#tho i honestly felt like i needed more hero art in my life so i was more than happy to do that

[inferno-silentdragon]

Another omori pixel doodle while I procrastinate

[seylaaurora]

ok ur turn. top 5 ajr songs (do not feel the need to give big long explanations like i did lol im just insane. unless u’d like to be equally insane about it)

I cannot do this. I now see the error of my ways of asking you to do this ranking, cause it is just pure torture😆

Started to relisten to their first album cause it's the one that's least clear in my mind and... I already want all of them in my ranking and I know I like the Click, Neotheater and OK Orchestra even more... take pity on me😭

Let’s start with Pitchfork Kids! Absolute classic, absolute banger, delightfully weird in the way that reminds me why I love AJR. The song of their first album that stayed the longest on my playlist and the one that I always get back to being obsessed with whenever I listen to it. I don’t know what it is about this song. I don’t even think it’s one of their most relatable songs, probably not even one of their weirdest songs, it’s just... soooooo good tho. Legit one of THE AJR songs of all time. I don’t think I’ll ever get over it. They’ll never be able to produce a song that hits the same buttons Pitchfork Kids does. No one will be able to, it just holds such a special place in my heart and my brain.

Role Models. This always hits even harder listening to it after Woody Allen like I’m doing today (no one can tell me it’s not a direct sequel to that song, this is 100% partly about Woody Allen). The disillusionment of realising your (childhood) heroes are not who you thought you were. Your heroes letting you down is suuuch an experience of growing up. They’re not just heroes, but they are actual people and honestly, some of these people suck. The struggle of taking what your heroes gave you while leaving the people behind that gave it to you. To what extent can you separate the art from the artist? How do you go on, knowing the influence this person’s art had on your life, on the person you are today and the decisions you’ve made? How do you become okay with you having been shaped by something made by a person you so fundamentally disagree with? How do you keep that part alive while killing the part that is attached to that person? (I’m trying really hard not to write an essay but it’s not turning out so well)

3 O’Clock Things. Look. This song is ace. I don’t make the rules.

Way Less Sad. I haven’t seen a single person yet who didn’t think this song was super optimistic, but also kind of thought that was weird of themselves to think. It’s an “This is not happy, so it can’t be the ending” optimism. I don’t know if we’re just all not okay, or if it’s not actually all that weird to think it’s an optimistic song, but this song came out in February 2021. That’s what we were in. Stuff sucked. It still does. But we are, in fact, not dead yet, and I personally think it’s very sexy of us to hold on to hope. We’re not done yet. Things will get better. They just will. It feels a little like spite, and I’m okay with that. This song makes me want to go out and change my life for the better

Birthday Party. There’s always been some social commentary in their music, and while this isn’t even the most obvious one (looking at you 3 O’Clock Things), it’s just so delightfully ironic about it. Look, Role Models doesn’t hit for no reason. This song always felt like a promise to me. We won’t be them. I remember seeing a post on Instagram around the time about how people were apparently complaining that they shouldn’t get political in their songs and I always thought “who the hell did you think you were listening to?” AJR’s songs have always been about growing up, and while there is the things about how to navigate relationships with other people, looking at the state of the world and building opinions on it has always been part of growing up too. This song is about the innocence of a child who will find out about all the horrible things going on in the world at some point, and I, for one, find that incredibly relatable.

Okay, this got away from me XD

I think I could write an essay about each of their songs, and my top 5 ranking could change at any point. I also wanted to put Weak, Netflix Trip, Call my Dad and Burn the House Down on the list, but I can’t do 9 instead of 5😂 at some point it’s just too much😂

Was this insane enough for you?😂

Drop sth in my ask box if you also want me to do a top 5 ranking for sth

[astersofthesky]

I decided to reread the MHA LN Chapter 4, you know, the canon bkdk angsty slow-burn fanfic 😌😌 Spreading the BKDK LN agenda because WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT THIS MORE !!

Anyway, I FOUND ANOTHER TRANSLATION but sadly OP haven't finished it yet 😢

And since I need an emotional outlet so I can scream at how they're so canon, Im'ma do it here ahwjdhfjsh 👀✨

Warning: Long post; potential manga spoilers

– I forgot that this chapter literally started with the angst 😭 Deku saying that he can't imagine having lunch with Kacchan is like a pain in the gut. He just wanna be friends with his Kacchan again 😢

– One word, ✨SOULMATES ✨ afshshahah PLS, even the universe can't help but ship them together 😩✋ they're fruityness is on whole a new level I CAN'T 💚🧡

– I see what you're doing Bakugou 👀 You really can't leave your sweet broccoli behind huh?? Also, crybaby Macchan and aggressive Takkun?? 🤔 Do I need to say more? 🧐

– If that's not flirting then idk what is 🤷 also, "In front of my soba? Really?" (Todoroki, probably)

– There's no ss but I just wanna give a special mention to jealous!Bakugou. No cos srsly, implying you're not friends with Deku as if you're not dying to hold his hand then getting irritated over Todoroki claiming the "friend" card 😩 Just, Bakugou, don't @ me ☺️💢

– The angst had reached full force it seems ಥ‿ಥ The line was cut but it actually says "Not friends, just childhood friends" 😭😭 and I am telling you Im'ma throw my brand new book when Bakugou explicitly acknowledges Midoriya as his boyfriend. Because before they were rivals, Bakugou and Midoriya were first friends. And I'm not saying that they aren't one now because we as readers, can definitely see they care for each other. But the question is, do they already see the other as a friend and not just a mere rival? They don't cos they're boyfriends your honor

– Tbh, It still haven't sinked in that this is kind of canon 🤧 This is such a cliched romantic scene like wtf?? So what's next? The full moon is illuminating half of Bakugou's face, red eyes glowing and face soft from the natural white luminescence or something sappy like that?? 😩😩 I love it

– Izuku in this LN chapter whenever he talks about Bkg: ✨ THEIR RELATIONSHIP ✨

– I know, I get it. You don't have to shove it my face every single time Deku 😌 and pls, why are you still flirting at the middle of the night?? Or was it pining that I see 🤔 i mean comparing each other to their kid parallels 😕 hmm a severe case of mutual pining indeed

– Yes yes, of course you're only looking for food stalls Mr. Bakugou "Tsundere" Katsuki, I completely don't believe that you're worried about the kids. No! of course not! Who says you want the kids to reconcile so they wouldn't experience the pain that you and a certain green had gone through?? Hahaha I mean It's not like they're your parallel what??hmmm no no, go on, look for takoyaki or smthn ☺️☺️

– Wait, did the last part say '"Bakugou grabbed Izuku's face and pushed it away..." Aksfksjdhdisjs what in the actual gay fanfic is this??!! Or wait, is this what Bkg usually do to Deku in the official art he's like, I love agressively gripping your head as I entangle my fingers on your soft curls but no homo💀

Since OP's translation isn't complete, I'm going to use Lau Ren's translation and yes I'm continuing this shit even though Tumblr mobile only lets me post 10 pics per post

– Bkdk domesticity with children pt. 95736 💚🧡 They love kids so much 😩 Yk I'd donate my kidney just to see this ANIMATED ✨ like this has so much fluff potential 🤧 Or at the very least a drama CD. I'd ascend 😭

– WHAT THE FUDGE ?!! I'M SCREAMING 😭 I SAY IT AGAIN 💞 SOULMATES✨ and pls, it has my favorite fic trope, Bakugou Katsuki is Bad at Feelings. Anyway, I need a minute to collect myself cos I can't move past the "With the said person himself nearby, Kacchan thought his fate had gone crazy" ( ≧Д≦) dammit Katsuki, why r u so gay. Izuku loves you, you emotionally constipated gremlin

I have reached my 10 picture limit so I'm just gonna copy paste some of the twts 💀 I hope I don't get in trouble lmao Xd

- Kacchan fixed his gaze to Deku who looked relieved. "He..."

- Somehow, Kacchan remembered the fight they had after All Might's retirement. It was the first time they were able to let out their conflicts sincerely. Although his fear towards Deku had decreased since then, there was still a feeling of disgust about Deku being a hero who save others residing in Kacchan.

- He couldn't understand it. But he knew, there will always a being whom he cannot understand

– Bkg rlly said 👀 on Deku while having angsty thoughts ಥ╭╮ಥ Looking back on this tho, I just can't help but be proud when I remember 285. Bakugou is loud but he is very rational in battles. He thinks of a plan on the spot meaning he's mind is on work 24/7.

– When he had his "My body just moved on its own" moment, Katsuki had understood Deku and his nature to "Save to Win." It'ss that Katsuki must not analyze it with his brain, but instead feel it with his heart 💚🧡 And this is the reason why I badly want to see him on the manga 😭 that was some MAJOR CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT I'm ahwjdhfjsh

– Takkun and Maachan's pinky swear deserves their own mention. They're so pure 😩✋

- He said he still hasn't done hatsumoude so Kacchan can go first, but Kacchan refused and wouldn't let Deku do hatsumoude before him.

- Kacchan tried to take a head start, but in the end, they ended up visiting and praying together.

– AND WE'RE BACK with the gays 😌 hsjdjajs they compete with every single thing it's honestly cute. Also YES THEY PRAYED TOGETHER and shoujo scenes with the main couple praying on the shrine but make it BKDK flashed before my eyes 😖✨

- After finishing their prayers, Deku looked at Kacchan, "What did you wish for?" "Shut up."

- Even with Kacchan's sulking expression seen from the side, Deku felt that they had wished for the same thing.

– DEKU YOU'RE BEING TOO LOUD!! I just can't with these two 😩✋ Both of them are down so bad for each other and you can't tell me otherwise 💚✨🧡

- With those serious eyes, Deku knew they were aiming for the same thing. Win to save, save to win. To be the best heroes.

- Deku knew well that he and Kacchan are polar opposites. But even so, Deku couldn't imagine a world in which Kacchan doesn't exist.

– Deku just went 😍 on Kacchan and thought "I CAN'T IMAGINE LIFE WITHOUT YOU 🧡💚" (insert Imagine by Ben Platt)

– I can't even stress how much I love this line, y'all this is so misleading I-- this is too much 😭 Anyway, I believe this go both ways. Bakugou can't also see a world without Deku in it, and since Deku decided to be the self-sacrificing person he is, I'll just SCREAM IN CH. 304 ( ≧Д≦)

- Seeing the two praying side by side, he commented, "so you've become good friends now, huh."

- Both of them immediately opposed, and Kacchan threatened to explode Shoto's mouth for saying such a disgusting thing.

– Let's go Todoroki, best wingman 🤣 And flustered Bakugou makes a reappearance hdjsja Dammit half n' half I ain't flirting with Deku fvck you

And this is where it ends afshshaha anyway bkdk canon 💚🧡

[weebsinstash]

!!! twice’s death hurt me so fucking much; he was and still is one of my main comfort characters in bnha and his death is still so fucking gut-wrenching to me. that trust that he had in hawks - a man he considered to be part of his family - just ripped the rug right out from under him, and he didn’t even get to have a proper goodbye with his true family. ;w;

and uhhh u didn’t ask but it’s one of the main things that instantly killed my liking for hawks 🙃🙃 like, i understand he’s a morally gray character or whatever but there are more options than sending a fucking feather-spear through twice’s abdomen??? i’m just tired of hearing that he did what he had to bc he’s a hero lmao. whatevs at this point tho-

Honestly, albeit on another end of the spectrum, Hawks is a victim of "Hero Society" as well. Certain manga panels show flashbacks of his childhood home having trash and empty beer cans on the floor that imply that his parents were lazy neglectful alcoholics, compounded by the fact that they quite literally surrender their son to the government. It doesn't need to be outright said because the art and wording pretty clearly implies that his parents agreed to let the Hero Commission take full custody of their son, because the story jumps from "a very young Hawks used his Quirk to save people he randomly encountered by chance" to "Hawks is literally taken in by the government and trained to be a Hero". They deliberately turned a young abused child into a weapon; THEIR weapon

Whether Hawks realizes it or not, the reasons he does what he does aren't even fully based upon what he himself wants. His goals adapt to whatever the people who literally groomed him wants, and I think even he is struggling to justify this. Do you think the Hero Commission told Hawks to extend an olive branch to Twice? I sincerely doubt it: that was Keigo's own empathy kicking in, wanting to give Jin an honest chance

And when Twice refused, Hawks saw no other options but to kill him, because in a way, that's what he's been taught: evil Villains who don't conform deserve to be punished

And honestly, sadly, just like Jin, all Keigo wants is a chance to live a happy, easy life

HOWEVER, that all being said, I fully agree that murder was not the only option here. When there are super mega prisons that have technology to disable or at least make it pretty deadly to use one's own Quirk, why couldn't Hawks have just arrested him if he felt so strongly about giving Twice the benefit of the doubt? If his feathers can become solid enough to form a sharp blade, why couldn't he have hypothetically used the flat side of said blade to just... knock Jin unconscious? And not only did he kill him, he stabbed him in either the heart, chest, or torso, from behind no less, through his back.

I won't ever say it was the right choice, or the only choice, and I hate that Jin is gone, but in the very end, I can't solely pin the blame on Hawks, because ever since he was young, he was taught one thing: Villains are evil, and Heroes are good. Arguably fittingly, that mindset was his downfall, because now, it looks like he can never be a Hero ever, ever again, and to be frank, I hope the Commission he spent his entire life serving doesn't decide it's his turn to be disposed of as well.

In the end, however misguided, Keigo is trying to find his role in this world and do what makes him happy, just like Twice

[rrrawrf-writes]

lordy lordy loo it’s been a hot minute since i’ve made an original post, i forgot where the button was

so. some of you may have seen the stuff running around about violetvineyard and mvcreates, some of you may not have. i’m just gonna lay out my experiences here, now that other people are talking about it and now that the server has been deleted. i’m gonna try to present a fair and nuanced version; i’m not gonna include screenshots (right now) bc i’m lazy, mostly.

there are several other people who are putting up way better breakdowns than i am. i just figured i might as well toss mine onto the pile bc why not? but if you’re hoping to hear from me a story about how i’ve been wronged, per se, you won’t find much of one, because i played mainly a spectator role, and never had much trouble there. i will have a vague, lukewarm defense of some of the people involved that other people may not agree with, but again, this is all just the whole VV deal from my point of view.

@nuwuhorizons (i haven’t said how dang much i lOVE your url) and @sapiencenotes have very good receipts and breakdowns. if you want a more in-depth (and dramatic, forgive me for using the word, i’m not trying to downplay this), check them out. @time-to-write-and-suffer also has some great stuff on their blog about all of this.

all righty. so. i joined VV not right at the beginning, but soon after it was started. there was an application process, i got accepted, i was looking for a community to help me start writing more. (it didn’t help, but that’s not their fault, that’s mine.) the person who owned the server was called mina, and on tumblr, mina’s url was mvcreates. mina is a nonbinary Muslim woman of color, a professional who i believe works at harvad and deals a lot with things like infectious diseases, iirc. she was doing a whole lot of work when the pandemic came around, and so the past few months wasn’t quite as active as she had been at the start, both on the server and tumblr. 

the very first time mina came on my radar, before i joined vv, was because she had corrected someone’s typo on a post, and it stirred up a minor drama about “don’t give unsolicited criticism” and “is pointing out minor errors like that okay” and blahblahblah. i ran across that on a friend’s dash, and also ran across the promo for vv from that friend’s dash, as well, and joined bc y not.

everything was p cool for a while. it was nice to meet some new people and some of my mutuals on there. mina seemed like a fun person. she was about a year, year and a half, maybe, older than i am. the first things that kind of started rubbing me wrong at the start was how she would kind of dismiss suggestions for the server than i and a friend had, and how she kept bringing up her age - she would often say things like “well i wouldn’t do that but i’m an Old(TM) so maybe i just don’t get it” and i can’t really explain why that bothered me. i think it felt dismissive, like Younger Folks Don’t Know How Things Should Work. also, like. she kept bringing it up. as if it meant something, as if plenty of us on that server weren’t actually around her age. there was a convo on vaccinations where i wanted to make the point that a lot of anti-vaxxers should be educated instead of ridiculed and shamed, but i never really got to making that point bc she jumped in very sharply and explained that anti-vaxxers all come from a class of people who are generally educated. i didn’t bother saying anything else. 

at the start, it was tiny little things like that. i chalked it up to her personality and mine just not quite matching up. i sat down a lot and examined my own internal biases, bc i knew something was bugging me, but i couldn’t tell if it was legitimate, or if i was jealous and petty, or if i was being discriminatory towards her identity. i still wonder that a lot; i want to be careful that i’m examining her actions here, and not the person who made those actions.

because the other thing that bothered me was that she was perfect at pretty much everything. she was a decent, if not good, writer, from what i read. i thought her “art”/edits were neat, even if sometimes i looked at them going “that just looks like an edit, not your own art, but u kno, edits are art too, so i’m not gonna say anything.” she had a lot of motivation, a lot of ambition. soon, this kind of transferred over into me feeling like she acted like she had to be perfect at everything. i think this is probably one of the more “lisa is just being petty” things, rather than a judgement on her character, but she seemed to flaunt her own skills and accomplishments a lot. not that no one is allowed to brag sometimes! but it was just another layer of “this bothers me.”

then there was the hero worship.

people in the server loved mina. i liked her. i had no problems with her, even if there were a few things i was a little “ehhhh” about. vv got pretty big, pretty quickly, and i assume there was a decent amount of turnover and people who just joined to lurk or sometimes share things in the promos channel or elsewhere. but the most active folks just. they adored mina with every fiber of their being. mina could do no wrong. no one ever called her out on anything; everything she did was hailed as fantastic and wonderful. and honestly, for the most part, it wasn’t like she was doing crappy stuff. some of the praise was well-deserved, imo, but it just bordered on embarrassing for some of these people, how much they just worshipped the ground she walked on.

and she didn’t really like, discourage it. like, at the start, i think i remember her being more modest, but in general, she just let it go, and so did i, bc like. i aint that kinda jerk.

the stated purpose of violetvineyard was to have a community that valued reciprocity. reciprocity was mina’s biggest thing. there was a channel for people to post their stuff on, so the rest of us could browse and read and reblog. i, admittedly, didn’t do as much of that as i wish i did, but part of it was because i do have a life outside of the internet, a memory and attention span the size of a gnat, and because like. 90% of the stuff that people put in the promos channel were things like edits, writeblr intros, wip intros, etc etc, when all i wanted was to just read some actual writing. but that’s neither here nor there. what got hilarious to me, though, was whenever mina’s fervent admirers would talk about how mina was, quote, a pillar of the community. how vv was doing something No Other Writeblr Group Had Done Before. how Important and Special this server was.

folks. i’ve been on here for several years now. we don’t have a community. we have a bunch of little cliques who reblog from their friends and complain about people not reblogging them. noah fence, but come on. vv got pretty dang big, but it was still a small corner of a small section of tumblr. like. sorry, all y’all, but them’s the breaks.

also, this was hilarious to me bc there are several big writeblrs who have been running around long before mina and vv showed up. yet, according to these people in the server, mina had Single-handedly Brought Hope To This Desolate Wasteland.

in the end, vv became just another little clique whose members reblogged from their friends. i don’t want to devalue the good that did come out of vv. a lot of the picture being painted rn was that the majority of the server were scary dog-piling people. the majority of the server were just writeblrs looking to promo their stuff and talk about their writing. unfortunately, few bad apples, bad rep, negatives outshine positives, etc etc. but i think it did do some good re: exposure for a few folks, even tho it didn’t turn into what it could have been. 

another one of the things that was a minor irritant to me was that they eventually started archiving the vent channel, which was probably the most-used channel. that didn’t sit right to me, but as always, i was a coward had nothing to say about it, so i didn’t. the reason given was that there were often things in the vent channel that people might regret being there, so it was periodically archived and a fresh channel started.

so i’m rambling a lot about stuff that’s probably boring and inconsequential. that’s 90% of this whole vv thing, tho, you need to understand that. 

the biggest thing that bothered me about mina, i think, came about from the constant hero worship from her adoring fans. and i know there’s a whole argument to be said about expecting labor from people with marginalized identities, which is an argument i agree with - don’t expect someone of a minority group to educate you or to face trauma or to shut down bigots, etc etc. but by now, mina had a lot of followers in general, and in specific, she had quite a few people who would defend her at every single perceived slight.

she made a lot of those fun writeblr reblog games, like “send me a fruit that says this about my writing.” those were cool, i’ll admit that. but she was super into “you have to send an ask to the person you reblog from, RECIPROCITY!!!!!!!!!!!” and seemed to struggle with the fact that sometimes, people don’t follow her established rules on her posts for these games. she’d complain about it every single time that happened in the vent channel, which, again, that’s fine? that’s what vents are for, it’s annoying to not get cool fun asks when you do these games, but also, that’s life for you. she could depend on her fans to send her plenty of asks, whereas the much smaller blogs who reblogged these games would probably get f-all, half the time. if you’ve gone through nuwuhorizons or one of the other blogs i mentioned earlier, you’ll have run across the incident where mina’s friends harrassed an 11 year old for not doing her ask game right.

an eleven year old. 

and this is my biggest grief with mina. she only stopped her friends from dogpiling people... once? maybe twice? that i remember. and not only that, but there were SEVERAL occasions where she would get on the vent channel, complain about someone who had said something wrong on one of her posts (and sometimes, again, these were legitimate!), and then ask if someone in the server wanted to reply to them. reasons for such ranged from “i’m too busy rn” to “they would probably listen more to a white person than me.”

again. this, on occasion, is not necessarily a bad thing. we cannot expect labor and response from minorities. my issue was that she kept doing this. and sometimes it was fine, just someone who would drop a note on the post or send a polite anon. but this, to me, the whole asking someone else to fight your battles for you? that really bothered me. mina is a grown adult. either ignore it, like the rest of us chumps, or deal with it yourself. having friends support you is not a bad thing - if i was attacked on tumblr and my friends jumped in to defend me, i’m cool with that. but i wouldn’t ask them to, and then not do anything myself.

to me, this attitude just encourages dogpiling. this felt like she was taking advantage of the people admiring her so whole-heartedly, and using them to deal with minor grievances. (again, i don’t want to downplay some of the actual racism and xenophobia she experienced on this website, because there was some pretty sketchy stuff that did need someone else stepping in to object to. but then there was “ugh this person asked me what program i use to make my music and i don’t want to answer them bc that’s rude,” and stuff of that caliber. like, mina, you built yourself a pretty big following here on tumblr, you don’t get to complain when people are trying to ask you questions and engage with you when you set yourself up as a knowledgeable person on a subject.)

i’m going to mention @gingerly-writing because she already made a post on the subject, but there was an instance where we were in the vent channel and watched a lot of mina’s friends send anons and reblogs of a hurtful nature to one person. eventually, ginger stepped in to say “hey, i don’t think we need to keep doing this, they are a minor,” and after she did so, i also jumped in, saying something along the lines of, “yeah, i’ve seen this kind of stuff blow up in another server and end in a really regrettable situation where no one was happy, can we stop.” both ginger and i received a private message from the mods (individually) saying that we shouldn’t police the chat, etc etc. not during that message, but on the vent channel, another mod jumped in to say that the people dogpiling the blogger were also minors. as if that makes it okay, and isn’t actually extremely worrying in its own right.

after that, i pretty much took a stance of “all right then i just won’t say anything at all.” i stuck around vv because i hated myself actually really liked a few of the others in the server, including a couple of the mods who are actually really cool people, not all the vv mods are sketch, and because honestly? i lowkey knew that vv was going to crash and burn sometime, and i wanted to be there to watch what happened. due to the pandemic, and her line of work, mina became less active, and the whole server died down a bit. 

then someone reblogged one of mina’s ‘art’ posts and accused her of tracing. mina’s admirers immediately jumped into action. nuwuhorizons has it pretty well documented on their blog. there was nothing in the server about it, except one of the others said “oh man i saw that and it pissed me off,” there was some minor chat, and then i woke up and wanted to know what had happened, and was told “don’t worry about it.”

so, naturally, bc the only thing i thirst for is water and Drama(TM), i went looking for it.

found it on some of mina’s friend’s blogs, where i found who had reblogged and said mina was tracing, and followed those reblog chains, where several of mina’s followers attacked the accuser and made fun of their name and age and defended mina, pulling out progress videos and stuff of mina’s work. the accuser was trans and still a teenager, even if technically an adult, so that made things a lot worse. mina eventually posted something explaining that she was pencil tracing and had a very cheery, false-positive tone to the whole thing.

things sorta ended at that, but then maybe the same day, or the day after, user hyba made that big ol post about the Big Scary Tumblr Mirror Website Copying All Your Good, Hard Work. mina and her friends jumped on this. they threw it in the server and talked about things like intellectual property rights and “i don’t like how this makes me feel :(” and from there, went in to how tumblr was a terrible garbage site and then mina and most of the mod team decided that it was time to pack up VV and leave tumblr completely. 

pretty much everyone i know were mina’s besties have vanished off tumblr. mina made an announcement that VV was “migrating” off tumblr and discord(???) and dropped another application to join the great vv migration. i did not apply bc i just have too freaking much going on in my life and needed to get out of this for the sake of my own mental health. it was tempting as hell, tho, i will say that. 

a couple things about this - at the time, mina is also having some pretty bad things going on in her family. she was very vague on the details, but i think that really contributed to wanting to leave; on top of the pandemic and everything else, she was probably heckin stressed. but also like. she never called out her followers for attacking her accuser. she never made any sort of post talking about it. she never told her friends on the server “hey don’t do that.” she never took accountability for it, or, honestly, for anything else she or her friends have done that didn’t feel too good. the mirror sites aren’t really a big deal. 

after the server was archived, it was left up a couple days so everyone could grab contact info, etc. during this time, i was checking the ‘violetvineyard’ tag and saw someone post “what happened to mvcreates they haven’t answered my application to vv,’ and i responded with “oh, the server closed down bc of the copy cat sites.”

the same day, i got a tumblr DM from one of the former mods asking me not to give away any details about vv leaving tumblr. it was very politely worded and everything, but it was still just like

okay? vv is over? why are you asking me not to say anything. and it wasn’t like i was even spilling any hot goss, i was just repeating the excuse (and i do mean excuse) mina gave us. 

anyway, that mod is off tumblr, too, as far as i know, or else they stealthin. which is fine, u do u, buddy.

uhh conclusion time, i guess? i have a few scattered screenshots of things, but i’m not posting em bc i’m lazy and also running late for a thing. but really, for me, i didn’t have a whole lot of beef with mina or pretty much any of the other folks on vv. i thought that mina and her friends were a bit too eager for blood, and that really bothered me. i’m annoyed they shut down vv completely, because it could actually have been something great. if mina wanted off writeblr, i wish she had given the whole network over to people interested in running it; instead, what was a good thing for a lot of people is now completely gone, with no existing framework for people to build on. sure, anyone can go make their own network/family for writeblr, but now it’s just going to splinter into a bunch of different, smaller groups, and we’re all back to square one.

but whatever. i didn’t get to see the server go down in flames, instead it just ended with a hasty retreat and a few whimpers, and quite honestly i wished my staying in had paid off.

i do want to reiterate - there were quite a few people in vv who i think are great, and this does include some of the mods themselves.

i’ve also gotten a couple messages from a few other folks who had been in vv who have their own real, real sketch stories, which are making me rethink how i feel about mina and her friends, and all the good credit i gave them. i just wanted to present this bc it’s my blog and i do what i want, fight me.

and if anyone wants to chat about vv, hit me up. i keep things as private as you want them to be, and i love love love talking about this nonsense. Give Me The Deets.

[mrpenguinpants]

Alright, I finally read Reincarnation no Kaben

AFTER MONTHS (it’s probably been a month? My mind doesn’t keep track of the days) I FINALLY CAUGHT UP TO RNK. Ty to Okita anon for the recommendation (*￣3￣)╭💕💕💕 I absolutely loved it. 

After this I’ll start on the other recommendation you gave me. I kept a bit of a log of my reading journey under the read more tag. 

Major spoilers for literally everything in RNK up to ch 53 “Withdrawal”. 

Oh, and I’ll finish answering all my leftover asks and I SHOULD have a fic done by tomorrow. I was so ready to write and then I got up. Now I’m back to bed. 

I’m just gonna write this as a log since I read super super slow and I’m only on ch 7 at the start of writing this but I’m really liking it already. Though to be fair. I love everything okita anon recommends haha. I remember you saying you were simping over Kouu and I haven’t gotten to the part where he appears but I wanted to quickly google what he looked like to prepare myself and I see this:

Well. That’s reassuring. 

I was actually kinda surprised by how many western figures were in the manga since I know there are only like 7? Around 7 western figures that pop up in any anime/manga but seeing people like Albert Fish was kinda surprising but I really liked it. Also, at the end of certain chapters they write little bio’s on them so you get to know more about them was such a nice touch.  I also love that the tradition of making males -> females still stays strong even outside the fate universe hehe.

---

Literally, the next chapter I see him. AHHHHHHHHH. Well maybe not him but his eyeballs. 

This guy lowkey reminds me of the MC’s brother but it’s 99% because he has the same long ponytail. I wouldn’t be surprised if the brother was apart of the the Greats. Honestly, Ein reminds me of those really hard headed girls that are actually really kind on the inside but aren’t good at expressing themselves (maybe because that’s pretty much her character). I also like that Ein doesn’t like males but she’s hiding behind this guy. At least, I’m..99% sure this is Ein. 

I FUCKING KNEW IT. AS SOON AS I SAW HE GOT A THEIF TALENT I COULD FEEL THE SOLO LEVELING VIBES IN ME. HE CAN STEAL TALENTS I FUCKING KNEW IT!!! I’m surprised that Neumann didn’t say anything and  Haito seems to be aware of it.  

Edit: Ah okay, I understand a bit now but it almost seems like Haito is the only one aware of Toya’s second talent.

Edit 2: Okay, as much as I love power hungry MC’s I’m really glad they didn’t make Toya into that. I am such a softie for sympathetic and kind MC’s like these even though it’s been done so many times. I’m really glad this didn’t feel like a rehash. I mean, some points some of the stuff Toya says it does but it’s fine, I don’t mind that. I actually gave a crap about him since I usually prefer the side characters (I UNDERSTAND ANON, I CARE ABOUT KOUU SO MUCH AHHHHH) but HAITO?? AHHHHH. 

---

I like that Izo always has the same hat in every adaptation he’s in lol. Istg, cats are always op. Schrodinger seems so strong and the parallel universes are my absolute shit. Sometimes I think, in one universe I did this and in this universe I’m not. Would I rather stay in this universe or be in the one where I am actually productive. Usually I pick the productive universe and actually work but sometimes I’m a bit of a slacker haha. I think this is my approach to a lot of things in life. But I digress, I don’t wanna get too deep into my life. 

I can sorta sympathize with the sinners. At least the ripper guy to say the least. I love love love unhinged characters that just want to basically destroy the world or at least have fun. But then you find out- wait they are actually sympathetic oh no. That’s how I felt about Djoser in “im the great priest imhotep” (please...i beg...someone read this...I’m so starved). 

As much as character development and rooting for the hero is cool and all, I just want to simp for the crazy “let’s burn the world to the ground” kinda character. I’m also so glad Toya doesn’t automatically become evil and try and steal everyone’s talents because he does seem like a good person and I really don’t see him suddenly switching fields so when he saved (I don’t remember names I’m sorry), the undead solider it was really nice. Proves that he still has his humanity and isn’t strictly relying on the branch of sin. 

It makes sense that he wants to steal talents since he never had one (and it was kinda out of left field when he killed Vlad and we just never addressed that ever again haha) but to see him actually consider his actions and if he actually want’s to steal his teammates talents feels right to me. Poor guy doesn’t seem to have a lot of friends so this is the first time he’s ever seemed to have companionship, aside from Haito, so I really hope he doesn’t attempt to steal their talents. I think I’m thinking of the slime? That time I got reincarnated as a slime manga/anime. Where he’s the pokemon catcher of skills. I thought that was where it was going. 

But I do kinda like how selfish Haito and Toya’s talent stealing relationship is (I mean, later it develops but my first draft of writing this I wasn’t there yet). I’m not sure if selfish or like self-gratitude/pride is the right word but it’s kind of a breath of fresh air. Rather than Haito trying to contain or “help” Toya’s inferiority she’s actually encouraging it and using her own talent for her own...acknowledgement? Er, yeah let’s go with that. 

---

This. This interaction. I love this. Like, genuinely love this. We need more of this. Two people from opposite sides finding some common ground and their fight to the death is less about morals or whose on whose side but for themselves. I love that. This is actually some wholesome stuff. 

Edit: AHHHHH CATCH MY UGLY CRYING IN THE BACK BECAUSE ALL THE “SINNERS” ARE ACTUALLY AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. IM DEAD. YOU’VE KILLED ME. 

---

I KNEW IT! YOU CAN NEVER TRUST THESE KIND OF PEOPLE!! I’m going to slap the whiteboard on this but if I see any “goofy” character I’m immediately sus of them. 

As much as I hate that Hitler is getting drawn as a small child I really like this. I know the whole, oh I killed your friends but I’m letting you go because you express humanity but I’m gonna finish my death with a sympathetic line, can be annoying to people but idk I really liked this. 

Honestly this and the undead soldiers death hit me hard ngl. This manga might not have my favourite art style during some points compared to like main stream manga but it has some really beautiful scenes. 

BOOM CALLED IT, though it’s pretty obvious lol. 

THE PONY TAIL NEVER LIES AND HES DA VINCI IT MAKES SENSE NOW

He looks so cute lol. I like that Seiya has the talent of being talented in everything while Toya has the talent to steal other talents. Seiya can probably only cap his power by his own physical/mental abilities with Toya can pull a solo leveling and go further beyond. Thinking of it like jack of trades vs master of none type deals. Though, I might be thinking too hard on this. I like that this man is actually humble but I really wish there was a tiny bit more to him since we only get this one interaction/backstory but the manga isn’t completed yet. I really hope we get to know about Seiya more;; like how he became da vinci or etc. 

Everytime I see Neumann I look at that comic sans type and it kills me on the inside. But I love that her eyes are 01 just, mwah perfection. These little details that aren’t that big but it’s soooo nice. I also ahem, unhinged character heart be still. It’s really nice reading manga in bursts because you can see the art progression and damn does she look good. 

tiny fang appreciation post. 

ngl i’M HARD SIMPING FOR THIS MAN. It’s the pony tail, I have such a thing for guys with long hair (and this is why genshin broke me) but man the art really picked up here. 

I didn’t get into it but OKITA ANON I GET IT. KOUU??? AHHHH. WHY DID YOU HAVE TO DIE??? As much as his whole “war” was a bit questionable in the beginning and tbh I still don’t really get it I like that he knows he’s not the same as the other Greats but still tries to help the other “sinners” in a way only he knows. That’s why Seiya was so important;; I get that he wanted them to have a fun death and to be understood but idk, the whole war idea and having them kill each other (especially the Hitler fights because I understand the others since they reached some kind of acknowledgement) but nonetheless, what a great guy.

Nightingale gives me mad masaki vibes from chainsawman. I hate them and I can’t wait for you to fail, but the inner part of my is cheering for you because unhinged characters are my shit. I feel really bad for Neumann, I had suspicions she wasn’t actually like that since it’s sooo out of left field but I’m really glad the manga seems to know what it’s doing. I really wish we got more Kouu interactions with everyone tho. 

NOW THIS. THIS IS SOME WHOLESOME STUFF. I WANT THIS. I REALLY WANT SPIN-OFF OF REALLY SAD ANIME/MANGA/STORIES WHERE ALL THE DEAD PEOPLE HANG OUT. That’s how I’m feeling about JJK and the scroll segments or BSD WAN that just came out. IT’S SO WHOLESOME TO SEE EVERYONE NOT TRYING TO KILL EACH OTHER. 

UGLY SOBBING IN THE CLUBBB AND KOUU AND CHARLOTTE AHHHH. I hate how this is phrased but the respect I have for Hitler?? YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW HARD THAT IS TO TYPE?? Kitazuka is cool tho, I really like him. Some god given talent. I’m hard simping over him but I really hope we get to know more about him later. 

Getting smug mona vibes, I love this. 

AHHH IVE NEVER FELT THIS UPSET OVER AN APPLEEEE. I’M ACTUALLY UPSET. IF HE DIES IM ACTUALLY GOING TO CRY MY HEART OUT. 

THE FAMOUS SLAP 

I’M SORRY WHA- SLENDERMAN?

Oh..wow. Okay, be still my heart. When I first saw her I thought she was really pretty but now I’m absolutely smitten. God damn, can I please have some more crumbs on these characters before they die;; 

AHHH SAME GIRL FUCKING SAME????? I adore these small panels and translator notes. It’s a real breather after the sad 3am hours talk these characters go through. 

Yagyuu. Jesus christ. WHY ARE ALL THE DEATH SCENES IN THIS MANGA ACTUALLY SO PRETTY AND STABS ME IN THE HEART??? that’s it. goodbye. im fucking out. im actually so upset rn. WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME? 

---

In conclusion, and I should probably re-read what the characters say and not go off on memory because I’m about to get really deep. I really like how they phrased why they wanted to stop the branch of sin. That there are people just like Toya and Haito who, if they never found the branch of sin, could still probably lead respectable and okay lives. That there was a “them” in another universe that didn’t go down that road and that they want to be in the same universe as “them”. I know this sounds really confusing if you haven’t read the manga but going back to what I said about the parallel universe stuff. 

There was a universe where Toya and Haito didn’t rely on the branch of sin, that even without their talents from becoming a returner, they could still live a happy life given their own personalities and attitudes. It was kinda moving since in the beginning, Toya wanted a talent so badly and now that he has one. He’s realizing that wait, I don’t need a past life talent in order to live. Honestly, I hard relate to that because I totally agree with him. If you have a talent you can probably live a very happy and comfortable life that other factors wouldn’t matter if you just have that incredible talent. Thinking of it as a painter or artist, if you had actual god-given talent you wouldn’t need to worry about other factors since people would naturally seek that talent. So you end up comparing yourself to others and setting that limit on yourself. 

But that’s okay, it’s completely natural and I’m not saying it’s horrible if you do this. Fuck, I do this all the time. I’m not saying the manga is changing my life but it’s kind of refreshing that it get’s talked about since other adaptations of this just make the character super OP. I understand wanting to have that incredible talent, fuck who doesn’t? but you don’t need it in order to live earnestly in the bigger picture sense. Not everything you do has to be productive and honestly, learning to be okay with having fun is nice. Just being okay with who you are right now, even if it isn’t perfect in your eyes, you still have time to build upon yourself and your own talents but doing it for yourself. 

But I probably missed the point and I’m going way to deep haha. But I really enjoyed reading this and thank you once again to okita anon for the recommendation^^ I always love everything you send me and I’ll start reading the next one. If anyone else has any recommendations let me know! 

[amoosewritesfanfic]

[Bakugou Katsuki X Fem!Reader]

[Warnings: swearing, angst and fluff ]

[I own none of the characters or art, I did make

the edit tho]

-

You were woken up by the restlessness of your husband, Katsuki Bakugo. He was having a nightmare again, his brows were furrowed and his face pulled into a scowl, sweat dripping down his brow.

It wasn't a common occurrence, but lately it's been happening more and more...

It was worrying.

You sat up, reaching over to touch his cheek softly, but he ended up waking up, grabbing your hand and pushing you down against the mattress his hand barely inches from your face, he looked like he was about to set off his quirk, his eyes like a wild animal.

He almost choked, his hands slowly let go of you, when he tried moving off you held him there looking up at him with complete and utter worry in your expression.

"Baby... fuck I'm sorry I-..."

"Hey hey, it's okay." You said a hand taking hold of his.

"Just breath Suki... breath." You said and he did but his head lowered as you sat up allowing him to bury his face in your chest, your fingers threading through his hair to ease his worries even if it was for a moment.

"Was it the same nightmare...?" You asked quietly.

"Yeah..." his voice cracked.

Oh that nightmare... gods that nightmare that he probably relived over and over again.

When he was kidnapped during the training camps.

Honestly you had both sat down to speak about it, he was reluctant at first but you coaxed him into telling you about it.

You were one of the first people he told his worries to, that fear that engulfed him sometimes when he closed his eyes.

The strain of Dabi's hand gripping his neck or the chains that held him down when they didn't want him to cause any destruction.

He told you how he wasn't sleeping properly for a few nights because of the kidnapping replaying over and over in his head, but he kept pushing anyone away that asked about his mental state, kept saying

"I'm fine fuck off."

Or

"Fuck off, it's none of your fuckin' business."

He was too afraid to open up, he didn't want to seem weak, because of that horrible ego of his.

Midoriya apparently was another that found out, Katsuki felt off and Midoriya wasted no time in finding out. The green haired pro hero was happy that Katsuki opened up to him.

Katsuki did it apparently because he didn't want to stress you out too much.

Or so Midoriya told you.

"It's okay baby... it's over. You're okay, you're here with me..." you mumbled kissing his forehead.

"I felt so weak..." he mumbled against your skin.

"And that's okay... it's okay to feel weak, it's okay to feel powerless and afraid... those are just normal things to feel... but you're safe and sound in my arms..." you whispered as your hands cupped his cheeks making those sad eyes look at you.

"I don't fuckin' deserve you..." he mumbled.

"Yes you do, you're an idiot if you think otherwise. I love you so much Katsuki and I'm thankful that you're here with me... okay?" You said.

"I love you too..." he mumbled back kissing your lips softly before you pulled back slightly.

"Now let's get some sleep okay?" You said and he gave a slow nod, allowing you to lay down before his head rested on your chest more snugly now, using your breasts as pillows.

You chuckled a little as you played with his hair to help him fall asleep.

As bad as those dreams got, he often found comfort in your arms.

But you wanted him to get the help he needed, you knew he hated the idea but it was necessary for him to overcome this obstacle and you would be with him throughout the entire thing...

-

-

[Ayyy it's some angst. A few people have said that Katsuki didn't have the right help or positive reinforcement for after he got kidnapped by lov, so I imagine it follows him throughout his life. It became a bit soft at the end too, this is somewhat of a late happy birthday to our poor gremlin boi]

[Also please take your meds, drink water, take a shower, wash your hands, don't go out if you don't need to.

Kay love ya❤😤.

- Moose]

[bnhaficsforthesoul]

Shinsou fluff alphabet

Starting off this blog the right way

A = Attractive (What do they find attractive about the other?)

He really likes your eyes

Hes definitely the type of person that puppy dog eyes work on

When you look up at him with those pretty eyes he just melts into them

B = Baby (Do they want a family? Why/Why not?)

He would want a baby eventually

Like after you get married

But he loves the thought of having a baby with you

Seeing which traits come out from both of you

Or adopting a baby, he thinks that would be awesome too

He loves kids, hes just kinda scared that he doesn't know how to take care of them

C = Cuddle (How do they cuddle?)

He is the c li n g I est mf

He acts like hes not but he is

He doesn't have a preference when it comes to being the little or big sppon

He loves holding you

Just wrapping his arms around your shoulders or waist and hugging you as tight as possible while pressing little kisses onto your forehead

And when you hold him he melts

He feels so loved and wanted

Play with his hair plz plz plz

His eyes will flutter shut and hell just be like

"Mmm... so comfy"

It's so cute

D = Dates (What are dates with them like?)

Toshi is pretty spontaneous

So dates will either be

Let's go out at 3 in the morning and run around the city and buy junk food

Or

"Babe, I got us reservations for this super fancy restaurant so make sure you get dressed up. Were leaving in an hour."

They're always fun tho, even the more formal dates are super silly with you two making jokes and just being crackheads

E = Everything (You are my ____ (e.g. my life, my world…))

To Hitoshi, you are his inspiration

His reason for moving forward in life

Before you, his only goal was to become a hero - and even then no one seemed to believe he could

Then theres you

You who tells him that his quirk does not make him evil

It's super effective against villains

hell be a pro hero someday

Before he wanted to become hero simply because why not

But now he wants to become a hero for you, to show you that your positive words were not misplaced and he is someone you can count on

F = Feelings (When did they know they were in love?)

It was one night after he was training with Aizawa in martial arts (since he knows his quirk isnt the most effective in battle if he cant get it to work)

And he walked out of the field to see you standing there with this big smile on your face

"What are you doing here? It's late, you should go home."

"I was but then I saw you training and wanted to watch 😊"

He kinda gives you a weird look and is like why

"Cause you're super cool Shinsou! If I wanna be a pro hero I need to make sure I can get strong too, so I wanted to take some pointers."

His eyes widen and hes like- you think I'm cool??? Me who has to do this training cause my quirk is useless most the time?? Me who's quirk actually sucks?? You think I'm cool.

You just give him this big smile and you're like well ya anyways see you tomorrow

And he kinda is just like fuckfuckfuckfuckdu kkckcdudyhsj the whole way home cause wow you're super cute and you're the only person to ever praise him like that

He lies awake all night and is like I'm in love fuk

So ya, he was in love long before you even started dating

G = Gentle (Are they gentle? If so, how?)

Hes so gentle with you

Like hell brush your hair out of your face and move it behind your ear

When you kiss his hand kinda just cups your jaw and his thumb rubs your cheek

He presses little kisses on your forehead when you hug

Theres times when he can be more rough, but you're his baby and he cherishes you so much

He doesn't wanna scare you in any way and treats you so well

H = Hands (How do they like to hold hands?)

When you're walking he likes to place his fingers with yours and holds onto your hand tight

But other than that, he prefers holding your hand by placing his on top of yours and lacing his fingers while his thumb rubs your pinky

Hell pick up your hand and press kisses on it

Lowkey to tease you cause he likes to see you blush but still

I = Impression (What was their first impression?)

His first impression of you wasn't the best? It wasn't the worst either tho

He first met you at the sports festival

You were fighting after he did, so when he was walking back and you were going out you saw him

So you were like "great job in the match!!"

And he thought you were teasing him cause he felt he horribly lost so he got kinda pissed

And was like "ya whatever"

He realized you weren't lying later tho, when you kept talking to him whenever you would see him at school

J = Jealousy (Do they get jealous?)

Oooooh yes, boy gets so jealous

You're HIS baby, not anyone elses

Hes put up with a lot of shit and a lot of shitty people and now that he has someone who loves him and he adores back - he doesn't like the fear of losing them

It's less of he gets angry when people flirt with you and more of he gets scared

Hes scared hes not the best and that you might decide you'll leave

He knows you love him and are loyal to him, but he cant shake that fear

K = Kiss (How do they kiss? Who initiated the first kiss?)

So he initiated the first kiss

It was after your first date, and he kinda just kissed you out of nowhere (and you didn't mind at all)

While he does kiss you fairly gently, its lots of times a way to tease you

He loves to kiss you more roughly- the kinds of kisses that leave you breathless and your lips bruised

But he starts gentle half the time so that you get frustrated and have to try and make him kiss you deeper

Lots of tongue

Lots and lots of tongue

L = Love (Who says ‘I love you’ first?)

You did

Again, He knew he loved you before you started dating

But he didn't wanna put you off by saying it too soon so he waited for you

He did things to help you know he loved you, but he waited until you said it

The first time you said it you were cuddling

You were lying on his chest and he was playing with your hair on his bed and you quietly said "I love you Toshi. So much.."

His eyes widened and he got the biggest smile on his face

"I love you too baby"

M = Memory (What’s their favourite memory together?)

His favorite memory with you is probably one of your first dates

He took you to an amusement park

You were holding hands the whole time and you were so happy throughout the whole night

Hearing your beautiful laugh, being able to play the games with you and win you prizes since hes for some reason super good at them, getting to be that annoying couple that just cuddles in all the lines

He was in heaven

of course you had to do the stereotypical couple thing and ride the ferris wheel

But! It got stuck when you were almost to the top (if only it had been at the top - it would have been peak amusement park date romance)

You two were so ready to kiss at the top, but now you get to make out for like 30 minutes?? Awesome!

Getting to have a whole photo shoot together with all the pretty lights from the park and the city?? Double awesome!

Sitting in the cramped seat and being able to just talk and cuddle without worrying about school or anything?? Tripple awesome!!!

Everything about the night was perfect, and now you two love going on amusement park dates (tho none will ever beat this one)

N = Nickel (Do they spoil? Do they buy the person they love everything?)

He won't Spoil you too much, hes broke anyways

Besides, hes not the most materialistic person anyways so he would rather give you gifts of like dates and stuff

When he does give gifts, it's more personal things

Hell spoil you for your birthday and anniversary tho, if you really want something hell do his best to get you it

O = Orange (What colour reminds them of their other half?)

Pink

Why?

Because he loves that cute blush of yours ~

He teases you all the time, anything to get you to blush

So when he sees a pink, especially in the shade of your blush, he kinda smirks and is like aw

Also, its such a soft color, and you're his baby so he gets soft for you

So honestly pastel colors remind him of you too, but mainly pink

P = Pet names (What pet names do they use?)

ANYTHING that will get you to blush

Hes tested out them all

Honey, sugar, babydoll, bub, cutie, EVERYTHING

But his favorites are baby, and kitten.

He likes cats so he tested out kitten and the BLUSH that erupted on your face, he was hooked

Q = Quaint (What is their favourite non-modern thing?)

My dude he is so into ball room dancing

Like I guess that's modern if you're rich, but neither of you are so that's something you only see in like old movies

Dead ass he took you to an abandoned castle just to dance with you while he played music from like the 40s

R = Rainy Day (What do they like to do on a rainy day?)

Loves rain

Wants to go play in it

He will drag you out into the rain so that you can run around and act like little kids

Then you'll come in eventually so you dont get sick and make tea and cuddle

S = Sad (How do they cheer themselves/others up?)

Hes more of the type that will just ignore his feelings when hes sad

Like it's no big deal they'll go away

But you got mad at him for doing that so now - he just tells you

Hell text you and be like "hey.. can we cuddle..."

And you'll immediately know what's up and run to cheer him up

When you're sad, he takes a more direct approach

He wants you to tell him straight up what's wrong, and hes willing to wait if you need time

Hell hold you until you're ready, but he won't leave until you're feeling better

T = Talking (What do they like to talk about?)

He loves gossipping

Like you two talking about dumb stuff your classmates do

Makes up like 70% of your conversations

Also about movies, or TV shows, hes into a lot of fandoms and loves talking about them

U = Unencumbered (What helps them relax?)

You

Playing

With

His

Hair

That's it

Hes stressed? He will plop himself into your lap and you just know

V = Vaunt (What do they like to show off? What are they proud of?)

He likes showing off his martial art skills honestly

Hes gotten good at them, and many of the students dont bother with learning any formal fighting style since they're more into just using their quirk or swinging as they please

So it's something hes proud of

Hes also proud of it cause the 2 people he looks up to the most - aizawa and you - are also proud of him for it

So he loves showing you new things hes learned, or showing you how to do them so that you can be safer

W = Wedding (When, how, where do they propose?)

Again, hes spontaneous, so it kinda just came out

You two were just goofing around one night - spending time with each other since soon you would go into working at an agency since you had graduated

He was just thinking about how much hes gonna miss not being able to be around you all the time

So this man deadass ran into a gas station that was still open, bought a ring pop, and ran back out and was like

"Shit babe I'm so sorry this is such a horrible proposal but I'm doing it cause I don't wanna back out so- (y/n), will you marry me?"

Hes down on one knee holding this ring pop and he expected you to start laughing (you did later) but instead you started crying and you just jump into his arms nodding

X = Xylophone (What’s their song?)

Serendipity by BTS

His world changed when he met you, the love his life

Theres so much hurt in life, and you are his happiness

Even when you two fight, you only come back stronger

Hes so happy with you, and so hes worried that something will happen to take you away from him

This song kinda captures that

Y = Yes (Do they ever think of getting married/proposing?)

Yes

All the time

He planned it a few times fully before when he actually did, and they were all much more romantic than the ring pop

He thought of the ring and everything

Z = Zebra (If they wanted a pet, what would they get?)

Cat

Do I even need to say that

He wants you two to be crazy cat parents so bad

Even tho the max you ever have at a time is 2

[toothsy]

Jealous Art || Izuku Midoriya

A/N : My second one aaaaa and this time with Izuku Midoriya ! The requests are open, for now there’s no rules but I’m doing them actually qwqqq so huuuh they’re coming ! But I hope you’ll like this one ! Tell me what you think please ! I need some criticism TwT

Warnings : Angst / Fluff

———————————

The threes around you were moving slowly because of the soft wind, the sun was shiny, fitting perfectly in the blue sky that almost had no clouds. It was a perfect day for you to continue your painting, so you went to the park with all your materials and once you found the perfect spot, you put everything in place and place your paint. You looked at your surroundings, a forest was around the park, inside there was some people walking, some with their dogs or others with their friends. There was also a playground where a lot of kids were running after each other’s. You looked back at your art. Once you saw it, a smile appeared on your face, for the first time, you were really proud of what you did and were excited to show it. You were rarely proud of your paintings, but for him, you had to do the best you could.

You were painting your one and only crush, Izuku Midoriya. It’s been a while now that you were thinking how you would confess to him, once you had this idea, you were always sketching, painting and trying to make it perfect every single time and now that it was as good as you hoped for, you were satisfied. You take your brush, soak it in the green paint then slowly pet the painting with it. You bite your tongue, asking yourself if you should fix the hair or not. You shake your head, it was perfect. It had to be. You put your brush in the cup of water then soak it in another color, petting the painting again in a different place this time.

Tired, blue boy walks my way

Holding a girl’s hand

Your smile slowly faded away, when you asked yourself ‘Is he really going to like it ? What if he thinks I’m a freak ? I paint him without asking him, maybe he would think it’s weird ?’ The world around you seemed to stop for a moment, is he really going to like something that YOU did ? Tears appeared in the coiner of your eyes. ‘He likes Uraraka anyway, huh ?’ You had nothing against the brunette, actually you were really close to her. She was so friendly, so sweet, always happy, confident, determined, so him, so Deku. He was hanging with her a lot recently, less with you. Sometimes you even had to go to Katsuki’s gang to not be alone at dinner, because they were together and you felt like disturbing them. You missed him, honestly. You missed the way it used to be, but you couldn’t blame it on the poor brunette, it wasn’t her fault, she just wanted friends and the world decided that she would be closer to him too.

Even though you had nothing against her, doesn’t mean you weren’t jealous. Now thinking about it, if they started dating in front of you, would you support it ? Would you be able to not cry ? You couldn’t - no, you really couldn’t. You looked at your work and a small sob left your lips. The painting was almost finished and you were standing there for so long without touching it that it was already dry.

That basic bitch leaves finally

Now I can take her man

It was too late, everything was too late, YOU were too late. Your e/c eyes were now puffy and red from crying, still standing in front of your paint. Can you accept it ? Can you forgive them and think about something else ? Can you ? You knew the answer to your confession, there was no reason of continuing the art that you took so long to do anymore. What a waste, but at least, you’ll probably make someone’s life better, huh ? Maybe they fit perfectly for each other’s arm after all. Their lips probably for each other’s. Everything probably fits with each other’s. It was making you jealous. You know it.

You wipe your tears away and then put all your brushes in your bag, closing it and then take your painting, putting it under your arm, since it was dry you knew it would not ruin your clothes. You didn’t know where you could put this painting. Absolutely not in the dorms since someone would see it, not your home either since your parents would notice you, then where ? You decided to go to your parent’s house, you really couldn’t risk to someone seeing it.

Someone told me stay away from things that aren’t yours

You sighed and was about to walk to your parent’s house until you heard a familiar voice, a voice that you would normally be happy to hear, but right now was really not the time. Not him. Not now. Not here. It was really not the good timing for him to come.

‘’Y/N-san !’’ You heard the boy you couldn’t see right now calling out your name, yelling out your name actually. You closed your eyes tightly, clenching your mouth. ‘Can I just forget him for one moment ?’

But was he yours, if he wanted me so bad ?

You heard footsteps of someone running and panting behind you, getting closer. ‘’Y/n ! Breakfast is ready and we didn’t know w-where you were. Uraraka t-told us that y-you were probably in the park... so I came here !’’ Explained the green haired teen. You didn’t turn around, clenching your fist. ‘Can I forget her for one moment ?’ You sighed, you haven’t turn around yet, you couldn’t, it was hurting too much. You tried tho, to sound convincing when you said ‘’Ah, I’m sorry Midoriya... You don’t have to wait for me for breakfast, I’ll past this time.’’

The boy wasn’t convinced at all. When you heard the footsteps behind you, you thought that he was leaving, so you were disappointed. You turned around, like you were wishing he could’ve stayed and your e/c eyes widened when you understood that he was actually following you and that he stayed. He stopped, staring at you for a moment with his eyes widened a little. ‘’A-Are you okay ? What were you doing in the pa-‘’ his eyes stopped to the painting under your arm.

Pacify her

She’s getting on my nerves

He couldn’t see it since you were hiding it under your arm and even put it closer to your chest, but he swears he saw some green on it. ‘’O-Oh. You’re painting ? That’s g-great ! Can I see ?’’ He asked, getting closer, but stopped once he saw your expression again. Your eyes were widened, like you thought he was crazy and you were backing away. He started to really get worried now. Why were you like this ?

‘’I-I’m Sorry Midoriya...’’ ‘’Izuku.’’ You blinked and looked at him confused. ‘’Call me Izuku, Y/n.’’ He said, looking into your beautiful e/c orbs, getting serious. You blinked again and looked at the ground. ‘’I-I’m Sorry... Izuku.’’ Telling his first name was weird for you, but for Midoriya it felt like music in his ears. His face was as red as a tomato. You were still getting back, not breaking eye contact with him. ‘’It’s just... well, you see- eep !’’ Walking on a rock, you fell on the ground, feeling your butt hitting the hard ground made you growl in pain, letting go your painting while falling.

You don’t love her

Stop lying with those words

He was startled at first but ran immediately to your side. ‘’Y-Y/n are you okay ??’’ He asked, falling on his knees next of you. You sit back and growled in pain again. ‘’Y-Yeah.. I-I just..’’ you looked at him and your eyes widened. Your orbs meeting his, feeling your cheeks rising up. You looked at his cute face, his freckles were making him more cute then ever and his green hair seemed so soft, you were wondering yourself if you should touch them or not.

His cheeks turned red, he gulped and then looked away in a shy way. Once you realized you were making him uncomfortable, you got on your knees immediately and tried to put back your brushed into your bag. ‘’S-Sorry..’’ you whispered. He looked at the painting and then took it, his eyes widened once he saw the beautiful piece of art that you made. Your eyes widened in pure terror. ‘’W-Wait, Izuku-kun, it’s not what-‘’ ‘’Is it for me ?’’ He asked while turning to you.

Pacify her

She’s getting on my nerves

You gulped, nodding your head slowly. He looked back at it and smiled. ‘’Y/n ! It’s so good ! You paint myself so well... why would you do that for me ?’’ He had stars in his eyes in pure admiration, almost the same admiration that he has for the number one super hero, All Might. Your cheeks raised up, tears were now too hard to hold. They slowly fell on your cheeks while you started to sob uncontrollably. Once he noticed this, he panicked again. ‘’D-Did I say something wrong ?? I-I’m so sorry ! I-‘’

‘’I love you.’’ His eyes widened, his heartbeat stopped and it felt like the world around him stopped for a moment. You continued to sob, wiping tears even tho they were falling back on your cheeks. You did it. You confessed in a mess, exactly what you tried to avoid. How could you be so selfish ? You knew he liked someone else, you knew he liked her, but still, you tried anyway. ‘’I love you for a long time now. I adore you, Midoriya... and I know that you like Uraraka, I’m so selfish I’m so sorry..’’

You don’t love her

Stop lying with those words.

You stopped, putting your hands away, you stopped wiping your tears knowing it was useless, but still had your eyes closed shot. ‘’I’m a mess, I can’t do anything right. I-I don’t want to break our friendship, yet here I am, confessing like a stupid, selfish-‘’ You were cut by a pair of lips connecting to yours. You opened your eyes, shocked to see Izuku kissing you passionately. You took a moment, like you couldn’t process what was happening and like you were not believing it. When you felt him pulling away, you kissed him back, not letting him breath again.

He seemed reassured, kissing until you both pulled away from the long and passionate kiss. He sighed, putting his hand on yours, with a serious face. ‘’Y/n, I love you. That’s all you need to remember.’’ You smiled and wipe your tears, this time, they weren’t falling anymore. You were happy. All the pain before left your body like it was never there. ‘’I-Izuku...’’ you whispered. He looked at you, waiting for you to continue what you were about to say. You looked into his eyes and smiled. ‘’Thank you...’’

[pseudonymsobriquet]

Tag Meme!

Rules: Pick 5 shows, then answer the following questions. Don’t cheat. Tag some people.

Thanks for tagging me, @boostthatgold and @ninja-crybaby~! Sorry it took me so long to finally do... (>~<)

Carole and Tuesday

One Punch Man

Parasyte: The Maxim

Fullmetal Alchemist

Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Who is your favourite character in 2? Its very close between Genos and Saitama, but I think Genos wins by a hair (no pun intended). The borg is so emotional and loving and I just wanna give him a hug.

Who is your least favourite character in 1? Oh Cybelle, definitely. She’s a horrible person. Which is a damn shame since her song “La Ballade” is an absolute bop.

What is your favourite episode of 4? Episode 54, “Beyond the Inferno”. [SPOILERS AHEAD] Riza seeing through Envy’s disguise with ease, Roy confronting Hughes killer, a discussion on how hatred only breeds hatred and what makes someone human. The sympathy and pity you feel for Envy... there are so many great moments in this one episode and it’s one that I always remember to this day despite not having seen the series in at least four years. 

What’s your favourite season of 5? It only has one season, so I guess it’s season one by default lol. It was one hell of a ride for sure. Lots of interesting discussions and horrifying reveals, and does a great job at a “genre sike” by being relatively family friendly until episode three where everything gets turned upside down and you realise it’s a psychological horror despite the cute art style.

Who is your favourite couple in 3? Shinji and Murano were the only official couple in the show, but I definitely didn’t ship it. Kinda felt like you could take Murano completely out of the story and everything still would have been the same. Honestly, Shinji and Kana had better chemistry, but Kana needed to work on some of her stuff before that could happen. A relationship with Shinji and Hideo could have been interesting, too.

Who is your favourite couple in 2? I’m a huge fan of Saitama and Genos as a couple! They both help each other to work on their issues and become a better person. Genos helped bring Saitama out of his depression and to be more emotive, and open up to people, eventually leading to a happier more enjoyable life and him gaining a network of friends to rely on. Saitama in turn helped Genos to overcome his uncontrollable rage and to think more before acting so he doesn’t end up hurt as much. Also he taught him to focus on things other than revenge (though that may have lead to a bit of an obsession with Saitama himself lol). Every domestic interaction between the two seems natural and effortless, and if one is hurt the other goes wild which is an A+ trope that I just love lmao. I could write a damn essay on why these two are perfect for each other honestly. 

What is your favourite episode of 1? The last episode! It’s the end of a series, but the start of something great for all the characters. Also the Miraculous Seven Minutes was absolutely phenomenal and I’m so glad I watched it in the show before I listened. I also cried like four times during that seven minutes because of what it meant to the characters, and I don’t often cry at things! So this show making me cry four times in seven minutes is a feat of its own! Watch Carole & Tuesday folks, you won’t regret it. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you’ll wanna bop along with the characters during every song.

What is your favourite episode of 5? Ooft, Episode 6, “This Just Can’t Be Right”. The absolute bombshell that was dropped towards the end was just horrifying in every way and I honestly didn’t see it coming. I think this was the point that both the characters and the audience realised exactly what a horrifying ordeal being a magical girl really was. Episode 8, “I was Stupid... So Stupid” is a very close second, and gives us another bombshell reveal I didn’t see coming that ramped up the horror even more. I won’t give any spoilers on these episodes tho ‘cause it’s one of those “it’s better if you experience it yourself” moments. What I will say is that Madoka Magica is a psychological horror at its heart, don’t let the cutesy art style fool you. 

What is your favourite season of 2? Season 1 by a long shot. I’ve personally seen the entirety of season 1 at least six times over, whereas I watched Season two once as it released. I enjoyed the second season and would love a third season to release, but season one was superior in every way. Maybe it’s because I feel like less happened in season two? Or that there was more focus on human interaction and relationships in the first? Or perhaps it’s because I really saw myself in season one Saitama? Whatever the reason, I could still happily watch season one like six more times.

How long have you watched 1? Carole & Tuesday only released last year, but I started watching when there were only three episodes out subbed! From there I kept watching it weekly as it released, and I’m so glad I decided to watch it because it quickly became one of my fave animes of all time. 

How did you become interested in 3? I first heard about Parasyte when I was about sixteen? I’m sure I saw it on a list of great horror manga while I was looking for something new to read. I actually read quite far in but never finished because I had to study for exams then lost my place and just never went back. Then this year, a full nine years later, I saw the anime was on Netflix and I remembered just how much I’d loved reading what I did of it, so I started and finished it in three days lol. Turns out I wasn’t far from the end when I’d lost my place all those years ago. It brought back nostalgia of something I loved as a teen and I loved how well animated it was (even though it can look a little silly at times). I’d definitely recommend Parasyte to anyone interested in horror anme and manga.

Who is your favourite actor in 4? Edward Elric’s Japanese voice actress Romi Park was my fave. She has The Range. When she voices Ed, I honestly believe every emotion, every performance she gives. From a scared child to a hero saving the world, she does an amazing job. 

Which do you prefer: 1, 2, or 5? It’s gonna be a close one between Carole & Tuesday and One Punch Man, that’s for sure. One Punch Man was an anime where I saw myself in the main character and his journey through depression and not knowing what to do in life, and Carole & Tuesday made me feel emotions I haven’t felt in a very long time and stressed the importance of music and friendship. Although, considering I have the Carole & Tuesday songs on a playlist and know every word to them all, and the impact that the series finale (and the series as a whole) had on me, I’m going to have to say Carole & Tuesday win this round because of just how much it meant to me. 

If you could be anyone from 4, who would you be? Oh man, I’d wanna be Olivier. The strength, the confidence, the pizazz... I think Olivier is everything I wanna be lmao. 

Would a crossover between 3 and 4 work? Parasyte and Fullmetal Alchemist? Hell yeah, I’d love to see that crossover. Maybe the parasites in that world could be a type of homunculous or something? They both had the same idea of infiltrating the government for their own personal gain too.

Pair two characters in 1 who would make an unlikely but strangely okay couple? Gus and Flora would make a great couple, I could definitely see them getting together after the series ends. Carole and Tuesday would be great too, though they work just as well as friends.

Overall, which show has the better storyline, 3 or 5? Tricky, but I’d have to go with Parasyte. There were a lot of interesting moments and discussions in the series that pulled me in, like “what is humanity?” and “what makes someone human?” and “at what point is someone no longer human?” and “is it possible for humans and parasites to coexist?” Madoka Magica was a great series, had some great moments and asked some equally as interesting questions, but I think Parasyte pulled it off better in the end.

Which has better theme music, 2 or 4? Oooohhhh, that’s a tough one... One Punch Man or Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood... I just listened yo all the songs from both to try make up my mind and I’m still a bit lost, so let’s go by “what’s more memorable/makes me feel some kind of emotion?” FMA: “Again” by Yui and “Shunkan Sentimental” by Scandal are the only ones that seem familiar and that I can remember when they aren’t in front of me. I know I’ve heard them all (I watched the entire series) but to say it probably has more music, I actually remember very little of it. OPM on the other hand... I know most of the words to “The Hero” by JAM Project and it makes me feel so hyped up. “Apostle of Silence” by JAM Project in the second season is just as rad and memorable. Both of the ending themes are beautiful and emotional. And the first ending theme seems to be about Genos wishing Saitama would come home safe, while the season two’s ending is sung by Saitama’s voice actor and seems to be a reply to the first season’s ending theme? Absolutely gay and iconic, 10/10. Wow, OPM hands down has the best music then I guess lmao.  I tag anyone who sees this that wants to do it~! Have fun, guys~! <3 

[stranger-who-writes-fiction]

Everything Awesome about COIE Hour 3

MANY THINGS OCCURRED!

This one is Long, guys.

Also a more accurate title would be Everything Awesome and some Less So about COIE Hour 3

But I wanted the posts to match, so.

So I never watched Birds of Prey because I never knew it EXISTED when it was on, but as a fan of the Birds of Prey team in general, and the characters Huntress and Oracle...not gonna lie, t’was sad to hear Helena desperately calling out to Barbara before they were destroyed by the anti-matter wave. So I give that cameo a thumbs up.

How is it only just NOW occurring to me that the Waverider (Wave Rider?) is serving the same function as the Monitor’s Satellite from the comics????

J’onn!!!! I’m so glad he’s here! Bearing news about the supporting cast of Supergirl! And the entirety of Earth-38!

So glad that they’re alive! And safe! And not dead! And that they are sure to remain that way, for the rest of the crossover! XD

And then J’ONN IS THE PARAGON OF HONOR! 

It’s what he deserves.

And then like four different subplots are set up in short order: They gotta to to Purgatory to get Oliver’s soul; they gotta get Ryan Choi; they gotta go to the cave where the Anti-Monitor was hanging out until fairly recently; Kara’s gotta be talked out of using the Book of Destiny.

It’s...a lot.

Also Vibe is back!

“Maybe you didn’t hear me under those voluminous mutton chops of yours--!”

Another nice Iris/Barry scene, BUT, for my money, it’s the second one, later in the episode, that really tugs at them there heartstrings.

All the Pariah stuff is as accurate as the Arrowverse could possibly MAKE a Pariah. Good, solid, good.

Then the British Fellows Ham it Up for a few minutes, before The Soul Searching group goes to Lian Yu, because of COURSE it’s Lian Yu, as if Oliver would allow his soul to languish anywhere else. 

Then we’re back in the Anti-Monitor’s room domain and COSMIC TREADMILL! AW YIISSSSSS

All of the good treadmill jokes have been made already so I’ll just move on.

This is very comic-y! The Anti-Monitor used Barry to power his Anti-Matter ray in the comic, and he ultimately destroyed it as well, dying in the process.

HERE, we discover that when Earth-90 Barry vanished last year, he was captured by the Anti-Monitor, and then CONDEMNED TO A FATE WORSE THAN DEATH; HE WAS TO RUN, FOREVER, ON A TREADMILL.

(...Pretty sure that joke was made on the after show, but I couldn’t help it. IT WAS RIGHT THERE.)

So they bust Earth-90 Barry out with the help of Jefferson!!!! 

I love that he’s got his line in there, the, ‘whose life is this’ line. Good, yes, good.

(Listen: there is no greater proof that the Arrowverse will go back to some version of the multiverse model, than Jefferson’s inclusion here.)

I’m getting a little ahead of myself...BACK TO THE OTHER SUBPLOTS!

Ryan Choi is great! I don’t keep up with Legends, but it’d be cool if he stuck around, since Ray is leaving.

ALSO GREAT???? Routh Supes’ explanation of the black shield. ‘Hope cuts through the darkness.’

(And the Superman theeeeeeeme I never tire of hearing it)

There’s some Kate and Kara stuff here but I wanna cover that later so FIRST...

The Oliver reunion on Lian Yu happened way too fast! But then, many things happened way too fast! But this one REALLY FELT WAY TOO FAST.

Like: He’s ready to kill us! But no? YAY, OLIVER IS COMING BACK! But No? Wait, he’s Spectre now????

But also...SPECTRE!!!!!!

Spectre is the deus ex machina of the Crisis comic, so it’s fitting that he’s just. A sudden thing that pops up out of LITERAL NOWHERE and is apparently vital.

So I guess Oliver’s final form ISN’T Team Dad, it’s Mysictal Green Hooded Guy.

(Man we should have seen this coming.)

(I like that Oliver is Spectre, just to be clear.)

Iris’ pep talk with Ryan was lovely.

(And then there’s the moment I mentioned earlier, where Barry’s like, ‘I might die’ and Iris is like, ‘I don’t want to go, I want to be with you.’)

(I will admit...that part got me a little.)

HEY FLASH FANS, HOW DO WE FEEL ABOUT THE FACT THAT LITERAL YEARS OF TEASING LED UP TO A BAIT AND SWITCH, HUH????

I honestly don’t know if I’m impressed or annoyed by this cop-out.

I will give them props for the inclusion of the original Flash show footage, that was very nice.

(And I say that as someone who has but a passing familiarity with the original TV show.)

The disintegration effect, as well as the Flash emblem being the only thing left, are really great direct homages to art from the comic.

I’m gonna talk more about this part LATER so let’s jump back toooooo....

Oh! The Barry and Jefferson scene!

It was so niiiiiice.

Very emotional, and a nice bonding moment, and this bit:

“I don’t think Henry and Alvin raised quitters, so we should rage against the dying of the light.”

FEEEEEEEEELIIINNNGSSSSS

Another Kate and Kara bit, which again, I wanna get into in a minute, BUT, before we do, I will say that: this buddy dynamic is very nice, but it takes the place of the Kara and Alex stuff from crossovers past, which I might have been okay with...if not for the severe LACK of Danvers Sisters content in the SG season proper.

Here’s hoping 5B gives us...something.

(Also I know it’s very much because Kate is like, the lead of one of the five main shows being crossed over so obviously they’re teaming up instead of Alex and Kara hanging out but I just. Love the Danvers Sisters, okay?)

(Related side note: Really glad this crossover isn’t so focused on romantic pairings! It’s a nice change of pace! I mean we’ve got Iris and Barry obviously, as well as Lois and Clark but I’m just recalling the Double Wedding nonsense of Earth-X and...*shudder*)

(This is an improvement, IMO.)

OKAY OKAY HARBINGER’S BACK HERE WE GOOOOOOOOO

MIND CONTROL! BETRAYAL! DEATH! THE DESTRUCTION OF THE ENTIRE MULTIVERSE!

And crashing on this Vanishing Point because technically we’re HooOOooOOomeless!

Aw man I was so sad to see Routh Supes go...and be replaced by LEX, ugh. 

(But it’s very Lex, so.)

And Kara’s desperate, ‘Kal, Kal! What do I do?’

:C

OKAY so I kinda wanna talk about the Kara stuff, the Barry stuff, and the Kate and Kara stuff.

This crossover does some interesting things, re-contextualizing the two ‘Big Deaths’ from Crisis. 

In the comic, both Kara and Barry die, and their deaths are kind of like...thesis statements, on their brand of heroism.

They’re willing to give up everything--even their very LIFE--to ensure the safety and survival of others.

And both are treated as kind of remarkable things, even among their peers, who are other, selfless superheroes.

Which is WHY...the Barry thing is kind of...a massive let down. 

In the after show, Marc Guggenheim talked about how they could have their cake, and eat it too, because Barry was ready to give up his life, but was denied the opportunity.

And...I get that logic, but man, they spent all of season 6A dragging out that ol Barry-Dies-Angst.

And last season too! The WHOLE SEASON LONG PLOT with Nora was centered on Barry’s disappearance during Crisis and thus, her growing up without him and now...

That’s all just out the door? Because a different Barry decided to take his place? AN ELEVENTH HOUR LOOPHOLE?

It’s so audacious...that’s why I’m also kind of impressed, as well as annoyed.

And they don’t quite do the same thing with Kara, since they haven’t so much as TEASED anything resembling her comic death--I kind of assumed they might with the Book of Destiny stuff, but she didn’t even open the thing.

(And ultimately this is GOOD because if they’d done something similar to Barry--a last minute bait and switch--HOO BOY. There would have been...WORDS. OF STERN DISAPPOINTMENT.)

Instead, the crossover frames living as the more heroic option, because these heroes are Paragons, and thus are needed for some...other purpose, put in motion by the Monitor.

So if they die, they’re actually DOOMING the multiverse.

As mentioned! It’s kind of an interesting inversion, and until we know being a Paragon fully entails--it is difficult to say if it’s a positive or negative change!

(Still love that Kara and J’onn are Paragons, tho, cause they’re my Favs.)

OKAY so that’s the Kara and the Barry stuff. NOW, for the Kate and Kara stuff!

IT’S ALL ABOUT THE KRYPTONITE, MY DUDES.

Yeah, you thought we were DONE talking about Supergirl-specific plot lines...BUT THINK AGAIN!

LET’S TALK ABOUT HOOOOOWWWWW Kate was gonna use that Kryptonite...BUT DECIDED NOT TO, AND THEN WILLINGLY HANDED IT OVER TO KARA because she knew that 1.) SHE WOULDN’T NEED IT and 2.) Kara deserved to have the deadly poison THAT IS ONLY POISONOUS TO HER AND HER SINGLE SURVIVING BLOOD RELATIVE to decide how to dispose of it.

AND THEN...Kara tells Kate to keep it, and I thought, for one HORRIFYING MOMENT, that Kara would insist that she might someday NEED it, should Kara ever go rogue, thus VINDICATING every stupid pro-Kryptonite debate ever BUT...

NO! Instead she’s like, ‘I know you won’t use it!’

And folks.

Folks.

If nothing else. If nothing else. Please. PLEASE. Let this fun week of death and destruction be a learning moment for Kara, that she both HAS and DESERVES better friends, than a woman who casually subjected her to Kryptonite to further her own ends.

PLEASE, SHOW, PLEASE. 

Anyway! That’s hour three! And now we have to wait an ENTIRE MONTH to see how this plays out! XD

[rewind-reviews]

So I Just Played... Owlboy

So I just played Owlboy and I have somethings to say. Owlboy is one of the best games I have ever played If you haven't played it stop reading this and play it right now. I got Owlboy as a birthday present this year but didn't play it for a good four months but when I finally got round to it I just couldn't stop. I’m gonna talk a little about story but I will try not tho spoil too much because that's the most important thing about this game. Owlboy is about a little owl called Otus who isn't like all the other owls, he’s small, mute and he can bearly even fly at the start of the game. Otus is constantly put down always being called useless, weak, weird and no matter what happens he is always the one to blame. This really struck a chord with me because I was in the same boat when I was young and it felt good to be playing a character that was feeling the same things I did when I was small. Life isn't all bad for our little hero though. There is one person that's always there for Otus his best friend Geddy. Geddy is the one person in all of their home town of Ville that truly understands and accepts Otus and seeing their friendship and their take on the world attitude when they are together nearly brought tears to my eyes at times throughout the story. Otus is told by his mentor to do one simple little job but when that quickly spirals into chaos him and Geddy are thrust into trying to save the world with nothing but the support of each other and the friends they make along the way. Now I would love to say more but I honestly feel like if you know the story of this game before you play it you would really be missing out. The next parts of this review are going to be a little hard but hey here we go. The gameplay in Owlboy is pretty simple the game mostly consists of flying around as Otus solving puzzles, exploring and grabbing a limited number of coins to get rewarded at the shop that right not buying things rewarded. you don't buy anything in this game as the coins act more as collectables than they do currency, each milestone you hit nets you either a simple cosmetic change or something to give you a little extra help along the way which I think is perfect because all of it is entirely optional plus the dialog with these scenes is absolutely halirous. Not everything is that simple however the combat is where the gameplay takes a turn.  Otus isnt a great fighter he can do a tiny spin which will stun some enemies but can't really kill anything that's Geddy's time to shine. When the need arises Otus will grab hold of his trusty companion and Geddy will use his pistol to dispatch of the bad guy of your choice (it gets more interesting later on in the game but I'm not spoiling anything). When you need to fight the game becomes a twin-stick shooter of sorts you move around as Otus and use the opposite stick to take aim with Geddy to take down the bad guys. I will admit this took me a while to get used to but it soon enough because second nature and I was taking down everything that dared block my path well up until the bosses but you will have to seem them for yourself. Next up is graphics. I'm not the type of person to think graphics are the make and break of a game but if a game looks good hey I'm not going to complain so it's just a bonus that Owlboy looks so spectaular. Everything is done with a pixel art style which yeah is kind of done to death but the detail in this game is something game devs and artists alike should take note of. The art in this game perfectly captures every mood and emotion the story wants you to feel be it full of excitement and optimism when you first see Ville, anxious and fearful in a dark and spooky cave or even full of wonder in a lush green forest it does it all seamlessly. Even the sprite work is downright perfect Otus is constantly expressing his emotion through movement or facial expressions which is great because you know he can't talk. You can always tell what the little guy is feeling through the way he acts and if I'm being honest its pretty impressive because the sprites aren't all that big plus I played through Owlboy on my switch in handheld mode so the screen wasn't super big but I could still see everything the characters were feeling at all times. Owlboy isn't perfect though and fell short in a few places towards the end of the game. There is one section of the game where flight is taken away from you and honestly its the worst part of the game, in my opinion. The whole section is an auto scroller which no one likes at the best of times and you need to jump from one crumbling platform to another while I was playing this I felt like it was impossible, you have nearly no space or time to make the jumps its asking you to do and I had to watch a walkthrough just so I knew what was coming up so I could plan ahead and no word of a lie this one small section took me around an hour and a half to beat. There are also some side quests that I felt were way too hard for a one of event that you only ever see for that quest. Don't get me wrong it is all possible because I did do it all eventually it just doesn't feel like they tested it enough. Overall Owlboy is one of the best games I have ever played, the gameplay is simple but engaging, the graphics are stunning, the music is incredible and the story is one of the best I have experienced in a very very long time. yeah sure it has some issues but that won't stop you from loving every part of this game. So please if you are looking for a fun little indie game to fall in love with give Owlboy a go you won't regret it.

I want to once again say thanks to mousieex on instagram for inspiring me to keep writing here please give her some love she deserves it.

https://www.instagram.com/mousieex/

[muchymozzarella]

Ranking the Overwatch Cinematic Shorts (so far)

I’m gonna be ranking each short based on storytelling quality (since, let’s be real, all the animation is amazing) and the way it affected me personally, as well as the relevance of each short to their primary character or characters. 

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Junkertown: The Plan

I’m not putting this in my main list because it was animated differently from the rest, and mainly for a map rather than characters, even if it did a little bit of storytelling. However, the expressions in this were amazing, as was the comedy writing. Still an excellent piece, though I’m not putting it in my main rankings. 

Doomfist Origin Story

Though technically counting among all the other origin stories, because this was fully animated, I felt it needed mentioning. This 2D style is fantastic, exciting, and Sahr Ngaujah’s Doomfist has me in CHILLS every time I watch it. I’d rank it mid-high on my list if it were being ranked, but since it doesn’t count among the cinematic shorts, I’m excluding it. I need this anime in my life, tho.

NOW FOR THE MAIN RANKINGS! 

#11 - Reunion

Reunion was... disappointing. It was still beautifully animated, still exciting and fun, but as a character piece it felt more like a vehicle for Ashe and Echo than any real story. McCree wasn’t given the attention or character depth they gave him in his comic, or even in the Retribution.

Still good, but the most disappointing of the lot. 

#10 - Overwatch Cinematic Trailer

The OG! The first look that made us excited about Overwatch. It does what it needs to well, but being one of Overwatch’s earliest works, it has a lot of outdated elements, such as the subtle changes in Tracer and Widow’s design, and the more flat portrayals of characters that were much nuanced later on.

Still excellent, though, and a good way of portraying what Overwatch was meant to be as a game, as a concept, and as its own universe.

#9 - Shooting Star

Now this was an excellent character piece. I dearly appreciated the look it gave us into D.Va’s real personality underneath all the propaganda/media persona, and her anxieties and pressures and fears. It, however, didn’t affect me very much on first viewing, especially in comparison to the rest, and it isn’t the most memorable to me, so it’s lower on the list. Still quality, though. 

#8 - Rise and Shine

This would be higher on the list, but I wasn’t affected until maybe my third or fourth viewing. Something about the way the emotions played out seemed not to develop as well as the rest. However, this is still an emotional, touching, and surprisingly LONG short about Mei, and it really delves into her character and drive, while also giving us significant backstory on Overwatch’s role and situation in-universe. The music was lovely, and Mei as a character is just amazing, and so very compelling. Elise Zhang did a wonderful job, especially since she sometimes struggles with English, especially a fully English piece like this. And it is GORGEOUS. All of them are, but this one in particular captured something great in the lighting and setting. 

#7 - Infiltration

Now this is where I’m starting to have trouble picking between titles :P This one grappled with #6 for the higher spot, but I’m putting this here because the other one’s thematically stronger. This one, however, was about everything you’d want in a short. It’s exciting, it’s got deep and interesting, moving plot, it has multiple characters but shows us exactly what Sombra is about and gives her such PERSONALITY. The animation is great, the storytelling is great, and it plays out the way the best superhero animated series from the 90s and early 2000s played out. One of my favourites. But still not as high on the list as the next ones. 

#6 - Hero

I think what made this so impressive and memorable was actually the soundtrack. The mood was set so perfectly in this short alone, but also it was thematically stronger from start to finish with the idea that old heroes could still be heroes, and that new ones could arise as a result of the old ones. It was exciting, the action was excellent, and the world of Dorado just pops. 

But definitely the music. Who could forget that guitar at the end? 

#5 Alive

So they, uh... straight up MURDERED SOMEBODY??? 

Seriously though, this short, despite having the action and excitement of both Infiltration and Hero, rises above because of how it revealed the stakes of Overwatch. It revealed that they weren’t afraid to go there, to show the othering of sentient people with the omnic rights protests led by an omnic religious leader mirroring past tensions between an oppressed group and a majority, and to show someone who is both a major religious figure AND a political figurehead being straight up assassinated for the goals of a shadow organisation. 

This was an action-packed, exciting, visual treat with a terrifying and skilful villain who was a real threat, but above all else, it showed us that Overwatch wasn’t going to baby its audience. 

#4 - Recall 

Winston is such an excellent character, let me just say. As far as we, the audience, are concerned, he is Overwatch - at least, the new form of it, and the best form of it - and the way this short presents his desire to see the world be better, mixing in some deep universe lore and more action showing the threat that Talon is, this short is one of the most important just in terms of Overwatch’s story. It’s got action, it’s got some surprisingly effective humour, and it centres on a great character and his wants and decisions. 

NOW WE’RE IN THE HOME STRETCH - AKA THE PLACE WHERE I COULD NOT DECIDE WHERE TO PUT THESE TITLES. 

BUT I HAD TO RANK THEM. SO HERE THEY ARE. BUT ASSUME THEY ARE ALL EQUALLY AMAZING BECAUSE THESE ARE THE THREE BEST OVERWATCH CINEMATIC SHORTS SO FAR.

# 3 - The Last Bastion 

This was a masterpiece. Without dialogue, it conveyed emotion, it was a feast for the eyes, the music and sound design were on point, and it was honestly just... amazing. Really, it was perfect. The only reason it’s #3 is because #2 and #1 hit me harder in the emotions on first, second, third, and subsequent hundred viewings. But this short about a PTSD-ridden robot and their path to healing is just... beautiful. Heartwrenchingly beautiful, sweet without being saccharine, and way more real than we expected a short about a singing robot and their bird best friend to be about.

If you were ever to teach a masterclass in short form animated storytelling? You’d use this as an example. That’s why it won an award for Best Writing in Film & Video. 

#2 - Dragons 

God, this was hard. This was actually my favourite of ALL the cinematics, in fact, it STILL IS MY FAVOURITE. It’s the first thing I show people to get them hyped for Overwatch, when they still haven’t checked it out. It’s just amazing. The storytelling is masterful and exciting, and the way it tells two intertwined stories is both stylistically amazing and beautifully plotted out. 

It’s a visual treat, with excellent music, and the narration by Papa Shimada really sets the tone. The action is great, the characters are great - it’s all just great, and gets my heart pumping every time. And the art for the children’s story? Utterly amazing. 

And the only reason it doesn’t get top billing is because the last of these just makes me cry every single time I watch it, without fail. It just... it’s too much, guys. 

#1 - Honor and Glory

Dammit. I hate this. I love it. The timeless themes, the mix of old epic warriors and sci-fi battles, the perfect line that bookends the start and finish of this short. THE MUSIC, HOLY SHIT. Every time I watch this, I cry. It’s never failed me. It’s just so earnest and painful, and brings to tears even the most stoic people. 

It has the emotions of The Last Bastion and the same themes of old battles, but has this added tinge of tragedy with a character who is just so... worn down, that seeing him in the prime of his life just makes it even more tragic. 

This is my #1, top Cinematic Short out of Overwatch. And I need to watch it a thousandth time, because I’m still not over it. 

[emilykinneyupdates]

Emily Kinney Questionnaire

1. What are your top 5 albums of all time?

Tell Me I’m Pretty, Cage the Elephant

Mariah Carey MTV Unplugged live album

The Midnight Organ Fight, Frightened Rabbit

Blue, Joni Mitchell

Golden Hour Kacey Musgraves

2. Who are your greatest music idols/influencers?

Scott Hutchison of Frightened Rabbit

Joni Mitchell

Jaymay

Mariah Carey

Regina Spektor

My boyfriend and friends influence and inspire me a lot.  A lot of my best friends are musicians, or artists of some kind.

3. What was your first “I got this” moment as an artist?

Most of the time I don’t feel like I totally know what I’m doing.  I saw my friend Kevin Johnston play at Pete’s Candy Store a long time ago (2007?) at a time when I was singing backup for singer-songwriters and bands, and I knew I had to do that too and start writing songs in a more purposeful way.

4. What are you listening to right now?

Golden Hour by Kacey Musgraves, Long Live the Dead by Jordan Lehning, Cigarettes After Sex, Both Ways by Donovan Woods, Kendrick Lamar, Mental Illness by Aimee Mann

5. How do you feed your imagination?

Music, and going for walks, and reading.

6. Are there any causes/charities/nonprofits that you support?

I love Why Hunger and I Don’t Mind.  I would like to to do more with charities that have to do with mental health/suicide prevention and arts programs in schools.

7. What artists shaped you?

Frightened Rabbit, Wakey Wakey, Mariah Carey, Jaymay, Joni Mitchell, Chicago, Fiona Apple, My parents music: Jim Croce, CCR, Jackson Browne, Carpenters etc. classic rock.  

8. Who is your dream collaboration?

I don’t know. I used to really want to write a song with Scott Hutchison, but he passed away.  I like playing music with my friend Hayley Batt and my boyfriend, Paul McDonald.  I think it would be cool to a side project or poetry book with Hayley Batt.  Paul and I have a side project called The Sweetheart Deal and will be playing some shows at the end of the month.

9. Can you describe your creative spaces?

I like to have really empty spaces to write in. So my office I keep with as little clutter as possible. At least at first and then if I leave something out or put something on the wall it’s very purposeful.  Honestly I find I write the best or get ideas on airplanes and in hotel rooms.  I guess having no responsibility to take care of the space frees my mind.  But I always like to have guitar in the living room and then sometimes when I’m watching really stupid, boring tv my mind wanders and I write at the same time.  

10. What is a typical weekend like?

Every weekend is different cause I end up traveling for acting work or going to comic book conventions.  

But, Now that I’m in LA, I like to swim if it’s hot out!!!  I like to hike and I like to go see friends play at little places like The Echo or Hotel Cafe.  If I’m in Nashville, I like to go to Radnor Lake and hang out in East Nashville. I like trying new coffee shops.  I like to watch CBS Sunday morning. It’s news for Grandmas and I love it.  I try to watch it every week.  

11. Are there any specific magazines/podcasts/websites/brands you like?

App called Mend that does a podcast

Lenny letter

Hello Giggles

Teen Vogue

CBS Sunday morning is my dream some day!!

I loved doing the article with Darling.

Elle women in music issue.

Paper mag

Busy Phillips is going to have a new talk show. I follow her on instagram.

The New Yorker, they always have poetry.

New York mag

LA times

12. What are your favorite brands for equipment/tech/headphones/speakers/etc

Audio Tech.

Sonos

Macintosh

Bose

13. Can you name a few key life experiences that most shaped who you are?

Moving to NYC. The Lion’s Club talent shows when I was little really hooked me into music and making it my thing.  The theatre department at Wesleyan in Lincoln, Nebraska instilled a real sense of discipline and work ethic when making art that has really stuck with me my whole career whether music or acting.

I used to run away a lot but it would just be around to the other side of the lake at my grandparents house or to the car. I’d bring coloring books and a caboodles box with stuff.  I think I realized early on that I really needed space to hear my own thoughts;  that other people around me really affect me and I’m very empathetic.  I think writing songs by myself or being on stage is a way to turn down all the noise of the world.  I love being with my friends and family but creative time to myself is really soothing to me.

14. Do you collect anything?

I like band merch. I buy a lot of snack food protein bars, and just hoard it in my cupboards.  Gummy candy.    

15. How would you describe your style? Who are your style icons?

Growing up and still, I’ve always really loved Gwen Stefani, but  I wouldn’t say I necessarily dress like her.  I also like Lana Del Rey.  I feel like my style is in transition right now.  But I like my hair super blonde as possible. I like a lot of t-shirts and torn denim and overalls and onsies and cool jackets. White shoes. Delicate jewelry if any. Really into mascara and lashes and eyeliner.

16. How has your acting career influenced your music?

Every time I have to be a new character and go to a set in a new place, I have new stories and a new environment that can spark song ideas.

Some acting roles (like Walking Dead and Spring Awakening have lead people to my music.)  And having audience is obviously important for fueling a music career.

17. Are there any artists you look up to whose career you would like to emulate?

I used to think so, but now I sort of feel like I’m doing my own thing that makes me happy. Creative careers are sort of unpredictable no matter how much you try to shape them.  I think I’m happy to just keep getting work whether it be in music or televison or theatre. I’m happiest while I’m making stuff and finishing stuff.  

18. How is ‘Oh Jonathan’ an evolution from ‘This Is War’?

How have you grown as an artist in the years since? I’ve spent a lot of time experimenting.  I was actually working on a completely different album called “Shadows’ or “Shadow in a Room” and I have all those songs so maybe I will eventually finish that record, but ‘Oh Jonathan’ just sort of naturally wrote itself.  I think emotionally I had to feel that relationship had to be seen or hold some weight and it never got that in real life, so maybe that’s why I felt a strong desire to write all these songs.  

Many of the songs on my last album This is War I had played out with a band before recording.  These songs on Oh Jonathan, I created in the studio just me and Ben Greenspan the producer, so that was a big difference.  

19. Can you tell us a little bit about inspiration behind the “Boy Band Hero” video?

Well I really wanted to work with Jason who directed it and I really like simple videos so that the images support the song and you listen to the song closer rather than the image overtaking the song and the song becoming soundtrack.  We did this in a one shot with a very slow pull back, and mixed in images from when I was growing in Nebraska from various sporting, school events. I found the Kinks shirt on e-bay.

20. Can you describe the album in five words?

Daydream windy whispers lost muse

21. Which song do you find to be the most autobiographical and why?

They are all extremely autobiographical, most of the scenes I describe really happened tho maybe not in exact order or specifics or maybe some I exaggerate.  

22. What are the most prevalent ideas/themes/inspiration on your album?

Wanting companionship, isolation, unrequited love, imagination, immaturity, growing up, sobriety

23. Were there any current/world events that influenced you or that you specifically wanted to address on this album? How did they translate into the songs?

I think social media makes it very difficult to move on from a past relationship, past life.  I think you can make up a lot of stories in your head and feel isolated but also inspired in certain ways because of social media.  I don’t directly address social media in my songs but I think they played into the creation of them.  

24. What is the most interesting thing about this album to you?

The trumpet solo in Loser.  

25. What did you learn about yourself during the making of this album?

I recognized time passing in a different way and aging, I learned more about gratitude and steadiness and process.

[vertyblog]

The Best: The Saga

I have a good friend, not on tumblr, who frequents terrible roblox roleplay servers, looking for fun.

A result of this fun is one of the best stories I’ve ever read. The Best story.

He preferred to remain anonymous, but I think this needs to be shared with the world. With that in mind, all of this text below this readmore is his own words, not mine, and a completely factual account of events. (The art is by me tho.)

Oh speaking of that-  the art was made at the time of original telling, which means there was some artistic liberty and also my art separates it into three parts while the actual text goes with two parts. I left both as is for the sake of historical accuracy.

Now then, before I get into the glorious clusterfuck that is my story, I need to make a few things clear. Yes, this was an RP, but it took place within an actual game space. All characters were in a "Physical" world and not just some text on a page. However, most complex actions were done 100% of the time through text. With that out of the way, we can begin.

This story is split into two pieces, each one taking place on a different real-world day. They all happened back-to-back, and the entirety of the story took place over the course of a weekend. As a sort of hobby, I like to go trawling for terrible RPs and join them to laugh at what I find. It's nothing short of incredible observing (and sometimes being a part of) the often hilariously bad antics Mary Sues get up to. This being said, while this STARTED as one of those times, it quickly escalated into the greatest thing I've ever lived through. So, enough of the backstory, let's get into it. For this particular outing, I decided to pick a Super Paper Mario RP. Yes, they exist and yes, they are exactly as terrible as you think they are. But that's not why we're here.

PART 1, In which a Hero is born-

It all started from the moment I logged in; we were off to a flying start. Basically every bad RP trope and sin was being evoked at the same time completely unironically by people who didn't know any better. I don't come to these to clean them up or set everyone on the right path, I come here to point and laugh at the people for my own amusement. Still, you can't exactly lurk an RP that takes place in an actual game; You have to be SOMEONE, and if you looked important in any way you would somehow be swept up into whatever crap they were doing. So with all of this in mind, I chose to look as unimportant as possible. I was a Green Toad. Not a frog, mind you, but those vaguely adorable Mushroom folk from Mario (Why am I saying this? I have seen some real idiots and the last thing I need is someone thinking I was a frog while doing this). Toads are nearly invisible, as far as the dozens of Marios and Luigis and what-have-yous were concerned. So, with my character set and with one eye on the global chat to catch any wonderful bits of Fail RP, I set off on the greatest ride of my life.

I chose to settle down in a town on one of the map borders. Honestly it was a quaint little place. Snow-covered, with a train occasionally showing up to ferry off whatever Joe Q. Jerkholes wanted to go to where things actually happened. Now, while there's definitely some cringe-worthy stupidness in every last RP I've gone to, I can reliably say without a doubt in my head that I have never seen something as laughably terrible as what this one group of people was doing. There was one group SOMEWHERE that were having a Cyberpunk RP. In this Paper Mario game. How exactly you do that is beyond me; it's not like the map is full of cities and technology and flying cars, and yet they were having the time of their lives blasting away at each other with their guns and smoking their cigarettes in back alleys that didn't even exist on the map. It's been over a month since this happened, and I can't even remember what was going through my head at that point, so I'll put it bluntly. I'll stand for a lot, I'll idly sit by and just let a lot of crap happen. This was just one step too far, and through the power of bad (great) decisions, I decided that I was going to put a stop to it. Of course if it was as simple as that, we wouldn't have this story.

Before I set out of the little snow-covered town, some preparations had to be made. Even if I was the most un-threatening Toad in the world, someone out in that grand old world would find SOME reason to start something with me. To that end, I took up a simple spear. There wasn't a single thing special about it; no legendary enchantments, no amazing artifact status, no +1. Just a completely mundane spear. And that was it. So with newfound weapon in hand, I boarded the train out of town. Cutting out the boring travel time, I arrived in a desert area. As frequently as these people were talking about their trenchcoat-wearing Bob-ombs and augmented Yoshis (I wish I was joking), I still had not a damn clue where on the map they actually were. As I would soon find out, where they were didn't matter. While the group actually having this RP was only something like six people, it happened to be the "Coolest" thing on the whole server, so everyone and their mother was copying it. Enter our first contestant, who now stood in front of me. His sprite was your average Shy Guy. The way he was DESCRIBED to me, he was nothing short of Adam Jensen, sunglasses and all. And just as I had predicted, he saw some random Toad wandering around and figured I must have been easy pickings. So he more or less started trying to kick my ass. If you're expecting some amazing and epic battle to get written here, I'm sorry to disappoint you. Instead, this is what actually happened. He tried his best to get his actions across, and I responded by using the largest words I could get from my vocabulary and putting them into my responses. After a few minutes of this, I'm convinced his brain shut down and he simply logged out. So, that was one victory for me. And I continued on my way.

To say that the effects of this RP were server-wide is an understatement. Everyone I came across had some bit of metal stuck to them somewhere, and I'm convinced they saw the Mushroom Kingdom as some glowing neon cityscape. Luckily for me, most of them seemed content to let me continue on my way. I wasn't out to burn down the whole server, my problem was specifically with the source of the madness. Rapidly exhausting the places these guys could be, I hopped on a cruise ship to maybe point me in the right direction (And to get away from the throngs of cyborg rejects wandering the streets). Unfortunately for everyone, not even at sea was I safe from out-of-place Cyberpunk whackos. Our next offender happened to be a Yoshi. This particularly wonderful individual had a mohawk and could breathe fire, among other fun abilities (Can you guess what color Yoshi he was? Hint: it was black). In hindsight, I'm pretty sure he was trying to make himself Bowser without actually playing as Bowser. At any rate, he was yet another wonderful problem who saw fit to try and murder me. To his credit, this guy wasn't actually thrown off by large words, and did put up a reasonable fight. After a few minutes of us dancing around the ship trading blows (And the entire thing being an inferno because of liberal application of fire), the two of us go overboard. It was either to escape the fire or he grabbed me and jumped, but that doesn't matter. What DOES matter is that when you replace a large portion of your body with metal parts, you don't float very well. To my utter shock and amazement, the Yoshi forgot to augment his lungs. I think he wanted me to pull him ashore and start some wonderful friendship between us, but I was having none of it. I left him to sink to rock bottom, which prompted some wonderful comments from him riddled with questionable grammar, mostly to the effect of "Aren't you the hero?". He didn't get a response from me. I was just some Green Toad with a spear.

So, I clamber ashore from this underwater zone and I'm on an island. Decently sized, and as I would soon find out, without a single other person on it. While I DID want to get away from it all, this was a tad extreme. I get to exploring and find out a few wonderful things: The only boat that takes you off of this island was broken because of shoddy scripting and would never arrive, there is nothing to do on this island outside of jump on things and reenact your favorite castaway movie, and the Circuit City wholesale saw no signs of stopping any time this century. What would have normally been entertaining roleplay failures in the global chat became anything but. I'm not some insane Mario fanboy, but having gotten this far into attempting to stop this from happening and having it continue unopposed just felt like a slap in my face; It was an insult to me, and this had gone from a visit born from morbid curiosity to an anger-fueled mission. With my only way off of this island never arriving, I decided on simply killing myself to respawn on the mainland. I was simply going to walk into the ocean, fall through the map, and respawn back where there were people. It was when I took five steps out into the water that something incredible dawned upon me. The entire ocean was a solid object, just like the land. It was simply a different kind of land painted blue and with a fancy water texture on it. Only the water immediately around the cruise ship was special in any way, with the rest of the ocean just being a solid slab. I was walking on water. I walked all the way back to the mainland. The mapmaker does deserve SOME credit, however. When I say this was an ocean, I mean it. The walk was long, but eventually, I came ashore once again.

Where exactly I ended up concluding my miracle walk across the ocean was another matter entirely, however. I stepped out into a forest that I hadn't been to before. Once again, giving the mapmaker some credit, I did get lost in these woods. After a couple of minutes of aimless wandering, the forest took on a different tone. It's become obviously more spooky (I use that term loosely. It was about as spooky as a bedsheet ghost) and it becomes very clear why: the woods appear to lead directly to the titular mansion from Luigi's Mansion. Why exactly it was in a Paper Mario RP I couldn't tell you, but there it loomed, amidst the trees and less-than-adequate lighting. It was here than I ran into a pretty large issue; not so much the mansion proper, but what was right next to it: E. Gadd's lab. This is one of the very few locations on the entire map that had actual, honest-to-God technology in it, so to say that it was swarmed was an understatement. Now, I want to make something very, very clear here. I won my first two scrapes with these clowns because of sheer luck or glaring incompetence on their part. No matter how well I wrote or how amazingly I could wield a spear, it would offer no defense from an entire room full of these people all coming at me at once. So the lab was a no-go, but I derived a small amount of joy from the fact that there wasn't a single one of them in the mansion proper. I like to think they were actually afraid of the place, although that probably wasn't the answer. So my next course of action was to go inside.

As mentioned before, the inside hadn't a single soul within. I have never played Luigi's Mansion so I cannot attest to the accuracy of the interior. For what little the words of a stranger on the internet are worth, it certainly looked the part. Probably much smaller than the real thing, but once again that isn't the point. After walking through a few identical hallways and being moderately shocked at the complete lack of anything even remotely resembling a ghost, I finally ran into someone else, and was more than surprised with what I found. I fully expected another wonderful individual to come charging at me with his cyber-arms and demand my lunch money or something, but instead I was greeted with a "Hello" and the realization that this one guy wasn't a cyborg. For those that care, he was playing as Mr. L, or at least had him selected as his player model. He wasn't exactly in-character, but I think he just wanted to talk to someone that ALSO wasn't trying too hard. We get to talking, and he genuinely threw me a curveball when he asked, "What's your name?". To be honest, I hadn't given our hero one yet. In thinking what name would be appropriate for a random Toad, something rang out in my head, something that Toads always seem to say. "I'm The Best.", I told him. Seemingly content with that answer, we exited the mansion together. It is at this point that, once again, I have to be the bearer of bad news. I'd love to say that we teamed up like some kind of Buddy Cop movie, found those jerks, and saved the day like the big-dick heroes you think are at the end of this chapter, but alas there is no such thing. So here's what actually happened. A hacker turned up, and crashed the game. As simple an anticlimax as that. With that being said, in all honesty I don't think I could've went out and gotten a better ending. There's something wonderfully poetic about Cyberpunk RPs ending because an actual hacker turned up.

If our story ended there, I would have been content. But once again, through the power of excellent decision-making, I returned the following day.

My second excursion started more or less the same way as the first: Roleplaying failures abound, yours truly as a Green Toad, and a whole wide world to blunder through. Except at the onset of this adventure, there were no Trenchcoats or Augments. It wasn't exactly 100% normal goings on in the Mushroom Kingdom, but really it never is. As I once again trekked up to that snow-covered village, I scanned the Global chat for anything worthy of my attention; be it offensively bad or just stupid enough that it had to be seen in person. Three things caught my eye. The first was a bodysnatched/posessed/evil/combination Princess Peach who was now out to kill Mario. Normally this would be cause for alarm, but there were roughly a dozen people playing as Mario. As far as I was concerned that Peach was doing her God-Given duty and thinning the herd, so I would let her carry on this most righteous mission. The second event was that, apparently, the Mushroom Kingdom was in the midst of some kind of alien invasion. This was ALMOST what this  part of our story was about, until I saw the third and final thing to grace my screen. Somewhere out in that world, out in that grand old expanse of continent, there was another Toad calling himself The Best. It was a common thing for any enterprising Toad out on the street to say; that wasn't what set me off. He was using it as a title, claiming that he was actually The Best. He swung those two words around like some kind of blunt instrument and expected everyone to bow down to him. So I made it my NEW mission to take the title from him. I had claimed in passing to a random stranger a day prior that I was The Best, and now the time had come to prove it. With spear once again in hand, I set out from my frozen home to take a random person on the internet down a few pegs.

I elected to not take the train this time, instead deciding to hoof it back to civilization. I had an entire server to comb for one man in particular; a train or any kind of fast-travel would raise my chances of missing my mark. Fortunately (Or unfortunately, depends on which camp you're in) it also increases my exposure to the ever-present bullshit that infests these places, which is exactly what I ran into. Fleeing at high-speed from a full-blown Dragon, a Princess Peach made a beeline straight for me. Yelling "Help me!" in about every way imaginable, she just sort of kept on running past me and left the first person she ran into with the monumental task of getting rid of a Dragon. Deciding a Toad was an easier target than a Princess, the dragon seemed pretty happy with the arrangement as well. I've had my fair share of fighting dragons, so I had a pretty good battle plan. Of course, EVERYONE always has a plan, until the goddamn lizard starts breathing fire. The start of the fight was pretty ineffectual on both of our parts, the Dragon trying vainly to hit the tiny target that is a Toad and me trying to piece together how I would take down something this stupidly big. Calling upon my experiences dealing with things far too large for a person so small to be expected to kill, I decided to take the Shadow of the Colossus road, and start scaling the beast. I'm assuming at this point the thing took flight and I somehow brought it down to earth again after a prolonged struggle, because the next thing in my memory is me still fighting this damn dragon in the middle of the desert.

I don't know just how long we had been locked in this struggle, but I know that at that point I just wanted to be done with it. I did my best to force the thing into a good position for me to gain the upper hand, but it's pretty damn hard to make a dragon do much of anything, especially when it wants to consume your weird Toad head thing (Is it a hat? Is it their head? Someone please inform me, I need this question answered.) But sure enough, through judicial use of baiting both literary and physical, I managed to get the Dragon into a corner. Three separate times I tried to end the fight with a decisive strike, but each one he would bullshit out of it. It's to be expected, the last thing anyone wants is for their character to get offed, even worse if its in an excessively embarrasing matter. "Killed by spear-wielding Toad" is about as embarrasing a death as you can have in something like this, being only a few steps above "killed by Goomba walking to the left". But anyway, that's not the point. After a bit more flailing, I took one final shot at the damn thing in such a way that there was well and truly no way out of it. Probably fed up with getting whooped all up and down the map and airspace by something only a few steps above "Goomba" in threat level, the dragon promptly ragequit. And that is the story of how I killed a dragon. Unfortunately (Or fortunately, depending on how you feel today) I didn't have time to go track down the Princess and inform her that the dragon was dealt with. I probably would've gotten a cake, maybe a statue, maybe ignorance. Who can say? At any rate, with that distraction dealt with I got back to my primary mission.

You would think that in a game like this, Toads would be in short supply. I certainly thought so, but apparently they were more popular than I first assumed. For a good long while, the only thing I did was wander the earth, find a Toad, and ask them if they were The Best. It was always followed with a "No" and I continued on my way. There were probably far better ways I could've gone about it; I could've just called the guy out in general chat and hopefully had him come to me. Hindsight is 50/50 and in spite of how often I'll think of myself as a smart individual, I am definitely not the brightest bulb in the box. Anyway, back to our story. This pattern of asking random Toads if they were The Best and moving on went on for a few more iterations, until I saw one of them get on a train. Thinking it was my man, I made a beeline for it, only for the train to pull out of the station and speed off with me having not even seen the guy's name in time. STILL unable to grasp the concept of "Global Chat", I did the only thing my mind thought of and started running after the train like an idiot. I don't have to put it in writing but I'm going to anyway: Trains are faster than Toads. I did not come even close to catching up to that train before it sped off over the horizon and carried the mystery man with it. So I did the (reasonably) smart thing and just caught the next one, hoping that maybe he'd be standing around the next train station, making my life easy.

It seems endemic of the Mario universe that nothing is ever simple. You want a dollar? Go bash your head against a brick. Out for a Sunday Stroll? Hope you're headed to the right, 'cause that's the only way you're going. So of course shit went down on the train. A player dressed as Mr. L walked up and down the cabin kind of aimlessly. Given my one and only instance of prior experience with anyone dressed up as Mr. L, I was almost delighted. For one brief and shining second, I thought I would finally have an ally against the chaos. The first words out of his mouth were that, verbatim, he pulled out a knife and tried to stab me. He was one Katana short of fufilling every stereotype in three seconds. Honestly I don't know what I expected. I never got a chance to respond to my assailant, as another player dressed up as Luigi spotted his evil twin, thought he was hard enough, and decided to have a go. Say what you want, but I wasn't about to deny Luigi a shot at his doppelganger. The two of them launched into combat, and I made myself scarce. I don't know who won the scrap. Some say they're still fighting to this day. All that matters is that the train pulled into the station, and I kept on my search.

The cycle continued. Find a Toad, ask if they're The Best, get the answer of "No", keep on walking. Until finally, I found my man. He didn't look like your average Toad, but that isn't saying much. Clad in some kind of cloak and armed with a spear all his own, he had chosen Yellow for his color. I approached, and I asked the question for the last time. I got a lot more than a "Yes", but to save all of you the hospital bill and subsequent psychiatrist visit, I'm just going to condense it down to a "Yes". After a while of his rambling about just how great he was, I cut him off with an offer someone of his pride couldn't refuse. It was something to the effect of "I don't think you're all that great, and I'll fight you to prove it.". Several sentences of heated words and a LOT of escalation later, it had gone from a simple test of honor to a full-blown fight to the death. My plan was to keep it on the down-low; any sort of high-profile and high-impact fight would be sure to draw attention from everyone and their mother, and the last thing I needed to deal with was some full-blown warzone. Unfortunately for me, someone playing as Bowser overheard us and walked up.

I know what I expected. I expected Bowser to go on about how HE was actually the Best and try and kill both of us. Instead, he said that he wanted to host this death battle at his "Rad castle". Before I could object to this in favor of the quiet 1 v 1 I wanted, the other guy agreed to it. What I DID finally say was that I would meet him there at sundown. Both for dramatic effect (which I knew he'd eat up), and to give me at least fifteen minutes to come up with a plan for when this inevitably went tits-up. So, with the date and time for our climactic showdown set, I hit up the local shops. I bought everything I could that I thought would give me some kind of edge, which turned out to not be much. Wandering the continent on a manhunt didn't exactly pay well, and I could only afford a few Mushrooms and a single Fire Flower. Knowing full well I was pretty unprepared for some kind of mass-swarming if Bowser sent out the army of minions he'd probably have waiting, I went anyway. Even if I was marching straight into what I thought was a massive trap, I had little choice anymore. I knew what I expected. When the sun set, and I made my way through that castle gate, I realized that I had completely under-estimated whoever was playing Bowser. What greeted me when I walked through that gate was nothing short of incredible.

You see, Bowser had spread the word about this fight across the land in record time. His castle was packed with people, all watching from the ramparts and the balconies and anywhere else they could stand or sit. And amidst them all, looking down from his throne room, was the King Koopa himself. As I entered the courtyard, he gave me a goddamn entrance worthy of some kind of wrestler on WWE. It was absolutely astounding. He went on to do the same for my opponent. I hadn't planned for an audience, much less one the size of damn well near the entire server. With that many people watching, I threw aside my plans for some quick and decisive conflict. These people probably paid really good fake money for those seats and goddamn if I wasn't about to give them their money's worth. And just like that, we crossed spears and the fight began. Everyone I had encountered up to this point was either incompetent or simply unintelligent. He was a completely different beast. Prideful, overconfident, and showboating like you wouldn't believe, but he could actually back it up. For the first time in my entire misadventure, I was toe-to-toe with someone who could stand up to me. He might have actually been The Best, if only I wasn't here. It was a knock-down, drag-out brawl, eventually exiting the courtyard and had us both parrying and dodging through all of those balconies and ramparts I had mentioned earlier. Spear met spear, strikes glanced, and we continued to drift through the castle locked into a lethal struggle only one of us would walk away from. Eventually the fight gravitated to the highest spire of the castle, steered there by both of us. We both knew the fight was going to end up there, and we both wanted to be the last man standing. Unfortunately for him, I borrowed a page from Joseph Joestar's playbook and started going for some hard reads and some pretty sick bait.

At the very pinnacle of the spire, I went for an all-or-nothing maneuver: I let him disarm me. My spear sailed off the tower and far, far out of my reach. Rather than go for the killshot, he gloated. He launched into yet another speech about how great he was and how I was a fool for challenging him and all that wonderful jazz said better by about three dozen other folk. It was at this point that I pulled out the ace I'd been hiding up my metaphorical sleeve the entire fight, and used the Fire Flower to launch a point-blank fireball right into his face. It caught him mid-sentence, and it gave me the upper hand, if only for a brief moment. My one regret out of this entire adventure is that I didn't have a cool thing to say at that exact moment. So, wordlessly, I dropkicked him straight off the tower. And down he plummeted, well within view of everyone who attended, right into the lava below. And with my brutal mission achieved it was official: I was The Best, and everyone in the server now knew. So much for being an unassuming Toad. As I stepped down from the tower back into the courtyard, Bowser stood before me and the exit. To this day, I am absolutely convinced that he was going to start something the moment the fight was over. But after the display I put on up there, he merely handed me my spear (No idea how he got it), told me that the fight was the most awesome thing he'd ever seen, and got the hell out of my way. With my goal attained and no reason to stick around with all the attention I was about to get, I walked out of the fortress and logged off.

But what if I told you it got better? The following day, curiosity won out one last time and I logged back in.

PART 2, in which the Hero becomes a Legend-

Everything up to this point was great and amazing, but this is the point at which this story transcends reason. It's also the part I remember the best, so strap yourselves in, this is going to be a long one.

I log in, I pick my Green Toad, I exit spawn. As an extra measure, to keep anyone who remembers me from last time from swarming me immediately, I hide my Username. Immediately, something strikes me in a metaphorical sense; I spy another Green Toad. Not exactly out of the ordinary, except they were talking to yet another Green Toad. Chalking it up to coincidence, I entered town. The sheer number of people playing as Green Toads was staggering. It had gone from nearly a dozen Marios, Luigis, and any other important guy that looked cool, to nothing but the most unimportant character in a Mario game in a very specific color that wasn't red. In one chain of bad decisions and murder in front of an audience, I had gone from some nameless jackass to the new meta. Everyone wanted to be The Best, it was goddamn surreal. On the upside, when everyone's The Best, no one is. So by virtue of being so popular, I was once again invisible. Imagine if every problem solved itself like this. On the downside, it was going to be a bit hellish proving my own identity. Still, it was nice to blend into the crowd again. I kept a watchful eye on the chat. With this many people wanting a title that can only belong to one man, I figured the entire server was going to devolve into complete anarchy sooner or later. There was a certain appeal to a server-wide free-for-all with everyone vying to be the same guy Highlander-style, but that's neither here nor there.

It was calm. It was surprisingly calm; no one went for each other's throats, life proceeded as normal. The Princess and a few Toads that guarded her walked amongst the crowd of people in the town square. Spotting her and her guard was pretty easy; they were the only thing that wasn't green. She was handing out invitations to the townsfolk for some kind of banquet or celebration or party or SOME kind of mass-gathering at the castle that night. Even the Global chat was calm; the entire server was, if only for a minute, peaceful. Honestly, the place had started to grow on me; I can say that I legitimately liked the dumb antics that I usually got up to every time I logged in. So I stuck around, even though nothing was going on; Hell, I thought about buying a house near the castle just to be closer to where the action happened. Funnily enough, this was the right choice. While I was house-shopping, I saw speech bubbles floating up from this sort of back area inbetween a few of the houses. It wasn't out-of-place or anything because the town was jam-packed; it was what the bubble said that caught my attention. "They can't know we're here.", it said. So, naturally the curious type, I ducked into a nearby vacant house and started spying on whomever was speaking.

It was more Toads, but something was off. They were purple and not green, the both of them. One just an ordinary Toad and the other using some kind of palette swap of Toadette, I think. Their conversation continued, and to say that I had struck gold was an understatement. So, to run you through who these two were and why they were about to set the greatest cavalcade of insanity in motion: Remember when I mentioned that there was some kind of alien invasion going on in Part 2 of my story? Well, these two were it. Shapeshifters, and not friendly ones. Obviously they wanted to take over the Kingdom, but their plan was to crash the gathering the Princess had planned for later tonight,  slaughter her and any other important figures that turned up, turn all of the Toads into more aliens through MacGuffin Magic, and then take their army and steamroll the rest of the continent. Now, I was in a bit of a tight situation. I didn't have my spear yet, so charging into the alley and handling them right then and there was out of the question. Warning the town or the Princess' guard was something I was strongly against, as that reduced me to nothing more than a whistleblower and not the absolutely legendary figure that I had somehow become in the eyes of these people. So really, I had one option: Get my spear, get supplies, and personally foil their plan in front of everyone. The only problem was, I did not have a lot of time or money to do it with.

I had very, very little in the way of coins to my name, and I wasn't just about to grab any spear from any old shop; It had to be the one I've always carried. The journey from the main city up into the snow-covered lands isn't exactly a long one, but it wasn't short, either. Worse still, what shops they did have up there were pretty lackluster in supplies and rather high in price. Still, I didn't have time to do much else. I made the trek, keeping a watchful eye on the sun and the global chat, hoping the party wouldn't start until I got back. I made it up there as fast as I could, and my spear was there waiting. I'd used it for a lot up until now, but its greatest challenges were still ahead of it. With my weapon of choice sorted, I walked into the local storefront. All I could afford was two mushrooms and a bottle of Hot Sauce that happened to be on sale. Honestly, I was ready to take anything I could get on the shoestring budget I had brought with me. As I departed back for town, things took a turn for the worse: The sun had set, the party had begun, and I was nowhere near the city.

I was running as fast as a Toad could go. I kept glancing from the road to the global chat; their plan could kick off at any moment and if I wasn't the guy to stop them then I don't think anyone else would. Yeah, everyone wanted to be me, but nobody wanted to have the danger of potentially having their character die doing heroics; they only wanted to be heroes and live to gloat about it. Sooner rather than later I get back into the town. There's no yells about dead princesses or mass anarchy in the town, so I only assume that I still had time left. Finally, I reached the castle proper only to be faced with something I forgot to prepare for: The Princess had posted up guards out front whom were actually checking for invitations. I didn't have one and I didn't have time to go looking for one, either. I had to get through that door as fast as possible; I had no idea where my enemies were and for all I know they were already inside. It's then that I looked at the guards at the door and remembered a very crucial fact: everyone was playing as a Green Toad today. If I could just get through the door, they wouldn't be able to pick me out from the crowd. So with that in mind, I picked my moment and simply sprinted through the doors. Once inside, I walked into the nearest group of similar-looking mushroom people and held my breath. The door guards walked in, picked some random fellow that just happened to be in the wrong place at the right time, and kicked him out instead of me. If you're out there, and you're reading this, Thank you random citizen. Yours was a pivotal role in this tale, and I will not forget your unintentional sacrifice.

I was inside, and the gathering was in full swing. Just what this was all for I never found out; I was moving too fast to take in the details. First it was scanning the crowd and trying to pick out anyone that was purple. Luckily, it seemed as though they weren't here just yet. Then, I tried to find the Princess. Outside of their plan and the fact that they came from outer space, I had no idea what those two could do, so my best bet was to get the Princess out of the castle and hope that the confusion they'd cause would let me and her get the hell out of dodge before the E.T.s realized she was gone. Let me tell you, it's no wonder Bowser is able to kidnap her so easily, because she REALLY makes no attempts to hide herself or even have guards around her. She was talking to Daisy and a few OC Princesses from made-up kingdoms about, well, me and my stupid antics yesterday. Almost on cue, I walk up to where she was standing and strike up a conversation. Well, perhaps "conversation" isn't the right word; it was pretty one-sided. I got her attention, and informed her that some very not-nice people were due to turn up any minute now and that she should come with me if she wanted to get out of this in one piece. This prompted a question I was hoping beyond belief would eventually get asked. "What? Who are you?" I needed only to utter three words and draw attention to my username for just a moment. "I'm The Best."

Three words worth twenty times their weight in gold. Three words that silenced a whole table full of royalty and fixated all eyes on me. Three words, met only with a singular response of ":O". With little ceremony, and even less to say, the Princess stood up and was at my side in an instant. I had lucked out; the person I was trying to save was also a huge fangirl. The rest of the table had their own things to say, but at that point my mind was already trying to think five steps ahead. Every second I was still at this party was another second off of the invisible timer heralding the arrival of the aliens. I was being posed with a really, really difficult question: How do you sneak a Princess out of her own party while attracting as little attention as possible? Frankly I didn't have an answer, so my initial plan was to simply say "Screw it" and walk out the front door, all witnesses be damned. Fortunately for the dramatic tension of the story and unfortunately for my nerves, at that exact moment, my time ran out, and our two antagonists strolled into the castle, shooting down my plans for an easy front door escape. Our escape was temporarily put on hold, and all mental resources were instead pushed towards NOT letting the regicidal extraterrestrials spot me or Princess Peach.

As fast as my fingers could manage, I typed out my instructions. Specifics aren't important, the gist of it was that I wanted her to stay as close to me as possible, and to follow my lead. With that out of the way, I ducked behind a pillar and triple-checked that I was talking into local chat only. It doesn't take a genius to conclude that attempting to do anything remotely discrete with Princess Peach is nigh-on impossible. The stealthy approach lasted all of fifteen seconds before the gig was up, the aliens spotted the Princess, and they started making a beeline for her. Now, at this moment, I did not have a lot going in my favor. My plan was falling apart, the bad guys were closing in at a very fast pace, and it was a very real possibility that if I wasn't the luckiest man alive our story would have ended much sooner and with a much bleaker twist than the version we got. Luckily for me, my original plan was still VERY fresh in my mind, and they weren't inbetween me and the door anymore. So with a very simple exclamation of, "RUN!", we made a mad dash for the door and the chase was on. It was at this precise moment in time that all hell broke loose.

When someone yells "RUN!" inside of a packed venue, people tend to panic. When shapeshifting space aliens pull out guns and begin firing into a crowd of people, said people tend to freak out. When everyone's pretending to be a hero and the shit hits the fan, you find out who the real heroes are. Toads were racing everywhere, lasers were being sprayed like Xcom just turned up, the Princesses still at the table were having a full-scale freakout, and what guards there were inside were fighting a losing battle at attempting to make sense of the utter chaos. The Castle emptied at an alarming pace, both because people were throwing themselves out of any available exit they could find and because there were two determined shooters killing those that couldn't. Ducking and dodging, my luck held out long enough to get outside with the Princess in tow. The streets weren't much better than the inside, with most of the sensible folk running as far as they could, and a few plucky people that didn't have a grasp on what they were up against charging into the Palace to play the hero. Still, if only for a few seconds, we weren't being shot at. Those few seconds let me think on my options to devise a new plan better than "Run like hell". I came up with "Run like hell, but towards the harbor, then get on the first boat going anywhere." And so, I informed Peach as we made a madman's dash towards the coastline. Unfortunately, the Princess hadn't caught on to the whole "Local chat" thing, and ended up saying aloud how great a plan it was. The aliens became an issue again really quickly after that blunder.

I called on every action movie chase scene cliche that my mind could spit out to slow them down. There wasn't a tremendous amount of city we had to cover, but it felt like I was running a cross-country marathon (In spirit. I was sitting in a desk chair holding "w" for a minute or two.). In spite of my best efforts, their blasts were getting more accurate by the second and the lead I had on them was evaporating. Still, sometimes you can call in a favor from Lady Luck, and sure enough when I reached the port, there was a ferry departing. I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, and so a shout of "Get on the boat!" was all it took to secure our getaway. In my mind, it was the classic action dive onto a boat just as it departs the harbor, laser bolts barely missing the hero as he escapes below deck. In reality, all I did was walk into the designated "Get on the boat" area. Details, details; what matters is that I had managed to pull this escape off, and at least for the moment we were well and truly safe. A minute later, and we step off of the ferry with a few other frightened townsfolk in a place called Rogueport. I had no time to relax, however, as the ferry was very punctual, and I had only three minutes at best before the next one turned up, probably carrying two whole units of bad news. After a very, very quick examination of the town, I noticed it had a train station. An escape by rail certainly beat walking, and so we set about the time-consuming task of waiting for the next train. With what she percieved as a moment of peace, the Princess got around to asking what we were running from. There is no good way to explain to someone that Aliens are trying to kill them; take it from me, I tried. She didn't believe me; maybe she had doubts that I was who I said I was. Honestly, wherever her indecisiveness came from has no real bearing on the story, because the train didn't arrive in time, and the aliens turned up in all of their glory.

We were cornered, but I could tell from the way they were acting that they hadn't caught on to who I was just yet. There were some generic villain-esque statements, "Turn over the princess and we'll spare you" and all that nonsense. Their answer came in the form of a drawn spear and a combat stance. I thought over how this was going to play out. There were two of them, both with guns. There was one of me, trusty spear in hand and a handful of items to keep me in the fight. I made damn sure they didn't get the first move, and launched my attack. What played out was a game of cat-and-mouse, with them trying to stay just out of range and pelt what they thought was any ordinary wannabe with lasers until he went down. They quickly realised that I was no poser, and began to play dirty. Up until now, I had been dodging everything they could throw at me. They seemed to know this, too, and decided to fire on someone that couldn't dodge half as well: Princess Peach. My plans shifted from an all-out offensive to playing completely defensively, having to block or leap in front of every shot they now fired at the Princess. Things rapidly fell apart even further as what little healing items I had to keep myself in the fight disappeared at an unacceptable rate. It was absolutely clear that they were about to win, and Lady Luck was unreceptive to any further bribes as the train was still nowhere in sight. I looked into my inventory for some kind of 11th-hour miracle; who knows, maybe I had another Fire Flower I had forgotten about until now. The only thing left was the bottle of Hotsauce. To put it bluntly, I had no idea what it would do. Maybe it WAS another Fire Flower, just by a different name. Maybe it was one final healing item to keep me fighting for just a few seconds more. With everything to lose, I downed the bottle.

I promptly burst into flames.

Absolutely zero people were expecting that, myself included; the Princess practically fell over when it happened. Life had given me lemons and the means to go out and burn something down in one fell swoop; I felt Cave Johnson give me his strength from beyond the grave. I decided to see if space aliens were flammable by disregarding any form of subtlety and just bumrushing them, spear swinging all the while. Still shaken from the act of self-immolation and scrambling to come up with a counter of their own, the psychological warfare value of a flaming madman stabbing you with a spear proved to be the alien's Kryptonite. All told, these two were incredibly smart, but more than that they were organized. Maybe they had another chat program open or something, but these two were absurdly coordinated. This was one of the few times I managed to disrupt their harmony, and it gave me the edge I needed. For a few seconds I tore into them, paying back what they had done to me over the course of several minutes. When they finally got back in-sync with one another, they unanimously decided to run the hell away. With shouts of "This isn't over!", they fled back into town and away from the Princess and I. The train STILL wasn't here. I was completely battered, and if they had just stuck around for a second longer, that would've been the end of the story. Still, a pyrric victory is still a win in my books, and I turned to the Princess and gave a simple "Believe me now?". She did. She also believed that we needed a new way out of Rogueport, which I was more than happy to agree with.

Hoofing it out of town was somewhat unacceptable because that's what the bad guys just did, so that limited things slightly. After a few seconds of looking around, we found a blimp offering nonstop service to somewhere named Glitzville. I don't care what the name was, when I got off of that airship I was convinced that it was where Pro Wrestlers went when they died. It was literally this fighting arena floating in the clouds, built up like a massive coliseum. I have no idea what the hell Super Paper Mario's plotline is and even now I don't have any goddamn clue, but between the cruise ships, aliens, and Wrestling afterlife it must have the most confusing story of all time. At any rate, we moved inside, and I judiciously purchased snacks to get my HP back up (With the Princess' help, of course. She had money and I still didn't, glorified murderhobo that I was.). There was one problem that we noticed, however, and it was that Glitzville is its own little world; it doesn't connect to anywhere and was a very, very flashy dead end. Still, it was probably a bad idea to head back down into Rogueport in case the terrible twosome was there looking for us, so we decided to lay low in a floating sky coliseum for a few minutes. It didn't take long for someone to stumble upon us, and boy, had I seen nothing yet.

At first, much like an eldritch abomination, my brain could not comprehend what had walked up and started engaging in conversation. He was talking like several different big-shot wrestlers all got mashed together into one man, and said man was some kind of bird-person-thing. Absolutely ripped, on every poster all over the Coliseum, and asking me who I was. I still couldn't articulate a sentence, so it was a good thing the Princess was quick on the draw. "He's The Best.". I will never get tired of that line for as long as I live. Of course, Birdman wasn't quite ready to believe it yet, but a flash of my username made him take a step back. Obviously he recognized me, but he still had some doubts. I called it from a mile away; he wanted to fight me in the ring. I was of two minds about this: It would frankly be really, really cool to throw down with the guy, but I was in the middle of saving the Kingdom. I declined politely, trying to get the point across that this was a really bad time and that I had some more important things to do. Just as I'm about to walk out of the door, he says it. A declaration, and a challenge I couldn't refuse. "I thought you were The Best!"

The Princess was probably about to jump to my defense, but I was quicker on the draw this time. I turned right around. "I am. Meet me in the ring." Saving the world could wait; beating this bird was now my top priority. I handed the Princess my spear and headed ringside. At this point in our story, I was more than a little nervous behind the screen. The only thing I had ever made sure this lovable yet murderous scamp was good at was wielding that spear of his, and with it out of my hands I felt positively naked. To make matters worse, I was stepping into a coliseum with a positively ripped professional wrestler; I had really little margin for error here. As I strode through the doors that led to the ring and gazed upon the massive audience of NPCs, the very beginnings of an idea started to form in my head. As he, too, made his entrance, I got an overwhelming feeling of Deja vu. This fight, in a sense, was nothing new; save for my opponent and the locale, this was a repeat of yesterday. There was little warmup; we both were eager to get this started, with him wanting to thrown down with The Best and me wanting to end this and get back on the road. He started off with some bombastic moves and acrobatics, staying true to his avian nature and attacking in drops and dives. I did my best to stay out of his way, but he was the one in charge here.

With his high-flying style, he controlled the pace of the match from the get go. Finding opportunities to try and get hits in was difficult, and I could only dodge for so long. Eventually, he changed tactics and tried to bring me to the floor with a lariat. I ducked his arm, and seeing this as what could potentially be my one and only opportunity to get a hit in, threw out a leg sweep. I was expecting him to dodge it and retaliate with something of his own, but not only did I connect, the way his response was worded was like he just got hit by a car. In that moment I remembered just who I was, and the enormous amount of weight my self-made title held in the eyes of these people. What the hell was I afraid of?

I was The Best.

To figure out just why this happened, take a minute to imagine what the conclusion to yesterday's match must have looked like to everyone but me. A nameless man challenges some hotshot that's been hooting about how great he was all damn day to a duel at Bowser's Castle, and without saying a word, brutally murders him and then disappears without a trace afterwards. That is the kind of edgy-ass intro and outro all of these people WISH they had, and I just sort of did it without even thinking about it. Because of that, rumors had spread about The Best. What he was truly capable of, where he had come from. At this point, not even I knew just how strong I really was. Truly, though, there was no better place to find out than in this ring, against this bird. I pushed my newfound advantage, and the tide began to turn. Every time he came down, I was ready for him. Instead of dodging, I was blocking and countering. The tables turned, and I threw in some style of my own. There was something inside of me that felt deeply, deeply validated when I came up with the idea to start using spears, as in the wrestling move, in this scuffle. I soon decided to really push the envelope, and go for suplexes. I didn't have a mirror anywhere near me, but I didn't need one to inform me of the big, stupid grin on my face when some tiny mushroom man grabbed a buff bird three times his size around the waist and actually pulled it off. In spite of all of this, the eagle would not fall, always managing to kick out at 2 and keep the fight going. Maybe it was a dare from him; some kind of pride that made him demand that I truly gave him all that I had. Perhaps he just wanted to drag out a fight with a legend for as long as he can. I'll never know his reasons, but they didn't matter. If I lingered here, there was the chance someone with less than wonderful intent would walk in and kidnap the Princess while I was distracted.

With this in mind, I had to go big: bigger than anything I had used so far. One move popped into my head before all others, and I decided to give my opponent a finishing barrage worthy of a Platinum game. He launches a few strikes of his own, but at this stage in the game I knew that I was a god among men. Like Neo at the end of the first Matrix, I blocked and no-sold everything he pulled out. Finally, he over-extended, and I saw my opportunity. Getting him in a grab once again, I launched into a wholesale stolen Final Atomic Buster, but I didn't stop there. After slamming him down into the mat and leaving him stunned, I sprinted out of the arena, shoulder-barging through my exit doors and rushing into the stands. From there, I ran up as high as I could go, and launched myself into an elbow drop that shook Glitzville to its very foundations. I transitioned into a pin, and at last, he stayed down. The Princess was cheering, the NPCs were cheering (But that wasn't news, they were always cheering), and I took a second to bask in the glory of it all, before remembering that there was still a world I had to save. I helped the turkey off of the floor and, as he described it, an indent in it shaped exactly like him. There was a small conversation afterwards, and I want to give the player behind that bird a shout-out. He never broke character once, and goddamn was he skilled in the art of a good RP fight. Still, my journey wasn't going to end here, so after some goodbyes, we got back on the Zepplin and the Princess and I came back down to earth. Unfortunately, it was not the same earth that we had left. In my fifteen or so minutes of absence, the aliens had gotten busy.

I had saved the Princess, yes. However, that was the only thing I had managed to save. Every other Princess at Peach's party was dead, logged out, or otherwise totally on-board with the new management. The general population of the server, easily swayed, were all over the chance to sign up as world-conquering aliens. Except the ones that weren't, which ended up becoming something called the X-Nauts in some attempt to fight the space aliens for control of the server. To put this lightly, the Kingdom was a war zone. Conflict and strife had erupted everywhere, and anarchy reigned. At first, I was ready to take up my spear and take on the entire world, but that's when I realised something. That's exactly what the last guy calling himself The Best did, and then I came around and knocked him clean off of his high horse; I could not let me pride consume me like it consumed my predecessor. No, if I was going to win this war, and bring peace back to the land, I needed a plan. To fight back this many people, I'd need an army of my own. Only problem was, I didn't have much left to work with. The aliens were converting anyone they could get their hands on at an alarming rate, The X-Nauts were razing everything they came across, and if I didn't act soon we'd be caught in the middle of it all. It was here that my mind came up with its final, greatest plan. I already had an army, for all intents and purposes. I just had to convince an old acquaintance to lend it to me. I told the Princess that we were going to pay Bowser a visit. For a minute, she thought that I had played the longest con in the business, and was about to hand her off. Fortunately for her, I hadn't come this far for a cop-out ending like that.

Our travel time to Bowser's domain was not a completely peaceful one, with lots of sneaking around on our parts. With everyone having moved on to other things, I was once again the only Green Toad on the map. If anyone caught sight of me, I'd be drowning in assailants from both sides of the fight, and chances are I'd lose the Princess in the human tidal wave. Once again, I do not know the storyline to Super Paper Mario, so for all I know, everything happening around me was super canonical. Still, I find it hard to believe that space aliens toting guns were fighting men from the moon decked out with technology all their own and even some towering mecha, in this universe most known for an oversized turtle that kidnaps the same Princess from her castle over and over again with two plumbers playing the hero. Either way, we made the trip to Bowser's castle a little easier when we stole one of his airships and simply flew all the way there. You'd think that would attract a lot of attention, but so do giant robots piloted by space men laying siege to your town. We slipped through by simply being part of the background noise. We DID, however, end up attracting a lot of attention from Bowser, and what little forces he had managed to hold onto during this war.

The welcome we recieved, by flying up to Bowser's own fortress in one of his stolen airships, was a lot less than warm. It was plenty warm temperature-wise, active lava flows have a tendency to ensure that, but that did little to warm the ice-cold stare of a few Koopas at the front gate. The fortress was already on edge given all the fighting everywhere else, it's a wonder they didn't try shooting us down before we even got this close. Still, as I strolled down from the ship's wheel and dismounted with the Princess, the general tone at Casa de Bowser went from "barely-restrained fury" to "utter confusion" real damn fast. They were prepared for an army, hell they were probably ready for a last stand, but the moment they commanded me and the Princess to halt, and demanded to know who I was, they collectively realized that they weren't prepared for just one Green Toad. I told them three words, and revealed my username for the whole fortress to see.

"I'm The Best."

Their momentary silence spoke volumes, more than what came out of their mouths next ever could. They could have done a lot in that situation, and what they chose to do was doubt my claim. It was a pretty sensible move on their part, after all if a man came to your front door and claimed to be the President, the first word out of a lot of people's mouths is going to be "Bullshit". Unlike the possibility of the President upon your doorstep, they next decided to attack me. And that second part told me everything I wanted to know about the company Bowser still held. They were tenacious, weren't afraid of literally anyone, and had so much loyalty that they would sooner throw themselves at the mushroom equivalent of Chuck Norris over disappointing their lord. They went down in a few moves on my part, but I knew I was in the right place. I told the Princess to hang around outside of the gates, and that I wouldn't be long. More came in behind them, happily a few more troops than I was expecting Bowser to have. It was a creative writing exercise on my part; I had to find a way to disable or knock out every combatant that came at me without roughing them up too bad, after all if my plan worked these were going to be my soldiers. Skipping over a stroll through Bowser's castle with a couple of speedbumps on the way, I made it to the same courtyard I had begun yesterday's deathmatch in. And wouldn't you know it, Bowser was waiting for me atop his balcony. I didn't have to say a word, he knew who I was. He didn't know why I was here, though, and that part got me to say quite a mouthful. In short, I needed an army to take back the Mushroom Kingdom, I had the Princess on my side, and he was the world's only shot at getting thoroughly un-fucked. And here, I got some very lovely exposition on the situation and exactly the level of fucked the world was at that moment in time.

As far as Bowser was concerned, it was already too late. The aliens had everything they needed to complete some kind of ritual or something, the usual "Unseal the ancient evil" type of plot, you know the kind. The only thing really stalling them was the X-Nauts, and even then it wasn't going to last for much longer. The moment this thing was out of its can, the aliens were going to bowl over everything that wasn't them. But to top it all off, out of everything he COULD have called Bullshit on, he thought I didn't have the Princess. That was the easiest fix in the world, all I did was whistle and she was by my side in an instant. I don't know what it was about that gesture, but the moment Peach came into the frame, he did a complete 180 and agreed to help. If it was all screwed anyway, then he thought he owed it to his men, the Princess, and even me to be, and I quote, "The nastiest thorn in their purple side for as long as we can!". Which was a hell of a motivation, but from there? We had a start. I had my army, I had the Princess, and I had a clock counting down to Doomsday. What I didn't have was an assault plan.

I did have experience and a black belt in kicking asses by these folk's standards, though. So I let Bowser figure out the finer points of the assault, while I grabbed up every Goomba, Paratroopa, Koopa, EVERYONE I could get my hands on inside that fortress, and I trained them. It was a crash course if ever there was one, and I knew that at best, these guys were only going to get me so far. Still, when an army "trained by The Best himself" came rolling over the hills, suddenly these mooks were going to be looked at like supersoldiers. I devoted no time to planning the assault out myself, as I figured, having done it so many times and with me at his side, Bowser needed no help coming up with a plan for breaking into Princess Peach's castle, and my faith was not misplaced. The X-Nauts had the full brunt of the alien's attention, currently launching an all-out, last-ditch offensive from the harbor in some vain attempt to get in and drive them out before their Cthulhu cult did its job. We were going to come in from the side, using the very airship I rode in on, and take the aliens by surprise. We were nothing more than a handful of hopeful idiots, but we had Bowser, and we had me. With the element of surprise, he thought, smashing into the castle and taking out the aliens was going to be a cakewalk. Getting out again was going to be the problem, but he thought I could take care of that part on my own. I didn't object to that. After all, I was The Best.

And here, I took a moment to realize just how far I had come in the past few days. As I had said at the very start of this chapter, I had gone from some nameless jackass to the new Meta literally overnight. I didn't come out here to be the hero, but here I was, at the forefront of an army I had personally trained to save the world from an alien invasion. From beating back cyborgs with big words to suplexing a buff bird in the great Wrestlemania in the sky, my story was a winding, insane pathway that I don't think will ever be replicated. And one way or another, when I got on that airship, it was going to have an ending. I was going to do everything in my power, and perhaps a few things beyond it, to see this through to the bitter conclusion.

Just before we departed, there was one thing I had to take care of. I had to ensure that, during this whole escapade, nobody swooped in and stole Peach out from under me. Honestly, at this point she had little value in the grand scheme of things but I'd be the shittiest goddamn hero ever if I let the Princess get offed during the big battle with evil. I couldn't keep her at my side, we were marching into a war zone. I couldn't just leave her at the castle, as everyone and everything was coming on this assault, and either side could kick down the doors with no one home. Eventually, I picked one of the more useful people in my army, and told him to stay with the ship for as long as he could, both to defend Peach and to rain down hell with the cannons. Something about me calling him "The best in the army" really sold it to him, though, and he agreed to the plan. That was all the preparations I could make, because we were out of time. By the way things sounded in the Global chat, it was now or never. Everyone piled on to the ship, Bowser took the helm, and I climbed up the mast to deliver a pre-battle speech to my men. I don't remember the whole thing, but I remember the gist and spirit of it.

For as long as anyone could remember, this land had heroes. Gods to some, they were so almighty on the field of battle that none could ever hope to best them. And as far as anyone knew, no one could surpass them. Everyone in front of me, from the Goombas to the King Koopa himself, had lived in the shadows these figures cast on history. Well right now, I didn't see those heroes. Instead, I saw in front of me something far brighter, far deadlier, far stronger. Now, it was everyone else's time to shine. This was OUR time, damnit, and for once in our lives, WE were the giants people would look up to, not because of some prophesy or some pre-ordained onus of heroism, but because we had fought tooth and nail for everything we had. And now, in this dark hour, it wasn't gods that rode on wings of fury to save the world, but the common folk with absolutely nothing to lose.

When that first volley of cannon fire left the Airship, the Aliens had no idea we were even coming. Two seconds afterwards, though, they found out real quick. Bowser didn't just land the ship, no, he ran it aground right through a column of the purple bastards and the broadsides started FLYING after that. I vaulted the railing, leading my army from the forefront, and from there it was all a blur of combat. I can't know what happened for sure, I was so sucked up in the high of warfare that my eyes were focused solely on that castle at the end of town. I think when Bowser crashed the ship, it gave the aliens such a shock that their front line basically collapsed, and the X-Nauts came pouring through. It was absolute goddamn pandemonium. The chat was moving so fast that I just closed it, instead relying on the speech bubbles popping up over people's heads to react to the warfare around me. We had aliens in front of us, X-nauts at our rear, and in the center of it all, a legendary Green Toad and his elite fighting force annihilating all that dared approach. Bowser was a one-man wrecking crew, bashing down X-Naut mechs faster than they could get to the combat zone, while I had attained a level of power so ridiculous that I was parrying gunshots with my spear.

I was invincible, shouts of "IT'S HIM!" and "IT'S THE BEST!" popping up so frequently that they accounted for nearly half of the local chatter. Nothing could stand in my way, but that didn't stop everyone from trying. The element of surprise only helped for so long, because as soon as they knew who I was, EVERYONE came swarming twoards me. My progress twoards the castle was slow, but I was simultaneously the unstoppable force and the immovable object. They could slow me down by sheer weight of numbers, but there was no halting our advance. Knee-deep in the conflict, I became blind to just how dire my situation was getting until far too late. I was making progress twoards the castle, yes, but things had been taking a turn for the worse right under my nose for a while. My men were good, but they had their limits. I had started to lose them, and it's only when I took a look behind me that I only saw four of them left, including Bowser.

At this point in the fight, the aliens had lost too much ground, and too many numbers. What remained was falling back inside the castle as a last line of defense, but the X-Nauts just kept coming. Whenever they'd lose someone, that guy would just run back to the Harbor and re-join the fray as reinforcements. There was absolutely no end to them, and soon making our way to the castle doors wasn't the biggest of our concerns. The X-nauts were grabbing all the space we gave up, and soon the five of us found out backs up against the castle doors, too busy fighting for our lives to get inside. I lost another man to the tide, but I couldn't fight any harder. I was hitting the limit of how fast I could type out coherent actions, there were just too many. On the other side of the screen, I was sweating bullets, both metaphorically and physically, because I was beginning to think I couldn't do this. I know that analogy that says, "What's a mob to a king?" and frankly, I don't think that man has seen what a pissed-off mob of people can do. Back against the wall, typing to my limit, I thought I had come all this way to finally fail right at the finish line.

And then, it happened. Lady Luck hid an ace up her sleeve from me this entire time. Chekhov's gun got speed-loaded and fired, because  Rawk Hawk dove out of the sky with the most literal interpretation of an RKO out of fucking nowhere I will ever witness. I don't even know how the hell he got up that high, the game didn't include methods of flight, and Glitzville was across the goddamn map. But SOMEHOW, that glorious bastard came in during the 11th hour, with an entrance so perfect that for a moment, I wanted to name him my successor. With typical professional wrestling banter, he tore into the crowd in front of us like a hurricane, and I knew that this was going to be the last miracle I got today. I told whoever was left to buy me time, and I kicked in the front door to the palace.

The war raged outside, and now inside I waged a one-mushroom offensive on everything those extraterrestrial bastards could muster. I channeled the collective fury of everyone that had ever played an XCOM game, and I ripped and teared my way to the room where the ritual was taking place. I don't know the names of any that stood beside me on this fateful day, and held that door, but if you find this story and you read it, know that I await you in Valhalla, brothers. Shoutouts aside, I made it to the ritual chamber. I found out I had made it too late, JUST too late, probably because the Ayys wanted to win so bad they had started to bend the rules. Either way, they had their God or Leader or whatever the hell they were trying to summon right there in the chamber. Frankly, I expected hentacle tentai or Cthulhu, what I got made very little sense and frankly almost felt like a cop-out. Standing in front of me, in the middle of this somewhat intimidating ritual circle, I had what I can realistically describe as an edgy Princess Peach and her Stand, The Downward Spiral. Upon looking this one up after the fact, I now know that I was staring at the Shadow Queen, but that name is nowhere near as good as what I came up with. And lo and behold, the first thing she asks is who dares to defy her.

Do I even need to type out what I said at this point?

The only noteworthy thing about her response is that she had never heard of me. Which frankly, is both an insult that a fourth grader would come up with, but also absolutely perfect given the context of everything about me. I properly introduced myself via a spear stab to her midsection, which didn't go over very well with her OR what little lackeys she had left. In the grand scheme of things, it's sort of funny how this adventure began and semi-ended with the same three words, in the same place. Upon looking it up, I now know the term for this is "bookending" but damn if life doesn't work out sometimes. Anyway, this final brawl proved to be one hell of a show, looking back. She was pretty reliant on that Stand of hers, a lot of stuff involving hands that sort of gave me a few flashbacks to Geb, but legally distinct from Geb because these are made of shadows or some stupid shit. It was a big game of keep away for her, because she could just keep the damn hands coming all day long, but I still had to land a hit on the actual her to keep the show going as planned. To pull out a cringeworthy joke on any readers, I was trying to catch her, while she was trying to make me catch those hands.

Still, a mob fight involving twenty different people is a lot different than one person controlling twenty different things. I was still fighting in mob mode, and she just couldn't keep up. I would have loved to know just how quickly I was launching my assault during that, get some kind of time-traveling WPM counter so I have a solid statistic to give you, but without that I have to describe it. I was typing pretty fucking fast, to avoid flowery language or a dumb analogy. She still dragged out the war of attrition for as long as she had patience, but at this point in the story I had come too far, and sacrificed too much to give any ground in there. Like the dragon a day prior, she gave up too much ground, got cornered, and I promptly finished the job. Unlike the dragon, she had enough respect for both the narrative at play and herself, and played out her downfall. Kudos to her, because with that one action she was already a better roleplayer than a lot of the folks that came before her. So, job's done, hero wins, evil is defeated, right?

I fucking wish it ended there. GOD, do I wish it ended there. In my mind, the X-Nauts would have fallen back, I would have strolled out of the palace, and me and my surviving troops would celebrate with whatever the Mario equivalent of a cold one with the boys is. But no, sometimes fate demands a final act.

I made my way back to the door, only to find that my troops were all dead and the X-nauts were swarming the lobby. Rawk Hawk, Bowser, every last one fought to the bitter end, of that I'm fucking certain, but in the end, they were overrun. I couldn't accept it! I flung open the chat window, trying to find ANY record of that battle, frantically scrolling up as far as it would let me. Maybe they just fell back inside the castle, and they're waiting for me to come rescue them. Maybe they doubled-back to the airship and they're going to come in and pick me up in a really badass, "You thought we were dead, haha!" sort of way. No, they were gone. They put up a slobberknocker of a fight and raised hell for as long as they could, but every last one died defending that door. And that wasn't all, no, if that was all maybe I could have accepted it. Wrought bloody vengeance on the X-Nauts until they gave up the ghost themselves, but no. I saw in the Global Chat the one thing I absolutely, positively did not need to read with my own two eyes. Somehow, two of those alien bastards broke through every last goddamn X-Naut, got to the airship, took down my best man, and they stole the Princess.

And at that point, all I saw was red.

I do not know where I summoned the typing speed from, nor do I think I will ever manage it again, but when those X-Nauts finally found me, they didn't even have time to call it in. I was on them like shit on a pig, and more than that, I wasn't stopping for anyone. Squads, mechs, it was all the same in my mind, just more obstacles between me and the only goddamn thing that mattered in this bloodbath. I kept one hateful eye staring into the global chat, and something kept turning over in my mind. Their names seemed so familiar to me, but I couldn't place them. Steeped as I was in the battle, my brain devoted solely to ripping through an entire army singlehandedly, I didn't know who I was dealing with. I hauled ass out of the town and cut down anything that tried to stop me, the X-Nauts could have the goddamn palace if they wanted it so badly. And only now, holding W harder than I had ever held a key in my life, did I recognize those two names. These two are the ones that started it all. That couple I saw behind the house, The aliens that shot up the palace, the duo that fought me at the train station, those two insurmountable dickheads that just couldn't accept defeat like everyone else, and had to try and drag me down with them. I thought they were going to kill the Princess any minute, petty bastards that they were, but no. They decided they were going to do it onboard a train just to fucking taunt me. Ride off into the sunset, kill Peach when you get there, and then log out. No chance for me to interfere.

But I knew that train real goddamn well, and it took its sweet-ass time getting to that station.

And I ran. I ran so far away. I just ran, I ran all night and damn well to the crack of dawn, because those bastards weren't getting away. Getting to Rogueport without the ferry, especially when you're traveling from the town, is a daunting prospect. It's not like you're running a cross-continent marathon, but with everything riding on my ability to get there before the train did, you can't fathom how long that sprint felt like it took. The train arrived before I did. They got onboard, but before it pulled out of the station, I slipped on. I made it there with time to spare, and in the interim, we could do nothing but awkwardly stare at one another, knowing full well the confrontation that was about to take place the moment this train left the station. It all came down to this, one final showdown between me and them. They had numbers and guns. Unlike last time, all I had was my spear. No miracle hotsauce to tip the scales, no healing items to call upon to drag it out. And just like last time, they had no idea who they were dealing with.

The train left the station, and we were transported to an endless bridge over an ocean, the train hurtling twoards the unknown. The sun was just breaking over the horizon, and the moment the game let us move, it was on. They tried the guns, but I was knocking blasts out of the sky like it was nobody's business. They tried to attack the Princess again, but this time I got so thoroughly in the way that they couldn't even reach her. Still, these two had otherworldly coordination, and a desire to see me fail almost as strong as my need to win. There was no cavalry coming. If I failed here, my legend was going to die with me. Lady Luck had pulled every string she could just to get me on this train; she had nothing left to give me, and in the back of my mind, I knew it. Both of them wouldn't accept defeat, not even taking a blow here and there to make the fight seem fair. They just wanted victory. I needed to make my own luck, and to do that I needed to throw the playbook out the window; do something so unconventional that not even they would see it coming. I did the absolutely unthinkable, gave a mental farewell to the only ally I had left, and threw my spear.

I threw it knowing full well they would dodge it without a second thought. Whenever he dodged, he moved his in-game character a little bit, just to make it feel that much more real. So when he went to dodge it, I "physically" sprinted right at him, and used the momentum of my in-game avatar to bodycheck him right off the train. No amount of godmodding or powerplaying can save you from literal, inescapable death, and just like that the fight was one-on-one.

The remaining alien was none too pleased with my maneuvering, and redoubled their assault to try and kill me. I was having fucking none of it anymore; I slapped that ray gun out of their hand and gave them a hook to the jaw. The fight with Rawk Hawk flashed through my mind, and I once again called upon every close-combat move I could muster. The chips were crooked, the dice were weighted, but I had no choice anymore. A spite-fueled grudge match on the top of a speeding train probably looked cool as all get out to any spectators, but in my mind there wasn't anything about looking cool, or being flashy. It was about being The Best. It was about saving the Princess, about conquering all of the odds, about being the hero everyone thought I was. But more than that? It was about beating this stuck-up, godmodding bastard in a straight-up fight. Still, there's only so much you can do in a roleplay fight when the other person doesn't want you to win. Take it from me, because I tried everything. There was no reasoning with them, there was no outplaying them. They wanted to see me die, and I wanted to see them fail. Only one person can get what they want out of a conflict like that, or so I thought. Something finally dawned on me, trading blows with this thing on top of the train for what felt like aeons. Nobody was walking away from this, and that is the only way this is going to end.

I had to face facts, I was going to die on top of this train but so were they. A world where neither of us win, but in a way, we both get what we want. I made my move, grabbing them with both hands and forcing them to the train's edge, both in RP and with my avatar. They fought the entire time, trying to squirm out of it, knowing what I was trying, but I wasn't letting anyone live. Not them, not me. I backed up just a hair's breath, and then came at them full-speed. The avatars ended up colliding with one another, flooring both of us as we tumbled over the side together. As I went over the edge, I said one final sentence to the Princess before I hit the water and met my fate. "Tell my story." And just like that, we slammed full-speed into the kill-zone underneath the bridge together, the alien keysmashing in impotent fury the entire time. A pyrric victory for me, but a victory nonetheless. I started to go through the motions to log out, and just before I exited, I saw the Princess' final words. She never even knew my name. Only that I was The Best.

That's my story, and I swear to god it's true. I'm sharing it because a few friends demanded a writeup, and while it took me a while to get it all together, better late than never. I don't want any fame from this, and I can guarantee that, for that reason alone, anyone claiming to be me is lying. The Best's story is finished, ended. Only a handful people know who it was, and I'm content with that. I'll go down in the annuls of nameless history like I've always wanted. All the fame, none of the consequences. Thanks for reading all the way through, you have a good day.

[tumblunni]

okay im gonna just try and write down all my damn pokemon i can remember from every generation fuck fuck i know i could never get ALL OF THEM cos it was at least 100 each gen but i can hopefully remember my main teams??

~ Sun and Moon Team ~

Pulcinella the male Primarina (Egotistical smarmy jerk-with-a-heart-of-gold celebrity boy) Herald the female Mimikyu (nice grandma + amateur newspaper reporter, sends them back to the other ghosts at the thrifty megamart) Charlene the female Golisopod (never really thought of a personality for her? I didnt originally intend to use her but then she was really good and i love golisopod’s design?? so i just named her randomly after charon cos wimpod is kinda shaped like his hair, lol) (i think maybe one of those cowardly characters who’s brave when she needs to protect her friends? like eduardo from foster’s home for imaginary friends) Suspenders the female Lurantis (stoic samurai type, but also very sweet, naive and a little ditsy. easily gullible to pulcinella’s pranks cos she just takes everything seriously with samurai honor.) Ampere the female alolan Raichu (sweet mom friend of the group, makes everyone pancakes and mitigates all the conflicts. you’d think herald would outrank her in mumsiness but she’s more like the eccentric grandma who encourages her kids to misbehave, lol) Sherbet the male Muk (super chipper cuddly little toddler type fella who luv and support he friends) (OH GOD i caught a shiny muk in bw2 and i was gonna say they were cousins and i was so excited to have them finally meet.. aaaa... T_T) (THE COUSIN IS NAMED NOUGAT AND HE IS ALSO A SUPER CHIPPER CUDDLY BABY AND NOW HIS WHOLE FAMILY IS FUCKIN DEAD) (god that gives him a plotline to differentiate him from his alolan version but GEEZ i didnt want it to happen like that...)

and honorary member Neopolitan the Kadabra who was on the team early on but got replaced with Charlene cos when SuMo first came out there was a dumb glitch that prevented kadabra from learning one move in its learnset and it was just STUCK WITH NO ATTACKING MOVES FOR 20 LEVELS GEEZ but neopolitan was still a supportive friend yes possibly personality like that monk robot guy from overwhetch?

also honorary member: that leavanny that my friend Beezah traded me and i spent ages training it up to level 80 to rematch her and i NEVER GOT TO DO IT I think his name might have been cedric?? or some other c name??

~ X and Y Team ~

Didnt really think of personalities for these ones or have any big attatchment to them, except that the game came out on my birthday by some strange coincidence. funny how we’ve gone from that to losing games on my birthday! the xy birthday was like the only time my birthday hasnt been GIANT MISFORTUNE in the last seven years, and the only time i managed to meet up with any irl friends and have some sort of a party. so i guess i’ll remember that fondly about XY even though the story was possibly my least favourite in the series.

Namaqua the male Greninja Jayus the male Aromatisse (named for an OC of mine at the time, who’s also my steam handle!) Dwedd the female Gourgeist (who was actually my most powerful pokemon in sun and moon competitive?? god im gonna miss her now)

and I’m seriously struggling to remember if there were any others :P

~ ORAS Team ~

I played both versions of this so my team was kinda huger? Still not super memorable as a generation, tho. one of the ones im least depressed about but more depressed than xy. but still depressed about all of them. AAAAA

York the female Blaziken Roquefort the female Swampert (a duo! i played with both of them as my starters cos i only played a little bit of alpha sapph before switching to omega rube for the main playthru. i just love tabitha!) (oh and they were named for some of my ocs at the time.) Wesley the male Charizard (actually got him in XY but never used him there) Seraphim the female Salamence (REALLY sad about this one cos she was a gift from my friend Zoe whom i’ve now lost contact with, same one who gave me the birthday party when xy came out, same one who traded me like EIGHTY OTHER POKEMON ACROSS ALL MY GAMES and LITERALLY SAVED MY LIFE ONCE and WAS AN AMAZING PERSON) Nick the female Gyarados (also traded from zoe. it was named after her fish who died :< I LET HER DOWNNNNNNNN) Tanka the female Gardevoir (just a shoutout to the one i had back when i first played the original rse as a kid, but lost along the way. it was also my username and the name of like forty different ocs for every fandom i had as a kid? i just thought it was a cool word. its the name of a type of poem i heard in class once) Pascal the female Ludicolo (Only one who i gave any sort of personality to. I kinda liked her so much she was more like my starter? i felt like she was a super chill badass. repurpose all those old chuck norris memes for pascal!) Lockjaw the female Banette and Hex the male Mismagius (actually pokemon i made as ocs for a team galactic fanfic i never wrote. usually i make pokemon ocs based on mons i caught, but these ones i went out and caught them to match the story. spent so long chaining mons to find a story-fitting nature for lockjaw that i stumbled onto a shiny shuppet along the way?? i was like “fuck but that isnt what i asked for, but i’ll take it anyway” XD) (oh and i named the shiny shuppet Chuckie) (oh and lockhjaw and hex were meant to be the rest of charon’s pokemon team to give him enough for a decent boss battle)

~ BW Team ~

Anotehr generation i didnt really enjoy? honestly there was a large gap between sinnoh and sun and moon where none of the main plots grabbed me. i still enjoyed the gameplay and the increased graphics for all the cool areas and stuff, tho! im just a plot lover so SuMo bumped the series back up from “just consistantly good” to “the best game ever” But strangely enough I did get really attatched to these guys, even if i didnt really think up personalities and backstories for all of them

Shogunkora the male Samurott (Back when i was in highschool i drank so much caffeine it was like a running joke i was ‘that cola kid’ so i just named my starter after a dumb attempt at ‘cola in a japanese accent’. Ugh, past-me!) (But Shogunkora was actually a casuality long before this! I lost him during the time i was transferring pokemon using a friend’s BW cartridge. I actually had to sell my BW game cos i was preparing to run away from my abusive parents and live in a homeless shelter. Thankfully i did indeed survive that! i had to pick on only one game to keep and of course it was sinnoh. But then i ended up losing the cartridge when i moved house and then finding it earlier this year and then causing me to buy bw2 and put the sun cartridge down and.. well, you know the rest.) Boku the female Leavanny (named as an in-joke cos my roselia was Ore in sinnoh. also a casualty who got lost in that hectic transfer.. alas...) Alviss the male Roggenrola (I was very fond of that pun. He managed to survive, and i even got to pet him in sun and moon! I miss him... gahh.. he survived so much and it was all for nothing...) Flint the male Lampent (i only just finally was able to evolve him in sun and moon, thanks to beezah’s help! i miss him tooooo... fuckkkk...)

~ DPPT Team ~

THE GOLDEN ONES god that was back when i was so extra into pokemon, aaa it legit helped me survive thru abusive dad times i got so atattched to sinnoh and all of these lil guys... fuckkkk...

Ore the male Roserade (Personality was like a cheerful and goofily oblivious typical shonen action hero, but like.. eight. He had a sad backstory where he was befriended by a kind old blind human back when he was a wild pokemon, and then some sort of tragedy burned down the forest and killed both that human and all of his family. And also burned off his hands. I mean, he’s a plant so he can grow those flowers back, but it was still super traumatic. So he took up his trainer’s sword in his burnt off hand stumps and promised to avenge him, and thus gained a magical girl style transformation into a human, somehow...??) (the theme for this party was ‘gijinkas’ and i thought it would be cool if there was a different reason behind it for everyone. he was the more magical type.) (oh and he really liked sandwiches) (oh and he was comic relief a lot cos he was a pokemon who turned into a human instead of vice versa. like ariel in the little mermaid where she combs her hair with the fork. HOW DOES HUMAN WORK) Mangos the female shiny Luxray (traded to me by another best friend that i lost touch with long ago, Clash. I miss her too, it sucks that now all i have is one well-protected drawing of an oc she gave me in high school to remember her by..) (anyway, Mangos fit into this random plotline by being the opposite to Ore. she was a human who got turned into a half-pokemon through an evil genetic experiment. And she balanced him out by being an ultra stern and serious mom figure. She was actually a policeman as a human, so she kicked a lot of ass!) (I know that this whole serious personality doesnt really fit with a name like mangos but shiny luxray looks like mangos) Zene the male Infernape (another shonen hero type comic relief guy?? but he was a teenager and comparatively buff, i guess? i didnt realize these two were so samey despite being opposite elements lol. i guess just the difference is that zene did more comic relief and ore did more cuteness factor) (he was also the least developed one in terms of backstory for being in this half-pokemon heroes team. I just knew that he was some sort of martial artist trainee who wanted to be the best, and that was still his goal after he got superpowers, rather than actually saving the world and all. he’d always recklessly get into fights and have no sense of danger, just HEY THAT THING LOOKS DEADLY LEMME PROVE IM DEADLIER) (oh but i did think way too much about how the law would work in this situation?? like, he was depressed and ended up joining this travelling group cos he got banned from the martial arts tournement he was in. having pokemon superpowers would put him at an unfair advantage.) (oh, i think actually his powers were just genetic or something? like it was a mystical power his whole family line had, but he was an orphan so he didnt know until he hit puberty and started breathing fire. but comedically he thought it was because he ate a magical riceball instead. “it was supernaturally yummy!”) Gaspar the male Haunter (Actually came from that one memorable trollish trade in sinnoh where that lady offers you a haunter and it doesnt evolve into gengar, DAMN YOU. i was determined to love him forever to spite her!) (oh and he eventually did evolve into gengar in xy due to a friend trade and me forgetting to tell her not to evolve him. i’d gotten really attatched to him as a haunter so i was sad for a while before realizing it was dumb and that i might have made my friend think i was mad at her?? thankfully we worked it all out!) (Gaspar’s gijinkaness was literally just... i Died.) (He was a human from the 1920s or something who died horribly and came back as a ghost to avenge his own death. but then after he avenged it he continued to exist, and he floated around aimlessly for a long time before learning to appreciate his second chance and form a new life and a new family. He was like the goofy sitcom dad of the team!) (oh, and he liked candy. i still maintain the headcanon that all ghost pokemon like sweet things!)

~ RSE Team ~

These guys actually were also part of my sinnoh team, but they originated from RSE. I didnt really get attatched to my pokemon in rse or gsc cos i was still salty over having my yellow cartirdge stolen and losing my starter raichu that i loved. TOOK THIS LONG FOR IT TO HAPPEN AGAIN, EH? *cries forever*

Reaper the male Sneasel (My honorary starter and oldest pokefriend. I miss him the most.. fuck..) (He was like.. kinda sirius black from harry potter? but teenage? and like.. trying to be serious? like, a total goober prankster loveable uncle figure but he wants everyone to think he’s a brooding dark antihero, and gets flustered whenever his true cuteness slips through. He looked like squall from ff8 except with dark skin and sunglasses??) (He was also someone who was a pokemon with human powers, instead of a human with pokemon powers. But he adapted a lot better to human society, he was just like.. pride at being wild? He hated the idea of being captured by a trainer, or now the idea of losing his true self and becoming like those humans he hated. So all his moments of failing to pass as human were more cos he refused to lower himself and do [insert normal thing here], rather than cos he was oblivious like Ore. But he actually did end up getting a soft spot for his trainer and becoming like a dad figure to her, like how mangos was a mom to ore and zene, and gaspar was the grandpa/dad to everyone in general. I had quite a complex set of relationships worked out for everyone!) (oh, and yeah, they had a trainer! cos i mean i was playing the game, of course they did. but it was more like the one token powerless human on a team of magical girls and boys. she just pretended to be their trainer so they could travel around pretending to be normal pokemon when necessary. and they were all bffs and protected her cos she didnt have parents. she was kind of a self insert..) (oh, and reaper’s backstory was that he was one of the shadow pokemon captured by team cipher, and then when he got rescued and purified it somehow gave him superpowers too or something. he was blessed by celebi and was like the chosen hero of that legendary. But he didnt wanna, he just wanted to use his new human feet to go buy booze and stuff XD) (i actually did get him in collosseum and he was my fave and best and i kept him forever and now he’s fucking gone) (fuck) Nether the male Sableye (Basically my oc Malachi?? its been all these years and i just suddenly recently revived his plot concept as his own character in his own original story. I hope maybe now i could do that with all the others in some way, so i dont forget them..) (he was all the same back then, down to dying from being bricked up inside a basement. except he became a magical gijinka instead of a more normal ghost.) (oh and this version had him as an adult instead of a child, and his personality was... vague? he started off as a loki-ish trickster and then was a complete jerk and then was the comic relief and then was a gym leader and blablabla. At one point he was even Reaper’s boyfriend, which is ridiculous now this character is a kid instead! (tho he’s still remained bisexual in honor of that) Funnily enough he was also Reaper’s sworn enemy gary oak rival at some point too!) (Basically he was the least developed personality-wise, so i dont feel bad that i changed him quite a bit as malachi. it doesnt feel like a change and more like i finally figured out what i originally wanted to do with him.)

~ RBY virtual console team ~

aaaargh only just got them and already lost them whyyyy

Chuppy the male Raichu (reincarnation of the first pokemon i ever got on my original Yellow cartridige, which got stolen because kids are ASSHOLES) (i cried for days and i feel like doing it again right now.. how little life changes...) Starlet the female Clefable Gumdrop the Nidoqueen

i didnt even have time to love you enouuuuughhh

i didnt love any of them enough aaaa

god this made me sad

but at least now i wont forget any of those memories

probably??

i dunno how to tag this so i dont forget