#ESPECIALLY poses with strong perspective like. how did you figure that out.

[zincbot]

people who come up with poses in their mind

#hi. hi can i talk to you over here for a second- #ESPECIALLY poses with strong perspective like. how did you figure that out.

[pa1nkill3r]

"Now How Come I've Only Found Out About This Now?" [G.W]

[Pairing:] George Weasley x Fem!Artist!Reader

[Summary:] So far, George Weasley knows three things about his new potions partner; So why not make it four? Or five?

[Warnings:] use of mudblood, a bit of angst, a bit of swearing, a pov change at some point in the end, idk-- fluff?? (is that a warning??)

[Word Count:] ≈2.7k

[A/N:] i used @buckystrenchcoat 's fluff plots for george weasley: 2. George finding out you can draw (kind of got carried away but oh well :D--) (ps just imagine that classes in hogwarts includes all of the houses together, thanks <3) Y/H = your house. (dk the timeline or what year george and the reader are in but i'd say between 3rd-5th year)

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The Weasley twins were becoming reckless and apparently, Professor Snape has had enough. The constant explosions on the other side of the dungeon and the numerous attempts at drowning his hair with shampoo has eventually led him to the decision of assigning the entire class their partners.

Thus halfway into the semester, the Weasley twins are never to be seen together again... that is until the end of 2nd period where they will go back and cause mischief elsewhere.

Fred was assigned to a Slytherin girl who George couldn't figure out if she's madly in love with his brother or wants to rip out his guts. While he on the other hand was assigned with Y/N. Truthfully, he never gave much thought to her, but after their first double potions lesson as partners, he began to wonder why he never gave much thought to her.

She was smart but never overbearing, made jokes here and there, sniggered when he made even the cheesiest of puns, and is wicked attractive. Their first task was to brew a calming draught and whilst adding in a smidge more of lavender, she proposed that they should make more while the majority of the class was still struggling.

"Why in Merlin's beard are we going to make more? We can just pass this and leave class early?" He asked, bringing a smile to her lips. "Yeah, yeah, that's what you want, don't you Weasley?" She quipped, looking back up to the red-headed boy who's now readying their vials.

"Just thought that we could make some for people, like, your brother. Poor guy, reckon he's going to rip his hair out getting partnered with Tuttle." And with that, George let out a laugh, a laugh that cost Gryffindor 5 points. Though, all was well when they were the first to finish and send their little vial of calming draught into the hands of Severus Snape, garnering 5 points each and an opportunity to leave class 10 minutes early.

And that was it, that was their relationship; potions partners.

George Weasley learned 2 things that day. One, his potions partner was someone he wanted to know more, to be with more, and two, one should never put a liberal amount of peppermint in a calming draught. (Fred learned that the hard way.)

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She was the epitome of beauty and brains. So far, that's what he knew about his potions partner. But a little incident in the corridor made two into three.

It wasn't unusual for Fred and George Weasley to skip class, especially if the class was History of Magic. And it also wasn't unusual for them to hide behind a tapestry whilst a stinky dungbomb was set in the first-floor corridor.

What was unusual though, was George not wanting to move from their hiding place, forcing Fred to also not move. "George, mate, wha-?" "SHH!"

Whatever Fred's question was supposed to be, it quickly got answered by the presence of a certain someone whose walking to the Muggle Studies classroom, his brother's potions partner perhaps? Fred grinned mischievously, nudging his brother in the abdomen, and earning a wince.

"Oi mudblood! Was that you?" They heard from a distance, heavy footsteps following the girl he's teasing his brother with. From their point of view, they could tell that the girl stopped in her tracks, sighing heavily as though this was a regular thing.

"Was that me, what?" She asked, clearly annoyed. "Was that you who did it? Or d'you just shat yourself? It smells horrid. Would make sense, as you're a filthy little mudblood."

George's blood was beginning to boil, fingers formed into a fist, knuckles white. Especially when they got to see the silhouette of the two arguing. Perfect, Winnifred Tuttle, his brother's potions partner bullying his Y/N Y/L/N. He had an urge to protect her. To avenge her. To show her how much he cared for someone who's supposed to be his potions partner.

"Was that supposed to be an insult, Tutts?" Y/N spat back, pulling George out of his trance and making Fred shut his mouth. Now he's the one staring intently. "It's honestly just sad. A 'pureblood' like you should know the difference between a dungbomb and a piece of shit. Or perhaps you're probably just that daft?"

The boys were fixated on their conversation now. A hand on their mouths, hopefully covering up their shock even if they're hiding behind a tapestry. George's heart was beating faster now.

"Me? Daft? Well, if I'm daft then why are you taking muggle studies?" Tuttle sneered, an ugly grin splattered across her face.

"Bit hypocritical, isn't it, Winnie? Bye-bye!" She turned her back away from the Slytherin now, walking into the Muggle Studies classroom, holding a few books in one hand and her middle finger in the other.

He knows three things about her now; She's bewitching, she's a whizz, and she's a muggle-born who doesn't take shit.

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A few more lessons in and one could say that Y/N and George are starting to become friendlier to each other. Acquaintances, sure, but, friendly nonetheless. But the Gryffindor wanted to live up to its name, to its values. He might've just gotten to know a bit about her but he was completely and utterly entranced.

Nothing's going to stop him now.

His right hand held his wand as he stirred the concoction in the cauldron. She, on the other hand, was cutting up the stewed mandrake. The easy silence between them was broken by none other than the lion himself.

"Hey," he called, lifting his gaze from the potion to the girl right next to him. "Hi." She said back.

"So... Today's a Friday, right?"

She looked at him, confused, recounting a particular time in which she looked at a calendar today. "Yeah, I think so."

"And we can go to Hogsmeade after classes?"

"Pretty sure you can, why?"

"Want to go on a date?"

She looked stunned which kind of hurt George's ego but as soon as the slightly parted mouth of hers became a cheerful grin, he felt a whole lot better.

"As long as you stop staring at me and not over mix our potion, then sure, I'll go out with you." She smiled, making George give a shy little grin back before attempting to put all his concentration on the brew. Mind boggled on the way she said 'our potion.'

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Going to Muggle Studies felt utterly useless now that Y/N's been promised to go on a date right after. But having George by her side, walking her to the class just seemed to be the best part of the day.

He recounted the time when he and Fred hid behind a tapestry and told Y/N all about it, giving a hot feeling to her cheeks. They stopped by the door frame of the classroom, Professor Burbage was waiting inside, pacing around her study as George's hand slyly held Y/N's.

"I'll pick you up later?" He asked with the same shy smirk plastered on his face, cheeks pink and ears flushed. "Yeah. Thanks for walking me here. You shouldn't have." She uttered, heels rising and falling as she bounced on her toes.

"Just making sure that Tuttsy's not going to ruin your day, love." Y/N felt heat rising to her cheeks and ears, as well as an uncontrollable grin. Her heel turned to make her face the concrete walls of the castle, hands covering their face and body slightly swaying from side to side. It was ridiculous, really. Dumb. Very.

"You're adorable when you're flustered."

"Shut up, Weasley." And with that, she pressed a quick kiss to his cheek, leaving him slightly startled, stunned, and very red in the face. "You're adorable when you're flustered." She quipped, walking into the Muggle Studies classroom and taking her seat.

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Muggle Studies felt oddly slow that day. Usually, it lasted an hour but today it felt like a century. Professor Burbage's talk about electricity and muggle technology went in one ear and out the other.

If you'd ask why Y/N chose a subject she already knew plenty about, her answer would be that she wanted to see things from a different perspective. But truthfully, she just knew that she'd be good at it and it'd be an easy O.

So there she was; A scrap piece of parchment laid on the wooden desk and a pen since Professor Burbage discouraged the use of quills.

Her mind wandered off the moment she sat down on her chair. Feet either bouncing up and down or stuck straight onto the floor, she wouldn't know. What she did remember was her non-dominant hand posing itself as the other one scribbled on the piece parchment.

Her fingers played with the hazy light and the ink added depth. Soon she started sketching other things; The student in front of her, a study of Professor Burbage, a head with a moderately strong jaw and beautiful, short, messy hair. A male side profile with a big nose that has a slight bump on its bridge matching a cheeky grin with dimples. Her hand posed itself once more but this time she wasn't making it look like hers, she was making it look like his. Something she's seen many times before, and guiltily stared at once, twice, more than she could recount.

She was adding in the cluster of freckles when the worst happened; "Miss Y/L/N, still with us?" Professor Burbage stood at the front of the class, standing straight, clearly thinking about her posture. "Miss Y/L/N?"

She felt an elbow nudge her arm, and that was the thing that brought her back into reality. Her head whipped itself to face her seatmate then to her Professor, giving her a funny-looking nervous grin.

"Charm would get you nowhere, Miss Y/L/N. When was the first electricity generator introduced in Britain? And where was it installed?" She has to have something in that brain of hers. It must've been taught sometime when she was in muggle school. "Err-- 1900s something, Surrey--?"

Professor Burbage meekly chuckled, "Nice try. 1881. Godalming, Surrey. A point from Y/H then, I'm sorry."

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George was faithful and stuck to his word. Even being 5 minutes early after asking Professor Grubbly-Plank if he could go to the bathroom and have a wee, saying that the unicorns would definitely mind if he pissed on their trees.

He did not go to the bathroom but instead went straight to the Muggle Studies classroom. Leaning the side of his body onto the wall by the door. Trying his best to peer into the room and find his potions partner and soon to be his date and maybe even his. But he was getting ahead of himself.

The bell rang and he heard a loud shuffling sound of chairs being pulled back. The door was opened as students from all of the houses started pouring out and there she was. Looking beautiful as ever with her bag slung on her shoulder.

"Glad to see you're alright there, dove." He cooed, earning once again another shy smile. "Anything happened there?" He asked, pointing to the now open classroom.

"Felt way longer than usual, and I lost a house point." She said matter of factly. George chuckled, his heart filled with pride as he turned his head towards her.

"And what have you done to lose said house point?"

She smiled before reaching her hand into a pocket of her robes, pulling out a folded piece of aged parchment before handing it to the curious redhead.

"What's this? A love letter?" He bantered. "Just open it." And so he did. His nimble fingers unfolding the parchment, then he was stunned. Seeing his face drawn in ink with lines crossing over more lines was the last thing he expected. It looked like him. And it didn't look like Fred. It is him.

"I was just drawing in class but then I sort of blanked out and got a dumb question wrong." She paused, looking back up to see if the redhead was still listening. "Hello? Earth to George?"

"You drew me?" He was on a fine line of disbelief and awe. It truly looked amazing. She drew her hand at least three times before he recognized his was also there. She even got the little freckle he had on the middle of his wrist. The full body of ol' Professor Burbage brought so much of her energy and even the way her scarf wrapped around her neck was perfect.

Her cheeks were heating up again, realizing what she just did. "It's not that good. Just-- drew what I saw and, err-- whatever came to mind, I guess." Bad execution, sloppy excuse. "Okay, you've been looking at that for way too long now--"

"This looks bloody brilliant! Now how come I've only found out about this now?"

"Flattery would get you nowhere, Weasley." She joked, but he was serious.

"S'not 'flattery' if I'm stating what's true! It's amazing, you're amazing." She felt her heartbeat increase by a mile.

"Well then, I'm flattered." She said, adjusting the strap of her bag to hopefully let out some adrenaline. "And to answer your question, it'd be terrifying if I just started drawing in Snape's class. I swear that man has eyes at the back of his head. That's why this is a new discovery for you."

"Fuck, this is amazing!" He uttered.

"It's really not that good--"

"'S'really not that good' Some shit standards you have there. I'd put this in a museum!" He said loudly, extending both his arms and imagining that the piece of parchment was displayed on the Hogwarts walls. "If you don't like it then I'll keep it." George joked, expecting disapproval, which, to his shock, never came.

"Are you actually giving this to me?"

She shrugged, "I mean if you'd like a photo of you drawn by a teenage girl then be my guest." He smiled, genuinely smiled. He looked so pretty at that moment and there shouldn't be any holding back now.

"...But," She started, his gaze looked intently at her, ready to listen to whatever comes next. "There's a price."

"Between Freddie and I, we have 26 galleons and a few sickles." He said, earning a hearty laugh and a shake of her head. "Don't really think he'd like me to give all of it to you, I'm sorry. If you want I'd pay a bit then I--"

"No, George." She said, tugging lightly on his tie to gain his attention. "How about... a kiss? Perhaps?"

He grinned. His hand hovered itself across her face before landing on her cheek, thumb gracing itself on its apples, slightly squishing the skin whilst his eyes looked for any signs of discomfort; there was none.

They slowly leaned in, eyes locked on lips before their lips locked onto each other. His lips were slightly chapped but it felt like the softest thing on Earth. He smelled of cinnamon, firewood, gunpowder, and other indescribable scents, but it was nice. It was short but meaningful, gentle, even. His other hand was wrapped around her waist and once again, his thumbs were running up and down whatever part of her body it's laid on.

He learned two more things about the girl that day; she's artistic, and she felt like home.

He never thought there'd be a time in his life where he'd be thankful for Severus Snape. But life goes in unexpected ways.

"If you'd like to tip me then I'm just going to say that I love cauldron cakes." She grinned up at him as they pulled away before settling her face in his chest. George chuckled to himself before wrapping his arms completely on her waist, placing a sweet kiss on the top of her head.

"Yeah, yeah, come on." He said, pulling away to let her shake herself up as he held onto the piece of folded parchment which graced his face, giving it a small peck before putting it in his pocket, patting it three times.

"Better sign that drawing for me, Y/N. How much does an autograph cost?"

"Double the original price—?"

"And the tip?"

"And the tip."

#george weasley fanfiction #george weasley fluff #george weasley x reader #george weasley x fem!reader #george weasley x ravenclaw!reader #george weasley x hufflepuff!reader #george weasley x slytherin!reader #george weasley x gryffindor!reader #george weasley fic #george weasley #george weasley x y/n #oml this is long

[heniareth]

I was really curious about what your opinions on the DAO companions are :) I know we have talked about some, but I'd love to hear more and about the others as well :D I hope it's ok to pose this as an ask :)

Sure! That sounds like a ton of fun. This might be a long one tho. Mind you, this is not the finished version of the answer. I'd like to link stuff and add a cut, but rn that's not possible. I'll update it when I can.

Edit: I have updated it ^^

Let's go alphabetically bc why not.

Alistair:

Sweet guy. So sweet. There was a moment when I was hard pressed chosing between him and Zevran (alas, Zevran won). Also, he's weirdly tall according to the wiki? How did I not notice that before?

Let's get a bit more serious now, Alistair is a great guy. The only reason he's not the hero of the story is because he doesn't want to. He has all the qualities of a leader: he's good at dealing with conflict (as evident with the conversation with the mage at the beginning. He gets where he wants to get without antagonizing the mage, but without allowing him to trample all over him). He's a solid tactitian and knows how to make allies (he suggests to use the Grey Warden treaties, after all). I bet if he was in the leadership position, he'd even not bicker with Morrigan. His moral code is pretty tight; some might say too tight, but I think it's less about the moral code and more about learning to judge people by their actions, not by the labels they fit into (Morrigan is a proud apostate and therefore bad. Wynne is a humble circle mage and therefore good). He also has a bit of a black-and-white way of seeing the world. I empathize a lot with Alistair, especially with his experience with the Chantry and his subsequent reluctance to deal with it. I really wish I had gotten to know more about concrete experiences he had during his training as templar, but he seems reluctant to talk about it (gee, I wonder why).

Since I've only played the game once, I haven't really picked up on Arl Eamon's abuse towards him, which apparently exists (Isolde, however... I mean, even if he were Eamon's illegitimate son, he's a kid, ma'am, he didn't exactly get to chose his parents. So that's so not okay). Alistair's way of speaking about them both, however, is either sign that he has not come within a hundred miles of acknowledging how much it hurt him, or that he's already gone through the whole process and has decided to forgive them. The latter shows a very strong character; yes, he relies on the approval and leadership of others, he has his issues, but he's already started working on them.

That being said, irl Alistair would be like a little brother to me. I'd tease him relentlessly (all in good fun and I promise to stop if it makes him uncomfortable, but he's just so teasable). I still wish the videogame gave him the chance to take important decisions for himself. But that, of course, would somewhat defeat the point of the game.

Leliana:

Another sweet, sweet person. Her singing voice is amazing. Her belief in the Maker inspires me (I'm a religious person and seeing religious characters represented in a positive light is Very Cool. It's also sometimes a source of discomfort, because the Church has done a lot of very messed up stuff and positive representation can sometimes veer into apologetics for things that should not be excused, but that's a whole other can of worms. The bottom line is that religious characters sometimes work for me and other times don't and Leliana works for me very much bc she's an outsider inside the Chantry).

Leliana is best friend material, tbh. I'd love to get to know her irl, discuss theology and philosophy and maybe even politics? She makes mistakes and has prejudices, but, tbh, so do I. And I do get the feeling that she tries her best to learn. From the times she intervenes in a conversation between the Warden and an NPC, she shows herself to be compassionate and open to the needs of others. What I get from her character is that she genuinely wants to help, which is something that I adore of her. I suspect that she sometimes has a hard time deciding wether she's a good person or not. She has killed and seduced and worked for a morally dubious person, and she doesn't show the same nonchalance about it as Zevran (though they both do discuss their line of work in very... professional terms). This is, however, more of a headcanon than actual factual canon.

I also very much enjoy her girly side, like her interest in shoes and dresses. She's one badass woman who also looses her cool about the latest fashions in Val Royeaux. I like that. Between her and Alistair, a non human noble Warden has as good a help to navigate the Fereldan court as they're going to get. Leliana is also, I can't forget that, clever and insightful. It'd be easy to write her off as the innocent chantry girl, but she's so much more than that. Her kindness is paired with foresight, I think. She knows that taking on the trouble to help now can go a long way in the future. I just have a lot of respect for her.

Loghain:

This one's gonna be short bc I didn't recruit him. He's an amazing villain and would probably be a great Warden as well. He reminds me of Denerhor from LOTR; once a hero/stewart of his people, ambition and desperation have driven them both down a terrible path. I have also only little idea about his past. People say he lost a lot, and I believe it wholeheartedly; it doesn't excuse the fact that he plunged the country into a civil war in the middle of a Blight. I don't have a lot of sympathy for short-sighted politicians. I wish he hadn't made himself regent. That's what I take away from his character.

Edit: One thing I forgot to mention that really impressed me was his death. I had Alistair duel him (that was a rough duel), and then it kinda just jumped to a cutscene of my Warden nodding and Alistair executing him. That didn't sit well with me. I didn't want to kill Loghain, and less so in front of Anora. But what impressed me was that Loghain just accepted it. That takes a whole lot of guts. Compare that to Howe's death, and how he screams out that he deserved (more, probably, or anything but death) and it's crystal clear who the more noble of the two is. Loghain strikes me as very lawful neutral, and any neutral alignment has the particularity that it can be dragged towards good or bad, sometimes without the characters noticing it (which is interesting from a DnD perspective; neutral is often concieved of as just as stable as good or evil, but that may not be true. But that's a different post). Anyway, Loghain's death was impactful.

Morrigan:

I could kick myself for not maxing out her approval in the first play-through. I got to enjoy a bit of her friendship by the end of it and boy was even that little bit worth it. Friendship with Morrigan is something that is hard-won. It's all the more precious because of that.

Morrigan is full of paradoxes, I think. She's incredibly wise in some ways, yet also very short-sighted (”just kill them, don't solve their problems”. Morrigan, dear, I'm not going to gain a lot of allies if I kill everybody who poses a problem to me). She is so intelligent, but emotionally... not so. She knows so much about some things, and very little about the next. She's incredibly wilful and knows what she wants, but follows Flemeth's orders all the time through. She hungers for power and independence, yet craves closeness, but won't allow herself to have it. She asks you to prove yourself to her and is extremely critical of your actions, I think, because she's afraid. She bites the hand that feeds her because it might hit her next.

Like with Eamon, I haven't managed to catch the undercurrent of abuse that seems to permeate Flemeth's relationship with Morrigan. Except there are signs, because there must be something Morrigan is scared of and who has instilled all that rage in her, and that's Flemeth. Also, she clearly hates/does not care about her and wants her dead (unless killing Flemeth was part of Flemeth's plan as well? Hm.)

Morrigan is that one person who you are nice to, continuously, because nobody else is. And suddenly she becomes less cold. And then friendly. And suddenly you're asking yourself why everybody hates her, because she's a really good friend! I just wish the other companions came to a similar conclusion, especially Alistair and Wynne.

Oghren:

They did this man dirty. He has such great lines and I'm convinced he was a great person before Branka disappeared. He has that dwarven warrior spirit, and while he looks like Gimli, some of his most impactful lines remind me of Dwalin or even Thorin Oakenshield himself. He could be so noble had he gotten some character development, damnit!

Oghren as he is written is somewhat disgusting. I hate the lechering comments and the drunkenness. And still, I don't hate him because of those amazing lines he has when he's actually sober. It's frustrating and I'll give him that character development myself if the game won't. I strongly associate the song Whiskey Lullaby with him, bc that's how he would have ended up if the Warden hadn't taken him along (warning: the song talks about suicide and alcoholism). Like I said, they could have done such cool things with his character. As he is written now... it's just sad. Moments of lucidity drowned in alcohol and creepy jokes. As you can see, I don't blame the character for either. The alcoholism happens all too often irl. The creepy jokes... I put that one on the writers' tab.

I actually think Oghren could have been a great mentor figure (I know, I shock myself as well sometimes). Next to the Grey Wardens, the ones who know most about fighting darkspawn are the dwarves because they have to deal with them constantly. Especially a warrior caste dwarf like Oghren could have brought a lot of that invaluable knowledge to the team, especially since there are no Grey Wardens in Ferelden but two extremely green recruits. Next, you get the chance to give Oghren the command of the teammates you leave behind in the battle of Denerim with the reason that he has lead men into battle before. Where did that suddenly come from? Oghren should have been right up there telling my Warden that they were doing this wrong, that they needed more food (and booze) and a confident leader to keep the armies they've called together going. Oghren should have been able to tell my civilian city elf who got recruited into the Grey Wardens a six months ago how one leads an army. How one presents oneself to inspire confidence, how one doesn't crack under the pressure, how one gets the leaders of said armies (some who hate each others guts i.e. Dalish elves and humans) to work together. And, last but not least, Oghren could have had a great story about grief. This is a man who has lost most of what made him (and what he hasn't lost he's spilling down the drain with every mug of ale). This is a man who, if you take him into the Deep Roads, has to see what his wife did to his family, how his wife got absolutely obsessed, and can be forced to kill said wife or watch her die. All Wardens loose their home and families at the start of the story. It would really have rounded the whole narrative out if the Warden and Oghren could have recognised their grief in each other and hashed it out somehow. Such as it is, Oghren is a depressed drunkard and there is nothing we can do about that. I find that frustrating.

Rascal (a.k.a. Dog):

Best boy. 100/10. I wish we had gotten to see the reaction of the different origins to the mabari (because elves probably have a whole different experience with them from mages or humans. And dwarves just... I think they straight up have none? XD). Other than that, no complaints. The name Rascal was the one I gave my dog because you have to be a right rascal to survive what he did and play the pranks he plays. Smartest breed in the world indeed.

Shale:

Shale is one of those characters that I recruited rather late in the game, so I haven't had the chance to explore their personality and worldview, really. I didn't even get to take them to the Deep Roads (this will be ammended in playthrough nr. 2). As such, I don't have particularly strong opinions on them (or her? The wiki refers to Shale as 'it', but that sounds weird). But, because I know so little about Shale, I have a lot of questions. First, what were they like before they were a golem? Shayle, as she was called then, was the best warrior of her time if I remember correctly. Why did she become a golem? Was it to be able to eternally protect her people? Was the sarcasm the golem Shale exhibits also part of the dwarven warrior Shayle or did that come later (if for thirty years you have nobody to talk to but yourself, you better be entertaining. And I can imagine how it could make somebody terribly jaded as well).

Next, how attached is Shale to their golem form, exactly? According to the banter, they infinitely prefer it to a squishy fleshy form. If that is the case, however, why go to Tevinter to try and become a squishy dwarf again? It's not like that process could be reversed if they wanted to become a golem again; if Shale survives to the end of the game, the Anvil of the Void is destroyed and Caridin is dead. Was the whole spiel about their indestructible form a façade? It might have been, but not because Shale actually disliked their form. I think it would have more to do with the loss of their memories and with the very invasive experiments and alterations of Shale's body made by the mage Wilhelm. The loss of memories means that Shale is unable to remember life as a fleshy creature. They might be deflecting by pretending that they didn't care for that experience anyway because of the superiority of their golem form. The modifications made to their form by Wilhelm would have alienated them from their body. In light of this, it's significant that Shale asks the Warden to decorate their form with crystals.

All of this is, of course, pure speculation. I may have easily missed or forgotten details that would disprove the above thoughts. All in all, I like Shale and I hope we meet them again in DA4 (given that it's mostly set in Tevinter). It's a liking from a respectful distance, because Shale is tall and made out of rock and also way more experienced than I will ever be (they are literally the oldest member of the Warden's little Blight fighting squad).

Sten:

Sten is another person I'd keep a respectful distance from physically. That seems to be the what he would prefer, at least. I've enjoyed his character a lot, especially because he seems pretty clear-cut at first, but slowly lets the nuance of his person show (gruff and stoic, but then he has an eye for art, a sweet tooth and he likes cute animals). It's also very interesting that there's no moment when you learn "the truth" about him the way you do with Zevran or Leliana. There's no big reveal about his life under the Qun before coming to Ferelden. He says he was sent to monitor the Blight, but honestly? If neither Ferelden nor Orlais knew there was a Blight, how could the Qunari know? I think he's lying, and he takes his secrets back with him when he leaves Ferelden. And yet I think I know him enough to say that a Warden who has become friends with him has nothing to fear from Sten.

One thing I find very interesting about Sten is how he thinks. His conversation about how women can't be soldiers has been analysed a lot on this page I think. He seems to be arguing based on a different paradigma than the one the Warden has. He also seems to have a very clear-cut view of the world. What is fascinating to me is that, when arguing with the Warden and learning about their culture, he is not necessarily becoming more lax about his worldview. I think it's more likely that he is expanding his paradigma, the structure of thought through which he understands the world. I don't think that he is now convinced that women can be warriors as well. I think he rather understands that, in Ferelden, the relationship between occupation and gender is different than under the Qun. Which of the two he thinks is more right or more agreeable, I have no idea. I'm also not very interested in that. But I find it fascinating how he always seems to be looking on quietly, gathering data, classifying it and trying to fit it into his understanding of how the world works. I wouldn't be surprised at all if his original party was a scouting party to see how vulnerable Ferelden was at that moment to outside forces. One thing I don't understand with all of this is why he urges the Warden to meet the Blight head on. No smart soldier would suggest that, except if they are foolishly proud (and Sten doesn't seem like that kind of guy tbh). I get that the Warden takes way longer to gather allies than expected because they first have to solve all of their allies' problems. But surely Sten sees the need to have allies? Is he just that impatient? Does he have a death wish (à la, I lost my sword and am without honour, better to die sooner than later and in glorious battle)? Was he his group's previous commander and is he now having trouble following somebody else's orders? Or maybe it's his way to make sure the Warden knows what they are doing? To push them into becoming the self-assured commander their allies will need once they're all gathered? I really don't know. I like the last option best, however.

For me, Sten is my fellow, more experienced soldier. Like Alistair, he can potentially be the Warden's brother in arms, but he's definitely the older brother here. He probably doesn't take kindly to tearful confessions of how hard everything is, but I feel like he's otherwise a solid rock to lean on. I feel like the Warden can trust him to do what is necessary and count on him no matter what, especially after they get his sword back. His devotion from that point on is honestly so powerful.

Wynne:

Wynne was such a support for my Warden (except with the whole conversation about love vs. duty and that she may have to choose between Zevran and ending the Blight and that she should therefore break up with him. Wynne had a point. Astala was so not willing to sacrifice her relationship with Zevran. But the whole conversation came at a point where she was already so disillusioned that she blew up in Wynne's face (”can i please just have one (1) nice thing????”)). But all in all, Wynne is great.

She has a lot of flaws. She was very marked by her life in the Cricle and, for all her age, she has little experience living outside of it. She is also a conformist despite her strong moral core. In a way, her ability to find peace with her lot in life impresses me deeply because it speaks to a lot of strength of character. Sadly, however, strength can be ill applied and used to suppress. I think she has convinced herself that the Chantry is right under (almost) all circumstances to be able to rationalize the life that mages live. She's had her son taken away from her as a baby and an apprentice killed. Her reaction seems to have been to convince herself that this was right, or for the greater good (and now I'm thinking about the Guardian's question at the temple of Andraste's Ashes; are you wise or do you just repeat what others have told you? The answer is not as clear-cut as it might be). This is why she is so irritated by Zevran and Morrigan. By aligning herself with the Chantry, she is, in her eyes, good. Zevran and Morrigan are not; they do not conform to Chantry morality and they defend themselves tooth and nails against somebody who would try and convert them. This is something Wynne never allowed herself to do; she always did the "right" thing and it has cost her so much. I'm not saying she was right (it would probably have done her some good to rebel from time to time, and to trust her own gut instinct more), but in light of this, it hardly surprises me that she's so judgamental. She has to be, or she would be forced to confront all the evil she has not fought against all those years and all the hurt that has been caused to her by the very institution she protects (and thank God she only tries to argue and can appreciate it when people have found a good life outside of her comfort zone. If she tried to convince by force or, for example, drag her former apprentice back to the Circle... boy oh boy that would get ugly). If you think about it, Wynne really is a good example for what happens if you live by a philosophy of always choosing the lesser evil.

Something that I keep forgetting over her grandmotherly and dignified character is how damn powerful she is. She has escaped the carnage at Ostagar; HOW!? She protected those mage apprentices in the Circle tower for God knows how long. In the battle of Denerim, she wades through an army and comes out alive on the other side. The wiki lists her age at 40, I think, but that doesn't make a lick of sense unless 75 years of age are the Fereldan equivalent to 100. This lady, about whom people make grandmother jokes, did all that. It's impressive.

Zevran:

You know, I would really love to know what Wynne thinks about the events at Kirkwall in DA2. It might be a disaster for her, or it might pave the way for one last bit of character development. She certainly didn't want to return to the Circle after fighting the Blight. That may be an indicator of some change in her stance on the Circle of Magi.

Edit: I forgot that she is what the Circle considers a literal abomination! Holy cow, how could I forget that?? Anyway, her conversation about what being an abomination means is so... heartbreaking, actually. It's so tentative. So careful. "Am I an abomination? Am I the same thing that has killed my students? The same thing as Uldred? Am I lost and damned? Did I invite this spirit in? Is this my fault?" Like wow, Wynne is going through something huge right there. I love it. I have to continue playing the game to see what it ends up as, but it's fascinating and such a huge thing that she allows the Warden in on that.

Ah, Zevran, my beloved (he has stolen my heart so much it's not even funny anymore). He's funny, he's charming, he's so so loyal and it breaks my heart. Zevran is the one about whom I've read most meta: these three wonderful posts for instance, as well as this one about his possible lack of scars, and this one about his lack of freedom. All of these have influenced my opinion of him and they are great reads.

I have talked about Zevran with you before, so I'll just skip to the new stuff. I have come to conclusion that Zevran is an artist at heart. This is totally not biased by the fact that I also do art, but hear me out. One of his preferred gifts are bars of silver and gold. While those have the obvious utility of basically functioning as money (they can be sold to any silversmith or goldsmith and their value is pretty stable through time and in different countries), there's also this from his codex: "Zevran shows an affinity for the finer things in life—hardly surprising for an Antivan Crow—but his appreciation can be more poetic than he lets on. A simple bar of refined silver or gold, uncomplicated by a craftsman's hammer, is elegantly valuable." Tell me that is not an artist's eye that sees that gold and sees the beauty in it. Then, there's also the meta about Zevran the Seducer which I linked above and link here again. It talks specifically about how he lets himself enjoy the target and be seen in his enjoyment. Tell me that is not an artist's eye that beholds the beauty of something he is set out to destroy. Even his talk about his assassinations show this. He talks about it as an art, the way somebody would talk about the brutal intervention in stone that produces a sculpture. Yes, it's a rationalization of the act of killing and yes killing is still wrong. But he doesn't go on about it on a moral tangent the way Alistair or Wynne would (”this person was bad, killing them was necessary”) or even through the argument of survival like Morrigan would (”it was either them or me and it sure as Hell wasn't going to be me”). He talks about the pleasure of a job well done, of the satisfaction of striking the precise point and executing a plan to the perfection so as to minimize chances of discovery and to make a clean death possible. And pleasure in seeing and in doing, this I firmly believe, is absolutely fundamental for an artist.

My favourite part about my Warden and Zevran as a pairing is that Zevran precisely brings out that ability to take your pleasures as they come and to really savour them. Fighting the Blight is tough; it's so important to find good things amidst the chaos to stay sane. If Astala saves Zevran from himself by offering him a place to stay and a purpose, Zevran saves Astala from herself by keeping her from running herself into the ground trying to save the world.

There are some things I don't like about Zev. The incessant flirting, for example, sometimes makes me uncomfortable (it becomes enjoyable for me once the Warden and him are in a relationship, but before that? Nah, no thanks). I wish he would also leave the other female characters alone (and there's so many more shameless comments of his aimed at Morrigan, Leliana or Wynne than at Alistair or maybe even Sten).

---

And that's my take on the Origins companions (this was rather long. Whew ^^' I hope it was still readable and that you enjoyed it!!) Thank you so much for the ask!! It's been a joy thinking about this. I was worrying at first that the less prominent companions like Sten or Shale wouldn't get as much content but... well XD

#dao #dragon age #da: o #dragon age meta #dragon age headcanons #dragon age origins #da:o #da: origins #dragon age: origins #zevran #zevran arainai #alistair #alistair theirin #morrigan #leliana #sten #oghren #loghain #dog #barkspawn #wynne #shale

[yurimother]

LGBTQ Game Review - A Summer’s End – Hong Kong 1986

Before diving into the meat of Oracle and Bone’s A Summer’s End, I want to talk about the women behind this game Tida Kietsungden, and Charissa So. So and Kietsungden have done nothing but impress me since the announcement of A Summer’s End. They have repeatedly demonstrated their immense effort and dedication to creating a beautiful and thoughtful experience. Through conversations with the studio and reading their blog entries, I gained a remarkable understanding of how this game is both a tribute to classic cinema and a love letter to the Yuri and LGBT community. Through careful research and thoughtful expression, the two women navigate and acknowledge complicated issues, including Asian LGBTQ history and Hong Kong’s delicate political situation with grace and maturity. I am in complete awe of both women and their work. However, regardless of my profound respect for these creators, I still endeavor to offer my unfiltered thoughts on the visual novel, giving praise and criticism where appropriate.

A Summer’s End – Hong Kong 1986 is a Yuri visual novel set, as you may have figured out, in Hong Kong in the year 1986. The game follows a young office worker, Michelle (Fong Ha) Cheung, who has a chance encounter with a free-spirited woman named Sam (Ka Yan) Wong. Both women feel drawn to each other, and the game explores this mutual attraction and the budding relationship which emerges from it.

This plot follows the standard girl meets girl story that has permeated the Yuri genre for the past several decades. Like most Yuri stories, the older and more experienced woman, Sam, is rebellious and beautiful, with long dark hair and a dominating persona. Michelle, although far more naive in the ways of love, breaks the trend of this trope by being the more sullen of the two. I would have liked to see the game diverge a bit more from the standard story of the genre. Fortunately, A Summer’s End is a romance story between adults who do not work together, setting it apart from the norms. It even includes a coming out section that creates a more robust LGBT identity than any tale of temporary schoolgirl love.

The story is well put together and well presented. The story is told primarily from Michelle’s perspective. It mostly takes place over a few days, during which Michelle engages in a whirlwind romance with Sam. This story features the struggle between her feelings and passion and her devotion to tradition and her mother. The progression of her affection is unrealistically fast. The story feels a bit rushed, and many of the societal and personal quagmires the game stumbles upon are not sufficiently developed or confronted. Had the game indulged in a more prolonged and tumultuous struggle for Michelle, conclusions would have felt much sweeter, and the story would have gone from good to great.

Even with this massive missed opportunity, there are plenty of exemplary moments and aspects of the narrative. The game pulls no punches addressing Michelle’s slightly overbearing mother and the conflict between the two. It would have been incredibly simple to take the easy route on this one. Still, the developers stuck to their guns and manage to explore a challenging situation satisfyingly, all while keeping the characters realistic and sympathetic. In fact, every scene relating to LGBT rights and history is flawlessly executed.

There are also some fantastic chapters, including a thrilling but refreshing bike ride and a flashback scene that recontextualizes certain events from another perspective. The many references and allusions to classic cinema including some older lesbian films and plenty of Asian works, are particularly noteworthy. However, the best part of A Summer’s End by far is the setting.

The location and time period is intrinsic to Sam and Michelle’s tale, as it is shaped by and reflects contemporary culture and LGBTQ rights. Oracle and Bone create a vibrant and lively world, a jaw-dropping depiction of Hong Kong in the 1980s. Everything helps feed into the creation of this world, including a fantastic and retro UI, small touches such as a Cantonese subway announcement, and objects encountered like a disposable camera help convey a strong sense of the period. However, the soundtrack sells it more than any other element, save perhaps the artwork, transporting the player to the era. While a few tracks are the standard easy listening affairs one expects from visual novels, there are tons of excellent city pop and disco beats, complete with plenty of synths and confidence! Finally, a visual novel soundtrack that contributes more than just background noise!

Sadly, the game’s dialogue choice system and branching paths are far more of a hindrance than a help. I can honestly say that the game would play better and be way more enjoyable as a kinetic novel. Most choices feel inconsequential, changing nothing of the story and resulting in almost the exact same response from other characters yet, they have a hidden points system. If you do not earn enough points, parts of the optional adult content will be unplayable until one goes back to find the right choice. I spent several hours replaying, and eventually skipping through, the game to unlock all the scenes, and finally gave up with one CG left unseen. The only choice with any actual effect is painfully evident in its consequences. One option leads to the bad ending, which is well written, but no reasonable player would go down that path unless they just wanted to see the whole game. The second unveils the true good ending, which no player in their right mind would not pursue, as again, the choice is obvious and adds nothing to the game. There is no reason to put in an alternative ending or tedious dialogue choice.

The characters in A Summer’s End are well constructed. Sam is adventurous without being obnoxious and has a mature though appropriately unrefined demeanor. Michelle is extremely curt and somewhat distant, although she displays a sharp wit and more timid nature on occasion. Both women participate in engaging, deep, and thoughtful discussions, often with each other, although sometimes internally, and thus feel well developed and complex. Unfortunately, their chemistry, while not absent, is not enough to sell the whirlwind romance. There is insufficient expression of their feelings and attractions, both internally or through dialogue and actions, so their inevitable closeness feels unearned.

However, even in the short game, both characters change with each other, especially Michelle, as she becomes more affectionate, confident, and caring. She begins to embody some of Sam’s warmness while never losing herself. Some of my favorite dialogue and interaction came from her towards the end of the game, although I will not spoil it. Additionally, side characters have a strong presence thanks to their firmly established characteristics and a profound effect on the narrative. Each has their own sprite and mannerisms, helping cement them as fixtures in A Summer’s End rather than tacked on assets.

The visual novel contains optional adult content, which is installed in an extra patch and can be toggled on and off. I played through the game with and without it and can happily report that the story is just as fulfilling and complete without it. Although the unlockable nature of these scenes is aggravating, they are very well written and sensual without being exploitative. There were moments I did not care for as much, such as Sam getting carried away at one point, but it felt very realistic and incredibly sensual. The artwork in these sexual encounters is some of the best in the game, embracing darker colors and showcasing intense desire.

Speaking of the artwork, it is stupendous. The game is bright and striking, with amazing backgrounds complete with luminous neon signs, glaring televisions, and life and activity oozing from every corner. The backgrounds are so beautiful and detailed they could effectively serve in place of CG art, although there is plenty of that asides. The character models and designs are similarly excellent, with expressive poses and faces. The various outfits, of which the game has many, embody iconic 80’s fashion. Artist Tida Kietsungden draws both the characters and CGs with a distinctive hand-drawn style, which allows them to play well off each other and add to the beautiful presentation. The detail and care that went into the aesthetics are enormous and elevate the game at every moment. 

A Summer’s End – Hong Kong 1986 is a vibrant and intimate experience. The fantastic setting and flawless artwork surround a compelling and thoughtful story about lesbian love and desire, societal expectations, and the bonds between family and lovers. It is rough around the edges, with a slightly rushed story that leaves little time to wallow in complexity and an awful dialogue system. However, it will win players over with its striking presentation and sophisticated subject matter. I look forward to more from this studio and highly recommend you check this game out!

Ratings: Story – 7 Characters – 6 Art – 10 Music – 8 LGBTQ – 8 Sexual Content – 3 (8 with patch) Final – 7

Purchase A Summer’s End on Steam and itch.io, available April 23

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#Yuri #lgbt #lgbtq #lgbtq+ #queer #gay #reivew #a summer's end #hong kong #girls love #gl #wlw #lesbian #visual novel #games #video games #gaming #manga #anime #reviews

[uselessmonsterboy]

I gotta admit im absolutely curious about Bakugou's perspective of the current events

Over the course of this recent chapter what we are seeing from the outside is the result of Aizawa preemptively setting up that meeting for Yagi and Nedzu and like,,, he didn't get to go to it yet but he got the gist of it p quick over the gc

Nedzu pulled Bakugou and did some checks required both by schools and his own opinions but it was Aizawa who pulled him from the internship opportunities. 

Bakugou was and is still pissed at this point. The initial meeting involved mostly questions and ended with Nedzu dismissing him and telling Bakugou that he was going to be under a different sort of and more intensive routine over the time that training and prep is going on. He is also going to stay at UA over the internship instead of leaving campus/town to go to other places/agencies. His therapy at this point also changed directions a bit. They now have the high point of what damage he can and has administered to an individual. Working from the cap of something to wind back is important with individuals who have intensive anger/raging episodes because you have to figure out A) how to make these episodes less intense and B) how to make them less frequent.

In his side of the world via therapy Bakugou is gonna be figuring out a lot of pent up shit he has been misdirecting but yeet the fic isn't About HimTM so it's mostly offscreen

The point where he has the mood shift? That day was a day where he had been in a really bad episode and while in his therapy session he had said he hadn't even hurt anyone enough to warrant the "bullshit" treatment he was getting. Hound Dog asked if he wanted him to bring in RG to see what her medical experience could lend a hand to understanding in this and when Bakugou agreed, mostly not believing anything serious happened in his history, she brought up the danger fire Quirks pose to those without the built in resistance to the heat. 

He was like "they have us use our Quirks on each other all the time. I know this whole shitty ordeal is because Deku fucking whine about some bullshit or another that he literally doesn't even need to look at with his stupid Quirk" and like they wait a moment before RG is like

"Okay but would you like to see what severe burns look like? Especially if you inflict them on polyester blend clothings?" And Bakugou is essentially like indirectly shown what exactly he did. She shows photos of different burn victims be it from fires, villain attacks, abuse, or other causes that can lead to burns that severe. She shows scars that result from them, and then, eventually bc at this point Bakugou has stopped the whole pissed of high and mighty front, she explains that without proper medical care and sanitation these burns very very often get infected and can kill someone very fast. 

This is a huge wake up call for Bakugou. He knows what he did. He doesn't know that the staff knows almost exactly what he did. But this is something that shows him that he very much so almost murdered someone for taking a test into a public school at the same time as him while being in the same public middle school as him. He's quiet, reserved to others but for himself it's more of a shellshock. Did he hate Izuku that much, if at all? Is this all horribly misdirected trauma response on his own part? Was this therapy actually for him or was it the school's way of covering their ass bc they didn't think he was actually a hero? They pulled him from the internships afterall. Was he actually cut out to be a hero in the first place? This was a big one for him because he had never seen any other option for himself. He's got a loud and bright and strong Quirk. He's highly intelligent. Keen at adaptation to different scenarios. He has incredible instinct in battle scenarios. He just never had a good grasp of people. But that's not true. He has an incredibly good sense of people. In the manga you see it constantly. You can't Manipulate if you don't understand and he easily leads crowds, breaks through defenses of thought, and so on by playing with what he very quickly deduces about others and very often he is right with his deductions. Which leaves one last thing for him to work out.

Is he too ill to be a hero?

The short answer is no.

The long answer is yes, he has a lot of growth he has to go through as well as treatment of both mind and body for himself to become someone who can be viewed as a hero. There's a million and one things I can keep adding here but this whole story is literally about growth and recovery. For p much all the characters tbh uhh but it's primarily about Izuku and the people he interacts with recovering from shit they probably weren't aware they should be recovering from.

Bakugou's settled resolve he falls back into, though, was the point in which he decided that of course he was gonna be a hero. He was gonna be the best, no matter what extra blocks, steps, and leaps he had to make. This is a good thing. This is showing he does intend to get better even though he doesn't fully understand that is what he's doing.

#mute tones #asks #anon

[good-rwbyaus]

Can we get Pyrrha's reaction to Professor Ruby?

Becoming AU:  [ Piece 1-5��] [ P: Weiss ] [ P: Yang ] [ Piece 6 ]

logo-comics asked: What about an AU where everyone had somehow been under the mistaken assumption that Ruby was a professor at Beacon? For a laugh, Ozpin rolls with it whenever he's asked about it.

// Yes you can! Here ya go. Also, Happy Thanksgiving for those who celebrate it! Also Cardin vs Ruby. Yes. - lilac

Perspective : Pyrrha

The pairing system had picked Ruby and Cardin to fight in the sparring ring, which was a shame because she really wanted to give the guy a second beating today. However she wasn’t feeling too much loss, because she’d finally get to see how the girl who stole all the spotlight from her would perform.

Not that she was jealous or anything – well, a tiny part of her that had gotten used to the adulation might’ve been, but for the most part, she felt relieved and grateful. She wasn’t the one who had to carry the weight of people’s expectations anymore; it was Ruby who bore it instead. Despite how grateful she felt, she still wanted to fight the other girl – wanted to experience how the presumed professor-in-training fought.

Beyond their brief interaction in the Emerald Forest, she didn’t really know Ruby – the girl who’d been the center of rumors since her arrival, and it was hard to distinguish truth from lie. Maybe this spar, Ruby’s first public debut against another Hunter-in-training, would help elucidate things.

Now Cardin wasn’t a bad fighter by any means – a bad person, yes - but he knew his strengths and could leverage them well. However, her own strong points coincidentally met Cardin’s strong points perfectly; his strength and tenacity might’ve matched hers, but she had far more agility and flexibility. Combine that with subtle uses of Polarity to magnify the strength of her strikes, it was easy to turn a parry into both a disarming blow and quick surrender.  

However the strong points that served Cardin well countered Ruby’s strongest point, her speed. And the sparring ring was not suited for long range combat; it would be a tightrope walk if the younger girl wanted to employ guerilla tactics.

Yes.

It’ll be interesting to see how Ruby would approach this.

-----

“Are you sure you’re a professor?” Cardin taunted as he swung around aggressively, Ruby darting side to side to avoid his crater-creating blows. Their chase had lasted for over several minutes now, neither gaining much ground against the other.

“Are you sure you’re not an idiot? Weren’t you there when the Headmaster made the announcement?” The girl growled back at the clearly touchy subject as she fell back, creating distance and retaliating with sniper fire. The bullets pinged off Cardin’s armor for the most part, and the ones that headed for his uncovered extremities were deflected by his mace instead.

“The school’s still talking about you being one. And well I’m not impressed,” he posed with his mace on his shoulder. Several quiet cheers came from the audience. An inevitable thing honestly. Cardin was the perceived underdog in this situation, a student versus a professor-in-training. The only odd thing was that Professor Goodwitch hadn’t told the class to quiet down.

Ruby’s reply was a shot to his nether regions, one that he quickly deflected but the resulting clang still made a good portion of the class wince.

Incited, Cardin charged forward with a rage-filled yell, and their game of tag begun once again.

Ruby’s movements were always efficient and purposeful. Instead of constantly stepping back, she staggered her motion diagonally, never allowing Cardin to fully use his gathered momentum. However, the rare times she’d be forced into melee combat, they’d exchange a couple blows, never actually hitting each other, but then Ruby would always be the first to disengage, limbs trembling.

For a while, she thought the trembling was due to Cardin’s blows being heavier than what the younger girl could handle. But that wasn’t right. Ruby would never fully block a hit; she either parried a blow cleanly or avoided it entirely. If she were forced to directly block, she didn’t resist the blow’s momentum at all and allowed herself to fly away like a petal in a breeze.

It was those rare blows that made it seem like Cardin was winning, even though their Aura levels were equally low. She couldn’t help but feel like the younger girl was holding back some, though that didn’t make sense. Ruby didn’t like Cardin, especially after he messed with Jaune a couple times. Of course, Cardin didn’t do these things where Ruby could see him; Cardin was after all a bully and still afraid of the girl’s potential authority.

In any case, holding back was only if you wanted to spare the person embarrassment or if you wanted to hide your trump cards. But from the irritated look on Ruby’s face, she clearly didn’t want to do either of those. So why hasn’t the younger girl won yet? Everything was in her control, so why did she continue dragging things out?

Cardin cornered Ruby again, and it looked like they were again going to physically clash. Cardin swung for the girl’s shoulder, but Ruby had already swung to parry like everything was preplanned.

But what would happen if she….

… if she took away that control for just a moment...Pyrrha’s finger twitched.

The swinging mace suddenly acquired a slightly higher, slightly faster arc, enough to bypass the scythe that was swung to meet it. The young girl’s silver eyes rose in panic, and her feet were already pivoting and stepping back in an attempt to absorb the bl-

Crack.

...That wasn’t what she intended.

The blow struck the young girl cleanly against her shoulder, her red aura flickering as though it were about to disperse. She could see Cardin’s lips open to declare his triumph, but the younger girl swiftly spun with the momentum Cardin imparted to her. The moment Cardin finished out his swing, the muzzle of Ruby’s weapon already slammed straight into his throat, silencing whatever he was going to say.

That wasn’t what caught her attention though. It was Ruby’s eyes, previously angry and colored with emotion – now calm and calculating and empty. Were they always that cold shade of silver?

She saw Ruby’s finger press against the trigger of her weapon.

There was about to be an accident.

No. What has her meddling done?!

But the gunshot she expected never occurred.

Instead, Cardin stumbled backwards onto the ground, his mace clattering by his side. Choking noises came from his figure. His hands were clutched around his throat as he struggled to breathe, eyes bulging out in pain.

Ruby meanwhile shakily stood, her entire body trembling and barely keeping herself upright using her weapon as support. She kept her head lowered as she panted, her eyes covered by her bangs. No one could see the girl’s expression.

Cardin’s fear-filled eyes said it all though. Pyrrha wasn’t the only one who knew how close he came to dying; he also saw how close Ruby had been to pulling that trigger. Cardin might’ve still had Aura in reverse, but after a blow to the throat like that, even if the subsequent sniper shot didn’t outright kill him, it likely would’ve left him hospitalized for months – if he got out all.

Professor Goodwitch’s voice broke through the sudden chatter that erupted in the classroom.

“Miss Rose’s aura is in the red zone. Mister Winchester is victorious.”

================================

================================

The fight haunted her. Not only did she nearly cause an accident, she led Ruby directly into a loss against someone she didn’t like. All she wanted to do was make the younger girl panic a little to see what’d she do, not directly take a mace strike with her body. For over a week, she saw the girl tentatively rub her shoulder on occasion and even wince when accidentally jostled.

Maybe that was why when the Weapons Club started, she volunteered to be Ruby’s assistant as a means to atone, and it was through this that she got to truly know the other girl. First of all, Ruby knew her stuff when it came to weapons, even more so than fighting. The girl was a genius in this area, able to figure out how a weapon generally worked within a few seconds of manipulation and then determine the areas where it needed improvement a couple more seconds after that.

Honestly, Ruby outperformed most diagnostic machines in both time and accuracy, and that expertise really cemented Ruby’s reputation as a professor despite all her vehement denials.

It also rooted the impression that Ruby, despite being bubbly and generally friendly, was a strange and weird girl. For one, she rarely remembered people’s names, but she’ll remember your weapon down to the type of metal, its style of smithing, and whatever dust options it had - oh, and the name you gave it too. Also when she thinks no one’s paying attention, she’ll talk at the weapon she’s holding as if it were alive.  

She couldn’t help but feel that Ruby was lonely at Beacon. Apart from team JNPR and RWBY, she didn’t really have anyone else. When she spoke to her team about it, Ren had put it quite nicely. The girl’s perceived position made it hard for her to have friends outside of those who already knew her well: you could certainly be friends with a teacher, but there are always something things you’ll feel more comfortable telling your peers than an authority.

And the more she interacted with her, the more she felt like Ren was correct. Ruby denied being a professor so aggressively because the girl clearly knew this reasoning deep down inside, and all Ruby wanted to do was to live a normal student life. And it was sad because if there wasn’t this rumor going around, a lot more people would be unofficially adopting an adorable younger sister to their team.

Pyrrha glanced over at Ruby, sleeping over a bunch of well-marked papers and documents: books on leadership, documents on practical marksmanship, and pamphlets on basic dust usage. A hint of drool was hanging by the corner of the girl’s lips.

“Why do you try so hard?” she couldn’t help but ask to the sleeping girl.

What made a fifteen-year old work this hard? Maybe only Ruby knew the answer to the question. 

...All that hard work that she nearly managed to completely sabotage. Guilt struck her once again – she’d been meaning to apologize, but she just didn’t know how. How could she explain it to her friend now?

‘Oh sorry Ruby. I manipulated things to make Cardin win. But I really don’t hate you at all. I just wanted to see what would happen.’ Ugh. She guiltily glanced over the sleeping girl – Pyrrha still couldn’t figure out what had gone over her.

She probably would’ve cared less if she didn’t like her – she’d still feel guilty, yes, but it’d bother her less. But now that she’d gotten to know Ruby – became close friends with the lonely girl that’s always full of bubbly energy and the occasional snarky comment – she could feel the guilt eating away at her inside.

She’ll atone. Even if she couldn’t bring herself to tell her, she’ll pay the price through her actions instead. She’ll stand by her side no matter what, because in the end Ruby was one of her best friends. She owed this much to her.

Speaking of, it was getting late, wasn’t it?

Shaking her head free of the morose thoughts, Pyrrha smirked mischievously and quickly pinched the girl’s cheek before pulling.

The younger girl immediately woke and yelped, hands flailing and sending papers askew.

“whatthehellareyoudoing?!gidoff!”

================================

================================

They were alone now. Jaune had cut down the Ursa and in the process saved Cardin; with any luck, the bully would stop bothering Jaune about his transcripts now. 

But in the process of doing so, she revealed her Semblance to both Weiss and Ruby. And from the way Ruby stayed back, she was now going to pay the piper.

“So you did it,” Ruby said quietly, “You were the one who interfered with my fight.” The girl turned around with a betrayed expression on her face. “The Executioner didn’t move that way on its own.”

“I…I’m sorry,” Pyrrha quietly said, hand against her arm and slightly squirming against the shorter girl’s laser-like gaze, “I’m really sorry. I-“

“Do you know what could’ve happened?” the girl cut her apologies off, throwing down her arms angrily.

“I…yes.” Pyrrha nodded her head, looking straight at the ground and unable to meet Ruby’s eyes. She couldn’t help but wonder if Ruby gained that oppressive demeanor from Professor Goodwitch.

“Then why?” Ruby nearly all but screamed. It was then she knew that day had left its mental scars on the Huntress: how close Ruby came to ending the life of a fellow student, both of them knew. It was clear the girl wanted an explanation now, and she definitely deserved one. The only question was if she could accept it.

“I was stupid,” Pyrrha admitted. “I saw you were holding back. You kept the fight completely under control to the point no one in class noticed… And I wanted to see what you’d reveal once you lost that control.” She shook her head, “I never... expect all that to happen.”

“You. Just for that stupid reason.”

Ruby was right. It was a stupid reason. She kept her bowed down low, the guilt weighing her down. “Yeah, I was being stupid. I promise you it had nothing to do with you specifically. I just wanted to see how well a good fighter would adapt.”

“…I’m sorry that I put you in that position. I’m sorry that I got one of my best friends hurt,” Pyrrha sobbed, “I…”

Ruby glared at her and then shook her head. The girl turned around and started walking away, the sight leaving Pyrrha cold inside. She lowered her head once more, watching her tears fall to the ground. She’d just lost a good friend this day. She wanted to say more things, but it was clear that Ruby had nothing else to say to her. 

The younger girl didn’t want anything to do with her now.

---

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

Huh?

Pyrrha lifted her head. A crimson blur was the only thing she registered before it slammed straight into her. Immediately, she bowled over and cut a course through the dirt. Her body felt sore after the collision, and she managed to get enough of her bearings to see the younger girl that just slammed into her stand up.

Stepping to the side, Ruby crossed her arms with a frown and declared, “Okay, I’m still mad at you, but now we’re even. ” Ruby paused briefly, probably having noticed the confusion in her face, as she further explained, “We weren’t friends then, but we’re friends now…”

“Right?”

Pyrrha, slowly sitting up, nodded her head, “I… Yeah.” Her tone became more confident and empathetic. “Of course.”

Ruby offered a hand to her, the corners of the girl’s lips curling up slightly despite her clear intention to maintain her frown.  

“So yeah, we’re even,” the girl repeated.

Taking up the offered hand, Pyrrha felt herself being lifted up before Ruby’s grip suddenly slackened, and she fell back down on her behind with a plop.

Somewhat shocked, Pyrrha looked back up at Ruby and couldn’t help but choke at the sight – whether it was a laugh or surprise she didn’t quite know.

The younger girl was hobbled over, holding onto her now red hand and opening her mouth in silent agony.

Before she could apologize, Ruby was already speaking.

“Ow! Ow. Ow. Pyrrha, how much milk do you drink to make your shoulder so hard?” the younger girl accused.

“Uh. Sorry, Ruby. But after working with Pumpkin’s Pete’s, I don’t really drink milk anymore.”

The affronted look on Ruby’s face was priceless.

It was there that she knew that everything was going to be okay.

Everything was going to be okay.

#rwby fic #rwby au #rwby #ruby rose #pyrrha nikos #cardin winchester #mod lilac #Anonymous #becoming au

[makeste]

not a cavalcade of Katsuki panels

damn, anon. you stone cold came for me with that last part. and just fyi to all onlookers, this was before I had posted the headcanons ask proving this exact point lmao.

but a challenge has been issued now! so I will do my best to pick a variety of impartial panels featuring a veritable medley of characters. not sure I can really provide much in the way of insightful analysis of symbolism and metaphors and stuff, but I can certainly type a lot of words about the pretty pictures, and about how cool people look when they’re standing around all serious surrounded by clouds of billowing smoke.

why I like it: I figured we’d start off strong. no point in holding back. can the other panels possibly even hope to compete. maybe. we’ll see.

why I like it: because, you see, he punched a giant robot, and it exploded. you see that, there? and the text was all “SMAASH” in humongous comic book letters, and it was pretty cool. also Deku is very tiny and the robot is very big. and just to clarify, most of the time if a tiny fifteen-year-old child tries to punch an 80-foot robot, it’s not actually going to go all that well, and the robot probably will not explode. but in this case it did! and so this is a very novel and unexpected outcome, which makes it all the more visually striking, which is a very good thing to be when you are trying to show off the brand new superpower which your protagonist just inherited, and letting people see it in action for the very first time.

why I like it: so you may have noticed we just skipped a whoooole bunch of chapters lol. this is because there are almost 300 of them, and so I’m going to have to use a bit of discretion. anyway so this is a gorgeous panel. just, everything about it. the lighting; the expressions; Shouto’s hesitation; and his mom facing away, not looking back yet, and us not yet knowing how she’ll react. and the fact that they’re visually separated by as much distance as possible -- at opposite ends of a two-page spread -- and yet they’re so close, closer than they’ve been in years. mm. anyway it’s pretty.

why I like it: first of all because there’s nothing like seeing a deserving character get punched in the fucking face, and few characters IMO have been as deserving as Stain. and second because this is Deku, showing up to save the day out of nowhere at the last minute, because excuse you, but he’s a motherfuckin’ hero. sorry to interrupt your evening plans of stabbing a kid while lecturing him about why, philosophically, he deserves to die. but I’ve got a package here for a Mister Stain. it’s from Mister Smaassh, with two A’s and three S’s.

why I like it: fyi, anon said nothing about a cavalcade of BakuDeku panels. you didn’t think I’d let that loophole go to waste, did you? but nonetheless I will try to restrain myself until we get to the second ground beta fight. anyway, I like this panel because All Might’s canonically 7′2″ self looks about twelve feet tall here, and he is just TOWERING over these two boys, who’ve been tasked with somehow outwitting him during this curiously sadistic final exam. and it’s just an interesting perspective, because we know they both look up to him, and here they are physically looking way, way up, up, up at him.

why I like it: now this is how you do a villain entrance. I love absolutely everything about this. the sheer scale of destruction, and the way he’s just sort of casually hanging out there in the middle of the panel almost dwarfed by all this dust and smoke and carnage, and yet is unquestionably the focus of the page. the way that you can’t actually see his face, not yet. not until the end of the chapter. the way the clouds are drifting so calmly and peacefully in the night sky in stark contrast to the horrific events that are about to take place on the ground. this panel gives me literal chills, especially when I think about All for One’s creepy theme music playing in the background.

why I like it: this panel is so iconic to me that it’s one of the first ones I immediately knew I had to go and find when I got this ask. this entire fight is perfection from start to finish, and there are other panels that are more artistically striking if I’m being honest (in particular, the ones where he’s half-transformed with his face perfectly split down the middle between Muscle Might and Skinny Steve). but there’s just something about his determination in this panel, though. something about the fire in his eyes, and the way he clenches his fist. “my heart is still the heart of the Symbol of Peace.” I remember being sooooo fucking anxious when his true form was revealed, wondering if this was it, if the people watching were going to turn on him, if he was going to lose both the fight and their faith. turns out I was wrong on both accounts. basically what I am trying to tell you guys is that this panel was and is still the most badass thing I’ve ever seen.

why I like it: because he’s just a frail old man doing what he can to protect the last flickering embers of the thing that enables him to fight on. there’s something so fucking desperate and yet so determined about this image. he knows it’s futile, but still he persists.

why I like it: damn it was hard to find a “you’re next” panel with just the right angle I like best. this is probably as close as it gets, but I kind of wish Deku was somehow visible in this image as well. but at any rate this is an amazing moment, and All Might is dramatic af for basically no reason but IT’S BADASS. “no I’m not going to actually look where I’m pointing. it’s cooler this way.” or was it because he wasn’t sure if he could keep the emotion off of his face if he actually turned and looked? in this moment of knowing that it was finally over for him, that he would never be the Symbol again, and knowing that he had no choice but to move on and entrust that burden to the next generation? damn.

why I like it: I... fucking... okay, here’s a fun fact. did you know that I still get emotional over this panel almost a full two years after reading it?? obviously a good 84% of it is the context -- All Might losing his power; Deku being forced to take up the mantle before he feels ready; All Might feeling responsible for him; and both of them being so desperately grateful to have each other in that moment. but don’t underestimate that remaining 16% either though! this is just an extremely well-drawn hug, on top of everything else. All Might pressing Deku’s head to his shoulder with his fingers laced in his hair is some mighty fine fiercely protective hug tropes there, you guys. and the way Deku is clinging to his shirt so tightly his knuckles have probably gone white?? while he cries?? while both of them cry? ON THE BEACH? WITH THE WAVES LAPPING SOFTLY AT THE SHORE IN THE PEACEFUL NIGHT AIR?? jesus fucking christ. this hug contains more emotions than I am capable of carrying inside me at once. I just sort of have to let them flow in and out little by little until they finally subside.

why I like it: you bet I skipped right from Kamino straight to Deku VS Kacchan Part 2. no regrets. anyway, so these two panels are an absolutely gorgeous one-two punch. so much has changed from the days when they were innocent little kids marching off into the woods to have adventures. they’ve changed. their relationship has changed. and yet, at the end of the day, Izuku is still willing to follow Katsuki even without being given any kind of explanation. and Katsuki still seeks out Izuku when he’s on the verge of having a spectacular emotional breakdown. because he doesn’t know who else to turn to. and because despite everything, there is trust there still, on some deep, fundamental level neither of them fully understands or knows how to acknowledge. anyway, so these two panels just give me a ton of feels all about the passage of time and how everything changes and how you can’t get back what’s lost, but also sometimes if you look deep enough you find that parts of it were never fully gone.

why I like it: because in a striking display of dramatic main character energy, these boys decided to stage their life-changing destiny-affirming rival fight on the coolest possible stage in the middle of the goddamn night. and then Katsuki made it even better by producing WAY MORE SMOKE than his attack by all rights should have produced! and then they went and crouched down all symmetrically so as to more poetically make intense eye contact at each other. I really like panels with smoke and/or dust clearing dramatically. there are like four more of them coming up on this list. what can I say. it’s cinematic.

why I like it: I actually had this one as my icon for a while. it’s rare imo to see an action panel that’s so balanced and has so much going on and is so clean and easy to read. both of their poses are so dynamic. I like the way the arc of Izuku’s kick is drawn, and I love the way you can clearly see that Katsuki propelled himself backwards with his quirk in order to dodge it. it’s just a really cool little panel that for me perfectly sums up the general feel of this fight, and its awesome choreography.

why I like it: actually you know what, before I go any further, let me skip ahead a bit and add three more panels with this same energy.

I just really, really love these rare moments when all differences between them are momentarily forgotten and they’re just two teenage boys caught up in the intense pressure of an awkward social situation. the one enemy neither of them is the least bit equipped to handle. anyways Horikoshi clearly enjoys it too because he seems to delight in drawing it over and over and over.

why I like it: because it’s more billowing smoke and dust. because it’s Endeavor, the guy we all swore we would never ever root for, and then 160 chapters later Horikoshi pulls this shit without an ounce of shame. because it’s All Might’s pose, but tweaked juuuuuust enough so that Enji can avoid copyright claims. because he knew that pose well enough to know which arm not to use. because Endeavor is a profoundly flawed human being, wholly incapable of filling the void All Might left behind. and yet he still tries. because it’s better than nothing, and because it’s all he can do. it’s the one thing he can do, his sole redeeming virtue. he tries. he doesn’t give up. anyway so yeah, Horikoshi didn’t have to take the single most unlikable person in the entire manga and give him the world’s most controversial and openly scorned redemption arc. but he did! and I think it’s one of the best things about this entire manga.

why I like it: because nothing in BnHA is just black and white!! it’s messy and layered and complex, just like in the real world. Shouto despised his dad for almost his entire life. with good reason! Enji was abusive and selfish and treated his son more like a prized possession than a person. we as readers are fully aware of all of this, and we sympathize with Shouto 100%, and that’s completely by design. Horikoshi is well aware of this. so for him to still give us this little moment, where Shouto is so relieved that Enji survived that he drops to the floor and presses his face against his hands in this little prayer gesture -- whatever you think it might mean -- is just so fucking powerful, and again speaks to his commitment to refusing to let anything in this series be completely clear-cut and unambiguous. I love that the characterization of Shouto and Natsu hating their dad exists side by side with the equally authentic characterization of them being terrified that they’re about to watch him die. because those two things aren’t contradictory! sometimes that’s just how it is. anyway so this is a beautiful moment of nuance that instantly adds so much to this relationship with just a single panel.

why I like it: for once the symbolism is so obvious that even I can’t fail to miss it! Izuku’s face half in light and half in shadow as he thinks about the power bestowed on him. “All for One’s power.” anyway so in my mind Izuku having AFO could not be any more fucking foreshadowed if he was wearing a freaking t-shirt with the Musketeers saying on it and the background was peppered with little Sistine Chapel-esque images of AFO giving his quirk to his brother lmao. but regardless of how it does end up playing out, this is nicely done.

why I like it: I wasn’t sure whether I should include this image, given that I just made a whole separate post about it a few days ago. but I just really like it, okay. this is one of the all-time great entrances in the series. Bakugou being perched on that pole for absolutely no reason other than to add visual interest. Todoroki’s hair blowing dramatically in the wind. Katsuki’s frayed pant hems and characteristically asymmetrical facial expression. the fact that you just know both of them spent the ride home with their faces pressed to the windows of their taxi cab hoping desperately for an opportunity to break in their brand new licenses, and then lo and behold. that’s amazing you guys. it’s almost like you’re main characters or something.

why I like it: they did great.

why I like it: because I lost my fucking shit at this fucking reveal and can you even blame me?? we knew coming in how much trouble Endeavor and Hawks had dealing with just one of these Noumus, and then Horikoshi goes and divulges that the villains have at least A DOZEN MORE waiting on standby. including Hood right there in the foreground, which is a fantastic touch! this panel, for me, almost instantaneously established the League as a legitimate threat once again, and gave me the kind of spine-tingly evil vibes I hadn’t felt since the Kamino arc. and while the payoff might not quite have lived up to my expectations, the Mirko fight at least was more than worth it.

why I like it: BILLOWING SMOKE AND DUST CLOUDS. you just see this vast landscape of destruction that Tomura has oh-so-casually wrought, and this once-powerful enemy utterly defeated on his hands and knees bowing before him. and it’s just like, oh. Tomura just became a fucking king, didn’t he. he finally stepped up and became the main villain. really the main villain, not just an awkward fumbling NEET whose adopted dad is not-so-secretly pulling all the strings. he did this himself. he went out and conquered and Awakened and won himself a fucking army. and he’s just standing there so cool and casual in the aftermath of it all. and then he goes “oh wait, you guys have money right, that means you can buy us the good sushi.” yes, Tomura. yes.

why I like it: um because this panel is fucking amazing?? hello?? do I really need to explain this one. the detail is jaw-dropping. he’s got the little scars which are either from the head wound that caused his death, or from his Noumufication. his expression is fucking heartbreaking, and the transition from Kumo to Kuro is so subtle and seamless, and yet it distinctly is both of them. this panel is gorgeous and fucking haunting and almost made me gasp when I first saw it.

why I like it: the decision to have the night sky take up so much of the space in the panel was [chef kiss]. nothing says existential like the night sky on a cold winter’s night.

why I like it: this is the best panel in the entire fucking series.

why I like it: dude. showing his actual family holding onto him with their hands in the same spot as the severed fashion!hands was a stroke of genius in and of itself. but combining that with the emotional tension of them desperately trying to hold him back and protect him from AFO?? that’s just so fucking smooth it’s almost inhuman. just how much meaning can you cram into a single image?? sometimes I wonder just how far in advance Horikoshi plans these things.

why I like it: guess I’m just a big fat sucker for panels of Tomura calmly standing around in the ruins of his own senseless destruction. the sense of scale on this one is really great, too. and yet again, those dust clouds. gotta love it.

why I like it: because Tomura literally appears out of nowhere, like he’s ripping a hole through the fabric of time and space. it’s so fucking sudden and he looks evil as FUCK, and Deku and Kacchan are totally caught off-guard, and it is scary. this is one of those panels that made me say “holy shit” out loud. in fact I practically screamed it. and the angles are all funky and weird, and the sky is all BLACK FOR NO REASON, and it really just feels like Tomura could reach right over and just MURDER THEM like it was nothing. just like that. this panel is so incredibly effective at conveying how hopelessly outclassed the boys are. they’re not even in his league, and it’s honestly terrifying.

and on that happy note, we have come to the end of my list of favorite panels! and I gotta say, it’s really gratifying that a good deal of them are from this year alone. I said it in another post a few days ago, but imo the overall quality of the series has been insanely high as of late, and it honestly just blows my mind whenever I stop to think about it. the art is still this good six years into the game. the story is still this good. we are spoiled goddammit.

#bnha #boku no hero academia #midoriya izuku #bakugou katsuki #all might #endeavor #todoroki shouto #shigaraki tomura #horikoshi kouhei #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #makeste reads bnha #asks #anon asks

[thekillerssluts]

WILL BUTLER: GENERATIONAL, DIVIDED

With Generations, Will Butler presents an album with dark themes but eclectic and engaging music.

With Generations, released a few days ago, Will Butler is the third member of Arcade Fire to put out an album this year. Recorded in his Brooklyn studio, Generations is an eclectic work, with varied colours, sometimes closer to the vitaminized punk or the exhilarating flights of Arcade Fire, and other times not very far from cabaret song, a kind of antimony or emotional paradox between the engaging side of the music and the darker themes that are evoked.

In the five years since the release of his debut album, Policy, which served as a sort of tentative premise for the more assertive Generations, Butler hasn’t been idle. He travelled the world as a solo artist, then released the live album Friday Night, went on to design and record Arcade Fire’s Everything Now, travelled the world again, earned a master’s degree in public policy at Harvard, and organised a series of town-hall discussions to debate issues such as police contracts, prison reform, paid sick leave, voting rights, and so on. He also spent a lot of time playing father to his three children.

Sitting on a couch at home in Brooklyn with a mug in his hand, Will Butler is there to talk. Smiling, very comfortable and above all affable, it seems to give him pleasure to talk once again about his album, and to invariably answer the same questions about Arcade Fire that all the journalists ask him…

PAN M 360: During the last five years, you’ve done film, recorded, studied, you are the father of three children… With such a busy schedule, how did you find the time to conceive and produce Generations?

Will Butler: I’ve been building up songs over the last two years, and mostly playing them live when I can, at shows, and figuring them out. I hadn’t had time to sit down and figure out if I was doing another record or not, and last year I knew that I would have time in the summer to sit down with my touring band and record some demos, to see what these songs feel like. So I have a studio in a basement in South Brooklyn, and we recorded for a week, and at the end of those sessions, I was listening back to the takes and said, “this is the record, It sounds great! We have six songs here, we have a couple more, so let’s keep moving!”. So after the band sessions, I would take everything and put that on my laptop and work drafts of lyrics, cross some words, write other drafts… And I did that for about nine months, and the record was done. My last bit of recording was March 9, and then New York shut down on March 14… (laughs). So yes, it was a bit long between the two albums, but so much has happened in the last four or five years. (laughs) Not just in my life, but in the whole fucking world.

I knew I needed a stretch of peaceful time to process all that. And my wife and I, we have an older kid and we had twins two years ago, so you know, all this takes up a lot of brain space! But it was also trying to synthesize what was happening in the world since my last record. 2015 was a year of protest, there was Ferguson and Baltimore and then the election and the shit show since 2016, and now it’s the same thing again, with the pandemic on top… So I was basically trying to figure out how to respond to that with art.

PAN M 360: Who worked on the album with you?

WB: There was Miles Francis (Antibalas) on drums, who has been playing with me for the last five years, Julie Shore and her sister Jenny, who is also my wife, and Sara Dobbs. Everybody sings on this record, and the rest of it is a lot of synthesizers. Miles also took care of the guitars, and I played a little bit of guitars too, as well as some piano and keyboards, and I took care of the recording and producing. I did a bit of everything!  

PAN M 360: What are the main themes on the album? It feels like you touch on fatality, despair, but also hope…

WB: Yes, there is a lot of despair on this record, especially in the lyrics. I don’t think there is much despair in the music. The music is always pretty forward-moving. But the songs are the words and the music, so there is always a tension between what your mind is thinking and what your body is doing. (laughs). I’ve always absorbed the lyrics last, so I always process music through my body, and then it ultimately reaches my brain. Besides despair, it’s being overwhelmed, like not even knowing what to do or where to turn or how to begin to formulate an answer to the questions that have been posed, particularly in political life, but it’s the same on the personal side. You know, some of the songs, like “Promised” or “Surrender”, are about friendships that have broken over the years, or have faded or twisted, and not knowing what to do with someone that you love but that has fundamentally lost you. So what do you do with that besides feel bad about the past, or wish that things were different? So both on the political level and the personal level, I was overwhelmed by giant forces, and trying to figure out what the hell is going on.

PAN M 360: There are several shades of sound on this record. It starts out a little punk, and then slides into the indie rock and pop that we know from Arcade Fire, it flirts with Bowie, LCD Soundsystem, to finish with something more reflective, cabaret even, à la Destroyer… It’s a very interesting pacing on this album.

WB: Yes, there is a strong A-side, B-side feel. It doesn’t mean you have to listen to the record on vinyl, I listen to everything on Spotify anyway, but it has a first act and a second act. The first act is a little more urgent, a little more punk, whereas the second act is a little more electronic, and then “Fine” is like the afterword or something, it’s like an author’s note.

PAN M 360: Seems like you’ve worked on your voice since your first album. You seem to have a lot more confidence and emotion.

WB: I think that comes from very deliberately working out most of these songs on stage, learning what the core of the song is. Policy was more something that was created in the studio… I don’t know… I was experimenting. The bulk of Generations is something like, “we’re here, we know what we’re doing and we’re doing it.” As nebulous as the lyrics can be, there is still a musical mission. And I’m a better singer, I guess. From having to sing as a frontman, you just become a better singer (laughs).

PAN M 360: Looking back, how do you perceive Policy, how would you compare the two albums?

WB: Policy, to me, is like a bunch of different characters. Like every song is like in a different suit or skin. This record sonically changes a lot, but it’s still one perspective, whereas Generations has a bit more of a coherent vision. The record as a whole has a bit more of a sonic arc. It’s not a concept record but it’s tied together both sonically and lyrically.

PAN M 360: Would you say that your solo work allows you to express yourself in a way that you couldn’t with Arcade Fire?

WB: Yeah, I think that’s true! But also, Arcade Fire lets me express myself in ways that I can’t on a solo record. Update one is that I don’t write any words for Arcade Fire (laughs). That’s like a very big difference. And there is a slight difference in ethos, and in approaching recording… Generations is a collaborative effort but I’m more the director, and Arcade Fire is more fighting with co-workers, in a creative way. But to me, it’s also like the same project. You know, it’s like Marcel Dzama, who sometimes does movies with Amy Sedaris and sometimes does paintings, but they’re all from the same body of work, a little bit.

PAN M 360: And what does your brother think of your music?

WB: I think he likes it. In the band, we all think we’re all talented. We like each other and we trust each other. So if they wouldn’t like it, they’d tell me.

PAN M 360: How’s it going with the new Arcade Fire. Should we expect a record soon?

WB: We can’t really work separately. We can do a little bit online, but we’re not good at it… So if the virus stays calm, we’ll get back together and be basically on track… It takes us so long to make a record anyway, it takes us a year or a year and a half. The timing has been different, the process has been different, but the process is always different…

https://panm360.com/en/interviews-panm360/will-butler-regeneration/

#Arcade Fire #interview #will butler #generations

[moved-attre]

Here is my review of Cyberpunk 2077! It is a bullet point list of what I liked, and did not like about the game. I mean no offense in my writing, and am, of course, willing to be educated if I am wrong about anything! But please do not send me anonymous hate. I know many fans and haters of this game can be very, uh... So take it all with a grain of salt, and form your own opinions.

This is very long and likely boring so if you manage to make it to the end, I will be very impressed! Also, I may ramble or repeat myself, sorry. There’s more bad points than good, since the game is very glitchy and I couldn’t not mention the glitches I have experienced.

Obviously, this contains major spoilers! 👁👄👁

I’ll start off by saying, this is a game where you will likely not get what you expected. If you expected Cyberpunk 2077 to be a game filled with features that were never before seen, to revolutionise the gaming industry as we know it and become the most iconic video game ever made... You will not get that. If you expected it to be the worst, most irredeemable video game ever created that you’ll hate... You will not get that, either. If you expected a game that is a fairly standard RPG with some impressive graphics when played on a high spec PC, albeit with some bad glitches and a wonky story with lots of potential, then you’ve got it!

Pros:

The majority of the voice acting, such as in V, Johnny and Viktor, was very good and emotional. Viktor in particular made me tear up! And the way V manages to sound almost like Johnny with the subtle accent change was amazing!

The character’s such as Takemura, Jackie, the LIs, Johnny, Viktor, Misty (I could go on) and even many random NPCs were interesting! I wanted to know them and loved their relevant missions. The best ones were unromanceable, of course, but that’s what imagination is for.

THE ALDECALDOS! I love them! A found family, and I wish there was more to do with them other than Panam’s missions and a few side missions. I love found family, and I’m disappointed V couldn’t form their own, so I’ll take what I can get and love the Aldecaldos, even if V can’t join them until the very end. Panam had the best missions of all the LI’s, even if the last one felt very abrupt. (At least, on her friendship route.)

Night City felt alive. There was always plenty going on, it felt like a real city, and it could be beautiful.

Jackie and Corpo V’s friendship was lovely. I loved their “To this!” inside joke, and I loved how Jackie roasted V but would jump to their defence in a second. It didn’t feel forced at all.

There’s lots of environmental storytelling. The atmosphere of a city choking to death under it’s own pollution/corruption was very apparent in the areas not lived in by the rich. Lots of homeless characters, violence, drugs, absolute poverty, trash (The dump! I felt sick just looking at it, and I couldn’t even smell it! Poor V, though.) and general apathy from a lot of the residents really sold the concept.

Johnny and V’s dynamic was the best part of the story! I hated him at first, but slowly came to enjoy his commentary and advice. His interactions with V were very funny at times, and thoughtful at other times. He was an interesting perspective for the player to consider, while still being an asshole you could dislike for much of the story. He has some really emotional scenes and I played a V that viewed him as a friend, so it was really nice hearing him call V the closest person he’d ever had. They became so devoted to each other! CDPR did good with this element, but I can’t help wishing for more. The dynamic had so much more to give, and a romance/happy ending could have worked.

And to add on, the mission where Johnny takes over V’s body to go on a bender was great! I loved all the moments to play as Johnny in V’s body. All the symbolism between them was so good. Every mission matters, and you can replay to look closer at details! He also comments on other side missions with no personal relevance to him, which was neat.

All the enemies had unique names. A minor detail, but it made me feel some guilt over killing them. 🤣 I think all character’s had unique names, which is such a nice detail.

The soundtrack was incredible, I loved every original piece and radio song. I have several saved on Spotify, which is big praise coming from me! I very rarely listen to video game soundtracks.

V can adopt a cat! 🐈‍⬛ It was adorable, and Johnny’s interaction with it made me tear up!

The size of the map was good, not too big or too small. I got about 100 hours of play in by exploring, which is pretty good to me! I got lost a few times, but always found something interesting to do in the meanwhile. I loved the Badlands especially. 

Some of the side missions, particularly the more mysterious ones involving investigating deaths and the cyberpsychos, were very enjoyable! I’m a big slut for mystery, and there were some interesting cases to figure out. I wish we could’ve done missions like that with River, though, especially once he becomes a PI.

I was complaining about the lack of aliens in CP2077, but I suppose we did get a couple space themed missions which was pretty fun. I still want to go experience going into orbit, though. 👽 Or the moon!

Separating voice and body in the CC was a good idea, even if it was handled a little strangely. I’ll talk about this more in the ‘Cons’ section below!

Act 2 was my favorite part of the game, but it blended weirdly with Act 3 and that put me off. I am nostalgic for Act 1, but not eager to replay it because it felt so slow... I’m not sure on this point! I liked Act 2 because the story picked up and I was excited for more, but the more I got wasn’t as I expected. So, yes, Act 2 was good.

The scenery is very beautiful, and sometimes the outside lighting is absolutely perfect. The Arasaka parade mission was lovely to look at. I always stop the car and watch the sunrise/sunset, and I like going out to the Badlands to look at the stars!

An addition to that, is the lighting in some main quest missions. Very noir! It made for some beautiful screenshots. (Of which I sadly can’t share because my game doesn’t record well on medium settings. 😳)

The motorcycles are fun to drive! Mainly because I can zoom in between cars and Jackie’s motorcycle has a lot of sentimental value, as well as other vehicles like Johnny’s Porsche and Jake’s car. You can open the trunk to dump bodies in, which was a cool detail., and each one drives differently!

There could be amazing attention to detail, such as making Jackie look like his mother. I expected his mother to be a randomly generated NPC, but she was completely unique. It’s the minor things like that which stood out to me the most.

The scanner was a fun tool and very useful! I liked being able to find alternative ways to do a mission, it felt more realistic than the standard “massacre everybody, pick up an item and get out” fetch quests normally seen in RPGs. I could sneak in a tunnel or a side door! Perhaps irritating and unnecessary to some, but I liked it. I love utilising every possible option.

The interface color changes if you have Johnny controlling V’s body. Another small but good detail! The game is good with the minor details.

The sex scenes were not... awful. I expected much, much worse! I expected fully animated first person porn. Instead, I thought they were fairly realistic and intended to be romantic. Still very awkward, though, and unnecessary.

When they didn’t glitch, the animations were very good. Not as impressive as I hoped, probably because of glitches, but in line with other AAA games like Horizon Zero Dawn, I suppose? I noticed Judy’s animations in particular as being good, and Johnny had lots of unique ones too!

The clothing options are very fun, I like the holographic items and “Bitch” clothes, hehe. Also including Hijabs! 🧕 Great idea, and more games should do that.

The diversity of the NPCs was welcome. I enjoyed seeing Native American, Asian, Black and Latinx NPCs who weren’t there just to suffer! They would occupy important roles in the story, such as Fixers or friends/romance options for V, so they were pretty much unavoidable! It felt very natural, and they helped Night City feel more realistic.

Adding to that, the different cultures included were interesting too! I liked the Haitian characters in Pacifica.

The photo mode is pretty good. Not as good as I expected, the camera angle presets were useful but the filters weren’t very good. I liked that the photo mode could be used in cutscenes, though! It was standard, and I hope more bits will be added in for it.

A lot of the glitches are hilarious, but I recognise not all will share that opinion so I’m just adding this down here. The T-Posing NPCs are a highlight for me. Call that the Skyrim effect.

Cons:

No NB gender options/No pronoun options. Would they/them have been so difficult to implement?

No body or height sliders. There’s so many fat character’s in the game! Why can I not make my V fat? Or muscular?

Gender restrictive hairstyles and clothes. Come on, guys, it’s 2020/2077! Aren’t we beyond gender restrictive appearance options?

No tattoo parlours, no plastic surgeons and no hairstylists for V to change their appearance. I don’t understand why a CC was included at all, since we spent the majority of the game in first person. It reminded me of Far Cry.

The main story started off strong, albeit slow, picked up in Act 2, then felt very rushed in Act 3. The point of no return was very abrupt! 

The celebrity cameos felt very gimmicky. The one exception to this is Keanu Reeves, who did a very good job as Johnny. Genuinely brought tears to my eyes at times... but Grimes was just embarrassing! Why was she there! A talented VA could have done Lizzy Wizzy much better, giving her actual emotions instead of just monotone “boredom”.

I don’t know what the point of owning apartments is. You can only sleep in V’s bed, what is the point of looking in the mirror? V has no use for their terminal in their apartment, they never get any messages after the first time they meet Johnny. It was so unnecessary, especially when there’s several across the map. I can access the stash of weapons and clothes from my car! Why would I ever need to go home? Judy gives me her apartment and I’m like, girl, I’m never visiting unless you have a mission to give me.

Also, there are no penalties for not showering or sleeping. I wanted character’s to comment on that! Call me stinky or tell me I look exhausted!

V doing side missions makes no sense, and no explanation is given for why we can do them. Why would V, who is dying and has precious few days left to live, be driving for hours on end to deliver packages and shoot random criminals? When they could be figuring out how to survive the biochip! Who the hell would care about a some extra money or buying every available car for sale, when they’re dying of something that could be preventable?

Some side missions were either very poorly done or obviously majorly glitched, since it felt like they skipped important parts and I was often very confused at the end of them! For example, the Corpo V side mission was so short! I expected to be able to hunt down Abernathy and get revenge for V and Jenkins, but instead, I shoot some random assistant I don’t even remember? And that’s it? Done in 2 minutes! If that! What is the point of that? I didn’t even have fun! Also, what happened to Garry? I wanted to save him but V just never follows up on it.

And, I wish we got closure with T-Bug. The fact that V never bothers to find her body and give her a proper burial was just poor form. 

The endings were not... good. There are technically 6 different endings, all wrapped up into 3 parts. In my opinion, the best ending is the one where V kills themselves and has a very “Arthur Morgan watching his last sunset” vibe. It made me cry. Another good ending is having Johnny take over V’s body forever, as you can really see how much Johnny has changed as a person thanks to V’s influence. But they still felt very... eh and the story just never got that boost it needed, ending before it could take off. In the “best” ending, the Nomand ending with Panam, V ”survives” but has only another few months to live. So they die off screen. Satisfying? Uh, no. Not at all. There’s no possible ending where V has any hope of survival, but I much preferred being there with V until the very end. I disagree with the people calling Johnny’s ending the “bad” ending, because it really isn’t! I ignore all of this of course, and my V is living happily ever after.

I kind of hate that CP2077 has this illusion of options when some are clearly intended to be chosen more than others. Judy and Panam have the best endings in term of romance. Why bother with River and Kerry? Kerry is more of a fling than an actual romance, and is met very late in the game at a point where you can ignore him completely and just end the game, and River’s romance is so glitched that many people can’t even do it fully, and in every ending he dumps you, so it feels like none of it mattered to him despite him being the most “domestic” of the possible LI’s...

Takemura’s ending! He died in my playthrough, because the game didn’t tell me I could save him. That really annoyed me. Also, I recognise that V is in no place to lecture him, and there is some wisdom to his quote: “You speak against corporations yet offer no valid alternative.” But, Goro, bro... anything is better than fascist mega corporations keeping most of the city in absolute poverty, while waging devastating wars against other mega corporations? I wish we could have opened his eyes a little. There’s a good, even ground between Takemura believing Corps to be doing the best for humanity and Johnny being willing to kill 12k people for a revolution. This game went a little “capitalism is bad, but the alternative is worse!” at times, in my opinion. I wish more could have been done against the corporations, instead they just kind of... exist... in the background. And I know, “Realism! “ because we live with massive corporations like Amazon in our lives and can do fuck all about them but we’re not V. V is an absolute unit who survives death multiple times... I wish there had been two paths, like do Johnny’s path and work against the system or do Takemura’s path and work with the system? Sort of like The Witcher 2?

You know how in Saints Row, The Boss has homies they can call on for help? I wanted V to have homies to help them out in fights. It felt pointless building trust with the Fixers only to not have them help out at all with fights against the NCPD/Militech/Arasaka in their territories. 

The stealth mechanics are not good. They are funny! But not very good. Often, It’s better to just attack and save yourself the trouble of sneaking only to get caught by a guard who can see through the back of his head.

The fact that you cannot get arrested and have someone bust you out of jail. Maybe RDR2 set my expectations too high, but I thought this would have been included.

I’ve read about the cut content, and I’m really disappointed they weren’t included in the game. Wall running would have been amazing! And the police hiring mercs to hunt V down? I would have loved to see it! 😔

Driving cars is terrible. Just awful. Sometimes, you crash. Other times you’re flung up into the air and break through the sky into the void, spinning for all eternity.

River’s glitched romance deserves a special mention. The relationship just drops off suddenly and you cannot interact with him properly again. It does not affect the main story at all, so you wonder, what was the point? The text messages also glitch and V will sent messages that you can’t control, leading to disappointing dialogue, like with Joss.

The romances in general were just not all that impressive. I was expecting something great, considering there was only 4 and thought they’d really affect the main story, but I’d only recommend Panam and Judy. I would have played the game just as well without romances, and they felt very unnecessary but I wanted to do one to get the most possible story content. I think we should all leave romances in RPG’s as the exception, not the norm. Some studio’s can do them well, other’s cannot. CDPR cannot, in my opinion...

Obviously the many glitches and bugs, several of which are game breaking. I usually have to reload a save at least once an hour, because an NPC won’t talk to me or I can’t move the mouse to select different dialogue options! Or my gun won’t equip, so I die.

The AI in general is very bad. Sometimes cars will stop in the middle of junctions for no reason, causing you to crash or mount the sidewalk to get past, meaning you’ll likely run someone down and get a police warrant. NPCs just walk from one end of the road and back again, over and over on a loop. It’s very creepy!

The lighting, mostly inside buildings. Everything is pitch black! Why does V not own a flashlight? The amount of enemies I’ve barrelled into and alerted because I couldn’t see is too much.

The lack of dialogue choice, it was less interactive than what I’d been told to expect. There was only two or three options, with one only ever rarely being unique to one of V’s three possible background choices and most will yield the same results with a few exceptions, like avoiding combat.

V’s personality is already decided by the game, and is not really customisable. Do not expect full control over your V’s personality, as they are very much a canon character and exist outside of your (limited) choices. I didn’t expect Baldur's Gate 3 levels of customisation, but I did expect something more like Dragon Age 2’s dialogue wheel? Nice, Sarcasm and Angry? You know?

Obviously, the seizure inducing scenes were very dangerous. I get a headache whenever I have to do a braindance, and I wish it was skippable!

Accessibility as a whole is very much an afterthought in this game, I think. The subtitles are in “speaking English”, so instead of: Hey, how are you? It’s: Heyyy, how’re ya? It is often difficult to understand, and sometimes I just couldn’t work out what was being said.

It’s nitpicky but I wanted to do a pacifist route and I realised you can’t, you need to kill certain character’s... 

The main “villains” such as Yorinobu and Adam Smasher were very forgettable, and V had no personal stake in taking them out. I honestly forgot all about them. Takemura was talking about revenge and I’m like, who? Who are you talking about? Why are we kidnapping Hanako Arasaka, again? Johnny, why would I bother killing Adam Smasher? If they’d personally murdered Jackie, then yeah, I’d understand! But all V needs is to remove the chip and I don’t know... I just didn’t feel anything.

So, to summarise: I think CDPR were out of their depth. The long, very long, troubled development process was an indication of this before the game was even released, and the story I’ve experienced in the game is proof enough. I don’t think they knew what they wanted from this game, and as a result, we have a game that is honestly very confusing and frustrating with a story that always got close to gripping, but never quite makes it. All in all, I found this game to be pretty average. When the bugs are ironed out, I will think better of it. But as it stands, if I had to score it, I would give it a 6.5/10 or maybe 7/10. Good concept, somewhat misguided execution. The best part of the game was the Johnny/V dynamic, but I wasn’t satisfied with how it ended. They needed more time together! Anyway, it will be interesting to see what happens next. 

#cp77 spoilers #cp77 critical #cyberpunk 2077 #I’ve already been vagued about a few times for my CP2077 opinions so I expect more to happen now I’m posting this hehe

[themadauthorshatter]

This is EVERYTHING WRONG WITH/GREAT ABOUT RED SCHOOL BY SOMAN CHAINANI AND VICTORIA AVEYARD PART 2!!!!!!

If you haven't read part 1, the link is here:

MAJOR SPOILERS FOR RED SCHOOL PART 2!!!! We're hopping right into part 2 of the comic, so LET'S GO!!!

Picking up where we left off⚡

Exposition about the storian towards people who don't have magic⚡

Tedros and Cal look like they're standing the same way and it looks confusing. If this was a movie, Tedros is standing with his right side facing the camera. Either his foot his elevated or his foot is turned towards the camera. Either way, this stance is extra and is too dramatic for thiis situation.🖤

Uhm... If Tedros, Agatha, and Sophie mogrify into any animal at all, shouldn't they be able to turn into animals like phoenixes or dragons and CARRY Cal, Mare, and Maven? That way the Red Queen crew can safely get to the tower safely and they have more numbers.🖤

😑. Either the silvers are broadcasting this ball back to Norta for all to see or this blimp showed up out of nowhere. I want to say the former, but I did not see a camera crew and twenty Evergirls and Everboys crowding around the camera and waving because they want to be famous in the ballroom.🖤

The argument between Mare and Agatha is a great way to build tension. No one's really gpimg to be paying attention because they're going to try and form a plan so everyone gets from point A to point B. Plus, you try talking or expressing your ideas when two people are arguing. My mom and my aunt are damn near impossible to talk over or calm in a fight⚡

Is that RED blood coming off Evangeline's lip? Did she bite someone or did someone forget she's a slperson with SILVER BLOOD?⚡/🖤

Self sacrifice. Seriously, this part hurt more than it should have, and I read this AFTER reading War Storm while we could go to school.⚡

I don't know whether or not Cal and Tedros would have survived this fall, but the fog takes them over so they could be fine. I say I don't know because the fall isn't TOO far down, but in another panel, the blimp is TOO high to survive, but that can be perspective. Either way, these two SOMEHOW survive this fall🖤

The scene of Mare revealing her blood to Agatha and Agatha's response is... underwhelming. Really, the main plot of Red Queen is that Mare needs to hide in plain sight or she, her family, and anyone else suspicious will die. The only discrimination or segregation Agatha has to deal with is bring an outcast, or a witch as everyone likes to call her, and being picked on for "being in the wrong school," which is not the case. Don't get me wrong, bullying and being ostracized are not okay, all the same that is not the same as being pushed down by a higher class or forced to work or go fight a war that shouldn't be your problem in the first place.🖤

Even the STYMPHS are taken over? IS THERE NO MERCY FOR ANYONE!?⚡

That'll teach you to be careful with your words⚡

Sophie: Best driver ever. 10/10⚡

Super hero pose⚡ +2 for the SGE trio and Red Queen trio going toe to toe with the SGE trio.⚡⚡

Going back to the points of the who our baddy is, once you really break it down, it's not that hard to figure out. Some characters disappear and then reappear somewhere else, either as fodder, background characters, or zombies. We saw Elara once when she was normal, and then she disappeared. Here she is now in the School Master's tower with the storian.🖤

I will admit that it was a great idea to have Elara be our villain. She was one of the main villains in Mare's story and only wanted the throne, even when she was a king's wife and close enough to the crown in order to manipulate the person WEARING the crown.⚡

The emotion in Maven when he sees his mother IS the reason for the fog is just sad. Anyone who's read the Red Queen series will know how Elara treated Maven and what kind of scars she left on him, taking out what wasn't "perfect" in her eyes and replacing those pieces with whatever helped him to surpass Cal. Their relationship was extremely problematic, to say the least, but there is some serious sorrow on his face at the thought of hurting or potentially killing her. There's pain and maybe some hate in abuse, but there is still love for the abuser FROM THE ABUSEE. My sister's boyfriend came from an abusive relationship with his mother and he still talks to her because he loves her.⚡

Okay. Evil Dovey is kind of scary.⚡

Credit where credit's due. Dovey does not stay down, even after that hit from Agatha⚡

Self sacrifice ⚡

Elara's fast for a possessed woman⚡

Oooh, the whispers controlling Agatha. Tragedy points because Mare can't just HURT Agatha⚡

OKAY. Maybe it's because her whispers aren't as strong because she's not herself. Maybe it's Agatha's will power, but her self esteem and self worth are questionable. All the same, it was TOO damn easy fpr Mare to pull Agatha out of those whispers!!🖤

ALSO, why is there always a stomp on the fingers or hand when a character's hanging or on the ground? This is a legit question, why is that a trope in everything I see!? Is it like salt on the wound? Insult to injury!? Idk, someone PLEASE tell me because I'm confused and it's driving me barking mad!!!!🖤

I will admit I did not see Mare grabbing the storian and saving herself. Clever, Mare. Clever⚡

Hugging⚡

The red spirit/fog that leaves Elara is so telling. Thw School Master WE'VE been seeing is not the same School Master as the SGE series. Way to make this seriously deviate from the original books⚡

Well. Earned. Comeuppance. I will never forget Chapter 21 of Red Queen or the chapters prior.⚡

I am so glad to see everyone go back to normal. Really, just helps me breathe now.⚡

Not joking: this was me during this scene with Elara facing the king and School Master⚡/🖤:

>LAUGHTER<😂 I'm so sorry!!! I keep hearing Edna from The Incredibles saying, "EXPLAIN YOURSELF!" and Elara responds in Vincent Price's voice from narrating Tim Burton's Vincent, "I'm being possessed." ⚡

Also, Tibe, KEEP THOSE MANACLES ON HER. DO NOT LET HER TAKE THEM OFF. YOU WILL LIVE LONGER IF YOU DO.⚡/🖤

Okay. So we saw RAFAL in spirit and the School Master we've been following is his brother Rhian. This is technically a timeline where either Evil has a winning streak or bith sides are equal. ... 😑I want a series of THAT now. Same characters, same events, but both schools now more competitive than ever to see who gets to next win in their fairytale.🖤

I'm on the fence now with the resolution of this situation. True Elara is getting off with nothing but a scolding and a slap on the wrist(especially for what she does in the Red Queen series), but at the same time, SHE WAS POSSESSED BY AN EVIL SPIRIT. She probably didn't have a lot of control over her actions. There's a debate that's going to happen now, and I don't know if I can participate because I'm on the fence. ... I hate fence sitting😑 ⚡/🖤

Love. Granted it's probably going to toxic and they're going to fight a lot, but who knows? Maven can teach Sophie how to be Good AND Evil, and Sophie can TRY to help Maven. ⚡

I know it's technically an AU, but I'm still mad good boy Maven is not with Mare.🖤

If Tedros was a little bit older, his and Cal's ship name would be/is either Gold Blood or Fire and Gold. ⚡

Again, IF TEDROS WAS OLDER🖤

This isn't tied up with a neat and tidy bow. There's a chance Rafal can come back. The world and school are still in danger. THE LAST PAGE DOESN'T EVEN HAVE A "THE END." JUST "THE EN." 🖤

... Oh, well. I still had fun reading this. Thank you so much to Soman Chainani and Victoria Aveyard for doing this for your fans!!!😃😁😃😁😃😁😃😁😃😁⚡⚡⚡💛💛💛❤💛❤💛❤💛❤💛

MAN, I had fun with this!! A little on the nose, but hey, this is a tumblr post, not a video.

I really hope you guys liked this, I had a great time writing it!! I know some of the sins are harsh, but I still really like this comic and what it had to offer.

It came out while I was in a really bad place, both physically and mentally, and it was one of the things that got me through it. Sorry if that sounds bad, I promise there's more I value and look forward to in life than some books😅

Thank you again for reading, wtay safe durimg this time, AND HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!!!

#red school #red queen #school for good and evil #cinemasins #cinemawins #parody post #everything wrong with #everything great about #swearing tw #SPOILERS

[glimmerglanger]

I love your fics so much! I started reading your wonderful Thor/Loki stories and then I read AGAPTFAA even though I was not a Star Wars fan just because I think your writing is so great! All of the Obikin fic that I've read since (which is a lot) is because of you, and your new mirror!verse story was so good! If you're still open to writing more snippets, would you maybe consider writing some kind of dream/force vision that allows them to briefly reunite from their respective universes? (1/2)

Anonymous said:

(2/2) I just think it would be nice if they could clear up their misunderstandings (especially that prime!Obi-wan actually does love Anakin back, and that mirror!Anakin would never have actually chosen Palpatine over Obi-wan) and to know that their mirrors ended up happily. Or maybe they could have a foursome to compare/give each other tips? Just, yanno, either way... ;) Thanks again for sharing your work! I look forward to reading and re-reading everything that you post!

Anonymous said:

Good lord your mirror continuations had me swooning. They were so hot, and so emotional. If at all you’re writing more in the verse I think it could be cool to see something from Obi-Wan Prime’s perspective now that he has his Anakin back, and they’re together. How is he coping with finally getting the life he wants (and the non-stop sex lets be real)?

:DDD!!! I’m always so delighted to hear more people are getting into obikin! :DDD! Thank you so much, these two prompts seemed to fit together for me, in a way that is not as steamy as the previous follow-ups have been. (They can’t be going at it ALL the time, I suppose.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The destruction of the lower levels of the Temple left behind a lot of clean-up work. Sometimes, it seemed as though they’d never stop shifting through the rubble. The work went slowly, painstakingly, even with many of the troopers volunteering to help; they’d been released from their service, shortly after Palpatine’s death, and finding places for them all to go was also proving to be a time-consuming process, but…

But it felt right to be doing it, to helping them find places to go, giving them the opportunities they deserved to build lives for themselves.

So many had decided to stay, lingering around the Temple, assisting with the work. It was one of Obi-Wan’s men - one of the troopers who had been his men - who discovered the strange spheres, each roughly big enough to be held in the palm of the hand, terribly cold.

There was an entire pile of the things, buried in the rubble. “Thought you’d want to know about them, Sir,” Gripper said, ignoring all instructions that he did not have to call Obi-Wan “sir” anymore. “They give me a bad feeling.”

Obi-Wan looked at them, felt a chill down his back, and said, “Good job.”

#

The Council catalogued the spheres, as they’d cataloged so much else they’d pulled out of the rubble. There were things down there they’d never even contemplated, many of them unnerving and radiating the power of the Dark.

Obi-Wan walked past the halls where they were trying to clean the items, or at least remove the dangers they posed, and shuddered each time.

He left the spheres with the Masters in those halls, nodded his greetings to them, and made his way back to his quarters, to find---

Anakin, stepping out of the fresher, wearing nothing but a towel slung around his waist, looking up to say, “Obi-Wan! There you are, I was about to come looking for you.”

“No need for that,” Obi-Wan said, managing a tired smile. He ached all over, and raised an eyebrow when Anakin moved towards him, drawing him close despite Obi-Wan’s protests that he was filthy, still.

“It’s alright,” Anakin said, shifting to brush a kiss across his mouth, “I’ll hop in the shower with you again.”

“Oh, will you?” Obi-Wan asked, knowing very well that their freshers barely held one person. “I’m not entirely sure you’ll fit.”

Anakin hooked fingers into his belt, took a step back, and tugged him along. “I’ll fit,” he said, smirking. “Don’t you remember?” Obi-Wan snorted a laugh at him, and shivered when Anakin helped peel off his robes, when he was urged under the spray, water slicking across his skin, and it turned out that there was just enough space for Anakin to push him against the tiled wall.

He panted, palms sliding across the wet tiles, as Anakin put hands on his hips and tilted him just so and his day had been long and stressful, but. But it ended quite nicely, for all of that. He wasn’t thinking of the spheres at all, by the time they collapsed onto their bunk and fell into dreams.

#

In fact, Obi-Wan didn’t think about the spheres again at all for days. 

Not until he woke up one night, feeling cold and out-of-sorts, and found Anakin standing in the middle of their quarters, holding one, a blank look on his face.

Obi-Wan sat up, heart thrumming along all at once. He said, rising from the sheets - which were cold, Anakin had been gone for some time, “Anakin?”

He received no answer, none at all, as he crossed the room on silent feet. He shivered in the cool air of their room, curling across his bare skin. Anakin had, at least, put on some clothing. That was a cold comfort as Obi-Wan got a look at his empty eyes and flat expression.

“Anakin?” he asked again, reaching out to touch him, finding him tensed but unmoving. “Can you hear me?” He got no response, and swallowed, reaching for a comm that he no longer wore even when asleep. It rested back on the nightstand.

Obi-Wan would grab it in a moment. First, he reached out, intending to take the sphere away from Anakin. He curled his hands around it, and--

--and the world changed. 

#

Obi-Wan blinked into a brightly lit space. It was huge and airy. He could smell the sea, he thought. Birdsong filled the air. He blinked, and a very, very familiar voice said, “Ah, there you are.We were wondering when you would join us.”

Obi-Wan looked over towards his own voice, or a version of his own voice, anyway, and found… a man who looked very much like him, with longer hair and no beard, wearing a very fine robe of dark blue. It veed open most of the way down his chest.

He was seated at a large round table in the center of the strange chamber where Obi-Wan had ended up. There were a half-dozen chairs around it; they appeared to be carved of a pale wood. Beside the other Obi-Wan was… Shadow. He was bare-chested or, no, Obi-Wan realized after a moment, he was completely naked.

Then again, Obi-Wan could not begrudge him that. He was very aware of the chill on his skin, and of his Anakin, crossing towards him and peeling off his tunic as he came. Anakin said, “Here, put this on,” and proceeded to wrap the fabric around Obi-Wan’s waist, casting a dark look over his shoulder, towards Shadow. 

“What’s going on?” Obi-Wan asked, around Anakin’s shoulder. “Where are we?”

His double shrugged. “We don’t know. Am I right in supposing that you, perhaps, touched a device of some kind? Small and round?”

Obi-Wan could feel a headache building in the back of his skull. “We did,” he said, sighing. “Wonderful.” He frowned over at Anakin. “Why did you pick it up, anyway?”

He shrugged, stil scowling at his double. “I don’t even remember doing it.”

Obi-Wan sighed. “Even better,” his double said.

#

Obi-Wan hoped, vaguely, that they would be thrown out of the strange meeting space as abruptly as they’d arrived. Unfortunately, that seemed not to be. Time passed, without any sign of change to their surroundings. The level of light remained consistent, the bird song repeated. 

There seemed to be no way out of the chamber. The windows were not large enough to permit them to exit and there were no doors. Nor was there any food or drink. Only the table and the chairs.

Obi-Wan wandered over to one of the windows, eventually, listening to the Anakins argue with one another across the room. He braced a hand on the wall, frowning out over distant waves far below, trying to figure out a way out of this room, back to their bodies. A chill stole across his skin, after a moment, and he looked up in time to find his double approaching.

It was strange to see golden eyes in his own face. It was a nightmare he’d had, more than once. He’d been able to imagine what it would be like, to fall to the Dark. He’d expected something… besides this man before him, who looked him up and down before saying, “So, I suppose he took what he wanted then, finally.”

Obi-Wan looked down at his own body, suddenly very aware of the evidence of...the previous night’s activities. He said, raising his chin, “What?”

“Your Anakin,” his double said, leaning a shoulder against the wall, gazing out through the window. “You’re welcome, by the way. I told him he ought to, but he was so convinced you didn’t love him.” He snorted.

Obi-Wan swallowed, looking to the side, setting aside the urge to bristle. He said, “I’ve loved him, one way or another, for as long as I can remember.”

“I know.” His double’s voice had grown softer, fond, almost. He smiled across at Obi-Wan, and there were things Obi-Wan wanted to ask him, questions about - about what it felt like to give in to those Dark urges that tickled at the back of Obi-Wan’s mind, but…

But he wasn’t sure he wanted the answers. He looked away, instead, at the same moment his double did. And said, at the same time. “Does your Anakin--”

They looked back at one another. Some sharp amusement blossomed in Obi-Wan’s chest when he said, in echo with his double,”With his--? When he?” They both nodded, and Obi-Wan snorted a laugh, his double finishing, “I thought so.”

Obi-Wan glanced away, across at Anakin and Shadow, who were gesturing around. They appeared to be mimicking lightsaber strikes. “What do you think they’re talking about?” he asked, and his double shrugged.

“Shall we find out?”

#

It turned out that they were discussing the fall of their respective Emperors. “Ah,” Obi-Wan said, catching the end of the conversation and nodding at Shadow, a greeting just for the two of them, “so you were strong enough, then, after all?”

Shadow flashed him that sharp smile of his, the one Anakin never quite wore. “He was a fool,” he said. “Let me walk right up to him. I don’t know what he was thinking.”

Obi-Wan’s double hummed, one eyebrow arching, “Likely that you’d desire ruling at his side.”

“Why rule at his,” Shadow said, gaze on Obi-Wan’s double, expression shifting as though he’d shut out all others in the room, “when I could rule at yours?”

Obi-Wan looked away, catching Anakin’s eye and then his arm, pulling him to the side a bit. Their doubles seemed… preoccupied, for the moment.

#

“So, you’re really Emperor now, huh,” Anakin said, sometime later. They’d ended up seated in a rough circle near one wall, the sea breeze blowing across them. Neither hunger nor thirst seemed to exist in this place, nor exhaustion. They just… continued.

“I am,” Obi-Wan’s double said. He was absently carding fingers through Shadow’s hair, Shadow’s head resting in his lap. Obi-Wan’s fingers itched with the desire to do the same, but Anakin was leaning against the wall beside him and he was - honestly - not sure if that were… permitted between them.

They were still learning one another, in so many ways. Anakin had trusted him enough to ask him for help when his nightmares returned, but…

“And the…” Anakin hesitated, looking to one side. “The rebels. How’s that situation going?”

Obi-Wan’s double shrugged. “Progress is being made,” he said, mouth quirking up quickly. “The friend you spoke of, Amidala, she’s quite outspoken.”

“That’s one word for her,” Shadow grumbled, and Obi-Wan’s double smiled down at him, such open fondness in the expression that it made Obi-Wan ache inside his chest. Shadow turned his head to the side and asked, “What about you, the war all over? You’re safe?”

Obi-Wan nodded as Anakin reached out and took his hand. “Yes,” he said. “It appears we are.” He shifted, stretching one leg out, and said, “Do you believe--”

He never got to finish the question. The world shimmered, all at once, as though he were about to lose consciousness. When it solidified again, a moment later, he was in his quarters at the Temple, swaying on his feet.

“--eral?” a familiar voice was asking. There were hands on his shoulders, shaking him. He blinked across at Cody’s concerned expression. “You alright?”

“Yes,” Obi-Wan said, shaking his head to try to bring sense back into it. He felt dizzy and exhausted. Across the floor, all around him, were shattered shards of stone. Anakin swayed next to him, and Obi-Wan reached out to grab him, ignoring, for the moment, the many Jedi and troopers jammed into the small space. “What happened?”

“We don’t know,” Master Unduli said, stepping up from the side. Someone had, Obi-Wan noticed with relief, draped a robe around his shoulders, so at least he was not naked. “We found you both in here, touching some kind of sphere. We could not get you to release it, so…”

She glanced towards Cody, who shrugged. “So we shot it, sir.”

“Good thinking,” Anakin said, and Obi-Wan snorted a laugh, thinking about meeting his double, about another life neither of them would live, and shaking his head.

#glimmer replies #my fic #mirror au #ask me anything #v low spicy level

[twitchesandstitches]

Voraciously Loving Raven Comm

Commission for a friend, who asked for something with a huge punky Raven with a massive butt affectionately gobbling up Starfire after already filling up on some criminals!

Featuring extreme size difference, Raven as a bottom-heavy dumptruck-type and Starfire as a (proportionately smaller) amazon, safe vore for Starfire, regular vore for the criminal prey, extreme amounts of piercings.

------

The gigantic figure of the superheroine Raven drifted up from the beachfront property of Jump City, carrying a considerable reduction in the city’s plummeting violent crime rates. Magic poured out around her and crystallized into the physical form of black pseudo-fluid, so that she flew freely, towards home. Magic gushed out from it, telekinesis buoying her upwards so that she actually flew. To a massive tower shaped like the letter T, she went, floating into an open balcony and dropping down with a nasty thud like a truck slamming down.

It had been many years since Raven had begun her career as a superheroine. The image of her as a small and slender young lady was very outdated.

The embers of magic around her body fluttered like a cloud of black feathers caught in an updraft and winked out. It seemed they’d been supporting her whole body, as she sank even deeper to the floor, tiles cracking around her immense weight; unconcerned, she walked onwards.

The building was the T-Tower; both headquarters and residence of the superhero team called the Teen Titans, though the name was rather inaccurate given that now all of them were over twenty. It was built to resist the constant villain attacks it had suffered in older days, but it hadn’t accounted for Raven’s physical power: as she walked down, the floors creaked in protest, her heels making tiles shatter when she stepped down too hard. She did her best not to, wobbling with an ungainly stride, her body now so large and her hips so wide that they touched both ends of a hallway even while she walked in the middle of it.

She came into a sideroom where someone was waiting for her. Raven’s belly preceded her into the room, greatly distended by the mass of today’s meals, and she was only marginally aware of anything but the rapturous pleasures of digestion. Certainly she didn’t notice the glowing green eyes of someone floating near the ceiling, watching her adoringly.

Raven seemed distracted, perhaps by the huge belly that preceded her into the room, or the pleasures of her digesting meals; her sexual appetites had grown intertwined with her physical hungers, and few things were as pleasing to her as feeling things melt inside her. Her digestive processes were loud, the gurgling of various internal chambers mixing with the wet and pulsing shifting of her gut, and yet it was strangely soothing all the same.

Raven waddled, her head almost rising clear to the ceiling, more than three times taller than a normal human and impossibly wide for her height too; her hips especially had so much girth that it affected the way she moved, wobbling about in a clumsy pseudo-gait that was honestly rather cute. It might have just been her not being used to walking with heels, or that between her massive breasts, her huge gut, and her enormous hips, she had multiple centers of gravity conflicting against each other and unsteadying her all over.

In all honesty, and perhaps especially from the perspective of the woman watching the giant stride through, it was awe-inspiring watching her move. The woman was massive, easily standing fifteen feet tall at least without heels; a nearby counter rose somewhere around the level of her plump knees, and she was broader across at the torso than most doors were wide. For the most part her body would have been considered amazonian (tall, broad shouldered, and her hips the single largest part of her, all tending towards a heavier build), but even a side glance at the sheer amount of wobble in even the slightest movement made her extremely soft and well-fed body a fairly obvious sight.

From the impact she’d made, it was clear she weighed over four metric tons; more than a couple of trucks, and much of it from her bones being far denser and heavier than a human’s would be. The rest of it was from her girthy frame, and certainly a lot came from her breasts, and they were so large they defined a huge chunk of her entire silhouette, sticking out from her body by several feet, and spreading out sideways too.

In normal circumstances, those breasts would have spanned from throat to navel. But her belly was huge, a round and jiggly mass that served as a support platform for her breasts, propping them up nearly to the level of her shoulders, while the round slopes of that belly dipped past her groin, resting against thighs so big that several people could have been lost between them.

And there were bulges against the skin. They looked distinctively human-shaped; a lump that may have been a hand pressing for grip, perhaps. A more angular swelling where someone’s leg was pushed out. All of them were in constant motion, her gut twisted and heaving with muscular action mashing up her meals with demonically-enhanced digestive fluids, and if you listened close, you might hear faint words or shouting from inside her, mostly muffled by by thick flesh and the loud roars of her digestion.

As she walked, she placed her hand on her gut. Something in there moved against her, scrabbling desperately against her, and she cooed with very loud and obvious pleasure, a faint blush on her rounded gray face, her lips smacking with an echoing pop. Other feelings were stirring, the pleasures of digestion mixing into other pleasures, and on reflex she slammed her massive thighs together, both rows of eyes closing as she imagined someone pinned between them just as her foot got goopy…

Daydreaming to herself, she walked onwards, and the unseen watcher took her in with a faint sigh.

Raven’s hips moved in an unstoppable and patient sway with her every movement, a good portion of her overall weight contributed by them. They were wider than she was tall (and given that she was at least fifteen feet tall, this made them capable of swallowing up cars if she sat on one). Even with her coat designed to flow over them, it didn’t do much to conceal that her pants were but remnants, her enormously chunky thighs ripping through the fabric and leaving behind only enough to resemble panties at a distance. Actual panties were visibly stretched across her hips, soft and lacey things that had probably once been a rather cute and modest design until the pressure of her hips had stretched them into a distended psuedo-thong.

She moved carefully, her hips and thighs so much larger than the rest of her that she looked like a ship buoyed on a swelling tidal wave; they were so broad that she couldn’t really move her thighs apart. They touched, regardless of how wide she tried to spread her legs. And those thighs were massive; they weren’t toned in the slightest, more like chunky saddlebags carried on her body; rather than the smooth and firm bubbly thighs expected from more active heroines, Raven’s thighs looked exactly as heavy as they actually were. They didn’t wobble so much as had their own ponderous tides, and to place a hand in them would certainly get that hand sunk in deep, but there was no telling if you’d actually hit muscle before you ran out of arm to keep sticking in.

This was easier to appreciate given that, in the fashion of pantyhose, she’d worn chain-nets (which were like fishnets, but a lot more badass); heavy metal links, small but strong enough to support her enormous thighs and give them some more defined shape. Her thighs were simply too heavy without more architectural support, though, and many of the links had surrendered to the tide of flesh and busted straight off, leaving big gaps where her thighs bulged out. In any case, the chainnets sank deeply into her thighs, causing a lot of x-shaped patterns and chunks of thigh pushing out like cookie dough through a cutter.

She wore knee-high boots, of the kind that wouldn’t go amiss at a revolutionary punk rally or perhaps a biker gang greatly concerned with style. Her thighs bulged up hugely around them, fitting into them a bit like an unusually fat cat trying to force itself into a tube a third it’s size; they fit, alright, but there was a lot overflowing it. Rounded bulges swelled out from pretty much every direction, shaking heavily with particularly strong steps and motions, and the sight of it would put a speculative thinker in mind of muffins.

Those boots (imposing and made of black leather, the metal caps resembling a fearsome beak) probably contributed to her walking difficulties. They were high heeled elevator boots, the heels tall enough to raise her height by half a foot, and given how much smaller her calves and feet were, it was putting over four metric tons of weight into some proportionately very small areas; with the spike of her high heels, no wonder her steps were breaking up floors.

Her butt was very big; not as large or deep as her hips and thighs might suggest, and it was dwarfed by them, but it was still very big. The watcher noted this with some great interest, her red hair curling around her more excitedly as she drank in the sight.

The gargantuan mass was obvious even through the massive leather coat she wore; it was a magnificent affair, a hooded trench coat of dark leather and a feathered mantle across the shoulders and back all the way to the bottom, so that she rustled faintly as she walked cautiously around.

It was a lovely coat, a physical paragon of punk aesthetic given a very stylish form. Over a dozen spike piercings extended through special holes, the sleeves brimmed with the mystical runes of Raven’s mysterious home realm, and the front of it was specially adapted for someone who had a chest that would pose a normal threat to any normal coat or shirt (or hadn’t been modified to hide bean bag chairs, for whatever reason). People could hide underneath it, clinging to her legs and vanishing beneath its purple folds (and probably into her thighs), and it was every bit as dramatic as the cape she’d worn as a younger woman.

Even so, while it was incredibly thick and perfectly capable of functioning as actual body armor, it did very little to conceal her butt; it was just large enough to render that a moot point, even if the thighs’ swell was more notable. The watcher in the dark looking on lovingly, her own hands clenching as if longing to sink them into that massive, glorious backside.

Raven raised her hands to the hood hung low over her head, shaped to give the distinctive silhouette of a raven’s beak. The hands were soft and pudgy, not so much fat as just rather big, the nails longer and thicker than a normal human’s, black nail polish outlining something more like claws. The fingers didn’t wear rings as much as they were encrusted with them; gold, bronze, silver and more, locking together in a shining carapace, some with spikes, some with befanged monster designs, some linked together with chains. With a deft motion and a faint scratching sound, she flipped her hood off.

Purple hair fluttered, cut fairly short. It might have been careful styling that made them resemble feathers; possibly not. She had not just the usual pair of eyes, but two rows, stacked above the other, and both sets glowed a faint and inhuman red as her eyes adjusted to the light, and the woman waiting for her in the dark studied the fine details of Raven’s face, taking in the softness of cheeks filled out with years and calorie-rich meals, all her eyes gently curved and half lidded with her satisfaction.

There were also the piercings, the studs, and the jewelry. Over the years, as Raven’s control over the emotionally-influenced aspects of her powers had gotten better, she’d felt more comfortable with expressing her taste in fashion, drifting from gothic vibes to genuinely punkish looks. Raven wasn’t just a punk now; she was the counter-cultural paragon of shock and awe, and she was covered in so many piercings that she was genuinely nervous around magnets.

Her thin eyebrows were a clustered mass of glittering studded chunks of metal, curling ladders of rings linked together by small chains, and more of those chains linked to the masses of elaborate rings in her ears, curling underneath her short hair. Her nose glittered from every angle with the studs and piercings set into it. Her lips were very heavily piercings, with a wide assortment of rings and studs of various sizes, and right on her lower lip, there was a ring piercing that was far too small for her, her lip bulging around it and folding over it as she worked her mouth about. It was fair to say she had dozens more piercings all over her body, unseen but still suggested by her tight clothing. Some in very intimate places indeed!

She paused a moment, and an enormous red chakra gem upon her forehead glowed faintly. It was easily as big as her fist (which was entirely capable of swallowing someone’s arm with a faint grip), and covered most of her forehead. From it, many pounds worth of intricate jewelry fanned out, fabrics and gossamery metals fluttering around her face, and the regal assemblage gave her face the faint impression that she was wearing a very splendid veil.

Raven smiled faintly, and then seized up; she clapped a hand to her mouth, the clanking of rings not enough to stifle a rich burp that had its own force; the onlooker nearly was knocked into a wall and had to float back up, and Raven’s massive belly rumbled, several distinctly human-shaped bodies shifting desperately until her stomach churned them into obedient stillness. The constant digestive rumblings from her gut, already serving as a soporific theme around her, grew loud enough to drown out voices if there’d been any then.

She certainly enjoyed the sensations; placing her hands on her heavy belly, Raven moaned in soft pleasure, rubbing her hands over a few distinctive bulges where her meals pressed against her stomach wall; it just felt so good feeling them move, and she felt massively lusty, feeling them slowly digesting and melting away into her body, becoming part of her…

Raven smacked enormous lips nearly as thick across as her hands were wide. Dark purple lipstick gleamed softly with a faint metallic shine, contrasting sharply against the gray of her face, a fact that the onlooker never failed to be intrigued by.

In fact, the onlooker drifted a bit closer, seemingly unable to keep herself away from Raven’s immediate presence, and knocked over a small table with a muscular leg drifting too low.

The human response to an unexpected noise in the dark would have been surprise. A little bit of fear, even. But Raven was not entirely human, and operated on a different set of instincts. She did not flee, she would always charge, and that had been true even before her indulgences and growing gluttony

Raven launched herself across the room, catching the mystery figure with her hand wrapping around its face and a cloud of hair. It didn’t seem that someone so big should move so fast, but her telekinetic powers gave her a turn of speed like a cannon firing, and her thighs were mostly bulky with fat, but there was a lot of muscle there. More than twice as big around as her entire body, folds dipping above her knees and chainnets dipping deep into them.

Raven’s mouth worked, her jaws distending inhumanly wide, enough to swallow multiple people whole, and then she worked them into a more human configuration. “How dare you-” She stopped, the sudden surge of rage and the various hungers that were now always at the forefront of her mind draining away into a soft warmth. “Starfire!?”

The woman now pinned against a wall by Raven looked positively delighted to have that massive writing gut pressing against her; her skin glowed faintly with an orange-red light, her eyes pools of soft green, and her hair a massive mane of red curls that looked very much like a living flame. She stared up into Raven’s eyes adoring, her face flushed and her gaze doing its best to be respectful.

Raven stepped back, pressing her fingers together apologetically and Starfire stood up. She looked tiny compared to Raven, her head somewhere around her waist, but most people came up far shorter than that. Starfire was genuinely a very large woman, a muscular and buff amazon who would have been imposingly gigantic compared to anyone but Raven. But then, even seven feet’s worth of massive breasts, big muscles, and raw sexual magnetism still fell short compared to Raven.

Raven’s entire persona shifted instantly; from an enraged and inhuman threat she shifted gears into something a lot cuter. In an awkward stagger, she took a tottering step back and struggled not to trip on her heels, or get dragged to one side or another by the weight of her jiggling thighs. “Oh… I’m sorry…” She mumbled, looking carefully down at her enormously swollen breasts, apparently very interested in the sloshing sound of their milk.

“It’s not your fault, dear friend!” Under her own power, and buoyed by the delight Raven always woke up in her, Starfire flew up into the air. She’d taken to wearing something like the traditional battle armor of her people, and it emphasize the massive swell of her hips, the bulky muscles of thighs broader than her torso, and served as ample support for breasts more than several feet across; the solar energy she absorbed tended to be absorbed directly into her body, making her larger and stronger as she’d mature.

Starfire kissed Raven softly on her gem, her lips brushing deeply against both gem and skin. Raven’s blush got a lot brighter, and her fingers twiddled more fervently. Starfire drifted lower, about half a head’s height, and this time their lips met.

For a moment, Starfire simply kissed her, taking the lead. Her body lovingly met Raven’s again, her breasts docking atop Raven’s far larger pair and sinking in, a slosh of maternal liquid from beneath her. Starfire deepened the kiss, her stomach sliding into the bed of cleavage beneath her, her thighs sliding against her stomach so that she was finally resting entirely on Raven, and kissing her with the kind of passion she put into everything she did.

Raven was not used to passion, or being able to be so… direct. She could do so now, more or less safely, but she always needed a route there, a little bit of encouragement. Here and now, Starfire gave her what she needed, and slowly she carefully took hold of the much smaller women, cradling her, and kissed her back.

She could feel her meals digesting, the slow churn of her stomachs processing them into biomass grist, and it played with other appetites; her hunger and her sexual lusts seemed intertwined now, one and the same. Being horny made her hungry, and vice versa, and now she was feeling ravenous.

She kissed Starfire, first with timid and fluttery little assays at affection. As these were recieved with greater enthusiasm, Raven got a little bolder, kissing her more intensely until Starfire grew into a more passive figure, simply enjoying Raven’s attentions. This encouraged Raven, making her more fierce, until her massive lips were mashing against Starfire’s face and her jaws extending, reshaping and flexing so that her lips were sliding over her entire head. She wasn’t aware of herself doing it, but she simply wanted it, and as much of Starfire as she possibly could.

She deepened the kiss. Her tongue, an enormous and heavily pierced inhuman length, filled up Starfire’s mouth. Inside Raven’s mouth, Starfire’s cheeks bulged with the weight of a tongue thick around as her own arm. It kept sliding down her throat, and now Starfire’s throat swelled up massively, distending out like a frog in mid-ribbit, and for Starfire, it wasn’t enough; she sucked on the wet slab, her thighs sliding against each other longingly as dozens of studs and ladder-piercings pressed into Starfire’s expansive throat with a delicious friction.

They continued like this, moaning and panting lovingly into one another, and soon the passion abated, and Raven reluctantly withdrew her tongue and opened her mouth, allowing Starfire to emerge, her face and hair sopping wet.

Her eyes glowed with desire and adoration. Starfire said nothing at first and just hugged her tightly with all the strength capable of crushing a car with a single figure. Raven squeaked as droplets of milk threatened to soak her shirt, but she allowed Starfire to keep doing it. She just had to indulge her.

Starfire rubbed Raven’s full belly with her thighs, flexing her body against it in an exploring way, and smiled knowingly as she felt the people moving in there. “Ah… you filled up on criminals, lover Raven!”

Raven blushed, looking around awkwardly. It was an open secret among her friends that Raven wanted, or perhaps needed, to devour people; it was her greatest vice, and her greatest pleasure, and perhaps in some ways she needed to do it to survive. Her entire body was engorged with the mass absorbed from her villainous prey, and over the years, their entire rogues’ gallery had become inches on her body and frame. Doctor Light, the Brotherhood of Evil and the various monstrous servants of more fearsome foes had all long since been melted down, their consciousnesses extracted and subjected to harmless lives and serving out their sentences.

Nowadays, more ordinary criminals satisfied her cravings. Purse snatchers, would be muggers, people who refused to move aside for pedestrians… Raven would simply open her mouth on patrol and inhale, or knock them down and swallow them in a single gulp, or pull them in with shadowy tentacles from her mouth. And nothing, nothing, made Raven more pleased than feeling people inside her, squirming and wriggling.

It didn’t have to involve digestion, either.

Starfire leaned forward, kissing her again, but chastely. Affection, without physical desire.

“I’m, um. Not completely full,” Raven said, sheepishly, but desire for her smaller lover compelling her to say it.

Starfire tilted her head. “Oh?”

Raven couldn’t help but smile. “How close do you want to be to me?”

“As close as possible!” Starfire hugged her tightly.

“How about… inside me?”

Starfire looked up at her, blinking, and squealed with delight. “Oh, absolutely, Raven! At once, if you can!”

Raven smiled, her body trembling in expectation and anticipation, and some urge for predatory behavior mingled with genuine affection and desire, and she couldn’t hold it back any longer. “All, all right!” Her head ducked, kissing Starfire again.

The warmth bloomed, between them, a hot flash where their lips met. Starfire clung to her, a wide but tight hug, her body beginning to sink into Raven’s fat body.

Raven’s jaws widened, slackening just enough. Starfire purred with expectation, wiggling her face into the wet hotness pressing on her, as that long slab of a tongue slid beneath her jawline and neck, tilting her head forward. Starfire made herself float upwards, to make it easier on Raven.

Raven pushed her mouth forward, her lips forming a sort of suction seal over Starfire's head and then her hands as Starfire pushed her fingers in. She sucked in, intending to savor her, and the smaller heroine slid in, with such excitement (Starfire eager to please her, Raven craving her in this most intimate fashion) that Starfire’s head and shoulders were already inside her body.

Hold it, hold it! Calm down! Raven thought desperately, even as her throat pulled at her of its own volition, various organs rearranged themselves in expectation, and her body rumbled impatiently.

Starfire’s head and her massive hair slid down the wet tunnel around her, every inch of it curling around her and trying its best to be as close to her as possible and funnel her downwards at the same time; it was a fine metaphor for their relationship, perhaps. She wiggled in pleasure, a single thought pulsing in her mind: she was truly inside lover Raven, completely engulfed on all sides!

A warm and fuzzy feeling, distinct from the usual minglings of sexual obsession and hunger, made Raven feel strangely content. Those other feelings were there, a part of it, but not the whole of it as usual.

She tilted her head up as Starfire’s shoulders slid down, and allowed Starfire to slide down like the world’s most intense and slow, soft kiss. It was different from the normal way she devoured her prey; there was no force, no wild predatory surge.

Starfire’s weighty breasts squashed past her lips, sinking into Raven’s tongue and then descending down into her, along with her midsection, abdominal muscles engulfed by her throat.

Then, her hips; her butt. They were so much wider than her usual prey, so much thicker and heavier that for a moment Raven felt alarmed at the sheer mass, a more wild part of her regretting that she wouldn’t digest this meal; she was just so thick, she’d make so much food! She stifled the thought, instead savoring the sensations of Starfire’s backside filling her up, and then her thighs slid down. By now, Raven’s throat was a massively defined bulge in the shape of Starfire’s body, her entire neck distorting around it. Again and again, a pulse of warmth came from the weight in her body now, wild thoughts racing in her mind: Starfire’s inside me, oh, OH, i can feel her moving, feel her breathing, she’s in me!

Then there were her feet, and those two descended into her grip.

Starfire went down, her body gradually descending deeper into Raven’s guts, but not into her digestive chambers. Raven had rotated her insides in preparation, and now a completely different set of organs was waiting for her, welcoming her with a soft and cushioned interior. Starfire slid gently onto something that felt like a very big, wet bit, little tendrils and longer tentacles extending from the walls and curling patiently around her.

Bit by bit, all of her came down, the bulge in Raven’s thrown growing fainter as she swallowed Starfire entirely. More and more of her slid down, until with a very faint gulping sound, she was gone, and entirely inside her.

Raven had to steady herself as she felt Starfire happily squirming in her, various tentacles securing her and finding their own ways to please the new occupant, and it mixed with the sensation of her other prey being genuinely digested. There was so much moving in her, some being melted down and some loving her, and her belly was swelling outwards, sinking past her knees with its new precious occupant.

Pleasure flooded her, so heavily and violently that she had to sit down.

“Ohhh…” Raven murmured, stroking her belly and letting herself fold as closely around Starfire as possible. “I think I want more of this…”

#/ #// #/// #//// #///// #queued #commissions #my writing #fics #twitchy!raven #twitchy!starfire #twitchy!teen titans #twitchy!dc

[percival-queen]

Mun likes symbolism and The Little Prince jokes went way too far: a guide

{Special thanks to @stardemon39 for wasting an incredible amount of energy on figuring out my dumb dream symbols!} {LONG POST BELOW}

{For those of you who don't already know, for the past... idk... WHILE, I’ve been dropping cryptic hints about Percy’s dreams— particularly one consisting of a lot of imagery of yellow/gold roses, red foxes, and snakes in the grass! The first clue to deciphering literally any of this— which, interestingly, stardemon39 never once mentioned— is that all the imagery comes from the fairy tale of The Little Prince, yet another symbol that’s been talked about on this blog. We already know from Percy that, fitting to her name and manner of being portrayed, she is The Little Prince. But what do the other symbols represent?

Let’s start off with the easiest one— the rose. In The Little Prince, the Little Prince loves a rose: she is the first relationship the Prince has, and for a while, the only relationship he has. However, she unintentionally harms him with her thorns (which, as an anon pointed out, is in and of itself symbolism for the words she uses to protect herself from getting hurt). I thought this fit pretty well overall with Ramsey, and Percy’s first experience of loving someone outside her own family— especially considering he’s a criminal who starts off hurting her just by his way of living (think back to the thread where he broke out of prison and showed up beaten at her doorstep). However, the most important thing to me when devising this symbol was the color of the rose. The original rose in The Little Prince is red, and the Prince’s relationship with her is romantic. (It’s a fairy tale, don’t ask.) However, you all know my Percy is very firmly romance-repulsed, and I needed a way to distinguish that I was not taking anything in a shippy direction considering roses themselves are usually associated with romance. So after a bit of double-checking my flower meanings, I decided to explicitly make Ramsey’s rose yellow— or, as Percy retcons later, gold. Yellow roses (and flowers in general) are the symbol of friendship, and gold just so happens to be like a very intense version of yellow. This was perfect for me, because it links the flower directly to Ramsey, while also showing Percy’s state of mind regarding him: she knows she doesn’t feel romantically about him (red), but she’s not used to the experience of friendship at all (yellow), let alone one that’s so strong it transcends the usual color scale (gold).

TL;DR, Percy realizes that Ramsey means a lot to her, but struggles to put her feelings into words because they don’t fit with any of the relationships (normal flower colors/meanings) she was raised with.

Now we get a bit messier. I’ll confess that I DID briefly consider assigning BOTH the rose and red fox title to Zora— but I realized that while some of the rose’s themes fit her, the only reason I thought of the fox was because Zora herself matches with the stereotypes of a fox (cunning, tricky, clever), which all fit with the snake motif later anyway. Besides, the red fox had a much better match in the context of the story: Meryl. There are a few traits of the fox which suit Meryl well— the fact her hair is, in fact, red, added with how the fox wishes to make friends with the Little Prince (incidentally, because the Prince’s hair is “golden like wheat,” and will give the wheat-fields pleasant meaning for him), while the Prince himself is originally hesitant— but the most important key here is in the quote Percy once spoke to an anon:

“To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world . . .”

This is, essentially, how Percy views Mundies. It’s already pretty obvious at this point that she uses Epithets to recognize people, not to mention her beliefs about Inscribed being “chosen” as those worthy of gifts to serve others with (a belief further explained by Parapet). But her recent encounter with Meryl— which has been in the works for a long time— has started to give her a new perspective on that. She realizes, in one of those “oh, this should’ve been obvious, but I was too wrapped up in other thoughts to care” moments, that Mundies have unique personalities, strengths, and weaknesses, too— and that maybe she doesn’t hate Meryl’s as much as she thought. Allowing herself to “tame” anybody is risky, because then “[she] shall need [them],” but with Meryl, it’s even more profound, because accepting Meryl is a person is giving her a clear identity rather than just another Mundie/coworker/innocent. “To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world . . .”

TL;DR, Meryl forces Percy to recognize that all people (including Mundies) are unique when you get to know them, and that forming a kinship inherently adds to their value from a personal stance.

Which, finally, brings us to the snake in the grass: Zora. The snake in The Little Prince is a trickster, much like many snake stereotypes, but I found that it could give a more impactful meaning when you consider that before Zora, Percy never questioned her beliefs. Yes, she was always gullible, but as far as morals were concerned, she saw the world in black-and-white. It was Zora who forced her to think differently on this matter, and it’s Zora who she can’t bring herself to harm even though she has and continues to kill people. A sort of tragic reckoning; the Prince is never as wary of the snake as he should be, and continues to be drawn in by his words despite the danger. Not to mention, we have literally seen Zora as a snake before! And I’m not even the one who sent in that M!A!

Of course, with the end of the fairy tale in mind, what does this mean for the future...?

...Like I’d ever spoil that! But one thing is for certain: Percy should learn to recognize her own feelings, or she’ll be running into battles blind. :)

TL;DR, Zora twists Percy’s way of thinking and also represents an inherently dangerous foe, who Percy continues to encounter and treat on neutral ground even though that poses immense danger in every conceivable way— for better or for worse.

ULTIMATE TL;DR: MUN SPENT WAY TOO LONG MAKING UP SYMBOLS FOR NO APPARENT REASON BESIDES THE INHERENT AESTHETIC OF FAIRY-TALE SYMBOLISM.}

#[ off the clock - OOC ] #[ mun is a mundie - OOC musings ] #long post tw #tw: long post

[linkspooky]

Where do you think Norman's arc will go from now (that he's met Emma and Ray)? Also, how do you think the story will end?

So, the two most important facts about Norman’s arc is that one, he’s the character of the trio between Ray and Emma with the least flaws, and two the majority of his arc has taken place offscreen. This is not a criticism, this is pointing out where the subversion with his character is going to come from. 

So when analyzing Norman you have to take into account that both Ray, and Emma sort of believe Norman to have been the best of the group. Even if Emma is the moral fiber, it was Norman who did the vast majority of the planning for the escape. That was why Norman was taken away from them in the first place, for story purposes it was to show that it was in fact not all Norman which led to their success and both Ray and Emma are strong and capable in their own right. In the end all three of them are equals with equal capabilities. 

However, the fact that Norman was taken from them and that he also chose to sacrifice himself resulted in both Ray and Emma sort of putting Norman on a pedestal. Especially when it came into terms with their perception of him and their assessment of themselves. While it makes sense for them to remember him in an idealized light when he sacrificed himself, now that it turns out he’s actually lived Norman the real person is going to compete with the image of Norman both of them have been carrying around this entire time in order to motivate their actions. 

Norman not only put the finishing touches on him and Emma’s plan while knowing that he would die soon, but he also correctly predicted Ray’s actions and told Emma how to save him. 

When they’re escaping, as he watches the scene in front of him Ray hallucinates Norman for a moment to come to terms with the reality of the situation. Norman also speaks what are probably just Ray’s own feelings on Emma that he himself can’t admit and can only see coming out of Norman’s mouth.

In the second arc when Emma has a near death experience after being shot, it’s Norman that she imagines as the one who stops her from falling and also swims up with her back to the surface. It’s his image that literally guides her back to life. Except, we know Norman is not a ghost that can magically appear to either of the two at the time because he’s still alive in both cases. 

The trio is an extremely tight knit family, and they all believe in each other’s strengths of course, but of the trio we’re shown the least of Norman’s flaws, and that makes sense as both Ray and Emma admire him so much and this story is mainly told from the perspective of the children. Norman sort of becomes the symbol of their survival and escape, even though technically it’s never been Norman from the start, it was always Emma’s ideals of saving everyone, of escaping with their whole family that guided them and Norman was the one most driven to make those ideals a reality out of his love for Emma. 

Not only do the characters in the story treat Norman as a symbol though, now Norman himself has taken on the role of a symbol leaving his original name aside and calling himself William Minerva instead. Someone who was a literal symbol, because he was a made up person that James Ratri created to inspire children to escape from the plantation system.

In the first chapter we’re reintroduced to Norman and his situation as posing as Minerva the entire chapter he’s drawn without a face while all of his followers for the most part are detailed. This is more than just to preserve the twist that Norman has taken to posing as William Minerva. It’s also symbolic of what Norman is doing, he’s casting his own identity aside and forcing himself to play a role which he thinks will be of greater benefit to everybody else in the long run. 

He’s playing the role of an idealized hero, a children’s fairy tale hero when he still is just a child himself. 

So, a lot of Norman’s role in the story is concealed but there’s some very important hints to take from the introduction of his character. While Emma is the ain character, remember it was originally Norman who was introduced as the supporting male lead, the one who found out about Connie at the same time, the one who promised to escape with Emma at the same time. It was originally Norman who made the promise to escape together with Emma.

And eventually instead it became Ray who escaped with Emma, while Norman sacrificed himself intending to die and be eaten there. What happened instead was a reversal of their situations. Ray had Emma, and the rest of his family as support while enduring the hardships of the next year, whereas Norman endured it all alone.

Norman had only one accomplice and even that person he failed to protect them during his escape, which he had to figure out how to escape from an entirely second plantation all on his own. 

What I’m pointing at here is Norman is originally set up as the supporting character to Emma and the main one at her side, but he gets separated from her for the vast majority of the time after the first arc, and not only that but afterwards Norman had to endure a bunch of trauma all alone. His response to that however, has been to ascend to a position of power instead and make himself out to be the savior of the neverland, rather than showing any signs of being a traumatized kid who has been separated from his two closest friends and the rest of his family for a year and a half and forced through terrible human experimentation alone. 

Now finally, returning again to the opening chapters, what exactly is Norman’s main flaw? Ray��s is his tendency to always rely on sacrifices, both himself and others and his willingness to dirty his hands, which combines with a low self image he has viewing himself as worth less than his two friends because of what he was willing to do and the guilt he had already carried. Emma’s flaw and strength are one in the same, her naivete and willingness to believe in others puts her in reckless danger but it also allows her to take paths that nobody else would try to take to save everyone, and also to not give up in circumstances where most others would give up. Emma is vulnerable and she constantly exposes herself to danger and that’s not something that can be brushed off easily in a world that’s constantly trying to kill them, but also it means that he wearing her vulnerability on her sleeve makes her the most emotionally developed and the empathic of the other two boys and because of that she’s able to easily imagine the situations of others and constantly tries to offer them to join her side. It’s Emma’s unrealistic dreams that drive the three to try to make the world into a better place.

Then, where are Norman’s flaws in that? In a way Norman seems to strike a perfect balance between the two. He’s calculating and cunning like Ray, and yet at the same time he also is somebody who wants to hold up Emma’s ideals. Even in the first chapter, Ray demonstrates that Norman has a critical thing when it comes to thinking that Emma is lacking. 

Norman’s the smartest of the three, Ray can compete with Norman in terms of brains but he’s the most well studied. Ray even says so later that it’s not like he has raw genius he just studied his hardest even though he hated studying because he wanted to be a tasty meal that he could deny the demons. and Emma of the three is the most flexible because she’s constantly changing her ideals. 

Also, not only that but the first tag match in the first chapter ends with a one on one battle between Norman and Emma. Which is clear foreshadowing that while Norman and Emma start out as each other’s closest ally, and Norman as Emma’s supporting male lead that eventually the two are going to disagree with each other and probably have to compete with each other which is why Norman was separated from the plot for so long and so much of him still remains a mystery. 

In the 4th chapter, Norman gets some more foreshadowing to establish his flaws. The first thing is Norman mentions over and over again his main motiation is Emma, who Norman sees as a better person than him. (This is a theme with the trio gosh guys stop comparing yourselves to each other). Norman feels guilty for being scared only of his own life when Emma was crying not for herself but for the sake of her family. From that moment forward he swore to be the one to bring Emma’s ideals into reality no matter how far fetched they are.

Norman’s actually more logical and more driven by cold blooded reason than Ray, however Norman doesn’t wish to be like that so he makes most of his actions for Emma’s sake rather than following his own ideals. Norman’s statements in chapter four are rife with foreshadowing. 

“I’ll use myself to accomplish it.” “I’ve always managed to accomplish what I set out to do.” “So, what are you going to do? Emma and I are insane. We’ve completely lost it.” 

All of these statements which seem perfectly innocent at the time because they’re a part of Norman’s speech to motivate Ray, and his declaration of Love for Emma, but they’re also words in a different context that could take a much darker turn. The Promised Neverland tends to play the long game when it came to foreshadowing, reveals about the demons taking on the characteristics of what they eat that became relevant this arc were foreshadowed as early as the Goldy Pond arc where one demon ate the brains of another and then started to hear two voices in its head instead of just its own. 

“I’ll do anything…” is a recurring theme for Norman. 

At which point I must mention, the difference between Norman and Ray’s flaws. Ray is a pragmatist, he believes sacrifices are necessary and is willing to dirty his own hands to make those sacrifices. The difference in the flaw then lies in the ideals. Ray is a pragmatist, whereas Norman is still an idealist because he believes in Emma’s ideals to this day. Whereas Ray makes sacrifices for the sake of survival and accomplishing realistic goals, Norman’s flaw is that he’ll sacrifice to bring Emma’s lofty ideals into reality. He’ll do it for the sake of ideals.

And as early as the first arc, Norman is referred to as willing to do “Anything”. However, that was when Norman was surrounded by his family and in a much mentally healthier situation, so his definition of “Anything” has probably changed between then and now.

See Norman’s flaw is that his ideals aren’t his own, they’re Emma’s. Not only that, Norman is constantly criticizing himself for not being as selfless as Emma is in his eyes. Which is not really fair criticism that Norman is levying on himself, for example he gets upset when he a child gets afraid of dying. 

He has trouble seeing with himself individually as a person, and dealing with his own weakness. Especially when he’s usually relied upon to be the level headed one of the three, the best of the three, the leader of the three, etc. etc. And his way of coping with his feelings of powerlessness in those situations is to go back to tactics. 

So, when Norman gets more and more upset he tends to instead of working through those feelings buckle down and see everything as pieces on the board. He believes absolutely in every situation he can overcome with tactics and making use of everything around him. Not only that his appointed task is not even for himself and his own ideas but rather to make Emma’s dreams a reality because Norman doesn’t see himself as good of a person as he sees Emma as. 

So, right away that’s a combination of 1) Norman having a natural tendency to go to extremes especially when it comes to using people, situations, and everything present to get what he wants out of a situation. and 2) somebody who adheres himself to ideals and is intensely dedicated to bringing those ideals into reality even if those ideals are not his own. 

So, it’s easy to see why after being isolated from his two moral compasses and then traumatized in a child experimentation lab, that Norman’s way of dealing with this trauma and turning it into something productive another piece on the board has been to completely shed away his own identity as pose as someone else (Norman doesn’t really believe he’s a good person like Emma is), that person being the lofty ideal of William Minerva rather than an actual person, and two once again saying that he’s doing all of this to bring Emma’s ideals into reality. 

Neither of these things are necessarily harmful on their own. WHen they’re together Norman and Emma make a good team, Emma being the one who makes the ideals and Norman the one who wants to use strategy and tactics to bring them to life. However, Norman has been separted from Emma for a long time and making these decisions all on his own, and there’s been a clear case in escalation in the stakes Norman is dealing with.

The first thing he does in the chapter he’s reintroduced in is burn a platnation to the ground with the comatose mass production children still inside. I’m not going to discuss the ethics of this, but Norman himself feels guilty for not being able to save those children which shows the weight he’s currently taking on his shoulders and the decisions he’s making. 

So Norman in the year he’s been apart from his family has gone from, “I want all my family members to escape alive” to “Burn everything down to the ground and rebuild a paradise from the lost ashes”. I’m not making a moral judgement on Norman’s philosophy, especially since he’s rebelling against a fundamentally corrupt system based on child murder and human farming, however, his views are extreme and they’ve only become more extreme the more pressure he’s put on himself to carry out those ideals for every child he takes in.

So then you have the breakdown of the trio again. Emma, the reckless idealist, Ray the pragmatist, and Norman the extremist. Norman is now the most  in the know, and the one of the group with the most resources but that doesn’t mean Emma and Ray are going to go along with him and follow out his plan. 

Otherwise, the story would have been split up on focusing between Norman and Ray + Emma on their journey to reunite with one another. However, there’s one important thing to notice about this latest chapter. 

Norman talks about again in front of Emma that all he wants is to make her dream come true, living with her family and being able to care for them in a world that’s not actively trying to kill them. This brings a smile to Emma’s face.

Then Norman says that he’s been preparing all this time to make Emma’s dream a reality, and not only after losing their base does he have a plant to do it, but he also has resources, contacts, and measures in place to carry it out. It sounds too good to be true, after losing their hideout and Yugo and Lucas, they find Norman again and the same old Norman who seems to have everything figured out and only wants the best or his family. 

Yet, this is what Norman suggests.

Genocide, to simply wipe out all the demons and make this second world a paradise for humans, because if all the demons were gone there would be no reason to feed on humans anymore. And the author even takes the time to panel out Emma’s changing reaction, from a smile, to a hesitant face, to a slow look of horror. 

This isn’t what Emma wants to do. Norman’s strayed far from Emma’s ideals in his methodology. Emma is going to reject his answer, because Genocide of an intelligent species is a net wrong no matter what ends you’re trying to accomplish with those means. 

The kids have been killing demons all along, but can they really kill every single demon in order to build a world better for them? When things such as child demons and demons families exist? That’s what is weighing on Emma’s face. Her ideals are clashing finally with Norman’s need to go to extremes to bring those ideals into a reality and it’s going to cause a conflict between the two of them. That’s what’s registering on her face right now as Norman says with complete confidence all they need to do is wipe out every last demon to get the happy ending they want. 

That’s the direction I think Norman’s arc will go from now on! Thank you for sending the ask, anon. 

#metasks #tpn meta #meta #the promised neverland

[chigusaeyes]

Nobuyuki thought(s) that i had

fyi Buyan = No[Bu]yuki + [yan]dere ; as Nobu & Yuki are shorthands already in use

This isn’t so much of an attempt to explain or Rationalize of Buyan’s means of expressing his yandere - it’s really more like a thought or consideration on things tying TO it and potentially something that, were I to write fanfic from his POV or angled around him as a character, I might...include or note upon at an appropriate point.

Note: screenshots that are not mine will be sourced, otherwise all screenshots ARE in fact mine.

SO.

Buyan is the Sanada clan heir. He is utterly devoted to his clan and his duties as heir - that has never been in question; he is responsible, he is trusted implicitly (by the Sanada and from the looks of it, by those in Ueda/at least the city (town?)) around the castle, and honestly, he’s adored - again by his clan and the others mentioned. Saizo is an exception insofar as adoration/etc, but he does seem to trust in the fact (at least) that Nobuyuki IS wholly dedicated to the Sanada and the clan’s well-being/future/etc.

I do not know how much background is given in other Sanada-related LI routes, but for certain in Buyan’s, it goes into his history/growing up, etc. 

At least...partially, as Buyan himself only reveals so much - some of those details, imo, are important! But ever the mysterious angel-faced manipulator, he almost always smoothly glides the conversation back to MC herself. Leaving MC up to learning from everyone around her + Buyan to inform her and fill her in - even Masayuki himself!

But the overall gist is that Nobuyuki’s life is not his own. His life is for the Sanada, he must live for them - both figuratively AND literally. It’s part of the final confrontation in his route - he must live, no matter the cost, as he is the one who will ensure the Sanada’s survival (and potential rebuilding and/or expansion, even) regardless of what happens to Yukimura and Masayuki.

As such, his life is planned out more or less from the beginning. Now, due to his temperament (likely how he’s been raised helps too, I’m sure, but his temperament is DEFINITELY suited to his role as clan heir), he has accepted this - his role, his duties, his Purpose...there’s no plot point in his route for him trying to shuck the role nor does MC try to convince him to live for himself, etc. 

Again, being clan heir suits him - he is a natural charmer, manipulation requires some practice but he’s clearly already a Master, as well as a tactician and, well, he’s fucking smart. No if and or buts about it.

The closest to anything approaching a negative is the weight of having to stay behind, unknowing of his brother, his father - the people important to him - until he gets news of them/they arrive home. And that IS hard. Yukimura is a brilliant warrior but he’s not invincible and he is the Warrior between the two of them. Buyan can clearly hold his own in a fight, he’s still a samurai after all, but again. Heir, not the Warrior.

Which, again, is said a number of times in his route & I wouldn’t doubt more than once in Yukkins’s own route, take just this scene for example:

SOURCE

All of this rambling leads me to my main thought regarding his behavior towards MC in his route/previous ES/etc featuring him + MC; Nobuyuki’s life, purpose, existence...is the Sanada clan’s. His childhood wasn’t even his because after his & Yuki’s mother died, atop being heir, he more or less took over raising + tending to Yukimura as well (and in his subtle ways, continues to do so SOBS).

And just as his life is his clan’s, the clan has placed the entirety of their trust in his hands (not simply bc he is heir, he is a DAMN sharp man and brilliant politician, truly) and his decisions, thus, are taken more or less at face value. And because of this trust placed in him, his father has thus allowed Buyan to actually choose his own wife, rather than numerous attempts at arranging marriages/etc. 

Very impressive indeed.

It is a duty, of course, but one that Masayuki (and the clan) trust him to fill & trusts in his choice of a bride with essentially little to no questioning. Even as Masayuki knows about his son’s...occasional “eccentric behavior” and his strict list of necessary Sanada Bride qualifications. Buyan is, apparently, allowed to be as picky as he chooses.

Regardless of his son’s eccentricities, I have little reason to doubt that Masayuki has been one if the biggest (as Nobuyuki was older than Yukimura when their mother died, so she would have had time to influence/leave impressions on him herself) factors in Nobuyuki’s education, in all his duties as heir, not to mention implementing values upon Buyan - especially IN regards to marriage and finding a wife. 

This brings up questions that I have little time for, as analyzing Masayuki is not the point of this post. 

Instead, I would like to point out this particular piece of advice from Nobuyuki’s route and how it rings true to me in regards to his relationship with MC, regardless of his dangerously subtle yandere mentality:

Nobuyuki wants to know everything there is about MC. As suited to his subtle yandere ways, he will manipulate her and ensure that she comes to him to more or less reaffirm (to him, in his mind) that she does, in fact, want him. And that she loves him. 

He doesn’t not force or coerce these affirmations (I call these as such bc yandere-types frequently tend to need Affirmations from their Beloved to appease their obsession/possessiveness/insecurities/etc etc etc and while not blatant in this way, Buyan does seem to have at least a Smidge - even if it’s mostly for his), but instead sets up a strategic stage (arguably something of a game) that instead ensures MC comes to him herself and  As demonstrated in his thoughts from his Draughts of Starlight ES:

Source

Of course, there’ve been times where Buyan is caught off guard by things MC does, be it unexpected demonstrations of kindness/affection, making him his favorite dessert without her even knowing it is his favorite, her resilience & matching his own force of will when directly confronting him, etc etc etc. 

His reactions tend towards being surprised and then shifting to fascination and either amusement & often at least a level of curiosity OR as we do get to see, strong urges of affection. And when he shows that affection, boy, it is like unleashing a tidal wave. His feelings are next level Intense and his expression of them is no different.

Holy fuck, this is probably just vague tangents vaguely related to the entire reason I started this post in the first place at this point. Let’s get TO what I could have said in fewer words.

THOUGH, a quick addendum - regardless of his choice in wife, since whoever he chooses as his wife will meet those requirements of his (some exceptions, like noble lineage, are excused like in the Draughts ES because MC is Perfect in Every Way otherwise, and I assume the same goes for MC in his own route), she will thus be ideal and him, being the gentle yandere he is, would not want to let her go. Or for her to escape. The classic most example in Yukimura’s...route? (I’m fairly sure this is) in response to Saizo calling [Nobuyuki] his [future] wife’s [prison] Warden:

Source

God, I love your beautiful face and fluffy hair, Buyan. 

Ahem, anyways.

ALL of these various...points...I’ve touched upon, IN MY OPINION, all point to a likely...thought process? behind Buyan’s attitude towards his MC. The MC, his bride...

And it is in your best interest to NOT forget that she is his. Even you, Yukkins, cannot afford to pose a threat to your beloved brother in this regard:

Source

His, as Nobuyuki is keen to remind, [future] wife...

A person who was to fulfill yet another duty of his to his clan, a theoretical woman that was - regardless of even being his ideal bride - ultimately, intrinsically, merely part of one of the numerous obligations that were expected of him as heir...Well, back to his ES again (I had more screenshots myself to use as well but I spilled coffee on my laptop and now it’s drying SOB) to let Buyan say it himself:

Source

...turns out to be what/who he regards as The Greatest Blessing of his life. 

And not just randomly or by chance either. HE chose her himself, for himself, of his own volition. Somehow, within the contract - as he refers to it - of his life, one of the few things he could, in fact, choose for himself...brings him utter satisfaction. He’s not pleased, he feels blessed by this choice he made - taking a chance with a young woman who captured his fascination and hit essentially all his switches. Risky? Certainly.

But a risk he was willing to take and the payoff was more than even this angel-faced mastermind could have anticipated.

This boils down to, essentially, the fucking thought I had in the first place in regards to some contemplative insight into Buyan’s POV/Buyan focused perspective regarding his route’s MC. Let’s do a quick summary:

Nobuyuki is the clan heir, he was born into it, bound by the obligation, and was settled into his role very neatly.

Nobuyuki is allowed to make decisions for the Sanada as he is trusted by his clan & family.

Nobuyuki is trusted with these decisions and has the clan’s trust because he has obviously proven over the years, after getting involved in the duties as clan heir and future clan head, that his choices are those that will most benefit the clan.

Nobuyuki’s choices will always most benefit the clan, they must, and so while he has access to a wide variety of means to accomplish what must be done and he is allowed to make any choice (often without any explanation of what he did, or why he did, required of him), he ultimately is bound by the duty + obligation that whichever choice he makes, it is always for the clan’s greatest benefit.

Thus he is allowed to choose his own wife, so long as she is a suitable addition to the Sanada clan...and she meets his Must Haves list.

MC doesn’t have wealth, isn’t of a noble lineage, nor does she bring in any sort of plentiful dowry...But that is 1 miss versus hitting every. other. requirement. on Nobyuki’s Wifey Must Haves list.

Even before meeting her, he’s already decided that - once he has all the information on her collected (I’ll give him credit, he DID initially think this “interesting new retainer” of Shingen’s was a Uesugi spy so it’s not like he was just...randomly choosing young women to look into) - her actions demonstrate her courage and she might be just what he needs. For a few things. Jinpachi may have well confirmed or denied this since he’s been keeping an eye on MC for Nobuyuki until he got there.

Once he’s made his decision, he will stick to it because it would be a waste of (multiple) opportunities.

He didn’t think, of course, that he might catch Feelings (his ES also shares this in common), but really, when does anyone?

Insert drama.

In the end, he is able to have/keep the woman he’d chosen and she loves him and accepts him for who he is. According to her. Granted she sees him as more mischevious than dangerous, BUT, when you love a yandere wholeheartedly and they love you, I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the overall perception???

They’ll be married, soon, and according to Buyan, he wants to be married a-fucking-sap. Enthusiasm? Honestly, I’m sure he does feel that. Officially binding the two of them together? Most certainly plays a part, too.

And thus: Nobuyuki loves MC and she loves him. He will do anything & everything he can to make her happy regardless that his foremost obligation is to prioritize his clan above all else.

He will ensure that she is so happy, so enraptured, SO in love with him...that her thoughts will be saturated with little else BUT him (he goes so far as to label this desire of his as a need of his). MC will NOT end up dissatisfied with him, she will NOT feel neglected feeling due to his duties...and as for him?

His bride. His wife [to-be]. His MC (he does refer to MC as his [MC’s name] in the Divine end. Divine end epilogue? UGH IF ONLY I HAD MY SCREENSHOTS). The woman he chose to fulfill one of the (few) obligations that he had (arguably) the most control over...is everything he could have expected. Even, dare I say, hoped for. 

MC bypassed Nobuyuki’s Very High and Specific Requirements and captured his heart utterly. Just as he’s captured her and her heart.

Regardless of some short-term surprise on his clan/father’s behalf, they all accept his explanation that she is exactly what the Sanada clan needs. And his clan does, in fact, fall in love with her. His father approves of her, regardless of her common birth, and Yukimura is SO enthusiastic about the two of them and is so happy for his brother - for the both of them. 

MC, in turn, accepts and loves them as her own family & clan (because they are as such now). She has promised herself to him and has promised to be with him through those heart-gripping times of waiting and the unknown, to support him in any way she can, and to stand at his side always. She is determined to do all she can as a Sanada bride, as the heir’s wife. As Nobuyuki’s wife.

His. His wife. His choice. His his his his HIS.

The bride, the wife, the woman he specifically chose for himself. Likely one of the very few, if next to never, self-serving choices he’s made. All wrapped up in an honest boon to the clan. An excellent decision, one that is trusted and accepted, that isn’t countered.

In my perspective, this utter...obsessive devotion, this possessive love, is likely fueled by the fact that a selfish decision on his part worked for beyond the good he could have expected and now he is never going to let her go. And he’s never going to allow anyone to threaten their happiness, their relationship, ever. Her eyes might remain on him, and he wants them too, and while he rains affection on her, he’ll have those who so much as stare at her too long thoroughly understand the risks (and even consequences) of such poorly thought out actions.

Thx for coming to my Excessively, Unnecessarily Long TedTalk on some minor...analysis of a small portion of Nobuyuki’s yandere thought process in relation to his MC.

#slbp #slbp nobuyuki #kae speaks tag #( is this a character analysis or just an overdrawn ramble ) #( we may never know )

[dabistits]

I’m wanna make my own manga, so what advice can you give me to avoid what Hori is doing. (Btw I’m a boy) I still have to finish school before that but I wanna keep those advice with me

sorry it took so long to get back to you! i hope you will still find this advice useful regardless, even though it’s not incredibly specific. i could give you a bullet-pointed list of what to pay attention to (how much does this female character get to do in the story? would her pose be awkward if replaced by a male character? does she feel like a complex character? does she suffer unduly and in specifically gendered ways e.g. rape?) but i could come up with thousands of questions and it still wouldn’t be very useful for helping you actually learn how to spot misogyny in stories. so i’m going to give you a general list of things to do that will hopefully help you develop your analytical skills to avoid hori’s bs more than just trying to memorize a ton of questions.

consume other media. read widely, watch widely. familiarize yourself with the state of fictional storytelling today. you need a solid foundation upon which to start building your analytical skills, so that you have material to draw from when you think about what works and what doesn’t work.

talk to people. be they man or woman. it’s pretty fun to talk about media imo (otherwise i wouldn’t be running this blog), and it’s a great way to get different perspectives. if you’re in the company of people interested in media criticism, you will learn a lot, about lots of different things, if you’re willing to put yourself and your ideas out there. ask questions! let people help you work out confused feelings! 

read what reviewers are saying, especially women. most of us who talk about media are pretty detailed about why we liked or disliked something (i regularly give specific examples about what bothers me in bnha e.g. why i feel like himiko is sexualized). so, what are those things? why did a lot of women like furiosa from mad max and what messages did they get from the narrative? why was wonder woman’s costuming considered an elevation from traditional women’s costuming in action movies? why is revolutionary girl utena praised for its complex handling of misogyny and patriarchy? on the other hand, why is there a lot of feminist criticism directed at quentin tarantino’s movies? why are so many women burned out on MCU’s “strong female characters”?

reading what reviewers and ordinary bloggers, especially women, are saying is the best way for you to familiarize yourself with the landscape of feminist media criticism. it’ll give you an idea of what our concerns are, our problems with sometimes fairly specific things (like how the cinematographic rule of thirds can be used to objectify women), and also how to do things well.

at some point, you’re gonna have to tackle theory. this is somewhat unavoidable. although much of media criticism has been deferred to popular culture in a way that you can probably grasp the basics through osmosis, i would encourage you to read academics that actually go in-depth into feminist theory in all sorts of media. laura mulvey’s “visual pleasure and narrative cinema” is probably one of the foundational texts in feminist film theory, but i find that most people don’t even know ‘male gaze’ was coined by her. the ‘male gaze’ as a concept originated in film theory! going in-depth into academic writing that painstakingly deconstructs a concept, usually with respect to specific examples, will help you make your own connections and be more confident in your own analytical skills, because they will give you the tools to apply disciplined commentary.

we’re not all going to agree (obviously). that’s one reason why i insist on going with the learning vs memorizing route. you’re going to see dissenting opinions, and you will probably disagree with some opinions and that’s just what happens by virtue of us being a multitude of complex creatures. i see too many people here who need to ask an assumed authority whether they’re “allowed” to do something, and that’s just kind of ridiculous! you can disagree with women. you can disagree with me. women disagree with each other and i disagree with some women. some women think bnha is a feminist masterpiece, and you will probably have to disagree with them. you’ll have to navigate these disagreements and make the best call with all the information and abilities you have at your disposal.

try not to think of a piece of media as “feminist” or “not feminist.” this article explains why asking if something is “feminist” is a moot point, and this post goes into all the issues we encounter when we start asking if something is really “feminist.” to oversimplify and to put those ideas more succinctly, the issue is that narratives can rarely be feminist or anti-feminist unless they’re propaganda pieces specifically made to advance feminist cause. narratives with good female characters can include ‘non-feminist’ elements. we can talk all we want about jennifer’s body being empowering or whatever, but it’s not actually feminist praxis to write a story in which a high school girl gets stabbed to death, even if she comes back as a demon to eat boys. someone could consider it personally empowering, but hopefully you would recognize that there’s nothing “feminist” about killing a girl. and that’s okay. something doesn’t need to be feminist to be enjoyable nor to have interesting things to say about women/womanhood!

pay attention to women of color. please please please keep this one hammered in your head. women of color are so often ignored for the sake of white women, and we get a lot of backlash when we talk about racialized misogyny in media. this happened with orange is the new black, it happened with atomic blonde, where the non-white, female love interests were killed off so white characters could mourn, and when woc pointed this out we got tons of backlash from white women. don’t be like those kinds of people! think about us and read our writings while you go through this list, please. the same goes for the thoughts of men of color (if you’re white), for LBT+ women, mentally ill women, disabled women, fat women... we all have thoughts about the way we’re represented in media and our concerns deserve attention, especially since manga has a bad reputation for being not only misogynistic, but racist, transmisogynistic, and fatphobic.

don’t let being a boy hold you back. this might be a weird piece of advice to hear, but all too often men either think they’re already the best at writing women or they’re so fragile that one piece of criticism from a woman will make him think we’re entitled shrews. don’t fall into either of these mindsets because they will weaken you. go into this with the idea that you can do well, and that you can improve. you can improve by listening to us and taking our advice, but don’t treat us as an authority figure telling you what to do every step of the way. you have your own voice and you’re able to make your own judgments. plenty of men have made good media about women (park chan-wook and the handmaiden, ikuhara kunihiko and revolutionary girl utena, basically all of ghibli’s filmography), so know that you can be outstanding.

i know that i talked about movies a lot, but i still hope this helps you because the basics of constructing a story and characters are the same. manga is also highly visual in the way film is, with respect to actually having images you need to frame and characters you need to pose, so i think a lot of knowledge is transferrable. you might also find critical theory about comic books to be useful, though i personally don’t really follow comics. lastly, if you see this answer after all, feel free to ask questions especially if something isn’t clear!

#ask