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jq37 · 3 months

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The Report Card – Fantasy High Junior Year Ep 3 Fast Times at Fantasy High

Welcome back to Fantasy High! It’s a very exciting episode because something that we rarely see in this show about high schoolers studying at an adventuring academy is happening: The Bad Kids are actually going to class.

But first, they have to get to school. Riz, unsurprisingly, arrives first. On a big old 30 Investigation roll (+11 to a 19), overnight he did a deep dive into what everyone needs to do to get into a good college. Fig is actually doing great. If she would just go to her classes, she’d be fine. Kristen on the other hand is in serious trouble seeing as allowing your god to die is pretty much an auto-fail for a cleric. Fabian and Gorgug are both solid students with good extracurriculars. Their main hurdle is going to be the MCAT–the Multiclass Achievement Test. In order to multiclass, you need to get permission from your current advisor and pass the test. Then you can take 3/4 of each track for a 150% course load. And then, of course, he and Adaine are the party nerds so they’re doing great. They could maybe add some extracurriculars but they’re model students.

RIz also has done some research about possible college options: Astral State University (where they visited in the one shot), CUS Dabus (in the City of Doors), Bastion City University (who are doing big, world changing stuff), the Society of Shadows (the rogues only group that forces you to leave your life and friends behind that Penny Luckstone refused to join in The Seven), and–most hilarious but also saddest–Lord Salazar Edge's College of Lone Adventurers (which we learn in the AP was a Murph pitch, lol).

Back at Mordred, Adaine is doing her best to get her less studious friends up and ready for school, going as far as casting Friends on them to get them in the car. Fig willingly fails and Kristen–who really wants to be convinced–sets the DC at 10 and gives Adaine the Help action. Before they get to the car, Lydia (Ragh’s awesome mom) slaps a toxic looking blue energy drink from Kristen’s hands and gives them all full trash bags full of food for lunch (she’s used to feeding half-orc athlete Barb Ragh, not three spellcasters).

Jawbone loads them in the car and, on the way to school, they hear the song of the summer which is this emo anthem. When they meet Riz, he’s super excited to see everyone and show them their dossiers. He even made one for Adaine just for fun even though she doesn’t need any help and she loves it. What she (and Riz) don’t love however is Fig’s new school plan which, as we learned last week, is to enroll in something other than bard classes and then go to her bard classes (since a part of her isn’t going because she has chronic Stick-It-To-The-Man-Itis). Riz and Adaine try to figure out if they can gaslight Fig into going to her classes or hack the system somehow.

Back at the Thistlespring tree, Gorgug is doing some last minute pre-school work: creating his homunculus (which is kind of like an artificer’s familiar). It’s a hastily made archaeopteryx (flying dino thing, if you know Pokemon, think Archeops) that’s light on the feathers. He accidentally names it Cloaca (a birds multipurpose excrement chute) which his parents love because it’s spreading awareness of non-traditional bodies. Then they launch into a story about mermaid reproduction that I’m not gonna get into because not even Gorgug wanted to hear it. He’s clearly anxious about his skills because he feels his parents disapprove of the bird even though they’ve never been anything other than 200% supportive of him in their lives.

He gets a ride to school and his friends meet Cloaca, who he nicknames Chloe–the name I’ll be using even though the Bad Kids of course will exclusively call it Cloaca. Riz hands Gorgug his file which he reviews along with the letters from his parents. It’s a lot of the same info except that one of the letters is a rejection re: Multiclassing with a note to talk to his advisor (Porter, the Barb teacher who Fig hates).

Fabian shows up, starving and shabbily dressed without Cathilda to take care of him–she’s still in Leviathan. The girls share their trash bag food with him which he wolfs down gratefully. (When he mentions his parents are away, Fig seems surprised that Gilear left. Interesting to note for future eps because that feels out of character for their relationship). Anyway, he mistakes Chloe for a piece of trash because is it really the first day of school if Fabian doesn’t insult Gorgug (accidentally this time. progress!) and then the bell rings. As it does, the Bad Kids look around and realize something strange: they’re Juniors now. That means more than half the kids here are younger than them now. They’re not the Freshmen they once were.

The Sorc Prof (Jace Stardiamond) is filling in as VP while Gilear is away and as he makes an announcement on the intercom, Fig almost falls into an open construction pit (a SECOND construction based incident) but is saved when she’s hit with an armful of gym equipment instead. Put that on the Faeth luck swap conspiracy board. Anyway, Jace also says that Aguefort is gonna be out so they have a new Principal: Emergency Backup Interim Principal Grix. The Bad Kids have never heard of this guy before.

In the spot where they saw Dane and Penelope campaigning to bring back Prom Court their first year, the Bad Kids now see a table for Student Gov manned by Jawbone and a minotaur student he seems to know: Mazey Phaedra–a senior and the student body prez. She’s also based on a Scottish Highland cow which isn’t important to the story but it is important to me because those cows are super cute. Riz suggests they sign up so they go talk to Mazey who seems cool: She thanks them for saving the world, she knows Ayda, and Fabian clocks later that she’s a dancer bard. All green flags.

After indulging Fabian’s ego for a bit, the squad encourages Kristen to go for President. Before she can though, she’s beaten to the punch by a halfling student with major Tracy Flick energy who introduces herself as Kipperlily Copperkettle. Kristen immediately shoots back with, “What are you, four different dogs?” which is maybe the funniest thing a Bad Kid has ever said. The Bad Kids hate her vibes on sight but Kristen especially is full aggro. Riz notices that she’s wearing a pin of a rat’s butt being grinded between two gears and when asked about it, she says it’s Ratgrinders pin–Ratgrinders being the name of her adventuring party. They ask who else is in her party and she points out Reuben–an emo, gnomish bard who is signing autographs because he’s the one who wrote the song they were listening to on the way to school (before Kristen changed it to a health and wellness podcast).

Kipperlily (who I’m gonna call KP) is told that she can sign up but she has to find time to campaign outside of her classes. She says that won’t be a problem because she’s already aced Junior Year and she slides over an envelope to Jawbone to prove it. Apparently, the way Rogue classes work here is that the students find clues and puzzles throughout the school left by the professor but they’ve never actually met them. If a student is able to find the Rogue professor, they automatically get an A for the year and, apparently, KP did just that.

Paperwork in order, KP is about to leave but Fig stops her to ask what her platform is. Her answer: “Equality, equanimity, and fairness under the rules. In the past, there has been an eccentricity to the bureaucratic and administrative decisions of the Aguefort Adventuring Academy that has favored some students over others. Very nice to meet you guys.”

As she leaves, they hate her even more.

Adaine tries out a new trick she has which allows her to see into the ethereal plane. She sees a lot of Aguefort’s wards but also the fact that the wards are porous enough to let in ghosts because one of the professors is a ghost, though they don’t know which one. She suggests to Riz that maybe the Rogue prof is a ghost. She also sees some ghost steaks in the fridge, presumably belonging to the ghost prof (btw: steak for lunch at a high school seems wild, lol).

At this point, Fabian notices Mazey’s dancing shoes (Badidas of course) and clocks that she’s a dancer bard. He talks to her about how he’s looking to multiclass and she hooks him up with a note to give to the dance class professor (Terpsicore Skullcleaver) that says he’s a good kid. She also tells him that Jem Peppercorn (the absolute legend who stayed in the gym eating for the whole Goldenhoard fight) graduated last year and he had the party house which means there’s an opening for a new party house. And Fabian has a very big, very fancy, very empty house. Kristen does an Insight check and gets a Nat 20 to clock that yeah, there’s a little bit of a flirty vibe going on. So of course, she uses Thaumaturgy to create tremors–a move I was extremely confused about at first blush but I think she was using to give Fabian an excuse to hold her or something. Clearly, she’s a more attentive Wingwoman than she is a Saint.

Anyway, conversation finished, they go to the Auditorium where Jace announced Principal Grix wanted to give a speech. Grix is a gold, warforged spellcaster with a ball comprising his lower half instead of legs. Apparently, he was created by Arthur Aguefort to take his place while he’s on vacay. He speaks in a stilted, robotic manner and gives a speech parallel to Aguefort’s day one speech about what an Adventurer is. But instead of the rambly, unhinged answer Aguefort gave, he simply gives the Dictionary definition: One who goes on adventures. And then he starts going off about order, bureaucracy, and rules.

The Bad Kids are taken aback–even rules gremlin Riz.On a 27 to clock whether he’s been hacked (because she can’t believe Aguefort would make a robot that acted like this) Adaine sees Grix steepling his fingers and saying “Perfect order” which isn’t conclusive but is def troubling! They start raising their hands and asking Jace questions about if they really have to follow rules in a hard way this year–it still is Aguefort after all–but Grix cuts in and says that the backtalk he’s getting is exactly the problem. He casts Time Stop (a 9th level spell) and the entire auditorium finds themselves in the hall, in a single file line, ten minutes before class is about to begin. Not a great start to the year! And on a dirty 20, Kristen doesn’t see KP anywhere. Suspicious!

Riz tells Fabian and Gorgug about any extra MCAT stuff they don’t already know. He also tells the group about the Frosty Folk Festival and Gorgug mentions that his parents are hosting. Fig says she wants to maybe try out some of her new songs there…once she’s written them. Fabian asks if they can take a break from hardcore Bad Kid stuff this semester and Kristen says that’s a good point because she has a campaign to focus on. Fig declares herself secret service because, of course she does. She also announces her plan to go to Bard classes…but disguised as a new persona (Tiny Emo Girlie: Wanda Childa) so she can befriend and spy on Reuben. Riz and Adaine are at the end of their collective rope.

With his free time before the bell rings, Gorgug wants to talk to Porter to sort out the MCAT stuff. Porter lays it out for him. He thinks Gorgug has amazing, raw, natural talent and he uses his rage in a really noble way to protect his friends. But he hasn't seen him reach his full destructive potential and he’s not impressed that he defeated the Night Yorb will tools and “magic” instead of rage. He would be fine if Gorgug wanted to get some Fighter levels with Ms. Jones or something else that would dovetail nicely with Barb classes, but as of now, he hasn’t seen what he needs to see to think that Artificing classes would do anything but steal focus. Gorgug can of course quit the Barb track and move to Artificing, but Porter is not giving his approval.

Meanwhile, Fabian is having a much less hostile meeting with Terpsicore (after an accidental detour to Adaine’s wizard class because he trusted Fig–who’s never been to bard class–to give him directions). Terps is this tiny (5 ft 3in) Half-Orc with crazy, hyper positive, aerobics grandma energy who immediately breaks down Fabian’s cool guy jock persona and gets him into a dance, jam sesh with her that moves through different styles of dance and music. I can’t do this scene justice, you have to watch it. Her “Uh-oh, uh-oh! Uh-oh, uh-oh! A challenger approaches!” tells you everything you need to know about her.

By the end of the dance, Fabian has fully embraced his weird art kid energy and Terps has approved Fabian for multiclassing. It’s looking like all sunshine and roses for Fabian until Terps tells him that if he’s gonna make this multiclass thing work, he needs to be really serious. Lots of rest. Lots of healthy food. And no parties. Uh-oh indeed.

Next up, we turn our attention back to Riz who’s still in the hall and tries to steal the envelope KP turned in to Jawbone to get some info about the Rogue prof. Jawbone catches him and is good natured about it but won’t let him have the envelope: not for moral reasons so much as because a good rogue has to earn it by not getting caught.

Riz asks about KP and Jawbone says she’s a good kid but kinda Type A. He asks Riz if he’s getting some “I’m in the picture and I don’t like it” energy from her and Riz denies it. Jawbone decides to give him a little bit of a hint re: the Prof and says that KP technically didn’t find the prof. The prof found KP. But he won’t say more and he would appreciate him not saying where he got the info. The main reason he’s giving the info at all is because KP was snooping and heard him talking about Kristen’s god dying. She then asked Jawbone a bunch of questions about Kristen which he answered so he figured fair’s fair with regard to giving Riz some info about her. Riz is troubled. Jawbone tells Riz that they’re due for a heart to heart but Riz says he’s good and he’s stressed but stress is good. Yikes!

Kristen is also still in the hall and finally properly signs up for class president but, as she does, she hears some familiar voices: it’s her parents, dropping her younger brother Bucky off for his first day at Aguefort. She has serious deja vu as they’re saying the same “Don’t mix with the weirdos” stuff they said to her on her first day. Kristen fails a Wisdom save and is deeply affected by watching her parents basically bullying her younger brother who she hasn’t seen in a good bit now. The last time she had any contact with them it was just to give them her dragon gold and that was over the phone. She sees that her not being in the household to shield her brothers from her parents has led to them having to take all that parental abuse and pressure alone. She goes over to confront them feeling hot under the collar and Riz senses a crackle of something in her aura.

Cass chimes in, thinking she’s been summoned, and asks if it’s a good time for them to talk and Kristen snaps at her that OBVIOUSLY it’s not a good time. Kristen feels a spasm in her body and, for the first time, Cass snaps back at her: "Fine! I can make my own people to talk to!“ Deeply concerning, but we’ll come back to that. For now, we follow Kristen as she reaches her parents and brother. Bucky immediately goes in for the hug and seems very happy to see her. Her parents, not so much and the feeling is mutual. “Second time’s the charm, hopefully” they say, tacitly deeming her a failure. She pretends to be directing traffic so she can hustle them out the door ASAP and gets a Nat 20 to do so (rolling with advantage for reasons Brennan doesn’t expound on). Bucky says he wants to talk to Kristen about something but he’s late so can they meet up after class? She says sure thing and he runs off, his longsword trailing after him.

Kristen is left alone with her parents and it’s a bit of a standoff. Her mom asks how she’s going and seems to genuinely want to know to some degree but it’s still mainly jabs about her lifestyle and choices and leaving the church. Her dad especially comes down hard on her for leaving Helio without a chosen one and becoming a cleric to a night goddess right before they were struck with four months of night which, admittedly, is a fair thing to have questions about. But Kristen has died and come back from the dead. If that can’t keep her down, her parents certainly can’t. She pirouettes away from the conversation and heads to class (because she may not be worried about her parents but she is worried about what Cass said to her).

We hop over to the second nerd of the party, Adaine, who’s in wizard classes with Professor Tiberia Runestaff who Brennan says has “Evil Lucille Bluth” energy (which is different from regular Lucille Bluth how?). She’s a friend of Aguefort’s from the Mountains of Chaos and Adaine wants to impress her so so bad.

She starts off her lesson by saying that this year is the weed out year. This is the year that separates the paltry magicians from the truly great casters. Then, she starts listing out the materials they need for this week’s castings–a list that includes TEN BARRELS OF DIAMONDS. For ONE WEEK. Adaine may come from money but she doesn’t have access to any of that money right now. She raises her hand to ask if there’s any way she could borrow some diamonds from the school or something and basically gets a harsh, “That sounds like a you problem” kind of response that she shrinks back from. Tiberia continues to list the ridiculously expensive materials needed to continue on and Adaine knows that she can’t ask Jawbone for any of this. She resolves to call Aelwyn for help during lunch.

We then move on to a Fantasy High first: Fig going to class! Although she’s not going as herself. She’s disguised as her alter ego Wanda Childa. The professor (Lucilla Lullaby who is some kind of chill Eladrin) seems to perhaps think she recognizes her before she sits down next to Reuben. She charms him by smelling of peach schnapps and cigarettes and they have a flirty emo-off before Lucilla points out that she’s 100% not on the roster and, despite the fact that it doesn’t always seem like it, this is a school with rules. This year especially! She leaves, but as she lingers to give Reuben one last look (and sniff) she notices that he has a Ratgrinder tattoo that matches KP’s pin.

As she exits Lucilla is making a call on her crystal and there’s a good chance it’s connected to the encounter Fig has when she gets to the hall. Jace Stardiamond is leading an eagle aarakocra Council of Chosen agent (think FBI) who is investigating truancy in the area and calls Fig by name–well by pseudonym anyway. He is incidentally also looking into the disappearance of Hilda Hilda. Sensing her chickens are finally coming home to roost, Fig gives a weak lie about not knowing how schools work and skateboards away, using Cutting Words to prevent Agent Clark’s attack of opportunity on her. He vows to find out who she is as she makes her escape.

Proving you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it go to bard class, Fig goes outside to spy on her class through the window instead of attending because she thought Lucilla actually seemed pretty cool. She doesn’t hide well enough though and Lucilla spots her through the window. She’s shocked to see Fig for the first time in two years and welcomes her in like she’s the prodigal son. Fig asks if it would be weird for her to attend. Lucilla assures her that it’s the opposite of weird and, in fact, mandatory.

She settles in for her first day of bard class–this semester and ever–but out of the corner of her eye, she notices a sneering Rebuen texting someone. It’s Lola Embers. Looks like they’re signed to the same label.

Finally, we hop to Kristen who’s headed to cleric class with Professor Yolanda Badgood (a wispy air genasi). Before class even starts she tells Kristen to meet her after class. We timeskip to that meeting and, like many others in this ep, she thanks Kristen for saving the world. But she has a followup question: How did she do it when her god is dead? Kristen says she has a lot going on with her estranged parents she just saw and her scattered mind and her feeling like the stairs are disappearing behind her as she climbs. She has to update her god in the files and her address for that matter because, as we learned when she talked to her parents, all her mail is still getting sent to her old address. Her professor sincerely asks her how she’s feeling and Kristen says she’s fine but asks if there’s some kind of test she can take that will tell her what god is right for her. Her professor is like, “Didn’t you just say you had a new god???” But Kristen feels so much pressure with Cass and she mainly feels annoyed by her presence. Professor Badgood says that she’s allowed to change her god as much as she wants–she herself gave up an active relationship with a divinity so she can be kind of an interfaith minister to all her students. And she says that all faiths are trying to capture a piece of the truth–even the out there ones with evil gods and such. She recommends that Kristen spend a week earnestly trying to connect with Cass and if she still feels like she wants to split she can go from there.

Kristen has a followup question: What do you do when your god says, "Fine, I'll- I'll make new followers"? Badgood seems taken aback, and she’s even more so when Kristen says she’s been rude to her god. Kristen asks if she should apologize and Professor Badgood gives her the most gracious version of, “Duh, obviously” a person can manage. She directs Kristen to one of the million prayer rooms in the class so she and Cass can talk.

Kristen actually takes this seriously–or at least more seriously than she takes most things. She clears her mind and meditates until she finds herself in the forest of Sylvaire where Cassandra is crying to herself. A bright moon that would erase any shadow or doubt encroaches. When Kristen tries to touch Cass’s shoulder, the god flinches away and sobs that Craig–her only other follower–has joined the Wolfsong Revival. Tracker’s movement.

Cass is scared. She doesn’t want to end up dead in the Astral Realm like Yes? Kristen apologizes and says that she understands that she’s getting to point where chaos isn’t cute anymore. She follows that up by saying that her top two priorities are Cass and her student president campaign however so I don’t know how committed she is to being serious. Cass isn’t either because she flat out states that she can’t rely on Kristen. She’s so so lonely and she’s confused about why things aren’t working out. They started out so big and magical and they’re still so stuck. She thought it might be because of her somehow but then she learned about the trail of abandoned gods in Kristen’s wake and realized that *she* was the connecting factor, something that Kristen cops to verbally: “It’s me,” she says.

Cass announces that she’s getting some help and Kristen asks who. A cleric? Nope. No clerics for now. She just wanted a friend. Kristen sees her petting something invisible and asks if it’s a dog.

“I’m more of a cat person,” Cass says as a black cat fades into view.

“Hi Kristen,” Kalina says.

And that’s where we end our ep!!!! The bitch is back!!!!

Honor Roll

Riz for Thinking Of All His Friends

In Sophomore Year there was a thing with Riz’s dad where it was like, sometimes you show your love through work and, viewed through that lens, Riz *really* loves his friends. I recognize that the likelihood of his meticulous plan actually working is slim to none and he’ll have to accept that even if they all stay really close friends (which they better), they’re likely on at least slightly different life paths, I do think it’s really sweet that he’s putting so much effort into making sure that ALL of his friends are successful by the metric that he’s using. Also, the “Hi Adaine :)” binder for her was so cute. I love nerd friendship.

Detention

Fig for Hilda-Hilda-ing Too Close to the Sun

Girl the Fantasy FBI is after you!!! Just stop lying and go to class!!!!!

Random Thoughts

In the AP for this ep, Emily mentioned some cool warlock thing that might be worth taking the MCAT for and officially registering (she’s currently off the books multiclassing) but it’s never mentioned in the actual episode so I assume it got snipped away in editing.

I really love how polite Adaine is to anyone who hasn’t earned her scorn and the little moment of her taking a reasonable amount of food from the trashbag Lydia offered her and thanking her was very endearing to me.

Zac is very quick on his feet and Chloe is a GREAT save for Cloaca but it is ABSOLUTELY not gonna be what anyone calls that bird but me and him.

When Jace said over the intercom that Sorc classes are just talking about how fun and easy magic is, I’m surprised Adaine have anything snarky to say about that, lol. *I* had a comment and I don’t even go to that school.

Is anyone else getting like…Santa Clause 2 energy from the Grix situation? If that ends up being the vibe then that’s super funny because iirc Santa Clause 1 was ref’d a bunch with the oracle stuff in Freshman Year. Full circle baybee.

KP seems like she is springing into existence to fill the voice left by Penny Luckstone getting her GED and leaving. They’re like on the exact same level of one axis of a cartesian plane but on opposite sides. Both at 100% intensity but vibes in opposite directions.

I kinda wanna add a poll to this post that’s like, what is the crazier story? Mermaid reproduction with the Thistlesprings or snapping turtle man with gun up his secret cloaca story with Jawbone?

Honorary Honor Roll to Ally the person for the legendary 4 dogs joke. Honestly even funnier knowing that that’s the actual name of Brennan’s old PC. Burned the man to his face. Roasted him like corn.

OK, so what are we thinking about the Ratgrinders? Is that a ref to grinding rats for XP or more how they see other people/what they’re going to do to people who get in their way? KP is obviously very rules focused but in a Lawful Annoying way. I do think it’s interesting though. Have any of you guys ever seen the Community episode where it turns out everyone at Greendale hates the gang because they have major main character syndrome and are always forcing everyone else at school to accommodate their flights of fancy (a perfectly reasonable reason to have beef with people)? I’m wondering if there’s a bit of that energy happening here. Either way, this strikes me as a party that’s interested in exploiting loopholes and such for maximum efficiency (eg: finding the rogue prof for instant straight A’s) and that’s a different kind of maverick behavior than what the Bad Kids do which is go buckwild, breaking rules if necessary, but getting real results. It’s like the BK’s are Aguefort’s perfect party and I’m suspecting the RG’s are Grix’s. Speaking of–

A FH concept I had ages ago was rival adventuring party to the main group which has like, bizarro versions of everyone. And we may be getting that! We have an emo bard to contrast Fig’s punk rocker energy. And a rules follower (derogatory) rogue to contrast Riz who is also a rules follower (blessed). Very curious to see the rest of their party! And very curious to know if they’re Bad (™) or just annoying in a high school way. Sometimes people just don’t vibe with you.

Oh, a specific concern that I have: KP specifically asked where Kristen was able to create a god. I don’t think that’s info I want a super type A person I don’t trust to have.

Very sweet that Jawbone’s immediate instinct when he thinks an earthquake is happening is to bodily shield Fig and Adaine, his two kind daughter-figures in the Bad Kids.

Kristen says that Cass is a hard sell but I have to disagree. Look at this flyer. It looks convincing to me!

“I think songs can accomplish a lot, if you let yourself hear the music.” Gorgug :( He’s gonna show Porter this season. I just know it. I believe in you Spring Break!

Love Murph throwing in the Frosty Folk thing apropos of basically nothing just to make sure they had an in-character reason to all know about that for later, just in case. Info management! Important!

I remember Bucky being a lot younger but either I’m confusing him for one of her other two brothers or it got retconned (or Quangled lol) older to make this storyline work. Very interesting that he went in for the hug, not the other way around. Seems like at least one person missed her. With his longsword and his parents’ inclinations, it seems like he’s most likely a Helioic Paladin. I’m very interested in how they’re going to treat his relationship with Helio because even though Kristen rejected him and we’ve seen that he has some followers that range from just shitty (K’s parents) to downright culty (the Harvestmen), that doesn’t mean that all of his followers are like that and we’ve never actually seen Helio be anything but pretty chill when he’s appeared. He wants to talk to Kristen about something and my conspiracy theory brain is wondering if he was asked to be Helio’s new chosen one but he hasn’t told anyone yet. That would be very interesting and I’d like to see a storyline about the tension of K and her brother having very different relationships with the same god. The chill peace and love god might have been a great person for him to turn to in absence of his one lifeline in the house leaving. But it could also be tons of other things so we’ll see.

Wild that Kristen has pissed off or abandoned every member of that godly family (Sol, Helio, Galicaea, and Cass). She really is the constant here.

Ally says Kristen is wearing an Adidas tracksuit meaning that this world canonically has both Adidas and Badidas.

It’s a funny moment when Terps is like, “Is there harm in your life? ”to Fabian when he mentions eating food out of a trash bag but like, the kid isn’t doing *great*. Def some neglect happening and he said he was wearing yesterday’s clothes and still banged up from the Night Yorb fight. If I was a teacher, I’d have questions too!

Yolanda Badgood. Terpsichore Skullcleaver. Lucilla Lullaby. Most of these professors are named like My Little Ponies and I love it.

When Lucilla say “Wanda” it seems like she briefly (correctly) thought it was Fig which is funny because it paints the picture that she’s been actively waiting on pins and needles for her to show up for the past two years. It’s funny because she’s not a missing person. She’s highly visible both from saving the world and being a rockstar AND both of her dads work at your school! Just get in touch!

Really hope Adaine follows up on the Aelwyn conversation because I wanna see two kids raised in old money discuss the price of ten barrels of diamonds.

Also lol at random things like Fabian being the FUTURE OF DANCE being pinned on Adaine’s oracle prognostications.

#Dimension 20 #dimension 20 spoilers #d20 #d20 spoilers #fantasy high #fantasy high spoilers #fhjy #fhjy spoilers #spoilers #the report card

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midnightfox450 · 5 months

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Fantasy High Junior Year Pre-Trailer Predictions for archival purposes

(In order of most likely to least likely)

They retcon Fabian and Aelwyn's whole thing. I love Fabian and think he is at his best when his development is focused on other things.

Official in-universe confirmation of Riz being ace &/or aro.

A nice, happy, normal prom scene in the epilogue.

Trackerbees breakup. It's definitely likely that they're going to have a falling out given the hints we got in Boys Night but I'm rooting for a full breakup. They don't get back together again. Don't get me wrong I love lesbians (I am lesbian!!!) but we all know this is the best course of action.

More Aelwyn please!! Aelwyn hireling maybe (if that's even a thing we're doing this season)? She's pretty powerful and her and Adaine have made up so it'd be nice to see her use her powers for good.

The old librarian at Aguefort dies and Ayda starts working at the school library in her place. I am pretty anti-Ayda-reconciling-with-her-dad-&-associating-with-his-school, so I wouldn't love this turn of events. But I have to admit it'd be a very plausible way of keeping her in Elmville and I'll take any excuse for her to show up more. Also I think she should have a crystal. She would have loved the internet.

Fig, newly an archdevil, becomes a warlock patron with her fans as her followers. Has to grapple with the consequences of fame and idolization. Maybe even Gilear takes her up as a patron and gets one level of warlock so he isn't completely useless. + second puberty allegory where Fig starts developing more archdevilish features like longer horns and a tail.

More information about Ayda's previous lives, as Brennan seems to at least have a vague notion of what they were like. Maybe a flashback scene with the previous Ayda and kid Garthy. Also i wanna know what was up with the relationship with Garthy and Jawbone. Maybe when Jawbone hooked up with Garthy he had met Ayda as a baby or even the previous Ayda? I think that'd be cool.

An "And Now For Something Completely Different"-type segment where the Bad Kids need The Seven Maidens' help for whatever reason so the cast switches to T7 for an episode. I want to see the girls again and I want to see their new personalities/developments reflected in the main canon. But it'd be kind of weird for them to go back to being npcs.

#dimension 20 #fantasy high #d20 #fhjy #fantasy high junior year #the bad kids #ayda aguefort #figueroth faeth #fig faeth #really only gonna tag those two because this post is the most focused on them

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plate2 · 2 months

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Putting this here because I can't stop thinking about a stupid little alternate universe that I should probably just make a fanfic of

AU where gilear and sklonda meet before the bad kids introduce them to one another, and they don't know about their kids being friends, nor do they know about either's romantic history. Why? Because then there's the funny of miscommunication

A gilear who always sounds very sad when talking about someone named sandra lynn, wearing the ring because he says it feels weird not to, talking about all the money it took to finalize things. Sklonda, of course, assumes sandra lynn is dead and he's broke because of the funeral.

A sklonda who talks very much the same about pok and the ring she wears on her finger, talking vaguely about how he had secrets about things she didn't know all the information about, how she worried about him and how their son would grow up because of said secrets. Gilear, of course, assumed sklonda is divorced because of an affair, similar to him.

I would love accidental things they would say that end up meaning something completly opposite to the other person, especially if there's so many opportunities for them to realize and they just. don't. They become really good friends when they think the other needs support and a friend since they went through the same thing when they could not be more wrong. This doesn't have to end romantically, but I'm not extremely opposed to it either

I'm just thinking about the situations,, it getting closer to father's day and sklonda saying her and riz are going to the cemetery and gilear just assumes she's going to visit her dad/riz's grandpa that they must have been very close to. Or a night where gilear gets a little tipsy and starts to talk vaguely about fig's other dad and the issues he was having with him,, and sklonda is both so happy because she assumes gilear means he's moving on and has gotten a boyfriend but is also sad because they're having issues with their relationship so far because of him already having a daughter

Even a gilear who admits he's divorced and sklonda assumes he got divorced first, only to later fall in love with sandra lynn who very unfortunately died. I would make such insane situations where they should for every reason figure it out but Don't. I have no clue how the reveal would work nor who would finially tell them but the entire idea is just hilarious to me

#dimension 20 #d20 fantasy high #sklonda gukgak #gilear faeth #this would probably happen during freshman year #why is this what i spend my weekend thinking about #fantasy high #dimension 20 fantasy high #plate2posts

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brewstersbru · 10 days

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A little riz ficlet i started last week and finished today (pok feels 💚)

Your name is Riz.

Riz knows Kristen didn’t mean it, knows she was just being funny, trying to ease his nerves before his first big game on the Owlbears. But he can’t stop hearing his mother’s voice in his head, digging, nudging him to buck up and fight against it.

He regrets snapping at her, but not as much as he should, probably. He’s not certain he would’ve even said anything if his mom hadn’t had that conversation with him.

And now Kristen’s getting expelled, but not really, and instead they have to go through a harrowing trial of standardized testing coupled with fighting monsters where it only ends if all of them die or they kill all the monsters.

No one has ever killed all the monsters before, and Riz isn’t arrogant enough to actually believe they’ll be the first. Not with the weight of Junior year on their shoulders. It’ll be nice to see his dad again, outside of the tiny little hologram on his watch, or when he talks to the air around his grave- never knowing for sure but believing that he’s there, listening.

But dying hurts. Riz still gets nightmares about that first time he did it, and it doesn’t help that the video of it happening is still up for everyone to see. The views keep climbing, no matter how time marches on people still search it up. It makes him a little nauseous to think about.

There’s a lot on Riz’s mind tonight- not that there hasn’t always been- but for some reason he can’t tune it out right now, can’t push it down with work or school or trying to solve a mystery. His mind is just running, turning over and over itself, churning through the complicated web of problems he’s found himself caught in.

There’s just so much that needs fixing, that needs to be worked on and chipped away at and he can’t do anything about it. Just has to stare at the ceiling of the living room in Mordrid Manor, trying to will himself to sleep while his friends snore beside him. Well- Adiane isn’t really sleeping, but after finally dropping the mental weight of her finances, she’s been falling deeper into her trances to regain her energy.

It feels almost like his heart is about to jump right out of his chest, like it’s squirming around, trying to wedge itself up his throat and out of his mouth. Riz would never tell anyone this but he’s terrified that he’s still that same futile little thing he was in the palimpsest. Scratching at thick walls until his hands bleed, littered with shards of the effort, but in that righteous violence, ultimately having done nothing of real use.

How many times does he have to bleed for it to mean something? How many times does he have to die before his friends can stay with him? Before people and gods and monsters stop trying to pry them away from his bloody, clenched fingers. He worked for this, he dug deep and rent himself in six equal pieces for the hope of staying together. How much more could the universe possibly expect from him? When is it enough?

There’s a soft beep from his wristwatch- which, unlike all of his other gadgets, he never takes off, not even when sleeping- and Riz takes the opportunity to get away from staring at the same crack in the ceiling he’s been looking at for the past hour. He stands and picks his way through a maze of limbs and drool to the kitchen.

With some semblance of privacy, he checks the watch. What could his dad- Agent Gukgak- need from him at this time of night? Does time work the same way up there? Is he ok? Is it possible for him not to be?

A small hologram of his father appears above the watch, disheveled, as if he just got back to the office. As soon as he appears, he steps back for a moment and quickly catalogues his son’s state. After about a minute, he heaves a deep sigh.

“You’re ok.” It’s not a question. Riz nods, slowly.

“I am, sure. But what about you, Agent Gukgak- sir? What’s wrong? Why’d you call?” He tries to keep his voice quiet, and moves towards the front door, hoping to get outside so he and Agent Gukgak can have a serious business conversation without him sounding like a teenager at a sleepover. He is a teenager at a sleepover, but that’s beside the point.

Agent Gukgak tilts his head at him. “Kiddo, I didn’t call for me, I called for you. Your heartbeat spiked about a half hour ago and hasn’t returned to baseline since. I called as soon as I could get back.”

Riz, having just made it outside- the door creaked just slightly, but he’s not worried about any of the others having heard; they sleep like logs- stumbles a bit as he tries to settle himself on the porch steps.

It’s late, so he can be forgiven for lacking his usual tact as he stutters, “Wha- huh? This thing can track my heartbeat?” Like that was the most important part of what Agent Gukgak had said.

Agent Gukgak smiles at him, wry. “Course it can, and your blood sugar, iron levels, as well as body temperature. You should talk to your mom about iron pills, actually, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. I know you haven’t been to the doctor for a while, but we’ve been detecting low iron in your blood for a while. And don’t even get me started on your eating habits, you’re just like your mother, waiting until you’re near ready to faint to give your body anything substantial.” His tone starts warm, but quickly devolves into something more scolding. Riz allows the conversation to derail a little bit.

“It’s not that I do it consciously, I just forget. There’s a lot of work to do and it’s hard to schedule out non-school-mandated mealtimes for myself. I’ll make a note about the iron though.” Riz thinks they’re both overtly aware of the fact that he doesn’t move to jot anything down. Iron pills have got to be expensive, and if he’s made it this far without, he doesn’t see a reason to ask for them now. Agent Gukgak sighs.

“Riz- it’s- I-“ He pauses, takes a second to collect himself. “I often find myself wishing, when we talk, that I was able to come down there and live with you and your mother. At least until we sent you off to college.” There’s a wistfulness to his gaze that Riz can’t find it within himself to watch, he knows what’s at the end of this train of thought and it’s never pretty. ‘What ifs’ and ‘could have beens’ are only as good as a wish, because they’re never rooted in reality. Always washed with rose and drowned in nostalgia.

Riz cuts in, “You’ve been doing good work where you can. And- and I think I turned out pretty okay. All things considered.” It feels a little strange to be defending his father to himself, but Agent Gukgak just shakes his head.

“More than ‘pretty okay’, kiddo. You’re the best thing I’ve ever done, not just in your work, but in who you are. I see the way you care for your friends, the way you help your mother, the way you meet every problem head on with a plan and a backup plan, just in case. I just wish the world had been kinder. Wish I coulda been there to make it be, when it couldn’t get there on its own.”

And then, for some, mortifying reason, Riz bursts into tears. It’s not loud or messy or even really all that different than what he usually looks like. At a distance, you probably wouldn’t even be able to tell. But there are tears streaming steadily down his face and every so often he has to sniff and blink his eyes to catch up with the stream. He swipes an arm roughly across his eyes to try and stem the flow, or better, stop it completely.

“I’m sorry, Agent-“

“Dad. Just call me dad kiddo. Please. Or Pok, just- not ‘Agent Gukgak’.” Pok’s own expression has crumpled, brows furrowing at the sight of his son so obviously distraught with no way to physically comfort him.

Riz nods, “Sorry, dad, I don’t-“ He sniffs, “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. It’s just Kristen’s being expelled unless we do this last stand thing tomorrow where we’re probably gonna die at the end, and I saw my name in Kipperlilly’s file but I haven’t had time to figure out why it’s there, and Fig skipped class again, which, I know isn’t going to fail her probably but it makes me nervous because what if she starts skipping every day again? Also our vice principal might be crazy and evil and I haven’t had any time at all to look into that-“

He cuts himself off with a gasping, cut-off sob, burying his face in his arm in his overwhelm but keeping his wrist level so Pok remains visible.

It’s hard to see through the rivers of tears that are spouting from his tear ducts, but Riz thinks he sees his father tugging at his hair, pacing as he watches this unfold. Huh, they kind of are the same.

“You’re seventeen. Seventeen, you shouldn’t- I can’t-“ He seems at a loss for words, baffled by the injustice of it all. Riz has stopped trying to fight the waves of tears, instead letting them wash over them, swiping at his cheeks every couple of seconds to keep them dry.

Pok paces for a few more minutes, fiddling with different parts of his outfit until he’s gathered his thoughts.

“I’m sorry, Riz.” Is what he settles on, moving close to the image capture of the hologram so that, if Riz were to tilt his head forward, it could almost be as if they were touching foreheads. Pok continues, closing his eyes.

“I’m sorry I can’t be there and I’m sorry that you have so much to deal with right now. I wish I could do more, but all I can give you is advice. What you’ve got on your plate right now, every piece of this hellish puzzle, both is and is not a war. There’s you, and there’s the problem, and a lot of times it seems like the problem is so much bigger than you are, so much more than you’re equipped to handle. Like you’re a man at the base of a mountain with a shovel, hoping to dig a hole through it. But once you start thinking that, the moment you let yourself become less than, that’s when you start losing. You either gotta grow to match the size of it or cut it into little pieces you know you can handle, and I’ve never met anyone who could do the first of those.”

Pok takes a deep breath, then his lips quirk into a rueful smile.

“Also, it’s a lot easier to do things when you eat, and you let other people help you.” He emphasizes the last parts with a heavy look directly into Riz’s eyes. Like he knows exactly how he’s been doing things thus far and is telling him to change it up, for his own sake.

Riz sniffles, nodding. If he closes his eyes, he can almost feel the warmth of his father’s skin through the hologram. Or the illusion of it.

“I can do that.” Riz takes a deep breath. “I can do that.”

Pok smiles. “I know you can, kid. Just take it slow. Don’t lose yourself in it.” He speaks as if he’s learned from experience. The realization of how little he truly knows his father hits Riz like a bucket of ice water. A shiver works its way up his spine.

For a moment, he considers asking. Thinks about spending the night on this porch, effectively on the phone with his dad, talking and learning things he’s wanted to know for as long as he’s been visiting Pok’s grave. Then, Pok clears his throat, expression pinched with regret.

“Sorry, kid I-“

Then he remembers that life isn’t fair, and the world moves on, whether you’re ready for it or not. Riz blinks away his tears.

“Yeah- no- I know. You’ve got badass angel things to do. I’m good. Thanks for calling.”

Pok gets a look on his face, equal parts proud and devastated. His eyebrows furrow into poignant resignation.

“I’ll try to do it more. Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

And then he’s gone, and all Riz has is the cool fingers of the wind, grasping over his shoulders in an icy embrace. He puffs a breath into the air and watches it fizzle from fog to nothing.

It’s dark. It’s going to be dark for another eight hours at least.

Riz is going to die tomorrow, probably. He’ll be fine, but he doesn’t want to.

He really doesn’t want to.

#riz gukgak #fantasy high #fhjy spoilers #fhjy #pok gukgak #father son feels #nothing is okay ever #i will never write a completely healthy father son dynamic mwahahaha #riz is so small its crazy how u can fit sooooo many issues into one little guy #one guy so little as he #might be incomprehensible it is late #brublurbs #cross posted on ao3 as always bc i crave attention

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coldmail750 · 1 year

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In the continuing saga of me rambling about Beastars - having rambled at length now about four carnivore character arcs, I'd like to talk a bit about an herbivore character arc, one that is one of my favorite arcs in the series, and one that gets done incredibly dirty by how the series ends:

Louis's.

I'll Never Forgive Chapter 194

or, the Ignominious Death of One of Beastars's Best Character Arcs

So at the end of part two of the carnivore parallels essay, I summarized my thoughts on the deeply dysfunctional societal dynamic in Beastars:

...this carnivore-herbivore societal arrangement, as it stands, works for nobody. Herbivores live their lives in constant fear and regularly face either infantilization or objectification, carnivores live with constant self-loathing either for being carnivores or for not being carnivore enough, and hybrids get all the downsides of both with the upsides of neither.

In the same way that Paru uses Legoshi, Bill, Riz, and Ibuki to explore what it's like to live in the society of Beastars as a carnivore, Paru uses Louis to explore what it's like to live in this society as an herbivore - but, given Louis's backstory, he's also got a lot going on that's specific to him (in comparison to characters like Haru and Sebun, from whom we get a picture of slightly more standard herbivore life).

For the purposes of this essay, we're going to be focusing more on that Louis-specific stuff, but we will come back to the broader societal dynamics, because that is still an integral part.

So what is Louis's arc, then?

Louis's character progression, simply put, is him growing more confident with 1) not following the course laid out for him and 2) doing things that society does not approve of.

See, there's a fundamental clash going on between Louis's personality and Louis's situation. On the one hand, Louis is a very strong-willed character. He knows what he wants, is absolutely determined to get it, and has very little patience for anyone who would stand in his way. Indeed, Louis's insistence on living his life on his own terms is a hill he is literally willing to die on, which is part of why Oguma adopts him:

But Louis has never actually been able to live his life on his own terms. As a young child, he lived his life on the terms of the black market, as a piece of meat to be sold and consumed for profit. Adoption by Oguma meant salvation from the black market, but it didn't free Louis from living his life on someone else's terms; it simply changed the "someone else" from the black market to Oguma.

Oguma adopted Louis for a very explicit reason - he needed a respectable heir, another deer that he could pass off as his son who would make a respectable name for himself in school, graduate from a prestigious university, marry someone of the same species and the opposite gender, and inherit the Horns Conglomerate. That is the course that was laid out for Louis the moment Oguma adopted him, the terms by which he has lived ever since.

We can add to that the general Beastars societal pressures - that they will marry within their species, for example - and the societal pressures upon herbivores - that herbivores will hate and fear carnivores, for example - that Louis no doubt was exposed to regularly throughout childhood simply by virtue of living in the world that he did. These societal pressures are largely in line with - or, at the minimum, not in opposition to - the course laid out for him by Oguma, so we can group them together.

So what happens, then, if what Louis wants clashes with the course laid out for him by Oguma and by society? The way the answer to that question changes is how Louis's arc progresses.

At the beginning of the story... okay, to talk about where Louis stands at the beginning of the story, we have to talk about Adler.

Watching how Louis plays the character of Adler tells us how Louis approaches a role. When early manga Louis is playing the role of Adler, he gets really into it; he is constantly practicing, he drags Odie to an illicit nighttime practice to make sure that Odie's performance doesn't drag him down, he memorizes the lines so thoroughly that he can recall them months later, and - crucially - he insists on attempting to play the role even at the expense of his own health, as we see when he attempts to play the role of Adler even on a broken leg, only stopping when he is literally no longer able to due to his injury.

Louis, as it happens, is constantly playing a role - the role of the dutiful, obedient son who does what is expected of him by society and his father - and, at the start of the story, he is invested in playing that role just as much as he is invested in playing the role of Adler the Grim Reaper.

But that dutiful, obedient son is just as much a fictional character as Adler, and even at the very beginning of Beastars, the role is beginning to slip a little when what Louis wants contradicts what's expected of him.

The proof of this is his relationship with Haru. Given the choice between the expectation of his arranged same-species marriage with Azuki and pursuing an interspecies relationship with a rabbit, Louis chooses the latter - but he obsessively tries to cover this up, keep it on the down-low, to give the impression that he's chosen the former. He wants to make it look like he's playing the dutiful son... but he's already kind of unsure about it.

This is symbolically alluded to by the fact that, when Haru and Louis first met, Louis had shed his antlers. Antlers are symbol of a male deer's virility, it's shameful to be seen without them (which is why Louis is trying to hide in the gardening club to begin with), and Louis acts embarrassed when he realizes he's about to kiss Haru while without antlers. But it also works as a way of symbolizing that Louis is clandestinely rejecting the course laid out for him by his father, the course that has him marrying Azuki and taking over the Horns Conglomerate; Louis is literally hiding the fact that he is without Horns.

The next time he's confronted with this choice between what's expected of him and what he wants is when Haru is kidnapped by the Shishigumi. He can either leave Haru to die, which will lead to the mayor erasing the records linking him to the black market, and continue with the plan that he will become Cherryton's beastar, marry Azuki, and succeed his father at Horns; or he can try to save her, at risk to his own life.

Louis tries to force himself to pick the first option. As he tried to play Adler until it broke him physically, he tries to play the obedient son until it breaks him mentally. He snaps, and - like the character Adler - decides that he'll prove his love through death; he charges into the Shishigumi's headquarters, murders their boss, and tells the underlings to kill him, giving Legoshi and Haru the chance to escape.

Of course, the Shishigumi does not kill Louis here, and this marks a turning point for his character development. Before Haru's kidnapping, Louis consistently attempts to pick "what's expected of me", and if he picks "what I want", he does so as furtively as possible.

After Haru's kidnapping, but before the final climax of his arc, Louis consistently picks "what I want" over "what's expected of me", and does so in front of more and more people... but still tries to not draw too much attention to it, justifying his actions only when necessary, and sometimes still telling himself and those around him "I'm definitely doing what's expected of me still, you must be mistaken".

So throughout the bulk of the manga - everything between the fight with the Shishigumi and the fight with Melon - that's Louis's modus operandi. When given a choice between the expectation that he will seek to return to normal society and his preordained course as soon as possible, or staying on as the head of the Shishigumi, he picks the latter; but the only person he tells about this is Oguma, as part of a failed effort to break his familial ties with his father, with Legoshi discovering it by chance and Juno deducing it herself.

When given a choice between sticking to this prejudice against carnivores which herbivores are expected to have, and abandoning it, realizing that he's come to deeply care about and even love the carnivores in his life, Louis picks the latter; he allows Legoshi to eat his leg, a transgression of this world's ultimate societal taboo, to help Legoshi defeat Riz. This stands as a total rejection of Louis's previous bigotry, the overcoming of his childhood trauma, and an expression of just how close he and Legoshi have become - but he keeps it and his reasons for doing it relatively quiet, and, in the same vein, usually hides the fact that he has a prosthesis afterwards.

When given a choice between accepting the title of Cherryton beastar, the sort of high school honor that would look great on the resume of a future Horns CEO, the accolade everyone has been expecting him to win, and refusing it because Legoshi deserves just as much credit but definitely won't get it, Louis picks the latter, and only explains why to Cherryton's headmaster.

The example of this change in habit that is the easiest for comparison, however, is his relationship with Juno.

While Louis's relationship with Legoshi is one based in their having been forged in the same flames, that knowledge that they can rely on each other when they need it, trust the other with their secrets and their lives unconditionally, Louis's relationship with Juno is wrapped up in an... almost envy? for her willingness to pursue his own wants - as is his relationship with Haru.

Haru and Juno are both open about their own wants, as opposed to what society expects of them, in a way that Louis feels he cannot be. Haru knows that being promiscuous is societally vilified, will result in her being shunned and bullied, but she does it anyways, because sex is the only time she's treated like a person, not an object, and she wants to be treated like a person. Juno knows that her entering a different-species relationship with a deer would be societally frowned upon, openly wrestles with this in front of Louis, and ultimately ends up angrily shouting that she loves a deer live on national television.

Louis wants to be able to openly wrestle against societal expectation and do what he wants, consequences be damned, like Haru and Juno do - and he does a little, letting Haru see him without his horns and letting Juno see his prosthesis - but he feels like he can't truly do it because of the expectations imposed on him by Oguma.

The specific contrast between Louis's relationship with Haru and Louis's relationship with Juno that I want to talk about, however, is how and where Louis conducts his relationship with each. Louis's relationship with Haru was something he conducted almost entirely beyond closed doors - a furtive thing that they shared only in places where they thought no one could see them, the quiet dark of the gardening club shed or a space hidden between tents at the Meteor Festival.

Louis's relationship with Juno is something he has in bubble tea cafes, at bus stops, in school hallways, on the metro - in public.

Of course, he insists to himself and to her that it's nothing, he's just indulging her. But no matter how much he tries to convince Juno and himself that nothing is going on here, Louis has once again chosen his personal feelings over the course his father laid out for him, and he's getting increasingly comfortable with doing so openly.

So that's where Louis stands for the bulk of the manga; he's increasingly comfortable with openly doing what he wants rather than what is expected of him, but still feels bound enough by what is expected of him that he avoids calling attention to this fact and still attempts to pretend, at times, that nothing is happening and he's going to precisely follow the course his father laid out for him.

Louis's relationship with Juno (and his relationships with Haru and Legoshi) all stand in contrast to his "relationship" with Azuki, his preordained fiancée.

While Haru and Juno demonstrate a willingness to wrestle against and ignore societal pressures that Louis secretly admires, and Legoshi is overcoming his own internalization of societal messaging in part through his relationship with Louis, Azuki embodies the outside pressures upon Louis. She is same-species, opposite-sex, also of the upper crust, the person who Oguma has arranged Louis to marry.

But there is no relationship, really, between Louis and Azuki. They have met each other a handful of times. Their interactions are stilted and awkward; neither much cares about the other beyond the fact that they are obliged to marry, because their marriage represents a corporate merger between Horns and Azuki's father's corporation. When Louis tries to force himself to become intimate with her, he cannot stop thinking about all the carnivores he actually cares about, and, ultimately, vomits.

The contrast is clear. While Louis's relationships with Haru, Legoshi, and Juno aren't exactly smooth sailing - they're all working through a lot, after all - it's clear that they are actual relationships with people Louis actually cares about, as opposed to his hollow, artificial construct of an outside obligation with Azuki.

There's one more event before the Melon fight that I'd like to talk about, though, and that's Oguma's death.

See, Oguma knows that Louis's "dutiful son" role is an act. Louis gets angry at Oguma over the fact that Oguma never attended any of Louis's plays not over the literal plays themselves but because he is constantly performing a role for someone who is never there to watch the performance; Oguma outright tells Louis that the reason he never went to one of his shows is because he wants Louis's wedding to Azuki to be the first time he sees Louis putting on his best performance.

It seems reasonable to assume that Oguma knows that this is an act because he has spent his entire life putting on the same act. That, once upon a time, Oguma's father laid the same path for him - make a respectable name for himself in school, graduate from a prestigious university, marry someone of the same species and the opposite gender, and inherit the Horns Conglomerate - and that Oguma devoted himself to it, played the part exactly as he was told to.

Since then, as Oguma tells us, he has devoted every aspect of his life to the Horns Conglomerate. He has treated every choice he's made as a business decision, evaluated every relationship he has ever made based on whether or not it was profitable for Horns - and was good at it, the company reaping the profits of his diligence and his devotion.

But now, on his deathbed, he's realized something.

There's one relationship he can't quantify.

Oguma was not a good father to Louis. He was near-totally absent from his son's life, interacting with him once a week; he imposed heavy expectations on Louis, expectations which Louis has spent the entirety of the manga suffering because of. The only halfway-decent father figure Louis had in his life was a lion in the yakuza.

But Oguma did love Louis - felt unable to express it, because of the expectations that he inherited from his father and passed on to his son, but did love him. And now, on his deathbed, Oguma realizes that this is his last chance to tell Louis that a real, loving relationship is more valuable than any business relationship, to the point of being beyond quantification, to tell his son that he loves him.

And as his final act upon the earth, Oguma says "let me do the most unprofitable thing", and hugs Louis.

When Oguma adopted Louis, he freed him from the black market, but he didn't free Louis from having to live his life on someone else's terms. On his deathbed, Oguma rights that wrong by telling Louis that love is more precious than profit - that what Louis wants is more important than that path ending at Horns.

With that, we can finally arrive at the climax of Louis's arc - the press conference during the Melon fight.

When Louis gets behind the podium at that press conference, he has to choose between giving a normal boilerplate speech about how business will continue at the Horns Conglomerate with him as CEO, sliding into the role he was raised for from the moment Oguma adopted him; or, he can bring up the black market, breach every societal taboo about meat-eating and carnivore-herbivore relations, and proclaim openly that he cares about deeply about a wolf and that that wolf is in danger.

As with Haru's kidnapping, this is a choice where his previous strategy for dealing with the conflict between what's expected of him and what he wants no longer works. Where Haru's kidnapping put him in a position where he could no longer pretend to pick the former while clandestinely picking the latter, causing him to shift to picking the latter but not drawing attention to it, he now finds himself in a position where, if he's going to do what he wants, he has to draw attention to it. He has to defy his preordained path, explicitly, live on national TV.

And that's exactly what he does.

Louis has seen the harm the expectations imposed by the society of Beastars can do. He has seen how they hurt Haru, Legoshi, Juno, Bill, Ibuki, Riz, his father, himself. He has watched people bend and break under them, felt the pressure to do so himself, struggled against it his entire life.

But now he has stared down those societal norms that cause or perpetuate so much of the suffering the characters of Beastars face, and won. He is no longer ashamed and fearful like the fawn in the cage, nor embittered and hateful like the young stag we met when the series began, but confident and optimistic. He has gone from feeling the need to bend or break under the expectations upon him, expectations that forced him to choose between what was "acceptable" and the people he cared most about, to using his power and his influence to help change what society expects.

This - Louis's total rejection of the path laid out for him in favor of carving a new path, a better path, alongside the people he cares about - is his great triumph, the culmination of one of the best character arcs I have ever read.

And then comes chapter 194.

Louis, having completed his arc, is given one final choice. He can follow the course laid out for him by his father, have his loveless but societally-approved arranged marriage with Azuki and wholly submit to being the next CEO of the Horns Conglomerate; or he can reject that, "do the most unprofitable thing", and continue his relationships with the people he actually loves.

The manga has very clearly set up Louis and Juno as romantic partners. It's clear that there's a lot going on between Legoshi and Louis, who are incredibly close and whose relationship is a fan favorite. If I'd been writing the manga I would've just made Legoshi, Haru, Louis, and Juno a polycule. If he suddenly declared his love for some random other character he'd never even interacted with before it... would be unsatisfying for a lot of other reasons, but it would still technically kind of fit with his progression as a character, because it would still be him choosing his desires over societal & familial expectations.

The only clearly wrong choice here, the choice which it makes no sense for Louis to make and which cannot be reconciled with his growth as a person, is for him - having been freed from his father's expectations by Oguma on his deathbed, having totally rejected the societal pressures upon him on national television at the culmination of the manga's final battle - to suddenly, inexplicably, for no good reason, throw all of his character development out of the window and cave to marrying Azuki.

siiiiiiiiigggggghhhhhhhhhh

The bleakness of this ending is amplified even more by a detail in the following chapter, where Haru tells Legoshi that she got a very short call from Louis, and it becomes clear that Louis hasn't just broken up with Juno to marry Azuki, he's stopped talking with Legoshi and is barely contacting Haru. Louis, whose entire arc has been about him learning to choose his own wants and the people he cares about over the path demanded of him by society, is now inexplicably cutting every person he cares about out of his life in the name of caving to societal pressure.

Look, I have a lot of respect for Paru Itagaki. She wrote the entirety of the character arc that I've spent the past god-knows-how-many paragraphs raving about, this wonderful narrative of a character who gets introduced as an asshole rich kid but becomes incredibly complex, compelling, and sympathetic, and did it all while working under a grueling schedule. But her decision to end Louis's arc like this is baffling and terrible all at once, and it still drives me up the wall two years later.

This is not to say she doesn't try to make it make sense. Louis says that he needs to marry Azuki because he needs to stay on as Horns CEO, and he needs to stay on as Horns CEO so that he can buy the Shishigumi a way out of prison and into his employ.

But that justification doesn't work because of a big piece of foreshadowing that, because of what happens to Louis's arc, ends up going nowhere: the whole "beastars" thing.

Paru Itagaki does a lot to foreshadow the idea that Louis and Legoshi are going to become co-beastars. After Louis refuses to become Cherryton beastar because Legoshi won't get any credit, headmaster Gon turns to Cherryton's deputy headmaster and tells him that it's a real shame that those two won't be a model for society to look to.

Shortly after that, we're introduced to Yahya, the sublime beastar, and to Gosha, Legoshi's grandfather. Yahya and Gosha just so happen to deeply resemble who Louis and Legoshi were at the start of their arcs - an herbivore who deeply hates carnivores because of an incident in their past, and a carnivore who allows himself to be feared and hated by those around him - and just so happen to have once dreamed of becoming co-beastars, before they went their separate ways.

Not long after that, we're told that Yahya is beginning to get too old to be sublime beastar, that his body is declining and he will soon no longer have the physical acuity or resistance to do the job he does, and that even Yahya is beginning to have to admit this to himself - in short, that soon someone will need to replace him.

We get an entire chapter about how Yahya once used his sublime beastar powers to get the 500 Cornered Rats - a gang of criminals who were captured by the police - released from prison so that he could take them on as his subordinates, which is important inasmuch as it establishes that Yahya can pardon Legoshi's conviction for predation and thereby allow him to marry Haru, but also clearly establishes that there is precedent for a sublime beastar pardoning and then hiring a criminal gang - something that would be really useful for Louis if, hypothetically speaking, the Shishigumi were captured and imprisoned.

Then, in chapter 158, Legoshi and Louis go to the black market, to the tower where Louis was once imprisoned, to the balcony where Oguma once told Louis he would change the world, and Legoshi proposes to Louis that the two of them should work together to change the world, that the two of them could be the beastars.

Louis even responds to this by making a big show of saying that Legoshi is being ridiculous, he can't just make up the title of the manga we're reading!

All of this foreshadowing is pointing so clearly in one direction. Everything that Paru has set up is absolutely screaming that Yahya will wipe Legoshi's conviction and then name Louis and Legoshi as his successors, the beastars; that Louis and Legoshi will build on the previous generation and succeed where they failed, with each other - and Haru and Juno - by their sides, standing as a new, healthier example of how carnivores and herbivores can live, work, and love truthfully, honestly, in solidarity alongside each other.

Louis, then, can use his sublime beastar powers to free and hire the Shishigumi, and break his betrothal to Azuki while giving her Horns - the only part of Louis she was actually interested in - since he's too busy to run it anyways.

It works as a culmination of the character progressions involved; it fulfills all of this brilliant foreshadowing Paru has set up; it makes the name of the manga work, because it establishes Beastars as having been the story of how Louis and Legoshi became the beastars. Everything ties together so neatly, so perfectly, so brilliantly.

Instead, all of this foreshadowing goes... nowhere. Legoshi gets an ending that's perfectly adequate but unexceptional, Louis's arc gets thrown in the trash, Yahya resigns from being sublime beastar but then keeps doing the work even though it was age interfering with his ability to work that was the issue anyways, all the stuff about "beastars" leads to nothing, and the manga just kind of fizzles out.

Again, Itagaki tries to offer some justification for this decision, putting the words into Louis's mouth:

I don't find this argument, this claim that Louis remaining close to the people he cares about most and becoming co-beastar with Legoshi would be too much like the plot of an overly saccharine movie, to be convincing.

Firstly, Louis and Legoshi becoming beastars with Haru and Juno at their side would not be a magic fix to all of the societal issues that Paru Itagaki demonstrated through her characters throughout the course of Beastars. Systemic change is slow, difficult progress, and it is never guaranteed that gains made will be kept. While Louis and Legoshi becoming beastars would represent the potential emergence of a new paradigm and the hope that change is possible, it wouldn't represent the issues they struggled to overcome being magically resolved overnight; but I don't think anyone unsatisfied with how Beastars ended is pretending that it would.

Secondly, even if Louis and Legoshi becoming beastars did magically fix all of the societal issues in Beastars going forward (which, again, it wouldn't and shouldn't, but just for the sake of argument), it wouldn't preclude the ending being bittersweet, because for a lot of characters, it's too late. It's too late entirely for Tem, for Ibuki, for Toki and Leano. Melon, psychologically, has been broken beyond repair; Riz will spend years in prison for what he did; Gosha and Yahya, once fast friends, spent thirty years not speaking to each other that they can't get back; Louis lost his childhood and Oguma lost the chance to have a proper relationship with his son.

Even if everything was magically fixed, the people who were hurt would still bear the scars - and I think that's plenty of bitter to balance out the sweet.

So there we have it. Paru Itagaki gave Louis one of the best damn character arcs I'd ever read, one that is incredibly layered and compelling, executed it masterfully from its inception to the final climax of the work, and then fumbled it in the final chapters, throwing out her own foreshadowing and leaving us with an ending that was a mixed bag on the whole and that, for Louis specifically, was outright terrible.

I guess that's why I'm still not over it, two years later, even though Beastars isn't even my most recent furry fixation anymore. It's agonizing to see something that was so enthralling and compelling get obliterated at the last possible moment, to think about what could have been, and to have the knowledge of what it ended up being looming over you every time you come back to the work.

I still love Beastars. But the way that Louis's arc ends, and the way the entire ending of the series got weakened to make his arc end that way... that's something I think I'll always be at least a little bit bitter about.

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wlwinry · 7 days

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12, 32, 42 for any of the bad kids?? 👀

12. Crack headcanon

in another universe gorgug would be a surgical resident i cannot explain this any further i just. you need steady hands for artificing and surgery and an eye for detail and also i think it would be really funny

32. Something guaranteed to make them smile/laugh

fig transforming into other people when there's no weight or pressure behind it will make riz giggle even if he tries to hide it. orangutan while trying to solve a mystery? not fun. transforming into three different people while the bad kids are all getting pizza and making the counter guy do three separate double takes? he will laugh every time

42. 3 comfort items

fabian's battle sheet is absolutely a comfort item to him and he absolutely refuses to admit it. i have a person hcs that he actually has a chest in his room spelled to be opened by him only where he puts small comforts that he thinks he'll get in trouble for having, including the only stuffed animal to survive his childhood (because pirates don't have stuffies), a dog aptly named kitty, and one of those cloth books for babies that cathilda read him often when he was very very small. he doesn't really read it anymore but if it went missing he'd be inconsolable

character hc asks post is here!

#d20 #ask game #ask meme #gorgug thistlespring #figueroth faeth #riz gukgak #fabian seacaster

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strugglingatart · 3 months

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Jr Year ep4

This is me live blogging bc I need to get thoughts out also would love fandom friends full spoilers bellow the cut just so no one accidentally reads anything they don’t want to this will be long

I have wanted most if not all of Zac's and Murph's shirts this season

I still have issues with the multiclass system but also no school thing has made the most sense in universe

I believe you and that's why I'm not saying anything is SUCH a trouble friend mood

"what's the drinking age?" "you have murdered SO many people"

BRENANS FACE WHEN KALINA SAYS I'M NOT BAD ANYMORE OH LORDS

the whole Kalina/Cassandra/Kristen scene is so nerve wrecking and interesting and once again I can talk so much about this topic and I know I have critized Kristen's approach but that's bc honestly I do have issue w it despite understanding it but it does make for an interesting arc and with this conversation it does seem like she believes in this domain of faith on the unknown. I will at some point talk more about from the point of someone who also left a culty religious thing but was still expected to perform similarly once out of it but my thoughts are still not the most organized

that being said I do not trust kalina and i do love cassandra

when you're in the dark I'm there holding your hand why am i crying

not kvx still being a thing lmao so Brennan

oh I just love how complicated but absolutely Bill Seacaster is the whole trust thing, the money going to the nemesees, there being a whole department, honestly that's a department I'd work for it's basically spy and gossip stuff

but also poor Fabian having to go through all this head ache stuff alone

watch Caperslolly Cattlekrush not be a direct nemesis but someone from her party be yes Fabian get that service!

I too keep thinking it is rat ccrushers no t grinders and will absolutely get it wrong

the gorthlax art is PERFECT

my school nurse did not have sweat pants but ok murph(i also absolutely am not from the us idk why i keep pointing out diferences)

they each will have a foil in my head so why just one owlbear contender? also is riz in the bloodrush team?

grinding for xp is so much weirder and terrible imo in this context also should be less effective bc like lbr experience is important like thinking on your feet etc like yes they are probably equal level and Brenan will play them well but they should absolutely not be as good as the bad kids at actual adventuring

I love how they all are so agro tho bc I get it and love the energy and I would absolutely be that mad

YES SOMEONE CALLED OUT THE HIPOCRISY

xp isn't bad if you at least still DO INTERESTING STUFF TO GET IT

if brenan makes them like grinding i will become as agro as the bad kids so far lol

gorthlax gave great advice, that being said i do hope they get a lil bit petty and end annoying grinders

nooo Gorgug (cries) I really want him to do well

listen I am so emo about gorgu's storyline like it's just no thoughts just feels and all of them

listen i don't do character builds but it does not sound to me like artificer and barbarian are THAT ill fitted, like yes the require different focus levels and types but they are also USED in different moments, nothing is stopping Gorgug from using his down time to come up with gadgets that work WITH his strenght and dex and rage and then use reckless abandon in battles. I think even th solar lasso is very much an example of that because it uses his strenghts, he's realing it in with atheltics checks iirc or how his shoes have jump like yes absolutely a challenge and not the most obvious but people are acting like it's impossible when it absolutely isn't

we love Corsica Jones

Riz helping Kristen <3

Brenan is absolutely having so much fun with Ayada's messages

Listen Fig does not need to go to warlock classes, no one in the school knows she is a warlock just do bard and barbarian and help your friend

also i get that procrastination girl

Please I want Fig and Gorgug to work on a song together and for us to get that scene so bad

Aelwynn is a whole entire mood

well that answers me: riz is not on bloodrush

I KNEW BRENNAN MADE THEM STUPID RATS TOO GOOD I HATE IT BUT I LOVE IT

wouldn't detect magic tell riz what enhancements she has? cause otherwise it's nnot THAT useful for spies (which is reason #1 the gadget exists)

oh brennan REALLY made people we will all hate

Yes Bucky I adore him

someone please go home with Fabian

ohhh Brennan put extra stakes at Fig just quitting/failling auegfort since she technically doesn't need it

oh warlock classes are night classes, kinda love that for Fig and also good for her being good at it

also looove the talk about exchanges and that

FIg could make an album out of pressure and expextations that woul be rad as hell

RAGH we love him

LISTEN Ragh should be like party guy, he was absolutely popular and is older and it takes stuff away from the bad kids to do

oh Fabian goes into it immediately we stan

Listen Ally is MASTER of weird ass energies and I love them for it

they truly are such dorks and somehow cool at the same time

I cannot tell if they don't know milkyriver's name or if they are benedict cumberbunching it and I love that

literally everything kalina says is so threatening

also the bad kids should count as followers of cassandra like they are not clerics sure but they ablsolutely belive in her... do only clerics/paladins count?

LISTEN BRENNAN WE DON'T NEED MORE PROBLEMS

oh the shard and red thing that was in one of the arts

oh I REALLY thought they were gonna split party this

I do hope the party still goes well

#fantasy high #dimension 20 #fhjy #adaine o'shaughnessey #fabian aramais seacaster #fig faeth #gorgug thistlespring #kristen applebees #riz gukgak

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ionlymadethissoicouldleaveanask · 1 month

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In the nook of a valley that looked like it was ripped straight out of a postcard for “Adventurer’s Paradise,” Vannak-134 and Riz-028 stood awkwardly side by side. The scene was something out of a nature documentary, except the majestic beasts here were two supersoldiers in state-of-the-art MJOLNIR armor, not exactly blending in with the scenery.

Vannak, towering and clad in dark blue that screamed 'I’m here to party, but also I might accidentally demolish your house,' wore his EOD-variant helmet like it was part of his skull. Riz, on the other hand, was a study in black and subtlety, her armor sleek and adorned with a helmet that was more 'mysterious avenger from a sci-fi serial' than 'standard issue.' Those antennas on her head? They screamed 'I'm listening to your secrets, but also, I can't get good radio reception here.'

They were supposed to be scouting, or patrolling, or some other military term that meant 'walk around and make sure nothing explodes.' But there they were, staring at a waterfall as if it held the secrets of the universe, or at the very least, the secret to breaking the ice and admitting, "Hey, I kinda like you."

"Bet I can beat you to the top," Vannak said, breaking the silence with all the subtlety of a grenade in a china shop. His voice had that deep, rumbling quality, the kind that in ancient times made people think, 'Yep, that’s a leader,' or 'Maybe he’s a god,' but now just made Riz roll her eyes so hard she might've seen her brain.

Riz turned, her posture all 'challenge accepted,' but with an air of 'I’m also judging you.' "Wanna bet?" she threw back, her tone light, her dialect crisp with a hint of mockery, as if she was saying, 'Oh, we're doing this again? Alright, Shakespeare.'

The air between them, usually charged with the electricity of unspoken things and the lingering question of 'What are we, really?' was now laced with the anticipation of their ridiculous challenge. It was their thing, finding the most absurd ways to compete because apparently, talking about feelings was too mainstream.

"Okay, hotshot," Vannak chuckled, the sound muffled by his helmet, "loser buys dinner. And not just any dinner, but something from the black market of the mess hall."

Riz’s laugh cut through the sound of the waterfall. It was clear, almost musical, if music was made by sarcastic supersoldiers. "Deal. But when I win, I want one of those steaks you swear are 'just as good as real meat.' You know, the ones you talk about with the same reverence most people reserve for holy relics."

"You’re on," Vannak shot back, his stance ready, like a knight of old, if knights were into futuristic armor and making bets instead of jousting. "Prepare to be disappointed when it's your turn to raid the kitchen."

They squared up at the base of the cliff, the tension palpable, if you ignored the fact that this was all over a race to the top of a waterfall. "Ready to eat my dust?" Riz taunted, bouncing on the balls of her feet like a boxer ready to enter the ring."In your dreams," Vannak retorted, with the confidence of a man who has absolutely no idea if he can actually make good on his words.

Then, they were off, scrambling up the cliffside like two oversized mountain goats with an affinity for heavy metal—music or armor, take your pick. They climbed, occasionally slipping in their haste, the sound of their armor clanking against rock mixing with the constant roar of the waterfall. It was a symphony of chaos, a testament to their stubbornness and perhaps, a metaphor for their approach to personal issues—climb first, think later.

Halfway up, Riz nearly lost her grip, her foot slipping on a wet rock. Vannak reached out, grabbing her arm in a move that was part knight in shining armor, part 'oh no, we’re both going to die.' For a second, they locked visors, the world narrowing down to this moment of accidental intimacy.

"Thanks," Riz muttered, yanking her arm back like it was on fire, her tone a mix of gratitude and 'I'll never live this down.'

"Don't mention it," Vannak replied, his voice a weird blend of smug and genuinely concerned, like a puppy that's just saved its owner from tripping but also kinda caused it in the first place.

The race resumed, with more caution this time, as if they’d both been reminded that, yes, gravity still existed and, no, their armor couldn’t fly. When they finally reached the top, panting and probably a few dignity points lighter, they collapsed side by side, looking out over the valley below.

"So, about that dinner…" Riz started, breaking the comfortable silence.

"We'll see," Vannak replied, his tone light, but his unspoken words heavy with the promise of more than just a meal....

This was excellent. Your gift for imagery continues to astound me, and the ridiculousness of this event was so fun! I love the idea that Riz and Vannak are so bad at talking that they’d rather beat each other up than ask each other on a date.

The pining is adorable and the competition is even better. I loved it all.

#halo #halo fanfic #vannak 134 #riz 028 #vannak 134 x riz 028 #others writing

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bullet-prooflove · 1 year

Text

The Best Thing (NSFW) - Michael 'Riz' Ariza x Reader

Tagging: @anime-weeb-4-life @danzer8705 @mysoulisasunflower @vannabanana1995 @im-just-a-mississippi-girl @sxmmarie @camelia35 @queeniesdiary @briefpersonenemy @creativitybeware @genius2050 @mortal--soul @buddinglinguist @oureternalbond @rubes2323

Riz’s lips are on your throat, his thumb chasing along the line of your jaw as his stubble brushes across your skin. Your fingers are tangled in his hair, he moans against the hinge of your jaw, his breath ghosting over your ear as you tug it just right.

“Songbird…” The name rolls off his tongue like a sonnet as his hand grips your bare ass holding you in place as he eases into you. The black lace panties from earlier are still tucked in the front pocket of his jeans, he’s spent the night in the bar with his fingers caressing the soaked material, his cock hard as fuck as you played on that small makeshift stage.

“Fuck, the things you do to me woman.” He smiles against your mouth as he angles his hips just right, hitting that sweet spot inside of you.

The bathroom is small, just about big enough for the two of you to fit in as he takes you on the fucking vanity because Jesus, the thought of you on that stage with no panties ruins him. He has no restraint when it comes to you, you have this fucking power over him, and you don’t even know it.

Your breathing hitches, he sees that flush creeping up your cheeks, feels the heat of it against his own as his arm wraps around your waist and draws you closer. He needs you, all of you right now, he needs the press of you against him. He needs to be surrounded in you, drowning in you. He can feel your cunt clenching around his dick and it is fucking everything.

He picks up his pace chasing your pleasure, his lips sealing over yours, drinking in those deviant little noises . Your nails dig into his shoulder as you go over the edge, gripping his cock like a fucking velvet fist and he fucking loses it. Before he knows it he’s spilling himself inside of you, your thighs locked around his waist, keeping him buried so fucking deep.

In the aftermath he can’t fucking think, he just keeps kissing you because he can’t stand to be apart just yet. It’s languid and it’s messy but he loves it, loves you. His thumb chases over the blush of your cheek before he breaks away and stares into your bright eyes.

He thinks he sees the universe in those eyes, the moon and the stars all situated in one place. It captures something inside of him, it makes him breathless because how he feels for you it’s fathomless, there’s no beginning, there’s no end there’s, just you.

“You’re the best thing that’s fucking happened to me.” He tells you and he means it.

He thought he was fucking living before he met you, but he realises he’s just been coasting. Being with you has ignited something inside of him, something in his soul and once you have that you can’t go back.

“Fuck, pretty boy.” You whisper, your lips brushing over the base of his palm with a featherlight touch. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me too.”

Love Riz? Get added to his tag list!

Like My Work? - Why Not Buy Me A Coffee

#michael riz ariza x reader #michael riz ariza #riz ariza #riz mayans #riz x reader #riz x you #michael riz ariza x you #michael ariza #michael ariza x reader #mayans fx #mayans mc #mayans

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aranarumei · 3 months

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okay watched ep 2 of fhjy and as anyone might imagine I've got thoughts. under the cut.

lots of fun things this episode! haven't watched the AP yet btw. i'm mostly writing these down myself so I'll go character-by-character, but some overall stuff about the episode:

whatever episode one was doing really paid off here. by itself, the full episode of battle, apart from being excited by all the new intros, was a bit frustrating especially since I wasn't sure how they were actually going to be able to reel the night yorb in, but they did it in this one! with lots of time left over for other stuff.

and with both episodes out, (as i suspected) that really frustrating feeling from episode 1 carries a lot more meaning--brennan making everyone fight those minions was perfect icing on the cake. as well as all those personal troubles at the end. but that gets into character stuff, so:

riz:

riz gukgak is one of my favorite characters in the universe. when i watched fhsy baron happened and i obsessively took notes the whole season bc i was like. riz is aroace and i can prove it. as you can imagine i nearly died when my green heaven released

anyways, pretty much everything riz has done has been so, so, on brand for what I'd think he'd do, so that's great--i feel like I haven't gone wrong in understanding him, which is cool

one of the big things that seems like we'll be getting this season is riz's attachment to his friends, by which i mean he feels like he can't hang out with them unless there's a job to be done. he's got this bit in the boys' night extra where riz says "it's usually like we kind of have this whole group dynamic where all of us come together and we solve these problems together. and when I don’t have a problem to solve, I don’t know what to do with myself." which is pretty much exactly what's going on here. as brennan phrases it, riz has basically just told his mother "I have a pretty a hard time connecting to my dearest friends whose lives I've saved many times unless there's a problem, so I can feel useful."

and this like... deep sense of anxiety around being alone, that's kind of a really deep part of riz's character, right? penny luckstone was his babysitter--closest thing he had to a friend. riz cares a lot about the case, but he probably also cared about the only connection he really had. and now the bad kids are his connections. he wants to be with them, like, forever, and half of his worries about all those romantic entanglements is that everyone is going to prioritize themselves and their romantic partners above him, and since he doesn't... want that kind of thing, where does that leave him? alone? forever? with no place to belong? he's already one of the only goblins we ever see in the whole time we've been in the land of spyre.

and I think what's really heartbreaking about this, at least to me, is that riz so clearly and obviously loves and adores his friends. he doesn't have a problem expressing his love! and I don't think he really even doubts that his friends love him, too. it's just that. i don't think he can deal with the possibility of being without them. and he doesn't know if the fact that they like each other is enough to keep them together. but hey, world-saving does.

sklonda was so good this episode, too. was particularly affected by when she told riz "you do everything for other people, and I want to make sure that you don't get your heart broken" because it's just... yeah. also that's such a real struggle money-wise with college in particular... I really kind of hoped we could maybe help sklonda out with her case, but, it is her job, after all. see where riz gets his board from haha. but seriously, she's just... such a good mother. every time the gukgaks interact it's so warm to me because riz and sklonda just... so obviously care for each other, so carefully. like. not a single bit of resentment or frustration coming from riz once sklonda tells him he might need some to put some extra pressure on himself, and it's partially being fine with pressure, partially not acknowledging his problems, and partially that he's just a good kid and knows his mother's doing the best for him. so he'll do that for her, too.

who bets that riz will not talk about any sad feelings in front of his friends this season!!! anyways that was so goddamned long, because I'm crazy about riz. the rest will be way quicker

anyways no one except ME is reading this. haha.

fig:

so, I'm fully convinced that gilear and fig swapped lucks. the sour, curdling feeling? very gilear yogurt. also the kicker was icing on her shirt. real yogurt moment there. and with all these kisses of fortune gilear's getting, I'm convinced that's what's happened for fig. very interested to see how that messes with her coolness

I'm also really interested in fig actually taking bard classes. i do have to wonder how it might go... I know emily like, does music, so I wonder if any of her knowledge there might come in handy

also very interested in seeing how any of the aguefort quangle stuff is gonna mess with things this season! even the little bit of ayda we saw was so good.

kristen:

so, like, obviously, cassandra's not doing so hot, because they've only got two followers. i think it's really interesting how non-pressuring they are towards kristen because like. for all the pestering they don't actually seem to outright mention that they aren't doing so great

also kristen seems in a pretty bad place this semester, but I'm hoping that the stark reality of expulsion is actually going to make her think about like, getting her life together. i'm really interested to see where it'll go because like. i dunno. i'm not much of an evangelizer myself.

more than tracker being away, it must sting additionally that like, apart from being in a possible breaking up state, tracker, right now, is being the like, perfect cleric. like she is reforming and adding nuance to her faith and stuff in a really really big way!! which is the kind of achievements kristen should be doing. but you know. they're world saving and things are... they're pretty tiring. (must've been nice talking about the moon goddess during eternal night, i bet)

ragh is also back and i'm so glad bc i love ragh. also 100% that red crystal lydia barkrock's been dealing with is gonna be relevant. i really hope that he has somewhat of a presence this season because like, he was around in fhsy, but ragh's like... idk, he's cool, and I feel like he's rich enough in character that he's got places to go?

adaine:

loved the little aelwyn mention. that nemesis abjuration is such a deeply aelwyn way of looking out for her sister

i am really excited to see adaine trying to get a job, personally. and i do hope we get to see more of zayn darkshadow bc he's just a really chill and nice minor npc in my opinion

fabian:

i love fabian's parents as equally as i hate them, and this scene exemplified it. they like... give him things, and look after him, but they're not really... supportive, are they? in an emotional way. no time to talk, and he's 18 now, so they're totally fine leaving him alone for months. they can be the cool parents that let him throw awesome parties. and hallariel saying it's a great thing to be his father's son... I don't know, bill seacaster's like, kind of a shithead?

so that'll be interesting. and he wanted to go to dance camp...! i hope he really does get to explore that passion more during the school year. truthfully i have to wonder how his grades are... riz and adaine are doing great, fig and kristen are doing terribly, gorgug is probably not the greatest considering his rage, but fabian? I'd be interested in knowing what's up with that

also they don't directly answer whether they're taking all the staff iirc, but judging by how hallariel mentions that food is just set up with an account, it may be that he can't even like, talk to cathilda or anything. which sucks!! it really does suck.

gorgug:

in some ways, zelda and gorgug breaking up was a little anticipated. still, it does suck. but it's not like he really had the time for anything

i wonder how this interacts with the timeline of the seven: that's in her junior year and sam seems to still refer to gorgug as zelda's boyfriend, and stuff, so I wonder if it's a retcon or I've got the timeline wrong or that I haven't quite finished actually watching the seven. anything could be fine--personally I think gorgug and zelda work really well as solo characters, so like, who knows

edit: in the AP brennan said zelda graduated so the events of the seven have likely already happened... that does bring up the question of why things dont line up but like. i can handwave time shenanigans in my head. especially with the quangle.

could be kinda fun if gorgug and ragh bonded a bit more this season.

thistlesprings are great parents, of course. love that they offered to fix the hangvan, or work on it together, and I'm really hoping their supportive energy is gonna help gorgug out this year. i have to wonder if there's gonna be any strangeness with gorgug meeting any of the thistlespring extended family, now that they're hosting this festival

speaking of this festival, it's the same one that sklonda's working a case related to!! i want to get my claws into this mystery so bad

ok that's about everything. gonna watch the AP now! my final thoughts... it's so frustrating that these bad kids have saved the world multiple times over and done so many things, and it's not like... enough, not even close. but that's a very real thing I felt during junior year of high school and that I'm sure many people felt--that I'd spent all this time developing myself as a person and becoming better and doing some pretty interesting stuff, in my opinion, but when I put it all out on like a resume or a college application or whatever, it looked like nothing. even though it was absolutely meaningful and important, it was nothing.

#kiri.txt #fhjy #fhjy spoilers #fantasy high #d20 #i feel so weird tagging this bc no ones gonna read this. but the tags are so i can find it. lol #in this essay i will #liveblog

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