#this was a meme by the way my genius didn’t make it sadly

[fym-daichi-dies]

that sex was poggers but I need to get back to telling you about the battle at the garbage dump

[angelswatchingover]

It’s not about a conspiracy.

So Supernatural ended and, in usual Supernatural fashion, it went down in the craziest, most meta way possible. Two episodes before the finale, they canonized Destiel through Cas’ love confession to Dean then, in one last queerbait, didn’t give Dean a chance to respond then completely left Cas out of the rest of the narrative. Of course it couldn’t end there so a dub error aired in Latin and South America where Dean reciprocates. 

Fans, of course, lose their shit and conspiracies fly that this was the CW quashing the Destiel storyline. 

Was it?

I seriously doubt it. Not that the CW isn’t very problematic with killing gays and the movement to bring this to light is a good one. However, the script that we have seen says Dean doesn’t reciprocate. Misha said it wasn’t in the script. And the ending that we got confirms that they never intended this to be anything more than Castiel’s ending (hell, the band Kansas may have planned to get more air time ROFL). 

It’s much more likely that the whole thing is shitty, thoughtless writing. Let’s be honest, SPN fumbled their way into greatness way more often then they planned it. Let’s face it, Kripke never intended this show to go beyond 2 dudes in a cool muscle car killing things. He never meant to address the deeper issues of fate, God, angels, and free will - he has said as much. He was extremely lucky to have gotten some very talented writers like Ben Edlund who were able to make this shallow idea into a deeper, more complex story. And if it weren’t for the incredible talent of the actors who brought life and meaning and nuance to some pretty bad scripts, this should would never have survived this long. Jensen Ackles’ facial expressions can give us so much more than the words that were on the script. Not to mention a passionate and engaged fandom that could take a throw away line and latch onto it (likely to the surprise of even the writers). 

Endings are hard and writers who have to write endings often try to go for shock value and edginess over good story completion. This is why the best show endings are usually the ones that were planned as one story arc from day 1 (see Black Sails, The Good Place, Crazy Ex Girlfriend, Schitts Creek, Breaking Bad). These endings were designed as the culmination of the story narrative that was built towards it. They don’t need to end with happy endings and we may lose great characters, but the narrative and overall arcs stay true and are completed. That’s why they are so satisfying. Supernatural, on the other hand, was never supposed to go 15 years and no one had any idea how to end it. Each year they had to keep going they had to scramble to come up with and idea and Chuck being the ultimate big bad was a stroke of genius that was stumbled into and definitely not planned since the beginning. 

When J2 decided it was time to move on, the writers had to figure out an ending. We know from cast meet and greets that as recently as weeks before the were supposed to shoot the finale it was still being changed and was pretty shaky.  On top of that, just as they were supposed to shoot their finales, Covid19 hit and whatever it was they planned had to be re-written because of restrictions and logistics and they couldn’t just wait till Covid was over because their cast and crew had new jobs lined up they needed to move on to. So, they scrambled and cobbled something together and, like GoT, HIMYM, and Dexter, tried to go for shock and edgy rather than looking back at the themes of their narrative to tie it all together. It ended up coming across as lazy and mediocre at best, regressive and queerphobic at worst. But I don’t think they ever planned to make this anything but a nostalgic homage to the pilot. Again, I’m sure they thought they were being clever, but it backfired. 

It was so empty and disjointed from the rest of the narrative that much of the audience watched thinking that can’t possibly be what was planned! The story must have gotten gutted by the CW or something, right? Tell me they didn’t just completely ignore the boys’ character growth and the queer storyline that had been a major thread for a dozen years! Guys, that’s exactly what they did because, in their minds, having the finale be nothing but a call back to the pilot was some crackerjack writing. They were actually proud that they would get to make everyone cry, make only 30% of fans satisfied, and be so shocking they upstaged Game of Thrones for an ending (all Dabb quotes that I don’t feel like finding and citing but you can easily). Jared even talked about all the things they put in there from the clothes to John’s journal to make it a big homage to the pilot. Sadly, that approach just made it hollow because it made the audience wonder what the other 15 years were for. But sometimes writers shoot for something and miss... by a long shot.

So I know the conspiracies' can be fun. I have had a blast the last few days laughing at the memes and the powerpoints. But please, take them with a grain of salt and don’t go down a dangerous rabbit hole. The most likely answer is right in front of our faces: shitty writing. Stay sane. Stay an SPN family. 

And by all means, keep fighting for better queer representation. Boycott the CW (I know I never plan to watch anything there again) and unfollow their social media. Stop spending money on official merchandise and support artists. Use the hashtags to bring attention to the treatment of LGBT characters in media. Make your voices heard loud that we deserve better. But if the focus is on some Spanish dub conspiracy, it will be brushed off as crazy fangirl nonsense. Focus on the actual intentional behavior that we know they did; the queerbait of Cas in 18 to gain audience interest for a finale that had no intention of paying off. Focus on the killing of all of the LGBT characters in media. And find stories of good representation and solid consistent story arcs to support (the ones I named above are a few excellent examples). 

I love you, my passionate, thoughtful SPN family. Just try to stay sane and level headed through your ire. 

[sugar-petals]

Can u introduce yuzuru to us the caro way?👀

so you want to know about the one and only. ♡😌

yuzuru hanyū (25) of sendai, japan: the most beautiful ice prince with a heart of gold.

….an artist clearly not of this world, he’s been sent to us from another realm. 19 world records, two olympics won, dubbed the greatest figure skater of all time. and the most precious bean on top of that.

but let’s start from the beginning, shall we ♥︎

so, want to spot yuzu on the ice? use this checklist. slender silhouette, an even slimmer waist, feather-like outfits (he sketches those himself; the fandom lovingly calls him swanyu), soft blushy face. he has great androgyny.

outside of performances, you see him either with a deer’s gaze or the brightest, biggest eye smile. also, he’s usually found sitting with his wife: 

which is the ice 😄 these two are together forever. you can discern yuzu from a mile away by how he treats his working ground. 

there is a purity to him. you’d not guess that this is one of the most ardent athletes if you didn’t see what’s around his neck after competitions. the guy’s cuteness is as compelling as his skating technique.

look for it: yuzu’s face is super suave and rosy up close, even after his most energetic performances. some men are handsome, others pretty, he is both. 

even acoustically, he’s hard to miss. applause is all around, and he’s highly expressive. if you see a crying young man getting the high score, that’s yuzuru hanyu. you’ve not seen more beautiful happy tears.

and score reactions, anyway:

so, aye loves, the rumors are true. a cutie-pie off the ice, animated, a real unabashed meme — yuzu is easy-going, talkative. cheery, cheeky, one of a kind. his facial expressions are a league of their own.

if you thought this is the sort of guy who watches cat videos, you are correct 😄

yuz-uwu hanyu, everybody:

his undoubtedly feline behaviour is often unexpected, it stands out with its adorableness, too. a sweetheart par excellence. 

and, how else could it be: vice versa, the big beast on the rink. he’s cutesy, dorky, very well-spoken in daily life, but when it comes to skating, his seriousness escalates. you blink once and suddenly hanyu is a bedazzling, strutting lion :’D his performances stun with confident elegance.

he becomes full of ardor, drama, and focus. you’d never suspect so much fire burns in him. a showman and ambition icon, hands down. 

his skating is dynamic, perfected, and emotional. if you want to see art and the extra mile, tune in when hanyu competes.

the downside is; more light, more shadow. it leaves him crawling on the ice afterwards. yuzu performs so hard, it’s worrying.

he delivers it all. you won’t believe it:

this guy is an asthmatic.

the symptoms aren’t as bad as they used to be, but there are still regular attacks. he said that he’ll never take it as an excuse and often recalls how he started skating because of it. he’s a badass, extremely inspiring. yuzuru defies all limits, including gravity. his jumps have legendary status. 

off the rink, you guessed it: he turns into a wholly different person. 

it all dissolves completely when he’s dorking around again. 

don’t let it deceive you, he’s the no other option than first place type. he could not be any more decorated with titles, he achieved the grand slam in all competitions as of 2020. and still, king of sportsmanship hanyu is respectful and smiley towards all colleagues and never lets anyone feel left out. especially when it comes to his juniors (e.g. yuma kagiyama, 16, below) which says a lot about him.

he bows in every direction before an audience, too. lower than a 90° angle, even. this is more polite than any existing formality in japan.

talk about audience: i introduced fellow japanese skater shoma uno last week, who’s more uncomfortable with social contact and aggression. yuzu, extrovert he is: the exact opposite. he withers away with no people and competition. he’s befriended rivals, had crises over not having someone who could challenge him. when a competitor retires, he’s the one crying in their arms (e.g. with team mate and bff javier fernandez from spain below).

beside his competitive spirit and princely wow factor, hanyu is popular for his winnie pooh tissue box that he caresses, squeezes, and carries everywhere. he loves good luck charms & rituals, pooh is the most important one.

fans throw pooh plushies on the ice after his performances because of it. since it’s gotten so intense, yuzu recently started cleaning them up himself on top of the flower girls for the upcoming skater who could get delayed otherwise. (more about what happens with the piles of plushies later.)

so, the burning question is. 

what made yuzuru hanyu emerge so outstanding an entertainer? how does someone causing so much uproar become like that? it’s not just what kind of appearance he was given, although he really looks his part to a T. you don’t have to be an insider to see it right away.

like literally to a fault. and you can tell the way his blades sound on the ice is different. it’s soft even if he does the most hardcore quadruple jumps. i think it’s because his drive to do this is a higher one, hanyu has an altered relationship with the ice. where his devotion comes from has a more severe reason so, massive trigger warning. 

this is no exaggeration: yuzuru is considered a hero to the japanese. a survivor of the earthquake 2011, he narrowly escaped the collapsing rink in his hometown on that very day. he’s often talked about how the ice shattered underneath his feet and it was the moment that defined his life forever. he could have been dead by the age of 16. his motivation has been set ever since. this man is compelled by something bigger, that’s why you hear it and you feel it. he wants to skate not just for himself but others and seize every day. 

much of his copious charity work — that’s where all the pooh plushies go — went to mend the consequences of the tsunami ever since, he’s looked upon as a great hope in japan. the minister gave him the people’s honor award in 2018. 

now you know why yuzuru has such a fanbase and treats the ice as sacred, you see it in every gesture. his manners are without a single flaw, he helps staff repair the ice after performances. 

you might think it’s odd, but he honors the ground. he’s invested in the integrity of it. that’s why he’s the best skater. it’s gratitude and the will to live fully.

he hates to fall on the ice, he hates to damage it. alongside his feathery weight, that’s why the sound he makes while gliding along is so tender. 

i think that’s also why hanyu’s signature element is the ina bauer. it doesn’t rely on brutal force, instead this element slides across the rink like a swan. yeah, oh my god.

it’s his most well-known dramatic move. the way he surrenders into it. 

hanyu’s back arch and perfect split allow him to do elements no other male skaters can. his biellmann spin, for instance. i know, it’s ridiculous.

and those are just two elements of dozens and dozens. hanyu is a kinetic wizard. i highly rec this record-breaking delivery of his olympic program. in front of his home crowd! he’s just… mind-boggling. i live for his smiles here.

exceptional skater, exceptional mentor: it’s time we look at another puzzle piece that made yuzu the way he is. the masterful brian orser is hanyu’s beloved coach. missing gold by just one mistake at the olympics 1988, brian is now committed to give others what he couldn’t have— successfully so.

orser took the ice prince to gold twice, this hasn’t happened in 66 years. brian is the nicest and most supportive pooh carrier and yuzu’s utmost rock. hanyu’s talent rests safely in these hands.

he gets strict about punctuality lmao! but other than that, his guidance is gentle. canadian he is, brian’s courteousness mixes well with yuzu’s politeness. their bond is strong. as. hell. 

brian picked up yuzu from rock bottom several times. most fateful being hanyu’s accident with a fellow skater during competition warm-ups nov 2014. they collided at a high speed, it was unspeakably nasty. yuzu got knocked out for half a minute and had grave breathing problems but still decided to skate on with what later turned out as an almost-concussion. brian was the most worried ice dad in the world that day.

yuzu cried and crouched and bled like mad and my heart has been broken ever since. i hope he never suffers like that again. promise me you don’t search up the video, it’s a harrowing watch like a stab to the chest. sadly enough, hanyu’s body has still been a notorious wreck, esp. ankle issues regularly give him a hard time 😔

it hurts like a bitch with every jump landing but he takes meds and still manages to win, god knows how. sometimes even with crutches on the podium. at his worst, he’s still the best, it’s a tragedy.

he’s been recovering, or always is, but he pushes himself through injuries. his ambition and perfectionism are boundless. the cause is more important to him than his well-being. this is not an easy guy to stan once you see how he sacrifices and self-destructs. so, it’s good someone protects him. 

mostly from himself because nobody has profoundly surpassed hanyu. he has let himself no choice than to contest himself. not even health, only age can stop yuzu. i think that brian understands this ‘curse of a genius’ effect. his mere presence can make hanyu say these rare words:

his two other coaches contribute to that. tracy wilson (left) has proven to understand his playful side the best while ghislain briand (right) helps yuzuru deal with his fears. so you got 3 people taking care of the golden boy. brian once said: “he is very sheltered” and you can see it’s true.

yuzu eased into learning english and communicates well with his coaches. like with everything, he studies hard and often forces himself to speak during interviews to practice. his skills are astounding. his speaking voice is also very soothing, very amicably low and high alike. yuzu is highly intelligent. he always says something eloquent and interesting.

now, privately, hanyu is very much like you’d expect someone so devoted to skating would be like. he doesn’t go out, has no social media, can’t eat nor sleep very well. no cameras allowed during practice. it figures he is attached to winnie pooh, think about it. in the cartoon, pooh is someone who sleeps, eats, and engages with friends plenty. 

these are the things hanyu can’t do, doesn’t have time/energy/incentive for. he is barred from balance in life but can at least admire this little carefree plushie for it. especially because pooh represents eating lots while yuzuru doesn’t have a good relationship with food (he says it doesn’t go well with jumps etc.), hanyu lives vicariously through him. 

what’s more, you have to see how he throws himself onto others and never wants to let go, yuzuru is extremely cuddly. 

to the degree that mere social customs can’t meet how much he really needs. so, what else can he resort to, he loves mascots and plushies. it’s how the tale goes in japan generally, tough work ethic, high responsibility, high pressure, so people turn to cute fluffy things.

he always fondles pooh’s head, even pretends he’s come to life so he has someone to snuggle with. i think that his isolated lifestyle doesn’t help. so, he gets his affection at least there, you can see how happy it makes him. and again: he does this all for charity.

that’s why fellow skaters are so important to hanyu. it really brings out his social spirit and comforts him best, it’s so wholesome. i’ve not seen someone react so relieved to being embraced, like he’s not been touched for months. skating this, skating that. at the end of the day, hanyu wants love.

as he once said, what motivates him is to express himself in the first place. hanyu is a romantic. it’s written all over him. it reflects in his music choices, his elegant motion, how he designs his outfits:

… and how thoughtfully he talks about marriage. he has big plans for starting a family and coaching after he retires. i won’t be the only one squeezing lucky charm pooh in my imagination so it turns out well for him. please make this heart of gold heal and see all his wishes come true ♡🐻

[slickbackdani]

Batman Movie Villains Ranked from Worst to Best

Recently, a YouTuber I follow by the name of Mr. Rogues released a list of Batman villains ranked from worst to best. I have nothing but the utmost of respect for Mr. Rogues as a content creator, but I took issue with his list because his long-standing biases were often the deciding factor in many of his rankings. So, I decided to do a list of my own.

I’ll be going over every Batman villain to appear in the movies, briefly analyzing their portrayals and ranking them on a scale of 1 to 5. To prevent the list from being too cluttered, I’ll be separating the villains by which movie series they’re part of. Here we go!

Burton/Schumacher Tetralogy

Bane: Perhaps the only villain in this series I’d call “bad.” The calculating tactician of the comics is nowhere to be found here; instead, he’s reduced to a monosyllabic, brain-dead stooge for the other villains. Overall, he does nothing that couldn’t be done by a random henchman. 1/5

Two-Face: A deeply layered villain in the comics, Two-Face sadly gets upstaged by the other major rogue in the movie, but that’s not to say he doesn’t leave an impression. Tommy Lee Jones gives him a manic and mercurial demeanor that, combined with his colorful design, wouldn’t be out of place in the Adam West series. The size and scope of his criminal organization make him a genuine threat, and there’s something darkly fitting about Batman’s former ally being responsible for the creation of Robin. 3/5

Poison Ivy: Mr. Rogues for some reason ranked her as the worst Batman movie villain of all time, and frankly, I don’t see why. Like Tommy Lee Jones as Two-Face, Uma Thurman gives this character a delightfully over-the-top demeanor that combines with a colorful, comic-booky ensemble to make for another great “what-if-this-character-appeared-in-the-Adam-West-series” take. She does a good job juggling the differing facets of Ivy’s character: she’s the put-upon cynic, the craven opportunist, the radical eco-terrorist, and the suave seductress all in one package. 3.5/5

The Penguin: Fuck the Razzies. Danny DeVito made this role his own and set the stage for the character for years to come. He’s a bit of a departure, but a welcome one: far from the refined gentleman of crime Burgess Meredith portrayed, this Penguin is an animalistic thug warped by a lifetime of anger and hatred of the society who rejected him due to his deformities. His signature wardrobe, trick umbrellas, and Penguin gimmick are all there, but DeVito sells the role by showing amazing versatility: he can go from a comical and pitiable weirdo to a terrifying sociopath at the drop of a stovepipe hat. 4/5

Mr. Freeze: I honestly can’t say much about this character that my mutual @wonderfulworldofmichaelford hasn’t already. Arnold Schwarzenegger perfectly encapsulates both popular versions of this character: the flamboyant, pun-loving criminal genius from the Adam West series and the Animated Series’ traumatized scientist desperate to cure his loving wife of her terminal illness. Sure, the puns and hammy one-liners are what this version character is known for, but Ahnold definitely knows when to apply the brakes and give a greatly emotional performance as he tries desperately to cure his wife. 4.5/5

Max Shreck: Probably the only time you’ll see a movie-exclusive character on this list, and deservedly so. Corrupt businessmen are dime-a-dozen in Batman stories, and most of them have little personality outside of being greedy scumbags who either get defeated by the hero or betrayed by the other villains. Shreck, however, is different. Not only does he have an eye-catching fashion sense on par with any of Batman’s famous rogues, but Christopher Walken brings his signature manic intensity to the role, creating a character that’s as wicked and sinister as he is cool and stylish. You totally buy that the general public sees him as the good guy. His warm relationship with his son is also a delight to watch. 4.5/5

Catwoman: Michelle Pfeiffer does a lot to really make the character her own. She gets a lot of genuinely badass moments, but underneath all of her coolness lies the undercurrent that she’s a broken, traumatized character lashing out at the people who abused her and took her for granted. Even when she takes these ideals to unreasonable extremes, you never stop feeling like the retribution she brings on her enemies is at least a little warranted. Also, she has amazing romantic chemistry with Batman and her costume is fucking metal. 5/5

The Ridder: It’s Jim Carrey. 5/5

The Joker: This role is perhaps the one that set the standard for future Jokers to follow: Jack Nicholson’s humorous yet unnerving performance signaled to audiences early on that this would not be the goofy trickster of the Silver Age, but a different beast entirely. This Joker is a film noir gangster on crack: a disfigured mob hitman who quickly takes the entire criminal underworld by storm and unleashes his special brand of chaos and destruction across Gotham. He’s an artist, a showman, a charismatic leader, and the man responsible for ruining Bruce Wayne’s life. 5/5

Christopher Nolan Trilogy

Talia al Ghul: You know that recent trend in Disney movies where a side character we thought was harmless and inconsequential turned out to have been the villain all along in a twist with no buildup or foreshadowing with the reveal happening too late in the movie for this character to really do anything cool or impressive before being unceremoniously defeated? That’s Talia. DKR is the weakest of the three Nolan films, and I feel like it would’ve been much better received without this twist villain contrivedly shoehorned in. Also, while I could kinda forgive the trilogy’s whitewashing of other villains like Ra’s al Ghul and Bane due to the talent their actors display, Marion Cotillard doesn’t get a pass because she just doesn’t have the charisma or screen presence needed to pull it off. 1/5

Victor Zsasz: While the idea of redefining Zsasz as an over enthusiastic mob hitman instead of a serial killer is very interesting, it’s ruined by the fact that he barely even appears in the movie and doesn’t really do or say much of anything despite the buildup he gets. 1.5/5

Two-Face: Aaron Eckhart portrays Harvey Dent as a character of tragedy in a slightly different way than other tragic villains in superhero movies: he’s lashing out at a society he feels wronged him, but instead of being a lifelong outcast or put-upon loser, he was a handsome, successful crusader for the common good who lost everything he once held dear all in one fell swoop. You really feel for him even as he does horrible things. If I had to nitpick, though, I am slightly bothered by the fact that he plays some comic book movie cliches straight (i.e. they never call him by his alias and he dies at the end,) but it’s a solid performance overall. 3/5

Scarecrow: I’ll be upfront and admit that I’m more than a little annoyed that certain facets of the character had been changed in the name of “realism” — once again, they never call him by his villain name and he never wears a comic-accurate costume — but other than that, I can’t complain. Cillian Murphy plays the character with a smarmy, eerie charm that really makes his scenes stand out, his willingness to ally himself with other villains suits his character well, and the fact that he appears in three consecutive films with a different evil scheme in each really helps tie the movies together. 3.5/5

Catwoman: Much like other secondary villains in this trilogy, she really doesn’t get a chance to shine compared to the main antagonist — and, once again, it pisses me off a little that they do the whole “never refer to her as Catwoman but vaguely hint at it” thing — but she’s everything a modern Catwoman should be. She’s sly, manipulative, really holds her own in a fight, has great chemistry with Bruce Wayne... it’s all there. It’s also great to see Anne Hathaway break away from her usual type casting to play a role this dynamic. 4/5

Ra’s al Ghul: He’s a character that was in desperate need of mainstream exposure, and by God that’s what he got. Making him Bruce Wayne’s mentor adds a layer of personal tragedy to the climax where our hero has to stop the man who made him who he is from destroying Gotham with his admittedly brilliant plan. Add in a strong, captivating performance from Liam Neeson before we found out he was a racist asshole, and we’ve got one hell of an overarching villain. 4.5/5

The Joker: Everybody’s already discussed this version of the character to hell and back and likely will for years to come, so I’ll keep it very brief. He’s funny, he’s badass, he’s terrifying, he has great dialogue, it sucks that Heath Ledger didn’t live to see his performance reach the audience it got, and he basically makes the entire film. 5/5

Bane: Mr. Rogues actually ranked Bane higher than Joker on his list, and keeping it 100, I actually agree with him here. Finally, after decades of being dumbed down and misrepresented outside of comics, Bane is finally portrayed as the tactical genius from the comics. Tom Hardy plays Bane to perfection, being very believable as the peak of human physical and mental achievement, the man who broke Batman physically and emotionally. His design is iconic, his every line is quotable, his voice is weirdly fitting, and the memes are funny. 5/5

DC Extended Universe

KGBeast: Another point where I agree wholeheartedly with Mr. Rogues. He is absolutely wasted in BVS, being nothing but a generic henchman for Lex Luthor. He doesn’t wear his costume from the comics, he’s never referred to by his alias, he doesn’t have his signature cybernetic enhancements, and he never does or says anything noteworthy. 1/5

The Joker: Ugh. I don’t know what’s worst: the tacky clothes, the stupid tattoos, the weird Richard Nixon impression that passes as his voice, the fact that promotional material hyped him up as a “beautiful tragedy” of a character even though he’s only in the movie for like 10 minutes and barely does anything, Jared Leto’s toxic edgelord behavior on set done with the flimsy pretense of “getting into character,” or the fact that he’s just trying to copy Heath Ledger instead of making the role his own. 1/5

Victor Zsasz: Chris Messina proves undoubtedly that Zsasz CAN work as a secondary villain in a Batman movie. He’s once again a mob assassin who enjoys his job a little too much, but unlike Batman Begins, he really gets time to shine. He’s just as sadistic and depraved as in the comics, but he also has this disarming, casual demeanor about him like he’s just indulging a hobby instead of slicing innocent people’s faces off. His close friendship with his boss Black Mask adds some depth to the character as well. 3/5

Killer Croc: Sadly, he doesn’t get much time in the spotlight, but he’s pretty cool nonetheless. The makeup and prosthetics used to create him look amazing, and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje’s deep voice and imposing body language make him really stand out as an intimidating presence. He’s often in the background, which fits his role as an outcast by choice and a man of few words, but whenever he does get focus, he has everyone’s attention. It really would be a shame if this character’s only appearance was in a mediocre schlock action movie, but he makes the most of what he has. 3.5/5

Deadshot: Another highlight of what would otherwise be a forgettable film, Deadshot is just as cool and competent as he’s always been in other media, but this portrayal stands out for one simple reason. Will Smith was a very odd choice to play the role, but it worked out for the best here because you get the sense he truly understands the characters. He’s ruthless and pragmatic, but has just as enough charm and depth to make him likable. 4/5

Black Mask: I, like many, was skeptical when I saw early trailers depicting Roman Sionis as a foppish weirdo who doesn’t wear his signature mask, but upon seeing the final movie, I really feel like he has the high ground over other DCEU villains. Ewan McGregor is endlessly captivating in the role, portraying him as a swaggering dandy who is nevertheless dangerous due to his boundless narcissism and explosive temper. Sure, those who deal in absolutes would be put off from the differences with his comic counterpart — who is far more cold and humorless — but from a certain point of view, this flamboyant take on the character isn’t so much a departure as it is an addition to make him stand out while keeping his role the same. Black Mask has always been a middleman between the traditional mobsters of yesteryear and the colorful rogues that plague Gotham today, and this portrayal perfectly encapsulates that. He works in the shadows, but isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty; he flies off the handle and gets reckless at times, but there’s no question that the whole operation was his idea. 5/5

Harley Quinn: Margot Robbie owns this role. She’s unbelievably dazzling as a badass, funny, sexy antihero who deals greatly with tragedy and proves that there’s always been more to her than her initial role as the Joker’s sidekick. Again, not much to say, but she’s almost perfect. 5/5

[kanene-yaaay]

Go Virge, go!

Kanene’s note: TODAAAAAAAAAY IS A SPECIAAAAAL DAYYYY!!! DO YOU KNOW WHY?? THAT IS RIGHT! BECAUSE TODAY IS @why-not-a-tickle-blog BIRTHDAY!!!! Gooooosh!!!! I know I already did a whole speech before, mah friendo, but you’re just so amazing and lovely! Aaaaaa I’m happy for being your friend! <33

Okay, I got a little carried away! Enjoy the gift! x3

Warnings, fun facts, random things and stuff:

* This characters don’t belongs to me! They all belong to Thomas Sanders and his series Sanders Sides!

* This is a SFW Tickle-Fanfic, so, if you don’t appreciate this kind of content, please, look for another blog. There are a plenty of fabulous arts in this site!!  ^w^)b

* Oneshot. Something around 3.800 words.w-)b. Lee!Virgil and Ler!Patton in Human AU.

* Sorry for any spelling, pontuation and grammar mistakes! Any and every advice is very very welcome! \(-w-)/

* Since  it’s a gift: Essa fanfic não será traduzida, mals. Thankys for reading, my lollipops, especially you, Livvy!! Have a wonderful and incredible day just like you! 

[~*~]

Patton was confused. A lot.

 And that wasn’t even a whole brand-new thing in his life.

 Patton got confused quite frequently, being honest.  

He got confused when he accidentally fell asleep on the couch and woke up four hours later with all his house painted in the dark of the night and without a single drop of memory about where he is or who he is for some minutes. Patton got confused when his attention was caught in some adorably adorable video of kittens being the best thing in the world and quickly ran to Virgil’s room just to show them to him, not understanding why his friend can’t stop looking at him quizzically until Virgil finally asks why does he has a spoon in the knot of his cardigan and Patton jumps because HIS COOKIES ARE IN THE OVEN AND HOW MUCH TIME HAD PASSED-

 Oh. Wait. That is not what he was talking about. Focus, focus!

 Anyway. Life is confusing, feelings, thoughts, actions, trying your best, keep going, look at the refrigerator just to realize you have no idea of what you were supposed to be searching in the first place, humans…

 Yeah, especially humans.

 Patton stared at the figure of his friend laid on the couch, absently looking at his phone while a piece of smile adorned his face. The movie both decided to watch paused in the background as the one currently in the kitchen waited for the popcorn get ready, his hand held lightly his chin and a frown rest peacefully in his features, mirroring the same expression he always saw on Logan every time he was confronted by a problem whose solution seemed impossible to find.

 It was The Pose of all the incredible genius in the world, right? Therefore, in some moment about now the answers of all his questions should magically pop before him, unfolding and refolding in logic patterns just like in all the mystery series and books.

 Right about noooow…

 …

 Now?

 …

 Well, it didn’t work.

 Patton pouted, turning to pour the warm and probably delicious snack in big bowls that both would pretend they wouldn't be able to finish before even getting in the middle of the so expected movie. He grabbed the bowls and headed to the other room, reprising the entire day in his mind, a faint echo of Logan saying that could help basing his decision.

 Everything started in the morning with Patton arriving at their breakfast table only to find Virgil, but not his usual Virgil.

 That was a Virgil without his hoodie.

 Not that it was a totally strange thing! Usually by his free mornings he would prefer to wander in the house on his comfortable pajamas, however the thing today is… he wasn’t on his pajamas. He was prepared to fight the world – actually Virgil was just going to work, but he said this sounded more badass - on his black Slipknot shirt, jeans and the hoodie nowhere near to be seen.

 Besides that, today was predominantly cold. Cold enough for the one wearing glasses end up missing his favorite cat cardigan by the time he arrived their house, searching for the so dearly craved cloth in every little corner until Patton came across the scene of his friend - his best edgy, lovely friend cutely wearing it and being equally playfully bratty when tried ask it back, pulling out his tongue out as his form dazed in a chase the moment Patton’s promise of ‘physically fight for it!’ – which was a lie, obviously. He gave up the vestment the very moment his eyes locked in a Virgil playing with the cat ears sewed in it – flew from his mouth.

 And, after getting tired out, they cuddled! Okay, this wasn’t nearly a strange occurrence between both, albeit was one of those rare moments when Virgil was the one who initiated it, laying on his lap with a pout and a sharp look, as if he dared the other to say something (and Patton didn’t!! He swears!! Squeals. Do. Not. Count. As. Words.), feeling comfortable enough to even start a Poking War as they were accommodating themselves on the cushions, rays of giggles, squeaks filling the place for some heartbeats before both decided to metamorphose their last bit of routine into a movie night.

 Which was exactly what they were doing!

 Now, don’t get Patton wrong. He was absolutely delighted by everything! Knowing Virgil felt comfortable, safe enough to act nonchalant around him was so heart-warming he could almost feel himself melt in happiness!

 ….But…

 But there was this signal in the back of his mind. A particularly different gleam in the other’s eyes he had already seen before, however couldn’t quite place its meaning yet. Some words unpronounced amongst his lightly snarky demeanor. Some little thing that made Patton feel playful and happily bubbly as well, except he couldn’t really grab the exact information, the exact why or the exact memory.

 Not yet, at least.

  [~*~]

  Virgil was about to fucking quit it.

 No, actually, he was about to fuck quit everything when he woke up of his incredibly, horrible, wonderfully teasy tickle dream. The tingles of the dreamy tickles still ghostly buzzing on his body as he quietly giggled, burying his face in the pillows and kicking about everything on his bed, eyes firmly closed as the memories bathed his mind in a flow made to increase awfully his lee mood.

 And then one of his favorite artists posted some new things on Tumblr, which obligated him to see all their new posts and, who knows, accidentally click in the tag ‘My arts’ of them, which end up with him re-finding other works he had already forgot about, path that consequently leaded to some more reblogs and therefore another bunch of tickle blogs which, of course, made his lee mood at work almost unbearable.

 At least he had the cold to blame if someone questioned about the persistent blush spread on his features.

 After everything, finally: The calm and quiet of home, broken by his determined decision to try to make – somehow - Patton tickle him. His friend was soft and playful by nature, and he already knew Virgil liked tickles (quite of an interesting story involving a meme, a movie and the power going out. Heh. Do not ask about it.) so, I mean, the worst part was already gone, right? It wouldn’t probably be that bad. Virgil would just act naturally, smoothly following a few advices he found in some blogs discussing this topic and hope, for the sake of his life, the Universe wouldn’t follow Murphy's Law for ONCE.

 Of course, that didn’t happen. OF COURSE.

 Virgil tried first to be a bratty. He stole Patton’s cardigan and even ran across the house in an attempt to maintain his new possession. He stretched while laid in Patton’s lap: no hoodie, ticklish spots right there. In the last shot he even let himself giggle every single time his mind wandered to the dark corner designed especially for the subject. The one wearing smudged make up even started a poke war!! A poke war!! What kind of poke war doesn't evolve to a tickle war where he would, so sadly and despise his best efforts, lose spectacularly??

 He crossed his arms and DID NOT pout, blowing grumpily some strands of hair that fell in his vision’s field.

 “I would sell my soul for a tickle.” Virgil growled, his usually careful façade crumbling under the quite persistent thoughts of fingers spidering on his ribs, counting each one of them before lazily dragging the tip of the nails to his quivering tummy, dancing and poking unbothered by his squi-

 “What was that?”

 Virgil squeaked, jumping some centimeters in the air when the voice of his approaching friend filled the room, the words getting stuck in his throat, his head shooting in the other’s direction, wide eyes.

 “What.” He eloquently offered.

 “I was too far, didn’t hear what you said, sorry. Could you repeat, please?”

 Virgil tried – failing - to not blush. Patton was… actually being serious, right? That wasn’t any kind of tease, even if the traitor little demon he usually called brain unhelpfully unlocked all the memories of all the tickle fanfics he read that began with that exact same words. “Nothing. It was nothing.” He promptly ignored the way his voice came out slightly high.

 “Oh, okay!” Patton kindly smiled, putting the popcorn on the coffe table and looking for some space on the couch to lay down while Virgil pressed play, the show’s opening quickly filling the air and silence hanging between both. Patton stopped. Suddenly Virgil felt a shiver run across his whole body, his gaze turning to his friend, only to find the one wearing glasses staring at him intently.

 “You like tickles.”

 The word only was enough to jolt his body back to a sitting position, butterflies starting to wake up, proceeding to fly the most desperate as possible in his stomach, his brain fuzzing, crumbling for answers of How and When and What the Fuc-

 “What? NO! I mean, yes but how- when did you just…”

 “Oh!” Patton gasped and Virgil felt his whole face in flames once the realization of the shiny gleam in the other’s eyes, almost as literal stars shining, hit him. Maybe… Maybe something he had done before finally work? “That is why you initiated a Poke War? Were you trying to make me tickle you? Vee, you just needed to ask!”

 Yep. No. Nope. No way. That was definitely worse.

 Virgil tried to hide himself in his hoodie, deciding he could very much rather perish in his Lee Mood than stare at the pure love and awe gazed right in his direction. His lips curving in a shadow of a smile for a second when he pressed himself further on the furniture, noticing with a grumble leaving his mouth the only armor he owned was the cat cardigan. Hood pulled up and his face firmly pressed on his knees, he ignored the way his excited giggles started to bounce and dance in his throat, resulting in his own body bounce a bit.

 “Knock knock…” Virgil felt a light tapping on his knee.

 “Fuck off.” The hissed answer ran without letting he even think about it, too much occupied in pretending to not notice how much this position left his entire tickl- I mean, sensitive torso vulnerable and how much not seeing what was happening increased second by second the tingles and shivers crazily racing in his skin.

 “Gasp! Virgil!” The one dying in the cat cardigan internally rolled his eyes at the literally audible gasp his friend vocalized, almost being able to see the playful mood taking over his expression as it always has when they swore around him. “I should tickle you for this, Mister Potty Mouth!” Yes. Yes!! Come on, come on! “But I won’t.”

 Hey now, what.

 “What?!” His head shot upwards absurdly fast, a fact which, obviously, he would deny it to the end of his living and non-living days.

 “I don’t want you to feel like you have to hide or ignore your desire for tickles every time you have them! Especially…”

 ‘Please – see? I know how to use some freaking good words. - Please don’t say what I think you’re going to say, Patton. You’re cool, you’re a funny guy, you have good intentions but you have any ideas of what the fuck will happen??’ Virgil found himself almost pleading, the sentences already running in his head, but his lips firmly gripped in the fear to let out more than these simple words.

 “… Since I’m totally okay in tickling you! Oh, wait. Did you just squirm? Aww, Virgil!! That is so, so adorable! You’re blushing, too! Awwwwww!!! Okay, okay, okay, I’m… Imma gonna die of cuteness. You’re truly the most precious being I’ve ever met!!! Wait, what I was just saying…?” 

 ‘I will die! No! I’m already dying! See? You already accomplished what you wanted!! Let’s move on to the next damn part!’

 “Oh right!” Patton lightly hit the side of his head. “I’m glad to tickle you! Truly! All you have to do is…”

 ‘Dude, Patton, Pat-Pat, Popstar don’t…’

 “Ask me! Please, please, please!!” Virgil stared him dead in his eyes, crossing his arms, his cheeks so hot that he was surprised his face didn’t melt yet. “Aw, don’t give me that look, kiddo!” Virgil just narrowed his eyes further. Patton pouted, his ‘Puppy Eyes’ expression – more like an unfair weapon - showing and nailing cracks on Virgil’s resolution.

 They stayed like this for a while, until Patton abruptly lifted his hands, his fingers wiggling on Virgil’s direction, the movement so out of blue that catched his friend out of guard, a true yelp jumping from him before he grumpily growled and let himself fall on the cushions.

 “I can’t.”

 “Of course, you can, kiddo! I’m rooting for ya! Wanna see?” And then he started to fold and unfold his fingers, approaching them to Virgil inch by inch “Go Virge, go! Go, Virge, go! Goooo, Virgeyyyy, go!” Inch by inch. Close and then even closer. The boy with a wobbly smile in his face felt like he couldn’t tear his eyes from the movements, the butterflies seeming to freak out in his stomach in the rhythm of the cheers.

 He hides his face behind his hands. Patton was going to be the end of his existence.

 “Stohop it.” Dammit. He was breaking.

 ‘Come on, guy! You can do this!’ He internally whined.

 “Ooh, is that a beauty giggly giggle what I hear? The cheering should be working then, don’t you think?! We believe in you, Virge-poo! And we can’t wait for when we…” Virgil dared to spy the scene between his fingers, only to see Patton’s hands barely touching his sides, his fingers positioned in a claw shape. “… getcha, getcha, getcha, getcha, getcha, getcha!!” They suddenly moved, clawing unbearably away and terribly close at each couple of words.

 No. Virgil did NOT squeal nor squirmed closer to the fingers. Fuck you. Nobody asked. That is none of your business anyway.

 ‘Just… just don’t think about it! Pull it off. Like… I don’t know! Like a stupid band aid!’

 “It is going to be so much fun! I didn’t even tickle you yet and you’re already giggling excitedly! Think in all your wonderful, beautiful laughter flying everywhere when I finally tickle, tickle, tickle, tickle you silly!! You’ll be giggling up a storm! Happy gasp! Pun inserted!”

 Virgil obligated himself to take a deep breath and not stare the warm, teasy hands which were oblivious of the intern turmoil caused as they rested on his sides. Their tips very lightly, almost impossible to feel and – even more difficult to ignore - poking the ticklish skin, as if they simply couldn’t bring themselves to stay still. The one laid on the couch and yet hiding his face felt the urge to kick just to get off all the pleasantly nervous energy building up in his body.

 “Virgey-wiggly-wiggley…~”

 “TICKLEMEPLEASE!”

 Patton squeaked excited, the teasy grin immediately giving space to the joyful smile. “Of course!” He grazed his fingers up his sides to his ribcage, the nails lightly drawing circles around each one of the ribs, receiving a quick tasering in the middle of them before going up to the next one, letting for a piece of moment Virgil’s bubbly and more high-pitched giggles fill the room alone.

 The cat cardigan owner ran the tip of his fingers up and down, up and down, up and down his sides, watching in complete awe the way the other squirmed at each infinitesimal move. He stopped the movement on his right side, his eyes gleaming behind the lenses as accompanied Virgil adorably wiggling away from the reminiscent tickles, as if he tried to escape from the evil fingers scribbling in that exactly spot which connected his left side to his tummy and leaded cute, sweet titters escape from his gigantic smile.

 A devious plan shinned in his head.

 Patton ceased the tickling in order to give him a breath, smiling at the pout that didn’t take too long before blooming in the other’s features.

 He quickly poked his left side, immediately hearing quiet, bubbly giggles dance across the air as Virgil wiggled to his right, only to be warmly welcomed by scratches of one single finger on his lower back, making his breath stop so fast a snort escape. Virgil widened his eyes, his hands automatically clapping in his mouth at the same time a big, gleaming grin took over Patton’s expression. They stared at each other, fingers never stopping, squirms never ending.

 “No.” His voice was slightly wobbly, giggles beginning to intertwine his words as his friend scribbled softly again. “No no no! You are a- dON’T!- such a dork!!! No!!”

 They initiated the cycle again. Every time Virgil squirmed to escape from the left tingles to the right tickles one more finger was added to the attack, soon leaving the blushed poor victim kicking sporadically when the ten fingers resumed their light, tickly attack. “I’m going t-t-to kick you!!” and then was subdued to the snorts and squeals painting his fast titters.

 The one who wore the cat hoodie which moments before had slipped from his head in the ““fight””, now showing clearly the red strongly flaming his cheeks and the tip of his ears shook his head from side to side, the frown he tried to form being immediately won by the smile taking over his features. Virgil let himself embrace the feeling completely over, laughing freely, almost doesn’t believing this was actually happening.

 That it didn’t matter how much he tried to escape nor squirm, the tickling just followed his movements, just as all his (fake) protests didn’t stop the excited, evil teases pouring from the other’s mouth. Not to tell how only the big, happy gaze from Patton was definitely not helping in the slightest his current state at all!

 He was certain. There was no way out of this. He was going to melt and   d i e.

 And he was loving every single second of this.

 “Aww! Tickle, tickle, tickle, Virge!! Look at the happiness shining in your face!! Someone really, really loves some tickly-tickles, am I right? But don’t worry, Virgey-wiggley! I will give you all the tickles you could ever want! Like here!” He booped Virgil’s bellybutton “Here” A couple of fingers slid on his waistline “And here, and here, and here and everywhere!” Fingers flew quickly, traveling on his hips, collarbone, sides, behind his ears…

 The incapacity to know where Patton would strike next killed every single drop of coherent thoughts of his mind, which could only focus on the tickling and how much it was unbearable and everywhere and it  t i c k l e d . His giggles grew to chortles, his hands flying from his own face to lightly push Patton’s, dislocating his glasses and freeing surprised chuckles mixed with his own squeaks.

 “Virgil!!” Patton ceased the playful attack in order to retire the other’s hands off his face, before both knew they’re wrestling, laughter cutting their acts and weakening their movements. “Virge!! I will go to another spot this way!”

 In a blink of an eye one of his friend’s arms hugged his sides and Patton felt a malefic grin crawling his lips without even noticing its presence. Very much different from Virgil, who in the same heartbeat realized his mistake, using the opportunity of the instant of distraction to lightly push the cookie lover off him, quickly dashing across the house. All his instincts gleaming and sparkling the sign of ‘Survive’ in his veins.

 The only reason of what Virgil forgot about the numbness from spending so much time laid on his legs, resulting in trips that definitely made him lose some crucial speed as he encircled the couch, capturing with the corner of his eyes the scene of Patton jumping of the cushions and following his escape route. The crackling dancing in the air owned by nobody specific.

 His heart beat faster, the joy raced his nerves and made his tummy tingle in advance just for imagining the exact moment where two arms would hug him firmly yet gently from behind and his ears would be set on fire the very same moment Patton would say-

 “Gotcha, Giggly Storm! I gotcha, gotcha ya!!” Patton dug his thumbs right above Virgil’s hips, the remaining fingers clawing the poor, sensitive skin in his back, leading belly laughter to took over his friend’s sentence, his knees buckling and legs uncontrollable kicking as Patton sat with him on the floor, pressing his back on his chest and resting his head on his shoulder.

 “Patton!! Pahahatton, come on, no!” Patton just hummed, two fingers calmly walking on Virgil’s waistline. “Don’t you dare!! Don’t you fuckin- gah!” The nails began to slid in the length of the belly, going from a side to another as elected soft snorts and bouncy giggles.

 “Tickle, tickle, tickle, Virge!! Did you thought you could run away from the Tickle Monster? Poor unfortunate soul ~. Now the Tickle Monster has to give you a bunch of more ticklish tickly tickles just for this, don’t you think?!” And then Virgil felt the tickles speed up to scribbles and clawing and wiggles delivered in every inch of his tummy. Going in random patterns, drawing forms on his sweet spot, up and down, from a side to another, over and over again. Quick enough to make him sporadically squirm and kick, a rain of squeals, yelps and squeals flowing from his lips, yet soft and light enough to let him rest his head on the other’s chest and just enjoy the feeling.

 “Awww! Look at how much shaking your tum-tum is! It is probably so happy in receiving its so much craved tickle tickle tickles, right, Virgey-poo?” The answer was only a blushy Virgil hiding his face on Patton’s neck, giggling nonstop.

 “Nonono!! It’s not!” And, if that move only led to a now very exposed neck to be gifted with some special scratches? They both pretended it wasn’t on purpose.

 Patton just rolled his eyes, playfully exasperated, quietly chuckling when the other jumped with the quick squeeze delivered on his hip.

 It didn’t take long before Virgil let out his first ‘Stop’, which Patton happily obliged, don’t having the heart to move when he realized Virgil’s breath becoming calmer, his eyelashes closing as he snuggled closer to the one wearing glasses.

 The duo knew very well they would probably regret napping on the hard, cold floor later, yet none of them managed to bring themselves to care, especially when Virgil’s quiet snorts with the second tickle dream of the day lullabied Patton to an equally peaceful dream.

  [~*~]

  Random non-said thing: Patton only remembered that information because the movie they’re going to watch was one of the trilogy they were watching when Virgil gathered up enough will to tell him he likes tickling.

[swamplatibule]

Paramay Prompt Three! Para+Childhood

I HAVE BEEN WRITING THIS FOR FOUR MOTHERFUCKING DAYS NOW AND I HAVE NO REGRETS :DDDD

this has not been proofread it is 10 at night, I am exhausted, please accept my humble offerings

Damn, only prompt three and I’m already forced to reveal everyone’s tragic backstory oh well lol

Trigger warnings: Abuse, arson, su•c•de, death, homophobia, murder, gun mention

tw; death mention

Alright alright alright let’s fuckin goooo we’ll start off with Hollister, her childhood is no doubt the easiest to write since it’s basically been the same her whole life.

She never met her parents. She doesn’t know if they’re dead, or if they just decided they didn’t want a kid, or if something else happened, and she doesn‘t care. It’s not her problem. At least, she tells herself that, but she really isn’t 100% sure that it wasn’t somehow her fault. Poor baby.

She‘s completely grown up in the foster care system, bouncing from home to home. Hollister kept running away, getting caught, and being sent somewhere else. She’s also, guess what, a fucking genius with technology.

One time she tried running away and then erasing herself from the system. It didn’t work, but nobody realized that she’s tried to do it, so it’s fine, nothing went wrong.

A few weeks into her newest home, one of the other foster kids named Silas (who she’d been fast friends with) went missing days after developing a weird anti-gravitational power. And so she tried to find him. She stumbled across the Starwritten Society - when I say “stumbled across” I mean she followed a few very questionable leads on, like, conspiracy theory websites and shit and actually found something - and hacked into the archives, trying to find some sort of info.

Now, you can imagine the panic that caused in the Society. Complete lockdown. The Starwritten Society is top-secret, and nobody just hacks into the archives that easily. She didn’t actually find anything, one because she didn’t get time to look around before the security system actually started working and kicked her out, and two because Silas just wasn’t in the records anyway, meaning he’d disappeared some other way.

However, before she could go out looking for him, there were three agents knocking at the door, having tracked her location here. And you can imagine the looks on their faces when they saw that the person who had caused the mass panic that morning was none other than some kid with a computer that looked home-made.

Things happened, she asked to join because, y’know, fuck yeah secret society, paperwork was filed, and she got in. She’s currently the youngest trainee to join the Society in seventy-four years. Also, fun fact, they had to fill out the adoption papers and such, so she’s listed as the child of Director Iara Adams. Which isn’t that big of a deal, since literally every kid in need of adoption taken in by the Society is adopted under her name, and most have only interacted with her like once, but... it’s a cool world building detail I felt like I needed to add.

Anyways, ONWARD!!!

——————————————

tw; homophobia

Kennedy was born in a pretty influential family with very “traditional” values. They kinda suck, so we won’t get too into that shithole.

Each generation of that family has had like six kids, and every single time, one turns out to be lgbtq+ and gets ✨disowned✨because the parents are just kinda assholes. It’s just this never-ending cycle.

Suffice it to say, Kennedy - being a flaming bisexual and all that - got disowned when she was like twelve after one of her siblings outed her by accident. Her uncle took her in. Guess what? He had also been disowned! When he was fifteen!

And he also went on to become a very important person in the Starwritten Society, and when he discovered Kennedy’s complete genius with technology, he recommended her to become a trainee at 17 years old.

To be honest, Kennedy’s basically gotten the short end of the stick when it comes to characterization and fleshing-out. I have quite a few paras like that, sadly. I think I might make her a playlist sometime and let her be the main character for a while.

——————————————

tw: abuse, arson, su•c•de, murder, gun mention

Fox. Oh boy. Fox grew up in a very... tense household. His father started out pretty okay when he was a younger kid, but he slowly started getting more and more violent and controlling, to both Fox, his twin sister, and his mother.

Fox always had a very close relationship with his sister, Wren. You know that siblings meme? The “You are my sister, you are my brother, we are siblings and we care for each other,”? The were the living definition of that. They managed to keep a definite sense of humor and lightheartedness with each other, despite everything that had been going on.

They weren’t fine, but they had each other.

And then Wren went missing. There was a huge police search, but they didn’t find anything. Fox was fourteen at the time. That experience basically broke him, and he never saw Wren again.

A month later, he was coming home from school, got off the bus, and found the house in smoking ruins. His mother hadn’t been able to take his father’s abuse anymore, and she couldn’t see any way out. So she set the house on fire, killing both herself and her husband.

Fox, who was a mental wreck at this point, as almost anyone would be, was placed into the foster care system. He never stayed anywhere for longer than a week. His humor became a shield for him, an easy way to seem like he was fine when he wasn’t. After about a year, he ran away. And then joined the circus. Why, you ask? Because I said so; I grow these flowers and if you don’t like it then you can leave my garden

Fox was always a flexible kid. He’d been in gymnastics classes since he was five. And, as it would turn out, he was damn good on a trapeze. It wasn’t a very big circus, just some small family-run traveling one, but it gave him a place to stay and an environment that welcomed him, and that was good enough for him.

He was with the circus for about four years, up until he was eighteen, so technically this isn’t his childhood anymore, but I’m gonna keep going because I want to.

The Starwritten Society was following a lead on an underground lab somewhere around the place where Fox’s circus was performing. Kennedy was actually on the mission, although she doesn’t do many of those anymore after she got injured in the field and such and I’ll talk about that later. Anyway.

The team of agents who were on the search came across the circus, and figured it was as good of a place as any to try and find the person they were looking for, Eleanor Sylvidas. She was actually in the crowd watching, and there was a confrontation after the show. Fox went to check it out, being the one generally in charge of telling people to cool it whenever small fights broke out between customers, but he wasn’t quite sure what to do in a situation where both parties happen to have guns pointed at each other. Especially when Eleanor pointed her gun at his head and told the agents that if they didn’t back down, she’d shoot him.

That wasn’t exactly something that happened to him on a day-to-day basis.

Of course, a fight broke out. Actually, Fox made the first move, he literally tried to snatch this woman’s gun out of her hand. It didn’t work, but the shot she took at him definitely missed, and then there was a very chaotic fight scene and Eleanor ended up losing and got arrested. Course, they still had to find the lab so they could get the kids out of there. Fox was very helpful in that aspect, too.

Once the mission had been completed, he was offered a place as a trainee in the Society. Those who were there will say that the offer was accepted immediately, but he was actually a bit reluctant. He made the choice to go, however, and it proved to be one of the best decisions he’s made.

——————————————

tw; abuse, violence, gun mention

Wilson. Where do I start? He has trauma, definitely, although so does practically everyone who works with the Starwritten Society.

See, Wilson is actually one of the people who were rescued from labs as children, but there are two things that sets him apart from others.

1. He wasn’t kidnapped at birth or after he developed abilities. He was literally created in a lab, which has led to a lot of self-doubt due to being raised to believe he wasn’t “natural”.

2. The Society aims to rescue all powered children from labs as soon as possible, and since many of them are kidnapped at a young age, they try to get them out at least before they turn 10. Wilson wasn’t found until he was a bit older than 17.

He wasn’t even given a name while he was in the lab. He was just “Project Firebird”, with abilities including fire and heat manipulation, as well as immunity to those two things, plus flight and enhanced strength, speed, and stamina. Wilson was made for the sole purpose of being a weapon.

The person running the lab? An absolute fucker of a man named Alastor Killigan. Him? I cannot put into words how much I hate him. He just really fucking sucks, and not in a “loveable bastard“ way. I honestly wish I could physically teleport into my daydreams just to set this bitch on fire.

Anyway, he’s running this whole operation. He’s got guards, he’s got other scientists who he may or may not have blackmailed into helping him, he’s got people who work for him. And this isn’t the first time he’s done this. That’s right, Grey isn’t the first time he’s tried to weaponize a kid. He got caught by the Society last time, but escaped, and now he knows that he has to keep moving around constantly.

So the first 17 years of Grey’s life were just constant training and experiments and tests and moving around and being raised to believe that he was a literal monster and wasn’t worth anything if he wasn’t a weapon. Fucked up, right? But, see, the Society had no idea he existed. They found the lab kids through keeping tabs on recent kidnappings and disappearances. Grey wasn’t on any of those lists. The only people aware of Grey’s existence were Alastor and the people working for him.

In fact, the Society only found him by chance. They managed to track Alastor’s location and find him to arrest him, and they found Grey while they were doing that. There was a huge fight, but Alastor lost, and Grey got rescued. Things were looking up.

Because the Society legally adopts all the orphaned kids they take in, Grey needed a name. He also just needed a name in general. The lady filling out the papers told him he could just pick something, and he panicked. He wasn’t used to being allowed to make his own decisions. There was a plaque on the wall with a list of people who’d been top agents in the past, and he just read one of those.

Grey Wilson.

So, y’know, that‘s why it says he was a top agent in 1937. Just a heads up.

Have I talked about the Society’s different departments yet? No? Maybe I’ll do that later, but anyway - one of the divisions is basically therapy, because some of these kiddos have severe trauma and need help. Grey worked with a woman named Mags for a few years, and then started training for the High-Risk Rescue department. He was taking charge of his own future! Yayyyy!

Oh yeah and then Alastor escaped - again, and Mags went missing on the same day and it was presumed Alastor killed her on his way out, and Grey hasn’t seen either of them since. He’s been working in the Society for about 22 years now, trying to make sure that nobody goes through what he has. He decided early on that he didn’t want to use his abilities again, ever, and it’s become his personal secret, with very few people knowing.

[worldcakecakecake]

On Deutschland and Italia, by Lovino Valenti

Lovino writes a series of blog entries on the relationship between Germany and Italy as he deals with a move to Hamburg, his brother’s wedding, and his budding romance (which he denies) to the infuriating Gilbert Beilschmidt.

                                                              Chapter 8

Lately they had been in a texting spree. They were wishing each other ‘Buon Giorno’ and ‘Guten Morgen’, asking about their day at work, promising to text back on a break or when done. They would strike topics on the news, what they were planning to eat, even sending each other memes that had them grinning or laughing at their phone. Feliciano had never seen his brother so tight on his phone…he had barely talked to him or even spared a word, despite how he was excited to spend some time to chat.

 They were currently purchasing Feliciano’s wedding suit, fixed with the changes they wanted and ready to take home. Feliciano moved his hands over the cover it was kept in lovingly, excited to soon feel its magic and reign him well on his wedding day. Lovino was still on his phone, grinning the entire time and now Gilbert must have written something sweet since he witnessed his brother heavily blushing, trying hard to cover it with his hands, but it was too large and Feliciano had already spotted it anyways.

 “What did he say?” He teased, leaning with a smirk, eager and expecting.

 Lovino moved the phone away from his vision. “Nothing you should be looking at.”

 “Is he already sending you nudes?”

 “Oh god, no! Just keep out of it.”

 Feliciano chuckled, Signore Ferrara arriving with documents needed to be signed on warranty and any other receipts. They found themselves conversing, the old man wondering about this coming wedding and of course Feliciano adored filling him in on it. Lovino would add his input between glances on his phone. Cards were given to pay, Lovino looking to make sure Feliciano gave him the right one. It was just as Feliciano was sent his own message, a sort of billing number…from the Dominican Republic. Feliciano looked through it quick, but in that instant, Lovino managed a side glance to notice that it was about a fulfilled payment concerning something to do with their new house surely. Lovino wouldn’t have bothered…if it wasn’t for the fact that a bank account and number that belonged to Feliciano was being used. Shouldn’t Ludwig be the one doing that? It was his company that was in charge of that move…the reason why Feliciano was even leaving with him, his own job but volunteering. Why would Feliciano have to give such a big payment? He shut his phone and focused back on Signore Ferrara, now talking on something he did for one of his ex-wife’s wedding, Feliciano looking up with a non-perturbed smile and eager to hear.

 “Have you chosen the suit for the best man?” The man wondered.

 “Gilbert and I will come one of these days to choose. We’ll surely get it here,” Lovino decided, raising his eyes from a text message he had written the albino about the plans he just told.

 The owner smiled and was eager to see them again. “Well, it’s all yours now,” he declared, handing the last of the papers, now the wrapped suit ready to be embraced, as it was now fully Feliciano’s.

 He cuddled the damn thing, like it was some sort of puppy.

 They wished their goodbyes and they were on course to Feliciano’s apartment, the younger blabbering on already wearing and strutting for their whole family to see in preparation. It was not before Lovino wrote one last message: ‘Something is going on. We definitely have to talk.’

  On Deutschland and Italia.

Trading goods.

Looking for answers.

 Trade has always been very good for Germany and Italy. We are actually Germany’s most important trade partner, with a rather large percentage at that. We give them machines, cars, iron, steel and even feed them with our food. They are the first we give our imports to, and although it is not the same for us, we still receive a just amount of their own goods in cars and machinery. German milk tends to be used for cheese manufacturing in Italy, while Germany gets half of their entire fruits and vegetables from Italy. It continues to grow and perhaps one day Germany could easily become our own best trade partner in cars, medicine or construction. It’s balanced and reciprocal.

 Sadly, we are constantly told that we have to be as productive and hardworking as our German partners. It kind of annoys me that no matter, it is never enough. Yet here we are, still thriving. Now all we need to be prepared is for a soon coming digital economy…which the Germans are already beating us at.

 But they don’t really have all the cards in the industrial world as they say they have, for many German companies are riddled with bankruptcies and corruption as much as Italy, while there are actually many singular Italian individuals succeeding and bringing glory to the companies they work in. Sometimes were so successful we might even end up paying large loans for our suspicious fiancés.

 Did I make too obvious who I’m talking about? Okay, I am not entirely sure what’s going on and it’s all just confusing, but I will get to the bottom of this, using the help of someone I never thought I would use it from and expose Ludwig’s treachery!

 There is still time to save my little brother!

  They met happily, with strong handshakes and speaking on plans for the day. They were quick in choosing and buying their suits, leaving the store in exactly two hours, with a free day that they could spend well together. They had lunch in a fine restaurant talking of music. Gilbert already made plans for dinner and so they decided on a stroll across the city, passing the time in chats and pointing the beauty on the things they passed.

 “-but Christmas will always be better in Italy for me.”

 “Really? Our Christmas markets are not festive enough for you? Do I have to bring some Pandoro or Panettone? Less Glühwein maybe?” Gilbert feigned insult.

 “No!” Lovino chuckled with a glare that didn’t hold its usual spite. The grin he had was beautiful enough that it had Gilbert falling back to their easy pace. “I’m not a fan of either of those cakes anyways…I prefer a good Struffoli.”

 “Then I’ll get you some!”

 “They never make it as good as they can do it in Naples.”

 “I’ll get a whole array of Neapolitans to make it here.”

 “Where would you even get them from?”

 “I don’t know, the black market?”

 Lovino never thought he would laugh so much with Gilbert, never thought he’d see him so beautiful, to want to be closer, hint enough in the glance he gave to his arms, as if in them was enough call.

 How Gilbert wanted him against him…out of all the moments to get nervous and let his highly boasted confidence crumble.

 “Oh um…” he raised a hand with the intention, but in the end, it was shoved in his front pockets in fear. Lovino tried to hide his disappointment. “…you mentioned wanting to talk about something…unless that something was struffoli and you just wanted to convince someone to illegally transport hundreds of boxes.”

 “It’s about Feliciano and Ludwig.”

 “What about them? …unless you have new ideas of sabotaging their wedding, but come on, I thought we decided were not going to make it worst for them anymore.”

 “No! It’s not that! It’s more specifically about a message I saw on Feliciano’s phone and how he refuses to tell me anything when I ask.”

 “Message? What message?”

 “It was from a bank, something about house money…a large amount of money that he put from his own account.”

 Gilbert was not understanding. “So…he’s…paying bills?”

 “He’s not supposed to.” Lovino stopped them to stare at the river, leaning over the brick, alone and private. “Ludwig is in charge of it. Ludwig is in charge of absolutely everything that has to do with moving to Santo Domingo. Feliciano shouldn’t be paying a single cent in it.”

 “I mean, you can’t completely let Ludwig pay for absolutely everything.”

 “Not a house payment! That was supposed to be fixed from his company. If Feliciano had to pay for it…then it means something is wrong.”

 “He could have been paying something else.”

 “I know what I saw…”

 They lay in silence as they thought it, finding reasons and then calm in the current of this river.

 “And…what do we do about it?”

 “Find out what’s going on clearly. Any ideas?”

 “Well…my genius mind has something quite clear.” Lovino raised an eye. “We could just…ask the company itself,” Gilbert shrugged, pointing in the distance to the large red and white DB. “If something is going on, they’ll know,” Gilbert instilled, determined as ever.

 Lovino was suddenly fearful, that large sign seeming to look down at him intensely.  “Do you think they’ll tell us?”

 “I can’t be one hundred percent sure, but they’ll give us something.”

 Lovino sighed and set course, Gilbert not minding on following behind.

  It was getting late, most workers were surely on their way back home, even the receptionist at the front was packing everything to leave. The timetable at the desk still mentioned these were working hours, if even only a couple of minutes were left. They both hated to be those rude visitors, but they hoped it would be quick.

 “Guten abend, how can I help you?” She introduced, doing well to hide whatever annoyance.

 “Yes, we’re hoping you can tell us about a Ludwig Beilschmidt working here,” Lovino asked.

 “Ah, he’s the one who’s bringing the company to the Dominican Republic.”

 “Yes! Is it possible you can tell us the state of that venture?”

 “That depends. Who are you to ask?”

 Lovino was left blank, but Gilbert acted quick, in his idea fulfilling his wish of holding Lovino, pulling him, an arm around his waist, proclaiming an idea. Lovino was left stunned and blushing in silence. “Sorry, my boyfriend was just asking for me, I was a bit unsure. Uh, Ludwig Beilschmidt is my brother. I’m Gilbert Beilschmidt…I just want to check something for my family, he told me himself it’s all right.”

 “All right then, let me do a quick check here then.” She focused on typing the necessary information on the computer, focused on not noticing the grimace Lovino sent, surely blaring questions, but Gilbert only smirked and winked, instilling to keep themselves this way to make things easier and get their answers. Lovino looked away, pretending he wasn’t swimming in that comfort, hiding a smile, wanting the lady to take her sweet time checking, just so he could stay in that closeness, in the held of that arm for as long as possible. Gilbert took the opportunity to lean himself into the delectable scent of his hair, liking how well he fitted in his chest. He definitely didn’t need to rub his fingers as sweetly as he did on his waist, but it got a little hum from Lovino that Gilbert grinned more to in wanting.

 “Everything is set for him to leave to the Dominican Republic. As I assume you know, he’ll be starting his own branch without the company.”

 “Danke- wait, what? Without the company?” In his surprise, Gilbert let go of Lovino, leaning more for answers.

 The receptionist was rather astounded, but she followed on, “yes. His section is filling for bankruptcy and they cannot afford to start a new base in the Caribbean. He offered to start it up himself. We’ll be giving him some help with contact and location, but the rest he’ll have to do himself.”

 “What are you offering him.”

 “Just contacts and information.”

 “No house payment? No reimbursements? Travel or aid?”

 “I’m afraid not. That will come from his own pocket and investments.”

 “Couldn’t you have offered for him to stay?” Gilbert questioned on.

 “I’m afraid he would have no position here. Everything was settled for him to leave. We really did not have anything open for him to come back to.”

 In their surprise they lay in heavy silence, fretful and agitated, remaining as they truly tried to understand what was going on. The receptionist did look like she wanted to leave, so they wished their goodbyes, now late enough to head to their dinner place, a steakhouse that Lovino didn’t bother to comment on its tackiness as his thoughts were still swimming with the recent news.

 The restaurant had low lighting, they were secluded, their table small so they could lean closer to one another, yet nothing was settled to move on to romance. They sat feeling betrayed, with questions and worries for their little brothers.

 “If I recall, Feliciano’s position is just volunteering?”

 “Yep.”

 “So, he’s not getting paid.”

 “Yep.”

 Gilbert groaned, “then how the hell are they going to work with nothing?”

 “Well,” Lovino shrugged, “Feli does have his savings from what he’s working on the hospital now, plus he paints and sells.”

 “Ludwig has his own savings, you know. I’m sure it’s enough to get started without depending heavily on what Feliciano has.”

 “There’s also the large wedding they have to pay for.” With a 10,000 budget that…they helped to place.

 Now the regret was inking heavy on them.

 “It’s still really unfair that Feliciano has to pay from his own pocket for something that was meant to be Ludwig’s.”

 “They’re getting married, isn’t this the kind of thing married couples do. Did they at least decide this together?”

 “I don’t know… Feliciano hasn’t said anything.”

 “We have to get them to talk then…I really doubt Ludwig would decide on something so brash and use somebody else’s money like that.”

 “And I don’t want to think Feliciano is dumb enough to accept a dependence so large as that.”

 “We’ll see. You go to Feli, I go to Lud, we’ll report back.” How like a mission it sounded, but Lovino agreed as obedient as a soldier. “Now, can we actually focus on our evening?” It was like an awakening that made Lovino realize where he was siting, the dim lighting that he dared say was romantic…with Gilbert. All of a sudden, he found himself reddened, nervous and without new words to say. “Oh, have I left you speechless? That’s all right, it is to be expected in my presence.”

 Lovino scoffed, “I was realizing the stupid decision I got myself in.”

 “It was one of your best decisions really.”

 How Lovino wanted to shout well to the restaurant: ‘Yes!’ But he only smirked, that charming grin that had Gilbert without a remark to Lovino’s silence, the gracious way he picked his drink and sipped. Once done, the conversation was switched on next holiday plans and locations, other chats to drown the night, turning their presence more beautiful and more of an aching each time they had to wish goodbye.

  On Deutschland and Italia.

Germany is war, Italy is love.

 With the catholic seat in Italy, the protestant movements began in Germany, creating the first division of Christianity, a long trail of divide in our continent that has cost the life of millions. Italy has had a long history of invasions from the Germans, from barbaric and creating the fall of Rome, to attacks of religion and territory, in fires, murdering, rapes and destruction. Yet with the rise of Romanticism, Italy became Germany’s inspiration with literary beauties, a show of love that perhaps give us a chance to think of peace. The faith that the world wars brought made it unlikely once again.

 There is repulsion and attraction between us, never meant to settle on a single line. Sometimes it’s like were doomed to never really have that tranquility that would be ideal for this union of Europe.

 Italy’s nature is to love, Germany’s nature is to resist, it’s not meant to mix and become something greater.

 I really wish my brother would have understood that long ago before he found himself in the situation he is in now. I hope to bring him sense, to fix any errors before it ends in something disastrous.

  “Oh, this is so pretty! It would fit Ludwig so well,” Feliciano ogled at this ring, with silver, diamonds and a black stripe.

 “It won’t fit with the wedding decorations though,” Lovino told.

 “What if it doesn’t? It would fit Ludwig, and that’s what matters,” Feliciano smiled, putting the ring back and settling on looking for others.

 Lovino only huffed, not really caring at the task at hand. “They’re really expensive here though.”

 “They do have the nicest. I though you said that price shouldn’t matter,” Feliciano reminded, now settling on a red band, smoothed with diamonds and black jewels.

 “Only if you have the budget for it.”

 “We talked about this the first day. We’re all right, you yourself suggested the budget and were still well under it.”

 And that moment hurt, Lovino realizing that his idea to try and make this wedding hard for him as selfish revenge was only bringing more pain he did not really want for his brother. He did not want to push more into it, did not want to remind more of what Feliciano was going through, but Lovino needed answers, he needed to help his brother if there was a way he could do it.

 “Are you really all right?” He asked, leaning closer, a small little area of privacy in the shop, despite being one of the only five there.

 “I…I’m fine, I really…why you would you question it like that?” There was hesitation and worry that Lovino had learned to see well on his brother, no matter how he later tried to conceal it.

 “Feliciano…” he knew now he had to be direct, or else it seemed Feliciano would move away further. “I noticed the message you got for the house in Santo Domingo.” Feliciano stiffened and looked like he had turned to stone. “Feliciano…what’s going on?”

 Feliciano’s expression was now determined on the rings, trying to make them the focus. Change the topic, a distraction, chose a damn ring. He realized that moment he didn’t like any of them for Ludwig. Lovino could see his disappointment, came ever closer, for Feliciano caging, imposing, and he was never one to resist for long.

 “I didn’t…I didn’t want to say anything,” he finally omitted and Lovino was relieved. “Ludwig and I didn’t want to talk about it with our families until everything was really settled.” He thought maybe excuse enough so Lovino could wait until then, but there was heavy wait in his expression that demanded more, and Feliciano, intimidated, sighed, and gave to be able to rid it. “I really want to keep to what Ludwig said, but…I can admit that our job positions…have changed.” Lovino tried to give surprise, but he needed more he hadn’t heard. “It’s…it’s really nothing to worry about. Ludwig and I are fine. Were just worried about…how you guys will take it.”

 “How come? Do you think we’ll react negatively?”

 “I mean, I just… I just don’t know…and I rather we can talk about it some other time.”

 “You’re going to leave me worried as hell here,” he couldn’t resist raising his voice slightly.

 “Please, please, please, don’t!” Feliciano tried to hush him, taking his arms in his ever-gentile hold. “Just wait a bit more!  The most I can tell you is that…I’m not doing a volunteer anymore.”

 “What?” Lovino outraged loud this time, Feliciano grimacing, pushing him more into their privacy, close, the other comers had now quickly gazed. Once their eyes were back on other jewelry, Feliciano went back to speaking.

 “It’s a job now, a good official job. They’ll pay me lots and I can take care of me and Ludwig.” He got excited hoping Lovino could understand the joy in it, but the elder brother continued his grimace. “However bad you think it is, it’s not. It’s honestly wonderful. Just, please…wait until Ludwig and I talk about it, it will all be clear then.” That’s when the clerk came, suggesting his help and Feliciano took it eagerly to get out of this conversation. He was attentive, no matter the demanding stare Lovino kept on him as he talked on, deciding on rings, buying, saying their farewells. Even as they made their ways back home, Feliciano refused to cave, talking on different topics, nowhere near the future Lovino was exceptionally worried about for him.

  “Ludwig…I’m going to do something I never thought I would ever do in my life,” Gilbert told, planted and spread on their parent’s sofa, Ludwig on a near table tapping away on his laptop.

 “Mhm?” He could only murmur, busy and not really wanting to engage in any kind of conversation.

 “I think I’m going to ask Lovino out.”

 Ludwig instantly stopped his tapping and gazed over to his brother, looking like a defeated soldier all splayed like that…he wondered if perhaps he had truly been fighting some intensive battle…one that lead to some kind of trauma where he thought it was okay to date what he had long considered his biggest enemy.

 “Are you okay? Do you need some water?”

 “I’m fine, really……am I?” He gazed over, Ludwig wondering so, close to calling some sort of clinical aid.

 “In my honest opinion, you are now truly and fully insane.”

 “Is it…that unexpected?”

 “Lovino Valenti, Gilbert…you want to date Lovino Valenti…think about that, analyze, consider, plan…Lovino Valenti!” He needed to make clear as much as he could.

 Gilbert turned and went silent, Ludwig sighing for now, sure that Gilbert would come into his senses.

 “I want to bang him,” he had no problem with alerting the room, Ludwig grimacing and hoping he could erase those words from ever being uttered by his brother’s mouth.

 “Oh no…you’re serious.” There was no way of getting his concentration again, his mind was now too tainted. “What…what happened?”

 “I guess we just…did what you guys always said we should have done. We talked and…kind of decided to settle our differences to help make this wedding possible, and ever since we did that…I’ve realized we actually connect a lot. He’s actually…really cool and he can say so many awesome things that makes me want to…keep letting him talk and listen…I never thought I would want that from him ever.”

 Ludwig…needed to pinch…or slap himself to truly realize this was happening, but wanting to be the attentive younger brother, he simply breathed in and let him continue.

 “…I…think about him a lot, and now…all I’m looking forward to is our next meeting…” nothing more. He breathed in a silence that was odd for him.

 “You know…that sounds exactly like how I felt when I realized…well…that I was in love with Feliciano.”

 The word love was just the shot to get Gilbert to widen and come back to reality. “Woah, woah, woah there, let’s not get carried away,” he even sat up.

 “You just said all that and you refuse to admit that it could be love?”

 “But…that’s too strong, that’s something…way beyond what we’re in right now.”

 “So?” Ludwig shrugged, “doesn’t matter. When the feeling comes, it comes, and it’s not about how long it took.”

 “Feliciano has really gotten to you.”

 “Perhaps…or more like Lovino has gotten to you.”

 Gilbert didn’t know what else to respond with, laying back down, pretending once again his brother was not there.

 Ludwig sighed, “listen…this weekend were having a dinner at Antico again…all of us together.”

 “Are you going to say you’re marrying Feliciano again?”

 “No, it’s just to meet and spend some time together before the wedding. We’re also going to send the invitations that day and Feliciano and I are going to talk about something,” Ludwig sounded his always collectable self, but that’s when Gilbert was reminded of the mission him and Lovino had set forward. Yes, he had to get information…not…sit and ogle over said Italian he had planned this with.

 “What are you going to talk about?” Was his very subtle question.

 Ludwig raised an eyebrow, “…I’m going to talk about it at the dinner.”

 “But what is it?”

 “At…the dinner…”

 “Yeah, but I want to know now.”

 “Gilbert, please, I made it clear, I’m going to talk about it at the dinner.”

 “I don’t think I can wait.”

 “Sure, you can. It’s this weekend.”

 “You know more than anyone I have no patience.”

 “Yes, I know, but I’m afraid you’ll have to wait.”

 “Tell me.”

 “No.”

 “Come on, what if I don’t even go?”

 “Now I really know you’re definitely going.”

 “What makes you think that?”

 “Lovino will be there.”

 Gilbert clicked his tongue, stuck, the effort gone and Ludwig smirked knowing well it had worked. “I still want to know now.”

 “You’re being a child. Can you stop so I can go back to focusing on this?” He leaned back to the couch, taking his laptop and continuing his work, forcing himself into the screen.

 “What are you even doing?”

 “Talking to some investors from my company.”

 “Investors? Why would you need investors?”

 “It’s for something for when Feliciano and I get to Santo Domingo.”

 “I thought your company was in charge of that.”

 “Well, uh…things have changed now.” He hoped with how focused he looked, it would be enough for Gilbert to think that he needed some peace and quiet…but this was his brother after all.

 “How have things changed to the point that you have to get investors?” He leaned close, clear suspicion.

 “It’s nothing to worry about.”

 “Investors usually mean a lot of money, Luddy.”

 “No, they don’t.”

 “Hey, I might not know the full mechanics on how company businesses work, but if I’ve learned something from Opa and TV, investors are never a good word to hear.”

 “This time it’s different.”

 “How so?”

 “None of your business.”

 “Luddy! Luddy! Luddy!”

 “Oh mein gott, stop! It’s to start my own business,” he shouted, in a fiery vengeance, a loud call that brought Gilbert back to his seating.

 For once, Ludwig got the silence he needed to keep on writing, but Gilbert’s eyes were now on him with great intensity. He sat there perturbed, startled…it was just as distracting.

 “What now?” He demanded.

 “A new business? What do you mean a new business?”

 Ludwig sighed, defeated as he lay his head back on the couch. Maybe working on these e-mails in the living room with Gilbert wasn’t a bright idea. “Look, I’m going to talk about it on the dinner.”

 “About starting a new business?”

 “Yes!” Ludwig was getting exasperated.

 “Why would you start a new business? I thought your job had it covered!”

 “Look!” He slammed his laptop, standing, “things have changed! It’s…nothing to worry about! Feliciano and I are still getting married, we’re still going to the Dominican Republic. He’ll be happy and I’ll make sure to do everything I can so he’s comfortable.”

 “Why do you feel the need to clarify that? Something is wrong! Come on, just tell me-”

 “Nothing is wrong! What were worried about is what you will think about it.”

 “Then just-”

 “The dinner, okay! The dinner!” And he was off the room before Gilbert could question any longer.

< previous chapter

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[spaceskam]

What a fabulous list! How about #4 for Boy Meets World (loooooooved this show as a kid!)

BMW 4. Character A has a rule of only dating people for two weeks before breaking up with them until they find a bag and decide they are in love with the owner.

"You are… so good at that.”

“You’re not bad either.”

Alex pushed off the couch and quickly started getting dressed. Michael stayed laid out on the couch and it had Alex so thankful he hadn't brought him to his place. As hot as he was, time was up.

"Where are you going? Stay," Michael said, flashing that charming smile and making grabby hands. Alex looked away and buttoned up his jeans.

"Look, you're cool," Alex said, "Super hot 'n all, but I don't know if we're a good match."

Michael shifted on the couch. "You barely know me, Alex. We've only been fucking around for two weeks. Why don't we go on like an actual date? You know, have a conversation before we dive into each other's pants."

"Kinda late on that front, don't you think?" Alex asked, sparing him one last glance as he pulled his shirt over his head. Michael did not look amused.

"So that's it?" he asked. Alex licked his lips and pushed away the thoughts of how he was good in bed and could make him laugh and could cook annoyingly well. Alex Manes did not do relationships and he wasn't about to start just because someone was good at what they did. 

"Sorry."

-

"Oh, god damn it, Alex! I liked that one!"

"Then you date him."

Alex smiled at Maria's middle finger that was unceremoniously shoved in his face. Liz just giggled on the other side of him.

"You know how Alex is. He thinks he's too cool for romance," she said. He scoffed.

"I don't think I'm too cool for romance. I think I'm young and hot and college is the time for exploring your sexuality. And I want to explore all avenues before I settle."

"Okay, exploring is one thing. Banging everything that is down to fuck is something else entirely," Maria teased as they found an empty booth in the back of the student union. They all slipped in only to find a backpack tucked in the corner. 

"I'm just expressing myself and I always have safe sex, so leave me alone. Whose bag is this?" Alex rambled, gesturing towards it with his head as he reached to dig his veggie burger out of the bag Liz had placed on the table since it was her day to buy lunch.

"Don't change the subject," Maria pressed, "Michael was good for you. Nice, smart, and he likes you even when you're a dick."

Alex rolled his eyes and cracked a smile. "Look, he's just not worth settling down for."

"How do you know? I know him better than you do and you were the one sleeping with him," Liz chimed in.

"Oh, not you too!" Alex groaned, still smiling, "Nah, but for real, did you see someone get up from this table?" 

The girls sighed, "No."

Alex took a bite of his burger before pulling the bag onto his lap and unzipping it. 

"What are you doing?" Liz asked.

"Seeing if there's a name anywhere."

"Dude, don't go through it, just bring it to lost and found."

"And walk all the way to campus police? Who do I look like?" he asked. They both rolled their eyes but didn't prod any further so it felt like they were going to let him continue.

He pulled out a thick, labeled binder and tried to flip through it. All the notes were meticulous and impressive to the point he raised his eyebrows, but there wasn't a name. It was just pages upon pages of math and other smart shit. There was even a tab for a coding class which was wild because he thought he knew everyone who was going into coding. Since that provided no answers, he dropped it back in the bag and dug some more.

He found a pack of bandaids, a tiny notebook full of doodles, a broken up protein bar that happened to be Alex's favorite, and a pair of bulky headphones that were attached to an iPod Touch. 

"Oh, Alex, c'mon, let's just bring it to lost and found," Maria sighed the second she spotted his giddy smile.

"It's for research!"

"It’s probably illegal!”

“Shush,” Alex said, swatting them away as he unlocked the iPod that didn’t have a password, “Who even has an iPod touch anymore?”

“Someone whose things you shouldn’t be going through,” Liz said, giving a sweet smile when he glared at her.

Annoyingly enough, the owner didn’t have any pictures of themselves or even any friends on it. The background picture and the lock screen were both just a Jedi sitting on the Iron Throne that was so dorky that it was almost endearing. When he began going through the gallery, Alex was faced with really old memes mixed in with fucking math memes. It wasn’t until he got to one that was mocking a syntax error, though, that he found himself grinning to the point he had to smack his hand over his mouth.

“Oh no,” Alex breathed, his eyes widening. Liz pressed into his side to peer over his shoulder.

“What? What is it?” she wondered.

“His memes,” Alex whispered, heart thudding in his chest, “They’re funny.”

“Oh no.”

“I think I’m in love.”

Maria, ever the pessimist, rolled her eyes. “You can’t be in love with someone you don’t know.”

“Look, Maria, you don’t get it,” he insisted, “Whoever owns this bag not only has good taste in protein bars, fantastic notes, and is a coding whiz, but he has funny memes. We’re basically meant to be.”

“How do you know it’s a guy?” Liz asked, “Could be a girl.”

“Why are you trying to break my heart? I just fell in love and you’re already trying to take him from me,” Alex accused. Both girls laughed and shook their heads at him. It came perfectly in time to Alex opening his iTunes app to see a flood of late-90s/early-2000s pop-punk that caused him to gasp. “Guys, he has Sum 41, Sublime, Blink, Green Day, The Offspring, Paramore, shall I go on?”

“Yes.”

“No,” Maria corrected, giving a shocked laugh towards Liz.

“Oh my God, he listens to fredo disco, I’m sold, I’m genuinely in love. You said I wouldn’t settle down, well, this person has gotten me to settle,” Alex sighed wistfully. Liz and Maria seemed to both think he was simply being dramatic, but he was serious. If anyone was worth his time and effort, it was the owner of this bag. Who else would he find that was this perfect? “I’m serious!”

“That’s completely superficial. They could be a horrible person,” Maria said. Alex groaned, going back to the home page of the iPod looking at the apps. He had sudoku. Further inspection showed that his high score on expert was 8 minutes. What a fucking dreamboat.

“Well, we’ll see. We’ll find out who this belongs to and we’ll see who’s right and you can apologize at my wedding,” Alex decided. 

“Okay, fine,” Maria laughed, “We’ll see.”

-

Before Alex very reluctantly turned the bag into lost and found, he put a piece of paper in it that requested the owner to call him.

Parting with the bag was painful at best, but he didn’t know how else he could figure out the owner unless he turned it in. Besides, if he randomly did run into the owner while still in possession of it, it would be very difficult to explain that he didn’t steal their bag.

That night, Alex dreamed of who the owner could possibly be. He liked to think that he was hot and smart and good in bed. If Michael Guerin sometimes replaced his fantasy then no one needed to know. It was simply who was fresh on his mind. The fact was that in two days tops, Alex would get a call and he would find the love of his life. Simple as that.

Except the call never came.

“It’s been three days! He had to have seen it by now,” Alex grumbled, pouting helplessly as he walked between Liz and Maria.

“I guess it just wasn’t meant to be,” Maria said, squeezing him in a side-hug even though she was smiling.

“Which is so unfair,” Alex groaned, dragging his feet even more.

“Maybe he’s in one of your coding classes and has your number already and is scared to call you,” Liz offered. Alex furrowed his eyebrows.

“Why would they be scared to call me?”

“Maybe they’re straight. Or a girl. Or not looking for a relationship,” Maria chimed in. Alex pouted.

“I can’t believe I’m already gonna die alone.”

“Such a drama queen.”

As pathetic as he felt, Alex made his way to class and decided to check out every person there. He had taken a picture on his phone of the bag which turned out to be genius since he could easily compare it to everyone in there. Sadly (or maybe not since none of them were his type), the owner wasn’t there.

His last, ridiculous decision was to wait outside the classroom until the next class to see if anyone in that class had the bag. He sat there like a creep, staring a little too intently at each bag that passed. He couldn’t figure out just why he was so fucking desperate. Well, yes he could. There was something about that stupid bag that just felt like it was meant to be. He wanted that damn happy ever after.

How was he supposed to know that he already knew the owner?

Alex felt his stomach drop to the floor as he saw the bag on the back of a very familiar curly head. He ducked behind a stack of books before Michael noticed him waiting and let himself panic for a couple of seconds. Of course. Of fucking course. 

“Code red,” Alex hissed into his phone after calling Maria and Liz in a group call, “Code motherfucking red.”

“What?” Liz asked excitedly.

“I found the owner of the bag,” Alex said, pausing for dramatic effect, “It’s Michael.”

“Ha!” Maria said, “I knew it!”

“You did not!”

“Well, I knew he was good for you. Apparently, you think he’s good for you too, you just were too busy trying not to get to know him that you didn’t notice,” Maria pointed out. Alex let out an annoyed whine, stomping his foot on the ground.

“Well, what do I do now? He probably hates me for being a massive dick.”

“Hate to say I told you so, but…” 

“Could you at least wait until I’m not in the worst situation of my life?”

“Is it really the worst?”

The voice that said that addition was much deeper than both Liz and Maria’s voices and caused Alex to jump, dropping his phone and fumbling to catch it. It was a very, very embarrassing thing that was only made more embarrassing whenever he turned to see Michael standing there.

“Call you, huh?” he asked. Alex slowly lifted the phone back to his ear.

“I’ll call you back,” he said, quickly ending the call as he looked to Michael. He’d never felt so uncomfortable before. But then again he’d never really liked someone before. He’d spent days accidentally fantasizing about Michael while trying to fantasize about backpack guy and two weeks before that sleeping with Michael who had made him laugh like no one else even though he really tried to not get to know him. And now he really, really wanted to get to know him.

“So…” Michael trailed off, pushing up onto his toes.

“You didn’t tell me you were dorky on top of being hot,” Alex said instead of anything clever. Michael snorted.

“Dude, I tried. I tried to get to know you. I liked you a lot and wanted to date you. You pushed me away. And suddenly you find my bag and, instead of giving it to me, you write your number down, stick it to my iPod, and give my bag to lost and found. You might just be the king of mixed signals,” Michael said. It took a lot of Alex not to scream. He was a dumbass.

“I didn’t know it was your bag.”

“You saw it multiple times, Alex. Did you really not pay any attention to me at all?” Michael asked. Alex sighed and pressed the heel of his hand between his eyes.

“You know that MTV show from back in the day called Room Raiders where they would go through people’s rooms and decide who they wanted to date based on that instead of, like, looks or personality. Like, you get an inside view of who they are by the way they keep their space, you know?” Alex explained. Michael didn’t answer, so he continued. “Basically, I got that with your bag. I was being a dick to you because I thought that was easiest, but when I went through your stuff, I‒”

“You went through my stuff?”

“I realized I really want to get to know you,” Alex said a little bit louder. Michael glared at him.

“You’re a real dick.”

“I know.”

“And mean.”

“Yeah.”

“And you totally don’t deserve to go out with me or even talk to me again.”

“Fair.”

“But,” Michael sighed, “I guess I could take you paying for a meal as payment for you going through my shit.”

Alex snapped his head up. “Wait, really?”

“Yeah,” Michaels said, smiling, “Maybe you’ll learn a thing or two.” Alex tried not to be too obvious about how giddy that made him.

“Yeah, maybe. So… Tonight, maybe?” Alex said, trying to sound smooth like he did the first time he asked Michael out. Michael just snorted and turned to walk into class.

“Call me.”

No matter how mocking his voice was, Alex still felt like he won the goddamn lottery.

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Episodyssey: Diseasy Does It

CHIMPERS! RISE UP!

On the unexpected return of Episodyssey, I’m not just gonna talk about an episode of a cartoon; no, I’m going to talk about literally the only fucking thing a cartoon ever put out. This is the failed pilot for Mr. Warburton’s cartoon Kenny and the Chimp, and it failed because the execs saw there was a bunch of side characters who were good-for-nothing kids who caused a ruckus and fought adult tyranny, and they were like, “Dude, just make a fucking show about them.”

[And the rest is history.]

But is there any value in Kenny and the Chimp? Why didn’t it capture the hearts and minds of the Cartoon Network execs back in the day? 

Well, aside from the fact that executives at animation studios don’t have hearts, I think the real issue with this pilot is that it didn’t really do much to set itself apart from other cartoons at the time. Like, ok, no, there was no other cartoon where a boy and his chimp helped out a mad scientist named Professor XXXL (pronounced Triple Extra Large, and it has to be bolded) who has a lobster claw for a hand, but it’s not like a boy and his chimp is the most original idea in the universe. It has been done in millions of cartoons and movies, and one time a chimp even starred alongside one of the most wicked men in American history.

[I was originally going to make a joke here about Reagan being the chimp, but chimps don’t deserve that sort of slander.]

But just because the concept is unoriginal doesn’t mean it can’t work. And yes, the concept is shallow, but it is just a pilot, and pilots tend to not be very good indicators of the final project. I’m going to talk about more pilots eventually, but off the top of my head shows like Foster’s Home and even Kids Next Door itself had pilots that were really awkward and didn’t really showcase the strengths of the main show. For all we know, Kenny and the Chimp could have ended up getting more story-driven as it went on like KND did, culminating in some sort of tragic fight where Kenny has to stop an evil Chimpy before he dooms the continent of Antarctica to a fiery death or some such late 90s/early 2000s cartoon nonsense. The point is, we’ll never really know, because again, this is just a pilot, and most pilots suck major ass. Good pilots are pretty rare.

[Pictured: A rarity.]

There are some things that do really stand out, with one of them being Professor XXXL, the mad scientists whose lab Kenny and Chimpy must watch. Much like fellow failed pilot villain Baron Vain, Professor XXXL is hilarious, hammy, and absolutely absurd, considering he has an entire collection of debilitating deadly diseases he doesn’t even know why he has as well as a giant lobster claw for an arm and a completely unexplained hatred for the PTA (though considering they apparently cut off and eat his lobster arm offscreen, perhaps his hatred of them is not unfounded). Unlike Baron Vain, Professor XXXL actually got to live again as a recurring “antagonist” on KND; antagonist is in quotations because he turns out to be one of the few adults who is actually not really evil at all, he just seems that way because… well, he’s Professor XXXL. What he’s really always up to is trying to create the perfect snowcone, which never works out for him because he’s an adult in a show where adults get the shit kicked out of them. Amusingly, every time he appears he has a different animal part. He’s definitely one of the more entertaining gimmick villains on the show.

The pilot also has some pretty amusing gags, a lot of which would probably go over a child’s head… or they would, if they weren’t painfully explained. The “Salmonella Fitzgerald” joke sadly gets a Seltzer & Friedbergian explanation, which kind of ruins things; this isn’t a problem for the Swine Flu cure joke, which has a parody of Emeril, but the Swine Flu joke has aged poorly for… other reasons. Aside from those, it does have some pretty standard gags that would have most likely led to it working better as a series of shorts, though if that were the case I’m not sure if this would be particularly memorable. Do you remember any of the shorts Cartoon Network did fondly? Don’t answer that.

As it stands, it’s become depressingly obscure, though again, I do get why. It just didn’t really do much to set itself apart, and it had far more interesting side characters in it that, when fleshed out, made a far better show. That’s kinda what happens sometimes. Still, I feel like there could be some value mined from this, and there’s certainly plenty of meme potential in the show, at least in terms of out of context images.

[Please explain what is going on in this picture.]

My pipe dream for the 2020s is to foster a semi-ironic Kenny and the Chimp fandom and somehow get Mr. Warbuton to do a revival. Obviously this isn’t going to happen, because maybe five people will read this review and even less people are going to come out appreciating the sheer genius of Kenny and the Chimp, but hey, can you fucking imagine? Galactic Kenny and the Chimp, people drawing chimpsonas, Kenny and the Chimp discourse as people argue whether or not Chimpy is old enough to be shipped with Professor XXXL…

Actually, you know what, I’m glad this didn’t happen. We got KND, Kenny and the Chimp remains an amusing little footnote in history, and I think things really worked out for the best with the Mr. Warburton show we ended up getting.

[Well, mostly for the best.]

[inikavulpixelreviews]

Let’s Talk About Pokemon - The Ghost Type

Gosh we're getting so close now. We're at my second favorite type of all, the Ghost type! Probably surprising nobody with that one, given my love for all things Halloween. What better way to appreciate Halloween than with he Halloweeniest type of them all!

Ghost types had a really slow start with me at the beginning. I wasn't too impressed with the Gastly family and Misdreavous didn't make a dent there either. Was Ghost just doomed to little sheet-ghost looking things in various colors? That's a shame, cause Ghost as a conceptual type is really cool. Then Gen 3 happened and my feelings on the type turned around so hard it did like 7 rotations before stopping at a complete 180. We got the absolutely spooky gold that is Banette, and DUSKULL, and freaking SHEDINJA. Then Gen 4 happened and didn't stop there! With the funny but still spooky Drifloon and Rotom, and the big and scary Spritiomb and Giratina to go with em. Then Gen 5! Then Gen 6! Okay, tl;dr, the type's been on the up-and-up ever since that turnaround in Gen 3.

And true to their theme, Ghost types often get the spookiest lore to go with them. Shedinja's back-hole sucking out your soul, Drifloon attempting to abduct children, Phantump's whole thing of being the soul of a child that died in the woods. Yeah, that's right, some of these Ghosts are even the spirits of dead humans! There's something oddly existential about catching a Yamask and learning that it's the ghost of a human being that you're throwing at people's pet dogs and cats to beat them up. Doesn't help the whole image people like to project onto the series of “Pokemon is messed up if you think about it too hard.”

Top 10 Favorite Ghost Types:

This is so haaaaaaard cause they're all so GOOD. Help me.

My Top 11-20 Favorite Ghost Types:

I just GOTTA. Ghost types are too cool, alright?!

My Bottom 10 Least Favorite Ghost Types:

...Huh. This was easier than I thought it'd be. Honestly, it’s just Hoopa and Marshadow that I’m kinda indifferent towards. The rest are just some slightly less cool dudes.

The Cutest:

The Coolest:

The Prettiest:

The Spookiest:

The Other Spookiest:

Ghost type is just so spooky, it's gotta have TWO spooky categories.

Weirdest/Most Unique:

Most Inventive Use of the Type:

This one's just hard because most Ghost types are just different kinds of dead things. Shedinja gets a lot of credit NOT JUST for being probably THE most genius design in the whole dex, but also for being the sole animated corpse in the whole Ghost-dex so far. And Blacephalon for getting the “spooky clown” thing done and over with in a way that isn't overbearingly leaning on “haha geddit, cause it's a spooky weird clown?” Phantump, Drifloon, and Pumpkaboo especially are some ghost designs that are just absolutely gorgeous in terms of how effective they are for their simplicity. And Cofagrigus is just a neat way to make a living coffin creature.

The Most Halloweeny:

Now THESE are the Pokemon that make me think of the Halloween season every time I look at em. Happy Halloween!

GHOST TYPE WISHLIST:

NOTE: These Type Wishlists were written out before any news on new Pokemon from Sword and Shield. The Pokemon revealed over time will not affect these wishlists. Just to present them unaltered despite spoilers and in the interest of getting the wishlist out there, and to see which items on said wishlists get fulfilled by Sword and Shield!

A Shadow:

Marshadow and Gengar are fine and all, but they seem to have an overbearing excess of dimensions for what are supposed to be “shadow” monsters. Can you imagine the cool visual of a Ghost type Pokemon that is truly nothing BUT a shadow on the ground? Perhaps even a shadow protruding from its trainer's own shadow when it's sent out in battle?! Sadly, that might be expecting a bit much, hmmm. If we just get a perfectly flat but standing monster, that'd be rad too.

A Skeleton:

C'MON GUYS, skeletons have been memes for like, a whole DECADE at this point, where's our friggin Skelemon?! Duskull is a good temporary make-up but I really just want a Pokemon that is truly nothing BUT a skeleton. It's like, THE thing missing to make any Nightmare Before Christmas parody involving Pokemon perfect, and you're missing the main character here!

A Haunted Suit of Armor:

Perhaps a bit cliched, but it's so cliché at this point that it'd be hilarious if they included a ghost that took control of a human knight's suit of armor. Though if we ever DID get a suit of armor ghostly Pokemon, I feel like its proportions would get messed with to keep it from looking TOTALLY human.

A Zombie:

A direct interpretation of a zombie, I can't say I blame them for not wanting to jump on. If you were to literally animate a corpse in Pokemon, it'd probably feel a little out of place. At least Shedinja has the excuse of the “corpse” just being an insect's shed skin. But there's still so many ways to ELUDE to zombies without making a complete direct reference to them. What about a monster that is little more than a hand erupt from the ground?! Its evolution could be a “living” dirt mound with TWO hands, even!

A Tombstone:

Speaking of dead things, you could TOTALLY get away with an animated spooky tombstone monster! A perfect Rock/Ghost type!

A Vampire:

How do we still have no vampire monster?! Is it because they're too busy making OTHER bats?! Well, I guess that's fair enough. But I still want my vampire bat.

A Ghostly Deep-Sea Dweller:

Any one will do, I'm not gonna be ridiculously picky. Jellicent was a decent enough start but I think for my ideal Water/Ghost type we can go DEEPER. A gulper eel? A tube-eyed fish? A haunting ANGLER fish?!? Yes please!!

A Scarecrow:

Cacturne's got me settled enough to where the lack of one isn't bothering me a ton, but a full-on proper ghostly scarecrow would be killer to have anyway.

A Frankenstein's Monster:

I guess it wouldn't need to be a GHOST type necessarily, I just bring it up here since it fits in with the Halloween theme. Pokemon’s no stranger to having human-like ogreish creatures between ones like Conkeldurr and Machamp, anyway.

[Archive]

[ashleyspinelliburnbook]

S1E6: My Fair Gretchen/Speedy, We Hardly Knew Ye

Me, literally one recap ago: “When are we gonna get a good Gretchen episode?”

Me, today, looking at the title of the next episode and refusing to be embarrassed: “WELL, FINALLY”

My Fair Gretchen

The most pressing revelation here is that “Recess” apparently takes place in Arkansas, as the episode begins with Miss Finster handing out the Arkansas Standard Achievement Test.

Beyond that, this is a lovely ~ironic subversion~ of the “My Fair Lady” trope. Let me explain: “My Fair Lady” is all about turning Eliza Doolittle into a more acceptable member of high society, right? Turning her from Cockney to, well, refined?

Here, we’ve got Gretchen, who’s by no means a member of high society, but the goal isn’t to get her there either. See, Gretchen is smart — very smart — to the point that she gets a perfect score on the ASAT. She’s called into Principal Prickly’s office, where she learns that she has the opportunity to go to Oppenheimer Elementary for the Incredibly, Extremely Gifted. (Of course, Prickly has a vested interest in this too. If two more of his kids go there, he gets that job at Spiro Agnew Middle School!)

But...Gretchen doesn’t really want to go to Oppenheimer. Her mom is excited to hear the news, but it just makes Gretchen sad. And when she tells her friends she’s on the fence about what she’s learned, they decide to take action.

After Gretchen takes one last walk around the school, saying goodbye to the swingset, the graffiti, and the rancid fish sticks in the dumpster, she gets home to find...the gang! And they’ve got a plan to de-smart her so that when she goes in front of the Oppenheimer review board the next day, they’ll have no choice but to turn her down.

“I’ve been trying to dumb myself down ever since kindergarten,” Gretchen says, to which TJ replies, “This time, you’ve got experts on your side.”

“Yo, Prickly,” New Gretchen says as she walks into the gym for her review. After a whirlwind day of trying new looks (courtesy of the Diggers, the Ashleys, the kindergarteners), she shows up in, um, I’m not a fashion person but she’s coming off as very...not this decade? Wow, helpful.

So yeah, instead of going for “refined,” we get, well, the opposite of that. But here, it’s also the socially acceptable landing point. Instead of being a super-genius who aces standardized tests, Gretchen is now...just like any other kid.

The board, pictured above, asks Gretchen a handful of trivia questions, and she gets them all spectacularly wrong (“Who was the 14th president of the United States?” “Dennis Rodman?”). From outside, the gang celebrates her achievement...until the plan backfires.

A humiliated Principal Prickly accuses Gretchen of cheating on the exam, and Gretchen can’t help but recite all of the correct answers to their questions, in order, with perfect accuracy. Albert Einstein (you see him, come on) asks why she was hiding her intelligence, and she explains she doesn’t want to go to the new school. The board banishes Prickly to the hallway, where he and the gang await Gretchen’s fate.

When they emerge, Einstein explains that Gretchen convinced the board that there's more to education than book-learnin’ (which sort of reminds me of “Bart the Genius,” where Bart initially tries to convince the gifted school he has cheated his way into to let him go back to his old school undercover, “to see what makes ‘em tick”).

The board suggests the school instead implement a tutorial program, and the episode ends with Gretchen teaching...a room full of teachers. As it should be.

Takeaway: Every time I see an episode about a gifted kid/genius kid, I think about all the memes that go, like, “if you were ever a ‘gifted kid’ in school, you’re depressed now,” and...yeah. Imagine having all this pressure to succeed in fourth grade, you know?

Speedy, We Hardly Knew Ye

(Today in “trying something new on the blog,” I want to share something I wrote a few years ago that pretty much says what I would have written here anyway. The episode is about the class hamster, Speedy, dying, and how the kids react to it.)

In middle school, I had two opportunities to take part in Challenge Day, a day-long anti-bullying program meant to bring to the forefront all the deeply personal things that participants have in common, all while celebrating their diversity and inspiring them to dismantle the structure that causes these differences to drive them apart.

Being middle schoolers — 11-, 12-, and 13-year-olds in the thick of maintaining childhood friendships, facing new encounters, and experiencing puberty — there was a wide range of expectations for the event and the reactions throughout it. Many students saw the day solely as an opportunity to be able to skip school, while several of us read the material given to us with our permission slips and at least vaguely understood that our emotions — and our beliefs — would be tested.

The first time I did Challenge Day was in sixth grade, and at first, my primary concern was that my best friend and had been separated, relegated to participating on different days. But when the 100 or so of us entered the gym, whose windows had been blacked out to avoid any interruptions from the other 300 students on campus, the specially-trained Challenge Day leaders made every opportunity to pull us out of our comfort zones right away. Suddenly, we were sprinting within a massive circle of chairs, instructed to find a new seat, and found ourselves sitting between two people we’d never met to whom we would then have to introduce ourselves.

Eventually, we split into small groups of 6 or 7 — similarly randomly assigned, paired with a parent volunteer — and talked more candidly about our worries, how we truly felt going to school every day, and even our personal tragedies. The point here was to prove that we were able to open up to a group of strangers following all of the icebreaker activities we’d completed. And, from what my friend had told me after completing her Challenge Day the previous day, this portion of the day was where everyone started crying. While a good number of the students who were just happy to have the day off from school didn’t take this part seriously, I really wanted to – and luckily, both times, my group was just as keen.

I don’t much remember what I shared at that first Challenge Day, but in eighth grade I was dealing with both that friend’s sudden move to a school two hours away and the death of my hamster, my first real pet, and I felt I had a lot to talk about. The students in my group were very receptive to what I had to say, and one even took me aside after we moved on from the small group activities and complimented my candidness, saying I was very brave to cry for my friend and my pet.

Unfortunately, the parent volunteer in our group was less sympathetic. On the Challenge Day website, it states that volunteers receive a quick overview of the day before students arrive, and that’s it. Sadly, you can’t teach sympathy in half an hour. When I almost immediately starting sobbing about my troubles and was met with kindness by my fellow middle school-aged group members, this woman promptly interrupted me.

“Are you sure you’re not just getting caught up in the emotions, sweetheart?” she asked, her attempted pleasantness pierced by skepticism. “At your age, you’re too old to be crying about hamsters and one lost friend. There are more hamsters, and there are more friends.”

What could I do? I was a shy, insecure 13-year-old who was clearly overwhelmed by my own hardships — albeit comparatively minute to what some members of the group had shared — and all this woman could do was point out my perceived weaknesses and trivialize feelings I thought were legitimate and sincere. So I gave in. I nodded.

“Mm-hmm,” she confirmed, her face lit up in victory. “You need to learn to be stronger. That’s what today is all about. Let’s move on to someone else.”

Of course, because of the quiet, non-confrontational person I was — and still, only 13, barely beginning to emotionally mature — I let her words sink in. I entirely believed that what I had shared was completely out of line, and rebuked myself for crying at all. Since early childhood, I was the type of person who cried whenever I felt worried or insecure, and this woman, in just a few sentences, had made me so worried and so insecure that I didn’t want to cry anymore.

For me, Challenge Day in sixth grade was exciting. Because my school had only opened that year, even the seventh- and eighth-graders who transferred from the middle school across town were open to making new friends, and it was a wholly positive experience. But after Challenge Day in eighth grade, I wondered if I’d become too comfortable being openly emotional two years before. And, not to place the entirety of the blame on this one woman’s speech, since I clearly had many reasons to feel down, eighth grade was when I first recognized that I might be depressed. Even still, I don’t think I should have had to say, “Look, lady, I appreciate your fake concern, but I’m clinically depressed” to avoid any further insult.

I know so many people whose feelings were invalidated as kids simply because, as kids, many of them just hadn’t been alive long enough to experience the type of pain that adults have. (And even if they have, the emotional differences inherent in both parties for the exact same tragedy or other life change can be profound.) When adults don’t understand that comparing the plights of a single 13-year-old to their own — or anyone’s — is completely unfair, their words and actions can quickly devolve into invalidation and, sometimes, abuse.

During that second Challenge Day, the main message conveyed by the leaders was beyond my attention. I thought I’d come away with the advice to not cry unless it was about something really important, and to “be stronger” — which was completely abstract to me at the time. (It still is, honestly. Is there a checklist I have to fill out to determine if I’m “strong” enough to…what? Be a living, appropriately emotional person? I mean, evidently not.)

I don’t want adults to be rude to kids who are expressing emotions of any kind, even if it’s about something they don’t think is worth expending energy to worry about. Children and teenagers have vastly different capacities to internalize the world around them compared to adults, and that doesn’t make their reactions to hardships wrong or invalid. We should all know this, having been kids ourselves, but obviously we don’t.

When adults can’t understand a world in which a hamster’s death is, for one day, the most important thing, perhaps the sole hardship on a child’s mind, then we don’t deserve their innocent happiness at learning on their own that there are, in fact, more hamsters.

If we can’t handle children’s emotions at their worst — the worst “worst” they’ve ever experienced — to what fate are we dooming them when the things they don’t talk about, their depression and abuse and appropriately hard hardships that are allowed to challenge their strength, get bad enough for us to care?

Takeaway: Let kids feel their feelings when they’re kids so they have a healthy relationship with their emotions as adults. (Please.)

[derpyslurpy-da-derp-master]

Wait, you LIKE Valkirye Drive Mermaid?? AND HDN?? But you're so... Not a degenerate??!

Well let me show you this helpful diagram to explain that;

(Yes I made that in MS paint)

Ecchi actually makes me really uncomfortable because almost always it’s at the expense of women and tied somewhere into misogyny. I almost always just skip past the parts in whatever series I’m watching but even so I usually stick around because I absolutely adore everything else about it. I’ll talk about that at length under the cut ‘cause that’s gonna get long. 

Edit: It’s not letting me use a cut for some reason

Hyperdimensional Neptunia

I almost feel like I don’t have to explain this but since you’re asking I might as well. This series is actually incredibly good. The writing is amazing a good chunk of the time, the jokes are funny, the characters are amazing, the character DYNAMICS are amazing, and I love this series so goddamn much oh my God. Yeah there’s Ecchi and inappropriate jokes but the Ecchi is easily skippable and the dirty jokes tend to lean more towards the funny side then the gross side which is rare when it comes to those kinds of jokes. There are literally too many things I love about this franchise for me to list them all or even half of them so I’ll have to cut it off here before I start rambling about how UniGear is the purest thing in the world and Peashy must be protected at all costs.

Valkyrie Drive Mermaid

The biggest one that i’m guessing is your biggest concern is Valkyrie Drive Mermaid. Let me preface this with there are a LOT of things I genuinely hate about this series, don’t even get me started on the actual character designs of literally everyone except the cowgirl who have bust’s that are either unnecessarily large, inhumanely large, or are literally always on display. There are a LOT of gross things in this show that I don’t want to discuss but instead I’ll tell you what parts of it that I like and love. 

First off, the actual premise and plot is interesting and genius as hell and would be amazing if they dialed down the explicitness several notches and made the trigger something different. Like, a virus that is almost like magic that turns people into weapons and the infected are kidnapped from their homes and sent to islands to be quarantined, meanwhile they aren’t actually trying to find a cure but instead trying to weaponize it by using and abusing test subjects to the point that when two of them manage to escape one of them is so emotionally closed off she doesn’t act like her true self whatsoever and the other has gone genuinely insane? That’s just a really cool plot right there. 

I also really love Mirei in general in the same way I love characters like 2B; entirely for her character. (And unlike 2B I actually don’t find Mirei that attractive and moreso find her adorable as all hell when she acts like her true self)

She’s so incredibly traumatized and cold to others but then she is constantly forced to be intimate with someone to keep them safe but then she genuinely starts to love Mamori and her walls slowly come down and you discover that this badass looking girl is actually the biggest shiest softy to ever exist. 

There’s also the whole plot with Akira, and while there are some problematic undertones to it, if you took the concept and twisted it to be more progressive and less closed minded how cool could that turn out? 

A girl sent to a random island despite her mother’s best efforts who cuts her hair and pretends to be a man so the other girls on the island will follow her because she’s ‘unique’ but then she slowly starts to realize that something about wearing a binder and dressing in princely garments and having others call her ‘Sir’ feels so right and basically what I’m getting at is trans boy Akira AU. Just imagine how much more interesting and cool this would’ve been if Akira had become Trans after a year or two of pretending to be a boy to gain followers on the island and instead of Charlotte (I think that’s her name) tearing Akira’s clothes and revealing ‘Oh my god Akira’s a girl’ instead revealing Akira’s scars from top surgery and that Evil Miku was wrong Akira actually is a boy and don’t you dare invalidate him you blue haired gremlin

Speaking of blue haired gremlin’s, here’s Momoka aka Evil Miku, the literal definition of the ‘Does this look like the face of mercy to you’ meme

Hoo boy she’s so utterly insane and sadistic and she genuinely scares me to my core. She’s so deeply terrifying when she wants to be it’s kind of amazing. She looks innocent-ish and then you learn JUST HOW MESSED UP she is in the head and it’s terrifying. The scariest part is that she’s what Mirei could’ve been and her entire character excluding the rapey part (because of course she’s rapey this is extreme ecchi remember everything has to be tainted -_- ) is a really good example to me as a writer on how to write a character like this effectively. Plus, uh, if you can make me, a lesbab, scared of a cute girl’; as a writer you’re doing something either very right or very wrong and I’d like to think it’s the former because she’s not scary because she’s an inhuman creature, she’s scary because she’s internally monstrous.

Final points on this series in particular; Mirei and Mamori’s relationship.

Now you may be asking yourself, how the fresh frosted fruity pebbles can a girl as cute as a button

Have any sort of meaningful relationship with someone who looks like they saw god, took one look at him, wasn’t impressed, then proceeded to challenge god to a knife fight?

Sure they were forced to be together by necessity, Mamori needed protection from the people after her power and Mirei needed said power and knew how to use it. Mamori is Mirei’s Exter and Mirei is her Liberator, they’re two halves of one whole and complete each other in a literal and practical sense. But when two people are forced to be intimate, an emotional connection is bound to be made, it’s just human nature. But even then there was still a lot of Resistance on Mirei’s side of things, she’s been through so much trauma and her past relationship with Evil Miku over there didn’t help that she doesn’t trust anyone and refuses to let herself ever be vulnerable. She refuses to let herself be herself. But Mamori doesn’t let things stay that way. Slowly but surely Mirei comes out of her shell, she starts to act like who she really is, a bashful dorkasaurus who wants/needs a freaking hug. This is when they realize they complete each other in a much less literal sense as well.

At the end of the day, no, I wouldn’t recommend this series. It’s got a LOT of bad going on in it to the point of being unwatchable but there’s just enough hints and pieces of something really good here to get my little writer brain wizzin’ away. 

So yeah! No I’m not a pervert or degenerate, I just tend to flat out ignore all Ecchi and pick out all the parts I genuinely enjoy and go ‘This is good.’ I would like both of these series infinitely more if they focused on the good things they have going on moe but sadly I’m not the kind of person these things are marketed to.

[missolitude]

Carolyn / Eve (Killing Eve) Headcanons + Character Exploration (Part I of ?)

for @ballion​ 💓

Disclaimer: Again, originally started for a ship meme, this turned into a drabble of its own, since I obviously don’t have any self-control, therefore I will post it separately. I had trouble finding my voice for both of them but I’m not unhappy with how this turned out. 

Who initiated the first kiss

Eve. She stumbled and Carolyn just happened to catch her. With her mouth. No, not really. Even though Eve might prefer that neat and simple version to what actually transpired. One day, late at night. There wasn’t even alcohol involved - well, not that much anyways. Her mind was totally clear - well as clear as it usually was. As much as possible under the current circumstances. Nothing else to blame really, except perhaps bad judgment and... opportunity?

It all started when Eve had another argument with Niko, he insulted her, again, and she was feeling the urge to slap him, again. She wasn’t proud of herself for feeling that way but she knew then that it was high time for a time out. For both of them. Eve didn’t even think, she acted purely on instinct and autopilot as she just threw a couple of things in her over night bag and then wordlessly stormed out of her apartment.

Eve didn’t know why or how precisely she ended up at Carolyn’s house, in the middle of the night no less. Planning wasn’t her strong suit. She was keenly aware of that now but it was too late to change that and she didn’t want to turn back either and come back crawling to Niko because she couldn’t think of a place to stay. She almost hoped Carolyn wasn’t home, or that she wouldn’t open the door to unexpected and bizarrely dressed visitors late at night - Eve only realized now that she wore her shirt inside out and her hair was a mess.

Not that she had much time to think about that because Carolyn was home and she did open the door. Eve couldn’t even remember pressing the doorbell, either Eve was more absentminded than she thought or Carolyn was psychic. Both was equally probable. Eve’s eyes instinctively moved over Carolyn’s form and she inadvertently gulped. Carolyn wore a silky grey nightgown that exposed some of her cleavage and accentuated her waist. The color also brought out the grey in her eyes, or were they green? Carolyn also didn’t wear make up yet she looked so... good, her skin was practically glowing. And Eve just stared at her, open-mouthed like some dimwitted fool. Must buy that moisturizer, she thought nonsensically.

Good thing that Carolyn didn’t ask any questions, Eve probably would have just babbled nonsense. No, Carolyn just invited her in like she would any regular guest, like it was the most normal thing to do at - what time was it? Surely long past midnight. Eve was mesmerized as she watched Carolyn move around her house. Carolyn was a most gracious host, she offered Eve a seat at the sofa (most comfortable) and drinks (Eve responded the strongest she had, which was of course Vodka - how very Russian of her). Carolyn made every move look purposeful, deliberate, no hesitation or uncertainty. Was she like that before working for MI6? Was there even a Carolyn before MI6? Who knew if Carolyn was even her real name.

Not that Eve really cared. It’s just what her mind always did when she’d rather not focus on her own problems. Figuring out other people - it was a neat little hobby, mostly a good distraction. Eve then noticed that she must have interrupted Carolyn in the middle of reading a book. “Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships” - how very fitting. “Relationship trouble?” Carolyn said and it was more of a statement than a question. It’s not as though it took a genius to figure out why Eve was here. “How do you do that thing you do?” Eve responded with a counter question. “Switch off your emotions. Keep secrets from everyone. Do you ever get tangled up in the jungle of your own lies?” Carolyn didn’t respond, she merely looked at her in thought, downing the rest of her Vodka. “Let’s play a game.” Eve looked at her confused. “And you fire me if I lose?” Carolyn chuckled heartily, as though Eve just made the most hilarious joke. “It’s not that kind of game. It’s simple really, you tell me three things about yourself, 2 truths and one lie. I have to figure out which is which.” Eve looked at Carolyn as though she’d just lost her mind. It’s not as though the evening could get any more absurd. “Fine but you first.” Carolyn merely shrugged. “Fair enough. I once spent six months undercover as a nun in a local Russian church and had an affair with a closeted lesbian sister. As I was starting out as an agent I was held hostage by a Russian drug dealer, I broke his neck with an ironing board. And I don’t like yellow.” Of course Carolyn said all of this as calm and unbothered as though she’d just read the morning paper.

“The nun story isn’t true.” Eve just took a blind guess. “Yes it is.” “Oh I didn’t know you like...” “You didn’t? Interesting.” “Well... I...” “Keep guessing.” “You like yellow.” “Don’t be absurd Eve, it’s dreadful. Do you really think I’d let anyone take me hostage? I did break his neck with an ironing board, however. The lesson is, if you lie, stay close to the truth. Now you try it.”

Eve, in her usual fashion, didn’t really think before she stated “I don’t love my husband.” It was freeing to say this. Sadly this was true. “We’ve had an argument today and I slapped him.” Sadly this wasn’t. “I’ve never kissed a woman, but I think I want to.” Eve couldn’t really stop herself as her eyes wandered to Carolyn’s lips. “You’re making it too easy. You didn’t slap your husband but you wanted to. At least you’re implementing my lesson.” “How did you know?” “Knowing everything about you is my job, Eve. Another piece of advice, don’t overestimate your own cleverness, it will get you into trouble.” Eve felt a little embarrassed. Had Carolyn even heard her other two confessions? Was she really as predictable as Carolyn thought? “I can help with that last bit, however.”

“You... what?” Eve then properly thought that Carolyn had lost her mind. Or had Eve? Was she having a weird dream? Did Carolyn just suggest...? “It’s merely an offer. No need to get personal about it. Consider it training. As an agent you’ll often be in situations where you’ll be forced to resort to... unconventional methods to... get what you want, keep people in line.” “Is that what you do with Konstantin?” “That’s none of your business, Eve, I said no need to get personal.” “I thought it isn’t.” Eve pouted at Carolyn, not that she appeared to notice. “My point is, if you are ever in such a situation you better know what you are doing.” Eve’s eyes widened, this time because she took offence. Did Carolyn just question her kissing skills? Eve decided she’d had enough. “FINE. Have it your way.” Eve downed the rest of her glass in one gulp, put it down and then stared at Carolyn in what she hoped looked like determination and defiance, but actually she just tried to cover up her rising nerves. No need to get personal. Eve briefly wondered what Carolyn considered to be personal, if this wasn’t it. Maybe this was personal and Carolyn just didn’t want it to be. Maybe this was all part of a huge and elaborate plan. Not that Eve would ever find out, Carolyn’s mind was like a maze. Easy to get lost in.

“What are you waiting for then? Seduce me.” Carolyn then stated almost playfully, putting her arm on top of the sofa backrest, casually making it clear who was in control. To make matters worse, the position of her arms also made her night gown cling closer to her skin and it revealed that she wasn’t wearing a bra. Of course she wasn’t. Who was even seducing who? Why was everything with Carolyn a cat and mouse game?

Eve felt heat rising up in her body, some of it settling on her cheeks, she didn’t know if it was out of anger or frustration or both. Don’t think, act. Eve inched closer to Carolyn, reaching out to cup her cheek. She immediately got distracted and mesmerized by the softness of her skin. Moisturizer, was the only coherent word Eve’s mind was capable of. She must have said it out loud too because Carolyn was smirking at her. Either that or Carolyn was testing her. This woman was infuriating beyond words but Eve couldn’t deny that she wanted this. Had even thought about this. Not that she’d ever imagined it would be like this.

Eve wanted to kiss that smug smirk out of her and so she did. She leaned in and all she felt was warm softness. She could taste Vodka and something sweet, chocolate? A sweet tooth, who knew. Eve could feel herself open up to the sensation, relaxing, enjoying herself and then it felt like a trap snapped shut. Carolyn kissed her back and Eve was lost.

Eve’s hands were all over Carolyn’s body, exploring, feeling, wanting, oh, Carolyn’s nipples were hard, then Eve heard a moan, she didn’t know whether it was her own, nor did she care. They only stopped when they both were utterly out of breath. Carolyn closed her eyes briefly and adjusted her hair and her night gown. “See what I mean? It’s easy to lose the game when you let your guard down.” Eve didn’t know whether Carolyn meant herself or Eve, but it surely was a lesson worth (l)earning.

[summertime-children]

WIP Challenge

Tagged by @kikithedeceiver​ (thanks~)

Tagging: @starspatter​, @cookiehoodie​ and Meli if she ever sees this bc I want a snippet of all her unwritten knkd fics (?) (and if any writer out there needs a nudge to share their WIPs, feel tagged!)

Challenge: post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous.

I’ll do what what Kiki did and post titles of my WIPs with comments and short fragments of them? I’ll share here only my kagepro WIPs (so basically kidokano/Kano ones lol). A little warning before we start: it’s going to be very long lol bc I can’t finish fics to save a live and I have... lots of ideas, plus I never get to talk about them >.> Also they’re going to be getting gradually worse bc I’ll go from newest to ancient-est. (Full disclosure tho, those aren’t raw quotes from my WIPs bc some had so visible grammar errors, I just had to fix them + I always put notes in my works, like every second word lol) Here we go.

Listen

Comment: This is the freshiest one, I was writing bits of it merely the day before, and because of that I still naively believe I will finish and post it soon, so I won’t say anything more about it.

”I want you to understand. You… need to know there’s so much to love about you!”

“Haha like what?” he laughed with bitter sounding laugh, something that must had slipped as it was followed by a face she had occasion to see only a few times- a face of regret. Regret of choosing wrong words, wrong mask to put on or forgetting to put her at all.

Different ways to say it

Comment: Just a short fluff where Kano’s snarky bottomness is showing lol

“You should’ve asked ‘Can you kiss me?’ instead.”

Kano is dumbfounded for a few seconds before he snorts.

“Right.” he begins with a playful grin “Let me fix that. Can you, Kido Tsubomi, the fierce leader of Mekakushi Dan, my girlfriend, my sun, my stars, the love of my life, the love of my thousands other lives, do me an absolute honor and light up my da-“

He didn’t even manage to finish before he felt the pair of soft lips landed on his, catching his words.

New chapter

Comment: Won’t say much about it because it’s supposed to be a gift for certain someone~ But here’s a little sneak peek 👀

That was weird. They never really talked about having any pets. They talked about having kids (as much as stating that they want to make a family together during several separate occasions counts), but the topic of having pets was never brought up and in a timespan of living together and even moreso of living alone together, they already had plenty of opportunities to get one. And yet Kano always knew that when Kido pictured their future family together there was also present a small ball of fur waving its tail and he could see it in her eyes at that moment more visibly than ever.

GrimReaper!Kido x Vampire!Kano

Comment: I was very disappointed with the knkd fanwork of that one Halloween art, so I decided to write something that would satisfy me (with no success so far rip).

The black figure that merged with the ubiquitous dark hanged up the big scythe they were holding on the wall, among the collection of similar but different in sizes scythes, proceeded to take off their shoes (but then put them quickly back on, changing their mind as soon as their feet met with the concrete) and pulled off the black hood of their cloak to reveal the long green hair, something that finally stood out in the darkness, before walking deeper into the room.

I can’t wait to fall in love with you

Comment: Inspired by well, that one sentence that is in the title and lowkey (?) by Meli’s lovely fic~ It’s the kind of fic that I myself call “(not) soulmates au”. It revolves around the idea that after so many timelines of falling in love with each other, they’re just bound to fall in love again... Even when they don’t remember their past lives...

“Oh man, I can’t wait to fall in love with you.” Kido turned her gaze towards the blond lying next to her on the couch. Her widened from being taken aback by his statement eyes met his golden, cat-like ones, tinted with the strange warm spark that she could feel she had yearn for a very long time. It lasted only a second though because soon her brows furrowed and her gaze dropped from those well-too-familiar (given the circumstances) eyes to her hands.

Two cats

Comment: Set in the sort of the au where they never died? On one winter day Kano takes stray cat to his house to take care of. It’s solely Kano fic btw.

Forgetting for a moment about his own advice (why he should had kept repeating it in his head) he looked over his shoulder to see if his stalker was still there and in that moment their gazes lock. “Crap.” He couldn’t help but think ‘curiosity killed the cat’ as a pair of similar eyes to his stared back at him.

hbd kido

Comment: Product of my procrastination. (As you may tell, I have a problem with it). One year I was slightly~ more productive and was kinda disappointed that I didn’t manage to write Christmas fic. So then I thought that I could save some time and write this fic where Kido has joint Birthday-NewYear party with Christmas decorations still lying around (including mistletoe *cough cough*) just in time for KidoKano Day killing not two, but even four birds with one stone. It’s sort of high school au btw.

“Hi.” The boy tried again. His face was embellished with wide grin and slightly flashed cheeks and in his hand she noticed a can of beer. Oh no.

“Hi, Kano.” She said with disinclination. It wasn’t like she didn’t like the guy. Even more, in the normal situation, like average day in the school, she would find a conversation with him a nice or refreshing thing. He was one of a few people that actually knew about her existence and despite her previous prejudice he turned out to be a pretty nice guy.

Christmas Event

Comment: I’m not sure what Christmas event that was for lol.

For Kano it was this time of a year when his Mother would stay home the whole day instead of going to work and she would be more kind to him. Though he wouldn’t call it exactly this way (it’s not like he felt she wasn’t kind to him normally after all), but she was definitely more forgiving.

Affectionate meme Requests

Comment: Requested for the writing meme in the year 2016. Keeps it as a reminder of how big loser I am (?) (just what this post manages to do so far lol) The prompt was “love bite” >.>

From her spot she couldn’t see him quite clear, due to the still turned off lights, so it was only up to her imagination to decide whether he recollected his mask or not. Maybe it was the second after all, because excluding two golden eyes that shone at her there were two bright spots that stood out in the dark, both marked on his skin.

M!KidoKano

Comment: It was supposed to be male!Kido x Kano fic and yeah... I’m emberassed about it tbh. Like, by the fact I wanted to write it itself. Idk now I find it rather weird to genderbend only one person from the pairing, especially in the fic and for that reason I won’t share fragment from it. Sadly it’s one of my better written pieces lol and going back to it I see I made male!Kido no differnt from the regular Kido... which makes it a good genderbend I guess, but also completely unnecessary.

Angsty Kano fic

Comment: I have no idea lol There’s almost nothing written there.

Even Greater Fear

Comment: Despite what title may suggest it’s more fluffy than angsty. KanoKido family fluff where Kano gets anxious about how happy he is now and that he might someday lose it too. Featuring my knkd fankids, Naoki and Reika.   

“Mom, dad is sad!” announced Reika with reproach. This she wasn’t expecting.

“What?” Tsubomi asked out of surprise and was followed by a low groan coming from behind the couch that could belong only to her beloved husband.  

“No, I’m not.”  She watched how the expressions of her children slowly changed from the ones of concern to the ones of disappointment and disgust.

“And he’s denying it.”

Inverted

Comment: Silly engagement scenario. If I ever finish that, it'll be my comedic genius’ peak I swear (?)  

He was clearly getting more nervous, the longer the searching wasn’t bringing any results. He let go of Kido’s hand and got his another one to help him search for whatever was supposed to be in that pocket. However, after a while his movements completely stopped and with some kind of dread in the eyes he whispered under his breath, “It’s gone.”

Time

Comment: Angsty setomary fic I wanted to write for SetoMary Spring (anyone remember that?) 

When she moved out to her new family the first thing she noticed was that time has significantly slowed down. Oddly, somehow it did accelerate at the same time. It was hard to explain and she herself couldn’t understand the feeling nor did she give it much consideration, but for the first period of living in that new world, new pace of that very activity- living- has struck her.

One in a million

Comment: An actual soulmates au (with the variation of the red thread concept). It’s way too ambitious for me lol (starting with the fact that it’s supposed to be multi-chapter story). I won’t share a fragment of it bc not much’s written and bc tbh there would be spoilers, in case I ever do post it. I could write about the concept in a seperate post though because I did a lot of world-building for it. (A lot for me, ok?)

Clear and present

Comment: Ghost AU. Baby Kano hides one time in the abandoned, partly burned mantion and that’s where he meets the ghost of (scary) green-haired teenage girl he befriends. Somehow got inspired by that anthology comic? Also I would listen to this song while attempting to write it lol. Not much was written though.

What I didn’t

Comment: This one’s rare. My only attempt at writing harutaka fanfic. (Funnily enough last safe was on kidokano day?... many years ago.)  In the manga Takane was pretty excited to give Haruka a present for his birthday, but he had an attack and was hospitalized so she didn’t and it wasn’t said (?) if she ever gave it to him later. So my idea for this fic was that she didn’t and how she was now trying to give it to him after three years. Took huge inspiration from this song: {x}

She didn’t have to wait long until there were heard slow, but at the same time hurried footsteps behind the door and soon it was followed by the sound of doors being unlocked. The doors before her opened revealing the light-brown-haired boy wearing excited smile and slightly oversized green sweater with embroidered reindeer. And one of these was just the warmest thing in this cold winter world.

Sneeze like a kitten

Comment: Inspired by one line from Gravity Falls lol It was just another thing I wanted to add to list of similarities between Kano and cats and I’m sure it would bring Kido joy too ;3 But as much as I still find this idea cute it is so awkwardly written lol. I kinda appreciate that it’s from Rin’s POV and that I tried using kinda fancier English for that reason (as fancy as I knew back then lol), but I guess first person fics will always sound weird. It’s set in a different route I guess where they sort of met before the orphanage.

Soon I noticed all her glances seemed to be directed at small boy with blond hair sitting alone on the bench, a little away from the playground. At first I was fairly surprised, not understanding why this particular boy had become her spot of interest, but giving more attentive look at the boy made me instantly realize reasons of her intent glances.

Connection

Comment: I have almost nothing written there and I barely remember it, but from what I can see it must be my original idea for the “formal event” prompt from the very first kanokido week. I... think it was sort of an au where they never died and they met at some sort of fancy party held by Kido’s parents where Kano was a waiter.

Oof that’s all (I mean all from the folder on my pc, but I won’t be getting into that). For a fair portion of it, I gotta objectively say there’s absolutely zero chance of me ever finishing them, but then (aside from the freshest ones that I still have on my mind) revisiting all those WIPs made me really want to revive some of them owo (some I would have to completely re-write tho OTL)

[janiedean]

book meme

tagged by @robb-greyjoy and @cafeleningrad thank you both! <3

1. Which book has been on your shelves the longest? Uhm. Uhm. That’s... a hard... question... but I think the collection of Irish fairytales I really was into when I was like seven? I probably have older stuff than that but not on my shelves (it’d be stored somewhere) and not that I re-read at this point.

2. What is your current read, your last read and the book you’ll read next? The current read is Stuart Kaminsky’s The Howard Hughes Affair in the Toby Peters series because I need light reading and twenty-four books of down on his luck PI in Hollywood in the forties always dealing with old hollywood cinema stars is exactly what I need for light reading.

Last read: it was the previous in those series, You Bet Your Life, or if you don’t count that it was some medieval history book.

Next read: I’d like for it to be Stephen and Owen King’s Sleeping Beauties but it’s most likely gonna be either roman history or medieval history, again. Or possibly the fifth in that series but it’s really quick reading so. xD

3. Which book does everyone like and you hated? I’m gonna almost quote Damien who said P&P (which I...uh... don’t like lol) and say Emma which is still the Most Insufferable Thing I Ever Read In My Entire Life. P&P is less insufferable but I don’t get the fascination and mist likely never will.

4. Which book do you keep telling yourself you’ll read, but you probably won’t? Idk I eventually get to everything I mean to but I should have read War and Peace like years ago. ONE DAY. XDD

5. Which book are you saving for “retirement?” None, I save anything longer than 500 pages for when I’m on vacation but who even knows when I’ll get to retirement, so...

6. Last page: read it first or wait till the end? I ALWAYS WAIT UNTIL THE END I NEVER CHECK THE LAST PAGE are we srs it’s the last one for a reason

7. Acknowledgements: waste of ink and paper or interesting aside? Always fundamental. I always read acknowledgments. Though I don’t do the mistakes of reading afterwords before the book because I spoiled myself the ending of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd because I had to read the afterword first and I was an idiot xD

8. Which book character would you switch places with? ... honest? Rob from High Fidelty, not just because we’re sadly almost the same person but because I wanna own a fucking record shop and that’d be about the only way I could do it in this lifetime I fear...

9. Do you have a book that reminds you of something specific in your life (a person, a place, a time)? Hmmm, lots I guess, but Different Seasons was the summer when I turned fifteen and it definitely changed my life for the better and I always remember it fondly, same for The Three Musketeers and the 2006 summer which was.. an interesting time I guess xD, latin/greek epics will forever be tied with my father for better or worse and french authors with my mom aaaand beat generation stuff definitely reminds me of my best friend from high school and I could probably say that while I never read hp it also reminds me of people I was better off without so that’s probably another reason why I hate it but never mind that xDDDDD

10. Name a book you acquired in some interesting way. Hmm idk I’m totally blanking here XD I don’t think I have any *interesting* story about this sorry guys

11. Have you ever given away a book for a special reason to a special person? lmao no. The three times I lent book to someone they never came back and I’m really not the kind of person who shares their *special* copies so it’d have to be a really special person to make me give away a book I already own for special reasons xD and I haven’t met that person yet

12. Which book has been with you to the most places? I have a feeling it’d be the second dark tower book or the third for how badly I ruined them

13. Any “required reading” you hated in high school that wasn’t so bad ten years later? If I actually found the inner strength to get over my issues with some teacher and re-read I promessi sposi without bias I probably wouldn’t find it as terrible as I did back in the day but it’ll take me another ten years for that I fear, for the rest I’m fairly good with everything I had to read as a requirement.

14. What is the strangest item you’ve ever found in a book? Someone’s phone number I fear

15. Used or brand new? Don’t care either way but if I have to buy, used because they’re cheaper tbh xDDDD

16. Stephen King: Literary genius or opiate of the masses? Guys. Guys. While I’m the first person who wouldn’t say King is the new Proust, and while there’s a lot of things I dislike about the way he does things (first of all how much he loves his PEOPLE FORGETTING EVERYTHING trope)....

a) when I read Different Seasons I was in a moment where I had fallen out of love with reading stuff for reasons and it brought it back full spades; b) he was the first author I read in english and 90% the person that influenced my writing style more for those reasons; c) he’s a genius at crafting characters/character work/character development way more than a lot of people critics enjoy more than him and since I’m a character driven whore put two and two together; d) he came up with my Favorite Fictional Character Ever (whose surname is half of my tumblr nickname/internet nickname anywhere so...) and with my Favorite Ship Ever and my Favorite Series Ever and a lot of my Favorite Things Ever; e) he’s exceedingly good at his genre and while his endings are shit 70% of the time when he nails it he nails it;

tldr: he might not be the Greatest Writer Ever but he’s my Subjectively Favorite Writer Ever for bad and for good and no one disrespects king in front of me okay? k. I owe his damned books enough to repay how much they made me suffer xD 

17. Have you ever seen a movie you liked better than the book? Blade Runner is vastly better than the book and Maurice is pretty much as good as it but there were changes that imo were improvements over things that were not in the plot so I guess it counts.

18. Conversely, which book should NEVER have been introduced to celluloid? 

...........

THE

DARK

TOWER

I rest my case no one wants me to start ranting again about how much that piece of shit movie should have never existed and idris elba deserved a lot better than ending up involved in it.

19. Have you ever read a book that’s made you hungry, cookbooks being excluded from this question? no but I wrote a bakery au that made people feel hungry, does that count?

20. Who is the person whose book advice you’ll always take? my parents though I’ll take it with a pinch of salt because there’s people they like that I can’t stand (*cough* borges *cough* SORRY I KNOW) and viceversa but let’s say that if my dad said he didn’t dislike it then it’s probably not a bad book in 90% of the cases same for my mom (though she didn’t hate the solitude of prime numbers as much as I did which is why as stated I take things with a pinch of salt xD), then @robb-greyjoy because we basically like the same things so I trust his judgment, my high school bf who’s not on tumblr (the beat generation person) who also had my same tastes so I’d have definitely trusted her, and there’s a few tumblr users I follow for books talking whose judgment I trust 99% of the time xD

also half of the people I wanted to tag got tagged by either of you so hmmm @lordhellebore @slushiebear @blueagia @incblackbird @julesdrenages @julesfelden @ms-mormont and @greyjoysea? if you all want to of course otherwise ignore me xD

[fireflyfish]

Hi, do you have any advice for this unable-to-make-decisions GoH newbie? I'm level 62 atm and just developed 7-star Luminara, and I can't decide what to invest in. (7-star Mace is almost there as well.) I want an actual squad (right now my A-team is Mace, Luminara, Tarkin, Chewie, Jedi Consular), which one do you recommend?

Hello there and Welcome to the Madness! We are super glad to have you with us on our long trek to Rancor/Tank/General Kenobi Domination! 

First of all, Congratulations on getting 7* Luminara! YAAAAAY! 

She’s fabulous and she stays fabulous for a good long while. She was my first 7* character and I still love her. She’s a character you can level up to a certain point and she stays competitive with everybody else for a good long time. Unlike some characters I am looking at you JK Anakin you pretty, squishy thing you she’s pretty good on her own and mods just make her even better. 

Since your Arena team has three Jedi I’m going to make two Suggestion Lists, one based on what you’ve already got and can easily level up and then another Suggestion List based on what’s going to be easy and successful in the long run. I’m not super skilled and well versed in what’s Meta (i.e. what’s popular and super successful in the arena right now.) because I love my Jedi and Clone Sons too much.

But I will try to keep the Meta Game in mind so that later on you haven’t managed to craft some kind of Lovecraftian Horror Zeta Ewok Scout or whatever. XD 

I’m also tagging my guild officer @silvergryphon, and my GOH sempai @gffa as well as anyone else who wants to join in the fun! @tygermama, @resistancepilots, @generallkenobi, @dendral, @teapirate, @loverofcake And anyone else who wants to help out and has Thoughts! XD

So without further ado… here’s my suggestions!

JEDI

Jedi are fun because they have lightsabers and do fun flippy things and also LIGHTSABERS ARE PLASMA CHAINSAWS! How is that not cool? 

Easy Jedi to Farm

Ahsoka Tano - Hands down Ahsoka is one of the easiest Jedi to farm for. She shows up in the Cantina Store and she has two nodes where she can be found Dark Side 4-C and Light Side 5-D (which has come choice gear on it). Ahsoka can supplement healing for Luminara and she’s also a must have in Fleet Battles. She plays well with others and I’ve often won arena battles where I was down to her and Fives and they made hash of my opponents. Ahsoka is great in mid-game and an excellent addition to your Jedi team. 

Ezra Bridger - After Ahsoka, Luminara and Mace, Ezra is probably the second easiest Jedi to farm for. He’s on a low Cantina Node (2-B) and he pops up in the Fleet Store with an annoying regularity. No, Game! I wanted Chirrut Shards! I don’t want Emo Blueberry Shards! Of the Phoenix Squad characters, he’s the one I kill first when I face a Phoenix team and he’s very useful wherever he goes. His bonus attacks can kill Baze and Fives and that takes some serious doing. He also has a ship (Phantom II) so that’s nice for your Fleet arena. 

Kanan Jarrus - Okay so with Kanan you’re going to have to balance his availability with whoever else you’re going for in the Squad Arena store but he’s another useful Jedi who can taunt, add protection and debuff your characters. He’s not super easy to get but if you’re going to get the Phoenix Squad he’s tied for second place with Hera after Ezra. 

Qui-Gon Jinn - *sighs* Get him. You’ll need him if you want to run a Jedi team. His leadership gives your team speed and he can call assists as well as debuffs. Don’t let my lackluster recommendation of everyone’s Neglectful Hippie Space Dad dissuade you. He’s useful and not hair-pullingly difficult to get.

Difficult to Farm but Worth It

Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker - Oh my precious Rage Baby! So beautiful, so angry, so… squishy? If you’re going to have a Jedi team, you need to have Anakin on it. He does serious damage and he can also inflict healing and buff immunity for 2 turns. He plays very well with clones and Ahsoka. When Luminara gets her heal over time ability, that really helps shore Anakin up. He also has an AOE attack which I don’t think any other Jedi has. He’s only on four nodes (Dark Side 5-B, 7-D, Light Side 5-C and Cantina 7-G) so he’s not impossible to get I am looking at you Aayla Secura but he’s not easy either. Probably just the way Padme and Obi-Wan like it. 

Barriss Offee - Eh. Get the murderous wench. She’s the best healer in the game, for a back-stabbing-jedi-turned-terrorist. Like Anakin, she’s not in a store but she’s got four nodes (Dark Side 5-C, 5-E, 8-A and Cantina 6-A). She’s a popular for Zeta when you get to that (and that is still a long ways off for you so don’t worry about it.) 

So… uhmm… TL:DR

Ahsoka

Ezra/Qui-Gon

Whoever you didn’t go for last time in the Ezra/Qui-Gon mashup

Jedi Knight Anakin/Kanan Jarrus

Whoever you didn’t go for last time JK Anakin/Kanan Jarrus

Back-stabbin’ Barriss Offee

Holy Crap I went on forever! But onwards and upwards my dear! Here is part two!

REBELS

Because you will need Rebels to compete in all sorts of special events (Empire Themed events, Emperor Palpatine events, the new Territory battles) you are going to need Rebels. 

The good news is THERE ARE LOTS OF REBELS. SO MANY REBELS. LIKE MORE THAN WE NEED AND I AM AN AVOWED DISLIKER OF THE SITH/EMPIRE/FIRST ORDER CHARACTERS.

Right now your Squad Arena team is tilted in the direction of Jedi which is fine! I have had my butt handed to me by many a Jedi team before. I swear to the Force Yoda if you don’t leave my precious Wedge alone I am going to reach through the screen and strangle you! But a Rebels team is pretty much required to advance in the game and EA has given you a MYRIAD of options to chose from.

Which brings me to… Easy to Farm Rebels

Biggs Darklighter - Popular recently is a combination of Wiggs (Wedge Antilles + Biggs Darklighter) and Chaze (Chirrut Imwe + Baze Malbus). Now here’s a thing, or two, you need to know about these two combos. 

It’s REALLY effective.

It’s kind of a pain in the ass to get. 

The good news for you is that Biggs Darklighter is not only in the Galactic War Store (where if you defeat the table you have a chance to purchase up to 15 of his shards a day!) but he’s also located on Cantina Node 3-G and Dark Side Node 4-A. Biggs also has an X-Wing that taunts (I LOVE YOU, BIGGS) and he has amazing synergy with Wedge Antilles. If you can get an omega mat on his Comrade-in-Arms Super-Mega-Killshot attack, he can perform that every other turn. WHICH IS SO AMAZING. 

SO. 

AMAZING. 

So I highly recommend Biggs. Even if you don’t want to run a Rebels squad right now, he is worth it for his ship and that Comrade-in-Arms ability. 

Stormtrooper Han Solo - ST Han Solo has the advantage of being both a Rebel and a Scoundrel, which are ANNOYINGLY important in this game. It may not seem like it now but trust me, when you start Mod farming, you are going to need those credit heists desperately. Where is my Dave Chapelle Meme with the white powdery lips and “Y’all got any more of ‘dem Credit Heists?” ST Han is in the same boat as Kanan Jarrus as he’s only available in the Squad Arena store so if you have to pick between the two, go for ST Han while you’re going after Jedi elsewhere. 

ST Han can taunt and his taunt is particularly insidious because every time he takes a hit, his allies gain turn meter. I’ve seen him work well with all sorts of teams and I’ve seen him in the top level squads as well. 

Princess Leia - Her Royal Highness, the Crown Princess of Alderaan is a beast. On top of her stealth move (which apparently can cleanse some debuffs. *o*) her basic attack “Hair Trigger” allows her fire up to three times in one attack. Remember when I mentioned that Phoenix squad earlier? About the only person I have that is really capable of taking them down to size is Princess Leia. (And Fives, because Fives is indestructible.) She’s also an excellent counter to Grumpy Secessionist Grandpa Count Dooku. She got reworked when they introduced Commander Luke Skywalker so she should be even better now! 

Sadly, Our Lady of Sass and Cinnamon Rolls is only located in the Squad Arena store so you’ll have to juggle her against everybody else. I’ve also heard she’s great against Part 4 of the Tank Raid and works well with a team of Clones to form the fantastic portmanteaux of Princess Zody (Princess Leia + Zeta Cody). 

Last but most definitely not least is the Baron Administrator of Cloud City…

Lando Calrissian - To call Lando easy to farm is kind of misnomer. He only shows up on two Cantina nodes (1-E and 5-F and for me 5-F had a better drop rate than 1-E) but he’s on Cantina nodes and if you chose to use your crystals that way, you can get probably four to five shards a day for him as opposed to the limits placed on Light Side and Dark Side Battles. I have gotten more but that wasn’t until I opened up 5-F. 

Lando is, to put it bluntly, a stone cold mass murderer. Sure he looks all suave and charming and you think, “That man in the open neck blue shirt and that disco-tastic seventies gold lined cape looks charming and harmless! I’ll leave him alone and concentrate my forward power on Darth Vader or Jedi Knight Anakin or something like that. 

And then two, maybe three, Lando turns later you’re dead, your party is dead. Your neighbor is dead. EVERYONE IS DEAD. 

Not only does Lando have great leadership and a pretty good basic attack, his AOE attack will slaughter YOUR WHOLE TEAM. ALL OF THEM. I’ve seen my Lando take out an entire teams protection in one go! POOF! GONE. ALL OF IT. And then? If he scores a critical hit? (which he does with terrifying regularity when he’s on the opposing team) HIS COOL DOWN RESETS AND YOU ARE DOOMED TO BE PERFORATED BY BLASTER FIRE YET AGAIN.

See? Lando Calrissian: Stone Cold Mass Murderer. 

If Lando is paired up with Admiral Ackbar and Ackbar uses his Tactical Genius before Lando, you can perform his ORBITAL BOMBARDMENT OF DOOM TWICE IN A ROW. Lando is the Dread Pirate Roberts of Galaxy of Heroes. 

There will be no survivors.

Not only does Lando work great with your Rebels but like ST Han he’s a Scoundrel too so he’ll play well with a Scoundrel team in Credit and Droid Heists. 

TL;DR 

Biggs Darklighter

Stormtrooper Han Solo

Lando Calrissian 

Princess Leia

And then maybe Admiral Ackbar for cleansing and assisting Lando in his mass slaughter of your opponents.

I hope that was helpful, my dear! I wish you all the best in your galactic conquest! Have a great Wednesday and may the Force and RNGeezus be with you!