" as the extroverted supporting character. So far, though, she's been the only character to 1. Wear roller skates (They're a big part of her outfit.), and 2. Prominently carry a weapon (Her katana). As stated, she's the main instigator of the events in "Crystal Monsters" due to accidentally releasing all of the Crystal Monsters onto Windbrook. She tends to take the physical route when it comes to dealing with Crystal Monsters. However, this proves to be detrimental in certain cases, and Kenya tends to step in to use his methods. She's pretty much the polar opposite of Kenya in personality, being a bit snarky and nonchalant, but also all for fighting if the situation calls for it.

Honestly, if I were to rewrite her, I'd try to expand on her character a bit more, since even though she appears a lot, she actually doesn't have too much of a visible character arc, and I'd want to make her a bit more relatable. I'd also touch on why she doesn't have the same "Crystal Sense" that Kenya does despite having dealt with Crystal Monsters much more than he has.

~~~

Moving onto the secondary characters, I think Mizuki Inoue, one of Kenya's friends, has been my greatest original inspiration for Cordelia Sterling's character from the "Inquisitive Minds" series, a.k.a. DLN. Not only do they both have long, black hair and rather petitie builds (not to mention similar voices, since I voice Cordelia with my "Mizuki" voice, which is a higher version of my own voice), but they're also the hearts of their respective stories and have a great effect on those closest to them, being Kenya and Remington respectively. Put simply, Mizuki is one of Kenya's childhood friends, and is one of the people that helps him get through the day with his sanity. She initially doesn't know about his exploits, and whenever she did find out, she had her mind wiped by one of Kairi's Crystal Monsters, but she eventually becomes a part of their team near the end of the story. She was honestly the sweetheart of the story, being supportive of the main characters regardless of what was going on.

Frankly, even though I love her as the resident sweetheart, I think that I'd give her a bit more background in a rewrite. I want to show a bit more of her potential and more of her emotional range outside of her being happy and upset. (In other words, I want to give this girl some rightful rage.)

~~~

Unfortunately, Hiroki Yamada, Kenya's other friend, wasn't really developed much outside of being the extroverted athletic friend with a bit of an accent, but I still liked the potential that he held. I think he mainly contributed to Elena's character from "Heart Thief Harlequin", but also Lazarus Vega from the "Vesper Queen" series. He's generally the easygoing friend, but isn't going down without a fight when confronted. He also doesn't know about Kenya's escapades, also having his mind wiped whenever he found out, but near the end of the story, Mizuki asks for his help in order to save Kenya and Kairi when they get abducted, becoming an unofficial Crystal Tamer alongside her.

Frankly, in a rewrite, I'd write more about him. He's honestly kind of a flat character despite the scrapes he's put in, and I really want his character to shine through more.

~~~

The last person I'm rambling about is actually not a Crystal Tamer, but a Crystal Monster that helps Kairi and Kenya on occasions. As a human, he goes under the alias Gin Kaikyu, but his actual name as a Crystal Monster is Gigao. Frankly, his greatest contribution has been to Raito Himura's character, since they're both blonde-haired characters whose eyes turn red when they transform, not to mention have similar powers. Gin doesn't turn into a kaiju like Raito does, but as his true name suggests, he has the ability to enlarge things, which includes objects, other people, and himself. Hence, "Giga". He plays into the archetype of the bad boy with a heart of gold, though the "bad boy" aspect is less about his actual personality and more about his general appearance and resting bitch face scaring other people. (If you know him, Ban Kenji from Heartcatch Precure is a big part of Gin's inspiration.) I made his character so he'd be a Crystal Monster in disguise, showing that they can blend in alongside other humans due to their human-like appearance.

To be honest, I like how his character is currently, being a supporting character for Kenya's development as well as being his own character, but if I had to change anything, I'd have a bit more of a buildup to his reveal, as well as more hints that he's a Crystal Monster beforehand. I still want to keep the thread where he goes to school alongside the others like a normal person, while also helping Kairi and Kenya when they get into trouble.

~~~

ANYWHO! That's all my rambling. I might ramble about other characters in the future, but I'm definitely planning on rambling about the Big 3 series (Inquisitive Minds/DLN, Heart Thief Harlequin, and Vesper Queen) later on. Hope you liked this ramble, and I hope you stick around for the next one!

[ketilsfarm]

Preface and PSA, I write Torgrim/Atli and Thorgil/Olmar :) as in the ships :) but my information is accurate! If you don’t like what I ship you’re free to block me instead of whining.

I thought I would write a little something about the various sibling terms used in VS, as Japanese has so many different ones that tell you a little bit about the relationships that doesn’t necessarily translate into English.

In Japanese, as in many Asian cultures, younger siblings don’t call their older siblings by their first name alone; they’ll use one of the words meaning “older sibling”, or sometimes “[name]” followed by an older sibling suffix. For example, if your older brother is named Tarou, you wouldn’t call him that, but “nii-san” or “Tarou-niisan”. Older siblings will use just their younger sibling’s name, but referring to them in conversation they’ll always use a word meaning “my younger sibling”; there is no option that excludes age entirely. We will see one option in this post that doesn’t specify age at all, but this wouldn’t be used between real siblings since there’s an inherent hierarchy of respect based on age.

Th0rfinn and Ylva. Th0rfinn calls her ane-ue, which is an older formal term of address that isn’t really in use today. He uses the matching chichi-ue and haha-ue for his parents, which is basically the equivalent of using Father and Mother vs. Dad and Mom today, very proper words that hint at Th0rs’ and Helga’s origins and suggest they’re from wealth or nobility. (As the older sibling, Ylva just uses Th0rfinn’s name.)

Atli and Torgrim. Atli uses anija most of the time. This is another archaic word for an older brother that’s no longer in use today. Its use is more due to the historical setting, and because of the informal way Atli speaks, it doesn’t carry the same high-class connotations as Th0rfinn’s ane-ue. He also uses aniki once in the third person (kono aniki, “my big bro here”), and the anime expands this to have him shout “Aniki!” in their younger days when Torgrim gets knocked out. Aniki is a very informal and masculine term for a big brother, similar to “bro”.

In their first scene together, Torgrim addresses him only as otouto (”little brother”)—as the older sibling he would usually use Atli’s name with no honorific, so this deliberately hides Atli’s name from the reader. In the third person, Torgrim uses koitsu (”this guy”) instead of kare (”him”). This can be dismissive or derogatory, but in the context of their relationship and style of speech it’s more like “This guy! My buddy!” They actually have no names at all until Askel4dd calls them up to chop down the bridge, and possibly they weren’t meant to be recurring characters originally; they’re just “the older brother” and “the younger brother” in their talk with Willibald.

(Side note: I say that Atli speaks informally, which is what he does during the prologue arc. When we see him much later begging the Jomsvikings for his freedom, he’s using very formal language because that’s how one addresses one’s social superiors. He’s basically throwing himself on his knees and abandoning all pride.)

One oddity is that he does, in fact, use Torgrim’s name once with no honorific! This doesn't really happen in manga/anime, even for characters who aren’t supposed to be Japanese. Like, for example, if you’re in middle school and your teacher suddenly collapses, you’re not gonna yell out their first name no matter how surprised you are. The honorific is just how you think of them in your head. It’s an odd thing to do, even in a dire situation. Either Yukimura threw it in because he’s aware that Westerners do this, or it’s just to remind us of Torgrim’s name after he’s been gone for a few chapters.

Gunnar and Ragnar. In the manga, Gunnar uses ラグナル兄, which today would most likely be read as “Ragnar-nii”! This is pretty cute and informal, and would be odd for characters of their age and status. It could also be “Ragnar-ani”. Ani is normal, but using it as a suffix is pretty nonstandard in my anime experience. (Notice that though he does use Ragnar’s name, he still adds an honorific automatically even in a moment of shock, in contrast to Atli’s weird moment.)

In the anime, they remove his use of Ragnar’s name entirely so he says just ani (normal way to refer to a big brother in third person) and then “Anija…” after learning of his death. I think this hints that the manga’s intention was “Ragnar-ani”, but again it’s just somewhat uncommon to use [name]-ani. Maybe it’s an old-timey thing.

Estrid, Canut3 and Harald. Estrid uses niisama for both, sometimes distinguishing them with “Canute-niisama” and “Harald-niisama”—an extremely respectful “big brother”, so royalty stuff. Canut3 uses ani-ou-heika, “my elder brother, His Majesty the King”, and Harald-ou: “King Harald”. Obviously very few people have reason to use those terms for their siblings.

Olmar and Thorgil. This is a really weird one: Olmar uses niichan, which is very informal and affectionate, and not at all something you’d expect to hear from a character with such pretensions to toughness. Aniki would be the default for someone like him, and I actually assumed without question that he was using aniki until I looked at the raws, saw niichan instead, and had to stare at the wall to calm down.

See, Olmar is from the Japanese delinquent archetype, and while it’s not unheard of for a tough guy or delinquent to use niichan, it usually implies a very close and mutually respectful relationship—or else the younger character is incredibly disrespectful and basically making fun of the older one. Obviously neither is the case here, so my assumption is that Thorgil just left home when Olmar was an actual small child who would reasonably use niichan, and hasn’t been back at all until the visit we see in canon. By way of comparison: when Snorri starts speaking (assuming everyone makes it out alive!), niichan is probably what he'll be calling Karli. For his parents, Olmar does use the more standard tough-guy terms oyaji and ofukuro (as does Thorgil).

Olmar also uses niichan in front of Canute, which is not something you would ever do even if you’re a more mild-mannered person who uses niichan regularly. This is too informal a word for any adult to use when speaking to his high-status brother’s boss, who also happens to be the king. Doing this is just… as weird and cringe and childish as the rest of his behavior in that scene. Perhaps the only endearing part of their relationship is that Thorgil doesn’t seem to mind. Again, I just can’t describe how odd it is for a character like him to be called niichan by an adult sibling with such a masculine, informal style of speech. The overall effect is to hint very blatantly that Olmar is nowhere near as tough as he pretends to be, and that his admiration for his brother is something very immature.

Ketil's daughter: Unknown! Olmar would presumably use the neechan, the equivalent of niichan, especially if she left home when he was young. She never appears and has no name, but yes, she's the canon middle child and they're all full siblings from the same mother. She would've been married into another rich family to help forge alliances, presumably at a rather young age. All we know is she's gone by the time Olmar's 17, and at that point is somewhere between 17 and Thorgil's age at the time, 24.

Aske1add and his brothers: He calls them all aniki when he's talking about them in the third person. He might have used something different when he was a child.

Th0rfinn and Einar. So, fun fact, they are not related! As such, they both call each other kyoudai after becoming sworn brothers. This word contains the characters for both “older sibling” and “younger sibling”, and can actually be written several different ways depending on the gender combination of the siblings. Their version, 兄弟, is “big brother + little brother”, and as a term of address this would never be used between real siblings, because it doesn’t label either “brother” as the older one. In Japanese even twins separated by a matter of minutes are designated the older sibling/younger sibling for their entire lives. Kyoudai as a term of address is used only between sworn siblings. It signifies that they’re 100% outside the age hierarchy, with no expectations of formality or deference on either side.

So yeah, no, they aren’t using any language associated with actual blood or adoptive relationships. It’s an expression of super ultra friendship that uses family metaphors because in ancient societies (including both Japanese and Norse culture) swearing these vows created the same obligation of lifelong support, protection and loyalty that one would owe to a family member. It’s not the same as getting adopted and having memories of being raised together.

Hrefna and H1ld: Onee-chan. Nothing special, totally normal for two young girls.

Unnamed guy and Eirik (BSW guy who gets shot in the head): Another moment similar to Atli’s here: The younger brother calls out both “Eirik!” and "aniki" separately. Again, Yukimura seems to be aware that Westerners use first names for their older siblings, but the majority of siblings in VS still stick to the Japanese rules predominantly.

Styrk and Ivar: This is downright freakish. As far as I know, Styrk uses only Ivar’s name without honorifics, up until he suddenly calls him "big bro" out of nowhere. (I don’t have the raws for later chapters, but based on some searching it looks like he uses aniki.) This basically doesn’t happen in Japanese, and my guess is its only purpose was for this reveal. It might hint that they’re actively trying to hide the fact that they’re related from other people? Aniki can be used for an older male friend you admire (Snake's men call him aniki, and he in turn used this for the real Iron Fist Ketil), but Japanese readers seem to be assuming that they are in fact blood related, and there wouldn’t be any purpose in waiting so long to use the word if they’re not.

They both address Ganglati by name only, and if he’s the third brother, this would usually tell us that he’s the youngest. But since Styrk is being weird about things, Ganglati could be the middle brother or even the oldest somehow! Or he might not be related at all. We’ll see.

[eagletrekkie]

Praetorian is something I've put a lot of love and work into over the past six years, and while I'm sad to see it leave my hands in a number of ways, I do think that, ultimately, its better for the story.

I met Bael when I transferred from my community college to a four year university, and we became friends pretty quickly. A few months after that, around the same time he was just starting to work on Tiger Squadron, he pitched the initial idea that became Project: Praetorian to me.

I loved it. I thought it was an absolute delight of a concept and pretty quickly latched onto it. World building and character planning/arc planning are some of my favorite things to do creatively, so the early days as we built characters and figured out the basics of the narrative were honestly really productive.

It's at this point that I introduced Bael to @learntolive-again. They and I had met on an RP forum years prior and had written together on that and a few other things. I'll let them tell their part of the story if they want, but I might mention a few things about their time in all this for context.

Before I dive any further in, I'll address my relationship with writing. My creativity comes in bursts. Now what this practically means is that I'll be really creatively focused on something for a few weeks and then it'll taper off and I'll either have a lull or be creative about something else. My writing is particularly sensitive to this. On that RP forum I met learntolive-again (LTL-A, going forward), it was a thing where I wouldn't post for like a month, then for like two weeks post responses that I'd owed for weeks and follow up for another few posts. The initial RP version of Praetorian was much the same for me.

The other thing to know is that stress kills these creative bursts more or less stone dead. So the end of the semester comes and I'm neck deep in papers and projects, and my creative drive is nowhere to be found. It'd be my turn for weeks and I would sometimes pull it up and read and just stare at the empty text box and try to will myself to write something. Finally I would push something out after my stress level came down, but I'd feel awful about the delay and that would tamp down my desire to keep writing.

At the same time as this, LTL-A was getting buried under their own work that dwarfed what both Bael and I were doing, which made it difficult for them to respond as well. Meanwhile Bael and I were plotting further and further ahead, and LTL-A was having to be caught up on these conversations separately since Bael and I were talking in person and they didn't even live in the same state as us.

Rinse and repeat this pattern for a while. You would think after I graduated, it would improve, but honestly by that point Praetorian had totally stalled out. Not only were our writing patterns not meshing, but enough fundamental changes had been made to the story that what we had written no longer worked.

Then COVID happened, LTL-A was still buried under like 80 hour weeks, and I started grad school. Pile upon pile of stress for the next three years meant that I just wasn't in the place to do much writing. I finally managed to start something in the early part of summer 2023, which is why chapter 1 includes some of my writing, but even that stalled out pretty quickly. It was around this time that the decision was made to take the story solo.

The reality is, the way I write is not conducive to a long term project, nor is it at the same level of quality as Bael's is at this point. He's honed his skills over the past 6 years on multiple ongoing and completed series. If we were at similar places 6 years ago we sure as hell aren't now. The very nature of Praetorian means that it requires consistent, high quality writing. While I don't think my writing is bad, per se, to pair it with Bael's would leave Praetorian with deeply inconsistent writing that would take ages to make work together.

So, much as it hurts to let a project I care deeply about out of my hands, it's ultimately for the betterment of the story. Do I have some regrets about the situation? I'd be lying if I said I didn't. But, it won't be sitting in our DMs anymore, and people will get to see it finally.

I know Bael will do my characters justice, and I'll still be supporting him with world building and character arcs. I'm not going to let this completely out of my hands, not with how much I've loved and poured into it over the past 6 years.

It's a little bittersweet to see it start publishing, but I'm focusing on the good parts: you'll get to see what we made. I hope you love it as much as we have.

The story behind the "troubled production" comments around Project Praetorian

So originally this was co written with two friends from college, @eagletrekkie and @learntolive-again, who created really cool characters, and who were writing this in an RP format with me.

Unlike the girl who used to be my RP partner for the story that eventually became UAE I know for a fact these two are still alive and on tumblr, btw, which is why they’re getting @ in their shoutout and she isn’t. To get shouted out you have to not either ghost me and or vanish off the face of the earth.

No I’m not still fucked up about that. Anyway. So the two co writers who are still in my life care up with a bunch of cool concepts and characters, but the project started back during the Tiger Squadron Factions arc.

Over time, the nature of Imperator has shifted, so has its command structure, a lot of minor characters have become major ones in outlines, and several have changed so much they’re not recognizable from their initial iteration. Especially a few of the Praetorians, one of whom in the original outline was actually a traitor and who in the current version is all but defined by their loyalty - like legit when you meet them you would never be able to guess that this person used to be the traitor.

Also in the original draft, Vergils conscription was not the first one we saw.

That's just outline drift - perhaps more importantly, several events were changed in chronological order as they were translated from RP to novel, several characters have had to have shifts in a few personality traits because what works in an RP, which is mostly about interaction, doesn't translate to a novel where each character has to function as a character won their own merits with full internal motivation, (a lesson you can sort of watch me learning in the early phases of UAE if you know what to look for, particularly with Baldor’s characterization) But the other issue with troubled production that made it last so long is that myself and my writing partners - despite being good friends - simply have different relationships with writing entirely. Look back at the "special thanks" I have at the end of Arcadian Inquisition. That series got me through a breakup of a 10 year relationship that I wasn't ready to talk about at the time on top of all of that. All of that change happened while I was writing Arcadian Inquisition.

But I’m sure you’re wondering why this is no longer a co authored project. For me, writing is a form of therapy.

For those two it’s something that actively takes spoons, and with all of us starting careers, it became apparent to everyone that this project was not going to get out of production hell at current rate if it remained co authored.

The decision was made to allow me to be sole author and allow the ever-brilliant canyouhearthelight to beta, with the two former co authors given credit for the characters they created and consulted in the direction I take their characters moving forward.

Anyway. Next chapter you’re going to see a lot of who they created.

[webtoon-madness]

i just feel bad for suho tbh i've peaked at the k version and it seems like he was going through a lot while he was away. can we please have suho happy. i get that he left but i dont get why people hate him all because of a ship. i don't even understand where the plot is going anymore and now that they are going to turn it into a show makes me worried they're going to ruin it even more. pls post your opinion about the comic i'd love to hear your thoughts about it.

Honestly, I feel you on that 😕

Suho was already going through a lot (his mother’s and friend’s death, Seojun pushing him away) and then his father’s accident that forced him to leave.

On the other hand, I still don’t understand why he didn’t contact Jugyeong furthermore after he left, and then came back expecting she would still be waiting for him. The reason he stopped messaging her was because he wanted her to be happy, that includes finding a boyfriend.

—

Here’s my full opinion on the webtoon:

It really started with SO MUCH potential. Revealing that Jugyeong is not exactly a lady but rather a tomboy who discovers the magic of make up.

Cool! So this is a webtoon where we can learn how to do make up right?)

She gets involved with some asshole who is actually a good person and becomes her friend (Suho).

Sweet! We get romance too!

Many new characters get introduced into the webtoon. Sujin, Woohyeon (the guy who played with girls), Seojun’s friends and the chef with the scar on her face.

So they will be important for the plot! (((Nope))))

We get introduced to Seojun, another asshole who ends up being good.

It’s awesome we get to have a supportive character that will help Suho and Jugyeong to get together right?

He likes her

Oh. I guess that’s cool. A love triangle.

Time goes by, Suho gets in an accident saving Jugyeong, he starts showing romantic interest for Jugyeong as well as Seojun. Fangirling for either team, Suho and Seojun reconcile, they all become friends, Suho and Jugyeong are on the verge of confessing but then his father gets on an accident and he is forced to leave.

This part of the plot (arc?) was actually pretty good in my opinion, I loved how the webtoon built this up where I literally couldn’t miss an update. I would call my friend every Monday to fangirl about True Beauty, hold my scream on class out of excitement while reading it, and and I cried (seriously) when Suho left. It devastated me because shortly after, the webtoon went on a hiatus. By then, I only read the Korean updates so I had to wait about 2 MONTHS (more or less) for some answers (which it’s ok, author needed a break, it’s fine).

The problem started when the webtoon came back, everything that made it my favorite started collapsing.

Not only Suho was only mentioned once by Sua (not even Jugyeong!) calling him an old memory but Seojun and Jugyeong start dating (which it’s ok, honestly, people like them together and I’m ok with that!) but I’ll give you my honest opinion about this:

The webtoon focus was never about them. It was about Jugyeong feeling “ugly” and Suho seeing HER True Beauty, which is the reason why they fell in love. Seojun has honestly nothing to do with the development of the webtoon; perhaps use him to satisfy fans/show that Jugyeong was sad and Seojun was there for her but then Jugyeong and Suho meeting once again and getting together for a happy ending.

But no.

The story is taking so many turns I don’t understand at all. We had to wait 5 additional months to finally see Suho. What does Jugyeong do? She stands up, surprised. That’s it. 7 months the fans waited, 3 years the characters waited just for Jugyeong get “surprised” and the story cuts into her back at home.

What happened to the characters introduced on the first season? Why Suho didn’t have friends before Jugyeong? Why did Sujin know this? What role does Heeyeon play in the story? (if she doesn’t disappear like Sujin)? or who is she really? Why did Selena and Suho HAD to be siblings? (why wasn’t THIS revealed before?) why does Jugyeong and Seojun say for the first time “I love you” after having dated for WEEKS? (didn’t they date because they loved each other??) and for the love of god WHY does Jugyeong HAVE to ask for permission to Seojun about what she does???

The story and characters have degraded, A LOT.

For the story: The story itself it’s pretty much forcing only the two main to fight for Jugyeong. That’s it, that’s all we get. No focus on Jugyeong feelings, friends, or even her family.

For the characters: Jugyeong lets Seojun decide what she does or doesn’t do. Suho’s excuse for not contacting them was “he couldn’t find the right time” and Seojun is now the jealous type. I was ok with Seojun and Jugyeong dating because he was good for her but controlling her it’s NOT okay.

And now it seems that the webtoon is going for them both regretting their actions and having to save Jugyeong from the creeps spying on her through social media (if it doesn’t take ANOTHER turn).

I’m truly disappointed with the webtoon because not only failed in reintroducing the story for season 2 but it’s all over the place and has SO MANY plot holes. The art is exceptional as ever, but the writing got awful.

[sublimecatgalaxy]

la vie en rose- Part 1 (of many)

-Pairing: Fezco (Euphoria) x reader (eventually); Elliot (Euphoria) x reader

-Summary: Reader moved from rural New York to the suburbs of LA after a family tragedy. This chapter is more of an opening, explaining friendships and backstories a bit.

-Warnings: Probably a few if I'm being honest. Swearing, mentions of suicide, addiction, underage drinking, provocative dancing, Nate Jacobs lol.

-Word Count: 5.6k

A/n: Hi guys! This is my first ever published fic. I write a lot and I have for about eight years now. I've been a little nervous to share my stuff but please give gentle feedback! I also feel like I should mention that Fez is a bit older in this than I think he is in the show. Semi-original Euphoria timeline. Also I should give the warning that Nate and the reader are semi-friends in this. You'll see.

When I had originally moved to the California suburb, I was inexperienced in every way. I never cussed, drank or consumed any type of drug. I was the goodie-two-shoes of the town and I held that title with a sense of pride. I was the town babysitter, the kid parents trusted with theirs. I was well behaved, loved and well known from a young age.

Sounds like the stereotypical goodie-two-shoes, right?

People only seemed to have good things to say about me. My parents were proud and my younger sister was happy to have someone to talk to who didn’t take part in reckless activities. She had a role model and I was proud to be that for her. She was mine in a sense too. Still is.

Now when I say that I moved to the city, it was more than a move. It was a whole uprooting and change of personality. A necessary one. Especially coming from Upstate New York, a fairly conservative place, where there was not a lot of room to dick around without hearing about it.

It was very different compared to the city.

I’m not saying things were terrible. We had low crime rates and the school taxes were so high that everywhere I learned was top notch, state of the art. I was fortunate and privileged. I really didn’t have any reason to complain.

Then my mom died.

I know that seems like a stereotypical character arc. The mom died and now she’s gonna become a rebel.

I was fifteen and my younger sister, Sienna, was only ten. My dad was a wreck immediately, his slurred words running through my head in the empty emergency waiting room. She’s gone, Y/N. I didn’t know what to do other than to immediately comfort Sienna. She was falling apart at the seams, begging to see our mom, asking for just one last look at her.

It was sudden to say the least. But suicide isn’t meant to be sudden. There should’ve been signs. How did we not see it? How didn’t my dad see it?

Apparently their marriage wasn’t all that my sister and I thought it was. Apparently it was full of cheating and yelling. Things that we never saw, and to this day, I’m glad that we were none the wiser. Especially Sienna. She’s already a loose cannon because of my mom's death. She didn’t need years and years of hearing her parents in physical altercations added onto her trauma.

I, on the other hand, didn’t move on all that quick. Not like my dad did. He took up a new hobby of drinking himself to sleep and ordering Sienna and I around. Then he decided abruptly that we were going to move across the country to California. It came as a shock to the both of us, but I kind of agreed with his idea that a fresh start could be good. Especially with it being the summer, in between school years. It was the only time we could do it until next year without it being a huge inconvenience. And with the ever present room where my mom, ya know, we were rushing to get out and escape.

So within a few months, we arrived in our cozy three bedroom house. It wasn’t too far from LA and it was close to the beach which was good for Sienna and I. It was somewhere within walking distance that we could run away to if my dad went on a complete bender and started pitying himself all over again. That was a frequent occasion.

Sienna was excited about her new middle school. She excelled in anything involving school. Top of her class three years in a row, always learning a few years ahead of her class and she was also an award winning athlete when it came to swimming.

Her favorite stroke was breaststroke.

She always claimed it was easier than the rest of them, that she got to breathe more, but just watching her bob up and down, it made me feel like I was drowning with her.

Don’t get me wrong, I had a similar knack for swimming as a sport, along with diving. I was a championship winning diver in elementary school and early middle school. I loved it. But then school got tough in my freshman year. Thanks mom. I had to drop it to focus on school.

I remember being excited about getting back into diving. But regardless of me, it would be exciting for Sienna’s potential to be recognized somewhere new and it would give me an excuse to get out in the world and go support her. Something my father never did.

But I was right, within the first few months of her seventh grade year, she was right in the front line up for varsity. Smiling with her goofy goggles covering her face as she waved to me from the platform. She was always the most excited when she had that fire for competition in her belly. I loved watching her too.

She pushed me to go and find the diving captain for the high school soon after her first race. Her passion and drive for the sport drove me back into mine and to this day, I’m still thankful. After talking to the couch, explaining my situation and my retired ‘career’ as a diver, along with the many awards that I’ve won, she accepted me instantly. The coach took me under her wing my sophomore year, excited to make me one of her best and brightest. And she did.

About a year or so passed, friends being made and awards being won weekly. I was finally in the prime of my life and I had gotten into a groove. Finally happy. I had the ability to come and go from my house when my dad was being an idiot and I had friends to go stay with, to party with. I was finally different than I was as a kid. I didn’t need to be perfect or a goodie-two-shoes like I was for all those years. And now Sienna had a fun, responsible role model to look at instead of an uptight princess with a stick up her ass.

My friends, to this day, still don’t know why I originally moved from my hometown to California. They think that it was because of my dad's job. I don’t feel bad keeping that lie up, figuring that it’s probably for the best. If they knew, they’d ask questions. And I would have to answer. Then they’d know the truth about my dad and the horrors that I’ve seen in my life. So we keep it the way that it is.

Even without them knowing my past, every day they get me out of my comfort zone. Whether it be a party, a carnival, or skipping class. I was never able to do this because of my mother so I am finally able to have the normal teenage experience that everyone around me was lucky to have. I know that my friends have their shit, their skeletons in their closets, but I still count them as lucky.

Making my way into Daniel’s New Years party, a smile on my tinted red lips, I look for anyone that I recognize. My eyes scan the busy crowd of the kitchen, picking out the familiar tall jock out of the center of them. When he sees me, he sends me a subtle wink before shifting his way through the booming crowd. Standing on my tippy toes, reaching out to grab his hand with a loud laugh, he pulls me into the crowd as I take a deep breath.

“I didn’t think you’d make it!” He cheers with a smile and I shrug with a sly grin on my face. “Well I’m glad you’re here. We got food and shit and, uh, your groupies are over there.” He points in the direction of the living room, my face flushing as I silently thank him. Taking my hand in his, he shoves me in front of him. “Coming through with a princess!” He yells out, the crowd parting in front of me as I giggle, covering my face as he shoves me towards my friends. Kat sees me first, rushing to her feet as she takes me from Nate, the quarterback leaving without another word. I’ll talk to him later.

“Hi!” Kat grins and pulls me into a bone crushing hug as I laugh, rocking us back and forth. “You look so pretty!” She takes a step back to look down at my shimmery pantsuit, my arms raising at my side to do a little spin. Hoots and hollers come from the group in front of me, sparking confidence in me. Rue approaches me from the side, wrapping an arm around me to pull me into a hug.

Out of all the people in the group, Rue was the one that I opened up to the most in the beginning. She knows that I’ve struggled a lot with family and my mental health in the past. She and I bonded over the struggle and effects that drugs have on our lives. She’s a kind girl, dumb sometimes, but sweet nonetheless. Her and Jules were probably my best friends.

Jules is another that I’ve connected with, her kind of romantic relationship with Rue only making the three of us closer. I know more about her than she does me, but she still is supportive and genuine. She’s probably the most normal out of the group if I’m being honest. I’ve always envied her confidence.

Make a mental note to ask where Jules is.

Looking around the group, my eyes immediately land on a familiar stoner, his eyes on me as he takes a hit of his blunt. He sits up straighter, his eyes lighting up as if he’s excited to see me. He reaches over, passing me his blunt. Ah, the drug dealer with the golden heart.

“Happy New Year, kid.” He smiles, his blue eyes gazing up at me as my stomach twists in knots. I roll my eyes cooly, throwing myself down on the couch next to him. There’s a lot of interesting history between the two of us.

When I originally moved in here, I didn’t meet Fez for a few months. Not until I met Rue on the first day of school. She later told me about her brother-like figure. How he’d kill for her and anyone that she loved. I was kind of scared at first to meet him. The whole ‘drug dealer’ title definitely made me a bit nervous because I had very few experiences with people who did drugs, let alone make their whole living on them. Rue came over one day, asked me to go to the gas station around the corner from me, my fifteen year old mind wracked with nerves. Never did Rue ever mention that he was nineteen at the time. I should’ve guessed from never seeing him around school that he was older but I never made the connection.

When we arrived at the gas station that day, Rue immediately slung an arm around the tall, well dressed man. I was nervous. I remember my hands shook as I looked around the store, realizing that he was probably running his drug business on the down low. That the store wouldn’t scream ‘I sell drugs’ in fluorescent lights.

When he finally looked over at me, I remember my heart almost stopping. Eyes blue, freckles on his pale skin, Irish, maybe Scottish, his hair tinted a bit red. My hormone ridden mind was definitely taken back by him walking over to me, introducing himself in a polite manner. I could barely get my name out, Rue had to tell him. I remember him laughing at my bashfulness, my nerves now even worse as him and Rue took up a conversation.

Weeks after our introduction, before we left a party one night, he took my phone from me. He slyly put his number in there, telling me that if I ever got into trouble to call or text him. Rue told me he did that for the people he looked out for. I definitely read way too far into it. I just knew that because I mattered to Rue, I mattered to him.

Sitting around the fire, I pull my hoodie tighter around my face, the cotton warming my cold cheeks. My warm breath reflects in the cool air around me and I take a second to sneak a glance at the man next to me. Rue is passed out next to him, her extremities limp as she breathes slowly. Giggling quietly at her, Fez’s attention goes from our friend, to me. He smiles softly at me, my cheeks heating up at the attention. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to him looking at me.

“So where’d you move from?” Fez asks, leaning against the folding chair beneath him. I’m taken back by his question so I sit up straighter, clearing my throat. He watches me patiently, waiting for an answer.

“Uh, New York. Not the city though.” Laughing nervously, I scratch the back of my neck as he nods.

“For real? That’s cool.” He grins softly, his blue eyes even more glassy in the reflection of the blazing fire in front of us. He gently lifts the blunt that sits between his fingers, offering it to me. Shaking my head with a polite smile, he nods, taking a deep breath. Watching as he blows the smoke out into the air, I lick my lips, looking away from him before he notices me staring. “So how old are you?” He asks tentatively, almost nervous by my potential answer.

“I just turned sixteen.” I reply, embarrassed so I turn my attention back to the fire, my fingers twiddling in front of me. “Sophomore year, yay.” I snort, trying to draw away from the fact that I’m so young but already so obsessed with him. I hear him hum in acknowledgement, relieved that he didn’t say anything.

“You’re different than Rue’s usuals.” He points out abruptly, catching my attention. Smiling at him, he shrugs but gives me further explanation. “She told me, uh, you dive for the school. You care about your grades and shit. You a better influence on her than me.” He laughs sheepishly, following my position, his elbows resting on his knees as he leans forward.

“Yeah, I dive. Pretty damn good.” I point out, shrugging proudly. “My sister swims too, so I guess aquatics run in the family.” I add, Fez listening closely to my words, nodding as he takes another hit of his joint.

“That’s mad cool, yo.” He laughs, his cheeks dimpling in a smile. I nod nervously with a quiet laugh, looking around to see more teenagers fizzled out, all of them working their way home. I huff, pulling out my phone to check the time, 12:39 bright across the screen. My stomach drops in realization, worried that my dad will have my ass for being home late. Turning to Fez as he looks at me with a concerned glance, realizing my change in attitude. “You gotta go?” He asks and I nod, standing up as I reach down to grab my bag. “Hey, wait.” He wraps his fingers around my wrist, catching my attention as he nods towards my phone. “Lemme put my number in. That way if you ever get yourself into trouble, I’m there.” He offers and my face flushes, biting my bottom lip as I try to hide the smile that wants to sneak through. Nodding my head, I hand him my phone, watching as his fingers dial over the keys. When he returns it, I smile politely at him, watching as he sits back down comfortably, sending me a wave as I stumble backwards.

My little crush seemed to brew behind the scenes, my heart pounding every time that he was in the same room as me. But the thought that he was so much older than me, that it wasn’t even legal, bummed me out. Stupid California and their strict age of consent laws.

That didn’t mean I couldn’t think about him.

Constantly, I thought about him.

I think that it took Rue only a few months to gather that I had feelings for her buzzcut friend. She didn’t blame me and she never said anything to me or him about it. It was just an unspoken thing between us. She also knew that I was easily impressionable by the fact that he was against what my father would’ve wanted.

Daddy issues. Woohoo.

But for almost a year and a half, though my feelings were noticeable, he still treated me like a kid. And I was one, I couldn’t blame him. Even my kid sister knew of my feelings for Fez, asking me all the damn time why I was so moody. I saw him at every party, every function Rue was at, the gas station when I needed a drink. He was everywhere.

I understood that he treated me differently than my other friends. But the fact that he was either so protective of me or so cold to me made my head spin. It just made me angry that after all that I had been through, how mature I was, he couldn’t see it. Maybe he didn’t want to, even now, I’m only seventeen and he’s twenty. Nonetheless, I went above and beyond. Like tonight with my low cut pantsuit, my hair thrown all over my shoulders and my make up simple and innocent.

“I’m so excited to get fucked up tonight!” BB cheers, the vape leaving her lips as she throws her head back against the couch. We all laugh at her, knowing she’s typically a bit out there and looney at parties of this capacity. Looking around the crowd, I see Maddy dancing with a mystery man, the question what happened with Nate and Maddy on the tip of my tongue. I decide not to ask, knowing the truth is way more complicated than I think it is. Looking at Lexi, my eyes looking down at her phone as I notice the many messages on her end to Cassie who apparently can’t be found.

Weird start already.

“Hey, has anyone seen Elliot?” I ask, suddenly remembering my friend. Looking at my friends as their faces scrunch up in confusion, their eyes flickering around the crowd. Fez clears his throat next to me, tugging on the collar of his thick knitted sweater.

“Who the fuck is Elliot?” He asks simply, his eyebrows pulled together as I blush gently. He almost looks annoyed at my lack of clarification, him never hearing the name before.

“It’s Y/n’s special fuck buddy.” Kat wiggles her eyebrows at Fez who’s eyebrows raise to his hairline, looking to me for confirmation. I stutter a bit, looking to Kat with a judging look. “What?! You know you want to!” She giggles, taking a sip of her drink before rolling her eyes. “Fine, it’s Y/n’s friend, Fez.” She repeats smugly, looking at me with a shrug.

“Gotta meet Elliot then, huh kid?” Fez asks, the nickname making me sick at the moment. Kid. Almost as if it was a derogatory term, a reminder of our difference in age. A very not necessary reminder. Giving him a tight lipped smile, I nod, looking back to the crowd as I bite my bottom lip nervously. When I see the familiar boy making his way through the crowd, his dyed hair sticking out, I grin.

“There he is.” I whisper, standing up as Elliot and I make eye contact, a smile spreading across his face. Rushing up to him, I launch myself into his arms as he spins me around, giggles leaving both of our lips. “Happy New Years, motherfucker!” I squeal, throwing my head back as he holds onto me tightly. Placing me back on the ground, his hands go to my hips as he looks over my outfit.

“Damn, Y/n!” He whistles, a smirk appearing on my face as I blush vividly. Hey, just because I’ve been obsessed with Fez for the longest time doesn’t mean I need to be abstinent. Right? He leans forward, gently pressing his lips to my cheek as I gently place my hands on his chest. “We gonna drink, dance, smoke?” He offers, looking at me expectantly as I toss a look back to my friends. Fez grits his jaw, his eyes leaving Elliot and I when I look back at him.

“I think we should go sit with my friends and smoke a shit ton.” I grin, grabbing his hand in mine, pulling him towards the couch beside Fez. He chuckles as I shove him down into the cushions, my frame lowering onto his lap. He pulls out a blunt from his pocket, the lighter coming out from mine as we light it. Immediately placing it between my lips, Elliot grins up at me as I take a hit, his eyes on my lips.

“Hey man,” a voice next to me snaps me out of my thoughts, Fez looking at Elliot and I, “I’m Fez. Y/N’s friend.” I can see right through Fez’s fake smile, the protectiveness radiating off of him. Elliot gives him a sweet, polite smile, nodding his head in acknowledgement.

“Hey, yeah, I’ve heard a lot about you. I’m Elliot.” Elliot reaches over, shaking Fez’s hand as I lean back, trying to relax. Feeling a hand on my thigh, my eyes flutter up to see Elliot grinning down at me. “I’ve heard a lot about you, my ass.” He whispers to me, knowing full well that Fez was all I talked about since the beginning of our friendship. I know that he’s not going to go easy on me tonight, not while knowing that Fez can hear every word he and I say. “Are you gonna be my New Year's kiss?” Elliot asks sweetly, making me sit up so our noses are touching. I nod, a huge grin on my face as butterflies fill my stomach. Looking across the room to Kat and Rue, they wink at me, then to each other as Elliot and I chuckle. Fez takes another drag of his joint, his eyes fluttering shut. “You’re thirsting.” Elliot whispers in my ear as I snap out of my gaze, snorting at his observation.

“And you’re always thirsting, come on.” Hopping off of his lap, I hold my hands out to him as I nod towards the dance floor. “Get your ass up and come dance with me.” I order with a laugh, watching as he quickly falls out of the couch, placing his hands in mine.

I pull him out onto the dance floor, throwing a wink over my shoulder to Fez who rolls his eyes playfully at me. Elliot’s hands find my waist politely, my hands coming down to lower them, his eyes widening. “I’m not a prude.” I giggle, wrapping my arms around his neck as we bop to the music, my hair falling in my face.

“I know that!” He chuckles nervously, his tan cheeks heating up at my words and actions. Flipping around, I dance up against him, my hands reaching around to wind in his hair. “This is genuinely the most wild I’ve ever seen you.” He chuckles, his hands squeezing my hips as I grind against him. His lips gently press against my bare shoulder and I can feel the smile on his lips.

“Don’t get too excited.” I warn, my neck craning back to look at him as he smiles down at me, his dimples popping out as he blushes. Taking a step back from me, he grabs my hands, spinning me around in circles. I laugh, my hair fanning out around me as he pulls me in, dipping me smoothly. Cheers erupt from those around us at the romantic move, my head tipping backwards as my chest rumbles in laughter. He pulls me up into his arms as I look up at him, feeling him pull me back towards the couch. “We’re done already?” I ask breathlessly with a pout, sitting down on the couch next to Fez as Elliot swings our hands.

“For now. I’m gonna go do a ton of drugs, so you stay here and I’ll be back. Without a boner.” He adjusts his pants, sending me a wink as I shake my head, watching him slip away into the crowd. My head moves to rest on Rue’s shoulder, a warm glow on my cheeks as my eyes close.

“He’s perfect for you.” Rue chuckles, reaching over to slap my thigh playfully. Fez scoffs next to us, taking a hit as he shakes his head.

“That’s like you sayin’ you’re good for her.” He laughs, making a reference to Elliot and Rue’s common issue with drugs. “Y/n needs, like, a future lawyer or some shit.” Fez points out, leaning over to hand me his blunt. I take it with a smile, placing it between my lips as I breathe in deeply.

“He’s fun and he makes me laugh. We talk a lot so he’s been a big help. And he has good weed. Better weed than you, Fezzy boy.” I wink, Fez’s lip jutting out in a slight pout as he steals his joint back. Rolling his eyes, he looks away from me but a small smile toys under his rough exterior. “He’s just someone to fuck around with. With my history with love, I need someone to just fuck around with.” I snort, reaching over to take Kat’s drink from her hands, taking a sip of it as she gawks at me.

“You and your drug dealer friends and drug addict love interests.” Rue chuckles, wrapping an arm around my shoulder as I turn to Fez who smiles at me, his cheeks heated in a blush. Catching Elliot’s frame out of the corner of my eyes, he comes out from around the other room, sniffing loudly. Subtle. He makes his way to stand in front of me, Rue laughing up at him. “We were literally just talking about how attractive you are.” She points out, reaching over to pinch my cheeks as he snorts, looking at me with wide eyes.

“Yeah? What next? My measurements?” He winks, reaching down to rest his hands on my thighs as his nose bumps against mine. The proximity makes my head spin as I catch a glimpse of Fez awkwardly huffing out of the corner of my eyes. “You wanna go fuck in the laundry room?” He asks genuinely with blown pupils, my head shaking at his question. He pouts, his puppy dog eyes shining as I shove him playfully.

“You’re high on god knows what. Can’t trust you to please me, Elliot.” I shrug, the teasing smile on my face making him laugh. He kneels down, his hands coming to intertwine his fingers with mine. “Will you go get me a drink of anything strong? Maybe then I’ll think about it.” I offer, his eyes widening even further he stands up, leaning down to press a kiss to the top of my head before running away. Giggling as he makes his way up to the bar, Fez bumps his shoulder with mine as my laughter calms down.

“Be careful, ‘lright?” He mutters, his face full of concern as I frown. “Don’t get into anything I would.” He smirks, referring to the copious amounts of drugs that Elliot takes part in which Fez happens to sell. “Seems like a nice kid, though.” He shrugs, my cheeks heating up at his approval. My eyes flutter back to the boy at the bar, watching as he clumsily pours alcohol into a red cup.

Lexi returns to the group moments later, her face flushed as she looks around. Still hasn’t found Cassie, I guess. Looking between Fez and Lexi as they share a look, my heart drops. I try my best to brush it off as nothing but jealousy consumes me at the small interaction.

“Lexi Howard!” Fez calls out cooly, moving towards me so she can sit on the opposite side of him. They immediately begin conversing, my presence suddenly seeming a bit out of place. Standing up, I send a sorry frown to Rue but once she sees Fez and Lexi, she immediately nods to me. She may be high all the time but at least she can read a room.

Sometimes.

It's frustrating that I’m so upset at Fez and Lexi talking. They’re both my friends. Lexi has always been a good friend to me, but she was never the one to party or skip school. So the fact that she came tonight is odd. She’s more of who I’d be friends with before everything with my family went down. Saying that, it’s good to have a friend in the locker room nonetheless during the diving season.

“Sup bitch!” I feel arms wrap around my neck abruptly, my head turning to see Jules grinning down at me. I squeal loudly, my arms wrapping around her waist as she chuckles, pressing kisses against my cheeks. “You look so good, oh my god!” She jumps up and down, giggles leaving my throat as I pull back to look at her.

“You look so good! Look at your hair, oh my god!” I run my fingers through her short locks as she grins bashfully, her eyes looking over to the couch. Her and Rue share a questionable look, her eyes finding mine with an eye roll. “I’m gonna assume that’s complicated.” I snort as she nods with wide eyes. I’ll ask another time.

“What about you? I saw you with Elliot. I know he’s not the older mystery man you’ve crushed on forever so I’ll keep my questions down to a minimum. How’s things with ‘hot older guy’ anyways?” She asks with an excited grin, my face falling as I sneak a glance at Fez, his full attention on Lexi as she speaks. Looking back to Jules with a sad shrug, she frowns. “I’m gonna assume that’s complicated.” She repeats and I reach up, wrapping my arms around her, just happy she’s home. Feeling a hand on my back, I turn to see Elliot, our drinks in his hands. “I’ll catch you later for a kiss.” Jules sends a small wave to Elliot as she backs away, approaching the couch where Rue sits. Turning my attention back to Elliot, I grin, taking my cup from him.

A few hours later, the New Year approaches in minutes. I grin tiredly as I fall back onto the couch. My legs are thrown over Elliot’s and my head rests in Jules’ lap, her fingers running through my hair. This is what young me would’ve wanted for the future. Surrounded by friends, a complicated love situation, and letting loose.

My head turns to ask Fez if he has any New Year's resolutions but before I can, he stands up, his face stoic and his jaw tight. Well that’s never good. He makes his way past us, all of our eyes following him as he leaves the room. Frowning, I look up at the ceiling as I begin to ponder why he’s so off tonight.

The sound of the countdown catches my attention moments later, the smile returning to my lips. Turning my attention back to my the boy above me, I smile up at Elliot, his lips mouthing the numbers as the kids around us countdown from ten. I gently sit up, a blush on my skin as Elliot cups my cheeks, the people around us prepared to celebrate.

Leaning forward as the numbers hit one, Elliot’s lips gently press against mine as hoots and hollers are heard around us. I grin into the kiss, playfully biting his bottom lip as he leans back with a chuckle. Going back in for another kiss, the sound of glass breaking startles me, my body jumping in Elliot’s grasp as the room falls quickly silent.

“What the fuck was that?”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A/n: So, wow. Like I said, it's an opener. I'm like panicking right now, sitting here, waiting to press 'post now'.

I feel like it's important for me to add that I originally wrote this fanfic using my own damn name so if you get a 'liz' thrown in there, hi, that's me. I've been panicking about whether I missed one and forgot to switch it with a Y/n.

I'm so proud of the header of this post, lemme tell you. Looks so professional.

Okay, be nice please lol, I'm fragile.

[kuromochimi]

My Savior, My Demise

KMG Hanma x Reader x Brahman Draken || Chapter 1: Heal Me

♡ Saving lives was top priority. You were a doctor. Time was of the essence. Each life that slipped through your grasps was a lesson learned. All until you met a man who always came to you wounded and bruised. Not until you couldn’t help but heal not only his wounds but his aching heart too; His need for touch and affection but nothing more than that.

But unlike saving lives and healing physical aches, you didn’t know trying to fix a broken man would take you to a path you never wanted to take. Never knew it would bring you a kind of pain no surgery could fix.

Main Masterlist | Taglist Form

WC: 1.4k+

Content & Warnings: last arc spoilers, angst, fluff, medical setting, mentions of wounds and blood, guns & gangs, drugs, eventual smut

If your high school self would get a chance to look at you now, she’d probably be ecstatic. Standing in front of a mirror in the change room, you, wearing fresh, blue scrubs. It’s always been your dream to become a doctor and after years of grueling tests, books, scut work, you’ve finally reached your residency. Unfortunately, it’s not as exciting as all those shows portrayed it to be, but you expected at least that much anyway. There really is no romanticizing all the blood, gore, and tragedy that goes on inside a hospital, much less one that is known for getting loads of trauma patients on the daily. Despite that fact, your days still felt like a routine. Sure, there were a few instances when a freak accident ended up falling into your care but other than the occasional bizarre cases, everything played out as you expected it to. Up until today, that is.

When you started your shift, everything seemed normal. It was somewhat unfortunate for you however, that your area just so happened to be the usual place for gangs to do their business which meant dozens of gunshot injuries and scary looking dudes. Not to say that you didn’t enjoy your job. You signed up for this after all. You just never liked and understood what gangs were for and why the fuck they had to do what they do. It angered you how they usually got civilians caught up in their fights. “You’re on trauma again?” one of your co-residents asked. “Yeah, it looks like Doctor Ikeda wants me to take up a fellowship with her with how much trauma experience I have now” ; “Well at least someone’s out to mentor you”. Your conversation was cut short when you were called. “Doctor l/n, trauma 3” With a quick nod to your colleague, you left to attend to the patient assigned to you. The EMT in charge gave you a brief description of what happened and how the patient was. Once you reached the area for their treatment, you were a tad surprised at the view that greeted you. The man was sitting up well on the hospital bed as he gripped the area near his shoulder. He looked rather… unfazed by his injury which wasn’t a usual thing. You’ve treated more than a couple of those menacing gang members but none of them looked as relaxed and nonchalant as this one did. “I’ll bleed out and die if you just keep staring at me, doc.” a light nudge from the nurse brought you back to your senses. “Right.. Sorry about that Mr.….”. You momentarily checked hius chart to look at his name “... Hanma. Mr. Hanma Shuji.”  With still a tinge of shock, you started checking on him, cleaning and assessing the wound and how to go about his case. “The bullet went through and the bleeding has been controlled. Externally, nothing else seems broken or injured but we’re going to have to take you up for an x-ray, just to see if anything else is going on internally.” He nods. Everything goes about smoothly and fortunately, no other complications were presented upon further examination.

Just as you were preparing to leave to go home, you were suddenly summoned to the hospital chief’s office. With worry threatening to spill out of your eyes through the form of tears, you entered the office, trying your best to contain your anxiety about what could have possibly happened for you to be called in. “Doctor l/n, sit.” Without a single breath, you followed the instructions. “I was told that you treated a gunshot wound today, correct?”. You didn’t trust your words to work as they should so you only nodded to confirm his statement. “Right. And you’ve been working in trauma for a while since you became a resident, haven’t you?” Another nod. “Then why is it that you didn’t report the incident to the authorities?” With the reason behind your summon finally being revealed, your face drains of color, heart sinking past your feet all the way to the ground. “Look, I understand. You’re tired and I know it’s hard work being in trauma all the time and being a doctor in itself is already draining enough as is much less one where you have to deal with what you deal with when trauma patients come in but this can’t happen. The hospital is responsible for things like that regardless of who the doctor in charge was.” You mumble your apology without attempting to look up. You had no excuse. “I’ll let it slide for now. But make sure this never happens again else I might have to ask you to be relocated to a less busy hospital” After a couple more reprimanding and apologies, you finally made your way out of the office and eventually, the premises. Out of your mind, you unconsciously found your way to D&D motors. The neon led signage atop the small structure was turned off and “closed” was hanging off the front entrance. Ignoring all that, you pushed past the glass and aimlessly walked towards the back rooms where Draken probably was. “Ken? Are you there?” a soft rustling and sounds of clanking was heard before a deep, familiar voice answered. “Yn? Is that you?” ; “mhm”. The man had to literally duck to be able to get past the small doorway from the storage room. “What’s up?” He spoke while dusting off his hands. Upon seeing his familiar face, one very much detached from your work and one that reminded you of just being dumb college kids having fun, you couldn’t help but let out a soft, almost muted sob. Everything just came crashing down. What happened at work earlier that day, that one child you had to pronounce dead a week ago, the long list of studies you had to read. Without uttering a word, he enveloped you into his warm and tight embrace. Draken was a very good childhood friend. You met him in middle school when you were seated beside each other. Two quiet kids just got along and clicked and more than a decade later, the friendship remained. He was one of your few very trusted friends. He just had one rule that you had to abide by throughout your years of friendship: You couldn’t under any circumstances ask and involve yourself in his gang and other related matters. He never once spoke about his friends there or gang generally. You only ever got to meet Mitsuya, one of his closest friends, because he offered to make your prom dress for a really cheap price. You knew why he had that rule. He wanted to keep you safe, prevent you from even knowing the names of who he had to face off. You didn’t even know which gang he was in. Safe from the subtle curiosity from time to time, you had no problem abiding by it. It’s worked for the longest time after all.

After spilling your guts out about what’s been going on with you, you finally calmed down. That evening, you both waited for Inui (who you suspected was another one of his friends from his old gang but you never asked) to come back from errands before preparing and eating dinner. Draken thought it would be best for you to stay the night to which you immediately agreed. You were grateful for the two of them who always extended a helping hand, gave you a place to find comfort in whenever you were stressed with school before and now work. D&D motors was more of a home than any place you’ve resided in.

The following day, despite sleeping fairly late at 11:00 pm the night before, you woke up feeling well rested. Trying not to wake the two men sleeping on futons on the floor, you quietly took a shower, got dressed, prepared breakfast, and left a note for them as a reminder to eat breakfast before work. Ironically, despite wanting some excitement from time to time, you just wanted the day to go as it always did. With a routine you were familiar with and without having to interact with a patient that apparently distracted you enough for you to forget that you had to report his injury to the authorities. It wasn’t your fault you were so shocked to see a patient so careless about his injury that he was even smiling widely when you met. Unfortunately for you, your routine days were about to be mostly gone because before you even got to step foot into the hospital, on the train on the way there, someone approached you from behind, a tall, warmth inching closer to you, leaning his head on your shoulder to whisper “I need your help, please, doctor.” You looked back to find the very patient you treated the day before. Hanma Shuji

Taglist: @youpieceofwasabi​ @rizakari​ @sunarin136​ @rinrinfoxy​ @uselessnumber​ @the2ndl​ @adeptusnunya @ubbjwi​ @narxiso​ @lostsomewhereinthegarden​ (If I missed tagging you, please lmk! or fill out the taglist form instead)

a/n: This fic is very much overdue. It’s been hard to find writing motivation and inspiration lately but after months of writing this fic little by little, I finally mapped out how I want it to go for the next couple chapters.

[https-hunter]

Thanks for the tag! I definitely have ten fics so I’m gonna do some that are posted on my ao3 and some that are still wips

1. o hear the angels’ voices (ride the cyclone)

December in Uranium.

It was a magical time for the small Canadian town. Being in northern Saskatchewan, the whole of Uranium City got coated in snow, giving the town a little extra holiday flair.

But it sucked when people had places to be.

Like right now, when the Saint Cassian should be warming up in the choir room for their winter concert.

2. crucified like my savior (clone high)

The school bus pulled up in the museum parking lot and its squeaky wheels came to a halt. Rusty doors opened and the clones began to unload from the death trap on wheels as they made their way toward the museum doors. Once they were all out, the beaten up and battered down excuse for a bus started up again and left its passengers, deserting the school at the museum.

It was the annual end of the year school trip to the museum for the clones to remember their clone parents and reflect on their legacies. For some, it was great, a way for the teens to feel closer to their clone parents, like Abraham Lincoln. For others, it was a blatant reminder that they could not live up to the expectation laid out for them, and it bummed them out.

Joan of Arc was the latter.

3. never, ever, ever getting rid of me (ride the cyclone)

Noel wiped down the counter of the food court Taco Bell while he waited in between customers. It was a Wednesday afternoon, a time of day where time moved like a tortoise running a marathon. A few people stopped by here and there, some families, a handful of people his age, but it had mostly been dreadfully slow.

God, he hated Taco Bell.

4. something happens and i’m head over heels (ride the cyclone)

The light of the tunnel back to life shone like a burning star in the darkness of the warehouse. Everyone stood back in silence, sad smiles on their faces as they accepted their fates.

Everyone but Penny.

5. the one and the zero (cobra kai)

Look, man, I’m sorry…for all of it,” Eli’s words rang in Demetri’s head, even long after the LaRusso house fight. He had been waiting so long for the Eli he knows and loves to return to him, and now that he has, Demetri could only try to contain his excitement.

To commemorate their friendship resuming, Eli invited Demetri over to his house for their first sleepover in about a year, with the latter immediately accepted. They were going to catch up, both on their geeky interests, as well as each other.

6. bad habit (ride the cyclone) (wip)

Noel Gruber was a hopeless romantic.

He knew that about himself, of course, but it didn’t help being so painfully aware of his own pining. Not when he was the only out guy, or person, for that matter, within a hundred-mile radius, and certainly not when it was after Mischa Bachinski.

7. Wagstaff Side Story (bob’s burgers) (first couple of chapters posted, working on another)

Ocean Avenue, the busy street full of shops and restaurants alike, was simmering under the late spring heat. The small beach town was preparing for the summer boom of visitors and tourists that would be visiting the shore and most importantly: the Wonder Wharf, the heart of the town.

And that meant more business for simple Ocean Avenue shop owners, like Bob Belcher and Jimmy Pesto.

8. your stupid face (clone high) (wip)

John F Kennedy is many things. He’s very strong and possesses an almost brutish physical quality. He’s incredibly athletic, being on the basketball, football, soccer, and cross country teams all at once.. He’s obsessed with his looks and regularly keeps a mirror and comb on hand. He’s popular almost to the point of celebrity with guys stopping to fist bump him and girls throwing themselves at his feet. He is the “it” guy of Clone High High School.

But most of all, he’s a massive, colossal, enormous, total asshole.

9. so on monday, what happens? (the breakfast club) (this first chapter was posted almost three years ago, I swear I’m working on a new chapter)

March 24, 1984. Evening.

It had been an hour and a half since detention let out. And Andy was lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling. He couldn’t stop thinking about today. Thinking about her. Allison. Just the thought of her name was enough to make the pink rise in his cheeks. Bender’s knife and lock weren’t the only things she stole today. No, the school basket case and recluse stole Andy’s heart, among other things. He knew come Monday, he had to talk to her. He had to be with her, without a doubt. There was just something about Allison that bound him to her, like a chain that couldn’t be broken.

10. Jeanie Bueller’s Day Off (Ferris Bueller) (wip)

Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once and a while, you could miss it.

He was always saying that. Jeanie supposed her brother had a point, maybe she should take a moment to appreciate it all. She wasn’t going to be seventeen forever, after all.

So after a week of heavily debating it, Jeanie decided to risk it all and have her very own day off.

Woah I write a lot on fics, don’t I? Tagging @luckynature @envyvstheuniverse @anton-wyzek (no pressure) and and other fanfic writers who wanna do this

I was tagged by @anistarrose in this challenge! Thanks rose, this is so neat.

Rules are to share the first lines of ten of your most recent fanfics and tag ten people. I will not be doing that lmao - I don't even think I have 10 fics on my Ao3 (a lot of my stuff doesn't see the light of day) So I have elected to pick 5.

it's all GF stuff, mostly because i refuse to publish my knuckles the echidna stuff lmao

Jersey Boy (Gravity Falls)

The Backupsmore University brochure wasn’t nearly as interesting as one would would think by the way Stanford Pines pored over it, but if anyone were to wander by and see the way he stubbornly refused to look away from its pages, they might think it was a map to glistening treasure or the Fountain of Youth, rather than just a mediocre list of mediocre “luxuries” provided by a mediocre “school”: -Bug free dorms!* -Edible lunches!* -Certified non-criminal teachers!*

(jesus what a run-on sentence - y'all read this stuff?)

2. A Holiday Classic (Or, How Ford Learned Jane Fonda is Still Kicking) (Gravity Falls)

Stan and Ford were at port for only a few hours, but it didn’t stop them from fully exploring the gorgeous Finnish port town of Jakobstad while they waited for the repairs on the Stan O’ War II to finish up.

3. How Hard Can It Be To Lose (Gravity Falls)

He felt sick, and he knew it wasn’t going away until that money was in his hand. 

4. Time Loop (Gravity Falls)

He just had to get run out of California, huh? Right as the new year was creeping in? Couldn’t have lasted long enough to stay hunkered down with the palm trees through the winter before the cops were called on him?

5. 30 years (Gravity Falls)

He spared a glance over his shoulder, at the hunk of metal that ruined his life, the hunk of metal he had spent the better part of six years creating. It was falling apart, debris draped across the rafters. The end of the world.

I will be tagging @nour386, @sciencevillain, @unculturedmamoswine, @fordanoia @gravi-mania @ninety-smiles-an-hour and uuuuhhhhh i know there are people im missing here so im sorry about that, im just typing this up during a break from work - feel free to ignore this tag or feel free to grab this challenge yourself even if you aren't tagged!!!!