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iwanttofuckereh69 · 2 years

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What's your opinion on the shinichiro theory still? Honestly, I still believe it. People are saying that hemorrhagia has " left " because her theory got " disproven" but actually, her account has been like this for atleast a week before shinichiro being a time leaper was even exposed. I've spent so long trying to explain it to someone even today lmao

Hello!

First off, I had no idea there were such things circulating about hemorrhagia supposedly “leaving”. As you said, she hasn't been active since before the “Shin is a time leaper” chapter. And from what I know it is a completely unrelated thing. Don’t people realize others have lives outside of tumblr? Lmao

Although, damn, i wish she was back, i just know the hot takes would be immaculate

As for the theory itself, I don't know really. It seems less and less likely to me. More information got revealed that are kind of conflicting and the theory itself seems like a bit of a stretch now

That’s the short answer for you. But I have much more to say under the cut. Sorry anon, you have opened Pandora's box.

TW: THAT shin theory (i don’t talk about anything explicit), TR spoilers

I feel like there are a couple of things the theory was right about though. Maybe not the main points that were made, but there were several takes that showed the (not so) obvious.

that shin is going to be important some way or another

And, guess what, he totally is. Up until recently he was nothing. He meant nothing and was already dead when the story started. And yet, he was there, always lingering in the background, which was a clue that he had a much bigger role in all this mess than we had originally thought. And, safe to say, I don't think I would pick on that myself so kudos to the author.

that shin is not as good as he is painted

Maybe he is not necessarily a bad guy… but either way he didn’t have much issue with killing a random homeless person. Which is pretty fucked up if you ask me, no matter his reasoning. He didn’t even care to listen to the guy, he just bashed his skull open. It would be easy to give in to all the narration surrounding Shin and portraying him as the kindest human to ever exist. And yet, we found out that he killed a man. Sure, he was losing his mind at this point, he was in so much despair. But grieving people don’t go around killing anyone usually. So again, kudos to the author for questioning the narration and pointing out that we know nothing about that guy aside from all the praises other people were saying about him. And those may not be a reliable source of information.

that there is something icky about the way shinichiro is described vs how he really is

Again, maybe it has nothing to do with the themes that were originally stated in the theory, but hey. We clearly saw the same man that was described as being “a weak king” (if i remember correctly), that always lost and that couldn’t fight… bend a fucking metal post and crack a concrete wall. Not to mention beating the hell out of all these people in the bar. So… what was that all about. Why is he thought to be some kind of a weakling whereas he clearly knew how to fight? The story tells us one thing to then show us another. And kudos for the author again, for telling us way ahead that we shouldn’t take everything that is being said at face value. And to be honest maybe this also applies to Wakasa telling us Shinichiro’s story. Maybe. Who knows at this point.

The theory was thus brilliant at making us question things shown in the manga. And damn it was fun ever since.

And there are still gaps in canon material that the theory was filling so goddamn well. For example:

Shin and Izana relationship still seems wacky as fuck.

Their relationship is fucked up and there is something clearly missing here. Why wouldn’t he tell anyone about Izana - why would it be such a secret, why wouldn’t Shin make it possible for him to meet at least Emma, the girl he grew up with? Furthermore, Izana’s reaction to finding out Shinichiro isn’t blood related to him seems a bit over the top - because why should it matter if Shin was there for him regardless of that, he says that himself even, yet Izana is still unreasonably mad. Just like hemorrhagia stated in the theory:

“I’m sure it might feel crushing to find out you aren’t actually related to your sibling, but Izana already considered Kakucho like a brother to him. So, why is Shinichiro different? Why is Izana so upset? He asks why Shinichiro even came to him.

Shinichiro taught him everything, about bikes, about fashion, how to style his hair, how to fight, how to smile.

Why is all of that null and void now? Is it because his ‘love’ is something bad that Izana could tell himself was okay, because Shinichiro gave him a family (a family of only Shinichiro), but can’t reconcile it if they aren’t even related? Is it because that ‘love’ wasn’t coming from a brother, but just some random guy?”

Why did Izana and Mikey develop a bond so strong to the point that in the Bonten timeline Mikey is literally imitating Izana?

“He basically becomes a clone of Izana in the Bonten timeline, despite their only interactions being Izana going out of his way to completely destroy him. He had Emma murdered.”

The explanation provided by the theory’s framework fit perfectly here. It would be understandable if they bonded so much because they went through similarly traumatic shit. But if we take that out of the equation, we are left with another missing piece.

Why would Mikey develop such a strong bond with Izana over the brief interaction they had during the tenjiku fight? Sure, he thought of Izana as his brother. Yeah, he didn’t care about them not being blood related. Yeah, at this point he had lost all his siblings and was desperate to have a brother, a family of any sort.

But they don’t have any memories together. They didn’t grow close together through years like Mikey did with Emma or any of his friends. And Izana was responsible for murdering Mikey’s sister. Who he cared about. Who he wanted to protect. Izana was responsible for her death. Yet for Mikey this brief encounter they had was enough to forgive him for that. To find understanding and empathy for him. And to decide that he is - in a way - going to carry Izana’s legacy from this point on.

He only emulates people dear to him. Emma, Baji, Draken. And Izana for some reason. It just doesn’t really make sense to me the way it is portrayed as of now. I feel like there is something missing about the bond between Mikey and Izana. I wish it would be addressed in the manga eventually and we wouldn’t be left with just that. The theory explained it well in my opinion. It made Mikey’s actions more understandable for me.

“By the time the conflict with Tenjiku happens, Mikey has already seen the letters Izana wrote, and Izana always knew about Mikey. I think Mikey reaches out to Izana as a brother, not just because Emma has just died and he doesn’t want to lose more family, despite the fact that Izana had her killed, but because of their shared trauma from Shinichiro.

In another life, Taiju says that Mikey trusted Izana more than anyone, more than Draken. The question is posed, ‘Why would Mikey trust Izana so much, what happened?’ I think they shared the same secret.”

Maybe, possibly, most likely the theory is horseshit. But still there has to be something more to this bond Mikey and Izana shared. I hope there is. Because the way their relationship is portrayed as of now is not convincing enough for me. Its superficial.

We still have no idea what made Mikey hurt Haruchiyo in such horrible way

We have seen this scene from like three angles by now (at this point i just wait for Baji to be resurrected just to tell the same story once again and then die) AND WE STILL DON’T KNOW SHIT

Just that Mikey didn’t know why he did that and that he suddenly found himself already having hurt Haru. But then what provoked him? The fact that Senju told him that it was Sanzu who destroyed his toy plane? Really? I think that if there is one thing the whole fandom can agree upon (other than the Haitanis being hot) it is that it couldn’t be just about the plane. And even if it was Dark Impulsivity, whatever that may be (because we still don’t know anything about that…) it doesn’t explain shit, because even when DI is involved, there always (i think) is a reason for Mikey to act out.

It was shown to us that Mikey doesn’t care about his possessions. He busted his own scooter because he cared more about Baji (and we coincidentally are reminded of this situation in the recent chapters 272 and 273, right after we saw the plane incident yet again). I mean he could have grown up to be like that, it could be the lesson he learned from the situation with Sanzu. But still, it’s so unlikely that it would all be just about the toy fucking plane… There must be something missing here for fuck’s sake.

Why on earth shinichiro knows Inui and why does he hang out with a kid 10 or so years younger than him?

We still didn’t get an answer to that! Should I just take it as it is and convince myself it’s normal? My sister is 10 years younger than me. I can’t fathom the idea of hanging out with her friends, let alone a random child her age. But I mean maybe, maybe if I squint real hard… Inui was going through some tough shit back then. Maybe he found comfort around Shin and the first gen BD’s. Maybe Shin was taking care of him when nobody else would. But fuck, its still icky and I don’t like it at all. Found family is an awesome thing but not when one person is 12 or something, an impressionable little kid with little to no support system (apparently), and the other is an adult. There is so much room for abuse of power here and I don’t like it.

“It’s not weird to have an older mentor, but there has to be something connecting you to that person, like a sibling, or a social program, or a family connection, but there’s just nothing connecting them, and that’s weird.“

And why would Shin (supposedly) call for Mikey to get to the shop at 3 am? Still it doesn't make sense no matter how you put it lmao

Mikey changing clothes suddenly doesn't make sense as well as other weird things that are happening to his memory. Him not remembering Izana or remembering things differently to other people or bikes disappearing from his memories. There is a big emphasis on memories in this manga and how different people may remember things differently. So I can’t imagine it all being mistakes when at the same time in the same manga we have Hakkai situation. If we analyze what is happening when hakkai tells Michi his version of the story, we can actually pick up that he is lying based on the background not making sense in relation to what he is saying.

(there was this post somewhere about that but i can't find it hhhhhhhhhhhhhh if anyone got it please feel free to send me the link)

So, concluding this unnecessary rambling

The theory itself might not be true. Maybe some of the points don’t hold up anymore, given the newest information we got. Maybe the main bit about Shin being the bad guy doing that specific thing is not that plausible anymore since we got to know more about him, but there still were very good observations made that still hold true and I think the author should have been given credit for that.

It also points out several questions we still didn’t get a coherent answer for. And… to be frank, I don’t think we ever will given that we supposedly have only five chapters left. And that makes me sad. But it also will leave room for further interpretation, when the manga inevitably concludes and I don’t think it’s such a bad thing after all (although damn i'm going to be so disappointed)

I just wish we would be answered in the canon material. But, well. We will see how it goes.

Concluding the conclusion: I don’t think it's plausible anymore, but I still think there is a value in that theory.

What are your thoughts on this, anon? Hope I didn’t bore you to death ♥

#tokyo revengers discourse #tokyo revengers #the shin theory #tokyo revengers spoilers #tokyo revengers theory #i dont know how else to tag this #to people reading this:#dont be mean to me :c its just my opinion #ask

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bria-doublen-a · 1 year

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Book Review: Crown of Midnight

Non Spoiler Section

Wow. What a fantastic read! In this sequel to Throne of Glass, we pick up right where we left off. It's been two months since Celaena was announced as the King's Champion and Maas drops us right in the thick of it! Honestly, this book grabbed me by the throat and didn't let go until the very last page.

It's actually pretty difficult to review this book without giving too much away. All I can say is that this story posed so many questions and I was suspicious of literally everyone. But what Maas excels at is her ability to write admirable characters. We get to see sides of these people we had no idea existed. And yet…we still love them.

Even when they're isolated and feeling alone and untrustworthy of anyone. When they make their biggest mistakes. When they're at their lowest. Still. We love them. Now that is proper storytelling.

This book is going to make you laugh, cry and scream at the top of your lungs. Oh, yeah. You're in for a doozy. Highly recommend.

Spoiler Section

So, anybody who read my review for Throne of Glass knows this is my first time reading fantasy. Let me just tell you this: I AM SO IN.

When I read Celaena and Aelin Galanthynius in the same sentence???? I damn near lost my mind. I hooted. I hollered. I jumped around and talked in gibberish to my husband. Are you freaking kidding me? That was so unexpected! You know, the more I read the more I'm convinced that Celaena's not a very reliable narrator. I can't believe we went almost two books without even the slightest hint of her heritage!

AND SHE'S FAE. WHAT?!?! I mean, don't get me wrong, when that Wyrdmark showed up on her forehead during the competition, I knew something was up and I kind of knew that she would somehow be blessed with some kind of Fae magic. But I wasn't expecting Celaena to know. What a secretive little bitch! But that scene was so badass when she jumped through the portal and instantly changed. Dope dope dope!

Okay, enough fangirling. Can we talk about how heartbreaking it was to see Dorian be pushed out of his friend group by Celaena and Chaol? Not only is he going through a change that he knows nothing about, but Celaena's also been needlessly rude to him?

I mean, I get it. She's gotta put up this front and make everybody believe that she's the perfect Champion and loyal to the King. Sure. But she's gotta know that any sideward glance or shadow of doubt cast by Dorian is in response to how eerily accurate and easy it is to play the King's assassin. And to turn around and start dating Chaol when the reason she and Dorian broke up was so she could experience what it's like to be free? That was harsh.

Which brings me to my next point. I HATE Celaena and Chaol. I tried. I really did. But I hate it. Some of those scenes in the beginning were kind of cute like their dinner date and the constant sexing and the broom closet. But then everything turns to shit because Chaol has the Midas touch and it's like Chaol loses every ounce of trust for Celaena. Even though he can admit that he was in the wrong and admit that he loves her and admit all these great characteristics about her, he still thinks the best course of action is to lock her in the dungeon for four days. WTF???

While Chaol was in the doghouse, I loved watching Dorian and Celaena grow close again. Not because I'm officially a diehard Celaena/Dorian shipper now, but because it was what they both needed. Celaena and Dorian spent so much time hurting and feeling like they could confide in no one. I was so relieved to watch them find solace in one another.

And you know what? Despite all those things I said about Chaol, I still like him. I have lots of questions, like why he was so blindly loyal to the crown until now, but I still like him. So, can I forgive him for being a crucial part in Nehemia's death? I think so. But I seriously can't stand the idea of him being with Celaena. The thing that drove me crazy at the end when Celaena's sent off to Wendlyn is that she admits that she loves him and hates him at the same time? He's her greatest love and also her enemy?

Ugh. I wanted to throw up. Like if you don't take your little Fae ass and kiss Dorian already, I stg.

But AELIN GALANTHYNIUS?? FAE???? God, I can't get over it. I'm so ready to dive into the next one!!

#crown of midnight #Throne of Glass #Sarah J. Maas #Celaena Sardothien #Dorian Havilliard #Chaol Westfall #The King's Champion #fantasy #adventure #young adult #books #book review #book rec #dorian x celaena #fae

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miekasa · 3 years

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any dad!levi hcs for father’s day today🥺🤲🏽

Absolutely!! I’ll do this I guess using the kids I have for him in my parent au? If you’ve read that, you know about Holden, but there are two more so prepare to meet them :’) happy father’s day to Levi <33

To begin with, you guys would plan to have your kids (to the best of your abilities; you were intentionally trying to have kids at a time when you both knew you were ready for them.

Although accidents to do happen, and Levi would welcome an unplanned child all the same; that being said, if you’re both want a family, you would have discussed it beforehand (which is to a degree, is a lot about mental preparation for himself).

In his perfect world, he’d have two daughters. They’d be equal parts him and you, and they’d be quiet and curious and lovely and life would be good. He’d spend his days with you and his two tiny daughters, raising his little family and doing all he could for his favorite girls.

So, naturally, he does get two daughters, but also a son in between; and the latter two kids are far from easy in their own unique ways lmfao

You might have already met Holden, and she’s the oldest in my dad Levi au, and the most like him. Levi’s dark hair, his grey eyes, his overall unimpressed visage, his knack for cleanliness and organization—down to the way she holds her sippy cups, she’s damn near Levi’s doppleganger.

Holden is somewhere between 3.5-4 years old before you have your second kid, and in that time is when Levi confirms he thinks he was cut out to be a certified Girl Dad.

Both Levi and Holden take quality father-daughter time very seriously. It’s impossible to change plans once they’re set: “Daddy, you promised we would go to the famer’s market on Sunday. You pinky promised.” And Levi wouldn’t dare break a pinky promise, so he makes time for it.

Levi doesn’t play favorites with his kids, but there is something special about Holden as his first born. He’s constantly in awe of just how much she resembles him. Four years into raising her and it’s still hard to wrap his head around.

Much to his chagrin, Hange and Eren are Holden’s favorite adults. Maybe Levi understands the admiration for Hange, but Eren... come on, Holden, you’re breaking his heart at that point.

It’s almost out of character for your daughter to be so openly affectionate about someone outside of your immediate family, but she really loves having Eren as a babysitter; and you know she’s playing favorites, because she remains neutral on Armin, even though he and Eren always babysit as a duo.

She doesn’t have a favorite grandparent, but Kenny spoils her the most. Levi tells him he shouldn’t, but when has Kenny ever listened to Levi. The man isn’t a fan of kids, but he thinks yours and Levi’s are pretty cool, and Holden is about the coolest 4 year old he could ever meet.

When she was learning to walk, Levi’s favorite thing was holding her little hand and guiding her around. Even now, when she can stand perfectly fine on her own two feet, Levi loves it when she reaches for his hand; Holden is a pretty independent kid, even at 4 years old, so Levi never takes affection from her for granted.

They’re best friends and Holden goes everywhere with him. Their favorite father-daughter activity is going to the grocery store, and Levi lets Holden point to and assess her favorite fruits and veggies while she sits happily in the shopping cart.

Sometimes there are other parents struggling with a kid throwing a temper tantrum. Levi simply clicks his teeth, while Holden shakes her little head. “That’s pretty embarassing, daddy,” she says, looking at the poor parent with an unamused glare that rivals Levi’s. He nods and pushes the cart past the scene, “Tell me about it, kid.”

Your second kid is a boy, and he looks more like you than Levi, but manages to have Levi’s signature hair color and pout when things aren’t going his way.

He comes as a shock to both you and Levi, because after your ultrasound, you were told you were having another girl. Turns out, they’d accidentally mixed up your files, and you were having a boy instead, which you do not find out until your mid-term check up a few months later. Cue Levi buffering like an old computer.

Kiaan is welcomed all the same, even tho Levi is still in disbelief; he was mentally preparing to have another daughter on his hands. He puts more pressure on himself with his son; not that he wasn’t trying his best to be a parent to Holden, but any insecurities he might have about being a good come out when your son is born, because Levi has no “man of the house” example to follow from.

You reassure him that your son will turn out to be just fine, and raising him the way you raised Holden, and would have raised another daughter is perfectly acceptable. Of course Levi rises to the occasion after the initial shock; he’s determined to be the dad to his son that he never had.

Where Holden is more reserved, Kiaan likes to talk and babble about anything whenever and wherever he can, to whoever is around. It’s not uncommon for you or Levi to find your son completely entertained by telling a story out loud to himself while playing with his toys.

Loves to rope Levi into making his toys interact and have “conversations” with each other, and Kiaan genuinely thinks his dad is hilarious, even if he doesn’t completely understand what he’s saying. It always makes Levi smile to hear Kiaan try and copy the bass and tone of his voice when he’s mocking him.

Kiaan loves messing with his dad, and Levi’s all talk, so of course he lets him. He’ll be on a Zoom meeting for work, and Kiaan will be sat in his lap, running little toy cars across the desk in front of him, or tugging on Levi’s hair, and Levi just lets him. It makes quite the cute sight, and Hange has definitely taken a few screen recordings.

That being said, your son is more of a mama’s boy than anything. Kiaan loves messing with Levi, but if you’re in the room, there’s a 95% chance he’ll be on your lap or at your side shadowing whatever you’re doing.

Kiaan is a universal copycat tho, so whatever you, Levi, or Holden say or do, he tries for himself. This makes him especially susceptible to repeating Levi’s foul language and bad habits than Holden. (“Kiaan, you can’t sleep on the chair, it’s not good for your back.” “But daddy sleeps on the chairs sometimes!” “...Alright kid, you got me there.”)

He’s a very loving kid with his words, too, always thanking people and proclaiming his love, so he doesn’t exactly have a “favorite” adult or babysitter, but he does get particularly excited when Erwin or Farlan come around. He feels especially tall when Erwin lets him sit on his shoulders, and Farlan always entertains his story-telling.

He’s a sucker for his grandma though, and gives Kuchel a million kisses whenever she comes around. Does not let go over her for the entire time she’s over at your house, and will sit on her lap throughout dinner.

The most affectionate child, so where Holden only likes holding hands, Kiaan loves cuddling with you and Levi, and likes to be held whenever possible. Levi spoils him a little too much, and more often than not, if you’re walking outside for more than two hours, Kiaan will end up on Levi’s shoulders or in your arms.

Your last kid is another girl, and, yeah she’s just a baby no older than a few months, but Levi can’t help but think she’s especially tiny, and he can’t help but to look at her and hold her whenever possible. Your baby girl also leaves Levi a little dumbstruck because she manages to look like a combination of you and his mother.

As she grows, it becomes apparent that you’ve got another daddy’s girl on your hands. Doesn’t matter if you’re literally breast feeding her, Aria will throw a tantrum if she’s separated from Levi for more than an hour.

The good news is, her sleep cycle is as irregular as Levi’s, so he’s got someone to keep him company when everyone else has gone to bed for the evening. Unfortunately, this also means Aria naps a lot during the day, which leaves Levi a little bored since Holden is old enough to be in school full-time, and Kiaan is gone for at least a portion of the day.

So, he would never tell you, but sometimes he wakes Aria up from her naps just a little bit early to spend more time with her (and cure his boredom). Having an infant trying to grab at his hair with her ravioli sized baby fists while he tries to cook lunch certainly makes the task more difficult, but it also adds welcomed color to his day.

You and Levi have to hold Aria constantly when she’s awake or else she’ll cry (although, if you leave her in the arms of her siblings, she does settle down, too); that, or she’ll find her tiny baby hands somewhere they shouldn’t be. Like dipped in a jar of strawberry jam. Or peanut butter. Or both.

Levi talks to his kids like he would any other adult, so it’s not uncommon to find him brewing tea with a baby strapped to his chest, narrating the steps to good tea-making out loud to her for her to hear. He swears she can understand him, and he attributes Holden and Kiaan’s growing vocabularies, and the early ages at which they started speaking to this.

Aria will be in her little chest strap thing while Levi’s cooking dinner, and he’ll look down at her like, “Alright, we’re gonna julienne your carrots today. Yesterday we cubed them, but you’ve got grabby hands, so this will give you more room to work with.”

Kiaan loves holding Aria and honestly just being around her, and you and Levi think it’s adorable how he loves to play with her, and how he knows to be gentle with her. He shares a room with her, and loves sharing his bedtime story times, so you or Levi will read them to sleep together.

Holden isn’t crazy about babies, but she’s a good older sister, and Aria seems to be obsessed with her. She crawls and scoots towards her if given the opportunity, and Holden will always look to you or Levi before attempting to hold or lift her up, as if asking permission. She’ll pat Aria’s head to get her to stop crying, or let her play with her hands.

Levi thinks one of the best parts about being a dad is seeing the different dynamics and relationships between your kids. Holden isn’t most physically or verbally affectionate, but she’s still compassionate, and Kiaan looks up to her; and Kiaan is the perfect middle ground, knowing when it’s appropriate to bother (affectionate) Holden, and when to give her space, and curiously hovers around his baby sister, too.

#anonymous #dad levi dad levi dad levi dad levi!!!!!!!!#levi x reader #levi fluff #aot x reader #levi ackerman x reader #levi smut #aot imagines

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lo-frequency · 3 years

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Class 1-A on Various TV Shows

So this is the first part of a "tv show" themed series of headcanons I have planned. I still have some requests to get to, but I hope y'all can enjoy these in the meantime!

Bakugou:

-American Ninja Warrior

- Please, you can’t tell me they wouldn’t have a pro-hero version of ANW. It’d have to be an international/Japanese version in this case, but the concept would be the same.

-SHOW SUMMARY: So in case you’ve never seen/heard of American Ninja Warrior, it’s a game show (?) where contestants have to cross a challenging obstacle course that tests your athleticism and physical strength. The course is outside (w a crowd watching), and there’s water beneath the course, so if you fall, you’re off the show. To win, you have to have the fastest time of all the successful contestants. END SUMMARY

-Anyway, in his introduction clip, they’d show Bakugou doing some intense training/parkour or whatever and he’s like “This’ll be an easy win. I do courses like these as a light workout”, you know, the usual arrogance we all love so much.

-Would be one of those contestants with a backyard Ninja course/personal gym and he’d be on that thing everyday. He eats, sleeps, and breaths ANW until the day he runs the course

-Now, for this particular version of ANW, Shoji has the #1 record with the fastest time in Pro-Hero ANW history (hard to beat somebody w 6 arms and over 1000lb grip strength)

-So for Bakugou, it’s not a matter of finishing the course or even winning the show, he’s training for the that #1 champion spot.

-Would he beat Shoji’s record? Probably not, but he’d definitely go down in the hall of fame

-I think it would be pretty cool to watch him show off the results of all those 6am workouts, lol

Hell’s Kitchen

-Do I even need to continue the headcanon?

-Chef Ramsay’s actual twin, blonde hair and everything

-As the judge (aka Chef Ramsay), he’d be so hard on the contestants smh

-He’d have your blood pressure high with how much he’d be yelling at the other chefs

-Would take too much pleasure in giving the losing teams punishments

-Probably sent everybody out of the kitchen during dinner service at one point, just shut down the whole service out of rage

-As a chef, he’d be the most intense on his team

-Wouldn’t have been a team player at first bc he knew his skills alone would keep him on the show, but as more people got eliminated, he would learn to work with others so they’d be more likely to win challenges

-Would’ve been told to humble himself on multiple occasions by Chef Ramsay, I can’t imagine him taking criticism very well either, w Chef’s usual tone.

-He’d fit right into the show honestly, bc most of the chef’s on there fight and have bad attitudes anyway 💀

-Would definitely be a finalist, has a pretty high chance of winning the show bc he has strong skills despite his sucky attitude. It would be a season to remember, for sure.

Kirishima

-Would have a fitness Youtube channel , “Red Riot Fitness” or something like that

-Weekly workouts for all fitness levels, really enthusiastic and one of those instructors that’s constantly hyping you up and making those dramatic sounds as you get your last few reps in

-Does mostly resistance training and HIIT workouts

-If he has other people working out with him in the video, he’d go around the room encouraging them and doing the exercises with them

-Very popular with stay at home moms, they’re all up in his livestreams ;) (shoot, I’d be right there with them)

-Makes those inspirational videos like “You’re winning even if you can only do 5 minutes!!”

-Could see him collaborating with other fitness channels and doing something unexpected like Zumba or a hip hop dance class for the fun of it.

-Probably makes videos like “My Daily Workout Routine” or “What I Eat in a Day” and then people would start making content like: “I Worked Out like Red Riot for a Week and This Happened 😱”

Izuku

-Sports newscaster, always makes the most accurate predictions about game outcomes.

-March Madness? He’d get closest to guessing the actual Final Four

-Knows all the player stats like he coached them himself

-If he had a radio show he’d constantly be getting into debates with co-hosts or listeners about player performance or which teams are the best

-Gets genuinely excited about interviewing the players after games

-Good at narrating games until he gets too hype and starts rambling out of excitement

-Pretty well known commentator throughout the world of whatever sport he follows.

Todoroki

-Brace yourself, because this is truly a concept: messy reality show host Shoto

-They’d have him hosting the sit-down meetings at the end of each season, where the cast members sit together and have a “discussion” about that season’s events.

-No, stay with me on this. He’d be perfect because he would “unintentionally” instigate the drama between cast members like:

- “So Alicia, how is your relationship with Colby?”

- “Uh, it’s fine, now…?”

- He raises his eyebrows “Really? I’m surprised, since he cheated on you with Kelly.” 👀.

- “He what?”

-*Camera pans to Shoto looking knowingly into the camera, sipping his drink while Alicia and Kelly fight.*

-Later on, during individual interviews, he’s like “I knew Alicia was unaware, although Colby was making it obvious, in my opinion. I just thought it was about time Kelly got exposed for being the fake friend she is.” he says in his usual flat tone, with a slight shrug to his shoulders.

-I’m telling you, this would make good television.

That’s all I've got for now! Thanks for tuning in, as always :)

#bnha headcanons #bnha sfw #bnha fluff #bnha x reader #bakugou headcanons #todoroki headcanons #izuku midoriya headcanons #mha headcanons #kirishima headcanons

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mobagehelllocal · 3 years

Text

“lucky ending” extra notes i & iii

Hi, I said I would do it but then I released ver i so long ago that I felt I shouldn't do this unless I had another version out at least so yay! finally! ... I'll add ver ii here when I get around to writing it... *shifty eyes* So as usual, this is just my thought process and ideas while writing lol.

*please do not read if you haven’t read “lucky ending” ver i (dorm leaders) & ver iii (rook & lilia).

It was inspired by an anon ask and the button tradition from Japanese schools.

The anon ask went like this: First at all, I like do much your writing and I hope you are doing well. Second, I was wondering what would happen if the MC (Fem!s/o I guess) decided to not go back to her world, like she decide stay with her villain? Can you do make headcanons of this for the dorm leaders? Thank you very much. – from Anonymous

The button tradition, as narrated by the first years, is done when one person confesses and the other responds by giving them the button closest to their heart. In most Japanese uniforms it’s the second uniform, but in Twisted Wonderland--I looked at the ceremonial robes and the closest button should be the fifth. Maybe. I could be wrong.

The songs I listened to while writing this!

The original dorm leaders (and Rook) was written while listening to “Lucky Ending”, the ending theme of Fruits Basket. The English lyrics (translated by otenkiame!) are:

“Change is important. I want to do it well,/ but I wanna cry. It's still bad. I wanna cry”

“The word "goodbye" has disappeared completely from this world/ All that remains is me fooling around next to you/A day you don't laugh won't come anymore”

“I've understood it since being here/ These feelings of wanting to protect you aren't a misunderstanding/ If we can call what connects us bonds,/ everything changes/ everybody changes/ Even if in a different world, it'll never be different/ everything changes/ everybody changes/ Don't change, ever/ Stay here, stay here”

I think it’s obvious why I chose to use this as the title of the series. It’s a story about change but it’s also a story about the things you don’t want to change... And I think it’s not wrong to want to hold onto things.

I also listened to the same playlist that I listened to while writing “wendy?” “hello peter pan”:

“Can’t help falling in love” cover by Annapantsu, “If you’re not the one” by David Beddingfield, “Who Knew” by P!nk and “All Too Well” by Taylor Swift.

For Lilia in particular, I was listening to three Beauty and the Beast songs on loop. “Evermore” by Josh Groban, “Days in the Sun” by the live action cast and, of course--”How does a moment last forever” by Celine Dion.

“How does a moment last forever?/ How can a story never die?/ It is love we must hold onto/ Never easy, but we try/ Sometimes our happiness is captured/ Somehow, our time and place stand still/ Love lives on inside our hearts and always will”

Also for Lilia, Tolerate It by Taylor Swift.

“You're so much older and wiser and I/ I wait by the door like I'm just a kid”

“I made you my temple, my mural, my sky/Now I'm begging for footnotes in the story of your life”

Malleus was definitely the first piece finished. Closely followed by Vil’s. I believe there was a gap inbetween them before I did the others? I wrote bits and pieces of Leona, Idia, Kalim and Azul’s. I think I finished Leona, Idia, Kalim then Riddle because I distinctly remember saving Azul for last.

One of the most important things for me, is that each story stands distinct of each other. So I gave myself a really hard time trying to figure out how each one uniquely belonged to each of the characters.

For the Prologue... I think because it’s set at the graduation of certain characters, I used that to my advantage and implied the stronger bonds between the Yuu!Reader and the entirety of the cast. Because a lot of time has passed and I feel like--regardless of what other people believe, bonds will be made and relationships will have strengthened enough for it to happen.

Riddle is honestly another really difficult character for me to write. I generally do love him and I enjoy his story, but something about him is difficult and I’m not sure why.

I think a part of me is also really miffed because from Heartslabyul-Savanaclaw, you could feel that Riddle really cared for Yuu on some level but then he just straight up disappears come Octavinelle chapter. I feel like there was potential to develop their relationship even more.

He WENT UP AND TIED YOUR RIBBON I REMEMBER I WENT DOKI DOKI OVER THAT.

I feel like because I’ve established that it’s a Yuu!Reader, it’s impossible for this story to not include both Ace and Deuce. So of course they featured in really big roles for this one, being responsible for telling Riddle the story.

I have to thank my friend, Mes, for bouncing ideas with me. They were the one who suggested what I could do with Riddle’s story by having ADeuce play such a big part!

I also tried my hardest to include Trey and Cater, and I’m pretty happy with their cameo. In a way, they definitely helped Riddle figure out his own feelings for you.

My favourite lines are: “I think you earned that much. I don’t believe anyone’s ever been in your situation before so—there’s no right or wrong about what you’re doing. It’s all about what you want to do.”

I wish someone would tell this to Yuu in general though. They’re the only one who has ever been in their situation (to our knowledge at least) and like... they’re definitely allowed to be even more selfish.

Leona is someone who I used to dislike a lot. I never hid that. It’s primarily because of how disappointed I am in the story of Savanaclaw probably. But like, I was always concerned about writing him properly because I thought that it was only right that I did right by him, because there would be people reading these stories who loved him. And I felt like I had to do right by that love.

I think... it’s wrong to believe that characters... villains... cannot fall in love or “won’t fall in love.” I think it’s wrong also to think that “people don’t change for love.”

In fact, people do change. You definitely shouldn’t change yourself to be loved, but... people change all the time to be their “better” selves. So whose to say that a good person, who you love, will not make you want to improve yourself? Isn’t that what we want when we meet people? To fall in love with someone who will ultimately make you better and never worse.

Or so that’s how I try to write the Twisted characters when they fall in love... With an understanding that “morally” the person they are falling for is “kind” and “good” and how a part of them might just want to be better just for that person. (Especially Leona and Azul). They don’t necessarily have to be nice to everyone, but if they can be better for one person... We stan healthy character growth.

But yeah, Leona is driven by understanding that he’s a very selfish person. But that he’s also very unfortunate and he doesn’t want tie you with someone who, he thinks, is actually worthless. He probably, deeply, thinks you deserve more.

Though his selfishness eventually wins out and well... Won’t you forgive him for it? :) For tying you down to this worthless second prince?

I think his own self-awareness does make him try harder. Not for everyone or everything... but for you. Just for you. I think that would be Leona’s love language--spending time with you, trying for you.

He’d appreciate if you didn’t call him out on it though, that would be very embarrassing.

Looking back, I’m surprised that it was the only version where none of the other boys from his dorm showed up lol. Which means Ruggie is the sole character who has yet to appear in the “lucky ending” series, huh.

My favourite lines from his story that still leaves me breathless and patting my past self in the back: ““I’m home—” you said—even if a part of you felt that home should have been two green eyes, a cocky smirk, and a warm patch of sunlight on the grassy ground.”

Like honestly, what was I on? Who was she?

Azul is, like Leona, someone who is so keenly aware of the things he’s lacking. In fact, he’s someone who thinks he’s lacking when he’s probably perfect in some aspects. He might act proud but a part of him--I think--thinks its not enough. It’s never enough. He can certainly do better still.

In that light, it’s why he thinks he’s undeserving of a partner. Especially one who is “kind” and “understanding.” While ultimately, Azul deserves people in his life who are that and “accepting” of him--I think he still thinks he doesn’t.

And thats why he lets go of the Yuu!Reader. It’s why he doesn’t “chase” after her like Leona did.

It’s because he’s selfish, because he wants her--that he forces himself to let go.

Azul needs someone who’ll tell him that he is worth something and that he’s definitely worth the effort. So please praise him a lot until he’s crying in happiness. I’m sure it’s the one thing he’s always wanted to hear from people around him.

Also my Poly!Octavinelle Agenda has never died and I am pleased Past!Ai got away with so much Poly!Octa hints in this story lol. But honestly, regardless of wht Octavinelle says... god, you can tell they genuinely care about each other.

I recently rewatched Octavinelle’s chapter and... by god, the amount of things I missed out on first watch. Jade’s concern when he realized Azul wanted to get rid of that photo... The fact Floyd was so willing to drop the fight to return to Azul too... Anyways, Poly!Octa Agenda for life.

Favourite lines: “Azul’s pathetic whimpers turned into guttural sobs. His fingers spread to cover his eyes—and his glasses slid off his face, down to his lap and then to the ground—at his actions. His whole body shook as he cried his heart out.”

It’s not as poetic as a lot of my other favourites, but for some reason these lines always get me when I reread them. There’s something so visceral about it.

Azul’s piece is probably the least visually stimulating out of all these stories? His was so emotionally driven compared to the others and I worried a lot about that.

I think I remember I was crying so badly as I was writing this.

Kalim is really hard for me because I feel like I struggle a lot with finding conflict in his character? He’s such a genuinely nice person, I find it hard to believe that the Yuu!Reader would feel alienated from him or something. So I brought in “environment” to get in the way.

My use of celestial imagery for Kalim is because of the Scarabia trailer! I really loved how it put Kalim as the sun and Jamil as the moon. I definitely will take advantage of that when I get around to writing for Jamil.

So because I wanted to use the sun, I chose to use the idea of comets for Kalim? I think I remember something about how meteors are drawn to the gravitation pull of the sun and can “escape” it or “be destroyed” by it. Haha, hot.

Jamil is someone who ultimately cares about Kalim too and I had fun writing his banter with the Yuu!Reader. I think I wanted to decribe the shadows licking his face reminscent to the marks from his Overblot but... I felt like doing that would give Jamil too much focus so I ultimately decided against it.

It would’ve been hot though.

Oh yes, one thing I wanted to talk about is Kalim’s rushed proposal. I remember people talking about it in the tags, comments... even in asks at that time. The reason he does it is because he’s someone who didn’t realize his feelings until you spelled out your own. It was a sort of: “Oh. Right. That is the word I’d use to describe my feelings.”

My favourite lines from his story is: “How does one bid goodbye to the sun?” and “No one ever willingly bids goodbye to the sun.They spend the rest of their lives trying to find the right way back to it.”

My god, who was this genius.

Vil is probably the most visually stunning out of all these stories. I feel like my stories go from super vivid imagery and setting to just complete emotional disasters lol. (Vil being the former and Azul’s being the latter... not that it’s bad, it actually suits the characters).

Oh man, I remember thinking that Vil is such a hard character to write because we don’t know what his motivation for perfection is. All we knows is that he wants to be the best but, why?

It’s like, for example, Idia. His motivations could be otaku-related. He doesn’t want to go to class because he’d rather go play or something. That sounds in character--but Vil was so hard because he wanted perfection.

But we already see him as such a perfect character, so what else did he need to be even more perfect? In that light, Chapter 5 did a really good job on presenting Vil’s motivations.

But honestly, I think I can comfortably say that the Vil I’ve written so far is pretty accurate? To his character. I’m really grateful I read his chat lines because his comment about intelligence really got me thinking about his possible motivations. It made it really easy to understand that Vil wasn’t like majority of the real world’s influencers.

One other thing that I was really happy about with his story is the use of the flower language. It’s something I hope I can use more because it’s so beautiful.

Oh! And the roses the Yuu!Reader talks about are double delight roses. They are specifically bred to have two colors--yellow in the center and pink on the outside. I thought it fitting that the Yuu!Reader breed special roses for Vil.

They can be called... err... Vil Roses?

My favourite lines from his story is: ““My happiness will not be dictated by others—no, Vil Schoenheit is a person who will grasp happiness with his own hands.” [...] “I’m giving you this button because I’ve already found happiness by your side.””

This line was actually inspired by Zelda C.W.’s MYth series. Specifically Hera’s story, Will.

Idia ...for him, I somehow had a very hard time imagining him trying to tell the reader to stay. Like that didn’t compute for me? I felt like his version was better approached in a more comedic light somehow.

I also felt that it would be cuter if the Yuu!Reader had already chosen to stay and Idia would need to hastily retrack his confession... Unfortunately, Yuu!Reader won’t let him.

Honestly looking back on it, I wonder how much of Chapter 6 is going to make me scream and want to rewrite Idia’s part?

My favourite lines from his story is: “He was never particularly good at lying—nor was he good at keeping secrets from you. You were a person he considered a dear friend—and he was always the type of person who ended up spilling everything to you. He liked being able to talk about the things he enjoyed—he liked that he had found someone who wanted to hear him out.”

A lot of my interpretation for Idia is closely linked to personal experience as an anime, manga and gaming fan. It was just a couple of years ago where people would actually be bullied for liking these things--but nowadays its become a norm. It’s... stunning actually but it makes me happy to know that maybe nobody will be judged for loving anime.

That being said, Idia’s longing to find someone he can talk to is something I really relate too--back then, it was so difficult to find someone to talk to about my interests... So I interpreted Idia as much the same. That what he enjoys about the Yuu!Reader is their ability to simply sit and listen to him talk.

Malleus... man, recently I’ve been starting to fall in love with him all over again. He was my first oshi ever... Anyways, moving on. You think I’ve talked enough about immortal x mortal but nope, we are not done. I love this theme in general, romantic or platonic.

I will never shut up about it you can’t make me.

Sebek having a good enough friendship with Yuu!Reader is such a delicious concept. Like mutual respect and Sebek understanding that Yuu!Reader gives Malleus a different type of companionship that Sebek, Silver or Lilia couldn’t...

And also, ultimately, Sebek and Yuu!Reader do love Malleus. In different ways, but I like the thought of Sebek respecting that and respecting the Yuu!Reader.

Me realizing just now that Silver joins Ruggie in the: “has never appeared in a lucky ending fic club.”... Sorry Silver, I swear soon. Once we get more content on you.

Celestial themes for Malleus are primarily, again, because he only ever seemed to meet you at night. And I thought it would be wonderful, if you were a bright spark to him.

Favourite lines are definitely: “Oh, bright light… I would prefer to live the rest of your life by your side… rather than spend centuries contemplating what it could have felt… to hold you in my arms.”

I am, always, going to be such a big sucker for the idea of immortals constantly remembering and loving mortals. Always holding them close in their memories, because in that way--their lovers have become immortal with them.

I also like to imagine that he eventually figures out a way to connect your worlds together so you can still talk to your friends and family from that world. He is one of the most powerful magicians around, I’m sure its possible.

Rook was honestly the most difficult piece for me to write because he’s so hard(?) for me to understand. He’s a mess of contradictions honestly and I... guess I’m excited to see what he’ll do come Chapter 6.

I actually rewrote his story so much. I got about 500 words with a different idea/plot in mind before deleting that completely and restarting from scratch.

I feel like Rook is someone who talks big and talks about love without actually knowing what it truly might feel like. He’s someone who doesn’t understand it and ends up mistaking it for his fascination.

Aside from me enjoying inserting other characters from the same dorm as much as possible, I felt that Vil was the perfect person to snap some sense into Rook.

Epel’s appearance there is basically to reflect how much I really hope the first year kids get really close to one another.

Rook is also someone who I think, doesn’t try to explain himself too much. He’s someone who I think talks a lot, but if people don’t understand him then he doesn’t need to be understood? That’s my impression. Lol, when “lucky ending” became a character study.

I also really loved the idea that Rook was fine with people running from him--to him that makes it all the more thrilling. But then you start running away from him and that just ends up making dread pool in his stomach.

My favourite lines from his story: “‘When something ends, it must be sad. So, tell me then, how an ending could be so beautiful?’ [...] .‘But there was one ending that was beautiful, non?’ [...] ‘That’s right. ‘They lived happily ever after’—are those not the words that define a beautiful ending?’”

I used the dusk metaphor for Rook. My idea is that he starts seeing dusk as an ending and how he can’t fathom how any “ending” is beautiful. When a story ends, it’s not beautiful to him, humu. But when that ending is the happily ever after then... That makes all the difference.

Lilia was actually easier than Rook’s but also fairly difficult. I had written the middle of Lilia’s piece while stumped on Rook’s actually. Lilia’s was probably easier because I love the idea of immortals and mortals.

I don’t really like the idea of mortals becoming immortals. Like, yes, it’s certainly sweet and spending eternity with a one true love is definitely the best possible ending but... I think there’s so much weight in an immortal choosing to love a mortal while knowing that they will ultimately lose them.

The biggest theme for Lilia is definitely time.

Thinking about it now... There’s been a lot of things in real life that’s just... Made me think about how we have less time than we actually think we have. And I think I ended up channeling that through Lilia... Though I feel like it is ultimately things Lilia would think about though.

The most important imagery would probably be the stars.

I honestly wanted to avoid it because I used celestial imagery for both Kalim and Malleus but the words just flowed out in a way that I felt that I couldn’t replace. So I went with it.

Lilia is no stranger to loneliness. One of the reasons he feels less alone is because he has family now and he doesn’t want to rob you of that. Family is so important to him because they are people who are meant to be with you--they are people who will make you less lonely--or so thats how I think? he thinks.

My favourite lines from his story: “He would relish in the way—You made the world pause. You made a moment extend into an eternity. You made an immortal crave just a little more time.”

I’m so immensely proud of this one? I don’t really have much else to say. There’s something so raw about it that I love. Also the part where it continues on to say that “Because there is never enough time.”

Me realizing my extra notes is just half me simping over these characters, half sharing headcanons, have actually giving good advice? perspective?, half song lyrics, half character study/analysis?

“lucky ending” is about change. Whether we want them to happen or not it’s... the human condition to change. For better or worse, we change--day by day. I think we all operate under a small panic about how everyday things are changing...

But “lucky ending” is also about the things that don’t change. Won’t change. Will never change. The things worth holding onto, the thing worth fighting for... or so I’d like to think.

#aimuses #ainotes #ai lucky series #twst #twisted wonderland #its 6 AM HEEHOOO

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junemo10 · 3 years

Text

Okay so ✨Story time✨

Today in AP Bio the online students were put into breakout rooms with in-person kids and observing as they did a lab. And these two Juniors that I got put with were so funny to watch. never met them before, but they really remind me of two people....

Only one of them knew what they were doing, calling him Merlin. The other guy clearly didn’t read the lab, but like im not judging, we are calling him Arthur.

(It is very important you let me use these names) (I will also be referring to my teacher as Gaius. Because I can.)

Merlin seemed passionate about Biology, and he was very kind to us. He narrated everything he did, so we could follow along in the packet (even though we didn’t really need him to, but we appreciated it anyway)

Merlin: I’m going to set the tube into the rack now-

Arthur: they can SEE that. You don’t have to narrate EVERYTHING

Merlin: im just trying to make sure!

Arthur was increasingly worrying me as we started the lab. He was in charge of picking up the computer and tilting the camera to show us what was going on in the lab, but each time he picked it up it nearly fell right onto the electrophoresis chamber (which is full of gel to be used for the DNA samples.) He also was shaking it so badly, the other online girl with me asked him to just put it down.

When using the micro-pipet to put the DNA into the chamber, Arthur wanted to go first, but then he sat for a good 5 minutes trying to figure out how to use it.

Merlin: it’s easy. For real. Just push the button all the way down and don’t lift until you take the pipet out.

Arthur: okay. Got it.

Arthur:

Arthur: wait so-

Then we were working on some of the lab questions, Merlin asked us how we were doing, and we told him we were keeping up with him.

Merlin looked up at Arthur and deadpanned in the most hilarious way: okay so you’re just slow. Hurry up.

When they used the micro-centrifuge, Gaius explained how to balance the tubes, and Merlin was placing them with Arthur (who was holding us) looking over his shoulder.

Arthur: balance

Merlin: yep

Arthur, pointing (computer, *shaking*. my eyes, SWIMMING): b a l a n c e

Merlin: I’m sorry, did you want to do this??

Arthur, in a very quiet voice that we heard perfectly: balance?

After they got the DNA into the gel, we had more lab questions. I did them on my own, because they were pretty straight forward. But then all of a sudden there was a COMMOTION, and I looked up to see this:

Merlin: you dumb fuck that is *not* what the question is asking

Arthur: whoa whoa whoa. This is slander. First of all, no need to swear. Second, what is it asking then?

Merlin: it’s asking about how it would appear if there was 500 pieces of each FRAGMENT, not the entire set.

Arthur: yeah? Well I say we get Gaius to weigh in.

Merlin, practically ready to rip his hair out: FINE. Gaius?

Much to your shock, Arthur was wrong. But he didn’t seem surprised, just smug that Merlin had gotten so riled up.

At one point Arthur hit Merlin in the head with a meter stick. I don’t know why he had it. We didn’t even use meter sticks in this lab.

Merlin, deadpans again:

Arthur: social distant forehead flick!

We had to read details on what came next in the lab, so it went silent as we each read it. So, of course, Arthur started humming and snapping his fingers.

Merlin, not looking up from his packet: read

Arthur: I am!

Merlin, still not looking up: READ

Then they were both confused:

Merlin: wait so he said to take this out-

Arthur: uh huh

Merlin: pour this in-

Arthur: right

Merlin: do I just hold it down with one finger-

Arthur: you just. You gotta do it.

Merlin: for how long though?!

Arthur: we time it for 10 seconds. I think it says here.

Merlin: okay I’ll let you do it then.

Arthur: I don’t have gloves on. You have to do it.

Merlin: okay fine fine. I’m just going for it

Two minutes later:

[loud indistinct chatter of girls from another lab table]

Arthur, seemingly to himself: that’s hilarious

Merlin, literally doing the stressful part of the lab that Arthur is meant to be timing: what??

I think Arthur was banging his head on something at some point?? It was very loud. Merlin was just repeating that Arthur was annoying.

Arthur: -said something I missed-

Merlin: that’s rude. what if you have covid.

Arthur: I don’t

Merlin: you don’t know that. You might. Keep your tongue to yourself

Yeah im not sure I want to know what Arthur said either.

Arthur, talking to himself: I just want to do a lab right for once

Gaius, overhearing: you’re doing it right

Arthur: oh snap. you hear that Merlin?

Merlin, whispers after Gaius moves away: you ain’t doing shit my man

The worst part (and I mean the best part, that had me CACKLING) was during the wait for the gel staining.

They just had to sit with each other, doing nothing for 10 minutes. And they spent the whole time just saying “you’re an idiot” to each other, back and forth.

The other girl and I were just shaking our heads at each other the whole time.

While soaking the gel, they had to wait for 15 more minutes and I’m just gonna make a list of all that occurred:

Arthur sang “pretty woman” but only the chorus several times in a row

Merlin announced: “SCIENCE.” And I’m really not sure what it was over. But it sounded cathartic.

Arthur tried to touch something Merlin was doing and Merlin just swatted his hand and said “stop it”

Arthur: you’re not doing it right-

Merlin: *just glared*

Arthur got more water in the bucket and then immediately spilled on himself

Merlin threw paper towel in Arthur’s face

Arthur, to Gaius, while Merlin stepped away from the table for a second: do we rinse out the buffer bottle too?

he asks, AS he rinses it out

Gaius: I mean. Since you did it. Sure.

Merlin, comes back a minute later: wait what happened to the buffer? Arthur?? Gaius, was he supposed to rinse this out?

Gaius: ....well he did...so it’s fine

Arthur finally put gloves on and immediately whined about it.

Merlin was telling Arthur something about his dog, and I kid you not it was the most civil part of the entire encounter. Arthur’s voice brightened over the zoom

When the timer was up, Merlin almost fell out of his chair trying to reach for his phone, saying: NOT THIS ALARM. TURN IT OFF.

They needed to measure the fragment lines, and Merlin was reading off measurements, Arthur realized too late that he was supposed to be writing them down.

Merlin, says a measurement:

Arthur: I think that’s a little large for DNA

Merlin: what the fuck are you talking about

Arthur: -says his thoughts, I was trying very hard not to laugh-

Merlin: that is just not how it works buddy boi

They called Gaius to settle the argument, and he told them the numbers were fine.

Merlin: I told him DNA just works in mysterious ways

Arthur: oh so you’re saying science is magic now

Merlin: it’s like you purposefully misinterpret everything that comes out of my mouth

And then Merlin finally lost patience for the day, and honestly, I don’t know how he lasted as long as he did. He basically carried this entire lab.

Merlin, sing-songing and doing a little dance: I need to get this right. I’m doing this right (repeat)

Arthur, leaning over the table to look at Merlin’s measurements:

Merlin, still singing, swats at Arthur’s head with the ruler:

Merlin, doing math and saying out loud a number every once in a while:

-Moment of silence-

Merlin: I’m just pulling my numbers out of my ass

Arthur: oh good. Me too.

Merlin: guesstimation baby

And they didn’t forget about us:

Merlin, telling us his results:

Arthur, as if we hadn’t heard everything up until this point: but disclaimer, we don’t know shit

Yes Arthur. I think that’s very clear. But it’s okay. Me too.

Then, when we were all just writing down data, this occurred. And I was CACKLING, and I know Merlin saw me on the zoom just dying:

Arthur: where did my pencil go??

Merlin: I don’t know Arthur

Arthur: no but seriously where is it

Merlin: Arthur I don’t know

Arthur: bro

Merlin: if you ask me one more time

Arthur: well it’s gone!

Merlin: well it ran away because you weren’t using it

Arthur, clearly not hearing him: I’m so sad

Merlin: good

Arthur: did you take it. give it back

Merlin: did you check the floor

[chair SCREECH]

Arthur: you fucking saw it fall off the table didn’t you

Merlin, not looking up: it ran away from you

After some time, Arthur left to go to the bathroom.

Merlin: finally some fucking peace

Merlin, pulling the computer closer: don’t worry guys, he’s gone now. how are you guys doing

I spoke with him for a while, he asked me if I like AP Bio so far and I told him I have no idea what’s going on ever. He said “oh. Is that not what AP classes are supposed to be about?”

Overall, they are literally the best group I have ever been with while online and I’m requesting my teacher to put us with them again.

#thank you for coming to my Ted talk #friends to lovers 6k #Story Time ✨ with Leila #I’m not saying they’re Merlin and Arthur but #I really hope I get put with them again lmao. I literally emailed my teacher to inform him #this was over the course of 3 hours and #I need a nap #also I got nothing done but don’t worry about it #AP Bio: Merlin edition #merlin #merthur #arthur pendragon

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katnissmellarkkk · 3 years

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Alrightttt, I’m on a roll so we’re going onto chappy five 🥳🥳🥳😎😎

I know the movies made the Capitol — re: basically only Effie and maybe Caesar — have those ridiculous made up accents but .... I actually feel like the description of the Capitol accent in the book is supposed to be like the Kardashians or Paris Hilton’s voice. 🤷🏼‍♀️

“Why do these people speak in such a high pitch? Why do their jaws barely open when they talk? Why do the ends of their sentences go up as if they're asking a question? Odd vowels, clipped words, and always a hiss on the letter s. no wonder it's impossible not to mimic them.” Like this is a pretty good description of how Kim Kardashian and her sisters talk. And Suzzy C did say she was inspired by the juxtaposition between war news footage and ridiculous reality television shows so... I think my theory of the Capitol all talking like they’re on the Real Housewives of LA is pretty valid.

Just imagine Paris Hilton as Effie and Nicole Richie as one of her preps

Lolololol this whole section of waxing is reminding me to go get my legs waxed 😭😭😭 straight up calling me out here, Suzanne

I like how Katniss says her stylist “apparently has no interest in seeing her until the prep team has addressed obvious problems.” Like you can tell from her narration she was expecting to feel the same was about Cinna that she does about Effie and her prep team.

The “gritty loam that takes off dirt and three layers of skin” is probably just a strong exfoliator 😭😭😭 my girl knows nothing about quality skincare 🤧🤧 someone build a Panem Sephora

She mentioned them waxing her underarms.... girl, did you have hairy armpits before this? Idk why this revelation is new to me

“Grease her down!” Just sounds wrong 😅😅😅😅 I need to stop being annoying omg I’m like a twelve year old

Hmm it’s funny to me that Katniss refers to Octavia as plump. You’d think in a place like the Capitol body image and weight would be very important. Unless it’s like back in the old, old days when being overweight was a sign of wealth. Which would make more sense so this was an unnecessary thought process curtesy of Samantha

Katniss faking a smile and thanking her prep team shows she does know how to play the game and fake it better than she says.

So ... okay, hear me out, I’m not trying to get over the top or make this into something it’s not but ... the whole stylists / Cinna coming into the room and staring at her naked is a little weird. Especially considering Cinna isn’t Lenny Kravitz who’s like a bit older than her but actually like a twenty-something year old dude.

But okay, here’s the thing I was getting at ... Cinna’s one of the best people in this series and you can’t deny that. Even if you find him boring, he’s still one of Katniss’ closest people. Also he’s probably gay. But like ... what about the other stylists? I don’t wanna be that person who makes everything more than it is, but like, this scene just sounds like a perfect opportunity for some Capitol creep to assault a teenager idk I’m probably making a mountain out of a molehill just ignore Samantha okay.

That’s nice that he complimented her mama though 🥰🥰🥰

So Katniss calls District Twelve the least desirable district but ... doesn’t District Eleven suck too? Like she also later says District Twelve is the smallest and the poorest but doesn’t she also say Rue is worse off than her and Prim? Make up your mind, Suz.

Cinna claims he asked for District Twelve but did he really get an option? 😅 If it’s his first year and Katniss claims the newbies get them anyway 🤷🏼‍♀️ Samantha is once again, reading too much into this.

Awww, Katniss is thinking about how long it would take for her to assemble this fancy meal at home 🤧🤧🤧 it would take her days and the Capitol just has the necessary resources at their disposal and they just takes it for granted. And yes, I’m aware this is supposed to be calling all us readers out who take so much for granted I know. We’re the Capitol.

“How would I spend the hours I now commit to combing the woods for sustenance if it were so easy to come by?” It’s honestly so sad but so vital to her character that Katniss has zero hobbies or real free time. Her life is about surviving. She doesn’t get to live or enjoy very much of her time. She dedicates everything to keeping Prim — and her mother — alive, sacrificing everything a teenage girl should be doing. Sacrificing even the things the other girls in her world get to do. She mentions the merchant girls and the Seam girls who are more experienced romantically and sexually and socially than her. Because she doesn’t get to be a kid or innocent or even happy, in order to focus on her and her family’s survival. And the things she does enjoy, like spending time with Gale or dancing with Prim (mentioned in Mockingjay) she downplays in case they’re taken away, because nothing good is secure in her eyes. 🥺🥺🥺

Okay but what did Katniss’ facial expression give away that Cinna knew exactly what she was thinking? Or is she just less emotionless than she and Haymitch both claim? Ironically I think they’re the only people who call her emotionless which can easily be chalked up to their self-hate and terrible self-esteems.

Katniss is so afraid they’re gonna make her be naked for the parade 😭. Honestly though they’re children that’s so creepy that they’re even allowed to make 15/16/17 year olds be naked in a parade. I mean I know they kill kids every year but isn’t there like child pornography laws in Panem? 😭

“You’re not afraid of fire, are you, Katniss?” Is so foreshadowing 😭😂😅😎 Caesar Flickerman’s voice “Katniss Everdeen, the girl on fire!”

Honestly though Cinna is smart to make Katniss recognizable in the arena by leaving her with simple makeup. I know and the sky is blue we all know this already beating the dead horses until the farmer comes home.

“It crosses my mind that Cinna's calm and normal demeanor masks a complete madman.” It’s true though 😅😅😅😭😭 he was always a rebel. I actually think he may have asked for District Twelve after Katniss volunteered, because he saw the potential in her. Poor Peeta. Baby, I’m rooting you for even if no one else is.

Also I always found it a bit .... curious? That Peeta had a female stylist and Katniss had a male one? Not just because of the required nudity, you’d just think men would do better as a boy’s stylist and a woman would make a better girl’s stylist. So yes, my whole Cinna was interested in District Twelve because Katniss seemed like a good symbol for a rebellion idea seems very plausible.

I know I know I know I read wayyy too much into this stuff sometimes a cigarette 🚬 is just a cigarette 🚬

Katniss being relieved when Peeta shows up 😭😭😭 because even if she won’t admit it and even if she won’t let herself trust him, she still sees him unconsciously and completely against her will as a comfort because they’re in this thing together in a way, even if they’re supposed to try and kill each other

And honestly, it’s such a like... relatable feeling? To feel alone and nervous and uptight and then someone who you recognize — even if you maybe aren’t even friends with but you at least know — shows up and you just instantly feel less alone. I’m totally looking at this through shipper goggles and I’m not even ashamed you all knew who’s blogging you were reading ight? 😂🤣🤷🏼‍♀️

“He should know about fire, being a baker's son and all.” And he’s gonna learn a lot more about it when he falls in love — for real, falls in love, not a childhood infatuation — with the girl on fire. 🥰🥰🥰

But also, I love this particular line on a reread because it totally is an indicator towards their future. Like Peeta knows about fire, he’s experienced with how to handle it, and later on, he becomes the only person who truly comes to understand Katniss, who represents fire, in a way that no one else could ever imagine.

Hmmm, Katniss’ point of view here, talking about how Portia and Peeta’s team seem all giddy and air-headed and it’s only Cinna who seems reserved makes me rethink my previous imaginings of Peeta’s stylist. Maybe she’s just a Capitolite idiot and nothing like Cinna. And my baby got a raw deal here then too. Good thing Haymitch loves him more. Just kidding 😅😅😅

But also I wanna know why Cinna is hesitant to accept congratulations for his and Portia’s idea? Wasn’t he at least lowkey excited about it when he pitched it a page ago?

Their horses are coal black 🐴 😅. I like that they went the whole nine yards with the theme. Nothing but the best for the kids on Death Row.

Aww Katniss asking Peeta what he thinks about being set on fire is so sweet and pure for some reason. I just find their commodore here cute ok

“I'll rip off your cape if you'll rip off mine” this is literally their first friend type of interaction and it’s so pure y’all leave me be I’m emotional for them

🙃 Also lowkey reminds me of “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.” Everyone look away ok I’m sorry

Peeta’s shady/annoyed Haymitch comment and Katniss’ joke at his expense 🤣🤣😂🤣😂😂🥲🥲☺️🥲🥲 they’re bonding it’s so presh

“And suddenly we're both laughing.” I hope they laugh a lot together post-canon 🥲🥲🥲. If they can make the other laugh during their terrible circumstances, then they can make the other laugh anywhere. 🤧 Except in Thirteen because he’s hijacked and she’s certifiable and they’re both so used and abused and 🥺🥺🥺🥺

Okay I have to say, Suzanne Collins really builds up a lot for certain events and then just like grazes over the actual action of said event? Like she builds towards the tribute parade but then kind of rushes through off the actual event itself? It’s a common theme in her writing. And I don’t like it at all ngl.

Oh wait she doesn’t actually rush the parade events the paragraph before just looked like she was about to I jumped the gun 🤣😂🤭 but what I said is still completely true for many events in these books sorry not sorry

I’m definitely reading too much into it but the fact that District One — the favorite of the Capitol — gets snow white horses and District Twelve gets coal black horsies kind of ... seems to imply something .... 🤭

Cinna just lets out a sigh of relief “it worked” like ... way to fill your tributes with hope, dude. “Yeah, you’re totally safe, don’t be scared-OH THANK GOD THAT WORKED I wasn’t actually sure you wouldn’t blow up.” But actually this answers my previous inquiry about why he seemed hesitant I guess he wasn’t even sure this wouldn’t burn them up that’s nice 🤭🙃

It’s a literal trial by fire *cue drum hit* 🥁 aww, I just cracked myself up 😭

“Then he gently tucks a hand under my chin. "Remember, heads high. Smiles. They're going to love you!" This is caught halfway between being very Capitol-y and very father-brotherly and idk which way to take it but it’s kind of cute 🤭

“For the first time, I look at him and realize that ablaze with the fake flames, he is dazzling.” This is such a significant line because Katniss isn’t saying Peeta is technically good looking (like when Haymitch said they were decently attractive) or someone else thinks he’s good looking (i.e Gale, her mother and lowkey Finnick) but she’s saying she herself thinks he’s attractive. Girl, your crush is showing.

"I think he said for us to hold hands," says Peeta.” I’m sure Cinna actually did say that but this just seems like a very good opportunity for Peeta to hold the hand of the girl he has a massive crush on. 😭😭😭

Okay Cinna gave a thumbs up so he actually was saying that but can you imagine Peeta’s excitement right now?

I mean, yeahhhh, there’s the certain death looming over him too but like live in the moment, babe. 🥰😘🤗👌🏻

I like that Katniss says the crowd is at first like 😳😳😳 before they start cheering like they’re thinking “what are these backwoods, hillbilly kids doing this year?”

“At first, I'm frozen, but then I catch sight of us on a large television screen and am floored by how breathtaking we look. In the deepening twilight, the firelight illuminates our faces” okay they both have to be pretty naturally attractive people objectively, because you illuminate my face without much makeup and no one is gonna be cheering.

“Remember, heads high. Smiles. They're going to love you! I hear Cinna's voice in my head. I lift my chin a bit higher, put on my most winning smile, and wave with my free hand.” I wonder what the true difference is for Katniss between Cinna and Effie saying this to her? Maybe it’s that Effie is just outright mean to her sometimes whereas Cinna shows her nothing but kindness from the start and expresses sympathy and understanding? It’s probably that he’s already earning her trust versus Effie who’s just cruel I’m not over her comments on the train ok

“I'm glad now I have Peeta to clutch for balance, he is so steady, solid as a rock.” Right from the start, Katniss refers to Peeta as solid and steady. Idk, I feel like this is something that the movies really misses along the way. Katniss wasn’t always strong or confident at all and Peeta, at least publicly, exuded those qualities pretty well. Samantha’s complaining again ™️ 💁🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️

Also this is just outright foreshadowing how Peeta will eventually become her rock. Or that he will be soon painted a rock ... pick and choose which way you wanna go with this. 🤷🏼‍♀️💁🏼‍♀️😅🤣

“As I gain confidence, I actually blow a few kisses to the crowd.” Okay, see I feel like Peeta really gives Katniss confidence in herself. If he’d been there in District Thirteen and they’d done propos together, she probably would have been a thousand times better.

But also this makes me think Katniss actually has it in her to be a charismatic, confident, alluring celebrity. She just chooses not to. 🤗🤗🤗

But this also reminds me of “She has no idea the effect she can have” okay imma move on and stop focusing on every little detail

I say that every chapter 🤧😅

“The pounding music, the cheers, the admiration work their way into my blood, and I can't suppress my excitement.” Say whatever you want, Katniss is still such a girl underneath it all. She gets excited over people liking her and cheering her on. And I know it’s because it increases her chances of getting sponsors but still

Honestly Peeta trying to showcase Katniss and let her take the spotlight is so selfless and indicative of his ultimate plan to help her win but also ... I can see how Katniss would believe it’s too good to be true and he’s messing with her. That he’s just playing the game to earn her trust, get her guard down and manipulate her later.

See, Peeta is actually framed at the start like the typical, standard YA love interest turned villain. In majority of YA books, at this point the boy is kind and sweet and helpful to the girl until she trusts him completely and then he turns on her and uses everything she gave him to destroy her. But the difference is, Katniss refuses to truly trust him and she is guessing his game incorrectly at every step. And then it’s revealed that it was never a game and he truly isn’t messing with her and everything he’s done that’s seem too good to be true and not even remotely plausible has actually been genuine and heartfelt and that, my friends, is why Peeta is above all other YA love interests. Because Everlark is actually the foil to many of the cliches. That was a long speech over some incoherent thoughts I’m so sorry if you suffered through that.

“It's not until we enter the City Circle that I realize I must have completely stopped the circulation in Peeta's hand. That's how tightly I've been holding it.” Awww he is her rock 😭🤧🥺

"No, don't let go of me," he says. The firelight flickers off his blue eyes. "Please. I might fall out of this thing." Okay this part is so cute and so blatantly setting Peeta up as her main love interest omg 😅 this isn’t the least bit subtle or disguised. But first off, the fact that Katniss is also Peeta’s stability here too 😭😭😭 and second of all, she takes time to notice his blue eyes against the firelight? She was attracted to him from the very start, y’all. That’s indisputable. 👌🏻😎🤧

“It's not really fair to present us as a team and then lock us into the arena to kill each other.” I agree with you, baby, it’s not fair at all. But you two take care of that situation nicely. Or not. Y’all do start a dang war. 🤭🤭🙃🙃

It’s rather ... ironic that it’s District Twelve’s chariot of them all that is pulled up and stopped directly in front of President Snow’s mansion. I know it’s a book, certain details like this are definitively contrived, I know get over it. 🤦🏼‍♀️💁🏼‍♀️

So uh. Snow is a small thin man? Why do I suddenly imagine Danny Devito as Snow 😅😅😅😅🤣🤣🤣🤣 y’all know he’d kill the role

“The darker it becomes, the more difficult it is to take your eyes off our flickering.” Okay, this is such a great line and it’s so significant to the rest of the series? The fact that Katniss — and Peeta, let’s not forget our boy — became symbols of the revolution. Like this line is deep if you think about it. The worse things in Panem got, the more the civilians looked towards Katniss and Peeta for hope 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥰🥰🥰🥰

Omg now after Songbirds and Snakes, we know the national anthem. I’m sorry, babies, that you have to endure that I’ll get you out of there 🙉🙉🙉

I feel like in part, the Capitol camera crew — Cressida, Pollux .... Pollux’s brother... is that you here???? — put so much attention on District Twelve because it would create some resentment and competition between them and the careers 🤭🤗

“I notice a lot of the other tributes are shooting us dirty looks, which confirms what I've suspected, we've literally outshone them all.” Insert Gretchen Wieners “I can’t help that I’m popular!” 😅😅😅😅😅

“I realize I'm still glued to Peeta and force my stiff fingers to open. We both massage our hands.” — they were hanging on so tight 😭😭😭😭

“Thanks for keeping hold of me.” He’s so sweet ☺️☺️☺️ I love him even if he’s kind of an idiot sometimes but so is Katniss so let’s not point fingers

“I'm sure they didn't notice anything but you. [...] And then he gives me a smile that seems so genuinely sweet with just the right touch of shyness” Omg I know Katniss views this as him trying to manipulate her but the fact that he’s actually just admitting the way he’s felt for years is so 😭😭😭😭 if only you’d spit it out sooner, Bready

“he gives me a smile that seems so genuinely sweet with just the right touch of shyness that unexpected warmth rushes through me.” She literally has a crush on her fellow tribute and her first line of defense is to decide he out to get her for making her feel this way 🤣😭🙃

“The more likable he is, the more deadly he is.” The more my crush grows, the more deadly he becomes. I know I’m reading this with shipper goggles but guess what? I’m unashamed. 🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️ who feels guilty for reading this book with an Everlark bias not this girl right here 🙋🏼‍♀️🙋🏼‍♀️🙋🏼‍♀️

“I stand on tiptoe and kiss his cheek. Right on his bruise.” Okay first off, she says cheek here but according to a chapter ago, she claimed the mark was on his jaw... so in other words, she’s incredibly short. If a medium height guy has a bruise on his jaw and she has to stand on her tip toe to reach it... well... hashtag LittleKatniss

And second off.... can you even imagine how Peeta must feel. He genuinely complimented her here, the girl he has had a crush on forever, and she responds by kissing his cheek. He was probably really happy at this moment. And also this probably played further into his buying into her false display in the arena. That here we have her clutching his hand, smiling and laughing with him and kissing his cheek. Idk what I was trying to say necessarily but I made myself sad wow way to go me 🥺🥺🥺🥺🤧🤧🤧

Anyways! Those are my very over the top and too detailed thoughts! Hope you enjoyed if you read this! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳😎😎😎😎😎😎😎🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰

#thgagain #once again the Jen gifs are still headlining these posts 🥳🥳🥳#this isn’t as funny as my others so I’m sorry y’all #but I like nice commentary on these posts makes me feel less alone so feel free

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popculturebuffet · 3 years

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Blacksad: Somewhere In the Shadows Review

Hello you beautiful people! I have a WEIRD relationship with Noir. It’s weird because i’ve never really dived into the films of type, though I really should, But as a kid I absolutely LOVED the tracer bullet arcs in Calvin and Hobbes, where everyone’s favorite hyperactive and imaginative six year old would plant himself as the hero in a noir pastiche.. ironically like myself Bill Watterson was also not a huge noir buff and just relied on Cliches but hey, it worked.

Still love these. So from fourth grade on it imprinted a lifelong love of a good bit of detective noir. Not enough to you know, get me to read any traditional noir books or watch any noir tv shows or detective procedurals but I still love a good mystery from time to time and some of my favorite comics such as Howard the Duck by Chip Zdarksy and Peter David’s second run on x-factor run on the genre while having fun with it’s cliches.

I also love anthropormphic animal stories. Dunno why, I just do, so once I found out about Blacksad, a comic that combines disney quality art from a former disney animator with gripping, adult noir that rips your heart out... I couldn’t resisit trying it. Telling the tale of John Blacksad, a cynical private detective and the cases he steps into via gorgeous, straight out of a disney storyboard art, the series is by Juan Díaz Canales (writer) and Juanjo Guarnido (artist), the latter a former Disney artist who worked on several Disney films, meeting in the 90′s while working on licensed works and hitting it off, leading to this series. That’s.. really all I could find about the making of the series in English. The only other fact is the series is designed for first release in France, which has a huge comics market, hence the various volumes being called “Albums”, with them later being released in Spain and then english, currently in the latter through Dark Horse Comics, who last year collected the current 5 albums and some side stories into one big volume. And with Dark Horse having infrequent sales including Blacksad on comixology it’s easy enough to pick up all 5 volumes in one complete package on digital for 9 bucks, as it is right now. Seriously I’m not trying to shill for Comixology or Dark Horse, I just love these comics and suggest picking them up. The creators DO intend on new volumes... it’s just both have been busy with other work so they’ve been stuck in development hell since 2013. However given there have always been, if much smaller, the biggest being 5 years, gaps between the Albums, I don’t think the series is dead quite yet and with Dark Horse fully backing it, taking the series from only two volumes getting translated to both translating the first four AND translating the fifth within a year of it’s release, we’ll undoubtly get the next one quickly. The series has also spawned a game, Under the Skin, which i’ll probably also cover some day as i’m dying to play it, but i’m waiting for a sale because it’s around 30 bucks and I can wait. It’s also been nominated for an Eisner three times to no suprise and has had fans in Stan Lee, Jim Steranko, Tim Sale and Will freaking Eisner. Yes the GUY the awards were named after liked the series. So yeah, I love this series and highly support it, but the thought of covering it hadn’t occrued to me.. in part because I already had three comic retrsopectives going, my looks at The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, Scott Pilgrim and New X-Men, and simply because I just hadn’t thought of it till Kevin, frequent patron and comissioner of the blog whose paid for tons of reivews, suggested covering the second Album, Arctic Nation, which has our hero searching for a missing little girl he feels has been taken by the titular white supramacist movement.. and if your wondering “Wait how the fuck does that work their animals”, John is black coded due to his black fur, while the white suprmacists are all Arctic Animals.. a touch I really like as I’d honestly never thought of that as a metaphor but it fits like a glove, especially given that most white furred arctic mamals are pretty agressive looking. So yeah I’ll be covering that one next month for Black History Month, among many other things, but I felt I wanted to cover the series in order and since again, it’s only the second of five and I had a free space on the schedule. So without further adew, join me somewhere in the shadows and under the cut as we enter the world of one John Blacksad.

We open as you’d expect for a Noir with a heady narration and a murder. John was brought in by Smirnov, the chief of police and an old aquantice who serves as his Commissioner Gordon. Since the victim is John’s ex, he was brought in to see if he knows anything and as you’d expect warned not to look into it further, as John dosen’t buy this was a simple robbery. His response is exactly what you’d expect.

I mean.. what did you expect? You called him out of bed to see his former lovers corpse, KNOWING he’s one hell of detective, dosen’t give up on things easy, and would probably be curious. For him to say “Cool gonna go smoke some reefer and take in a looney tunes short at the theater, call me when you find the murderer?” Also this series takes place in the 50s. Because of course it does.

So John goes back to his office to brood, reflecting that the office feels like the remains of an ancient civlization because “It seems to be all that remains of the civlized person I used to be”. Hell of a line.

We then get his backstory with the victim, Natalia. She’s a famous actress, who John first as a younger man when hired to investgate some death threats she’d received with a boquet of flowers. John shows off just how good he is at his job in just a few panels.

IT not only shows in just a few panels just how ferocious our hero can be when needed and how good he is at his job, easily having tracked down the man responsible and scared him shitless without breaking as sweat, but how fucking gorgeous the art is. I meant it when I brought up the old disney comparison, as Steranko even mentioned in his introduction to the collection of the first three volumes how it looks like animation cels on the page. IT’s utterly breathtaking and ONLY gets even more lush and beautiful as the series goes on and perfectly fits the noir stylings with it’s realisim, making it’s animal characters feel utterly human and real while still keeping their animal traits in perfect detail.

John impressed her, and as we see in the next page under his narration they not only had really steamy passionate sex, and why yes we do see them naked even if the bits are covered it’s still very much nsfw and we saw Natalia’s naked corpse earlier, so that ship had already sailed anyway, with Natalia taking him on both as her lover and her on staff detective and the two were much in love.. until the fame apparenlty got to her judging from the visuals, and the realtionship fell apart.

Before we move on i’d like to talk about the narration which CAN be a bit overwrought here or there and is a bit overused.. but does have it’s mometns of being utterly effective as with above, contrasting John’s statments about a sucessful job and being hired on.. with the beginnings of his and Natalia’s relationship and their passionate lovemaking. IT’s not BAD and it works for the setting, but it can be distracting, but thankfully the series levels this out as we go and they learned from it so no harm done. Just the kinda thing that happens early in a series life when the creators are getting a handle on things, so no harm done.

But naturally John isn’t going to take the love of his life, responsible for the happiest days of said life, being brutally murdered lying down and is going to find the bastard who did this. So he goes to an old friend, Jake Ositombe, a championship boxer and Nat’s former bodyguard who he recommended to her. Given we see him knock the shit out of his opponent without the slightest effort, yeah good call. Also yes we share the same name and no it’s not weird to type about another Jake, adventure time sorta.. knocked that out of me. Jake dosen’t know much since she fired him a long time ago as one of her lovers hired private security, and the last one he knew of was a guy by the name of Leon. John, naturally, easily finds the guy’s apartment, Leon Kronkski, a screenwriter.. but also rules him out as the guy lived in a humble apartment and clearly didn’t have the cash to hire his own hired goons.

He does find a clue, a matchbook for some place called the Cypher Club.. and another when the man’s sweet mouse landlady shows up, who John charms by pretending to be Leon’s friend and flashing a big smile, finding out a msyterious man with “big bulging eyes”, took him. This scene also to me is great in subtly showing off John’s skill. While the previous flashback showed how badass he is, shoving a gun down the throat of a stalking wannabe murderer with pure rage in his eyes.. here we see a lighter approach, how despite his serious and dour nature.. he easily slips into being cheery and looking like an average joe off the street. He bluffs the landlady not because the plot says so.. but because like any PI he’s just that good at slipping into whatever roll he needs to get the info he needs. He can be his dour self or a charming happy go lucky guy without missing a beat.

So with that he goes to the studio leon worked for where his boss.. is a walrus j jonah jameson?

But yeah J. Jonah Walruson wants pictures of spider-man.. moving pictures.. but he can’t film them with his star dead and his screenwriter indefintiely gone, with the same bulging eyed man having told JJ he’d be gone indefintely. Nothing suspicious about that!

So naturally John’s next plan is to find the guy.. who is already after him as you’d expect with both a knife to slash at our hero with and the fog covering him so he can hit and run. But unluckily for him .. well i’ll let john say it...

John headbutts the myserious snake, who only managed to get his coat before and tries to interogate him.. but gets a quick jab to the gut and the guy gets away.

We soon meet our big bag, who has a big speech about insects and things being usefufl.. and once they stop being useful.. they become dead and collectable, telling the snake man to back off John.. and sending his right hand man to go take care of the Snake who apparently took something from the office. Realizing his numbers up the Snake Man goes to a lizard bar, picks up a package from a friend and runs out the back, knowing he’s being followed.. and we get some hints there’s also racial tension between lizards and mammials here as the bartender, said friend, has the entire bar circle around the guy preventing him from following our mysterious bulging eyed man.

Meanwhile John goes to the Cipher Club, a wretched hive of scum and villiany. Given Nat was a glamorous movie star, it’s very clear she was here to hide from something or someone, and the bartnender, a wild pig.

No not you sweetie. The wild pig tells John leon was indeed here and a local rat, in both senses of the word, offers to take John to him.. though understandably John is supscious of the guy he just met in a seedy bar taking him anywhere except to get some heroin. Did Heroin exist yet? Questions for later. But he’s got a case so he follows. Though suprisingly the guy DOES actually come through and it’s not ENTIRELY a trap: he takes john to a tomb for Noel Krinsok.. an anagram for Leon’s name. Unsuprisingly he’s dead. And also unsuprisingly, two hired goons

Show up. As I said not ENTIRELY a trap but it’s obvious given the rat split moments before that our mysterious big bad knew where john would be headed next, and thus while giving him a clue, also set him up to get his head knocked in. And while John is badass.. these guys are a bear and a rhino, both stronger, bigger, and with suprise on their size, as well as a tombstone to knock john’s head into. They easily beat him senseless and hope he got the message, though john gives a defiant fuck you before being punched out for it. He returns home, feeling like he’s aged 20 years “But no one respects the elderly anymore”, PFFT, and heads home to his rathole, not literally this time, apartment to lay on his cot and think as he gets some rest.

And while the trail for Leon is cold. our mysterious murderer accidently tipped his hand: only someone with a LOT of money and influence could make a man disappear like this, and it tracks with what we’ve seen so far. The guy has multiple henchman and despite being a big star with plenty of clout, Natalia had to hide in a dive bar just to get away from him and even THEN clearly wasn’t so lucky given she and her new lover both wound up dead. But Blacksad has bigger problems.. he wakes up in a jail cell.

Turns out Smirnkov had him arrested.. but for his own protection as the case is getting too hot and while he was late on that front given John’s face is hamburger, it’s clear from his tone and demeanor that while he may of been harsh with John earlier.. the two are old friends, and the Chief is simply worried about him winding up dead, and John takes you know being thrown in prison in stride. Which while not a bad scene it is a BIT suspect that a black coded character was thrown in jail for nothing and it’s treated very lightly and as a simple protection between friends, though given they wouldn’t think of coding john like that till next volume, I brush it off as accidental implications in hindsight.

Smirnkov though also called John here.. because he needs his help. Since Natalia’s Murder Case is pointing very high up, so his superiors have ordered him to bury the case and as he puts it “the bastards know where to squeeze”. And given in volume 3 we learn Smirnov has a wife and children, it’s very obvious where they squoze and to the volume’s credit while we don’t know that yet it’s VERY clear from Smirnov’s body language they went after some form of family. So while he has to give it up.. John does not. So he brought him to jail to offer a proposal: John goes after this son of a bitch and nails him to the wall.. and Smirnov will FULLY protect John no matter what he has to do. Now naturally given the rightful reckoning for police that’s been going on for almost a year, this SHOULDN’T play well. You have an officer outright telling an outside party that he and his boys will cover up his crimes. But.. honestly even in that framework.. it still works. That’s because.. the system has failed here. The higher up and more corrupt cops put pressure on the honest and hardworking family man Smirnov to stop a legitimate investigation into a horrible murderer.. because the guy is rich. And even now we’ve seen time and time again how rich assholes effortlessly escape the consequences of their action: How our own president who actively asked other nations to interfere in our election escaped his first impeachment trial, but hopefully not the second, aquitted. How Jeffery Epstien took YEARS to bring down with his years of ellicit parties involving innocent women and children he fucking enslaved. How Bill Cosby got away with all kinds of sexual assault for decades. The rich are often literally above the law in this country, so having a down on his luck detective, who retroactively himself is a minority, go after him with the full support of an actually GOOD police officer who genuinely believes in these people being held accountable but is held back by his family’s safety.. it works. John isn’t able to skirt consequences BECAUSE of a corrupt system.. but because the system’s so broken and slanted in the rich’s favor, that the ONLY option an honest officer like Smirnov has is to go outside it. And when asked WHY he’s doing all of this, Smirnov merley replies

... I got chills, their multiplyin. So John plans to find the bulge eyed snake after a hot shower.. only for the guy to hold a gun to John’s head, having been waiting for him and wave the murder weapon, in a baggie around, the item he had retrieved, feeling John’s trying to replace him as number two. However before he can do anything our snake pal is shot full of holes by the rat from before, who John dispatches with his own gun.

So the Snake starts to expire.. but feels a kinship with John “We are nothing right cat? Spent so much time waiting for the right chance and when it happens it all falls to pieces”. The Snake explains his roll in things: He was one of the private security our big bad hired to guard Natalia. But being supscious he also hired the rat to follow her around, and thus found out about her affair, brutally torturing and murdering Leon and shooting Natalia in the head. And we finally get a name as our snake friend tragically expires.

The snake’s death and tragic dying moments are something I forgot about.. but damn if their not really good writing, taking a character who before was seemingly just a murderous goon.. and comparing him to our hero. Another working class joe, and one who just caught up with the wrong asshole at the wrong time. He easily could’ve been john in another life and vice vers and it’s a good parallel.

So John’s nightmares finally have name and he naturally goes to confront the guy since he has an almost literal get out of jail free card. Turns out Smirnov is the richest man in town, and has his own big tower. Huh.. sounds familiar, and John simply sneaks his way up and once Statoc’s guards from before hear him rustling about.. sneaks up on them and clocks both one at at time with a fire extinqusher.

Statoc warmly welcomes our hero inside, and has the fucking lizard balls, as he’s some sort of lizard himself, to offer John a JOB

I mean he’s clearly lost a lot of his goons and most of them were incompetent. He fails to realize that John can’t be bought, is here for vengeance and has no intention of selling his soul to some rich asshole who killed someone he loved for the creepiest and most asinine reasons imaginable. He says john’s Concisence is why he can’t pull the trigger and that he lacks “cold blood”.. before we cut to the next page, where John’s shot the fucker in the head and left a gaping hole where his lack of a brain was.

And again what makes this work is the aftermath: John is clearly shaken, having ONLY been able to pull the trigger beause of Statoc’s smug grin and clearly not taking the sight of Statoc’s dead body bleeding out well. And while Smirnov keeps his word, covers for him despite the two guards clearly providing an iron clad argument against john and knoiwng thier blatantly covering this up.. he’s not happy about it.

This is WHY the narrtive still works. Statoc stacked the law against the bad guys. .but despite this being a necessary evil.. it’s still an evil and subverting teh law at this rightly leaves him not in a great place mentally. John himself isn’t even if he plays it off as otherwise, as we get our final bit of narration and one hell of a closing line.

Final Thoughts:

Somewhere in the Shadows is a bit rough around the edges, leaning a bit too heavily into the noir pastiche and Blacksad being a harboiled detective, something the next volume would ease up on. That being said.. it’s still a masterpiece, with gorgeous art and masterful pacing. While it’s the shortest of the stories, like those after it the pacing is sublime and never feels like it has any down moments or stuff that could’ve been cut, and the mystery keeps you on edge the whole time. Having forgot a lot of the details since last read I was on the edge of my seat the entire story and loving every second of it. Somewhere in the Shadows is the perfect starter for the series, introducing an important charcter in Smirnov and the noir nature and giving us a case personal to John so we can see who he was before, what he is now.. and what he WILL be for the rest of the series. The moment that MADE him into an even harder man than the one we follows here.. when he took a life in cold blood. A masterful story, seriously check it and the other volumes out, on comixology, in stores, great stuff. Next time we look into john and as I said, he’s taking down some racists and we also meet his sidekick weekly for the first time. As for me tommorow I dive back into my Tom Luictor retrospective but hit pause on our boy for a bit to take care of some of the larger plot. Until the next rainbow, it’s been a pleasure.

#blacksad #john blacksad #Smirnov #noir #anthropomorphic #anthro #funny animal #somewhere within the shadows #comics #dark horse comics #france #french comics #igor statoc #Natalia Wilford

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marcilled · 3 years

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[this is gonna be a big long post about minecraft youtuber drama... press J to scroll past this if you don’t care about that. lol. sorry]

idunno if anybody took my post the other day as me “cancelling dream for cheating in a videogame”, i posted it mostly out of bemusement of the whole situation, and because that video was really well put-together. (context: his 1.16 speedruns were disqualified by the minecraft speedrun.com moderators & there was a video & document explaining why).

I definitely don’t correlate cheating a speedrun w/ ableism, racism, etc etc. I already knew about a lot of nasty shit dream has done, like the video he did with Notch, and how all of his early content was about pewdiepie, just further normalizing those two to his young audience. I’ve always disliked him for those things, which I’ve been aware of pretty much as long as I’ve known of him, and he has never apologized for those things. It’s why whenever I posted about him before (which was... maybe once or twice?), I always say “don’t stan him or anything he sucks”.

I had no idea there was so much more to it honestly. It’s kind of galling seeing the full context now, because whenever I’ve seen any kind of criticism against him, it’s been him presenting it in an apology. I dunno why I wasn’t suspicious of this given what I already knew about him, but the guy seems to be very clever with how he damage controls any sort of possible controversy regarding him. He presents a really heartfelt, honest apology for whatever happened and gives a few cherrypicked examples of things that people said about him and says how wrong he was and how he doesn’t want to alienate his viewers.

The fact that it’s Dream presenting the evidence of his controversies, means that he gets to control how the conversation goes. Instead of a popular “mcyt” stan account getting to control the conversation, pointing out the shit he’s said and done, he addresses it in a livestream, and does not provide the original context. Huh, I wonder why. It’s almost as if he doesn’t want everyone to see that his mistakes are more than just little “oopsies”, it’s him being actively malicious and getting so defensive that he tells off anybody who could possibly disagree with his view of things.

While his actions and words are pretty horrid on their own, I think the thing that has me most concerned about Dream is... He seems pretty fuckin’ good at manipulating peoples’ perception of him.

-----

After the video about his speedruns being cheated came out the other day, he had this to say on twitter (this is his second, “personal” account):

Now, as I said before, cheating in a videogame isn’t at all comparable to racism or ableism. What I’m trying to point out here is his response to any sort of criticism.

The video he’s referring to is this one, published by Geosquare 2 days ago (dec 11th). What’s interesting to note here is how he singles out Geosquare specifically in this tweet. If you click on the video, the first few seconds establishes that it’s a video made by the entire Minecraft java edition speedrunning mod team (which is made up of a team of over a dozen people). The video and document was a true team effort from every single one of them, and it only got posted to Geosquare’s account (& got his narration) because he’s already a youtuber with a pretty comfortable amount of subscribers.

So, instead of pointing his ire (and those of his many, many fans) at the whole speedrun mod team, instead, he points it squarely on Geosquare, so that people have a convenient name to latch onto. He then accuses Geosquare of using his name as “clickbait” in order to get “easy views”, sowing the seed of this idea that Geosquare is doing this in an opportunistic grab for personal gain. If you clicked on the video and saw the description/pinned comment, you’d see that not only did Geosquare disable monetization on the video, he disabled monetization on his entire channel for as long as this drama goes on (and he knew there would be drama, dream made extra sure to threaten the mods with a video of his own in retaliation if they ended up banning him).

Then, in a reply to the first tweet, he says that there are “multiple moderators” messaging him saying the verdict was “biased” and that they may quit the mod team. He provides no evidence for this. However, if you click on the tweet and view any of the thousands of replies from his fans, it doesn’t matter that he gave no evidence, his word is enough. If you’re wondering, Geosquare and a few other mods have stated many times that it was a group decision on their part, and nobody had any question in their mind that Dream must have cheated. So... Dream, who are these “mods” that are messaging you? He won’t say.

Lastly here, I want to point out that in his next tweet on the matter, he makes this very bitter comment about how useless it was for them to investigate a “16th place run”. It’s a minor detail, but I think it’s worth mentioning; this kind of downplays how impressive his run was at the time. At the time he submitted his sub-20 minute speedrun, it was a top 5 run, in a very competitive category of speedrunning the game. In the 2 months since, several people have passed his time using new strats, but that doesn’t diminish the fact it was a pretty amazing “run”... if it weren’t cheated of course. But, I’m just rambling on about how petty I am about him cheating at this point so let me get back to the main point here.

If you see the numbers on these tweets (hundreds of thousands of likes), you’ll understand why this is pretty scary for those speedrun mods. The same day this happened Geosquare joked around “I’ve only gotten one death threat so far!”. Dream’s fanbase is unparalleled in minecraft youtube, and incredibly sizeable for a youtube channel overall. If you’re not familiar with this new wave of “mcyt” minecraft accounts, it’s... it’s pretty much exclusively because of Dream’s fame. He’s the driving force of minecraft youtube content right now. Any youtuber who even breathes near the guy blows up in subscribers & views. His minecraft server, “Dream SMP”, is like... it has a legitimate cultural impact, whether that sentence disgusts you or not. Especially for young gen Z kids.

The point I’m trying to make is, ever since he came onto the scene in early 2019, he’s grown and grown at exponential rates, and I can’t understate the kind of influence he has on not just his own fans, but the fans of like. Pretty much anyone who is plugged in to anything minecraft youtube related right now.

People have discussed this before, but Dream’s sudden rise to fame happened shockingly quick. So quick that it’s almost impossible it were by accident. He’d spent something like a year or two studying how the youtube algorithm works, how famous youtubers grow their popularity, etc. He spent a lot of time studying, and it paid off for him. It makes me wonder if he’s studied how youtubers deal with controversy as well. Because it seems like he’s doing everything right to keep his fans “loyal” to him.

So I think it’s not unreasonable to say that it is pretty goddamn concerning when he reacts to criticism like this. His immense fanbase, who are often worryingly obsessed with him, of mostly impressionable kids... It’s a recipe for disaster, in the hands of someone so entitled and immature.

I think what really has me worried, though, is a video he published to his second channel the other day. Recently, he published a video about his “stans”. The entire video essentially boiled down to him disputing claims that “dream stans” were toxic, or that stanning people or “stan culture” was creepy/unhealthy. He spent a lot of the video comparing stans of content creators to passionate fans of football teams, and expressed repeatedly how he thought it was normal and OK to be totally obsessed with a content creator and engage in “stan culture”, as long as you weren’t being a legitimate stalker. He pretty much only talked about the positives of being a Dream Stan, and how positive the “community” is. The whole video painted this really idealistic image of what it means to be a Stan of a person, and fandom in general.

Now... I don’t know about everyone else reading this, but I found that video to be... incredibly creepy and weird. It completely ignores any actual arguments about how stan culture can be unhealthy, and how engaging so heavily in parasocial relationships can be quite damaging, especially to younger people.

But, mostly? It seemed like the whole video was basically designed just to reinforce the most unhealthy impulses of his stans, and reward them with the positive encouragement that he actually enjoys it when they are obsessed with him so much that they can’t imagine he could ever possibly do anything wrong.

And that? That is fucking dangerous for a person with such a huge fanbase to be peddling to their fans.

Surely, he must know- a great deal of his fans are so obsessed with him, that they think they know him as well as, if not more than, a personal friend. So that when he does something disagreeable and wrong, and he claims “no that’s not how it happened, they’re biased and trying to cancel me because they’re jealous”, they just take that at face value, because why would he lie? He’s so honest and genuine in his videos and livestreams!

This sort of behavior from Dream, along with his tweets I posted earlier, reads to me as if he knows exactly what he’s doing. I think he is purposefully insulating his fans from the truth of his actions, so that he can present this idealistic picture of him in their mind, so that it seems absurd that he would do something wrong.

I think it’s only a matter of time before it comes out he’s done something much worse, honestly. What it is, is hard to say- he’s already done so much that anyone reading this should rescind their support for him, imo. But, I know that none of this matters to his millions of fans. While I worry for them, I also worry for anyone who becomes a target of Dream. I could see this speedrunning drama being the start of a downward spiral for him. Things could get real ugly with all that minecraft clout getting to his head... I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

TL;DR, dream sucks, and not just because he cheats at videogames.

I apologize again for writing a multi paragraph post about a minecraft youtuber. I will not post about this anymore (probably) please do not unfollow me .

#vivi bleats #txt #long post #i might delete this cuz im embarrassed i typed this much about this topic #but idk i already typed it so.#dream

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the-modernmary · 3 years

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For my pals who have read my best habit on ao3 and wattpad: Writing these last chapters has been so much fun, and I love hearing all of your reactions to what’s gone down.

I also really love tugging at your heartstrings, and I kind of want to do it some more, so here are some things that you may not have caught/noticed in chapters 19 & 20!!

(this post is also known as “i’m too far removed from academia and i’ve spent way too much money on a creative writing degree to not analyze my own work”)

This is... long as shit. Like SO STUPID LONG. I had too much fun with it.

If you’re only reading the story on Tumblr, this post has so many spoilers!

1: The Heatwave

It is one long motif!!! I love a good motif. If you remember back in chapter 13, the narration says: “Nothing good comes out of a D.C. heatwave.” I warned y’all that they were going to break up. And the heatwave was introduced the chapter right after Aaron and the reader talk about those two missing years and that she was tracking dead agents.

It’s supposed to show the rising tension and turmoil in their relationship. Rossi even says “Can’t take the heat?” when asking Hotch if he was ever going to be honest about his feelings. You’ll notice that most of the time, when something tense happens, I write in something about it being hot or they’re sweating. And the reader is spending all of her time in Hotch’s apartment because is AC is a “safe haven from the heat”.

So when they get in their big fight, the power goes out. There is no more AC, no more safe haven. They can’t hide from their internal battles and it all boils over, literally and figuratively. As soon as the reader says that she’s leaving, the power comes on.

(Honestly, I was just really proud of this one.)

2. Parallels between the fight and their first meeting

When she and Hotch first meet, she asked him about a case he prosecuted on. The girl in the case was released from prison, went on to murder multiple other people, and only then was given a life sentence.

“Yeah Sarah,” you might be saying. “It’s reflective of her father’s storyline! We know that!”

Yes, AND!!

When she called him out on that, he essentially said that the first arrest assured that she would give a life sentence for the second crime and that “It all worked out.”

Her response? “You couldn’t have predicted that... I think you just felt bad for her.” She called him out for making a shitty decision on a case, and then immediately went into a dramatic assumption.

In their big breakup fight, when talking about Foyet, Aaron said “I knew you were safe.”

Her response? “Bullshit. You couldn’t have known that. I think that’s just a lucky excuse.” That was on purpose. She’s once again calling him out for a shitty decision, and then goes straight into a dramatic assumption.

3. The sonnets that Hotch is reading in the flashback

The two sonnets I chose were Sonnet 138 and Sonnet 102 (in that order), and they were chosen very specifically for this story.

Sonnet 138 is about Shakespeare’s relationship with a younger women, and how they are both lying to each other, yet they stay with each other because they’re comfortable. It’s very reminiscent to the beginning of their relationship, pre-Foyet, where it was pretty much only physical.

(the women in the sonnet is actually cheating on shakespeare but we’re taking a more abstract approach to it for the sake of the story)

Also, Thomas Gibson recited it in a cameo, and I have not stopped thinking about it sense. Something about reciting Shakespeare really gets me going...

Sonnet 102 is one of my favorites and it’s been in my mind since the beginning of this story. Essentially, it’s Shakespeare saying "don't think I don't love you because I'm not saying it all the time. Love becomes a commodity when it is professed so openly and often. I don't want to cheapen what we have".

Which, you know... yeah. There are multiple times in the story where our couple has basically said that words weren’t needed to know how the other one felt.

4. More parallels!!!

This one is much smaller, but felt important.

In chapter 14, the reader is talking to her best friend Aly right before she professes her love to Aaron, and she says: “Aaron has never, ever made me feel small.”

During the big fight, right after the reader essentially tells Aaron that she thinks that he wished she had died instead of Haley, the narration says: “Now it was his turn to walk you backward, towering over you and making you feel small.”

In case you can’t tell, I love a good parallel.

There a lot of other, less important ones, like the team were both at the BAU and gossiping about Hotch when they found out about the relationship and the breakup.

Also, pretty much any time either of them say anything about "wanting” to/about each other (ex: “I don’t want anything to do with you anymore” and “I was never what he wanted”), it’s totally on purpose and referencing Hotch’s whole “What I want, I’m not going to get” schtick from season 3 of the show. It’s how they express love and it’s how they hurt each other.

5. Scott is more than a piece of shit

(Although he’s absolutely a piece of shit, and he gets worse)

He’s the antithesis to Hotch. In fact, he’s all the things that Hotch and the reader could have been if Hotch was a bad person In regards to the reader, if they didn’t respect each other, etc. It’s important to me to show that Hotch and the reader’s relationship has a foundation, and it’s not this unhealthy power dynamic that is really easy to fall into when writing about relationships with age gaps, especially when those relationships play around with power dynamics in the bedroom.

(Not to say that there isn’t a time or a place for those types of stories! Those are some of my favorite relationships to read/write about. I just didn’t want this particular relationship to have that subtext. I really wanted to emphasize that they’re equals in each other’s eyes.)

Hotch and Scott have a lot of parallels: older, influential, help guide her through her career, etc. AND they both pull the whole “whatever you want” for her, albeit in slightly different ways.

Hotch admires her, though, and is seen to continuously support her. Despite the power imbalance on paper, they very much see each other as equals. He does things for her because he wants to, and he doesn’t expect anything in return. It’s a relationship based on mutual respect and care and a deep understanding of the other one.

Scott is... not like that. At all. And that will become even more apparent in the next few chapters. But I wanted to point it their parallels and differences now. Just so it’s on your radar.

~~~~~~~

ANYWAY, those are the big things I wanted to point out!! There’s tons more within the other chapters, but I wanted to focus on these last two. If you got this far, thank you for reading all of my rambles!! I really enjoy doing this kind of stuff, for my own stories and for other people’s.

(if anybody ever wants to talk in depth about their story, please hit me up because i live for this shit).

Thank you for reading!!! 💖💖💖

Tagging @astonsvettel at their request!

#my best habit #this is the most self indulgent bullshit i have EVER done #writing analysis #literally like only three people wanted this

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naerysthelonesome · 3 years

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Time spent together

Part 2

Coffee shop AU

Lit’s standing in front of a small café (It’s called The Grind. I sure hope Apollo picked it on purpose), and trying not to looked pissed off that his partner’s nearly half an hour late.

He did push (pulled first, obviously) the door open and walk inside, almost making it to the counter, before turning and walking right back out for no discernable reason. I do wish I knew how his brain worked.

I mean, as the narrator, I could choose to narrate the functions of his mind, but where’s the fun in that, really?

Lit makes a frustrated noise and shoves his phone back into his pocket, and stares into the distance for a second, before re-adjusting the strap of his bag. He hesitates for a little bit and then makes to leave.

This is not going how I want it to. The story of the indecisive Lityerses and flaky Apollo is not one I am excited to share.

Ah wait. Is that Apollo rounding the corner? And what an opportune moment he’s picked. Right when Lityerses is making his way toward it, so they can slam into each other. Very well executed. (If you’re imaging me actually pleased about any of this, you’re doing it wrong. Nothing these idiots do surprises me anymore).

So Lit’s steadier than I expected. Despite the stand-up blond barreling into him, it’s not him who flies into the wall. He just gasps loudly and stumbles, as Apollo groans.

“Oh thank heavens!” the blond exclaims, standing back up.

Lit doesn’t say or do anything but glare back at him. And WHAT a glare it is too.

“Dude I’m sorry. Totally forgot I had a Math extra class today. Hope you didn’t have to wait too long”, Apollo says sheepishly. He looks… ashamed? Embarrassed? Genuinely sorry? The dude’s so smitten, I’d be grossed out if I didn’t ship these two.

“I’ve been here since 2:45, so yeah. I kinda did have to wait too long”.

“Well I’ll make it up to you. Drinks on me?” he asks, hopefully.

Lit glares some more, but then stalks back toward The Grind. Apollo heaves a sigh of relief, and so do I.

He follows Lit inside, chewing slowly at his lip.

I do so love this café. The hushed ambience, the overpowering smell of coffee and cream, the pretty barista with a shock of electric blue hair. It's when I see people like her that I start to wish I had a physical body. But then, looking at whatever the hell Lit and Apollo are doing, I've decided romance is way too much work.

Lit walks right up to the counter, and smiles most graciously at the girl. Who knew Lit could be gracious? He turns on the charm, mutters some pleasantries, and orders one of the most expensive coffees on the menu, without so much as a glance at Apollo.

The blondie looks a little disconcerted. I suppose he isn’t used to Lit being not-flustered. That makes two of us. Angry Lit is really growing on me though, not gonna lie.

He thanks blue and walks off to find somewhere to sit, still not acknowledging Apollo. The latter is growing more rattled by the second, and honestly? I’m so here for it.

He quickly places an order, throws a characteristically dazzling, fake smile, and rushes to follow Lit to the table he’s picked by the window. The brunet’s already got a book and a note pad out on the table, and is currently looking up something on his phone.

Apparently, he wants to keep things as professional as possible. Imagine me scoffing.

“Um”, Apollo says. What an intelligent conversation starter. Truly.

Lit looks up, and raises an eyebrow, absolutely refusing to make things easy for Apollo.

“So…” Apollo stops and clears his throat. “So how do we begin?”

“In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve already begun”, Lit snaps, flicking a finger toward the books.

Apollo flushes pink, then tries again. “Okay… Well, what do you want me to do?”

“Oh so now I’m in charge?”

“Come on Lit. You know what I mean”, he pleads.

Lit only huffs in response.

“Okay I know I was late and that you had to wait here for me. I should have called or something. That was wrong of me, and I’m sorry”. Colour me shocked. He sounds so sincere.

“Fine. Jeez. Apology accepted or whatever”, Lit says, flicking his hand irritably. He rips off a page from the notepad, and pushes it toward Apollo. “Here. Make a list of all the books you want to reference in the project”.

The blond slowly smiles, just as the cute barista calls out their names.

“I’ll get those”, he says, and practically jumps out of his seat. Aww. So eager to please.

Lit bends his head toward his phone, but I see the smirk that lights up his face for just a second, before he forces himself to look angry again. I have a feeling Litpollo’s going to be just fine.

Apollo comes back with two glasses, one filled with a rich brown liquid and chocolate drizzled around the inside, piled high with cream, and the other with blue water, ice, and more ice.

“So you’re the kind of person that chooses to go to cafes and then buys anything but the coffee. Good to know”.

“No, but I had to try and save my money somehow, after you ordered this monstrosity”, Apollo replies, placing the bigger glass in front of Lit, who’s now scribbling away in his notepad.

Lit just scoffs, and reaches out to take a sip of his drink.

“Pah!” he exclaims. I’m sure the coffee’s delicious.

“It’s so sweet ohmygod”, he groans. Apollo laughs, and it isn’t fake at all.

He hands Lit a tissue, opening his mouth to say something (undoubtedly, stupid), but stops when he sees another one of Lit’s amazing glares.

“Don’t.” the boy warns, as he buries his face in the paper. Apollo smirks, but wisely shuts the fuck up.

Lit finally looks up, and steels himself before taking another sip of the drink. “I’m not one to waste good coffee”, he explains with a shudder and he grimace. That’s… nice?

Apollo picks up his own drink, and brings it to his lips, a contemplating look on his face. Lit looks up at Apollo, as he tucks a stray lock of hair back under his bandana.

“What are you thinking?” he questions, softly. There’s a change in the atmosphere, and I can’t figure out whether that’s a good or bad thing. At least they’re not arguing or talking about stupid projects anymore.

“Oh just making a mental note not to ever get you anything too sweet”, Apollo replies casually.

Lit blushes and chokes on his coffee at that. Bit of an overreaction, methinks.

“You uh- You’re planning on getting me stuff, then?” he asks, raising an eyebrow, and trying to feign nonchalance.

Apollo shrugs, his mouth stretching into a wide smile, “Maybe. Would you like that?” he asks, a teasing note in his voice. I suspect he meant it as a serious question though. Oh goody!

“Ah sure”, Lit replies easily, apparently having gotten a grip on himself, “Free stuff is free stuff, even if from a douchebag like you”. I could really get used to confident Lit!

Apollo grins and lets out a low laugh at that, and it’s like something’s cleared up in the air.

“Hey! I’m not that bad!”

“No. You’re not”, Lit agrees with a small smile. Then he suddenly sits up straighter, and reaches forward to tap the blank page in front of Apollo, “But you’ll be even less bad, if you actually helped and got some work done”.

“Would that be a good thing though? I was under the impression that you liked bad boys”, he replied, wiggling his eyebrows.

“Just shut up and give me the list Apollo”.

Apollo’s face cracks in a cocky grin, but he begins to write.

Finally. We’re getting somewhere.

#litpollo #litpollo fanfiction #coffee shop au #lityerses #apollo #toa apollo #trials of apollo #unreliable narrator #they're an idiot but i love them

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spacedikut · 3 years

Text

An Essay on the Cosy Cafe

it's here folks!! (i don't know if it's folks but i hope at least spacey will enjoy this) I think this is kinda short because I'm running on like 3.5 hours of sleep but hey <3

OKAY FULL DISCLAIMER WHEN I READ YOUR WARNING ABOUT "drying spencer's genitals" or whatever my EYES were so big (but it also made be very excited to read because that's so funny)

i want to say overall this is a really cute fic because it's so human. like it's not perfect in how they meet or interact- it's full of awkward moments and chaos and accidents and humiliation and that's rea life for you :)

Okay first we have the part of the "special syrup" for Spencer because this boy is literally 90% sugar in his body weight and he rivals the sweet tooth of most children

I love that spencer has a fanclub of baristas (because why wouldn't he, he's polite and easy on the eyes) and obviously he tips well because he's a good person.

Both reader and Spencer pretty much having no brain cells when a pretty person shows up? adorable. they're made for each other already

Reader's narration of "It’s not the cute nose or the messy hair or the sweater vest – no. It’s his childlike curiosity." f a l s e, reader. you and i both know it's all of these things combined and more. and the detail about the satchel?! definitely true. there's something that stands out about someone who just waits in the queue patiently without wanting to pass the time with something else.

And then!!!! Reader and Spencer finally interact and it's Spencer's turn to be blindsided by your beauty AND THEN SPENCER'S CONCLUSION THAT THE COFFEE IS GOOD BECAUSE YOUR VOICE IS PRETTY?!!! what a romantic, *swoon*.

and the line "the barista made him dumb by simply existing" makes me laugh so hard i'm not sure why- it's just so dorky and cute and Spencer.

poor reader when she spills/drops the drinks :( and poor spencer for probably getting really minor burns. i think you did a really good job (i know, good is a pretty bad adjective to use) describing all the humiliation and panic the reader goes through- with the pounding in your ears and being unable to hear anything else, not really being able to feel anything because of all the adrenaline, and constant stinging of tears. it's a perfect representation of pure horror.

i think it's pretty hilarious how the reader ducks under the counter and than GRABS AUTUMN'S ANKLE when Spencer mentions her. the rock climbing? brilliant.

the little part with all the parentheses is really sweet and the reader is so terrified of spencer and he's just trying to be nice but she's still so mortified.

okay i knew as SOON as spencer asked what time they were going to get back, it was because of the cafe and then derek would obviously comment on it, the smug guy he is. the fact spencer thinks he's so sneaky when almost every member of the BAU knows about his cafe frequenting is just so... it's so BAU to do that. and so spencer to think he's secretive.

"Derek’s barely finished his sentence before Spencer’s head whips around to stare at him, so quick his hair flies from behind his ears. It sends Derek into a chuckle that sounds like nails on a chalkboard to Spencer – he’s never been a good liar, or good at hiding his emotions, really, and now he might as well be holding a sign that says, I have a crush on a barista" THIS WHOLE PARAGRAPH!!!! the part where his hair flies out from under his ears??!!! what a wonderful little detail that really captures the sudden panic. spencer's always been more of the kind to wear his heart on his sleeve and it's honestly endearing in this scene :)

the trash encounter is again so funny, because it's very spencer to not really use his brain before approaching someone, and it's so reader to fling a huge bag of trash at her "attacker". it's another unfortunate accident and i really feel for the reader and Spence, who obviously feels a little helpless.

"Spencer might be a germaphobe, and generally hate gross things, but he also has a heart of gold and really likes you." this is just a really cute line and it's sweet. so sweet.

everyone knows something is up when Spencer isn't being teased after the cafe conversation. somehow you never fail to make me laugh in small moments with lines like "Is he missing something? (Yes)" the parentheses just kill me, i love them.

and then the HUNDRED coffee cups are so obviously for the BAU but reader can't fathom ever being redeemed by Spencer/the FBI

Spencer's lament that he "won’t have time to very slowly pour sugar into his already sweet drink while he scans the place, looking for you" is really weird but charming (much like the man himself) and i just imagine spencer drinking something that's almost akin to sludge (because of all the sugar granules) because he just keeps pouring until he gets a glimpse of you

BACK TO THE PARENTHESES of "(...If he had known you were going to be right in front of him today he would’ve worn a cooler sweater vest)" which is again so endearing of him, spencer wants to impress so badly even though reader is already very impressed (unbeknownst to him) --> (this also makes me think of spencer having a "special" section of his closet reserved for the nicest sweater vests [to wear when he sees you at the cafe, of course]).

reader!! making spencer a cup of coffee as best as she can (with the smiley face too augh my heartttt)

okay poor spencer rattling off the WORST fact about burns and fatality when the reader is trying to be nice and give him a cup of coffee and some sweet pastries.

and then "Spencer’s seen you laugh before, definitely seen you smile, but to have it directed at him and have it be because of him is something else entirely – you’re something else entirely." is SO CUTE what the HECk spacey !!

and this whole interaction: "You mimic the action of a pen, ask if he has any paper, and he all but sprints back to Derek’s desk to grab the closest pen and paper he can find – is it an important document? Who knows. Spencer has never cared less for his job before, because the most beautiful person he’s ever seen is willing to give him their number and he will physically fight anyone that tries to disrupt this." is so cute and entertaining- spencer's choice to go to derek's desk for ANY paper at all because success!! he's finally got her number. it's a victory for all of us :)

and then spencer's promise to text you IMMEDIATELY?! he's the best. it's official. (it's been official but it's declared official again). what an amazing boy.

and that's it!! it's cute and imperfect and awkward but alls well that ends well :) thank you for another fic spacer <3 love u v much

#long post #people being nice to me #submission #I AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA #ok i have responses but first this is #GOD i am so undeserving i read this with the biggest smile #you pointed out so many of my favourite parts and i. FEEL SO LUCKY #im too into using parentheses and breaking up paragraphs by using dashes #but i LOVE reading fics that do that #like interrupting the narrative to point something out or to say something else #IDK I LOVE IT SO MUCH #it’s annoying when i do it tho #SPENCER HAVING A WHOLE SECTION OF HIS CLOSET DEDICATED TO ~SPECIAL~ VESTS PLS #this is the absolute loveliest thing and i can’t thank you enough :(#the TIME that went into this im #PLEASE sleep for more than 3.5 hours now ok #im gonna frame this

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leporellian · 4 years

Text

warrior cats rewrite part 2: fire and ice

more of This apparently! this is a continuation of this post so go over there to get the gist of this.

with the last book i was focused on establishing characters and dynamics within thunderclan, so this one is more focused on establishing the other groups outside of thunderclan (windclan, riverclan, the rogues in shadowclan, kittypets) and the exact mechanics of the world. also assume that anything i mention little of stays the same- bluestar, yellowfang, etc

-so like in the original we open on a prologue of windclan. the prologue is from the perspective of a young apprentice, gorsepaw. he and his brother mudpaw are trying to comprehend What Is Going On while morningflower soothes them and tallstar attempts to lead. they are helped by members of the blood brothers (the city cats who try to keep things safe in the city and suburbs). little is mentioned about the blood brothers but it is mentioned they’re not as good as they once were and could use a fresh young leader to give them real direction again

- anyway back in thunderclan we hear about darkstripe’s pov of redtail’s death

- redtail was a risk taker and very fiery and passionate- much like fireheart himself. bluestar chose him because his eagerness balanced out her pragmatism. however, redtail’s impulsivity and tendency to be a bleeding-heart became more and more loathed by others- especially the elders and tigerclaw.

- tigerclaw values conservatism, duty, and tradition. he’s a man of stability. and he realized that redtail’s ways could get thunderclan in trouble- he had a point, of course, but he took it too far.

- the entire sunningrocks battle was suggested by thistleclaw, tigerclaw’s father, and quickly approved by the elders (elders are often the ones who start battles), although none of the other elders knew of the plan. thistleclaw also suggested the time- in the dark of night, where no cat could see who was fighting who too well. thistleclaw was helping tigerclaw the entire time.

- redtail was killed by not oakheart, although it was often claimed they had killed each other (and who had no voice to speak up- oakheart was dead and was an impulsive type like redtail who would have totally killed him in defense if they had fought), but tigerclaw, who figured it was the only way to become deputy and lead thunderclan with the stability he had desired it to be led with.

- fireheart shares his findings with the others, in secret. raven, gray, and cinderpaw all believe him, although it takes them a while to come to terms with the idea of tigerclaw being a murderer, but sand and long are unconvinced- neither wants to even entertain the idea their father was murdered.

- anyway thunderclan sends a few cats to retrieve windclan now that Brokenstar Is Gone(TM), gray and fire being two of them. windclan doesn’t like how little thunderclan seems to care about them because none of the high ranking warriors were sent- especially the angry mudpaw, who is still rather traumatized from being chased down with the rest of windclan by shadowclan. meanwhile, fireheart meets onewhisker and they become fast friends. onewhisker is kind of a Cool Older Brother type but he’s also sycophantic and a little bit of a coward.

- meanwhile there’s barkface, the quiet medicine cat of windclan. on the way back starclan sends him an omen: the moon will bring unnecessary death on its back.

- on their way back they find riverclan dicking around on windclan territory and so there’s a Fight- right by the gorge. it plays out like in canon and whiteclaw dies, fire figures ‘oh that’s the death’ and moves on

- once they get back a few days pass and then The Gang Become Mentors to lionheart and frostfur’s litter: brackenkit, thornkit, brightkit, and swiftkit. (cinder meanwhile was goldenflower’s kid.) fire gets bracken, gray gets thorn, sand gets bright, and long gets swift

- while this goes down, gray falls in love with silverstream like he does in canon- further propelled by his own half-clan heritage and desire to know outsiders beyond thunderclan. fire spies on him as he does in canon, etc etc. also it’s here that fire sees princess, and he recognizes her immediately.

- also thorn doesn’t like that graystripe isn’t really paying attention to him, which makes him kind of a try-hard prick that Just Wants To Be Noticed. Patrol Guy: Origins

- meanwhile tigerclaw keeps asking bluestar to see some unusual activity at the thunderpath. he looks worried about it.

- this comes to a head when tigerclaw rushes into camp with a few other thunderclan warriors. “there was a rogue attack at the thunderpath!” everyone follows him and finds two cats being carried out, both unconscious- darkstripe and cinderpaw. cinder’s leg has been shredded by a car (the rogues pushed her out in front of one) and darkstripe’s face is clawed up to hell and back.

- fireheart immediately Suspects Shit because this is tigerclaw. nobody else does except for ravenpaw, who notes that while cinderpaw’s injury is plausible, whoever clawed darkstripe did it in a very deliberate manner and not in defense as usually is done in the midst of dispute. fire figures out that tiger probably did the same trick he did with redtail, but targeting darkstripe instead.

- (”why are you relying so hard on mystery here?” mystery is really good for setting up worldbuilding, which is the main intent of the first three books.)

- meanwhile, cinderpaw is told that even though she can be a warrior, with the loss of her leg working properly she will likely need extra time and dedication to become one, and that it won’t be an easy road. cinder however refuses to give up, even though she’s initially left shaken and hopeless

- fireheart goes to see princess, who’s much more of a homebody than he is and comfortable in her life. however, she’s so relaxed because she doesn’t leave her home into the outside kittypet world, and is concerned about smudge and her mate- who both leave and get in fights with other cats pretty often. did you ever find smudge? she asks. what do you mean? replies fireheart. oh, this moon he decided to come with you, into the forest. i haven’t seen him since...

- anyway since princess doesn’t want her first child to enter the chaotic disputes of Kittypet Borders (and the other calamities of having little established government) she hands fireheart cloudkit

- like in canon nobody initially likes cloudkit but brindleface takes him in. their main worry is that he’s a white cat with blue eyes, which could mean that he’s deaf- not that this would hurt thunderclan, but that this could leave cloudkit to have a harder time being a warrior. cinderpaw however makes the connection and tells everyone that she wants to mentor cloudkit as soon as he becomes an apprentice.

- fireheart asks darkstripe to tell him more about tigerclaw killing redtail, hoping to get the details he needs to properly accuse him. but darkstripe is... different, this time. what do you mean!?! he screeches. tigerclaw is a loyal thunderclan warrior! you would never accuse lionheart or spottedleaf of this. how dare you even think-

- fireheart realizes that barkface’s ‘the moon will bring unnecessary death on its back’ omen was not referring to only whiteclaw, but also, perhaps, darkstripe in a way. whatever tigerclaw did to darkstripe, whatever he told him, it changed the tabby tom forever. as fireheart continues to think about the omen, his mind flickers to smudge for a moment, and then it returns to thunderclan.

- the gathering goes down like it does in canon. thunderclan slowly realizes that the rogues nightstar mentions are the same ones that tigerclaw had to fight at the border. ohhh shittt, they collectively go

- they get back to see rogues everywhere in thunderclan camp. the usually-bellicose thistleclaw isn’t fighting them, and darkstripe is half-hearting it. those who are There however are doing an okay job of fending them off, and their asses are collectively kicked when the ThunderClan Gang gets to them. they also manage to capture brokenstar after yellowfang blinds him (and fire hears that she was his mother- honestly i’m not changing a lot abt yellowfang)

- in the midst of this, fireheart accidentally kills clawface. he’s wracked with horror at it, and wonders if this is how graystripe felt when he killed whiteclaw.

- anyway there’s like 2 days of peace and then mudpaw rushes into gathering like ‘HOLY SHIT GUYS WE ARE BEING FUCKING ATTACKED BY THOSE SHADOWCLAN RIVERCLAN MFS’ and everyone is like ‘god DAMMIT we JUST PUT you guys back there’ and they all go in, ally with windclan, and have a Big Ass Fight like in canon. we get a good idea of everyone’s loyalties to who- graystripe is only fighting shadowclan, darkstripe only attacks whoever is around tigerclaw, sandstorm and longtail tagteam fight against river and shadow, onewhisker is just running around doing nothing but Look Cool,

- barkface dies in the battle, leaving windclan to wonder if he had predicted his own death in the omen from about a moon before. fireheart doesn’t have the heart to tell them that it meant much more than they could know. spottedleaf joins windclan in barkface’s stead as he left behind no apprentice. ‘wait you can just Leave Clans like that?’ says graystripe. he is Thinkin

- the book’s end is uncertain as fireheart is still reeling from clawface’s death and the big battle between all the clans. he wonders if this is how the rest of his life will be- and then, as he falls asleep, he gets a nightmarish vision of hell and heaven, life and death, and an odd peace afterwards, all narrated by a voice he swears he knows but not from where. it almost becomes... oddly soothing, like a long-forgotten childhood memory.

- lion and tiger will meet in battle, and fire alone will herald it. there will be three, kin of his kin, and they will hold the power of starlight in their paws; yet peace will only arrive on the gentle wings of the fourth. out of the darkness of blood-spilling-blood will come a new dawn, and the four oaks will live beyond the memories of its memories. nothing is as it was, yet this is how it always has been, and this is how it always will be...

#warrior cats #warrior cats rewrite #rambles

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aurorawest · 3 years

Note

⭐ If you could, write about the part where Loki and Thor are desguised as women as they escape that army camp.

Oooh, sure!

Context: this is from chapter 14 of The Real Asgardians of the Galaxy. Loki is in a massive army encampment and manages to locate Thor by astral projecting. In order to pass through the camp to actually get to Thor, Loki takes female form and barges into Thor’s tent. Thor doesn’t recognize her at first so Loki transforms into a man again. Here’s their escape:

Looking at Loki like he’d just grown a second head, Thor said, “Great plan. I only see one problem with it. We’re here and there’s no way to get out of this camp without being seen. There are guards all around the perimeter, and—” But he stopped, noticing, finally, the way Loki was smiling at him. “Wait. You’re not going to—”

“Why not? It worked for me.”

“It worked for you because when you look like a woman, you are a woman!” Thor said. “I can’t—how am I supposed to pretend?”

“My magic is easily up to the task of glamoring away your hulking masculinity,” Loki said with a flick of his fingers. When Thor still looked doubtful, Loki added innocently, “You’ll be lovely, I’m sure. Did you have a preference on hair color?”

“I’m not concerned about being pretty,” Thor said. “I’m concerned about getting stopped and questioned.”

I knew I wanted Thor to object to this plan because, quite honestly, it’s funny for Thor to object to this plan. What I did not want to do was have Thor objecting to the plan because the idea of looking like a woman was distasteful to him. I also didn’t want him to come across as disparaging the fact that Loki can be both male and female. But Loki is almost kind of pushing to object to it on both of those levels, because Loki likes to push, and he wants people to admit to ugly things so 1) he can feel superior, and 2) he can feel like a victim.

[...] “We won’t be stopped,” Loki said. “And if we are, it will be because someone wants to buy our services. That’s easy enough to make them forget. No one here has any idea I can do magic. We stick to the main paths until we get to the airfield.”

“And then what?” Thor asked. “Have you seen the wall around it?”

“No,” Loki admitted.

“It’s a pretty serious wall.”

Loki raised an eyebrow. “I’m a pretty serious sorcerer.”

Loki has already assumed Thor is going to dismiss his ability to get them out of the situation. He’s totally geared up for an argument here.

Thor looked at him. Loki stared back, wondering if Thor would discount the fact that magic could get them out of this. There was a long history between them of Thor dismissing Loki’s sorcery. It was a talent he couldn’t understand, didn’t share, and which he saw as suspect. At least, he always had in the past.

Hm, but is this really true? This is Unreliable Narrator Loki at his finest. He’s telling us that Thor was always this way. Loki has been really hurt by what he perceives as Thor’s dismissal of his magic. If you asked Thor, though, he’d probably tell you the opposite story. The actual truth is somewhere in between. This is an example of the two of them not understanding how to communicate with each other.

Things had changed between them after Sakaar. Maybe this had, too.

Thor nodded. “Alright.”

Loki’s mouth opened to argue, but then he realized what Thor had said and he snapped it shut. A smile flashed across Thor’s face, as though he knew exactly what had just gone through Loki’s mind.

All set to argue, and then nothing to argue with! Thor is definitely trying harder to be what Loki needs him to be, and you can see that here.

I trust you, brother, Thor had said to him before he’d manually calculated the jump that had brought their ship to Asgard. Maybe he’d meant it.

Callback to chapter 1 of the fic, where their navigation system is down and Loki manually calculates a jump on the back of a Big Mac wrapper.

With a nod in return, Loki lifted a hand and twisted his wrist. This was unnecessary, but he’d begun doing it as a courtesy to the people around him in Asgard who hadn’t liked his magic.

I really love this particular head canon, where Loki’s magic doesn’t require any kind of gesture, spoken spell, etc. It’s a fun thing to play with, because it means he can be as showy as he wants to—but he doesn’t have to be.

[...] A green line of magic ran from Thor’s head to his feet, leaving a woman standing there in his place. Loki completed his own transformation and then said quietly, “Let’s go.”

I purposefully didn’t describe Thor here because Loki hardly thinks about Thor’s physical appearance at all. Loki’s descriptions of people’s physical descriptions tend to be very cursory. Hair color, skin color, height. He’s simply not all that interested.

So what that means is: if Loki is taking more interest in someone’s physical appearance, it might be because he’s interested in them.

The two of them peeked out of the tent. A few of Thor’s cohorts were still around the campfire. [...] Loki jerked her head and they slipped out, walked past the fire, and headed for the camp’s main thoroughfare.

“I should have said good-bye,” Thor said quietly.

Loki shrugged. “Send them a postcard.”

Definitely a little projection (?) here on Loki’s part. He too feels guilty about abandoning his unit, but it takes him ages to come to terms with it. He hasn’t even started to confront the fact that Kalmsh will likely get in trouble, maybe even serious trouble. A little sneak peek of what’s to come: this is something that Loki begins to really grapple with, that despite his penchant for casting himself in the victim role, there have been people in his life who have been willing to put themselves on the line for him, often in very serious ways. He’s way too self-absorbed at this point to recognize that.

She knew it was ridiculous, but it bothered her that Thor had given even this slightest of indications that he had formed attachments to these people. Of course he had. He was Thor. Even Loki felt some affection for her unit. It wasn’t as though Thor wanted to stay here fighting with them.

At least, she didn’t think he did.

A brief comment her on the way I write Loki in female form: I usually write these scenes using male pronouns to make sure I’m not writing female Loki any different than I would write male Loki. Then I go back through and switch them.

But then again, Thor had preferred to stay imprisoned as a gladiator on Sakaar rather than joining Loki at the Grandmaster’s side. As much as she wished these wounds would heal, they were slow to. It had been almost seven years ago for Thor,

Hey, I’m glad I got the timespan right here! In chapter 32, I had it wrong and didn’t catch it until right before I posted, haha.

but even if it hadn’t, Thor had always had a tendency to underestimate how his actions and words wounded Loki. He let things go so easily and Loki was the opposite. [...]

This is one of the things that’s at the heart of the House of Odin dynamic. I see both Thor and Odin being this way. They’re passionate people who speak before they think, so they’ll say these deeply hurtful, horrible things...which they don’t actually believe. And Thor and Odin can’t understand why Loki takes things so personally, why he can’t just let them go, while Loki can’t understand how they can be so cruel, and why they pretend to care about him when clearly they don’t, because one time they said this one thing and that obviously is more indicative of how they feel about him then the way they treat him on a daily basis. Full disclosure, I’m very much like Loki, lol. Neither one is right or good, but it’s the way they are, and they’re two very different ways of functioning.

This obviously wasn’t the time to bring it up, though.

“You do want to leave this place, don’t you?” Loki asked.

*rimshot*

Thor looked at her. Gods, even as a woman, that dumbfounded look was unmistakable. “You’re joking.”

“Well, you seem so broken up about the fact that you left without saying good-bye,” Loki said, sneering despite her best efforts.

There is always time for Loki to get bent out of shape for people not giving him the affection he wants. This is wildly inappropriate of Loki to do at this moment, but he just can’t stop himself. He’s so needy that he’ll jeopardize their escape to take his potshot at Thor. I remember when I wrote this, I nearly took it out, because I thought Loki was being such an ass—but Loki is an ass, and I really want to show that. I want to show how warped his perception of reality can be, and how he’ll make really bad decisions because of it.

Two Preccat men walked by them, leering, but Loki ignored them and so did Thor. The men looked disgruntled but let them pass. When they were gone, Thor turned to her and hissed, “Of course I want to leave here, don’t be stupid. Why are you bringing this up now? We’re supposed to be concentrating on getting out of here.”

Thor, the voice of...reason? A major part of Thor’s arc in this fic is actually that he’s kind of a doormat because he’s so grateful to have Loki back, and that obviously can’t hold forever. He’s kind of fighting with himself here, wanting to make Loki have a conversation that Loki’s definitely not ready to have, and which frankly Thor isn’t ready to either. Thor wants to be better for Loki because he knows he’s hurt him, but Loki also is pretty much as impossible as ever.

She scowled but didn’t say anything. Thor grabbed her arm and stopped her. Loki yanked her arm out of her brother’s hold. They glared at each other, but then a group of men came stumbling down the road towards them, obviously drunk. It snapped both of them out of it. “Let’s go,” Loki muttered.

Aaaand of course they don’t have a real conversation. Huh sure hope all this stonewalling and sweeping things under the rug doesn’t result in an explosive, hurtful, horrible argument later!

Thank you so much for asking!

Fanfic Writers: Director’s Cut

#loki #thor #brodinsons #traotg #mareebird

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emiisanxious · 3 years

Text

Everything is NOT alright! - Chapter 1

Archive of Our Own Link

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories:

M/M

Multi

Fandom: Sanders Sides (Web Series)

Relationships:

Anxiety | Virgil Sanders/Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders

Anxiety | Virgil Sanders/Logic | Logan Sanders

Anxiety | Virgil Sanders/Morality | Patton Sanders

Anxiety | Virgil Sanders/Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders

Anxiety | Virgil Sanders/Deceit | Janus Sanders

Anxiety | Virgil Sanders & Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders

Anxiety | Virgil Sanders & Logic | Logan Sanders

Anxiety | Virgil Sanders & Morality | Patton Sanders

Anxiety | Virgil Sanders & Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders

Anxiety | Virgil Sanders & Deceit | Janus Sanders

Logic | Logan Sanders/Morality | Patton Sanders

Logic | Logan Sanders & Morality | Patton Sanders

Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders/Deceit | Janus Sanders

Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders & Deceit | Janus Sanders

Additional Tags:

Established Relationship

Developing Relationship

Relationship Discussions

They all worry and are gay for Virgil

Alternate Universe - Human

Swearing

Anxiety | Virgil Sanders Has Panic Attacks

Fluff

Comfort

chapter four has:

Self-Hatred

Self-Esteem Issues

Implied/Referenced Suicide

Panic Attacks

Crying

Angst

Comfort/Angst

Summary: “Roman is worried about how Virgil is acting, instead of trying to talk with him, he just... Brings it to the rest of their boyfriends.”

Note: It’s the day after Everything is Alright, please read that fic first. Also, not all the ships are on all the chapters.

Note about this chapter: I'm not in any way a babysitter, neither does I know how it works. Also, I don't live on EUA to understand how works should work. So this is all fiction and just to fit what I wanted to write.

He was walking around his room, Virgil woke up early he barely had any sleep, in reality, Roman could count exactly the hours and minutes that his boyfriend slept and that wasn't his persona it was Logan's persona to do that! He was worried, a lot worried.

"Hey, Ro, calm down okay? It's not that family I will be back in like 6 hours I promise." Even with that assurance he still didn't like, but he couldn't do anything as the Emo Nightmare just kissed him and got out.

"You had only 4 hours of sleep you idiot." He murmurs as he throws himself on the couch, for more that he loved Virgil that was enough, as he gets his phones and goes to the first floor knocking on the door.

"Ro ~!" A cheerful voice as he recognized as Patton opening it, placing a gentle cheek kiss. "Get in... Wait, where is Vee?" It soon dropped in a worried tone as the brunet just shocks his head. The person in question always had clothes with Kakhi and baby blue colors and that wasn't different today, Patton also had blonde hair, beautiful blue eyes, and freckles around his face.

As Roman he has brunet hair, he liked to use white and red color clothes and brown eyes, a roll of those eyes as he went to the dining room where he found Logan sitting reading. The said one had black hairs and eyes, and used always black with navy blue cloths. "Greetings Roman." As he notices the other getting in and later Patton. "Wait, Virgil isn't coming? Is he fine?

He rolled his eyes again as he just sits next to Logan. "I will talk more once the other two are here." Was all the explanation he could give, for his luck he didn't need to wait too much as another knock and Patton went there, soon he could see his twin, although he is identical he uses more of black and green, the opposite of Roman and had a mustache. It was easy to know who is who

Next to him was a red-haired guy, with amber eyes, using black and yellow, it was funny how they just went with their favorite colors, soon all of them were sitting with the food on the table. All of the other four looking to him, as he grows. "Now that is everyone here. Virgil isn't coming." He started he already knew where it was going.

"That... Is rare but not uncommon." Janus said as he looked a bit confused, not understanding why Roman was so... Worried.

"Yeah, we all have different jobs and his schedule is far messier than yours, bro." Remus was the next one to keep the track of thoughts once he does lose his tracks a lot, so it was a nice way to keep him paying attention.

"Well, that is true. But I'm worried and I want to talk about it." Roman sighed as he thinks about it before narrating what happened yesterday. "Okay, so he went to work, saying it was going to be a 12 hours shift. He would do trick-or-treat with the kid, then tuck him in and the next day he would be here at 10 am. But he didn't. Instead, he sent me a text saying he wasn't sure when he would be back because the family had a problem. To sum up... He got back home at 11 pm." He was trying to keep himself sound too annoyed by it.

"His anxiety was in the roof, he fell a bit nonverbal, he was pale, he told me he didn't eat and neither sleep all that time. And he told me that he would need to do it again tomorrow. Pass the night on this family house. Also, he slept just four hours and went to work because, as he didn't know that yesterday would take so long, he did schedule someone for today. And in between, I was taking care of him he also falls in the thinking he was a bother to me." His tone died there, it was already five years they all were together and he knew it was just his anxiety's voice saying things but it already hurt to know that he still thought like that.

Silence fell in the dining room as he looks at them. "Now you say me this is common and I shouldn't be worried."

"Hm... That sure is a problem..." Logan was the first one to speak as he looks to Roman. "Did you tried to ask him for a talk with the family?"

"Honestly? No. All that I could do yesterday was ground him, remember he didn't do anything wrong with that exercise of asking about the kid and his day. Then remembered to him that I loved him and I would still cuddle and caress him even if he didn't ask. And pretty much fall in silence, just cuddling, later he went to shower I got the food and we eat something while watching a movie. Were he falls asleep in the middle of that."

A long sigh. "Well... Since we are going to what I presume a rough week, probably weeks. Till that family doesn't ask for him. How about this: We make sure that one of us is here all the time? So when he is back whenever his work is done, one of us is at least here." It was kinda obvious that Logan would suggest that but at least it was a nice start.

"He dislikes when we change our schedule remember this." Janus said as he looks at Logan.

"Oh, I know! I will pick Logan's notebook, and we can organize it first. If it happens to have an hour without anyone we can see how to work about it." Patton said as he gets up and went to pick what he said.

"Honestly, that family doesn't know that he isn't a slave to be at their mercy?" Remus tone was sure annoyed as he started to pick some things to eat, after all, he was the only one that didn't sleep yet. "We should kill them!"

"Remus." It was all the warning that Janus gave the sadistic twin. He didn't get an answer, but as Remus, he started to pick up things to eat.

Roman fell silent, now that he put that out of his chest he relaxed a lot, soon Patton brought Logan's notebook back and they started to talk about their schedule as the more organized person just noted. After half an hour, the dining room fell silent again, although they all started to eat.

"So, from what I can see we don't need to change our schedule, we just need to make sure that we all are here when we said and it's adequate." Logan says finally as he turns the object so they can see it. "Also I don't think I need to remember, but... Just to make it clear, be careful okay? Follow the schedule the most perfect way you all can if you can't or something happens, call or text all to see if someone can be there."

They all nodded. "Can you talk to him, Lo? So maybe try to convince him to talk with the family to have some of us with him? Honestly, I'm worried about how long he can go without sleep or eat..." Roman says, he honestly felt terrible for bring that to the table and call out his emo, but they all cared for him so it was fair and right.

"Yes, I can. But only if it happens to him be with me. I honestly, don't think that pushing a talk will be good this week. Virgil isn't a kid, when he is rational, he knows that he needs the company to calm down. Obviously when he isn't..." Logan trailed off as he sighs.

"Okay, okay stop!" Patton says as he looks at Roman and Logan. "We all are worried about him okay? In on own ways. Roman, I thank you for telling us, now that we all know, we will make the compromise of helping. We all in a way or not helped him with his anxiety. So, we know how to help. Now, time to eat and keep up with our days before we all get late. Remus, you need sleep dear." The father figure of them looked to the said in the question and then turned to the rest.

"Logan, please send the schedule to me, I will send it to Vee with a kind message. He knows that in this famILY breakfast we all share our schedule so I know a way to keep him calm." Patton finished as he started to eat.

They looked at each other, it was easy to say that for more they wanted to vent it in their ways, it would just be useless. Remus could always suggest things to Janus later, where Janus would stop Remus from doing, but he would help with his creativity in a weird way to vent those annoying feelings.

Logan could always complain about it and how he wished that Virgil had some more... Care about himself. The purple hair was always worried about them, but he seemed to forget or just push himself to the last. And that wasn't healthy. Patton would for sure agree with Logan and try to help deal with those feelings.

Roman felt more relief as that he wasn't alone anymore, he knew that they all loved Virgil, although the said person seemed to forget or just, not remember it when worked up. So right now, he was just glad that this famILY worked in a nice way.

#Virgil Sanders #Roman Sanders #Patton Sanders #Logan Sanders #Janus Sanders #Remus Sanders #Virgil & Everyone #Logicality #Dukeceit #Demus #Receit #Anxceit #Analogical #Moxiety #Dukexiety #Prinxiety #fanfic

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