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cocastyle · 4 years

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Robin — Prologue

Pairing - Joel Dawson x reader

Word Count - 2,756

A/N - and here is the prologue! this series is going to be so much fun and I hope everyone enjoys it as much as me! comment how you think it’s going so far and any theories you think may happen during the series!

if you would like to be added to the tag list, let me know!

R O B I N

Robin Series Masterlist

⭒❃.✮:▹ PROLOGUE ◃:✮.❃⭒

"I didn't really have your typical upbringing. I mean, I did at first, but then the world ended. I mean, I don't think anyone was really shocked. We always thought it might, and then it just finally happened. But how it happened, now that's where it gets interesting."

"Agatha 616."

"Hey! I wanted to be the one to say that. You totally just stole my thunder, Robin. As disappointing as that just was, she's right. Yep, an asteroid heading straight for Earth. I know. So obvious. So, humanity came together, and we did what we do best."

"We shot a bunch of rockets at it!"

"And we blew it up! And it was great!"

"But it wasn't."

"Once again, she's right. You see, the thing that makes rockets rockets. . .chemical compounds, a lot of 'em. Which rained back down on us, and everything changed."

"And by 'everything,' he means cold-blooded creatures. And by 'changed,' he means mutated and started eating us to death."

"Ants, lizards, roaches, crocodiles. You name it. There's a lot of 'em. Actually, we knew this one kid who was eaten in his sleep by a goldfish he won at a carnival."

"Poor Todd."

"He loved that goldfish."

"And that cat of his that got eaten."

"Rest in piece, buddy. So, for most of human history, if you wanted to kill a cockroach, right, all you needed was a shoe. Well, suddenly you needed a shotgun. And sometimes even a tank. And sometimes even that doesn't work. Especially if you don't stay in the tank, Bob."

"Bob?"

"I was just saying a random name. I don't know if his name is actually Bob."

"Then why—?"

"Y/N."

"Right. Your speech, not mine. Sorry."

"Eventually, the really big creatures and our military took each other out. We lost 95% of the human population in about a year. That's a lot of Bobs."

"And a lot of Todds."

"Exactly. Those of us who survived we hid anywhere we could — bunkers, caves, panic rooms, all around the world. So for the last seven years Y/N and I have been living in an underground bunker. And it's not as bad as it sounds. Really. It's a great group of people, and we all love each other. You know, it's kinda what I imagined college would have been like."

"Definitely not, but believe what you want. Anyways, like Joel said, we've been living in an underground bunker for the past seven years. It's not always been the best at times, but we do what we need to in order to survive. But for you to understand our story, we need to go back to the beginning. . .to the day it all happened."

"Seven years ago, back when we were sixteen."

- - -

Seven Years Ago

Fairfield, California

The last thing Y/N wanted was to wake up at 5:30 on a summer morning, yet that was exactly what happened on the day the world ended. The annoying beeping sounds filling the air were all Y/N could focus on as she came to, her eyes squeezing shut as she groaned in annoyance and shoved her face into the pillow she was laying on.

She lazily shot her hand out and attempted to reach for her alarm clock, but hesitated when her hand hit what she knew to be the lamp that sat on the table in her living room. Y/N let out a sigh before slowly opening her eyes and looking around. It took a moment for her to realize what was happening, but once she saw the tv that was still on, the pizza box laying on the table with only one slice left, and the figure beside her on the couch Y/N knew what had happened.

Groaning as she looked towards her best friend Joel Dawson who had passed out on the couch beside her, the girl lifted up a pillow before saying, "Joel. Joel, wake up." The boy didn't respond, the only noise escaping his lips being the sound of his own snores. His watch was beeping on his arm, but he didn't seem to be fazed by it.

Y/N frowned before taking the pillow she had picked up and whacking Joel with it. The boy jumped in surprise and fell off the couch and onto the floor. Y/N fell back with a satisfied sigh while Joel groaned on the ground.

"What was that for?" Joel complained, lazily sitting up and rubbing at his eyes while the two looked tiredly at each other.

"Shut that stupid watch up before I do it myself," Y/N murmured. "And by 'do it myself' I mean I'm going to destroy that little fucker so it can never beep again."

Joel cracked a small smile at that before looking down at his watch and turning it off. His eyes flickered over the time and he frowned. "It's 5:30 in the morning? Wasn't it just midnight?" he asked.

"I think we fell asleep during the middle of Civil War. That's what we get for trying to watch all the Marvel movies in a row with no sleep," she said with a yawn as she closed her eyes once again.

"We were behind anyways," Joel pointed out as he pulled himself up off of the ground and back onto the couch so that he could put on his shoes. "We wouldn't have finished before I had to leave. Speaking of which, I've got to go. Aimee should be picking me up soon and I smell like pizza and tears."

"It's not my fault you cry during almost every movie," Y/N retorted.

"They're just so good!" Joel argued making Y/N smile softly as she let her eyes open up long enough to admire the boy. He was tying his last shoe, so didn't seem to notice as she slowly ran her eyes over the features of his face. However, the moment he was sitting back up, Y/N closed her eyes to make it seem like she wasn't watching him.

Joel looked towards her and stared at her for a moment before smiling and reaching out for the blanket that was already falling off of her and onto the floor. He picked it up and shook off the crumbs from the food they had eaten before laying it on top of the girl.

"Why do you have to leave?" Y/N whispered, opening her eyes up a bit while Joel finished fixing the blanket and kneeled onto the ground in front of her. He leaned against the edge of the couch so that the two could be face to face. The lack of distance was enough to make Y/N’s heart skip a beat, but she knew Joel wasn't thinking anything of it.

"I'm just going to go see Aimee for a little bit so that we can watch the sunrise. I'll be back after, okay?" Joel said. Y/N studied him for a moment before nodding her head. The boy grinned and pulled away to get up onto his feet again. "You try and catch up on some z's while I'm gone." Y/N nodded again and Joel leaned down to press a quick kiss to her forehead, an action that made the girl close her eyes in a moment of pure bliss. "I'll be back soon, Robin."

Y/N smiled softly at the nickname Joel had given her. He liked to refer to themselves as Batman and Robin and seeing as he had insisted he was Batman in their friendship, Joel had grown to call her Robin so much over the years that it now flowed off of his tongue naturally. Y/N had never bothered arguing with Joel about who was actually Batman, instead relishing in the way Joel would flash her that goofy grin of his when he called her Robin.

Y/N got too lost in her thoughts to notice Joel walking away until she heard the sound of the front door opened and closed. She opened her eyes for a moment, her heart sinking slightly as she thought about how Joel was leaving to be with his girlfriend Aimee. However, not wanting to dwell on the fact for too long, Y/N just closed her eyes and willed herself to go back to sleep.

Even after she fell asleep, her dreams were filled of nothing but her best friend who she had found herself falling for more and more since the second grade. Not that she was complaining. This was what her life usually was like. Y/N secretly pining over Joel while he dated other girls. It was hard to see, but Y/N knew that as long as he was happy, she would be happy even if it meant they didn't end up together.

Y/N slept for quite a while, hoping she would wake up to Joel returning and hopping back onto the couch with her. However, what she wasn't expecting was for the sound of an explosion to send her jolting off the couch while her whole house shook around her.

The girl fell to the ground with a groan, but her eyes shot open wide as the ground shook again and another explosion filled the air. "What-?" she whispered before slowly pulling herself up off of the floor and looking out the window. Her eyes widened at the sight of fire in the horizon and she felt a surge of panic wash over her as she heard the screams of people filling the air as families started running out of their houses.

"Mom! Dad!" Y/N called out, her parents running down the stairs not too long after that with their pajamas still on and their eyes still fighting away the sleep that had taken over them only a couple of moments before.

Y/N could barely process what was happening after that. The next thing she knew, they were all dressed and throwing their stuff into their car. Her parents were running around and arguing over what they actually needed, so the brunette took the time to look next door where Joel's house stood. Her eyes flickered over the scene, attempting to find her best friend but only seeing his parents.

"Y/N!" Mrs. Dawson exclaimed as she caught sight of the girl. She frantically ran across the yard to her, her hands grabbing onto Y/N’s arms as she asked, "Where's Joel? Where—Where is he?"

"I-I don't know," Y/N admitted, her eyes wide with panic as she still tried to process what was happening. "He left to go see Aimee earlier this morning. He didn't tell me where they went."

Mrs. Dawson frowned and was just about to say something more when a red jeep came barreling down the road and stopped in front of the house. Mrs. Dawson released Y/N immediately while the girl let out a sigh of relief as she saw Joel stumble out of the car.

"I'm sorry!" Joel exclaimed, barely getting his feet onto the ground before Y/N was running at him and practically jumping into his arms for a hug. Joel didn't hesitate to hug her back, his grip tight as he looked towards his mother.

"Thank God! Where have you been, Joel?" his mother asked.

"We have to go right now. Say your goodbyes, get in the car," his father told them.

Y/N then seemed to noticed Aimee who was watching her warily as if she could see right through the girl's facade. She let go of Joel and squeezed his arm before nodding towards Aimee. "Go say goodbye to her. I'm going to finish packing up and then we can talk," she told him.

Y/N didn't give Joel time to respond before she was running back over to her house where her parents were now throwing the last of their things into the car. She helped toss a few more things into the car before closing the trunk with her father. "Go say goodbye, Y/N. We need to leave. Now," her father said causing Y/N to blink in surprise.

"Goodbye? Aren't we going with the Dawsons?" she asked.

"Honey, we don't know where we're going. Our priority is keeping you safe, not trying to stay with the Dawsons," her mother told her.

"But—" Y/N began.

"Y/N," her father sternly said. Y/N frowned slightly and then with a shaky breath turned to begin her way over to Joel who was staring after his girlfriend as she walked towards her jeep.

"Aimee!" he called out causing Y/N to slow down her steps as she caught sight of the look in his eyes. "I love you."

Y/N went rigid at that, the sound of Joel saying those words to someone else making her feel like she may be sick. Tears begin to spring in her eyes and she desperately tried to stop herself, but she couldn't help it. She knew Joel had dated other girls before, but hearing him proclaim his love for one was something she had never had to witness.

And it hurt.

"I love you too," Aimee told him.

"I'm gonna come find you," Joel assured her.

"You better," Aimee said before hopping into her jeep and driving away.

Y/N was still frozen in place, her tears now falling freely down her face while Joel looked her way. His heart broke at the sight of her and he didn't hesitate to run over and wrap her up in his embrace. "Hey, we're going to be okay," he whispered, thinking that her tears were because of them having to say goodbye and not because of the interaction he had just had with Aimee.

Y/N seemed to snap out of her trance at that and she gripped onto Joel tightly, her tears becoming worse as she realized this could potentially be the last time she saw her best friend. "Joel," she whimpered. "This can't be goodbye."

"Hey, hey," Joel said as he pulled away enough to wipe way her tears, his hands cupping the sides of her face. "It's not. We've survived everything together. I'm not about to let this stand in our way either. We're Batman and Robin, remember? We'll always find our way back to each other."

Y/N let her eyes flicker over Joel's face, a few more tears rolling down her cheeks before she held her hand out. "Batman," she said with a small nod.

"Robin," Joel whispered, nodding back at her as he clasped her hand with his own. They held onto each other tightly before Y/N hugged him one last time.

"I love you," she whispered, knowing very well that he didn't understand the true meaning of her words.

"I love you too. We'll find each other, okay?" he said before he noticed Y/N’s parents anxiously staring at the pair. Sighing, Joel squeezed her tight one last time before pulling away and leaning forward to press a small kiss to her forehead. "Bye, Robin." And then he gave her that small goofy smile of his that only made her heart ache more.

"Bye, Joel," she whispered, allowing herself to look at him one last time before turning and running to the car her parents were already climbing into. Y/N didn't dare look back, knowing that if she did it would only make it that much worse.

We're Batman and Robin, remember?

We'll always find our way back to each other.

- - -

"Long story short, I was right and we did find each other again. Granted it took two weeks, but—"

"Well, sorry. I didn't exactly have the colony there to pick me up when my parents died. I had to find you guys all on my own."

"And I see my mistake and I apologize. You did better than I ever could and I love you for it. You see, Y/N’s been my best friend since we were in kindergarten. Some jerk named Harley thought it would be funny to shove me off the swing set and take the swing from me. Y/N thought differently and punched him so hard he flew off the swing as if he had purposefully jumped off."

"I got sent to the principal's office right after, but I gained Joel as my best friend, so it wasn't a complete loss."

"We've been practically inseparable ever since and not even the apocalypse was able to keep us apart for too long."

"And now that you all know how our story began and a little bit about us, we can skip ahead to where we are now, seven years later in an underground bunker."

"This is where our story really begins.”

#love and monsters #love #and #monsters #joel dawson imagine #joel dawson #joel dawson x reader #dylan o’brien x reader #dylan o'brien #Aimee #Clyde #minnow #boy #apocalypse

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moonlit-imagines · 4 years

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Headcanons for being Tony Stark’s Daughter (The Intense Years)

Tony Stark x daughter!reader

warnings:

a/n: y/n is 16-17, also ive really never written anything about team iron man so this was weird, someone needs to tell me i dont need every single movie detail in here

prompt: takes place from cacw and smhc

The Early Years (1) The Teenage Years (2) The Aftermath (4) Continued (5)

after the events in sokovia, you set up the relief fund for displaced sokovians and dealt with physical clean up while the avengers...

well, they had to deal with the press—and the governments of the world

getting to know your new suit AI, JOSHUA

briefly looking for bruce; no luck there

you ended up doing the MIT september foundation presentation with tony

and ending the presentation after pepper’s name popped up on the screen

“it’s probably best we get out of here”

you were his entire support system while he was going through his break with pepper

meeting charles spencer’s mother, who really gave your dad a piece of her mind

“my son died, but your daughter gets to live on. if you lost her, maybe you’d show some sympathy for murdering my child”

*awkward silence from you*

*awkward silence from tony otw to the compound*

HATING the sound of the sokovia accords, yet understanding why they’re being ratified

being torn between signing them or not and having a huge argument with the other avengers

“y/n, why dont you listen to your dad for once and sign the damn thing”

“uncle rhodey, you know why i dont want to sign. if they have us, they have access to our suits. you really think the UN should be telling us how to use them?”

“your defense doesn’t even make sense. i had the war machine or iron patriot or whatever the hell you want to call it, but the military was calling the shots”

“and look where you are now”

“right, well i wouldn’t expect a kid to understand”

“are you kidding me, rhodes? you’re gonna play the ‘im older than you’ card?”

comforting wanda while she feared being taken

and as soon as you heard about what happened in lagos

“think about it, maximoff. if you didnt do what you did, do you know how many more casualties there may have been?”

“but i killed innocents”

“no, rumlow killed innocents. you contained that blast better than anyone else could have and you prevented a whole bunch of deaths, give yourself some credit”

okay, so you weren’t the best at talking someone down while they were upset

staying in berlin with your father while the whole bucky thing began to get sorted out

but he sent you out to stay with nat while he had some “private time” with steve

tony keeping you close to him during the power outage at the base

until it turned out you brought your suit and tony did not!

everyone was looking at you to take down bucky, but it just seemed like a bad idea, you didn’t want to hurt him because you didn’t want to hurt steve

stalling to try and buy steve time to subdue his friend

“y/n, come on, for christ sake!”

“got it, dad! i know what im doing!”

“i dont think you do!”

feeling your stomach drop when bucky shot into your dad’s hand, if it wasn’t for his latest invention, he may have gotten seriously hurt

you had a slight change of heart after that, you couldn’t bare to lose your dad. not after all those close calls...

getting yelled at by secretary ross and the wonderful 36 hour ultimatum you, nat, and tony received

“i have a plan”

“don’t say the spider boy”

“fine, i wont say it”

a nice trip to queens :)

when this parker kid finally got home, tony left you to socialize with his aunt

small talk is sometimes unbearable

“so, what’s it like being tony stark’s daughter?”

“honestly? im always tired”

peter becoming a tagalong on your mission, which you didn’t really think was appropriate

“dad, i dont really think we should’ve brought the kid...”

“why? you’re about the same age as him, its not much different”

“um...no, i meant this isnt his battle. i don’t care how old he is”

face off between tony and cap where you literally just swallowed all your pride and apologized because you couldn’t handle the fact that the team was being ripped apart like this

team ups with Spider-Man

“so, uh, do you hate me or something?”

“hey, kid? we’re kind of in the middle of something, i’ll get back to you on that”

“it’s a yes or no question, y/n”

“pass”

so, things didn’t exactly go as planned...

your (former) teammates were taken to the RAFT and you couldn’t pull it together in front of them

they were pretty pissed at you

“im sorry, im so sorry, i should’ve done better”

they ignored you (up until scott lang)

“all you stark’s are the same”

“stay out of this, bugboy”

taking to the remote hydra base in another famous father/daughter teamup

“just like the old days, right kiddo?”

“i guess so”

“hey, cheer up, it’s not all that bad”

waltzing right in there to meet your friend and foe

seeing the video of your grandparents dying

*being killed

absolutely stunned by seeing such a gruesome thing

even after all you’ve seen, this really got to you

you were robbed of ever meeting them, which made you angry, but you couldn’t stay angry because there were so many things out of everyones control

realizing that this was a good time to hold tony back

“JOSHUA, lock down y/n’s suit. protocol: baby gate”

apparently your dad still had some old protocols in your suit that you hadn’t found yet

“JOSHUA? reboot! override protocol: baby gate”

“i’m sorry, miss y/n, but i cannot do that”

watching your father attempt to get revenge

and get critically injured

simultaneously working on opening the suit back up for a bad plan

finally getting the emergency release and stumbling out of your suit, rushing towards the conflict and throwing yourself in the middle of it

“please, dad. enough damage has been done.”

“y/n, get out of the way”

he saw you shaking and crying and he realized what he was doing

attacking the only family you guys really had

getting shoved out of the way so that they could end this fight once and for all

JOSHUA finally rebooting and bringing the suit over to shield you while you helplessly watched the end of this fight

when bucky and steve left, your suit disarmed and you crouched down beside your father

“come on, let’s just go home”

“im sorry”

“i know, it’s okay”

trying to comfort your dad after his defeat

you picked up cap’s shield and returned to your suit, it was time to go home

after a brief time of recovery (while you helped work on uncle rhodey’s prototype prosthetics), there was a slight change of plans for you

“okay, so for your punishment after what you pulled during my...divorce with cap, you’re going to babysit the spiderling so you gain some perspective”

“hold on, what?! what do you mean ‘perspective?’”

“i mean you dont know what it’s like to be in charge of the life of a teenager, so now you get to find out! congratulations on your promotion!”

it was not fun at all because peter kept blowing up your phone and you kept having to tell him there was nothing for him to do

Y/N: I’ll let you know when there’s a spider-level threat, kapeesh?

P. Parker: Yes, ma’am, sorry.

peter going behind your back to do some “superhero work”

and you having to swoop in to fix everything last second

“come on, you stole my thunder, y/n!”

“no, peter, i saved your life. next time you have a lead, call me first”

and then he didn’t 😌✨💕

“Y/N, incoming call from ‘big fat meanie’”

“put him through, JOSHIE...hey dad, how’s dubai?”

“taking care of a kid is harder than it looks, isn’t it?”

“don’t start with me”

damage control ahahah 🤡

“peter, why cant you just call me in? you don’t stop texting me for months but for this you go radio silent? you almost died. and you put a bunch of lives in danger! do you want me to have to go to your aunt and tell her you died?”

“im sorry! i just...i dont want to be a sidekick”

“kid, you’re gonna have a long time to make a name for yourself...but not if you’re dead!”

he started crying and you were very uncomfortable so you tried to hug him? it helped.

letting him off easy (just like your dad did to you growing up)

but apparently tony came back and took the suit anyways and you were pretty pissed about it

avengers moving day :) yes, part of your punishment was helping happy with moving day and hearing him gush about how you were “growing into such a responsible adult”

“happy i dont know if you noticed but ive basically been an adult since i was 12”

“keep telling yourself that, kiddo”

seeing an explosion and immediately knowing it was peter

“i’ll see you later, happy, love you!”

investigating the crash site and whaddaya know, there’s peter and his first bad guy, you were kind of proud

“peter, you okay?”

“nope!”

“okay, cool”

more damage control lmao (a/n: yall sick of damage control yet?)

a congratulatory call from your dad

“hey! you did pretty good, all things considered. why don’t you take the kid to the avengers compound for his special surprise?”

“aye aye, see you soon.”

“love you, kiddo”

“you too, dad”

quick fast forward to peter rejecting the position as an avenger while the press was outside, yes, you were surprised

but then your dad finally proposed to pepper, it was a pretty cool engagement announcement

“y/n, will you be my maid of honor?”

“duh!”

happily ever after (a/n: until the next part is up)

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ihatetaxes99 · 3 years

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A Brief Retrospective Look At MVA (In The Anime)

Well. Here we are. Every end of the time is another begun. After what has felt like years of anticipation (mostly because it actually has been years), My Villain Academia has been fully animated. Well, "fully" may be the wrong word here, but that's something I'll get into later.

To honour the end of the arc, I decided to do two things: One, I re-read the entirety of the arc in the manga all in one sitting; Two, I rewatched all five episodes of the anime's adaptation back to back once again. My life is pain and I know not of sleep. Anyway, the reason I did this is because of a little project I proposed to myself back just before the first episode aired; Once MVA was done and dusted, I would go back and give my own retrospective on the whole thing. Because why the hell not, sounds like fun. This will also hopefully be less emotional than my thoughts I shared as the episodes were still airing, but who knows?

So, let's begin. And I wish to start by stating that My Villain Academia is my absolute favourite arc in the manga. It did a lot of things right. It focused entirely on my favourite faction, the villains. It offers a glimpse into their lives and goes a long way in humanising them, particularly Spinner and Shigaraki. It sets up key points for others too, such as Mr. Compress' habit of thinking more about the bigger picture than the others, which would factor into his major reveal during the Paranormal Liberation War and of course the formation of the Front itself. It introduced us to Rikiya Yotsubashi, one of my favourite characters in the manga, even if he honestly peaked in this arc and was never as good again. And it gave us a large-scale, grueling fight for supremacy in which I found myself actively rooting for the League. It is, in my mind, the very best of BNHA, the only arc I would want them to do well in the anime. They could screw up literally everything else and I would be happy if MVA was even just as good as the manga, it didn't even need to be better. I would have been delighted to have an excuse to experience the arc all over again, seeing my favourite moments with the sublime soundtrack and voice acting.

Yeah…

But before I get to that, let us take a little trip of sorts down memory lane to see the road to MVA, what led to it. So, 2021 rolls around. What a fun year. It's just 2020 without the excitement of everything being so uncertain, and frankly it's been really fucking boring as a year. However, BNHA Season Five was announced. In February, we get the first trailer for the upcoming season. It's... It's fine. Obviously, it focuses heavily on the Joint Training Arc (in fact, that is all it shows) and although I despise that arc with a passion, it's not too bad. I had not watched the anime since Overhaul ended, so my plan was I just wouldn't watch JTA and would wait until the big attraction, MVA. And so, Joint Training starts. And it goes on. And on. And on. I checked back almost two months later to discover it still wasn't over yet. Now I found this odd. Joint Training Arc was horrible for many reasons, but the big one was that it dragged on for so long as a result of Horikoshi's health complications, which is by no means his fault. But, surely the anime, which would consistently release on a weekly basis, wouldn't have the issues associated with this. Episodes of BNHA have always encompassed around three to five chapters, and Joint Training's were shorter than usual, so why was it taking more than ten episodes to adapt it?

Very strange, but I didn't question it much. Then, the key visuals released, confirming that MVA was at the very least happening. Great, wonderful. I love it. We've got the whole gang there, seeming like they're in Deika, looks pretty good.

Wait, did I say whole gang? Yeah, my bad, there was someone missing. Spinner. Now, I am not the biggest Spinner fan so I wasn't prepared to riot over his exclusion like I would have been if Compress wasn't in it. But this was starting to get strange. Spinner was the main narrator of MVA. Even if his importance was not on the level of Shigaraki, Twice and Toga, it was certainly more than Dabi and Compress, who did both appear in the art. Why was he excluded? Obviously, I bet you're all having a good old chuckle to yourselves right now because in retrospect, this makes perfect sense now.

Alright, then. I heard from a friend around June time that Joint Training was finally over. Awesome, great, time for the good stuff- why is there a Christmas episode here?

Yes, this was probably what really started to get the alarm bells in my mind going. The Christmas episode- in June. Very, very strange. Also, absolutely no mention of Rikiya, which even if they were reshuffling things, I would have expected him to appear in the episode of Bakugo and Todoroki getting their licenses, since it directly ties in. Concern levels rising, I shrugged it off and waited for next week.

Bam. Major reshuffling. Now, Endeavour Agency comes first, fuck you if you want context for who the hell the PLF are or the significance of Destro's memoirs. This was really starting to worry me now. I told myself that the key visual meant that MVA had to be happening, but it was starting to seem like the villains were being shafted. A fact not helped by the new OP.

Look, I'm sorry. I don't mean to complain or whine, but season five's second OP is just bad. The music is fine, I have no problem there. But the visuals are just awful. Not only is there an extended focus on that stupid bloody trio of Midoriya, Bakugo and Todoroki, not only is there more screentime given to characters who don't appear in MVA or EA than the main cast of the former, but the animation itself is just so stiff and lacking. It had potential, but the visuals are the worst out of any recent anime opening I've seen in a good few years and this was what got me really panicking.

Boom, a beach episode smack in the middle of Endeavour Agency to promote the upcoming movie. Boom, adapting two chapters per episode during EA. Boom, the Shirakumo episode, which I always thought was part of the War Arc and not EA. But finally, mercifully, the title leaks came and it was revealed that episode 20 of season five would be the start of MVA.

20. Out of 25. And it was pretty obvious that they weren't going to end the season with MVA, so really, up to 24. Ohhh no…

But hey, I'm an optimist sometimes. I was excited to just finally be clear of all this nonsense and get to the real good stuff. Hell, in preparation, I watched the entirety of the season up to that point. I finally realised why JTA took so long and it's one of the most depressing things I've ever learned, in a bad way. Were all those flashbacks really necessary? EA was okay, as someone who as a manga reader, already had the necessary context for the PLF stuff. The beach episode, I watched half of, got too bored and skipped the rest of. And you know what, I liked the Shirakumo chapters. They weren't as good in the anime, but it was nice to see.

And then, finally, in comes episode one of My Villain Academia, on a cold, dark August morning. I even bought Crunchyroll Premium to watch it as soon as possible, I was excited. All the messing around, all the crap, it was finally over and the time had come to enjoy what this season was really all about.

I can now safely say why Bones kept pushing back MVA, because if I was them, I would be embarrassed to show this.

No, that's not fair. I promised I wouldn't get too snarky, so let's reek things back in. As a whole, MVA has been… fine. Just fine. Not good enough to justify the bullshit, but not horrendous (mostly.) In fact, right now, I'll give a ranking of the episodes, my worst to best:

5) Episode One

4) Episode Two

3) Episode Three

2) Episode Five

1) Episode Four

Yeah. So, there's a clear pattern here, that things more or less got better as time went on. From just straight up bad, to still not great, to alright, to the final two episodes being what I would comfortably call good. This is not a good look. I'm sorry, but Episode One, an episode that I just called bad, is still one of the season's best in spite of that. That spells out awful things for this season as a whole. But what exactly made this such a disaster?

Well, cut content is the big thing. MVA in the anime cuts out:

The League's battle with the CRC

Their struggle with poverty

The sushi joke setup

All of Spinner's character

All of Rikiya's character, including most mentions of Detnerat and Miyashita

Fairly integral pieces of Skeptic's character

Most of Giran's integrity and bravery

This doesn't look too bad at first. It could be far worse. We got basically everything else from the arc, so what? Well, I would already be annoyed about all of these cuts, but the issue is that they cause a knock on effect. Without the establishment of the League's poverty, the payoff of Toga's duffle coat now makes no sense. Without the setup of Spinner's characterisation, his battle with Hanabata now feels hollow. Rikiya's surrender to the League now makes even less sense, as his love of human life and desire to cause no more death is completely non-existent. The first time Rikiya being a CEO is mentioned is in the closing minutes of the arc. The sushi scene is hamfisted into a two second flashback just so that the payoff makes some sort of sense, but again, it is hollow without it being at the start (this is also the first mention of the League's poverty and it literally happens just as they are freed from it.) Can you see how these little seemingly unimportant cuts spiral into bigger problems? I would have been pissed even if they hadn't caused some tremendous cascades, but the fact that they did just makes this from a subjective issue to an objective one.

Yes. They did some things well. Toga's backstory is mostly intact, SMP is just as satisfying as the manga, Tenko's backstory is one of the best things the anime has ever done, the awakening is very well done, I adore the PLF formation as much as I did in the manga. Everything important is intact, but as I keep saying, you cannot just keep the bare minimum and expect it to work. How about in the next arc, they decide to cut everything involving Bakugo out, and only keep him jumping in front of Midoriya because it's the only absolutely necessary thing he does in the arc? People would be pissed, and it's the same thing that's happening here. It's a problem, it's not just a bad adaptation, it leads to bad storytelling in general.

The animation. Now, I do not believe this is a be all, end all. BNHA's anime is never going to look as gorgeous as Horikoshi's art, that is a fact and I do not begrudge them for that. They have a week to draw hundreds upon hundreds of frames, it's not a process that lends itself well to good looks and the animators and artists do their best with what they have. This does not change the fact that it is extremely hit or miss. Some things, Tenko's backstory in particular, look fantastic. Other things, mostly every action scene, make me laugh at how bad they can look and some things, particularly Twice and Re-Destro's hideous designs in the anime, make me cringe. The lighting is also an issue. Garaki's lab looked fantastic, but every other scene is just boring mid-afternoon with dull, basic lighting. I don't expect huge detail, but sometimes, it fails to achieve competency and as an extremely popular show, I don't think that's okay. I don't blame the animators, I blame the higher ups. And while I wouldn't mind the poor animation and art in an MVA that at least has all the story content, this does not have that and so I am even harsher than I would have been.

MVA was rushed. That's not up for debate. It took forever to get to it and once it came, things moved so quickly that they gave me whiplash, with no time to think or lament. Now, this could be attributed to the story structure of the arc, which is essentially a series of big fights, and it just isn't as bad in the manga because I can stop at any time to catch my breath. But I think it's worth noting that the anime at least highlights these issues. Curious dies in the same episode where she first appears, really driving home how pointless she was in the end. Episode Two alone tries to cover everything from the journey to Deika up until Jin finding Toga's body. That's a lot of content to fit in one twenty minute period and it was bound to feel messy in the end. I will say that, much like everything aside from the animation, this did get better as time went on, with episodes three, four and five adapting more reasonable amounts of content, compared to one giving us almost nothing and two giving us too much.

At the end of the day, that was it. The show's over. MVA has been closed in the anime. It will never be given a chance to improve, to go from just fine to anything even close to the manga. Why did this happen? I don't think we'll ever truly know. Some blame the new movie, others the studio's lack of faith in the villains, and there are those who say that it's just how fate turned out. I personally think it's a combination of all of these things. Without the movie, that beach episode wouldn't exist, giving more time to MVA, without the studio's hesitation, we'd perhaps get stuff like an actual good OP and perhaps some more general hype for it (I mean, MVA didn't even get a trailer.) Whatever the reason is, we got what we got. My verdict is something that's very overplayed as of late, but seriously, just read the manga with the fantastic soundtrack playing in the background. The anime's adaptation of MVA is not worth the time investment, when you could read the manga in roughly the same length of time and get more content, a more coherent plot and beautiful artwork.

So, what may come next for Season Six? I don't know. Season Five has definitely been one of the most unpopular seasons in the anime, with a lot of people speaking out against it, but this mostly seems to come from the Western fanbase, so it's up in the air if Bones will learn from their mistakes. Since they'll have a full season to do presumably the War and Rouge Deku arcs, then I feel like they'll put on a better show. But we just don't know. Spinner had his spotlight stolen this time around, will Compress suffer the same fate in Season Six? Dabi and Toga will probably be handled well, since they have inexplicably high amounts of popularity, but with his own lack of recognition rivalling Spinner's, I can see Sako ending up much the same way. Time will tell, I suppose.

#my villain academia #mva #league of villains #Meta Liberation Army #studio bones #bnha season 5

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cobertaddict · 3 years

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Tagged by the lovely @bella-caecilia & the amazing @levinson-mannion thank ya loves 💕

Nickname(s): I don’t really have one, I'm not into nicknames really. Occasionally my friends call me Kar Kar (relating to my first name), but only jokingly or to annoy me lol

Zodiac: Pisces! :)

Height: 5′ 2.5 / 158.75 cm *yes, that 0.5 matters to me because I’m short lol

Last movie I watched: The Incredibles, I’m currently on a Disney movie binge to relive my childhood... Edna Mode is such a ✨icon✨

Last thing I googled: turpitude definition *it means wickedness for those who are curious lol

Favorite musician(s): I haven’t really got into a single artist per se, I’m more into bands I suppose. I do enjoy Alex Turner’s lyrical writing tho, and of course I love Arctic Monkeys. Another band I love is Alt-J, which just released a new song today, so I guess I’ll be listening to that all day :)

Song stuck in my head: U&Me by Alt-J 😂, especially the lyrics at the end of the song

Other blogs: I do have two other blogs out there, but unfortunately I do not remember the names of them. I created them when I was younger (one in middle school & the other when I was a freshman in high school), they’re were just blogs of my general interests

Blogs following: 37

Amount of Sleep: On average, about 7 hours

Lucky number: 5

What I’m wearing: a navy polo shirt with khaki shorts

Dream job: History professor... but I might change it to something that includes more writing, I got into creative writing (nonfiction) recently & have a professor mentoring me a bit in that department. I guess we’ll have to wait and see :)

Dream trip: hmm... perhaps London. I think it be fun to visit and see its historical sites/ monuments & such, plus I wouldn’t mind the cold weather :)

Languages: English, very little Spanish & German. I am a bit better at speaking German tho, but still nowhere near proficient or fluent

Favorite food: a good ol’ medium rare steak :)

Do I play an instrument: nope. I’m talentless 🙃

Favorite song: currently it’s Piledriver Waltz by Alex Turner

Random Fact: I know a lot about JFK 🙈. I’m talking about general information, family history, useless facts, random fun facts, his achievements, his flaws (there’s a lot, trust me I’m aware he’s no saint lol)... almost everything there is to know about the guy 😂. Why JFK you may ask? Well, it’s a long and weird story that only a small handful of people in my private life know, and I intend on keeping it that way lol. I’ve been reading/ researching about him since I was about 12 years old and I am now 20. There’s very seldom things I’m confident about myself, but one thing I am confident in is my knowledge about JFK 😂. I bet if I went to the JFK Presidential Library, I could get a job on the spot as a tour guide because how much I know lol. I don’t exactly look up to him, but I can definitely see how many consider him an icon. In a way, I guess you can say I fell for that Kennedy charm 😂

Tagging: @downton-bridgerton, @dreamsalones, @ohtobealady *no pressure if you don’t want to :)

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miraclekittyandbug · 3 years

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Ten Questions With a Twist Chapter 6

I. Cannot. TELL you how sorry I am for the delay. It has been a crazy couple of days, but I’m about to post the two final chapters of Ten Questions With A Twist!

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

~ Chapter 1 ~ Chapter 2 ~ Chapter 3 ~ Chapter 4 ~ Chapter 5 ~ This Chapter ~ Chapter 7 ~

“Hey, Marinette!” Adrien called, waving frantically at the bluenette. Classes had just ended and he wanted to be sure to catch her before she left in a hurry.

Marinette turned and saw Adrien there, red in the face. “Hey Adrien. Are you okay? Did you just… run to find me?”

“Umm… How many more of those questions do you have?” Adrien deliberately didn’t answer the question, for fear of seeming like the desperate mess he had turned into. “You know, from that Black Cat guy?”

A light of comprehension shone behind her eyes, “Oh, those. Just a few. I’m really sorry if they were too invasive or anything. I can always tell him it was a bad idea.”

“No! Actually, I think it’s kind of a fun idea. I’d like to answer the rest of them for you.”

“Oh! That would be great!” She put her backpack on the ground and started digging through it to find the list, a formality at this point, as she had already memorized the questions.

“Why don’t we hang out for a bit? We could go back to your place and answer these questions. Maybe play some Mecha Strike? That good luck charm you gave me might even help me beat you.” Adrien wiggled his eyebrows and Marinette blushed, but laughed.

“I’m not sure it’s that lucky, but it sounds like fun.” Her eyes widened, “Actually, could you give me just a little bit of time to clean up my room first? It’s in a pretty embarrassing state right now. Meet me at the bakery in twenty minutes?”

“Sounds good P- pal.” Adrien caught himself. He was about to call her Princess, but that would give him away. He had a challenge to win, after all.

It took about fifteen minutes to convince the Gorilla to cover for him, not too difficult to do considering he was supposed to take Adrien to his Chinese lessons directly after school. Adrien simply reminded the Gorilla that a conversation in Chinese with Mrs. Dupain-Cheng was a very practical application of the information he already knew so well. They agreed that he would pick him up from the Dupain-Cheng bakery in about two hours.

Adrien made his way, slowly, to the bakery.

The bakery, being right across the street from the school, and having such delicious treats, was very busy. Adrien waited dutifully in line and when he got to the counter, Sabine greeted him warmly. He responded in Chinese, explaining that the only way he had talked his bodyguard into letting him come was to promise to practice his Chinese. Sabine smiled and ushered him to the back. She pointed him to the staircase and told him, in Chinese, to follow it until he reached Marinette’s room, and that there would be snacks up there for the both of them.

Now, at this point, Adrien knew for a fact he was in love with this girl. But if there had been even a sliver of doubt in his mind, it all evaporated when he lifted the hatch to Marinette’s room.

She must have done a wonderful job cleaning, because apart from some half-finished sewing on a desk and a few balls of yarn on her bed, Marinette’s room was spotless. But that wasn’t what caught his eye. Leaning over her computer, attempting to plug in the game console, Marinette was humming contentedly with a cookie in her mouth. The picture of it all was so endearing, Adrien hated to alert her to his presence. However, he thought it might be creepy if she were to turn around and find him staring, so he cleared his throat.

Marinette made a noise that could only be described as a squeak, and bit down on the cookie, causing a portion of it to fall to the floor. “Adrien! I didn’t see you there! Come on in, I’ve got snacks!”

He climbed the final steps into her room and reached for a cookie, “Don’t mind if I do.”

Once Marinette had plugged in the console correctly and booted up the game, they chose their players and began. It didn’t take long for Marinette to secure a lead, so Adrien thought a distraction was in order.

“So what about those questions?”

Marinette was silent for a moment before speaking, “I know you’re just trying to distract me. But to prove a point, I will ask these questions AND win this round at the same time. Just watch.”

“Jeez, B- Marinette, that’s pretty harsh,” he said, playfully. He was learning that it would be very difficult to refrain from calling her by her nicknames. “Won’t you go easy on me? Please?” Adrien made puppy dog eyes at the screen, leaning forward so that she would hopefully catch a glimpse of his pouty lips and fast blinking eyes. Not two minutes later, he flung himself back into his seat, having been defeated.

Marinette placed her controller onto the desk in front of them, flashing him a sympathetic look. “And I wasn’t even distracted with those questions.”

“Alright,” Adrien relented, “What are they?”

“Okay, well, the question that seemed to make you sick might not be a good one to start off with…”

Adrien remembered his odd behavior earlier, and how stupid he had been to not see it sooner. “No, really, I’m fine. Shoot!”

“Okay, what’s your dream job?”

Adrien pretended to think, as if this question were a surprise to him, “I’d like to be a stay at home dad one day.”

“That’s so sweet! I’d like to be a designer one day. Have my own fashion line, company, that kind of thing. What’s your favorite movie?”

“The Princess Bride.”

“Isn’t that a bit of a chick flick?”

“There’s sword fighting and pirates and impossible odds! And anyway, what’s wrong with chick flicks?”

Marinette quickly defended herself, “There’s nothing wrong with chick flicks, I guess I pegged you as more of a studio Ghibli guy.”

Goodness, it had been a year or two since his last binge of those movies, “Oh, studio Ghibli is amazing! But still, there’s nothing like Wesley rolling down a hill screaming ‘As you wish’ only for Buttercup to fling herself down with him.”

Marinette started giggling, “I totally forgot about that part! Oh, I’ll have to rewatch that movie sometime soon. Favorite dessert?”

“Easy, the macarons from your parents bakery.”

“Really?” Marinette responded, “I’m flattered! What flavor?”

“That passionfruit one is my all time favorite, but that’s only seasonal. I really like any of the fruit ones.”

“Good to know! The other questions are pretty basic. What’s your name?”

Adrien put on a face and spoke in an accent, “My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die.”

Marinette laughed and Adrien decided it was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard.

“What school do you go to?”

“Hogwarts.”

She rolled her eyes, “No, seriously.”

Adrien looked at her, eyes calculating, “Is there a reason you want this guy to know all the answers?”

“No!” she crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair, “We just have to give the guy a chance. And anything he doesn’t guess correctly, I don’t have to tell him. So it’s not like I’m giving him all your information or anything.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Adrien said, leaning forward. Marinette blushed as if she knew exactly what he meant, but he continued anyway. “You like this guy, don’t you? You want him to guess correctly so you can go on a date with him!”

“What?!” Marinette acted repulsed by this, but her blush only deepened, “No way! He’s just a friend!”

“But you want to give him a chance.”

She seemed to hold her breath, making her face even redder, but then released and deflated, placing her head in her hands with her elbows on her knees. “I don’t know. Honestly, I probably like this guy a lot, I’ve just been so caught up on… this other guy for so long. It’s so confusing.”

“Have you thought about meeting him? You know, in person?”

Marinette lifted her head and looked at the ceiling instead, “Yeah. I have. I mean, this black cat guy is my best friend. We tell each other everything. He’s the only one who knows about this big part of my life and I rely on him for so much. He’s so sweet and really understanding about me wanting to keep our real names out of it.”

Adrien winced, but Marinette didn’t notice. He felt awful. She had always been so adamant that they not know each other’s identities. But he just happened upon it! One coincidence led to another, led to some questions, led to a point where he couldn’t turn back. “So you don’t want him to know who you are?”

“Well I wouldn’t say that.” Her hand went to the back of her neck and she rubbed it anxiously. “If we somehow found out, I’d honestly be thrilled. I even went so far as to ask Master F- forum.” Marinette blanched, looking Adrien directly in the eye, “Our forum master. The guy that runs the forum that we chat on. I went so far as to ask him about meeting in real life and he just smiled. He said ‘The wheels of life are in motion, but you cannot determine the speed’. I have no idea what that means, but he’s notoriously cryptic.” Adrien was going to say something, but Marinette was on a rant, so he sat back and listened. “And it’s like, he’s wanted to know for a really long time. Ever since the beginning. But I was so cautious, I said no. I thought it would be dangerous for us and our families.”

“And you need to be careful, with strangers on the internet.”

“Exactly! Strangers on the internet. But then, almost immediately, I trusted him. Right away, we were inseparable. And now that I want to know, I don’t know what to do.”

Adrien couldn’t help the smile that plastered itself on his face. “Well, Marinette, I’m sure things will work out. And you never know! Maybe he’s a really good guesser.”

“Maybe.” She said, obviously glad to have gotten some things off her chest. “In the meantime, let’s sneak down and grab you a couple of macarons.”

~ Chapter 1 ~ Chapter 2 ~ Chapter 3 ~ Chapter 4 ~ Chapter 5 ~ This Chapter ~ Chapter 7 ~

Next chapter should be up by the time you read this far!

#miraculous ladybug fic #miraculous fic #adrienette #ladrien #marichat #ladynoir

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serenedash · 3 years

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I started rambling about my experience with kh and then it turned into khux and then it just turned into me rambling about Ryou and my art journey????? enjoy I guess,

it’s very long but there’s art in there :)

It’s funny to think about my kh journey as a whole tbh, I grew up watching my mom play video games, which included kh1 and 2. I wasn’t allowed to play the playstation2 we owned BUT I did have a gameboy so the first game I played was CoM (after my mom finished it ofc,) so I guess you could say I’ve always been passionate about kh “””side games””” lmao but I did fall off of kh very quickly bc again, I wasn’t allowed to play our PS2 and also I Am A Terrible Gamer I’ve Never Finished CoM I’m sorry you all had to find out like this, but then 358/2 came out when I was in middle school and!!! I didn’t care and I didn’t play idk why lol

Anyway, fast forward to high school I’m like 15 and my older sister, who HAS been keeping up with kh, has a wallpaper on her phone of roxas and ventus. And bc I haven’t kept up I say “nice roxas wallpaper” and she says “thanks but it’s roxas and ventus” and I proceeded to get so mad that I was determined to prove to her that her wallpaper was just roxas twice and then I fell down the BBS rabbit hole and suddenly I was reading about vanitas and then I’m reading the fan translations of the BBS novel and I’m crying??? I am sobbing???? and that’s how I actually got into kh for real lol we are vanitas stans before we are people,

It’s so funny how I thought I was some kh super fan, knowing all this stuff that I spent so long reading and rewatching cutscene movies, but I never once, SOMEHOW NEVER ever came across khx. It’s so absurd and bizarre I seriously have no idea how I never once encountered khx prior to khux. I suppose that has to do with the fact I wasn’t involved in the fandom? In early high school I had stepped away from fandoms as a whole and I didn’t have any interest in really posting content or interacting with fans anymore bc of how burnt out I was from a previous fandom,

but khux released! and I was so hype and excited for it! on launch day I was a senior in high school, I had ran around to every “nerd” and weeb I could find in school to ask them to join my party and fun fact about me is I have crippling social anxiety I literally refuse to start conversations irl so holy shit I was OUT HERE doing the MOST

My player just originally had my name (Matt) but everyone in my party had fun names so Ryou was born! High school was one big yugioh phase for me and ryou bakura is one of my favorite characters ever so it was just the logical name choice lol I quickly started creating Ryou, the character, as well. I was also leaving my homestuck phase and that + vanitas obsession made This character design (art circa 2016)

If y’all are familiar with my kh oc’s you might notice that keyblade now belongs to my kid Monty LOL

Anyway that got scrapped quickly for the chip and dale outfit (which is where Ryou’s trademark goggles are from <3) Goggles have been a staple of my character designs for a LONG TIME so like, it had to be done, (that’s a separate ramble about a separate oc tho)

OG Ryou was an interesting guy; he was a young party leader with this overwhelming responsibility on his shoulders bc of his status as a party leader. In his original story, he also struggled heavily with darkness, much like Terra but for Ryou it was more that the darkness was controlling him and not like a source of power like it was for Terra

A big part of early Ryou I kept, however, was the crushing awareness of loss. One of my party members (the strongest one at the time,) had left without saying a word and I was very confused and hurt. This was around the time the ephemera plot was happening so I decided to incorporate it into Ryou’s story; having him experience losing a friend to darkness since it’s so normal for wielders in Daybreak Town to just disappear, and this would unintentionally become a theme for both me and Ryou as khux friends would just randomly disappear.

I was desperate for khux at this point and I decided to watch the fan translations for khx and GOD, god, was I obsessed. I couldn’t stop thinking about the foretellers. And I’m not going off about that here bc I already did that, but I actually started entering fandom again! I did it slowly, I started on tumblr before this blog was made altho it was me sending anons to the few khux related blogs I could have lol a friend convinced me to get twitter where I got involved with the ffxv fandom, which led me to the kh fandom and eventually the khux fandom there which is what REALLY got me going on khux.

I joined discord servers, most of the servers I’m in are khux related, and from there I joined the khux oc rp (shout out to anyone there who might be reading this lol here’s some art from the beginning of the rp,)

It’s SO FUNNY how the RP influenced me so heavily. I hadn’t RP’d in YEARS, I used to have a strict no oc rp policy, but here I was? And the funny part is, I had barely developed Ryou. I had scrapped his original story and all I had was POST WAR Ryou so I literally had to reverse write him; I had only ever written him as a depressed, guilt ridden adult, but it was a fucking blast and I have such fond memories of this rp when it was active,

But anyway, this encouraged me to get more serious about art! I started drawing, writing, cosplaying, and roleplaying when I hadn’t done any of that stuff in a very long time. The first time I ever drew a background was for a deviant art khux competition actually LOL

also! I always think extremely fondly of the drawing I did of Aced in the keyblade war. It was also one of the first backgrounds I ever drew and it felt like my real starting point in the khux fandom. It got a ton of notes on here and someone wrote a tiny fic in a reblog which just made me SO HAPPY like it really felt like people were noticing me :) I was going to draw a matching Ira but!! I just never did!! One day tho, it’s on my art bucket list to redraw this along with Ira,

Aside from my personal growth, khux was great for my social life ngl, I made SO MANY friends online and got to meet a ton of people irl over the years! It’s crazy to think about all the people I now know and talk to? It honestly makes me really emotional. I’ll never forget taking the train into NYC and meeting up with discord friends. Going to conventions and talking with people about the latest khux update? Absolutely insane and those were some GOOD TIMES, if I thanked every khux friend or even just person who made an impact on me then we’d be here for a LONG TIME,

Fun fact, for my Lauriam cosplay all I needed to buy was the wig I just owned his outfit LOL also? Probably retiring that cosplay ngl people treated me like absolute garbage when I wore him and it led to a lot of confidence issues for awhile ngl. That’s probably one of the only memorable negative experiences I have with khux; it was great when khux people recognized me but for kh fans that weren’t in khux? They were FUCKING MEAN??? fuck kh fandom at large, I only care about khux fandom,

This leads me to another huge part of my experience in khux fandom: THEORIES!! I used to write SO MANY and oh my god my brain was so full all the time. It was a huge appeal for me in the fandom; I had been previously writing theory posts in the RWBY fandom and it just migrated over to khux for me lol I had done a ton of theorizing around Lauriam tbh, it was really the only reason I liked his character at all bc initially I did not care about the dandelions, anyone who wasn’t Skuld I was like “please leave Now thanks”

A funny part of khux fandom I never intended to be apart of is the MEMES, I really only started doing memes as stress relief bc college had me so busy all I had time/energy for was these quick little shit post drawings.

The first meme I made, file name “invi despair” LOL we need to get her a girlfriend smh anyway, I think in my senior year of college I did a bunch of rapid fire memes all in one month bc the stress of finals was getting so bad afdgfhdgf as far as I know my impact on this fandom will be my memes bc all I do now is enter a kh/khux server and introduce myself and I go “yeah I draw art. here’s a meme” and everyone goes OH YOU, honestly I am nothing if not a clown

I’ve talked so much idk where I’m going with this. Khux is just a good game even if the gameplay actually kind of really sucks yknow lol but it was the first game I played where I like, REALLY got into the meta and the mechanics. I used to read so much on the mechanics and watch youtube videos on which medals were worth pulling for. I was never a whale or a top player exactly, but I could rank well if I tried lol I’ve made it to the top 100 for solo rankings, my party has made it to top 10, and in pvp I’ve made top 300. I’m not the highest level in my party but FUCK do I know how to manipulate this game LOL

And with all that hard work, the strategies, the theorizing, the content I’ve made-- it’s been my life for 5 years. I’ve logged into khux almost every single day. At the end, I have logged 1820 days in khux out of 1910 days. Kinda crazy. Crazier I’ve never spent money on khux either lol the only “money” gone into it was one time my mom gave me a google play store gift card and I used it on my birthday for a VIP xemnas medal which eventually made it to regular pulls anyway but it was nice and a little treat :)

I’m not a gacha fan, I don’t care for it, so I don’t think I’ll be touching another gacha again. But for kh? This was pretty fucking awesome, even if it sucked a lot sometimes LOL It was worth it for the people I’ve met most of all I think. I would honestly be a completely different person without khux and that’s REALLY insane to think about.

#the khux hyperfixation is REAL #but yall knew this about me #there's so much more I could say but it's 2am and this is long enough already #im rambling

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anitacoknow · 3 years

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I'm feeling my emotions pretty hard today (June 14th, 2021), so it might be a good idea to start writing.

Trigger Warning:

This text post mentions suicide, death, abortion, and could be an uneasy read.

About two months ago, I almost died during a routine abortion. The way that sounds, my stomach turns and it makes the tears fall like a monsoon. Nothing about getting an abortion is easy, it is humiliating and it's a huge personal hurdle to deal with - my heart goes out to any woman who has been in that tough position. That being said, I'm not writing this for sympathy nor am I looking for negative comments or death threats, I put myself through that enough already with my own mental.

Starting this attempt to release my emotions is difficult because I'm not even sure what to say to myself. I guess I am also hopeful someone will have the right words through experience or just in general because I'm struggling to find the words within myself.

To begin, I can't have children anymore and that is the worst part; I made a decision that took future decisions, future generations, future plans away from me. So, to anyone who wanted to go in on me at the sight of the word abortion: fate ironically beat you to the punch.

I made a decision that my heart wasn't wholly in and it almost cost me my life and it cost my daughter's life (I don't need scientific fact proving she was just a clump of cells and hadn't begun processing pain or emotion or whatever, doesn't change shit as far as empathy goes, so please shove it).

Her birth name was to be Juniper.

To give some insight, Washington State allows abortions up to 28 weeks. For those who aren't aware of pregnancy cycles/trimesters, 28 weeks is still half way through the pregnancy and the beginning of the second trimester. The fetus during this stage has become more human like and all that science stuff. I had my abortion at 21 weeks, in a clinic and the process shouldn't have gone the way it did.

On the second day of my procedure, I was put under anesthesia and when I woke up I wasn't all there. Before this, I had never experienced being put under anesthesia to my recollection, so what I thought I was feeling was normal. It wasn't until I realized I had been losing conciousness that things started to feel unnatural. I was laid on the floor of the "recovery room" and I started to regain conciousness fast. There was a lot of blood between my legs and mentioning it to them seemed to make the blood pool more. It wasn't long after that the doctor that performed the procedure squated next to me to tell me she needed to put me back under.

For the next bit, I apologize to the squeamish.

There was another woman in the room with me who had just come out of her own anesthesia, she was ironically a CNA, who started to show signs of worry when I wasn't making the anticipated recovery. The doctor had her removed from the room and leaned back in to tell me that they couldn't locate the fetal head and a few limbs. When they attempted to have me walk back to the room, I fainted and was placed back on the floor. The nurses wheeled me into the surgical room and helped me back on to the table, to which I protested them allowing me to see my ride. I'm hesitant to mention the father in this because it is sensitive, so I apologize for how he is mentioned in further comments. It wasn't until I saw him that things started to blur and I started losing conciousness again.

I feel it is also important to explain what I felt, which was extremely cold. My nipples were harder than they had ever been and despite the numerous blankets, warmed and otherwise, that were placed on me, my body didn't feel warmth until the EMTs carted me to the ambulance and the sun touched me; and again when I was placed on the surgical table at the hospital. Mentally, I don't think I was aware of anything bad happening to my body. Even after hearing they lost the fetal head, I don't think I ever reacted. If I had to say, I was mentally blissful - which isn't something I have ever experienced. I literally couldn't care less, everything was a joke (which is also part of my personality when dealing with assumed stressful situations) to me up until I arrived at the ER and they put me under before telling me that they might have to remove my whole uterus. My last words would have been: "oh, this table is so warm!" to the doctor who saved my life. When I woke up 24 hours later, there was a tube in my throat and I was tied to the bed (which Hollywood doesn't show in movies or T.V. so when you are experiencing it, it is really scary and it fucking hurts.) in ICU.

So, what the fuck happened?

Well, my uterus at the time of the abortion was about 2 pounds heavy and 2 feet long; Juniper was about the size of a sweet potato to give you an image. During the abortion, the doctor perforated my uterus, the length of the tear was about a foot long according to my surgeon/aftercare doctor. The abortion itself was supposedly no more than 10 minutes, but I was apparently under for roughly an hour. My ride expected me out in two hours, but after speaking to him, started to worry when I hadn't responded to texts and the elapsed time came to four hours. During the removal of the fetus, after perforation had occurred, I laid there internally bleeding for several hours. The human body can hold minimum 5 litres of blood (or to give you an physical idea, a gallon [US] of milk about) depending on the size of the body and health. A human can die from losing 2 litres of blood, but I survived after losing 4 litres internally, which is probably what saved my life. I vaguely remember being lifted on to the gurney and I vaguely remember the ride to the ER. I was given 7 units of blood, my uterus was stitched in 8 layers and the fetal head had nestled itself behind my kidney, so I had an emergency cesarean, plus a JP drain placed to remove all the blood that pooled in my abdomen.

The hospital experience itself is a different story and makes the whole ordeal just as sad. The only solace I had were two nurses that really didn't judge me, outside of that, everyone there had an opinion and wore it on their face and in their treatment. My last interaction with one of the doctors who helped performed my "miraculous" surgery and was probably the most surprising bit because it included a little racism. My partner is white and he is cisgender. Before his appearance, said doctor largely made fun of my pain tolerance when removing surgical tape from my incision area and inner thighs. If you haven't had a cesarean or don't know exactly what it is, after making the initial incision, the doctors have to literally tear the muscles apart to get to your uterus. In my case, I also had to have my intestines removed to get to my kidneys. Needless to say, my midsection was very sensitive outside of my low pain threshold. During the stint, he very angrily asked me if I wanted to remove the bandage myself while showing his frustration in his whole body and face. At that point, I just said fuck it and let him tear the bandage from my body with a little skin along with it. After a quick look, he stood up and asked if I cared if he left to deliver a baby and he didn't wait for a response, I assume because my face probably said exactly what he wanted. I sat there and cried until my partner got there and when he showed face again, his bedside manner gave me whiplash. He released us after I made a large fuss about my care and I left holding back tears until we were out of sight of the hospital.

The day before I almost died, I sat with the owner of the clinic who also doubles as a nurse there, and cried to her about my fear and the little consolation I had because she was kind. I have had two previous abortions during a previous marriage that I also didn't want to have, but being in an abusive relationship, you give and take a lot, that included. I confided in her that those two experiences, both at Planned Parenthood, were riddled in racist bedside manner and left me uneasy about abortions and clinics in general. Being a woman of color herself, she cried with me and assured me that things would be fine, in fact the woman doing my abortion would also be a woman of color. She called me two days later, I could hear her sadness, but it also left me in such a state of panic that I ended the conversation without saying much.

Women of color do not have great mortality rates when it comes to medical intervention, especially during pregnancies/child birth. However, uterus perforation during an abortion only occurs at a rate of .3%, so I'm part of a medical anomaly (it isn't an anomaly at all, she just fucked up). Beyond that, women of color, specifically black women are more likely to suffer from medical racism during aftercare. One of the biggest glaring problems being that black women are percieved to have a high pain threshold, something a lot of people lack.

Since this experience, which is missing a lot of detail, I've gone in an out of depressive mania. Which, to say the least, I can handle because I've dealt with it for years. What I can't handle are commercials, or even cherub faces in person, or the fact that my step-sister announced her pregnancy to our parents on mother's day. I can't handle the notifications of memories from my pictures that spotlight some of the photos I took during my pregnancy. I can't handle that my neighbors had just moved in and had just given birth right before being released from the hospital. Movie montages about children growing up making lumps swell in my throat. For the first few weeks I would wake up screaming, or crying, or begging whoever not to take my baby from me. I tried to cope with sex that I couldn't realistically have because I was healing. I took up smoking cigarettes again because it is the only thing I could physically feel relax my incision area. My daughter, who is 9 years old, asks me how I'm doing when I don't realize I'm zoned out and crying.

Overall, I wish they would have let me die. It isn't like I haven't tried to kill myself before and I always secretly hoped I'd find a way to just go peacefully. Of all my attempts at suicide, the most serious was drinking bleach and all I got from that was minor chemical burn in my esophagus.

Sitting there during my last follow up, knowing damn well I wasn't going to get good news, I asked the doctor who saved my uterus and life if I could safely get pregnant. I was told by another I could have a child, but it would most likely be harrowing because my uterus wouldn't be able to house a full term fetus and they would most like be born premature. There was also another possibility she kept from me, which my doctor with a penchant for being very frank said: "would end up taking my uterus or almost killing me."

Word for word: if I get pregnant, my uterus would rupture at the healed incision.

And what, what am I supposed to think or feel now that my worst fear finally materialized? I'm realistically mad at myself for materializing my greatest fear. I also hate myself for being so upset at something I caused because I know others are in my situation for reasons beyond their control.

I thought writing this would make me feel better, would make it so I wouldn't have to mentally relive it, but I just feel worse. My partner lost his job because he took a leave of absence to take care of me and that's to say nothing of him taking time off at the beginning of the year because he needed brain surgery. The job I had interviewed for earlier in the week kept my position open, but on returning to work found I couldn't keep my anxiety to a minimum and eventually asked for leave of absence. So now, we are struggling financially and I blame myself for that too, which I know I shouldn't.

I can't begin to explain how unsure and confused I feel every day. Some times I find myself pacing or walking around and I don't even know what I'm doing. Hearing or seeing emergency vehicles makes me panic. I've had to force myself to look down during driving because I'm so fucking scared.

Idk, I'm sorry to whoever is reading this. I just needed to vent.

#mentally drained #near death experience #abortion #black lives matter #selflove #mental dump #creative release #writing therapy #mental heath support #mental wellbeing #talking to myself #talking it out

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descendantofthesparrow · 4 years

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Commission work -Happy Family - Harry Hook x Reader - oneshot

sorry the kids are all white AF XS and yes Arella is Thomas’ sister Rachel XD she fit best for what i was looking for. and yes....killian looks alot older than 12 but that is the youngest pic of Thomas i could find that wasnt younger than 5

*Arella is the oldest at 15, Killian is 12, the twins are 8, and Urania is 4!*

*Draco is 15 and is Mal and Bens oldest son*

@musicarose (commissioner)

“boys! Dinners ready!” you yelled at the upstairs area of your beach house, hearing the tumble of the twins and Killian racing to get downstairs.

“ ‘ere comes the circus” Harry chuckled, placing a small plastic plate in front of the 4-year-old Urania and kissing her forehead. she hummed in delight and stuck the cut up pieces of alfredo chicken enchilada in her mouth, she had was missing her front teeth and unable to cut her food properly yet, so you and harry still cut her food up. You set up the twin's plates and waited for Arella to finish filling her plate.

“muove!” Damian screeched, pushing at his older brother Killian who was holding him back from the dining room “fuud! Mom Killian won’ lemme go!”

“Killian, let your brother go” you sighed, tapping your fingers on your arm as he sighed and released Damian shirt collar, the young boy raced into the room, jumping into his seat next to his brother and chowing down on his food. Killian snorted and got his food, setting his plate next to Arella’s and grabbing a soda from the fridge.

Harry ruffled Killains hair as he passed him to get his food, sitting across from you as you all ate dinner.

“so..” Killian started, a low teasing tone to his voice “I heard tha’ Arella’s got a boy- ah!” Arella chugged the rest of her juice and chucked her cup at him, hitting Killian right in the forehead.

“ten points” you joked, standing from your chair and walking over to Killian, examining his head “you okay baby?”

“jus’ a bruise mama” he muttered, glaring at Arella, who stuck her tongue out at him. “wha’d yeh do tha’ for!”

“you know why” she snarled between her teeth “don’t do that again or its your foot” Killian snorted and rolled his eyes.

“aye right, yeh jus’ don’ wan’ dad ta know about Dr-“ Arella yelled and attempted to dive over the table at Killian, Harry caught her mid-leap and pulled her away from the table, chuckling to himself as the 15-year-old wriggled around, screeching in his arms to no avail of getting free to kill her brother.

“LET MEH A’T ‘EM!” she screeched, her father's Scottish tongue drifting into her voice. You cleared your throat, both Killian and Arella freezing as soon as they heard the sound.

“Arella, your dad will be putting you down, you will NOT being attempting to kill your brother, and Killian, you will stop teasing your sister over something she doesn’t want us to know right now, if it's important she will tell us herself, understood?”

The teen and pre-teen glared at each other for a moment before they nodded, Arella slumping in Harry's arms and pouting down at the floor. You patted Killian's arm and nodded at his food.

“now finish up, or no dessert” Killian made a noise of complaint but obeyed, sliding back into his chair and continuing to eat his food.

The rest of dinner was like normal, usual stories of the day or snarking competitions, the twins being a mess, Urania being the calmest at the table, Arella and Harry sneakily tossing food at each other.

And you, sitting at the end of the table, opposite of Harry, smiling at your family of 7, the people who made your entire life on the isle worth it.

You knocked on Arellas door later that night, waiting for her call before you entered “come in” she yelled, smiling slightly as you stepped in, two root beer floats in your hands. “oooh thanks mom” she chirped, holding out her hand for the dessert and placing it on her desk after you handed it to her.

You hummed and sat on her bed, spooning at the vanilla ice cream in the cup, “if you don’t mind, would you like to tell me what Killian was teasing you about?” you asked, giving Arella a supportive smile as she sputtered on her words, almost choking on her spoon.

“oh-um I-I” you shushed her and leaned forward, putting your hand on her knee.

“you don’t have to sweetie, but just know, I will only be supportive of you….unless you start taking illegal drugs, that’s a different thing altogether”

“no mom” she laughed, patting your hand and leaning back in her chair “um….well….how old were you when you started dating dad?”

“well….dating want a thing on the isle, but we started….”hanging out” together around 13, and made it official when we were 18 after the barrier went down” you explained, moving your hand around as you spoke.

She nodded “well….hypothetically, if I got a boyfriend, hypo-“ you laughed and nodded, gesturing for her to go on.

“hypothetically I get it~” you snickered, sipping at the root beer in the glass.

Arella giggled and sighed “well, if I got a boyfriend, right now….what would you say about it?”

You stayed silent for a moment, a bright smile blooming on your face, you could see the tension in Arellas shoulders release. “I would say ‘that’s amazing sweetie’ does he treat you well, and do I know him?”

“yes and yes” Arella confidently spoke, grinning to herself and messing with the silver and purple bracelet on her wrist.

Your eyes drifted down to her bracelet, and then to your “matching” red and (favorite color) one Harry had given to you when you were younger and on the isle.

And you knew exactly who gave her that bracelet “so Draco huh?” Arella turned red and squeaked, covering her mouth and looking at you in shock.

“how’d you-?!” she screeched, groaning as you pointed at her bracelet.

“you seem to forget i’m very good at reading people darling” you chucked, you stood from her bed, cupping her cheek and kissing the top of her head “hes a sweetheart and has been your best friend since you two were born, Harry and Mal may not like each other all that much but they haven't stopped your friendship i’m sure they wouldn’t stop your relationship, and if they did i’ll skin em” you chirped, grinning as Arella giggled and leaned up to hug you.

“I love you mom”

“I love you too my raven~” you hummed, setting your glass down and holding Arella close.

You and Ben could hardly hold in your laughter as Harry and Mal stared at Draco and Arella in shock, the two teens had come out and told them about their relationship, their hands intertwined tightly.

The two were terrified but were comforted by their other parents' stifled laughter.

“dad?” Arella shakily asked, her shoulder tensing as Harry locked eyes with Draco and then turned back to Arella.

“if yeh get married, don’ ye DARE put meh next ta dragon girl” he huffed, pointing his thumb at the blue and purple-haired girl next to him, who didn’t respond, staring down the teen's interlocked hands.

“mom?” Draco murmured, her green eyes locking with his.

“…..oh! fully supportive but…really? Do I have to see Harry more often?” she whined, flopping on her side on the couch and pouting at her son. Harry whipped around to glare at her, puffing his cheeks.

“same sentiment princess” he grumbled.

Draco and Arella let out a breath of relief, giggling loudly as you and Ben finally burst.

“for once they agree on something” Ben chuckled, standing and hugging his son into his side, you giggled and walked past Arella, kissing her cheek and grabbing Harry's hands.

“now Harry, do you have any problems with these two?” you hummed, cupping his jaw.

“no, I jus’ don’ wanna be ‘around Mal all the time” he whined, leaning to look at Arella and Draco “yeh have treated ‘er well since yeh two were babes, I'll overlook the fact yer mom's Mal” you snorted and kissed his jaw.

“good pirate” you joked, you turned to the two teens and opened your arms, Arella barreling into you for a hug. “come on Draco~” you sang giggling as he stepped into your arms with a grin.

“thank you Mrs. Hook” he muttered, nuzzling his cheek against your arm.

“no problem kiddo, thank you for making my daughter happy” you hummed. The two teens pulled away, Arella kissing your cheek before turning to Draco and giving him a bright smile.

He grinned back and looked to his mom and harry “we were planning to go to the movies tonight? Is tha-“ you waved your hand in dismissal.

“its no biggie, hella safer than Harry and I’s first couple dates, have fun, and keep to the sidewalks”

“Thanks, mom, love you dad” Arella beamed, running to hug Harry quickly before grabbing her jacket and walking out of the house with Draco, hands locked together between them.

“well….that wasn’t so bad was it?” Ben chirped, rubbing Mals shoulder as she blankly stared a the wall “Mal?”

“no” she laughed, rubbing her face “just more shocking than anything” she stood and turned around, giving Ben a kiss “let's go home shall we, i’ll text Draco to tell me when they’re done so we can pick em up” you and Harry nodded, waving the royal couple goodbye.

You and Harry stood in silence for a few moments, before you turned to harry with a small smile on your face “that went well” you chirped, leaning up and pressing a chaste kiss to Harry's lips.

“MOM” Jason screamed from upstairs, bounding out of his room, eyes teary and his face red “DAMIAN PUSHED ME! “NO I DININ MAMA HES LYING!” you and Harry sighed, smiling at each other and walking to the twins.

“Alright alright, let's get that cheek looked at huh baby?”

---end~(I loved writing this X3)--

Supportive parents harry and (y/n) are supportive!

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#descendants #Descendents #disney descendants #harry hook #harry hook descendants #harry hook x reader #harry hook imagine

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beneaththetangles · 3 years

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Light Novel Club, Chapter 28: Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai, Vol. 1

Welcome to our Light Novel Club discussion of Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai!

As a reminder, the Light Novel Club discussions are now held publicly on the Beneath the Tangles Discord server. I bring this up because this time around, we actually have a number of participants in our discussion on Discord, which made for a very lively discussion this time around! That said, because of the sheer volume of the discussion, we cannot post the entire discussion here without making the post way too long, so we instead have a highlight reel of our discussion. So let’s jump in to the discussion on this light novel that inspired a popular anime, featuring a rascal, a bunny girl, and a strange take on Schrödinger’s cat!

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1. What are your overall thoughts on the novel?

Firefox789: My overall thoughts on the novel can be summarized like this: it was an enjoyable and addictive light novel to read. The character interactions really made me enjoy the novel even more than I expected, as some parts of the novel couldn’t be adapted into the anime whether due to the challenge of including them or time/budget contraints (ex. Sakuta’s inner monologue). Character interactions were definitely one of the strong points of the light novel.

Closet0taku: It’s interesting to approach a light novel after having seen the anime (and movie). I enjoyed the LN as it gave more depth to all of the characters I encountered in the anime while also setting up the mysteries that would take another half-dozen light novels to solve. I think, though, that had I read LN #1 first before the anime was released, I’m not sure I would have continued on with the books; the scars on Sakuta’s chest and Kaede’s syndrome might not have intrigued me enough to continue. On the other hand, the denoument with Koga might have been the hook to keep me going. Having very much enjoyed the anime and movie, I find the LNs are indispensable in fully appreciating the whole story, and what points the author was trying to make about culture and relationships.

stardf29: I definitely liked the whole idea of various socio-psychological issues being reflected in the real, physical world. It’s the sort of teenage drama I enjoy from all these anime/manga/light novels in high school settings, since they are issues that people struggle with even after their teenage years, and the novels definitely worked in those struggles well. The novel could also be fun when it wanted to be fun, and the relationship between Sakuta and Mai was also nice, so yeah, definitely a great read overall.

RyanDH: I thought the novel was very fun and relatable. Lots of times, depictions of teenagers can be cringey or out-of-touch, but I found all of the dialogue and characters to be believable and well-written.

Twwk: I mostly enjoyed it! I sometimes got caught up in how poorly the series functions as science fiction—more on that later— and in what I felt was novice-level writing from the author, but when I wasn’t tripped up by those foibles, I blazed through the volume, ravenous for one page after another. It was a fun read.

BambiBethy: I have a confession…I’m only on chapter two because busy mom life! So it’s too soon for me to assess the book as a whole.

2. What made the light novel an enjoyable read for you? (via Firefox789)

stardf29: One reason I like light novels as a medium is how we get to see the thought processes of the characters, and getting into Sakuta’s head here definitely added to how much I enjoyed the novel.

RyanDH: Sakuta was an extremely relatable protagonist for me. I was in a similar situation while still in high school: no phone and a bit of a cynical view of the atmosphere and politics involved in being a teenager. Phones open up so many doors for social interaction, but it also means that nearly every second of young peoples’ lives is now dedicated to maintaining and improving their relationships with their classmates. Look at Kaede’s situation: one missed message and suddenly her friends and her whole class had turned on her. They never get to be truly alone, and I find the whole concept really interesting to try to understand at a deeper level.

BambiBethy: So far I am really enjoying the banter between Mai and Sakuta.

3. If both an anime and LN/manga for the series is available, do you have a preference as to which order you approach them? (via Closet0taku)

FIrefox789: I have learned that my best approach for getting into a title is see how the community reacts to how well the source material is being adapted. If the community thinks that a light novel has a decent to above average adaptation, I will usually watch the anime first and then decide whether I want to read the novels. Bunny Girl Senpai is a case where I was sold on the series to the point I decided to fork out $140 on buying the TV series and movie on Blu-ray and also buying the novels as they released in English officially. However, if it’s the case I hear that the anime isn’t doing the best job at adapting the source material (ex. Horimiya 2021), I will most likely stick with the source material whether it’s the manga or light novel. Manga is sometimes a debatable option for me because I have never liked manga adaptations of light novels as most of the time, they deviate from the novels.

stardf29: So I’ve had the opportunity to approach anime adaptations from all angles: seeing the anime first and then reading the novel, reading the novel first and then watching the anime, and a “hybrid” approach where I read some of the novel, and then watch the anime which goes beyond the point where I read. While I would generally prefer to read as much of the novel as will be adapted in the anime before watching said anime, realistically I often don’t have the time to read that much with all the other stuff there is to read. So the “hybrid” approach is a nice way to see how much I might be interested in an anime adaptation in the first place, and get a feel for how good the adaptation is.

RyanDH: I definitely like to read something before watching it, if possible. It gives my imagination more creative freedom to create the world and characters on my own, rather than just imagine the ones I’m already used to seeing.

BambiBethy: I actually just finished the anime and movie. I usually don’t like reading books if I’ve already seen the live or animated adaptation, but in this case it’s ok since I can imagine the characters from the anime. Also there’s a lot more depth in the LN.

4. In the first chapters of volume, it’s revealed that this novel would be almost a nonlinear story. What was your reaction to this literary writing style? (via Firefox789)

Close0taku: I personally like non-linear novels, films, anime, and other media. It’s a challenge to the viewer to make sense of it. I know some viewers do not like it and find it distracting or confusing—tell me a story, don’t make it convoluted—since it’s obvious that the narrator knows exactly what has happened. But that’s really not how we live life, is it? We often find out “the rest of the story” after we’ve been introduced to people or places; besides, if we were (in Bunny Girl Senpai) to learn at the start exactly the reason for Kaede’s illness or Sakuta’s scars, it wouldn’t be nearly as dramatic. I like mysteries, and while the classic mystery seems linear, it shares the same sort of twists and turns as you discover more information. So, I have no issue with it.

RyanDH: I found the story easy to follow, and it moved at a pace that was just fast enough to progress, but also slow enough to have solid characterization of the main couple, as well as some of the side characters.

stardf29: The funny thing is, this series shares some similarities with Bakemonogatari, which is also non-linear in nature and starts after the protagonist has experienced supernatural events already. (I even read the first Bakemonogatari novel soon after reading this novel…) I think it’s an interesting setup for various reasons. First of all, you don’t have to waste much time with the protagonist getting shocked that supernatural events are happening in the first place. Second, it provides some hooks for future content to revisit the past. Perhaps the most notable thing is yet another thing that Rascal shares with Monogatari: The first story that is told is the one focusing on the girl that the guy is primarily romatically interested in. Because other girls are involved with what happened to them beforehand, this helps “keep them out” of the romance picture; I don’t have to worry about getting too attached to those other girls and not being able to support the “main girl.”

Twwk: That’s really interesting that you make that connection to Monogatari, stardf29. I don’t recall thinking it when I watched the anime series, but while reading the light novel, I kept returning to Monogatari and thinking that it must have influenced it. Rascal is almost a more palatable version of Monogatari, easy to engage with but also less creative (not that a bunny girl isn’t an interesting way to begin a novel series!).

5. The novels get a lot of praise for portraying the relationship between our main duo, Sakuta and Mai, very well and with an entertaining writing style. What do you think makes their relationship so special? (via Firefox789)

RyanDH: What was so funny and likable about their synergy was the shock factor involved in some of their banter. I could NEVER imagine saying to a girl some of the things Sakuta says while poking fun at Mai, but the fact that she responded similarly always made me laugh.

Closet0taku: Sakuta has almost no filter. He often says what he feels. He has a lot of respect and integrity where Mai is concerned, but he can’t turn off his teenage self, either. He’s unapologetic about trying to steal a kiss from Mai (he’s unsuccessful in LN 1), if not more. Mai tries to match Sakuta’s frankness, but falls short, and embarrasses herself when she does. It’s this twisted repartee where both are learning about the other through a variety of trying circumstances as they both come to grips with the strange goings-on.

stardf29: There’s something to be said for the gap in Sakuta’s and Mai’s statuses: Sakuta is kind of the loser guy in school (for various reasons), while Mai is a famous actress. Under normal circumstances, the two shouldn’t even ever talk with each other, but because of the whole Adolescence Syndrome, they find not only a reason to talk, but also a chance to understand each other beyond the statuses they have. As others have said, they also play off each other well, which helps balance out the more serious moments between the two.

BambiBethy: Their personalities are amazing! The way they just clicked when they first met is really special. I love imagining their banter and facial expressions.

6. What do you think of Sakuta and Mai individually as characters?

Firefox789: Sakuta is definitely a great portrayal of a non-typical male teenage light novel protagonist. What makes Sakuta a great character isn’t that he manages to get the girl, but how he does. Sakuta has enough self confidence in himself that he can approach the beautiful actress, Mai Sakurajima, without having second doubts about how he sees himself in comparison to others. He never compares himself to Mai or gets down on himself for wanting to approach her. Sakuta felt attracted to Mai and just approached her without any second thoughts. A reason why Mai was willing to open up to Sakuta was because he was honest to her about why he was approaching her and why he wanted to help her. If Sakuta had lied to Mai even once, it would have been game over for him, so him being honest to her was the one reason why his relationship with her was so successful. A minor complaint about Sakuta is that he can sometimes blurt out the most blatant and inappropriate comments known to a teenage boy, but he has enough good qualities to himself that most readers can overlook his flaws.

Closet0taku: Sakuta is a noble soul trapped in a teenager’s body. “I just can’t ignore someone in trouble,” is his life philosophy. He’s proven it with Kaede, and will demonstrate it again with Mai. I think the consistency of his character is maintained throughout the LN. As far as Mai is concerned…she’s a little more undefined as a person—we don’t get to hear her inner monologue, so we have to take her at face value. I can’t say whether a celebrity would really act this way, but I am happy Mai is doing so.

7. What do you think of the other characters that appear in this volume?

Closet0taku: I like how all the other characters have their quirks—the dismissive Futaba, vulnerable Kaede, brash Koga, reliable Kunimi. They’re not terribly well-developed yet—that will happen in the future—but they are good touchstones for Sakuta to interact with as he moves throughout his day trying to get to the bottom of Mai’s Adolescent Syndrome.

stardf29: I don’t have too much to add about the main characters; they’re both good protagonists for this story as others have said. There sure are some fun side characters, though, which is good because they will be in focus in later volumes. Kaede is your classic Overly Attached Little Sister, though perhaps she has more reason of being so attached given her past. Kunimi is a nice guy friend to support Sakuta (his girlfriend is kind of a jerk, though, to put it nicely). Tomoe is… silly. I mean, it’s one thing to kick a guy because you misunderstood when he was helping a kid, but to ask him to kick you back as penance? Definitely an amusing first impression. And Rio provides the scientific info dumps and assistance with figuring the whole “Adolescent Syndrome” out, and I do like these sorts of “professor” characters like her.

Twwk: Aside from the mains, I definitely found myself liking Tomoe. As stardf29 notes…so silly. What an unusual introduction!

8. What do you think of how the story uses the idea of “Adolescent Syndrome” in general, and the concept of Schrödinger’s cat in this volume?

Twwk: It confused me—though that’s not the novelist’s fault. I thought Adolescent Syndrome was a referrence to being a chuunibyou, as if these occurrences were chuunibyou come to life. But I later gathered that the syndrome is actually completely made up for this series. I do think that using this invented syndrome though, along with the use science elements, weakens the story. Before the discussion above comparing the series to Monogatari, it was more The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya that I was most reminded of. That series—and Monogatari as well—uses the supernatural in a way that makes the science fiction possible, and thus veers it toward a direction where the novel doesn’t much have to explain its science. But here, it feels like we’re supposed to accept the science presented, and that’s problematic because it’s not written particularly well. It feels like the writer did about an hour of research and just went with it, which is fine if your story involves espers and goddesses along with aliens and time travelers, but not when Sakuta turns to Rio for “hard science” advice. If the author just forgot the science angle and say, made Rio into some other type of character (she doesn’t particularly seem a good scientist as she is, by the way, guzzling coffee from beakers), I would have more readily accepted Schrödinger’s cat as an idea just put forward by an adolescent, and it would work in this supernatural environment.

stardf29: I actually liked the usage of Schrödinger’s cat in the story; maybe I’m just more interested in science overall, but I thought the reflection of this bit of quantum mechanics into real-world phenomenon was done pretty well. It’s not so much science working in weird ways to me as it is some kind of supernatural force that has “hijacked” scientific concepts. In that sense it does make me curious as to what this whole “Adolescent Syndrome” actually is, and if we’ll learn more about where it comes from.

RyanDH: So well said stardf29, I agree 100%. A supernatural force “hijacking” science is exactly the vibe I got from that portion of the book, and that theme definitely carried over into the second book as well. I believe our intrinsic need to understand and classify the world and wrap up all of these findings into what we call “science” can leave us with certain biases when we experience something so out of the ordinary

Twwk: So you both like how science is woven into the plot? “Hijacking” science is an interesting way of seeing it, but it’s use in this novel remains a wall for me. When you allow your work to enter the realm of science fiction, it needs to feature a sense of realism related to that science, and somehow talking science without letting it guide the principles of the story feels like a cheap plot device, like, “Let’s throw science in this story to make it distinct! One of the girls can even be a science nerd!” But perhaps that’s just coming from someone with way too much bias for sci-fi novels.

stardf29: Maybe likewise because I’m more of a fantasy person, I can think of this more as “the fantasy-zation of science” rather than science in and of itself?

Closet0taku: I’m fine with the scientific parallels to quantum theory and relativity, and in particular the theories of observation (which go beyond physics and into philosophy) that give rise to Mai’s manifestation of the syndrome.

9. How much can you relate to the struggles that Sakuta or Mai go through?

Twwk: Related to the question earlier about their relationship, I like “watching” Sakuta and Mai. They have a fun report. I don’t necessarily relate to them because I find them a bit idealized—Sakuta is a little too self-aware, confident, and strong, and is too easily able to charm Mai, who on the other hand is walking wish fulfillment—though if I had to pick one, I find her more relateable in the sense that she’s struggling under a weight that she doesn’t necessarily need to carry, but still is unable to lift off herself. I don’t think that’s unusual for people to experience, especially when you’re a teenager.

stardf29: I think what I relate to most, moreso than the characters’ Adolescent Syndrome-related issues, is the whole idea that there’s some kind of “atmosphere” within a certain group (like the students at a school) and how people will get looked down upon for trying to ruin that atmosphere by doing something that “stands out.” That is definitely something that I feel is stifling about socializing, and Sakuta breaking past that to confess his love for Mai was a great “ruin the atmosphere” moment in the book.

Closet0taku: I don’t know that I can relate to their particular struggles, as I think high schools in the U.S. are somewhat less focused on the “atmosphere” and the impenetrable cliques that form. I won’t say it’s unique to Japan, but it is certainly endorsed by its culture.

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Thanks for reading, and special thanks to everyone who participated in the discussion! I would love for future discussions to also have readers like you joining in, so if you are interested, join our Discord server and check out the Light Novel Club channels! You can also join to peek in on our discussions live, to make sure you don’t miss anything we talk about.

For March 2021, we will be reading Tearmoon Empire, Vol. 3! Our discussion will begin on March 20th. We will also be announcing our April 2021 title on the Discord soon!

#Light Novels #Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai #Seishun Buta Yarou wa Bunny Girl Senpai no Yume wo Minai #J Novel Club #Discord #BtT Light Novel Club #Articles #Author: stardf29 #Author: Firefox789 #Author: Closet0taku #Author: RyanDH #Author: TWWK #Author: Bambibethy

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