#and the op is just like. but men suck and these sisters have lost their way pray they will learn their faults quickly.

[mx-paint]

.

#cant tell if the prev account dedicated to family guy of all things is genuine or not but like. #its truly astounding seeing te/rfs and radf/ems will say something completely unironically that is literally against them #but they either. dont understand or are refusing to????? #like. the one in the notes latest post was a rb from someone complaining how 'ex members' are saying how like. #they understand why people were shittinf on them for coming after Literally all men (not just the loose complaining about men #but literally. all men.) #and the reason Why they changed in the first place was bc they realized (paraphrasing) that men were just like them #like the differences that they forced between them to make themselves more victimized wasnt right nor true #and the op is just like. but men suck and these sisters have lost their way pray they will learn their faults quickly. #girl #idk how you can see someone say they an see why people were rightfully upset about them forcing themselves into a victim role #(in their own words) #and go like. baby. sweet baby so confused. shes just a little victim. #AND THEN GET MAD WHEN SHE GETS MAD THAT YOURE DOING EXACTLY WHAT SHE SAID SHE 'LEFT' FOR

[theofficialpresidentofmars]

feeling righteous anger on behalf of Laertes again

like he’s kind of a jerk to Ophelia at the start. but he’s also sort of right. and siblings are just Like That. they’ve only had each other and Polonius for their whole lives and goodness knows how many times they’ve come to each other to talk about Polonius behind his back or to cry on each other’s shoulder. or the teasing or inside jokes or Laertes trying to be the one to empathise with Ophelia being the only woman in the family because lord knows Polonius won’t.

when Laertes warns Ophelia to stay away from Hamlet, he expects her to ignore his warning. He’s not entirely opposed to the idea truthfully- the prince does seem to like her well enough. It’s not like he couldn’t see it working out. But he’s also both overprotective and filled with the brotherly need to remind her of how much he himself can get away with, and he knows what men are like, so he tells her to keep her distance. She laughs, and says she will in a tone that suggests she very much won’t.

When he leaves for France, after the occasional scarce letter from his father about the prince’s state, Laertes expects the worst upon his return.

except he thinks the worst is that he’ll come back to his heartbroken sister, crying in her bedroom, and she’ll tell him that he was right, and he’ll tell her that all men are jerks and arrant knaves and they all suck. and he’ll offer her a tissue and maybe a lighthearted jest at their father or the prince or men again or something to improve her mood and she’ll laugh, and eventually she’ll be okay.

When he learns his father is dead, something inside him goes numb. He tries to remember what he and Ophelia used to complain about, but he can't think of anything. Polonius was all they had, after all. And for all his flaws, Laertes loved him.

When he learns his father was murdered, he swears he'll have the head of the monster that killed him.

And when he gets back to Elsinore, when he hears of the circumstances surrounding his father's death and sees the state of his sister, he burns with an anger he never knew he was capable of.

When his sister's funeral is disrupted by the prince himself, claiming to grieve, claiming to have lost more than Laertes could even comprehend, Laertes finds his hands around his throat before he can even fully realise what's happening. How DARE he? How dare he put an end to what little service the king would allow to put his sister to rest? How dare he claim he ever loved her when his actions put her in the grave? How dare he pretend to have lost when he could not possibly understand what he put Laertes through? What he put Ophelia through?

It's only natural that less than two days later, he finds himself at the other end of a poisoned blade. A dirty play, Laertes knows, to stab at your opponent before the round starts, but Laertes is so beyond any sense of fairness or mercy by now. The prince is dead within the half hour, his sister and father revenged, justice served.

What he doesn't expect is the prince to take the blade out of his hands and return the blow. And as he bleeds, Laertes realises the fate he's resigned himself to.

What he doesn't expect is the look in the prince's eyes after his mother falls, holding her as she dies. It's a terrified, vulnerable, pained expression, the likes of which he's never seen on the prince. The kinds of emotion he was beginning to doubt the prince was capable of, even. But Laertes can see in his face that, strangely enough, they only seem to scratch the surface of some melancholy that runs bone-deep.

And of all things, Laertes can't help himself but be struck with a sense of empathy for the villain. He remembers how he felt after the death of his father. He knows how it feels to live without a mother.

He thinks of the desperation he himself felt to find out who was at fault, and he thinks about Claudius. He thinks about how quick Claudius was to encourage his vengeful plans. He thinks about how Claudius had the opportunity to stop his own wife from drinking poison, but said nothing. He thinks about how the prince acted towards Claudius in the time before he left the country. He thinks about how the prince was then, grieving over the death of his father.

Something starts to make sense.

There's not a full hour between them. Maybe, in these last moments, he won't be the only one avenged.

Laertes calls out to Hamlet and warns him of his fate, revealing Claudius' plan. Within less than a minute, the king is dead.

There never was enough time to get a further explanation from either party, but in the little time they had left, some understanding was had. Perhaps it was Laertes' empathy. Perhaps it was his realisations. Perhaps it was the dwindling clock, and the idea that he'd see his father and sister again soon.

He'd talk it out with Hamlet then. For now, his and his father's death did not come upon him, nor his on himself.

#hamlet #shakespeare #hamletposting #laertes #hamlet and laertes my favourite narrative foils #i'll be your foil laertes #ophelia #polonius #king claudius

[theglitchywriterboi]

I saw someone on Twitter say that white trans women have a problem downplaying the struggles of trans men [which is true. While not all trans women do this BY FAR, I have seen plenty act like the only issues trans men face is... Maybe being misgendered & being treated like babies sometimes] & someone in the QRTs compared trans guys to TERFs... Like girl the call is coming from inside the house YOU'RE DOING WHAT OP SAID !!!

Like you could've easily been like "While this is an issue I don't think it's exclusive to white trans women, trans men/transmascs do the same to trans women/transfems of downplaying our respective issues & it really depends on who you're talking to. Yes some do downplay trans men, but there's also plenty who fight for our trans brothers too. Same for trans men, some downplay trans women, while plenty fight for us. Making a general statement like this only hurts everyone & doesn't really address either issue in the way it should be address" but no. Saying he's spouting terf rhetoric is the way to go ig ??

Cause like, he said white not to get points [like you know those cishet white dudes who throw in the word white before just to shit on women in general, but act like it's okay cause white women ? & it's not like they're making any kinda commentary, they're just talking about how women suck] but because hes mostly seen it from white people [plus white trans people IN GENERAL tend to brush off the struggles of trans men who are POC. At least from what I've seen, heard, & experienced]

Also like... I've seen what he's talking about & no, I don't have screenshots, cause I don't screenshot everything. But that doesn't mean it doesn't happen ? Here's his tweet:

Like obviously again, this isn't at ALL anywhere near all trans women/transfems, but it does happen. I've seen so many trans women/transfems say transandrophobia isn't real, how trans men are just as oppressive as cis men, how transandrophobia isn't real but that we should make it real, etc etc etc. & again. There's plenty of trans women/transfems who don't at all think like this or agree w/ these statements, but it does happen.

This is their tweet [they didn't have pronouns on their account when I screenshotted***]:

Like bruh what ? To me it just sounds like they 1: Missed OPs point & 2: Are proving it.

TERFs do this to dismiss & further oppress trans women. OP & trans men do this because it does happen. No trans women aren't threatening our safety or oppressing us, not at all. But plenty [& again not all] do dismiss things we DO go through & act like the worst we experience is being treated like "Aw wook at Dat UwU wittwe baby twans boiiiii 🥺🥺 smol beeeeaaaannnnn hehe" & the occasional terf calling us lost lesbian sisters. When that's not at all the case.

I'm probably gonna delete this, cause this is mostly to vent, but yeah. Could the OG tweet have been worded better ? Yes. But imo OP didn't say anything wrong. Maybe it's cause I'm not a trans girl so I can't see the transmisogyny the way they can, & I totally accept it if no the person replying is 100% right & OP was being hurtful, but as of now I genuinely don't see how anything they said was wrong.

Or maybe this is just me misreading what the second person said & they actually were either saying something different or were adding, which is possible. [Also someone in the replies said how did non-white trans women not do this & it's like no one said they DIDN'T the point was it has been seen more frequently w/ white trans women.]

[mortoxtea]

The talk about the child support is futile because we don't know what goes on the kids' lives. Maybe they're being raised by nannies and the grandparents. Some men just want to pay monthly to their ex and not see their kids. Other men want 50/50 custody and will still continue to pay. Who knows what their situation is🤷‍♀️The only thing I know for sure is that those two kids are the only real victims here. Their dad might not be their real dad, and he doesn't see them. And their mom sucks.

I mean as far as Oona is concerned for a good portion of her early life we know that Alida's sisters took care of her. We know this because Alida not only admitted to having her sister as a nanny once or twice but there's videos of Oona living with Molly and her partner where Alida's not even around. There's also at least one video out there where Oona calls either Liza or Molly "Mama" and is reminded that Mama is the one behind her filming (I forget who she addresses but it wasn't Alida). Maybe Alida is more hands on with Oona now that she doesn't work and isn't chasing Bill everywhere but I think her family is very involved with taking care of this kid, more than she ever was.

As for Minou, she also said that Minou would have a nanny (at least in SA). I think since she lost all of her work and wasn't really invited to anything in 2023, she had more time to look after Minou herself but, Alida also likes to really only have these kids as accessories so it wouldn't surprise me if when she didn't want to drag the kid out for a photo op or something she just had someone else take care of it. I've heard people from Sweden say that Alida isn't really seen with her kids either. Sometimes she is but usually she's not out with them. Once again, this is just something I was told, but I do hope that she's not their primary caretaker because she seems like she'd be awful at it.

As to how Bill plays into this other than everyone knows he's away most of the year filming and doesn't seem to be very hands on at all (for whatever reason that is) who knows? He may not be paying any child support at all. He may be paying a lot. He may be trying to get out of paying it if the kids aren't his or whatever other reason there might be.

I agree that the biggest victims in all of this are the children because whether they are biologically Bill's or not, Alida literally only had them so she could show them off and brag about having Bill's kids. I doubt she wanted them (she drank while pregnant with both of them) and then kind of just pawned them off on other people when they weren't fashionable for her to have around or feature on Instagram. These kids are going to grow up without an absent alcoholic mother who is delusional and lord only knows what the father situation is. Alida knew what she was doing, and she did it twice, she's such a horrible person for forcing two innocent children into this problem when she could have been responsible and stayed on birth control.

#alida morberg #bill skarsgård #asks

[canyouhearthelight]

The Miys, Ch. 84

Somehow I managed to get this chapter written, despite a pinched nerve that left me, essentially, on bed rest for two days.  I keep telling myself I need to make a buffer of chapters, but my life has decided not to cooperate...

I hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy. Where I live, we are currently under a stay-at-home order, and my company (essential) finally got us up and running to work from home this past week. So I at least have that, and I’m aware how fortunate I am for that.

As always, my inbox and ask box are wide open, so feel free to drop me a line.  I love interacting with people on a normal basis.

Somewhat more disturbed than usual, I left Xiomara’s office with Charly in tow.  I was about to let her know she was okay to head home when I realized I didn’t really have a choice - Xio made it very clear that I needed an escort with me at all times.  Conor was still at work, Tyche stayed behind with my fellow Councillor, and Maverick was likely off work but at home.  Charly, however, was right here and one look at her face let me know she was taking her new duties seriously.

“I can call GK,” I tried in vain.

“Nope.” She popped the ‘p’ emphatically. “I have a job to do, and ulterior motives. Ninja grandma isn’t taking my spot.” I arched a brow in inquiry, and wasn’t left disappointed. “Ma’am. Suspected cult leader? Attempted viking overlord? And this person clearly has it in for you? Do the guys know? Does Derek know? Hell, does Arthur know?”

“Why do I feel like Arthur outranks my actual partners in that list?”

“He was a warlord, and apparently your bestie in a past life? Stop stalling and talk. Start at freaking cult leader?”

“Alleged.”

“Sophia Michelle, I swear to - “

“That’s not my middle name.”

“And that’s not the point!”

Well, I tried. With a sigh, I surrendered to the inevitable.  “A bunch of people have been acting suspiciously lately, all over the Ark.  Anti-social, darting eyes, hushed whispers, all that stuff.  Tyche and I thought it was just us, until Noah and I were walking one day and a group of them just plowed into us.”  I stopped and ran a hand through my hair anxiously. “If it had happened even a week earlier, I would have just shrugged it off and been done.  The issue was this.” I tapped my temple emphatically.  “Tyche insisted that I get the proximity update to my implant, to avoid being triggered by people walking into me.”

“Well, yeah, that makes sense,” she shrugged brightly.  “Not like I didn’t notice… I can’t exactly sneak up and hug you anymore.” She scowled comically.

I let a small smile creep onto my face before continuing. “Right. Well, this was a group of about eight people.  They either all ignored the alert, or somehow turned it off.  We - well, Derek and Zach - are still trying to figure out which it was. Either way, it was a cause for concern, so a bunch of us brought it to Xiomara. We suspected it might be a cult, so Grey was also consulted.  They agreed there was a possibility, but pointed out we need inside information. Jokull Bjornson, recipient of your feral tendencies, is our best guess for the leader if it is a cult. So, Xio said she would look into it, but essentially told me that anyone associated with me would be out of the loop.”

“So why is Tyche…?”

“I don’t knowwww!” I whined in frustration.  “And it’s not like she can tell me, so I can’t exactly ask, because I don’t want her to feel bad, right?”

“Ugh, that sucks,” she agreed.  “And you have no idea why this guy hates your kidneys?”

“Eyeah, as far as that goes? You know as much as I do, and I know that isn’t much right now.”

She shrugged before bouncing on her toes. “Don’t worry.  I’ll talk to Coffee, he’ll probably agree to shadow you some of the time.  And it would be from a distance, so you wouldn’t feel like a kid being walked to kindergarten.” When I looked at her, skeptical, she shrugged again. “He likes you.”

“He’s spoken maybe four words to me,” I pointed out.

“And yet, you understand him.  That means he likes you.”

My mind reeling, we made the rest of the way to my quarters with small talk.  However, when we arrived, Charly refused to head home until she saw Maverick and the door closed behind me.  I swear, I get confronted once…

“Why did Charly look like an attack marten?”

Nuggets. “There was an incident today,” I groaned before peeking up at the ceiling. “Miys? Were you recording in Xiomara Kalloe’s office between 1800 and 1900 subjective ship time?”

“I was not, Wisdom.”

Figures.  Special ops of whatever flavor Xio had been did not lend well to being surveilled.  “Okay, thank you.” I looked back at Maverick.  “I don’t want to explain this again, so give me a second.  I was recording, because I knew this would happen.”  After some fidgeting to isolate the conversation in Xio’s office, I flicked the file over to Maverick.  “It’s audio only, but it at least saves me some time.”  I left him to watch it while I wandered into the food prep area for a drink.

I managed to swallow my second sip of wine before an angry shout came from the living room. “What the hell!?” was followed by Maverick striding into the kitchen and checking me over. “Were you hit? Did he fucking touch you?”

My arm was tangled in my shirt before I was able to stop him. “Mav… Maverick.. Babe! Stop! I swear, I’m fine.  Even Charly is fine - “

“Charly being fine is Coffee’s concern - “

“But we are both okay,” I finished.  “I swear, he didn’t even touch me.  Charly shoved me out of the way before he could.”

“I’m gonna - I need to get Conor, we’re gonna kill - “

“Listen to the rest of the recording,” I begged.  “He didn’t just walk away, I promise.”

After a couple of deep breaths and another glance to make sure I was okay, Maverick nodded. “I’m going to play this entire thing when Conor is home, probably after securing him to something that is bolted to the deck.”

“Well, that’s one way to keep him from flying off the handle,” I mused.

“Uh huh,” he replied sardonically, not even a bit fooled by what I was implying. “I don’t think even that is going to distract him.”

“It was worth a shot.”

“I think French toast has a better chance.”

“Gotcha.  French toast and lots of restraints.”  

That got a laugh out of Maverick, and he finally let go of my shoulders.  While he shot a message to our third to skip the overtime, I started getting ingredients together for a hearty breakfast-for-dinner meal.  We managed to time it just right, so the main dish came out of the oven just as Conor was finishing his shower.

Any hope that we even partially fooled him was dashed right after he sat down and saw the spread.  First he grinned, then got serious, and one glance at the broiled tomatoes gave it away.  “Neither of you like those,” Conor pointed to the offending dish with a whine. “Something bad happened, didn’t it?”  He glanced at our expressions before sighing and filling his plate.  “Alright, what gives? Another plague?  Ship stalled in space? Lost forever in subspace or whatever?”

“Something happened today,” I ventured carefully.  “I sent Maverick a recording, and he can play it if you want…”

To his credit, Conor held up one hand while he shoveled a piece of French toast into his mouth as fast as he could chew, quickly followed by one fried egg and two pieces of sausage. Finally, he nodded. “Okay. Got enough to make sure I’m not reacting on an empty stomach.”

“I just ask that you listen to the entire recording, no matter how bad it is at the beginning?”

He sighed again, held up his hand, chugged a glass of milk.  “Okay. I will do everything in my power to sit right here and not touch anything fragile or talk until I hear the whole thing.”

I really couldn’t ask for more than that, so I nodded to Maverick. Once he pulled up the audio recording, we sat tensely until it finished.  The only sounds outside of the record were Conor grinding his teeth and both men clenching their hands tightly enough to pop the joints.  Their expressions were a kaleidoscope of emotions, finally settling on determination when they heard Xiomara insist that I have an escort until further notice.

Snagging seconds of everything, Conor nodded to Maverick. “Us, Tyche, apparently Charly.. You think that Farro bloke?”

“He would,” Maverick agreed, digging into his own now-cold plate of food.  “Don’t forget Grandma Kim.” Conor pointed emphatically with his fork at the suggestion.

“Wait, what are you two doing?” I sputtered.  “Putting together a hit squad?”

“Ach, no,” Conor dismissed my suggestion.  “Escort detail.  If we wanted to take the fucker out, we’d leave it to Tyche and Farro and be done.”

“Not you?” I was so confused.

Maverick shook his head, gesturing with one finger between the two men. “We would feel guilty and regret it, probably the rest of our lives.  Those two, especially with someone who is endangering you again?  Probably would sleep better the night they did it.”

Conor nodded enthusiastically. “But I’m rather fond of your sister, and the Farro fella is alright I guess, so I’d hate to see them sedated and popped out an airlock at FTL speeds.”

“Oh,” I replied dumbly. I expected to have to calm them down, not to see them make such merciless decisions so quickly. “Um. In that case.  Charly said she’d talk to Coffee about shadowing me some of the time?”

I jumped when Conor hit the table with one hand. “See, that’s what I’m talkin’ about! We’ll keep you safe, Sophie… Aw, shit…” He jumped up and knocked the chair over as I dissolved into tears.

My eyes were closed so tightly that I actually lashed out as arms circled around me.  It was only when a smooth cheek pressed against my own that my body recognized it was Maverick and surrendered to protection.  Vaguely, I could hear Conor speaking, but just enough to register that it wasn’t directed at me, so the words just didn’t register as important.

When I finally calmed down, I was curled tightly in a ball on a soft surface, black hair obstructing my vision.  Maverick’s voice was speaking, an almost-chant that was soothing me. “I’m right here. I won’t let anyone hurt you. You’re safe. I’m right here…”  I realized he was rubbing me briskly, alternating between my arms and my legs.

With a sniff, I lifted my head.  “I’m sorry,” I started.

He shushed me. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” he assured me.  “It was a tense situation, and you expected one of us to get angry, so when Conor hit the table, your body didn’t realize it was a cheer and not anger.  You just heard someone you expected to be angry hitting something. It’s okay.”

“Conor…?” I started to ask, not able to make the words go.

“Not mad,” a voice from the door assured me.  When I wormed my way to see his face, Conor was sitting on the floor, back against the door frame.  “As soon as I saw your face collapse, I realized what I did.  I’m sorry, Sophie.  But I swear I’m not mad. Or upset, or disappointed, or any of those things that your mind is trying to over-pick at.  I just feel like an idiot, that’s all.”

“You’re not a idiot,” I insisted.

He grinned. “And you’ll defend me to your dying day, I think. But I should have been more mindful, and I will be. I swear. No loud noises when Sophie’s nervous - it isn’t a huge request.  I can leave the room, just like when I’m mad, right?”  That grin never lost its sunny nature, and I knew he meant it.

He stood to come over, and I felt Maverick’s arms tighten around me. “You upset her again, I’m going to knock your lights out,” a voice warned over my shoulder.

“I’d let you do it, mate,” Conor replied sincerely, holding out his hand.  I reached for it, but he merely squeezed my fingers before reaching further.

He wanted Maverick’s permission, I realized. Not just mine.  Tension flooded what I now realized was our bedroom before Maverick finally took Conor’s hand.  “I mean it,” he insisted with a warning tone.  “Do better, or I’m going to knock you out every time you, personally, upset her.”

“Someone should,” Conor agreed sincerely.

“Violence is not the way to handle this,” I sniffed. “There’s a learning curve, but it’s pretty steep with all the anxiety on the ship right now.” Wriggling so I could see them both, I tried to muster a stern look. “Episodes like this are going to happen. We’re just going to have to learn, together, how to navigate them.”

“Still, no loud noises when Sophie’s nervous.”

Maverick nodded. “That definitely seems like a good starting point.”

I couldn’t exactly argue with that.

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#the miys #humans are weird #aliens #found family #original fiction #science fiction #tw panic attack #tw ptsd #relationships #apocalypse #humans are strange #humans are space orcs #earth is space australia #my writing #original scifi #original writing

[medea10]

My Review of Interspecies Reviewers

End of January…um, 2020

“Grrr…this day was a crap show! The republicans rat-fucked our country and Brexit fucking happened. I’m gonna write some scripts and call it a night. Let me just check Twitter one last time before I…

Huh?

FUNimation drops newly-added anime, Interspecies Reviewers?

This smells scandalous, I must watch!”

It’s very, very, VERY rare that an anime licensor drops an anime that’s currently airing in Japan and doing it weeks after announcing a full release (no pun intended), plus a friggin’ English dub. And where there’s controversy, I will be there to sniff it out…eventually. I think I can squeeze one more anime to watch on a week-by-week basis. Hell, I shoved Domestic Girlfriend in at last minute in 2019 right in the middle of moving to a different state. I think I can handle a little anime like this. What could possibly go wr…?!

*one week later*

Oh fluffies! This escalated quickly!

So…Interspecies Reviewers is about a human name Stunk and an elf named Zel. They go around to brothels, spend some time with the ladies of the evening known as Succu-girls (because these girls suck you), and review their “encounter” with them for a tavern full of curious males. Stunk and Zel want to go around and conquer as many species, discovering all new kinks and fetishes, fondle all kinds of jiggly-bits and naughty bits from cow-girls, cat-girls, skeleton girls, succubis, fire salamanders girls, elves, fairies, slimes, demons, bird-maidens, cyclops, and oh-so many others. This is a vast world and there’s only so many brothels these men can tackle at a time.

Oh yeah, there’s also an angel named Crim. Stunk and Zel saved Crim, but Crim can’t go back to Heaven since his halo is busted. Although now, I doubt if he’ll ever get entry back into Heaven after being defiled by a cat-woman. I mean who among us haven’t lost our virginity to a cat-eared girl on a whim?

*ahem*

R.I.P. Crim’s virginity

So there you have it! A human, an elf, and an angel walk into a brothel and…that’s the anime!

BETWEEN THE SUB AND THE DUUUUUU…..UH-OH: The sub was fine and I’m gonna leave it there with the subtitle version. As for the dub…What dub? There’s no dub! Dubs are just a myth here! Like I said before, FUNimation DID have this series. Emphasis on “DID”! They released the first 3 episodes in their normal week-by-week fashion, no worries there. They promised an English dub and released one episode dubbed, sounds about right! But then one night, they just drop this series!

Funimation on Jan. 31: After careful consideration, we determined that this series falls outside of our standards. We have the utmost respect for our creators so rather than substantially alter the content, we felt taking it down was the most respectful choice.

*sighs*

BOI!

Did you, FUNimation? Or was it Sony pulling the strings? But I’m getting ahead of myself here. A wide variety of things could have sprung this on! One reason could be that the voice actors felt uncomfortable with the material. I know some voice actors from FUNimation are a little skeptical here and if they voice something that’s borderline Hentai or IS HENTAI, they’ll use an alias name so that no one would be the wiser. I know it’s a job and money’s on the table here, but people are people. They have morals and boundaries! Not everyone can have the bravery to voice act in a Hentai like Dan Green (he totally did, you should look it up).

Another theory, Sony and/or FUNimation were being cautious and don’t want to air something so extreme in the naughty department. But if that were the case, how do you account for your full releases of High School DxD, Panty & Stocking, Conception, Keijo!!!!!!!!, Shimoneta, My Girlfriend is a Gal, and A Sister is All You Need? Then again, these animes were made and released prior to Sony buying FUNimation. But as of recent, FUNimation is streaming works from Aniplex of America that are kinda questionable. Where I’m going with this is that weeks after dropping Interspecies Reviewers, they add shows like Nisemonogatari AND Eromanga Sensei to their site. Ahem! Guys, where were those “STANDARDS” you were talking about earlier? Eromanga Sensei is downright illegal! Then again, none of these titles really reached full-blown bestiality like this series does! I mean, Sentai Filmworks happily released Monster Musume and that was borderline bestiality. But whatever, you guys do you!

Then again, no series has gone the distance by having several sex scenes per episode with the uncensored version going beyond the boundary quite like this.

Yeah…in this “woke AF” time we’re living in, if an anime doesn’t have an advisory stated at the beginning of an episode with lewd or controversial scenes, people lose their shit. Hence, Goblin Slayer’s debut and that one Sword Art Online episode! Whatever the case, now that FUNimation dropped this series, I don’t expect it to get picked up by any other licensor and it’ll probably remain in license limbo forever. There were a few voice actors set up to be in this anime including Monica Rial, Brittney Karbowski, and Amber Lee Connors. Only one episode was dubbed and good luck finding it now! But after this, I doubt these folks would ever finish what they started. And that’s a shame, because FUNimation voice actors have a knack for turning an anime dirty. Especially if you hire Monica Rial or Jamie Marchi (or both)!

I know every season, there’s a fight between American licensors in what animes they’re going to grab and show to their subscribers. FUNimation really could have taken a few extra minutes to do a little research on this one before jumping in a pool where the water is replaced by naked half-species chicks. For fuck’s sake, there’s a manga to this! Although, I’ve heard that the manga doesn’t even go this far! So this is disproving my rant! Let me just finish by saying that FUNimation really fucked up here. You could have streamed the series censored, have an age confirmation to watch the uncensored version, and then release that later down the line! But dropping Interspecies Reviewers has unleashed a fury of pissed off viewers who ended up trolling MyAnimeList and other websites. Yeah, thanks a lot! Those were some idiotic days on the internet! With all of that said, here’s what you might recognize these folks from.

*Stunk is played by Junji Majima (known for Ryuji on Toradora, Ryuunousuke on Assassination Classroom, Kimihito on Monster Musume, Nikaido on Shugo Chara, Racer on Fairy Tail, and Kouhei on Oreimo)

*Zel is played by Yuusuke Kobayashi (known for Subaru on ReZero, Tanukichi on Shimoneta, Arthur on Fire Force, and Marui on Food Wars)

*Crim is played by Miyu Tomita

FAVORITE CHARACTER: God bless this boy, I love Crim.

I know he’s got the short end of the stick in a lot of these reviews. But there’s nothing short about his stick if you get what I’m saying.

Yeah, I said it.

SHIPPING: DO STD’S EXIST IN THIS FUCKING WORLD?!

Look, all you need to know is that real love is not gonna happen in this franchise and just fuck it! Literally!

Actually, I really think the boys have a special place in their hearts for Meidri. I’m only basing this on episode 6 where the boys go to the Golem brothel to “Build-a-Bitch” and out of all the figures, ladies, and ways to build a bitch, their little Halfling friend builds a golem replica of Meidri. Maybe it’s because she’s familiar or they’re curious in case they end up having sex with Meidri in the future or if the Halfling has a thing for Meidri! I just know all four boys ended up fucking a golem in the likeness of Meidri AND gave it a great score.

But aside from that, there’s really nothing more to say except Stunk has a thing for that 500 year old fairy and Zel has a thing for a 60+ year old human.

IT’S FUN TO STAY AT THE…: It’s obvious that Japan has a thing for music made outside of the country. Especially those made in America (and England)! Recent examples are animes like Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, Eden of the East, and A Silent Voice actually using songs from groups like The Bangles, Oasis, and The Who. THIS IS NOT ONE OF THOSE TIMES!

The OP song for this series is literally Y.M.C.A. except about getting your dick up to fuck!

And you know what? That was another missed fucking opportunity for FUNimation! This song could have gotten an English dub. Normally I despise it when English companies give an English dub to perfectly good opening and endings from Japan. But this would have been the ONE exception. GOD! Only in my dreams!

OH THIS IS WRONG: I don’t mean aspects of this anime! I’ve gotten used to the sex scenes and the shock factor of watching actual hentai at this point. Surprisingly, the one thing that got my feathers ruffled is at the end of some of the episodes where we get a small segment from a gentleman named Professor Ookina or Professor Poke if you will.

LOOK AT THIS FUCKING MAN!

Pokemon, why haven’t you sued yet? This is a sexual version of Professor Oak’s end-of-the-episode lectures. Unshou Ishizuka’s probably rolling over in his grave either from laughter, disgust, or that he didn’t live long enough to voice this colorful character. I haven’t settled on which to believe in!

ENDING: The last few episodes we saw a few interesting storylines. For one, we’ve got one brothel where all four adventurers gave the ladies a unanimous 10/10. Spend three days with the clones of a powerful woman and just all-around perfect scores. That is just unheard of! Even in the anime reviewing community, a perfect anime doesn’t exist. So stop trying to turn Interspecies Reviewers into the next Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood. OKAY?! Not gonna happen! Just stop it! Stop it.

Then we had a gentleman who has generously been giving previous ladies of the evening perfect scores. This dude loves the ladies and sees the positives in all of them giving them all a perfect score. And I guess that does bring up a good point here.

Different strokes for different blokes! Not everyone is going to have the same taste as you. Stunk might have a thing for 500-year old fairies while Zel finds her old and disgusting. Zel might have a thing for Mitsue while Stunk finds banging 60-year old human whores repulsive. That’s where reviewers come in. They say the good and the bad when it comes to reviewing (insert profession here). In the case of this series, the boys have different tastes and when going to a foreign brothel, some of the ladies customs might confuse and weird out the boys. But in most cases, they had fun (except that afternoon watching girls laid eggs). So I’m glad Stunk and Zel found fault with the dude who gives 10/10’s like candy.

The final episode felt a little nostalgic as we revisit a race we haven’t seen since episode 2. Stunk and Zel find a business card for a demon brothel. They WERE supposed to go over and review the demon girls...

...but got side-tracked by the big-tit cowgirls.

Better late than never, but at least the demon brothel got some decent reviews by the boys. Good since demons are rated quite low in what men want to bang.

Then, the boys celebrate New Years by hitting up a good brothel to start the New Year off right. You know, start it off with a bang! It’s just that a lot of the popular brothels and Stunk’s regular hangouts are all booked up for the night. Lot of horny John’s on New Years! So the boys end up in a dream eater brothel. These girls take on the form of their dream succu-girl and believe it or not, the reviewers were very pleased. Almost like a pleasant dream!

Now conclusion wise, we really didn’t get Crim’s halo fixed nor did we go to Heaven to see Zel and Stunk get it on with some freaky angels. Instead, we get the same intro we got in episode one, reminding us that there are a barrage of brothels out there in this world and a bunch of succu-girls ready to suck your dicks off. And as long as we have succu-girls and brothels, there will always be reviewers like Stunk, Zel, and Crim to bust a nut! And I think Stunk is now going to visit his father’s harem now. Yeah, his old man has a harem. So there’s that! Too bad we’re not going to see that story.

I got to say…this wasn’t all that bad. In fact, I really liked this anime. And I’m usually rough on borderline-Hentai programs (and not in the good way). I am impressed at the creative way these men review these ladies and the brothels they work in. As an anime reviewer, I have to admire this. To take it all in with how these guys approach something such as having a one-night stand with a succu-girl! Each episode was a new experience with a new lady, sometimes two new brothels in the same episode. After their nights with a succu-girl, their reviews…actually, it’s best to watch it instead of taking my word for it.

NOW THEN! This is by no means on Top-Tier levels of Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood. So you people on MyAnimeList better knock it the fuck off! Yes, FUNimation dropped the ball by dropping this series when they’ve clearly licensed and dubbed WORSE. But owning them this way is just going to come off as weird when we look back at this years later and laugh. On top of which, FUNimation wasn’t the only one that dropped Interspecies Reviewers. Amazon Prime and at least three television stations in Japan dropped this series in the middle of its run.

Oh good God this was a fun and bizarre ride and it was fun while it lasted. Come on y’all, face the facts. There is no way this anime is ever gonna get a second season unless they absolutely censor the fuck out of it over in Japan. Look at all the Japanese channels that dropped this series not even halfway into the run! The best I’m hoping for is an OVA release. That way they can show us all the sex and nipples they want. But a season two? You’d have a better chance getting a Haruhi Suzumiya continuation! Yeah, I said it and I ain’t taking it back! Despite it not being available anywhere in the states, I advise my anime friends and followers to at least give this a chance (as long as you’re not grossed out by sexual discourse).

...

Medea, aren’t you going to give a number score like the Interspecies Reviewer lads?

*sighs*

I truly hate giving a number score. But for once in my written reviews, I’ll do it just this once.

If you would like to watch this series legally here in the states, you are shit out of luck unless you’re from Australia or Japan.

And once again…

R.I.P. Crim’s virginity!

#anime review #ishuzoku reviewers #interspecies reviewers #stunk #zel #crim

[mackenzieparker]

ok lets do this one more time, yeah? for real this time. this is it. my name is nika (she/hers, est). i like to write and hang out cool communities like this and for the last first time, i have brought a brand new muse to y’all. below you’ll find all the details on a ms. mackenzie “mack” rae parker, plucky country gal and badass babe. please love me and her and smash that like button or send me a dm (discord ichoosenikachu#4859 )  to plot.

( tw: drunk driver, death, sexism )

B A C K S T O R Y →

meet mackenzie rae parker, born august 17, 1989 in grove, oklahoma. mack (as she’s gone by since she was a kid and it won’t be changing anytime soon) was born to two loving parents Steven and Margaret Parker, the youngest daughter of three boys: morgan, matthew, and merritt. yes, her parents did have a thing for m names--and no, it didn’t help her momma remember her name any better, like they told their kids growing up. 

Maggie and Steve loved their daughter--their whole family, really--to bits and pieces. It had been Maggie’s dream to have a little girl when the couple first got together and when they had first received the ultrasound, well, they were overjoyed. When Mackenzie came into the world, there was cause for joyous celebration and laughter. Everyone was happy the Parker’s finally had a little pink bundle of joy. 

Little Mackenzie’s personality was--well, let’s just say she had never been one to shy away from an exciting situation. Her brothers’ had taught her early on that life wouldn’t always be easy so she had to be tough enough to take it head on. In fact, they made it a point to remind her whenever they had a chance. Buts she was also their little sister, and fiercely protective of her. And while it annoyed Mack to no end, she adored her brothers endlessly. 

Mack may not have been the strongest Parker in the household, but next to her Momma she was the wittiest. Her comebacks were always sharp and as she grew up, she honed her sarcastic, dry wit in addition to her own athletic talent.

Mack loved her Momma. In fact, if she had to pick favorites her Momma would have won every time. It wasn’t that she didn’t like her father. Her father was a good man--he was a local mechanic at Grove Automotive, always greeted everyone with a smile and cared deeply for his family. But Mack and him were never as close as she was with her momma. Maggie understood her daughter’s firey nature but compassionate heart and saw the way it warred within her--especially after she’d gotten into a fight with one of her brothers. 

( tw: drunk driving & death ) When Mack was twelve, though--tragedy struck. Maggie was on her back from work after parent teacher conferences; she was the local kindergarten teacher at Grove Elementary, when a drunk drive t-boned her car and Maggie was killed on impact. thankfully (if one can say that in this situation) no one else was in the car. but suddenly the Parker family had lost its matriarch and Mack, the one person who might have been able to understand her. 

She had always grown up as a tomboy--a fact that even her momma, a woman who had been raised in South Carolina to rather traditional parents couldn’t stamp out of her. But even so, after Maggie Parker passed on, Mack became even more of one, almost shunning all that was feminine away from her, as if any reminder of her mother would be the end of her as she knew it. And, for her, it might have been. It was no secret she had been the closest to Maggie--and her death hit her the hardest. Mack got rid of all her dresses, all her skirts, anything that reminded her of her mother--save for the small box of photos and momentos she kept heavily hidden under her bed. On her worst days, she’d pull the box out and talk to the photo of her Momma--it was the only time the blonde ever outwardly expressed emotions, specifically crying. 

To distract herself from the grief, Mack threw herself into everything she could in high school--archery, debate, robotics club, anything to keep her mind off of the encroaching cloud that now lived around her heart. It was in Robotics club, though, she learned she had a real knack for using her hands. She had learned early on about cars and the like--her father’s occupation and brothers’ fascination with the thing gave her unparalleled access to a number of cars being torn apart and rebuilt from the ground up. But Mack--Mack was always more excited about what flew above their heads than right next to them. A junior in high school, she had made the choice that she wanted to be an engineer--one who would eventually design an entire new fleet of Boeing Jets for commercial use. She had only ever flown on a jet once--to see her grandparents after her momma’s passing--but it had been the only thing to give her relief from her sadness that day. It’s where her love affair with aviation began. 

Mack graduated top of her class (nerd, her brothers would always joke) and soon found herself enrolled in the University of Oklahoma’s prized engineering program (boomer sooner!). Of course, she wanted to stay close to home--one, to keep the costs down but two, leaving her family felt wrong, even six years later. And for the most part, Mack loved it. She got involved in all sorts of things--engineering clubs, intramural sports, and even, yes, a sorority. It went against all the things she hated in relation to femininity, but her mother had spoken so highly of her experiences in the organization, and Mack felt a pull to join her. To her surprise, she didn’t hate it--and it was with those women she really started to learn about feminism. 

You see, when Mack would go home, all the women in town would ask her about if she was seeing a boy. Mack had never understood why it mattered so much if she had a boyfriend or not--she was getting her degree in mechanical engineering, wasn’t that a tad bit more impressive than whatever guy she might be seeing? But soon, it occurred to her that the women in town would never understand anything other than her finding her future husband at school. The fact shocked her, considering it had never occurred to her in the slightest that she’d ever go to school to get a husband in the first place. After the shock worn down, it enraged her and made her work harder. Because now, she was getting disparaging comments from the folks back home and the men in her internships and co-ops. Women can’t build things--they’ll break a nail. Why are you in pants? Your legs would look better in a skirt. Mack had never been one to bit her tongue, and on more than one occasion was able to test out what her brothers’ had taught her growing up. No one was going to tell Mack what she could or could not do. And certainly not because of her gender. 

Mack eventually graduated college--though deeply in debt thanks to all those added fees for science labs #thanksUofOklahoma--but realized that going back home would never be realistic for her. So, she packed up her truck, Betsy, and headed west. Originally, she had meant to go to Seattle or Portland--that’s where Boeing was, that’s where her dream landed. But something about Charming, CA caught her eye--and she found herself intrigued. Plus, it sure didn’t hurt that no one seemed to care when she applied to work as a mechanic in their autoshop. Now she’s been here about 8 years and she hasn’t grown sick of it yet. She still has dreams of working for Boeing, but as she grows more comfortable in Charming, they seem to be slipping to the wayside. 

Mack’s vibe is...well, she’s a loyal friend, a good listener and kind, though not sunshine and rainbows. Growing up without her mom really changed her--she still had a compassionate heart but it’s not as obvious as it once was. She’s still sassy, sarcastic and witty, but she is friendly as well. Smart too--and a bit of a nerd, loves herself some comics and documentaries. all around, she’s genuinely a good egg, just a little...rough around the edges at times. 

H E A D C A N O N S →

Mack never, ever goes by Mackenzie. In fact, you’ll never know its her full name unless she drops her ID. The only person you’ll ever hear call her that is her father--or brothers--when something is wrong. 

Her favorite food is chicken cordon bleu. She knows it sounds fancy but literally, her favorite is the one where you buy it frozen and pop it in the oven. She is a simple gal, truly. 

Her favorite shoes are her various pairs of converse, although for work she can be seen wearing docs so she doesn’t get oil all over her shoes. 

Betsy, her truck, is very special to her--she takes extra good care of it. She’s a 1967 Chevy C10 Pickup in a robin’s egg blue color--and her pride and joy.

Even though she loves her truck no matter what, the woman has worked on enough bikes for the various motorcycle clubs around town to know that if she had even gotten enough money--she’d get herself a nice bike. Flying down the road on open asphalt? Doesn’t get better than that. 

Mack loves classic rock. Like love loves it--but also the women of the 90′s like Alanis Morisette, Liz Phair, The Cranberries--she loves a good women rock group. 

P L O T S →

friends

exes

situationships/flirtationships

fwb

slowburn

coworkers

any connections to the motorcycle gang

literally i suck at listing plots out, just hit me up and i’ll be EXCITED TO PLOT!

#[[intro; mackenzie rae parker]] #please...love us? #shes a good sweet egg i promise #well sweet maybe not

[eastasianfeelings]

boys vs. boys: Vixx

← previous: toys vs. boys

Summary: Your next marketing event for Vixx goes off without a hitch... except for the part where your six boyfriends decide to throw a fit over your business cards.

Words: 4k

Warnings: polyamory, super-dumb jealousy

*

You look around the venue filled with people and take a moment to pat yourself on the back.

Y/N, you are a marketing genius.

Several months ago, you pitched the idea of targeting female fans’ boyfriends to the rest of your marketing team. Men could give their girlfriends the “gift” of Vixx by purchasing tickets to exclusive fanmeets and photo ops, where they could record, photograph or otherwise document their girlfriend meeting Vixx in-person, thus giving their girlfriend a lasting memory.

It took a few meetings to come up with an appropriate strategy, since your team’s historically focused on targeting the core audience of female fans. But after enough buy-in, you got the budget and resources to build your campaign, and now you’re standing at the back of the conference centre’s main hall, basking in the record attendance numbers.

“Vixx is on their way,” someone reports through your headset. That’s your cue: you start to make your way discreetly toward the front of the hall.

On the left side of the room, it’s mostly women sitting in numbered seats. Behind the cordoned area on the right, it’s general seating occupied mostly by men, where they’ll be able to record or take photos of their girlfriends and Vixx.

You reach the front of the room and position yourself in between the crowd of men and the table where Vixx will sit. Just in time: cheers fill the air as the members file through the back door, waving and smiling.

“Real V! V-I-X, we are Vixx! Hello~!” Hakyeon kicks things off with the familiar introduction, and the atmosphere in the room hits the roof; even some of the men in your area are getting into it and clapping along. You make eye contact with a few and quickly look away, suppressing a grin.

“Hi everyone, how are you?” Leo picks up his mic next.

“We’re so glad to see you,” Hakyeon continues, “it’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”

The audience calls their assent, and Ken chimes in.

“We couldn’t wait to see our Starlight babies!” he says. “That’s why we’re holding this event.”

Hyuk lifts his mic. “Everyone, you know how this works, right?” He pauses to let the “Yes!” from the audience ring. “That’s right, you have your number in the order on your tickets.”

“But today, there will be time for you to take a photo with each one of us,” Hakyeon says brightly. “If your boyfriend is here and ready to film you from over there, he can do so!”

“If you’re a good Starlight and saved yourself for us,” Ravi says cheekily, “we can take a selca instead.”

“Yah,” Hongbin says, “there are no bad Starlights. They’re all our precious babies.” It’s a line that was scripted for him by one of your colleagues, so his delivery is flat, but the fans react predictably well.

You notice some eye-rolling from the men in front of you as the women eagerly queue up, but that’s to be expected; as long as nobody throws a jealous tantrum and derails the event, everything should be fine.

*

“You were giving out your number to them.”

“I was giving out my business card, Hakyeon.”

“Your card has your number on it, doesn’t it?”

Four hours later, you’re standing in the empty dressing room, facing off against an upset Hakyeon. The event was a success, but you unfortunately failed to anticipate an alternate source of jealous tantrums: your own boyfriends.

“You realize that those men have girlfriends, right,” you say as patiently as you can, “that’s why they were there.”

“Yah, noona.” There’s the noise of crinkling plastic behind you as Hyuk finishes gulping down an entire water bottle, smushes it casually in one fist and comes over to join the conversation. “I heard them talking to you, some of those guys were there with their sisters or cousins.”

You frown at him. “How did you even hear that? Were you not paying attention to your fans?”

“I was!” he says indignantly. “But Hongbin-hyung was holding up the line and there was no one in front of me and then I heard that one guy asking about you.”

“What guy?”

“That guy who asked you what your ideal type was!”

You squint and try to remember, while Hakyeon and Hyuk stare at you like you’re a suspect about to confess. “Oh. That?” You laugh as you recall. “Hyuk-ah, you know what he was saying right before that?”

“That his ideal type is someone just like you?” he says grumpily.

“Of course not.” You reach up and scrub your hand through his hair. “He was saying that his sister’s ideal type is you, Hyukie.”

Hakyeon barely stifles his snort, while Hyuk flushes. “So what? That was probably his segue into asking about you.”

“But I told him I agreed with his sister,” you say brightly, and grin as Hyuk turns even redder. “And I think he got the message.”

“Hm.” Hyuk ducks his blushing face away, the corners of his mouth fighting a smile.

“Y/N-ah.” Hakyeon sidles closer, amusement gone. “You told him Hyuk is your ideal type?”

You look over at him. “So?”

Hakyeon just pouts at you, disappointment leaking from his every pore. You laugh a little and take his hands in your own.

“What do you want me to say? ‘Actually, all six Vixx members are my ideal type’?”

“Why not?” he says defensively as his fingers intertwine with yours.

“Don’t be dumb, hyung.” Hyuk edges in as well, eyeing your hands. “That sounds ridiculous.”

“Yah. Who are you calling dumb?” Hakyeon frees one hand to chop at Hyuk, who ducks it skillfully and then snatches your free hand in his.

As Hakyeon glares, Ken comes sailing into the room. “Hey, here you are!” He comes to a stop when he sees Hakyeon and Hyuk on either side of you. “What’s going on? Are we fighting?”

“No, we’re not fighting,” you say quickly, tugging your hands free. “We’re cleaning up. You can help!” 

“Oh, ah...” Ken looks around at the mess of the room, then quickly whips out his phone. “I was actually going to send an SNS post, so I’ll do that first, okay?” He adds a wide smile to the end of his excuse.

“One post,” Hakyeon warns him, “and then you’re helping us clean up.”

“Hyuk-ah, can you put this on that trolley over there?” You push a hefty package of disposable water bottles toward Hyuk. “Hakyeon-ah, look through these coats and tell me which ones belong to you guys and which ones are going to the lost-and-found.”

While they’re both doing so, Ken lets out a dramatic gasp.

“Y/N-ah!”

“Hm?” You walk over and peer at the phone screen he’s thrusting at you. 

“Look!”

“It’s… a tweet about this fanmeeting?”

“Look at the photo!”

You look, and still see nothing out of the ordinary. “It’s… a flatlay of swag from this fanmeeting,” you try next.

Ken whines in exasperation and points to a white rectangle in the corner of the photo. “It’s your name! It’s your card!”

“What??” Hakyeon drops the coat he’s holding and hurries over.

Hyuk joins the huddle around Ken’s phone. “What, what is it?”

When you squint, sure, you can make out the company logo at the top of the card, and a tiny set of blurry characters that do spell out your name. But—“Jaehwan-ah, nobody’s going to notice that.”

“I just did!”

“Yeah, but that’s because you know what my business cards look like. No one else would pay any attention.”

“That’s not the problem, Y/N-ah.” Ken jabs at his phone screen again. “The problem is—”

“The problem is,” Hakyeon takes over, “why were you handing out your card?”

You huff out a breath and step away from your little circle. “I hand out my card because it helps people to remember the event, to remember you guys. If someone digs out the card from the bottom of their pocket later, they’re going to go, ‘Oh right, this company with those idols’. It’s an opportunity to make a mark.”

“More like an opportunity for a booty call,” Hyuk mutters.

Ken sucks in a dramatic gasp while Hakyeon bristles violently. You just facepalm.

“People do not use business cards for booty calls.”

“You don’t know for sure, noona,” Hyuk protests.

“Why even take that risk?” Hakyeon says.

“Yeah! We can just give them more swag instead of sacrificing you,” Ken says.

“I’m not being sacrificed, Jaehwan-ah.”

“Who’s being sacrificed?” Ravi comes into the room.

“Nobody,” you tell him.

Ravi comes over to lean one arm against Ken and the other against you. “Noona, I barely saw you during the entire event. I thought you were going to be on the floor with us.”

“She was too busy talking with all the men,” Hyuk grumbles.

“The men?” Ravi’s eyebrows rise.

“What men?” comes the suspicious question from Leo as he enters the room, Hongbin right behind him.

“All those men at today’s event,” Hyuk elaborates.

“I was doing my job, okay,” you interrupt, a little exasperated.

“What are we talking about?” Hongbin asks, sitting down so he can look at you all judgmentally from a distance away.

“Y/N-ah was handing out her card,” Hakyeon says grimly.

“Her what?” Ravi says.

“My business card,” you emphasize. “Because that’s what business cards are for.”

“Noona, you gave them out to random strangers!” Hyuk exclaims.

“...Random strangers?” Leo’s slowly worming his way into the circle around you.

“Look!” Ken holds out his phone. “Someone tweeted a freaking picture of her card!”

“Jaehwan-ah, what’s the username of the account?” you question.

Ken blinks, then checks. “Why?”

“It’s a female name, right?”

“So what?” Ravi’s arm has migrated over your shoulder so that he’s got you in a sort of backhug, arms pinned to your side.

“So, it’s not like I only gave out my card to men.” On instinct, you test your mobility; you feel Ravi tighten his hold to keep you in place. “Wonshik-ah.”

His muscles tense, but when you tap at his forearm, he grumbles and loosens enough for you to step away.

You put your hands on your hips and look around at all of them. “Look. Giving my business card out is a part of my job. I’m in marketing, it’s going to happen. You don’t want me to lose my job, do you?” You raise your brows.

“Of course not, noona,” Hyuk says immediately. “But—”

“Good. Because I’ve given out my card countless times in the past and I’ll continue giving it out in the future,” you state.

“Countless times?” Leo repeats.

“In the past?” Ken sidles up to your side. “Like, in the recent past or in the far past?”

“You’ve given out your card so many times you can’t even count?” Hakyeon looks disproportionately horrified by this idea.

Why is this what they’re focusing on? “That’s not the point—”

Hongbin interrupts with a quiet tsk. “Noona. Are you trying to make us mad?”

You roll your eyes at him. “If I wanted to make you guys mad, I’d just ask Hyuk who his favourite hyung is.”

There’s a pause as everyone looks to Hyuk.

Hyuk opens his mouth, then wisely closes it and narrows his eyes at you.

You can’t help pushing a little, for your own entertainment. “You do have a favourite, right, Hyukie?”

“Who is it, Hyuk-ah?” Leo demands.

“You can’t ask me to pick a favourite,” Hyuk hedges, sidling around you so you’re in between him and Leo. “That’s like asking N-hyung to pick his favourite dongsaeng.”

“Oh, well.” You shrug lightly and launch the bomb: “I always thought your favourite was Jaehwan-ah.”

“Your favourite is Jaehwan?!” Leo starts toward Hyuk.

“I didn’t say that!” Hyuk yelps as he dives behind you. “Noona said that, not me!”

“Aw, really?” Ken bounces around your other side to meet Hyuk for a big hug. “I love you too, our baby maknae~!”

“Yah, Sanghyuk, I raised you.” Leo swerves around you, Ravi and Hakyeon to get at Hyuk and Ken, who run in the opposite direction.

You stifle a laugh and turn to Hakyeon. “As for Hakyeon-ah…” You smile up at him. “I’m your favourite dongsaeng.”

That gets him blushing in a second. “Ah, I mean…”

“I’m not?” You add a dash of aegyo.

“Of course you are.” Hakyeon folds easily with a huge smile on his face, and he opens his arms to you.

But Ravi grabs for you and pulls you out of reach. “That doesn’t mean you’re her favourite, N-hyung,” he points out.

“I wasn’t assuming that,” Hakyeon defends himself.

“Good.” Ravi nestles his head on top of yours and snuggles you deeper into his chest; Hakyeon narrows his eyes.

Hongbin gives a judgey sniff. “Don’t be so clingy.”

“Why not?” Ravi hums, unperturbed, as he angles you away from Hakyeon’s attempts to put his hands on you.

Amused, you let Ravi shield you from Hakyeon, while in the background, Hyuk and Ken giggle madly as they run from Leo. “Yeah, why not, Hongbin-ah? You don’t want me?”

“Don’t put words in my mouth, noona.”

“Just asking.”

“What, you’d rather I come over and wrestle you away from Ravi?” He snorts.

“No, I’d rather you let the others show their affection how they want without judging them for it,” you reply promptly.

Hongbin closes his mouth around the retort on his tongue and looks away, his cheeks darkening ever so slightly. “Doesn’t mean I don’t want you,” he says, tone lower.

You have to smile. He’s too tsundere for his own good, really.

A hard jostle against Ravi causes his grip on you to loosen; Ken’s barged right into him, Hyuk hot on his heels. Hakyeon takes his chance to snatch you into his arms while Ravi is pushed into Leo’s path as a barrier by Ken and Hyuk.

“Yah, brats,” Leo says on a pant, glaring at them as they peek over Ravi’s shoulders. He’s got his hands backward on his hips and is bent slightly forward like a middle-aged aunt winded from chasing kids around.

You decide to intervene before he collapses of exhaustion. “Okay, everyone, we really have to clean this place up before the venue staff kick us out. Help me out?”

“Of course,” Hakyeon says, good mood restored now that he’s got you. He brushes his lips against your temple, then lets you go to whip Ken, Ravi and Hyuk into action. “C’mon, kids, time to work. And no, Jaehwan-ah, you are not posting one more photo on SNS.”

You approach Leo, who’s still balefully eyeing Ken and Hyuk while his chest heaves up and down. “Taekwoon-ah.”

He looks around, expression stiff.

“You know it was a joke.” You reach up and slide your hand up the back of his neck.

He responds immediately, relaxing into your hold like a cat being petted. “Hm.”

“No hurt feelings?” you check, stroking your fingers into his hair.

“Mm. No.” Leo’s voice drops a few tones; he leans his head into your touch and, at the same time, drapes an arm around your waist to bring you closer. “Y/N-ah.”

“Yeah?” 

You look up in time to see his eyelids drop a little, gaze focused on your face. Your mouth. He tugs a little with the arm around your waist, urging you to rise onto your tiptoes, meet him halfway.

“No, Taekwoon, not here,” you say as sternly as you can, and pull your hand out of his hair.

He lets out a sound that’s almost a whine. “Y/N-ah…”

“Help me clean up, and we can get home faster and do what you want there,” you pitch.

Fortunately that gets through, and he stops trying to get you on your tiptoes to kiss him. “What do you need me to do?”

Ah, helpful boyfriends are the best. You direct him to sorting out the remainder of the swag into boxes, then check on the others to make sure nothing’s going awry.

When you circle back to the table, Hongbin’s still sitting there. “Aren’t you going to put me to work?” he asks sardonically.

You stop in front of him and reach out to muss his coiffed hair. “There’s not much left to do. Want to sit here and get all the tsundere out of your system before we go home?”

“No. N-hyung’s going to yell if I don’t help.” He removes your hand from his hair and then drops his arm, forcing you to step closer with your hand still in his. “Tell me what to do.”

“Okay.” You try to think, but his perfectly-styled hair is just begging to be ruffled, and your free hand instinctively rises.

Hongbin grabs that hand, too, and brings both your hands down, pulling you in even closer. “Noona.”

He’s looking up at you, studying your face intently enough to make you feel embarrassed, and you get the urge to pull back. “Sorry, your hair just looks too good,” you offer as your excuse.

His head cocks. “Does it?”

“Or maybe it’s just you.” You give him a smile.

He tilts his head further. “Just me,” he repeats.

“Too cheesy?”

Hongbin considers for a moment. “No,” he decides. Then he pulls you down to plant a kiss on your mouth.

You wobble a bit when he lets you go, caught off-guard, and a smirky smile curls the edges of his lips. “Clingy enough for you?” he asks.

Before you can swat the smug look off his face, your phone rings. You jump at the sound, breaking apart from Hongbin, and quickly reach into your pocket to pick up.

Hongbin’s peering at the screen almost before you are, bent over to squint at the number. “Who is it?”

“I don’t know.” You step away from him to get some space and answer: “Hello?”

“Y/N-ssi?”

“Yes, that’s me.”

“This is Jihun-manager with the venue. I’m just calling to check if the rooms are ready to close up?”

“Oh, yes.” You turn to glance guiltily at the wall clock. “Er, most of them are, we just have one room left. I think it’s Dressing Room B.”

“Okay, I’ll tell my staff to leave that one for last.”

“Thanks very much. We’ll definitely be out before nine pm,” you promise.

As you end the call, you abruptly realize that all six Vixx members are standing around you, focused on you.

“Uh. Guys?” You step back a little, looking from face-to-face.

“Who was it?” Hakyeon asks.

“Who—? It was Jihun-manager, he’s the venue coordinator for this event.”

“You didn’t have his number saved,” Hongbin notes.

“Yeah, we’d only corresponded by email before today.” You frown around at everyone. “What’s the matter?”

Slowly their stances relax, as though some unknown threat has disappeared. Leo’s still eyeing your phone with mistrust, both Hakyeon and Ken are pouting, and Ravi’s rolling his shoulders just a bit, but nobody seems interested in explaining why they’re so het up.

Then you hear Hyuk’s grumble as he slinks back to stacking boxes: “You shouldn’t answer numbers you don’t know, noona.”

…Ohhhh dear. 

Are they back to the giving-out-your-business-card thing?

You decide the best way to not test that theory is to get the boys cleaning up as swiftly and efficiently as possible. By quarter to nine, all the boxes are stacked and you’ve gathered all the leftover junk into three ginormous garbage bags. You send Jihun-manager a text to let him know you’re done with the room, then distribute the boxes and bags among the members and head out to the parking garage.

As you’re all waiting for the elevator, your phone rings again.

Everyone turns to look at you.

Warily, you back away from them, keeping your phone screen tucked toward you. “I’ll take this call, you guys go ahead, okay?” You motion to the arriving elevator car.

Nobody moves.

Whatever. With a huff, you turn your back and answer the call. “Hello?”

“Hi, is this… Y/N?”

“Yes, that’s me. How can I help you?”

“Er, you work with Vixx, right?”

“Yes, I do.” You glance over your shoulder and nearly leap out of your skin: all six of them are right there behind you, straining around their various boxes and bags to listen in.

“Ah, well, I don’t know if you remember, but I was at today’s event and you gave me your card.”

“Ah, did I?” You turn and make shooing motions at the boys. It doesn’t do anything, of course; instead, they just crowd closer until you’re basically up against the wall, surrounded by men and boxes.

“Yes. And… well, I’m interested in learning more about what you do. Your industry, you know. I hope this isn’t inappropriate, but could we chat sometime about your job, and your career, and how you got to where you are now?”

You smile. “Yes, that’s totally fine. Why don’t you send me an email? I’ll check my calendar when I’m back in the office and book us some time.”

“Oh, thank you! Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.” The person is genuinely excited, you can tell.

“No problem. Just send me an email, okay?”

“I will! Thank you, Y/N-ssi.”

“You’re welcome! Bye now.”

You hang up, and immediately are bombarded by questions.

“Who was that?”

“Why are you meeting with them?”

“Why are they calling so late at night?”

“It was one of those men you gave your card to, right?!”

“Okay, first of all,” you say loudly, “it was a woman.”

That shuts them up, and you smile with satisfaction at the sudden silence. 

“Second, it was a networking call. She just wanted to learn about my job. Nothing even close to a booty call.” You give Hyuk a slanted glance. “I’m good at what I do, and that includes networking, got it?”

“Got it,” Hyuk says, a little sullenly.

“You still shouldn’t answer unknown numbers, noona,” Ravi frets.

Ken gasps a little and looks to Hakyeon. “What if it was just an excuse? Do we have to start guarding Y/N-ah from women too?”

As horror spreads over Hakyeon’s face, you sigh. “No more of this, please, let’s just go home already. Taekwoon-ah, can you press the button?” Because of course the elevator’s long-gone.

Not a minute passes before your phone rings again.

There’s almost an audible cracking noise as everyone’s head snaps around.

“Don’t even start,” you say to them warningly, before answering the call. “Hello?”

“Hello, is this Y/N?” It’s a male voice. 

Ravi’s apparently standing close enough to hear, because he sucks in his breath and informs the others in a whisper: “It’s a guy.”

You ignore their intensifying stares. “Yes, that’s me, can I help you?”

“Well, uh, we met today at the Vixx event, and you gave me your card, and I was actually wondering… I’m sorry if this is a bit straightforward, but do you have a boyfriend?”

Your eyes nearly pop out of your head.

Ravi’s staring at you so hard he’s going cross-eyed. In a tense, hushed tone, he asks, “Did he just say… boy… friend…?”

Instantly, you feel the other five go on red alert, stares like lasers.

Ping. The elevator doors part once more.

In a split second, you make your decision. You plunge down the gauntlet of Vixx members, dive into the elevator car and frantically reach for the close button. If you can just get yourself two minutes away from your boyfriends, a two-minute elevator ride so they can calm down and become more rational and realize that you’re not going to say yes to a random person who asked if you had a boyfriend—

SLAM. Leo whacks the closing doors apart with his arm, eyes fixed on you, gaze stormy.

You gulp. “Uh.”

Then he’s pushed into the car by the rest of the boys, who are all now shouting and fighting to get near you.

“Who was that?!”

“Boyfriend??”

“He actually asked if you had a boyfriend?”

“What did you say?!”

“That was totally a booty call, noona!!”

“BOYFRIEND???”

With a sigh, you give up and let yourself be engulfed by six wailing men.

*

#vixx #vixx fic #vixx x reader #cha hakyeon #jung taekwoon #lee jaehwan #kim wonshik #lee hongbin #han sanghyuk #vixx imagines #eaf writes vixx #eaf original

[alleiradayne]

Part I - Lesson Learned

Characters: Jared Padalecki, Me, Clif Kosterman Warnings: None, only fluff and mild angst here Word Count: 3,108 A/N: Assume all parties are single and absolutely no spouse hate!

In another minute, I’d have gone to bed.

In five minutes, I’d have passed out.

And in the morning, I’d have seen the post on Instagram and been pissed at myself all over again. 2016 might have repeated itself had I not learned my lesson the hard way that year.

Instead I sat in the chair at the desk of my hotel room, phone in hand, and flipped through every social media platform I had. I searched tags and pictures and an endless stream of fan accounts until I found that for which I willingly sacrificed sleep.

#spnfamily @jarpad Jared and me @ Sneaky Pete’s!

“Ugh, Sneaky Pete’s?! Really?!”

If you can’t tell, I’m not fond of that bar. Every time I’ve been there, someone starts a fight. Something about alcohol and open stripper poles enraging people.

But Jared was there. Though I desperately needed sleep, I wanted to meet him outside of the con. Just once. Just to get that sort of selfie with him. You know, blurry, half-drunk, overexposed, and hair in my face with his perfection right next to my hot mess. That selfie.

The handle of the hotel door clicked before I realized I’d left my chair, tossed on my N7 hoodie, and shut off the lights.

“What am I doing?”

Silly question. I knew exactly what I was doing. Stalking a celebrity. Yup. Real healthy. I know. An endless tirade of chastising thoughts raced through my mind as I walked down the hallway to the elevator. An eternity passed while I waited, and twice I nearly turned back for my room. But when the bell sounded and a door opened, I darted in and smashed the button for the main floor.

In the lobby, I rushed to a side door and avoided any eye contact. If I had looked at anyone, they would know what I was up to. They would know I was leaving my hotel to go to a bar because a celebrity I wanted to meet was there and that I had stalked him on social media. They would know the second they looked at me, with my red cheeks and wide eyes. Yeah, she’s on a mission. A creepy fanatic’s mission.

The cold November air hit my face with such force, it sucked the breath from my lungs. Again, so lost in thought, I’d lost track of myself. It happens from time to time. I get so caught up in my brain, I forget where I am. Usually it's because I’m planning out another piece of writing, whether it’s my novel or fanfiction. Better not think about that too much or your dumbass will end up telling him about it. If you’re even lucky enough to meet him…

I scoffed loud enough to scare a dog and their human as I passed. Should have taken a Lyft. But nope. I had not plan that far ahead. Too impulsive. And by the time I got to the bar my feet screamed for relief, not because of the long walk, but because I’d been on them all day. Saturday at a Supernatural convention is long. The Saturday Night Special had been entirely worth it though. I’d never look at Rob Benedict the same way ever again.

At the door, I handed the guy taking cover a ten-dollar bill, and I barely heard him over the music as he asked for my wrist to stamp. Not that I paid him much attention either. I had a mission. Unfortunately, Minneapolis complicated finding a 6’4” brown-haired, broad-shouldered guy. Loads of men fit that bill there, what with the plentiful Scandinavian population.

Through the entry, I scanned the crowd as I headed to the bar on my right. To my left, stripper poles stood in a line on their platforms, every single one packed with far too many people. Though I laughed at the idea of Jared on a stripper pole in a packed bar, I knew better. He might be silly, but he sure as hell wasn’t dumb enough to do that in public.

With the bar three people deep, I forced my way to the front, a few well-placed elbows and crushed toes parting the throng. The bartender, a harried woman who tried to put on her best smile, took my order, ran off for a glass and the bottle of scotch, and poured my drink. I avoided eye contact again as two men—boys, really, they looked barely old enough to be in the place—on my right tried to get my attention with terrible pickup lines that involved my drink. Not that I could hear them. Bass deep enough to shake the building thumped terrible party music accompanied by terrible lighting and shitty vocals.

Did I mention I hate Sneaky Pete’s?

I emerged from the crowded bar and headed for the stairs, still scanning for a set of shoulders above the sea of heads. When I saw nothing of note, I took the stairs to the speakeasy basement to find it nearly dead.

Nearly.

A few booths sat occupied, couples and smaller groups that wanted to escape the insanity of the main level, music muted to a dull roar. An older man sat by himself sipping a drink at the end if the bar nearest me. And the bartender—a woman about my age—talked with him. She’d get an extra tip with that sort of attention.

With a sigh, I turned back for the stairs, but something out of the corner of my eye stopped me. I looked over my shoulder, then turned back around as I spotted them. At the far end of the bar sat two people, one with long brown hair, and the other bald.

You know, leading up to that point, I never thought it would happen. From the second I’d left my hotel room, I imagined getting to the bar, getting a drink, sipping it down as I walked through the place once, maybe twice, then leaving.

But there at the bottom of the stairs I stared, dead-eyed, at Jared Padalecki.

At the back of his head.

Close enough.

My feet refused to move, though I desperately wanted them to. There were a great many things I wanted to do. But for the life of me, in that first moment, I balked. And it wouldn't be the last time. I damn near ran back up the stairs and out the front door.

But then Clif nudged Jared and pointed my way. He turned and spotted me, and Christ, I'll never forget that smile or his awkward wave. I'll never understand what about him then had managed to ease my nerves, but he had, and one foot stepped in front of the other until I passed him.

“Hey, Cliffy.”

Jared cackled as Clif leaned from his stool and hugged me. “She clearly knows the rules.”

“Get in good with the body guard, right?” I said as we parted. When I turned to Jared, I managed to keep my shit together as he hugged me in turn. “Nice to meet you. Again.”

Parted, he asked, “Were you here last year? What’s your name?” He motioned to the stool Clif had vacated.

By the end of this, you’re going to hate me. I hesitated yet again before taking a seat. “Jeanna,” I replied as I sat down. “And yes, I was here last year with my sister. We bought the very last J2 op Friday morning.”

“Well, then it was meant to be,” Jared teased. “Is that Jeanna with a G or a J?”

A long pull from my drink eased my nerves. That he even thought to ask that question set my heart racing “A J. We were J4 in that photo op. My sister is Jessica.”

“J4, I love it,” he said with a laugh. “So, how was the Special?”

“Rob kissed me,” I blurted.

Jared rolled his eyes, not missing a beat. “Rob can be a cheeky fucker sometimes,” he said. “How did he manage that?”

“They set up a sort of ‘pit’ area in the big aisles on both sides of the theater,” I said as I air-quoted. “A new friend and I stood the whole show. I got some amazing pictures.”

“You’ll have to show me after you get them cleaned up,” Jared insisted. “Twitter?”

“I’d love to…” I started as I looked around the bar. The conversation had started so well and had continued so easily, buy my confidence slipped. It was too good to be true. I had missed something, a sign or a phrase. Clif would escort me away any second. “I’m sorry, I should probably leave you alone. I don’t want to take up your personal time. You’ll be up to your eyeballs in fans tomorrow, and I’ll see you plenty then anyway—”

Before I slipped from my stool, Jared reached out with an unsteady hand but stopped short of touching me. “You don’t have to. You’re not bothering me. Not like there’s a million people trying to get my attention.”

I eased back onto the stool as I thought. I had imagined meeting Jared in public on occasion. But that simple fantasy usually consisted of a short greeting, getting that selfie, and then being on my way. Never in a million years would I have guessed that I’d have him all to myself for a personal conversation. “Are you sure? I mean, like I said, I’ll see you all day tomorrow. I’m in VIP, I have your solo photo op, I have your meet and greet—”

“You bought all that?” he asked.

“Damn straight I did, I love—”

Yeah, I usually say I love Jared Padalecki. But not to his ridiculously gorgeous face. “I uh… you’re my favorite.”

I’d tell you that Jared blushed when he regarded his beer, sipped from it. But the dimly lit bar masked his face in angular shadows so dark, I’d never know. “It’s okay, Jeanna,” he started. “You’re my favorite, too.”

“Wow. Thanks,” I retorted as I sipped from my drink. “I get it, I made it weird. Don’t rub it in. I’m not exactly… it’s not every day I get meet someone like you.”

Jared laughed through his nose as he spun the bottle of his beer on the bar between his thumb and middle finger. “Not many celebrities in the Twin Cities?”

For a moment, I stared at him, unsure of what to say. When he stared back with his easy smile and perfect hair curled behind his ears, I understood. “You are probably aware of this, but, you’re not just some random celebrity, Jared. You’re… you’re an incredibly important person to me. To a lot of people. Your compassion and empathy for people knows no bounds. You’re so selfless, I don’t know how you do it. I’d be exhausted all the time.”

Jared’s smile fell and I resisted the urge to scream, to take it all back the second the words were out of my mouth. Too late, Jared capitalized on the moment. “I appreciate your honesty,” he commented. His hand moved for my shoulder once more, but as before, he hesitated. “I’m… flattered to have had such a positive impact on people’s lives.”

“Good,” I stated, “you deserve it.”

I could have died a happy woman right then and there as Jared smiled in the wake of my words.

If I told you everything we talked about that evening, you'd have a novel on your hands, and a boring one at that. Sure, we flirted here and there, but I quickly understood that Jared was the type of person who truly meets people. He wants to learn everything he can about them before parting ways, take something profound, new, defining with him when he leaves. I told him about things I never imagined I would have—including my ideal final season for the show, complete with angels, demons, monsters, sex (not with monsters), love, and for once, a real shot at peace. Retirement. On a beach somewhere in Texas with a cooler full of Margie. As much as he liked the idea, he confirmed my suspicions. Sam and Dean’s story does not end on a beach with girlfriends (or angel boyfriends) and a cooler full of Wisconsin's fictional pride.

It was one o’clock before I even thought to check the time. We had talked for two uninterrupted hours. And as much as I wanted to stay, I needed to be back up at seven for my much-anticipated Sunday.

But before I said any sort of goodbye, I grabbed a napkin and my sharpie—always carry a sharpie with you at cons, just in case—and wrote down my number. When I slid it to him, Jared picked it up and squinted at it.

“I didn’t even have to ask,” he joked.

“Oh, gimme a fucking break, dude, you’re swimming in pussy,” I retorted.

With a crooked smile, he shook his head. “Not really. Do you think I do this,” he paused as he gestured between us, “all the time?”

“With that face and your body, I would,” I said. “Not to mention your heart and brilliant brain, too. You make conversation too easy.”

A distinct shade of pink slashed across his nose, distinguishable despite the dark shadows on his face. I waited for another witty retort, but nothing came. He simply stared at me, eyes searching mine with an intensity that rendered me speechless.

I had told Jared things about myself most people in my life did not know. And as I sat there, staring at him, I realized that Jared understood that. When he hesitated to touch me for a third time, I spoke. “Are you… scared?”

“Maybe a little,” he mused. “I can promise you, this isn’t something I normally do. Spending this much time with a fan… never struck me as a good idea.”

“And now that you have?” I asked.

Finally, his hand enveloped mine where it sat on the bar. “I'll say this. You’re a natural at meeting celebrities. You played it cool even though you were nervous. You talked to me like I was just… another person. And that’s incredibly refreshing.”

“You make it sound like most fans are cra—”

He shook his head, vehement in his disagreement. “No. You’re not. Ya’ll are amazing and generous and so full of love. I would never disparage any of you. Most engagements with fans, either at a con or out in the wild, are short or in a… sort of controlled or contained system. It’s kind of sterile. It sounds ridiculous when I put words to it, but there’s little margin for error and that’s intentional.”

“So, you’re saying it’s almost scientifically curated to go well,” I offered.

“Almost is the key word. There’s a reason Cliffy follows us everywhere,” Jared added with a coy smirk. “But more often than not, what we need is someone to take care of a crying fan because, if Jensen and I or any of the other cast had to handle that on our own every time it happened, we’d lose our minds.”

I recalled the first time I had met anyone from the show. “I thought I was going to throw up after I met Misha a couple years ago.”

Jared laughed his dorky cackle as he said, “Misha gets that reaction a lot.”

“He was all hands…”

“Oh, I am so sorry.”

“No, it was wonderful.”

Again, Jared cackled as if I’d said some sort of perverted innuendo. With his hand still on mine, he took it from the bar and held it. “See, that right there, that's... oh, how gross, I don’t want to say you’re ‘different’ and make this fucking weird. But… I don’t know, I’m not explaining myself very well.”

“I won’t let it go to my head,” I started, “But I think I get it. This’ll sound weird, too, and it might creep you out, but I’ve always imagined my personality was very similar to yours. I’ve always imagined that, at the very least, were we to have worked together on a set, we would have become really good friends.”

“You’re not wrong,” Jared started, “And it’s not weird. We could be friends.”

I tried. I wanted nothing more than to walk away from that night remembering the perfection of our conversation up to that point. But when disappointment contorted my smile, Jared saw it, and winced. When I started to talk, he spoke over me. “I didn’t mean it like that. We could be friends, sure. But…”

His voice trailed off as he thought, eyes listing to the bar. “But?” I asked.

“But I’m guessing at this point you were hoping for more than that.”

What constituted as “more”? Best friends? Friends with benefits? Long-distance lovers? “Look, I gave you my number as a hail mary.”

“What?”

Despite the seriousness of the conversation, I couldn’t resist the joke. “It’s a sports term. Like, slam dunk or…”

He grinned as he said, “Ball handler?”

I never thought I’d ever hear my laugh mixed solely with Jared’s. But laugh we did, singing a song I wanted to play it on repeat forever. I had to drop another joke to hear it again, to commit it to memory. With my pithy line readied, I sucked in a breath between laughs and spoke.

Not a single word made it past my lips, for Jared’s landed on mine with such sudden insistence, I froze. His massive hand warmed my cheek, fingers slipping into my hair, and he pressed harder, as if to remind me of what he had done. It worked, but not how either of us had wanted.

I promise, I’ll make up for how ridiculously I behaved here. When I squirmed away from him, I hated myself. I ended the kiss as quickly as it had started, slipped from his arms and off the barstool to race to the stairs. He didn’t follow me. And I didn’t look back. I couldn’t. I didn’t want to see the dejection on his face that I knew was there.

I was up the stairs and through the front door in seconds. I wasted no time heading straight back to my hotel, oblivious to the chilly November drizzle. Incessant ridicule ran through my head, berating myself for being rude, for being a bitch, for being just downright mean. And for passing up on spending a night with someone I knew that, without a doubt, would treat me with nothing but respect.

How fitting then that, when my phone rang, I answered it without thinking.

Tags: @atc74 @hannahindie @bevans87 @meganwinchester1999 @plaided-ani-on-hiatus @oneshoeshort @jonogueira @andkatiethings @elfinmox @wonderfulworldofwinchester @princessofthefandomrealm @just-another-busyfangirl 

Feedback is more than welcome! If you want to get in on the tag list, send me an ask!

#Jared Padalecki #jared padalecki x me #spn rpf fanfic #alleiradayne writes

[dune-thedewcollectors]

Ornithopter Down: A tribute tale so short.

Artwork: Simon Frost

Even the prison Hell of Salusa Secundus prepared me little for Arrakis - the spice planet. If there were Gods here, they have long since left. Only mortals and their machinations remain. The masters, House Harkonnen and the Fremen not as liberated as their name suggests assume the roles of old since time began. And oblivious to all - the worm, always the worm.

The ornithopter thop thops in crow-like flight seaming the supposed Harkonnen sky. So predatory as it patrols Arrakeen airspace. The ornithopter a craft with multi-purpose - light armour, gun mounted, troop carrier and drop bomb capability, the mainstay of the air fleet, spearhead of the young Baron's occupational and commercial intent. Harkonnen Public Force more a euphemism for mass murderers than its corporate sounding title suggests. The HPF are no Sardaukar, nor Fedaykin. Scum! Them both, neither the rabble spawn of Zensunni wanderers or the Baron’s buffoons are fit to lick the excrement off the boots of the lowliest Sardaukar trooper. Still the Baron is always in need of men not shy of a little knifework, either for show or bounty. For fifty standard years house Harkonnen continues to suck the marrow out of the planet and its indigenous. Of course propaganda promotes otherwise. The Baron's silver tongue and public relation corps is second to none and as any Fremen under duress and the whip will testify, "that he has brought such prosperity and peace for the Fremen - the likes that God has never seen." In truth, the spice, Arrakis its unique source, is currently worth 620,000 Solari per decagram in the Imperial market. Which makes the Baron's fief , "so preposterously profitable like no other holding in the known universe," so he gloats, often, to envious ears in the Imperial court.

And as if offplanet, like leaves in the wind - we soar. Our 'thopter crows for murder, one eye in the sky the other trained below. The pilot is efficient enough and despite my instincts: I Iike this asset. Iaken Nefud - nefarious no doubt, yet steady in crisis. Slight and, still, menace in his stature with the appropriate scars shining on his pock marked demeanor. There are many of the Public Force with murky past and the most dubious of countenance that rally towards profit and violence, but I am above that, I am Sardaukar - of the blood of the orient soldiers slaves of old, same lineage of ancient assasins no less. I am Sardaukar - in league with my Emperor, in servitude to House Corrino. And to this, or their end - I prevail.

The air like my chest feels tight, as if pressed between the Heavens and Hades. The desert chokes the airspace around if not reverse. The sand covets all; basins, sinks, grabens, and dust chasms too. The terrain features in open bleds and ergs swirled in the currents and torrents of the finest grains of silky suffocating death. And what rock formations there are lay submerged, mostly, while its desperate peaks protrude the surface. Such vastness its wide emptiness deceitful and as crushing as any claustrophobic condition. A navigational nightmare where one dare not miscalculate. Storms either sand and magnetic or both, can ill afford mistakes. Where is a Mentat when you need one? The desert ever constant, continue to plots against us, still. A landscape in dual allegiance to its desertfolk. Contrary to intelligence reports, Arrakeen airspace is no haven from Fremen insurgents. These natives a little more than just restless. Their ordinance: assorted small arms, rocket propelled grenades, surface to air missiles and stolen long range lasguns, always gun ready and cleared to engage. The confirmed kills of Harkonnen personnel whether by hostile or friendly fire are never accurately recorded if at all or the files forever in bureaucratic limbo. What insurgency?

Ornithopter down! Beyond the shield wall the call no pilot and crew wants to make or answer in bandit country. An ongoing joke and what they call a secret war on this ulcer of a planet that they make play of that playwright's words,  "we few, we unlucky few,” the unofficial motto of the Public Force. I tire of their folly I say a plague on them both. I know my duty but I question the nature of the assignment I’ve been given. An exfiltration op in the middle of a holy war we’re at the wrong end of. I’ve seen the stats, and there’s no truth in them. The so call ragtag remnants of jihadists are the true masters outside the city limits. And they want us to retrieve one of their holy women? On the say so of some courtier ponce wanting his Bene Gesserit wife back who ran away to Arrakis decades before. There’s more than mischief here when the sisterhood are involved. Damned order of witches stirring up the natives with legends of the old Orient and its mysticisms. Fremen fanatics their numbers vast. More than the Baron will admit. I’ve seen with my own eyes the horrors of their resolve and their cause. A begrudging reminder of my own. But my God is stronger than yours. I am faithful, righteous and trained. And she, Sister Ramallo, is with us and with the co-ordinates she’s secreted, from under your very noses we shall steal her away from you, from this damned desert, from this Godforsaken planet and return her to paradise, praise Hallah!

Plans aren’t going as planned. Projectiles scar the sky looking to prey upon our bird in flight. Damn the Fremen! And that witch too. She promised us safe passage and proof of life. The invisible insurgents their work is done. The rockets locked on and propelling towards us, bent on benediction. Nefud as equal to the threat as any avoiding death becoming us all. He banks and performs an Immelman turn and the rockets explode far enough to survive but close enough to cause splash damage, thank the prophet for counter measures. “Looks like its a one way trip for this bird - sir,” chirps Nefud.

 

It could be worse, I know. Yet Nefud skillfully maneuvers and grounds the aircraft on the luminous landing zone marked out by a baradye pistol. Seems the witch keeps pace with the storm assuming the handiwork hers, as looming dust clouds and lightning sweeps over the the basin of Tuono, I exit with haste and disorientated, Nefud even more so - and shivering like an addict needing his vice. We're greeted by the squinting sunflare and the whipping wail of shifting sand. And then a disarming whisper deep within my subconscious suspends me still, motionless against my will, Nefud and I swap startled glances, he hears it too - a slow deliberate and suggestive murmur yet echoing as if repeating over and over, "guard yourself for truth, Out Freyn," in perfect Galach, accented in the way only highborn or courtesans speak. A lone Jubba cloaked figure appears in desert fashion prepared for violence while we remain prone, conscious - yet slumbered in our stupor.

"Ramallo! release me," I spat, " and come with us we are under orders of the Emperor." She cuts a fine figure in the sand, svelte not pretty but handsome still for a woman mid-aged living on this desolate rock far from the preen and pamper of better days. The return of muscle and bone comes slow as we slither down to ground. We've seen something not many live to tell. The voice, the cloaked fist of the Bene Gessirit. The sisterhood's ability to manipulate muscle and mind literally bending an enemy to their will. She is close enough. Instinct, perhaps, self preservation bids me hold, not so Nefud his sense tells him otherwise and lunges for her foot and coils round her heel. Almost instantly she slips, side-steps and side kicks towards her assailant’s temple side. Over in a blur no blood drawn only shock. As adept in close quarter as she was with voice, I awe in wonder. She's close enough now as I stand, hands raised upon my head contemplating the shigawire sewn within my scalp. I see her eyes blue but not as blue within blue as if born to their ways. There's more to the color of them eyes that disturbs. She has no intention of leaving with us that's plain to see. Even more obvious - she is lost to us, lost to them, but lost to herself most of all. In just a few moments I've assessed we can not retrieve what's unhinged, bordering the path to insanity, and for whatever reasons before during and after this incident, which is sure to be brushed under the royal carpet, she is tainted Fremen thus compromised. Not a further word is exchanged between us. As if all is understood, she retreats and I gather my asset.

" You managed to apply the tracer?" I query the stirring Nefud, "aye sir," Iaken stirred but not shaken. I secrete the transmitter from my bodice and attach the hairline shigawire as antennae. I call in our support hovering high but nearby. And quickly reference the co-ordinates of the landing zone.

We should have stunners for this kind of deal. Or initiated the Holtzman effect! The point is moot. What should of been a simple pick up and retrieve has turned into a fire mission now as protocol demands. The stench of spice reeks from my fellow Sardaukar soldiers in Guild garb as we board their 'thopter and ascend rapidly from the LZ. I remove my Public Force livery and slip into my Corrino jumpsuit with the embroidered on Ensign epaulettes. "Welcome aboard Aramsham," salutes my handler, the Captain. I nod, return the salute and hand him the tracer receiver. We have been trying to locate the secret sietch - Tabr with no success. Thanks to a cuckold and his witch we have an opportunity to firebomb the hidden cave of warrens to blazes. The blip remains stationary on the screen has been the last ten. We hover above in our Ornithopter looking down. The bomb bay doors open wide. I look across to Nefud, "look sir, wormsign!"

#FanFiction #Dune #Sardaukar

[athenasarrow]

Time for more of my sci-fi story!

@petertheromaniwolf @weird-dimple @blissbucket

“The Empire is not only of alien races. It is of humans. Some brainwashed, yes. Some forced against their will, yes. But there’s a large number of humans who are fighting for the Empire because they agree with the ideals of the Vuslao group. This is a political war, not a racial one. Yes, I know I have said that before, but no one ever seems to hear, so I will keep saying it until you understand it. The Vuslao may have started this war with the Cluannods, but they are not the only races involved, and not all Vuslao follow the Empire and not all Cluannods support the Rebellion. Remember that.” --Sergeant Harriet Wolf, in a press conference about the increasing numbers of human soldiers being found in Vuslao uniforms.

Something was wrong. Even through the brainwashing, I could tell.

At the time of the infiltration, I was a brainwashed assassin for the Empire. I had no name, just “Soldier.” My partner was “Spy.” The Empire always felt wrong. Always. Me and Spy had to wear gloves on our right hands--something about our palms kept frying the brainwashing, so we couldn’t be allowed to see our palms.

“Soldier!” I turned at the shout, not bothering to stand to attention. I knew the voice better then I knew myself. It was Spy. I knew her sound so well that I also knew that something was wrong, but that she feared to say so in this open hallway where anyone could hear. If either of us showed outward fear that could be seen, we would be punished severely, of course she was afraid. I took her arm and led her to a small supply closet, free from prying eyes. Anyway, most of the officers were convinced Spy and I were involved in some sexual endeavors, and wouldn’t think anything of it. Once inside the dark, tiny closet, I turned to her.

“What’s wrong?” I asked her. I could see in the very dim light from under the bottom of the door that she was biting her lip.

“I-I wan’ ta get ou’ o’ ‘ere. S’methin’ do’e’n’t feel righ’.” She was letting her rough accent slip through now that we were alone.

“I know you do. I do, too. What brought this on all of the sudden?” I took her hands, rubbing the tight tendons and veins with my thumbs--our gloves were only meant to conceal, we could still feel everything through them.

“I feel like s’methin’s gon’ go wrong. I feel like s’methin’s comin’.” Spy’s grip on my hands was tight, like she needed something to ground her. I pulled her into a hug, murmuring reassurances into her hair.

“Don’t worry, Spy. We’ll get out of here.”

I didn’t realize we’d get out of here that very day.

When the alarms went off, Spy and I were in our sparse, cold, unattached quarters, packing up our few belongings. Spy had this photograph of herself and another woman who looked very similar to her, presumably a sister that the Empire wiped from her mind. I had a book and a blaster. The book was titled “Languages of the Seven Galaxies” and it was incredibly well-worn. The blaster was a tinkered-with older model that the officers tried to replace many times, but I shot my best with this old thing. I knew I hadn’t modified the blaster myself, somehow. Both of these things were from before the Empire.

When the blaring started, we grabbed our tiny rucksacks of our belongings and some basic supplies, and left our quarters. We ducked around officers and soldiers, heading towards the bridge. We halted by Lieutenant Vakx, a severe-looking Cobryhn. She was missing a horn, it having broken off in battle after the first spiral.

“Ma’am, do you have orders for us?” I asked her, standing to attention. She turned to us, her usually-pastel-blue facial markings now a dull red.

“At ease,” she told us. We relaxed our postures, and I realized that the only people on the bridge were officers. “My only orders are to run. Get to the Cluannod Army. Get out of here.” Spy and I shared a glance. What the hell?

“Ma’am? Wha’ exac’ly d’ya mean by tha’?” Spy asked cautiously. Vakx just reached for our hands, removing the gloves from our right palms.

“I mean, I lost my family to the Empire. My family that believed in the Empire was left to die on Hivud. No army should just leave their men to die. I’ve ordered the soldiers to get to escape pods already, but you two used to be Sitox agents, the Rebels will trust you. Go to them. And hurry!” Vakx pushed us towards the door out of the bridge. “Kflet, you have to run!” Neither of us had ever heard Vakx curse before--she was serious.

“What about you?” I asked, taking Spy’s arm and pulling her backwards.

“I’ll find you eventually. You still have the chips, I’m the only one with access. Go!” We nodded, turned, and ran. We reached a information panel, and Spy began looking through it, looking for the source of the attack on the ship.

“So we were Sitox agents?” I murmured. I looked down at my palm. There was a tiny heart tattoo on it. I sucked in a breath. “Evangeline, get the security cameras up! Now!” I snapped. Spy--no, Evangeline, Eva--nodded, doing as I asked. I scanned the cameras, looking for a Rebel uniform. “There!” I pointed to one of the monitors. Eva brought that monitor up to the front. A human and a Xaylian were fighting their way through some soldiers, but not knocking any out. The Xaylian grabbed the human’s arm and said something to her. The human nodded and put her blaster away. She turned around to face where they’d come from, and my stomach dropped like a stone in water.

The human was the woman in Eva’s photo.

It was Harry.

Eva gasped, whirling around to face me. “It’s her!” she cried. “Bobbi, it’s her!” I nodded, my eyes wide.

“Let’s go find your sister,” I told her. We took off running.

When we found Harry and the Xaylian, we almost ran right into them.

Harry raised her blaster as Eva skidded to a halt in front of her, taking a step back. “I suppose ya think ‘is is a funny joke, huh? Showin’ me m’ dead sis?” Eva held up her right hand, which had an identical tattoo as mine.

“Harry, it’s me. It’s Eva.” Harry dropped her blaster, shocked. Her eyes flickered between the tattoo and Eva’s face. Finally, her eyes landed on me. I held up my own right hand to show my tattoo. Harry’s eyes were full of tears, and she threw herself at me and Eva, pulling us into a hug.

“‘S really you… Oh, God…” Harry was crying. I held her tight, pressing my face into her shoulder. I could feel Eva’s body shuddering with sobs, as well. The Xaylian boy cleared his throat after a minute.

“Uh… As touching as this is, I don’t think this is a good place to have a break down.” His voice was timid and shaky, bearing a Muratius accent that marked him as Xaylia-born. Harry pulled away from Eva and I, smiling shakily but brightly at the boy.

“Ah, yer righ’, Bril, like always,” she said fondly. It reminded me of how she would talk to Eva, before we got involved in Sitox, or, in Harry’s case, the army.

Once we were off the ship and on Harry’s ship, a Xaylian transport that she had modified to make into a well-armored fighter, time blurred. The Xaylian--Abrilius, Harry had told me--had retreated to the bridge--it was more of a cockpit, but it was large enough to contain a few others. Apparently he wanted to let the three of us have some privacy while he set the ship for M5V. Harry almost instantly curled up in between me and Eva, her eyes closing. Eva and I just held her, making sure she was comfortable. After that, I don’t really remember much, or how much time passed. All I know is that some indeterminate amount of time later, Abrilius came out into the lounge. He looked down at Harry, asleep in me and Eva’s laps.

“You know, she’s the closest thing I have to family,” he said after a moment. He was quiet, he didn’t want to wake Harry or Eva--both of the Wolfs were asleep, God knows when they would sleep again. I looked down at my best friend, running my fingers through her short hair. It'd been years since Eva and I had gotten captured while on a Sitox intelligence op. Eva and I had been brainwashed to forget. But Vakx, she let us keep the couple things we had from Sitox. She modified my blaster. She's my sister-in-law. She was one of the few people I had.

“Same here,” I murmured. “It's been five years, almost. Five Standard years. God…” I scoffed lightly. “The damn tattoos. They made me and Eva remember. They had to be covered up.”

“If you don't mind me asking, what are the tattoos?” I sighed, studying my palm.

“Military and Sitox idea of a marriage. Get tattoos that have a special meaning instead of rings--tattoos can't get lost.” The little heart on me and Eva’s hands were our vows to each other: In death and life, our love is eternal. “Eva still had a photo of her an Harry, and I had the blaster she modified for me. Vakx let us keep those. Somehow, they didn’t mess with the brainwashing as much as the tattoos. Probably because the tattoos were part of our friendship with a lot of people. Sitox agents, our family, school friends, academy friends, everyone we cared about.” I shrugged, tightening my grip on my wife. “We were made to wear gloves, but Vakx took them off when you and Harry attacked.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, who was Vakx?” Abrilius asked hesitantly.

“Vakx? She was our handler. She told us to run to the Cluannods. She lost her loyalty to the Empire. She’ll find us, eventually.” I rubbed the tattoo on my hand, anxious about revealing so much information about Vakx.

“She was an Imperial officer? And your friend?” Abrilius’s ears were angled towards me, a sign of curiousity.

“Yeah,” I replied, chewing my lip.

“Then we’ll find her before the Empire. They really don’t like defectors,” Abrilius quipped. I laughed softly, careful to not wake the two sisters. Abrilius squeezed my shoulder, heading back to the cockpit. “Rest, Bobbi. You need it.” I took his advice, and let myself fall asleep curled around my wife and her sister.

Once we were back on M5V, there was a military and Sitox greeting party. General Solo stared down at me and Eva, before smirking and bringing us into headlocks.

“Dammit, girls, don’ do tha’ again. Scared us senseless,” he told us, letting us go.

“Wou’n’t dream o’ it,” Eva replied with a grin.

After the huge return ceremony for me an Eva, Harry brought us to her office, where Abrilius, the General, and Agent Oja were waiting. Oja hugged me and Eva--she’d been our boss back in Sitox, and the three of us had been good friends. After a minute of talking, Harry cleared her throat and told us to sit down at her table. The six of us took seats around her round holotable.

“Alrigh’, we go’ things ta talk abou’,” Harry began.

“Yes, ‘Arry’s right,” the General agreed. “We need ta know where ya girls wanna be stationed. If ya wanna remain in Sitox or not.” Eva and I looked at each other. I raised an eyebrow. She nodded, agreeing with what I was suggesting. I cleared my throat.

“Well, the Empire called us ‘Soldier’ and ‘Spy.’ We’d like to retain those titles. Eva will stay with Sitox. I will work with Harry.”

“Bu’,” Eva interjected, “we’re still gon’ be work partners. No changin’ tha’. After all, Harry’ll need someone ta get ‘er Sitox intelligence off-book. ‘s not like I’m gon’ be givin’ info ta someone without clearance.” The General and Oja both smiled and nodded at this idea. After a few more minutes of negotiating our situation job-wise, the General and Oja left Harry’s office.

“Alrigh’, I imagine yer hungry, yeah?” Harry asked me and Eva. We both nodded. Abrilius was already heading to the fridge behind her desk, pulling out a box of takeout--it looked to be Cohbryn food. “I hope ya don’ mind takeout, Bril an’ I ‘ave been eatin’ a lo’ of i’ lately.”

“We’ve been pulling a lot of late nighters, working and kvfan,” Abrilius told us, setting the box of takeout in the center of the table.

“Wha’ ‘ave ya been lookin’ at?” Eva asked, taking a container of food out of the box and opening it.

“Bril wa’ an attendant on Xaylia, ‘e ‘eard things. Things abou’ the Empire,” Harry explained, taking some food for herself.

“Like what?” I asked, taking a bite of the spiced Favar I had grabbed.

“Like plans. Plans to make bio-chemically enhanced assets for the Empire,” Abrilius said. “Plans that were going to start with ‘Spy’ and ‘Soldier.’ You two.” I shot Eva a panicked look.

“Thank God that you guys attacked when you did,” I said. “Let’s destroy these gerlianjar.”

“Also remember that brainwashing isn’t permanent, no matter what we like to think. There is no excuse for killing those who show signs of brainwashing. None. It’s inexcusable. We aren’t killers like the Vuslao. We are rescuers, rescuers of the Seven Galaxies. It’s our job to rescue as many as we can. So, no, there is no excuse for the senseless killing of any being that appears to either be coerced or brainwashed. And those of you who support that murdering are as bad as the Empire. Remember that.” --Sergeant Harriet Wolf, in a press conference about the increasing numbers of human soldiers being found in Vuslao uniforms.

#Kitten talks #My writing #writing #Sarge #sci-fi #sci-fantasy #scifi #sci-fy

[pod7]

Fall Anime* 2016 Lightning Review

*Just the shows I watched of course

Shows Included: 3-gatsu no Lion, All Out!!, Bernard-jou Iwaku, Bishoujo Yuugi Unit Crane Game Girls Galaxy, Cheating Craft, DAYS, Drifters, Fune wo Amu, Getsuyoubi no Tawawa, Kaijuu Girls: Ultra Kaijuu Gijinka Keikaku, Keijo!!!!!!!!, Kiitarou Shounen no Youkai Enikki, Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku, Nanbaka, Nazotokine, Nobunaga no Shinobi, Occultic;Nine, Okusama ga Seitokaichou!+!, Saiki Kusuo no Ψ-nan, Shakunetsu no Takkyuu Musume, Sousei no Onmyouji, Soushin Shoujo Matoi, Stella no Mahou, Teekyuu 8, Tiger Mask W, To Be Hero, Udon no Kuni no Kiniro Kemari, Watashi ga Motete Dousunda, WWW. Working!!

A really mixed bag this season, though a much better season than the summer!

3-gatsu no Lion As expected of SHAFT, a great character driven coming-of-age story that is practically flawless. I really enjoy any time the three sisters are on screen, but I also appreciate the appearances that his step-sister has made. She’s just sympathetic enough that you feel bad for feeling bad for her, but she’s also cruel enough to make you tense up the moment she comes on screen. The one thing I don’t like about this show is the thing it seems to get the most hype for, which is it’s intro song. I just don’t feel like it fits the attitude of the show. Otherwise though, yet another home run from SHAFT. Series continues! Highest recommendation

All Out!! This isn’t the best show, I wouldn’t even say it’s better than DAYS, but it was enjoyable enough. If the retired pro player turned coach hadn’t of shown up, I might have dropped it, truth be told. Once he shows up the, the season really picked up. The show is continuing, so hopefully that upward trend is here to stay. Series continues!

Bernard-jou Iwaku I’m not much of a book nerd, so a lot of this was lost on me, but there were still some great laughs to be had. If you’re into science fiction and novels in general they have a lot of interesting factoids about books and you could probably pick up some good recommendations from it. 7/10

Bishoujo Yuugi Unit Crane Game Girls Galaxy The series got a budget this time around, so it was actually pretty well animated (for flash), and they were able to have a lot more detail as well. I loved the inclusion of Dark Cherry, they were great foils to CRANE GAMU. It was more of a nonsense comedy this season, as opposed to “crane game tips as brought to you by an idol anime” that the first season had. Ended on a pretty wild note with Kyouko and Rei seemingly becoming a couple out of nowhere, though in hindsight they make a great pair. 8/10

Cheating Craft A really weird show, like, it would be hard to even explain what it is without being incredibly vague. The characters were great, especially the home room teacher. One of several shows this season that had some surprise GL in it. 6/10

DAYS I still think that the coach from this team would have been fired already, for letting someone that inexperienced play in such important matches. I also feel like the show contradicted itself quite a bit; they said that all the starters are starters because they are out for themselves, but they were willing to play with a no-experience player AS A STARTER. Maybe it’s just a sports thing I don’t understand, but every time someone said “it’s not your fault” I was audibly saying “no, it really was!” Ubukata was great, but I feel bad for Tsukushi’s childhood friend basically getting zero screen time after the first episode. I would have liked for Tsukushi’s mom to have been more of a factor in the show as well. For a sports anime, it was good, but there were a lot of things I had problems with. 7/10

Drifters It’s a cool concept, of course, but I worry about the execution of it all. This great nation of Orte that some of the characters wish to protect was founded by Adolf Hitler, who is supposedly a Drifter, which makes him a good guy by default, since that’s what the protagonists are. If I need to spell out why that’s fishy at best, then you need to go back to school or at least watch the History channel once in a while. I also would have liked to have seen at some point in this season some kind of selection process for why someone ends up a Drifter and why someone ends up as an End. If the Black King isn’t Merlin, I will be incredibly shocked, because he’s the only historical figure I can think of that would also be excusable as such an all powerful deity type figure that can give other people powers, as well as using alchemy. I love the harsh art style, it fits the attitude of the show quite well. As a history nerd, I think it would be really funny if Teddy Roosevelt showed up with the Rough RIders to go ham on the Ends, but will just have to see what the next season holds. 8/10

Fune wo Amu I had originally thought this would be a much different series. After the first episode I actually looked it up to see if it was going to be something I’d actually be able to watch three episodes of without falling asleep. The synopsis I read was pretty misleading, though it may have been for the live action adaptation that came out before; it basically said that the protagonist would be tasked with defining “love”, and through that he would complete this dictionary and learn to live life to the fullest and so on. Unfortunately, for the animated adaptation at least, that’s pretty much a lie. He realizes he has feelings for his landlord’s grand-daughter, and then four episodes later they’ve been married for over a decade, her as a successful chef, and he on the cusp of completing the dictionary. It felt like they cut out an entire third (or even half) of the story just to fit it into 12 episodes, which was really disappointing to me. It wasn’t bad, but I felt like it could have made it’s point about seeing things through and the importance of words a lot clearer with just a few more episodes. 7/10

Getsuyoubi no Tawawa I’m kind of surprised that this show didn’t get a lot of shit, to be frank. It’s everything people love to guffaw about when it comes to anime; a large-chested girl who is too young for the guy she is talking to in most cases and is doing everything but dragging him to a love hotel. I’m not even sure what this would be categorized as; I wouldn’t call it a romcom, because there weren’t really any gags or jokes to it, and if you just call it a romance then people expect drama when there wasn’t any of that either. So... if you want to see a well-endowed girl flirt with nameless, faceless men for 12 episodes, this is the one for you. 6/10

Kaijuu Girls: Ultra Kaijuu Gijinka Keikaku There isn’t really much to say about this show other than if you like kaijuu and chibi/SD characters, you’ll probably like this show. If it had been more than a five minute show, I think it would have become boring, because they don’t really end up doing that much over the course of the season. Just a short, silly comedy about girls learning to use powers, basically. 7/10

Keijo!!!!!!!! I really want to compare this to Valkyrie Drive, because it was good, but... it was just a little too much. If they had dialed back the ecchi during the times they weren’t in a match, I think it would have had a greater comedic impact when it came to the action. Instead towards the end it was like “wow they are laying it on thick this episode.” Still, I salute them for just going all out with it. I usually complain about “boring sports” anime needing to rely on silly gimmicks for their characters to make the show more interesting, but Keijo already had it’s silly gimmick in place, so the super moves/abilities weren’t far as far fetched as say, a mahjong player that does better because there is a full moon out that night. The foley artists should be commended specifically for this show, they did an incredible job. 8/10

Kiitarou Shounen no Youkai Enikki This show came and went by in a flash. I didn’t even realize it had ended until I started writing this; it didn’t have a very definitive finale I guess. if you’re into Japanese folklore/yokai/bakemono/etc, but also are okay with those characters used in a comedic setting, you should give this show a shot. 7/10

Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku I don’t really know how to feel about this at this point. The character design bothered me a lot in the beginning, and by the time I got used to it, other problems sprang forth. It was another one of those “subversion of the genre” mahou shoujo series, which has become a genre on it’s own at this point because so many people are doing it. Out of all the girls, Swim Swim’s arc was the best, though I wish they had explained why she had her super OP power (since most of the others depended on what they wanted to do or their personality, seemingly.) It was also interesting that in the end they kept their powers, even though they broke their communicators from Fav, which was a nice change of pace. 7/10

Nanbaka This was a very strange show. At first I thought it was going to be like JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure because of the aesthetic, but instead it was just a fun gag show about a larger than life prison. Of course the highlight of the show for me was once again, Yuu Kobayashi as the warden, stealing the spotlight in a fairly minor role. I think I enjoyed it more as a comedy, because towards the end it gets pretty serious with some action mixed in too, and it just felt kind of like “Okay let’s get back to the gags now.” Overall though a pretty entertaining show. 8/10

Nazotokine An OL who works as secretary to the CEO of a major company finds excitement in her every day life, but suddenly gets sucked into a weird dimension where she is tasked with solving puzzles in order to go back to her normal life. Unfortunately, many of the puzzles involved Japanese words I didn’t know, so I was basically just watching for the performances (thought the two or three that didn’t I was able to solve.) A good premise, I think it could have been fleshed out a lot more. It seems like the kind of thing that was based off of a mobile game or even just a series of puzzle books. I just thought it was funny that this and Tiger Mask W aired in the same season because in TMW they show New Japan Pro Wrestling all the time, and in Nazotokine during one episode they go to an All Japan Pro Wrestling show. Would like to see more but I doubt it will happen. 8/10

Nobunaga no Shinobi A nice, short gag comedy about a little ninja girl who is super effective with her work but kind of a ditz otherwise. A cute show that can be surprisingly bloody, but most of the time it’s just goofball type humor. Series continues!

Occultic;Nine The first third and last third of this season were okay, but the middle part was really boring and a lot of the side stuff going on felt unnecessary. Spending so much time on the little girl practicing black magic and the guy using astral projection just to have a way to explain how time passes for you as a scandium ghost was a little much. The cast wasn’t particularly relatable either. I did like the reveal of the person who was going around “deleting” the ghosts, though, and the FBI with psychometry was really great (would have preferred to see the story from her perspective honestly.) It felt like someone who wrote a Persona teamed up with a studio that wants to be SHAFT. 5/10

Okusama ga Seitokaichou!+! Wasn’t a fan of this season as much as the last one. It felt like they had a meeting and said “Okay, the framing is established with season one, so now we can just go all out with erotica!” The problem was is that, they can only go so far, so showing what is basically the same thing over and over with just different characters makes it lose any ecchi power it may have had originally. 6/10

Saiki Kusuo no Ψ-nan An absolute joy of a show. I would not mind if I was still writing about this show in these season wrap-up reviews this time next year, it’s that good. Nendou-kun has grown on me a lot as the show has gone on, and Teruhashi has become my favorite character I think. 10/10

Shakunetsu no Takkyuu Musume I started to have the same problem with this show that I did with Saki (the mahjong anime), wherein they feel like the characters or action aren’t strong enough, so they have to give the players these goofy gimmicks that are beyond ridiculous. I really could not stand the green-haired yandere chick in this show, and was incredibly happened when that mini-arc ended. The beginning third of the show, I can understand people being perturbed at the lack of sport in this sport anime in favor of so much ~moe, but I think the episodes after the practice match arc are a great example of the show at it’s best, with a great balance of moe and sport. It’s not for everyone, but it has a fun, memorable cast. Reminded me quite a lot of KanaMemo, actually. 8/10

Sousei no Onmyouji Well, I would say the ride was fun, but it really wasn’t for the most part. The first arc of the show was pretty good, then they had a lovebirds arc which was horrendously stupid, and then it got into more action again and it was fine for a while but then you could tell the original writer started stalling at a certain point and it was really obnoxious how so little of what was going on week to week felt like it mattered in the grand scheme of things. It was like the series couldn’t decided to be a supernatural action show or a romcom, and you can’t really half-ass doing both when you have a masterpiece like Katanagatari out there. It had promise, but just took way too long to deliver, if it ever will. Dropped

Soushin Shoujo Matoi I don’t know if I’ve just watched too much anime by now or what, but I felt like I had seen this show a hundred times already. Nothing felt new or refreshing. It’s a very pretty show, at least, so I watched it all the way through, but I don’t think I’ll remember the name of this show next week, let alone next year. 7/10

Stella no Mahou I was a little worried about this show at the beginning because of how babyish the protagonist was, but she matures pretty quickly, and the remnants of her babyness become part of her charm. This felt like if you mixed Yuru Yuri and Wakaba Girl together, which is a pretty good combo. It also reminded me a bit of Saekano, even down to the girl in charge of music getting the least screen time. I would like to see another season of this but I think it would need to move about more into a more serious mood, like maybe they decide to debut at Comiket for real this time and put everything they have into a new game. 9/10

Teekyuu 8 I always love Teekyuu content, if you’ve followed me for a while then you know that quite well. 10/10

Tiger Mask W What knowledge I DON’T have from never having seen the previous Tiger Mask anime, the knowledge I have of him as an IRL pro wrestler and the current Japanese wrestling scene and attitude has made up for anything I would have otherwise missed. If nobody noticed, Monopoly is meant to be the WWE, and New Japan’s partnership with this series is a pretty clear showing on how they feel about WWE’s current move to basically create pro-wrestling colonies on other continents. There’s a lot of other BTS politics involved, but it’s interesting to see it as fodder for what amounts to a kids’ show. The main problem I have with the series so far is the inconsistency in violence and how much is tolerated. One of Tiger’s early foes causes him to bleed profusely and beats the piss out of him, but he says his match with Tiger the Dark was his hardest yet and he was barely even scratched. Also, a guy with a sword shows up in one episode, which is just bad, since he can never realistically use it (even in a cartoon setting.) Series continues!

To Be Hero I haven’t read anything about the behind-the-scenes of this series, but it would not surprise me in the least if it was a jab at One Punch Man. The dialogue is the star of the show here, with every character getting at least one really great monologue. The ending was actually pretty touching for a show about a guy that got superpowers from taking a dump. 8/10

Udon no Kuni no Kiniro Kemari This show was great, but towards the end, it felt kind of forced. It had a great thing going, and then it was like they thought, “Wait, Poco is still a tanuki?! Crap, what are we going to do?” I think this would have been better served about a guy reconciling with his decision to go to Tokyo, and having a son he didn’t know about to deal with in the process. Maybe Souta left for Tokyo for the same reason, but while he was there, he dated a foreigner, and they broke up, which lead to him getting into a rut at his job, and then finally moving back home to take care of his father’s effects post-mortem, where he finds his dad had taken in the child his girlfriend never told him about. SOMETHING like that. There was also a great missed opportunity I think with Nakaji and Rinko. One of Nakaji’s problems in the season is that his parents are hounding him about getting married, so what if he hadn’t been even looking because he was having an affair with Rinko? It honestly felt like that’s where they were going with it to me. She tells him he should stop smoking, and he eats her cooking despite knowing it’s bad, and then when she tells him she’s pregnant, it just honestly felt like that scene was written out as her telling him it’s his, and he’s the first to know she’s pregnant. It was also kind of disappointing that Udon didn’t really have all that much to do with the show, despite being in the title. Kana Hanazawa’s character is about as big of a red herring as you can get in this kind of show, as well. It’s cute and genuinely funny, but could have been much better and poignant in another world. 8/10

Watashi ga Motete Dousunda I imagine the manga won’t end the same way the show did (assuming the manga continues from there), but I think the writers of the show ended it the best way they could. Say what you will about the comedy based around liking gay fiction (admittedly exploitative fiction) making you a weirdo, but I feel like when it came to Nishina, they treated her respectfully, even showing her as a true rival, an equal, amongst the other suitors that Kae genuinely considered. That in itself should be celebrated. Yuu Kobayashi is easily top 3 seiyuu for me, so any show that she is the focal point is always one that I will enjoy all the way through. 9/10

WWW. Working!! I had a pretty big falling out with the main Working!! series, but there were several things that I did enjoy about it. I’m happy to say that those things are present in this spinoff as well, not only that, but I feel like WWW does it even better. In the main series, several of the characters were a pain in the ass with no payoff, but in WWW, they wrap up everything nicely in one season, without any characters feeling annoying or worthless. My favorite, as per usual, was one of the characters with the least amount of screen time, Kisaki. Of course, the manager was my fav character from the main series, and since they share many traits, it shouldn’t be that much of a surprise. It almost felt like this was a reboot in retrospect, considering how similar some of the characters are to the main series cast; they were just written better this time around. 9/10

#fall anime 2016 #anime review #anime #review #lightning review

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Seriously Seeking Sister! Ultimate Vampire Princess Just Wants Little Sister; Plenty of Service Will Be Provided!

By Hiironoame and Siso. Released in Japan as “Tonikaku Imouto ga Hoshii Saikyou no Kyuuketsuki wa Mujikaku Gohoushichuu” by TO Books. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by David Evelyn.

I’ve talked before about how publishers can sometimes choose a title for a series that makes me want to run away rather than look forward to it when I reviewed Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?, a series that I think has lost a few readers who think it’s just a dumb harem series. (It *is* a harem series, but…) Similarly, when I saw the title of this book, I described it as ‘dire’. I owe it an apology; it has a few issues, but it’s actually pretty fun, and is not what I thought it would be, which was “vampire girl constantly glomps and feels up other girls”. In fact, consent is rather important in the one sorta relationship that exists in this book. (The amount of yuri you perceive in the book may depend on how you feel about “sucking blood = sex” motifs in vampire fiction.) No, what this is is another in the genre of “ludicrously OP girl boggles everyone’s minds”.

Ristia is a young vampire girl who is tired of being treated like a cute little sister by her powerful vampire family. She wants her own little sister to dote over! Sadly, vampires don’t procreate very often, so she decides to seal herself in stasis in a cave and wait for her little sister to wake her up. A millennium passes, and she’s women by Nanami, member of an adventuring party that’s run afoul of a dragon. Ristia can slay the dragon. Ristia can also get rid of morally bankrupt men, pull entire luxury houses out of her Item, Box, and create magical amulets that will literally regrow arms. But, she reassures Nanami, she’s just a normal girl. She ends up working for, and then taking over, an evil orphanage after purging it of its villains, and rebuilds it. To a ludicrous extent. And then starts a maid cafe. She can do anything… so why will no one see her as a little sister?!?!

A word of warning here, one of the girls in this book is a rape survivor, and it’s a function of her character and plotline. It actually felt rather odd to have a character like Maria is a story like this, which otherwise really enjoys leaning on the “silly” side of the fence. It should also be noted that Ristia looks like an older teen girl but that’s as a human; in vampire terms she starts the book pre-pubescent, and it’s her hitting puberty that also triggers part of the plot. My other major issue with the book is that it reads like it needed a better edit. The author comments on how they kept losing story contests for “bad structure”, and it’s still not that great; in particular, it reads like we get a little sister only to abandon her midway for a more interesting one. Don’t replace your cast halfway through a book.

That said, if you don’t mind OP characters, and can tolerate the word “normal girl” repeated so much it will make you sick (Nami from Zetsubou-sensei must be livid), this is a cute and fun read, and yes, has a little bit of fanservice and yuri, though not nearly as much of either as the title implies. So far this is the only volume, but there’s more of the original webnovel. I wouldn’t mind seeing more of Ristia.

By: Sean Gaffney

#Anime #News #Manga Bookshelf