#hoo boy this one was A Challenge lmao

[nycorix]

Consequences [8/11]

[fic post]

|part 1| |part 2| |part 3| |part 4| |part 5| |part 6| |part 7|

At long last I’m back with part 8!! Feat. the Director feeling proud of herself for #winning with him until she realizes, entirely too late, that she super lost

TW: emotional manipulation/abuse, medical stuff (see part 7 tw)

___________

8. 

When the Director enters Medical Bay One, 22 is sitting upright in the bed, posture ridiculously flawless, expression a perfect blank.

This does not surprise her.

She stands aside to let the medbot pass, looks on as it runs through diagnosis protocol, administers the first round of bespoke antivirals, disconnects his IV and pronounces him fit for release and monitoring. 

There was a time when she would have had to bring in a team of six. One for the treatment, the other five requisitioned for restraint purposes. Medbots only, of course—broken medbots quantifiably less expensive to repair or replace than broken employees.

Now, in year twelve of the program, 22 does not so much as twitch at any point of the procedure, his stone-faced stillness perfectly evocative of the bioengineered lab-grown AI superweapon all of New Liberty City believes him to be. If he is relieved when it is done, or apprehensive at her presence, it does not show on his face.

This does not surprise her either.

Indeed, the only thing about the operative in front of her that gives her pause is the fact that he, despite a fever of nearly 102 and a vitals display feed that is threatening to give her a migraine, does not look ill in the slightest. 

Then again, she amends, he doesn’t exactly look well either. The longer she studies him, the better she can see it: something about him is distinctly and unmistakably off, like if you took everything in a room and shifted it over two inches to the left.

The medbot leaves, but it might as well be invisible for all the attention 22 has paid it. His eyes have been on her from the moment she set foot through the door, and as she comes nearer that gaze sharpens—into the trademark unblinking uncanny fixed stare that all of the operatives have, the one that is just shy of predatory and that to this day still sets all her hair on end.

She bypasses this inconvenient primal reflex with practiced ease, fixing him with a measured stare of her own.

“When I received the operative health crisis notification,” she says mildly, in lieu of a greeting, “you were the last one I expected it to be.”

Predictably, this garners no discernible reaction. He sits there, watching, looking for all the world like a bot awaiting a directive.

“Nor, I must confess, was said health crisis anywhere within the ballpark of my expectations,” she continues, seeding the words with just the slightest measure of reproach. “Sudden-onset acute upper respiratory infection?” Reproach up a fifth of a degree. “A broken nose?”

This last finally seems to get through, if infinitesimally. A sea change stirs in his unnaturally pale eyes—the barest glimmer of…something. Not shame, not embarrassment or alarm or unease. Annoyance.

“A miscalculation,” he says, and the ever-present behavioral-scientist-backbrain part of her points out that he does not specify to which affliction he is referring. “It will not happen again.”

The lethal certainty baked into this statement sends a chill through the whole of her, scalp to soles. She muscles the fight-or-flight response down and smothers it. Lifts a brow, lips pressed in a thin smile of quiet regard, and inclines her head. 

“Walk with me.”

She leaves the room without a backward glance, his presence behind her like a weight at the top of her spine. The staccato click of her heels drowns out the faint swish of his socks on the tile of the hall, and when she clears the personnel from the nearest diagnostics room he’s there beside her, silent as death.

“Have a seat,” she says, gesturing to the row of recently-vacated chairs facing the bank of assorted lab equipment.

He does not. He stays put by the smartwall just inside the door, standing: spine perfectly straight, shoulders square. If he’s tired or symptomatic it isn’t presenting in either facial expression or body language.

A lab tech pushes a bundle of clothing into her arms with a jumbled apology as they scurry out the door. The Director takes a look at it, huffs a laugh through her nose, and sets it on a table.

“I see they’ve managed to get the blood out of your jacket,” she says, taking it from the pile and handing it over to him.

He doesn’t even glance at it. Just accepts it wordlessly and slides it on over the thin black smart fabric undershirt he’s still wearing, his stay in Medical too brief to warrant an in-patient tunic. She frowns, just slightly, and hands him his boots and utility belt, which are received in identical fashion.

He reaches out for the gloves as she holds them out next, the extensive knotted trails of scar tissue beneath his skin visible under the harsh fluorescents. She pulls her gaze away, up to his face.

“It’s unlike you.” She speaks softly, almost gently. She wants to say she can see him brace for whatever is coming, but if she’s honest with herself any read she has on his expressions is guesswork at best, twelve years and multiple facial analysis lens apps be damned. “To lose to Nicholas, of all people.” 

To this, though, he again telegraphs annoyance to a degree she can pick up with reasonable confidence.

“I was still assessing his condition.” His voice, quietly brittle, is even harder to pick up than usual. “It was a mis…” He pauses, swallows. Immediately her interest is piqued—22 is not given to speaking without premeditation.

“Miscalculation,” she supplies.

The briefest of hesitations, then a nod. 

“Yes, so you said.” She narrows her eyes. There is significant overlap between his current expression and the one he makes when he violates censorship parameters—only, this can’t possibly be that. Even if he is thinking about the undoubtedly forbidden behaviors that landed him in this situation, the array filter does not censor thoughts. Not that any of the operatives were explicitly told this, of course.

In any case, hesitation in 22 historically amounts to weak spot in defenses, and the Director is by no means above using this to her advantage.

“Speaking of miscalculations.” She casts his vitals monitor up on the smartwall behind him, alongside data from the medbot’s report. “Can you tell me what this is?” She gestures to the image on the right, a cluster of vaguely hexagonal blobs stained bluish against a pale backdrop.

He looks at it a moment, then shakes his head, watching her sidelong. He’s starting to look just the slightest bit bleary—which, given his readings, would hardly be surprising if not for what and, more importantly, who he is.

“Human adenovirus,” she interjects into his telling silence. “HAdV-B14, to be exact. Known to cause acute upper respiratory infections ranging from mild to severe, occasionally fatal, especially in the young, elderly, or immunocompromised. Present specimen imaged twenty minutes ago from a throat swab of yours.” She folds her hands, watching his face.

“I’m not critical.” This is not a question; and the way he holds her gaze as he speaks is more than a little unsettling, as is the subtle note of satisfaction in the husk of his tone.

“....No.” She regrets the admission immediately and hastens to regain her ground. “However, there is still plenty of time and opportunity for you to become so, given the tenuous state of your health, as you are well aware.” She pauses, meeting his blank gaze unflinchingly. Recalibrates, casting new data to the smartwall with a flick of her wrist. This time it’s a building schematic, overlaid with a scrolling list of names. 

“I’m sure I don’t need to remind you,” she continues, selecting an entry on the list, “of the extensive measures we have to take to ensure your safety and wellbeing.” The name she selects is random, one she only vaguely recognizes as one of the researchers: a time punch with a small box beside it that reads health check complete. “We screen everyone who enters the building,” she adds, when he doesn’t respond. “The air filtration system is top of the line, especially—” she sidesteps the words down here, carefully—“for sublevels A through D.”

If any of this means anything to him, he gives no indication. He simply watches her, and the screen, and waits.

She pulls up a portion of his file to overlay the schematic. Name, number, age, birthday. Date of initial autoimmune disorder incidence. Dates of subsequential flare-ups. Number, type, and dates of corrective therapies and procedures. List of current medications. He barely glances at it. 

“You’re more than old enough to understand the delicate balance your immune system is suspended in. The immunosuppressants you’re on alone would make you more susceptible to infection, never mind your lack of acquired natural immunities—and I’m sure you’re well aware of the fact that the former cannot be discontinued under any circumstances. Unless, of course, you would like another liver transplant.” She waits for him to flinch. He doesn’t.

Her jaw tightens. Waving away the display, she closes the distance between them, picking up a package of antibacterial wipes along her way.

“Given everything I have just shown you,” she says, tipping his chin down, bracing a hand—a gentling hand, a warning hand—against his jawbone as she begins wiping away dried blood leftover on his upper lip, “the only logical conclusion is that at some point in the last seventy-two hours, you or one of your fellow operatives spent a significant period of time outside of this building.” 

He stays still—stiller than should be possible—as she works at the staining on his skin. He doesn’t move, doesn’t blink. She’s not sure he’s even breathing, come to think of it. If it wasn’t for the warmth radiating off him, for the pulse in his neck, even she might be inclined to think him more machine than human.

“Of course,” she continues, “none of you were under directive to do so, meaning this excursion was unauthorized.” She gives him a meaningful look. A don’t worry, you aren’t in trouble as long as you confide in me look. “I already have the security feeds to confirm this, by the way,” she concludes, conversationally, pulling back to admire her handiwork. “I’m simply giving you the opportunity to tell me the truth before any more…” she pauses, delicately— “...final decisions are made.”

He says nothing. 

She presses her lips into a flat line, patience beginning to wear thin. “I don’t think you understand,” she begins, waving a grainy blow-up of a lens-captured photo from some customer-citizen’s social that depicts 06 and 22 huddled together in the middle of Greenleaf Square over to the blank smartwall, “how much is at stake here. Not just for you, but for her, and for Nicholas as well. So if you have any information for me, it is in your best interest and theirs to share it now.”

Minutes pass, silence and eye contact unbroken.

Irrational anger seizes her, product of the history between them—of the incomprehensible long game she suspects he’s playing but can’t even approximate the shape of; of the way he’s the perfectly obedient foil to 06’s rebellious streak, yet something in his eyes is anything but; of too many unfruitful conversations just like this one. 

“I didn’t want to do this, but—” she stops short, distracted by a sharp movement from 22. More of a twitch than anything else, but the sheer uncharacteristicness of it puts her immediately on high alert. His pulse simultaneously spikes, incongruous with the absence of any detectable motion from him.

She glances sharply at him when he does it again, some kind of spasm that has his vitals feed going momentarily haywire with each one. 

“Something the matter?” she says, eyes narrowing—and when it happens a third time, his expression contorting in an obvious flinch before he forcibly schools it back, it suddenly makes sense. 

“Gesundheit,” she says, arching an eyebrow. “I’d advise you not to keep trying to stop them like that, by the way. If you give yourself an aneurysm, I can’t help you.”

The contempt in the look he brings to bear on her then is enough to curdle her blood, though in a moment it, too, is wiped from his face with a hard blink and the faintest hint of a sniff.

She feels a headache coming on.

“Or Kit, for that matter,” she adds, in a sudden fit of inspiration, probing for sore spots that exist if one knows where to look. “Is she faring similarly after your little excursion, I wonder?”

“I don’t know.” His response is as instant as it is flat. 

“I believe you,” she concedes finally, after another long moment of not quailing beneath his stare, “but only because if she were severely ill you would have brought her to me.” She pauses. He doesn’t quite blink under her sudden scrutiny, but he doesn’t quite not, either. “Unless, perhaps, you’ve got her sequestered away somewhere on sublevel D.”

This, finally, visibly strikes a nerve. As well it should—he came out of the incident she’s referencing with a double concussion, a punctured lung, fourteen broken bones, twenty-eight mishealed ones and a stress-triggered flare up. He was in the ICU for almost a month.

…But then, of course, she doubts that’s the nerve that was struck. She remembers all too well how Kit flatlined no less than eight times during her liver transplant, and she’s certain he remembers it too. The only times he had surfaced from delirium during his own harrowing recovery were to ask if she was alive—and with such uncharacteristic distress that multiple personnel broke protocol to answer him truthfully, in case it would improve his chances of pulling through.

She had, regrettably, been one of said personnel. 

In the end, obviously, both operatives had survived, and if it was by virtue of the tenacity of their fucking bonds she did not care to know it.

When she glances at him again, his face is blank, any trace of a reaction wiped clean from it.

A spike of frustration nearly claims her before she tamps it down. 

“If neither of you are in critical condition,” she says evenly, “and if Catherine does not choose to join you in the next, let’s say, five minutes—” she makes a show of checking the time on her lenses— “then I’m afraid you’re going to have to take full responsibility for the consequences of your actions, with or without her participation.”

He remains silent. If she didn’t know him better, she’d almost think he was exhibiting the faintest air of impatience.

She sighs. “We both know whose idea it was to leave the grounds,” she says, softening a degree or two. An olive branch. A final offering before she drops the other shoe. “Why didn’t you stop her?”

“Risk assessment,” he says crisply—and oh, there’s the infection. Raised just a little louder now, she notes that his voice is nothing like itself, thick and raw like he’s been gargling knife blades. Interesting. “She would have left regardless. I followed her according to the buddy system protocol.” 

Listening to him makes her want to clear her own throat. She fights the instinct, instead pressing her lips together in the approximation of maternal concern she’s honed to perfection.

“If you tell me where she is now,” she says carefully, eyes fixed to his, “I will leave you both in the green. Just this once.”

It’s a bluff, all of it. Whether he knows this or not, whether his obstinate lack of cooperation is inspired by this, or his loyalty to Kit, or his compromised state, she couldn’t be fucked to guess; but whatever the case, he does not budge an inch. They stay locked in this stalemate of a stare before finally, hating herself, she blinks first.

“Time’s up,” she says calmly, though her mind is anything but. “Unless you can somehow summon her in the next ten seconds, I’ll be sending you out to do street cleanup.” She pulls up the appropriate communication channels and information packets on her lenses. “When Catherine is found, she will be assigned to SCQ for the remainder of the month.”

SCQ—what the operatives dubbed “the box” when they were children, despite all her efforts to shut the pejorative down—is Catherine’s least favorite punishment, and she knows as well as 22 does that expecting her to spend a full thirty days in it is absurd, even dangerous. 

“I’ll go,” he says without batting an eye, in what appears to be utter disregard of both his own failing health and the guaranteed wrath of his partner. As if in some involuntary acknowledgement of the first, however, he sneezes again, stifled to silence against the flat of his fist.

“Be careful.” Her tone is part admonishment, part threat, his name threaded onto the end of the phrase to seal the warning. As it leaves her lips his eyes snap to hers again, unnaturally quick, and something that looks disturbingly close to dangerous flashes in the depths of them, there and gone. 

She musters every ounce of her will not to flinch or look away and the moment passes almost before she can register it, leaving him looking distinctly more tired than before.

“Let me be clear: I’m assigning you to clear 13th through 17th Street, alone, before curfew,” she says tightly, unsettled in a way she can’t quite parse. “No assistance, no excuses. If you fail to comply, I’m sending you to the community services department in the morning. Do you understand the directive?”

“I understand.” His tone, beneath the layers of fatigue and congestion, is ice and steel. Worse, though his expression does not change, somehow she gets the distinctly uncomfortable impression that he is, against all sensible logic, pleased. “Will that be all?”

It feels entirely too much like letting him have the last word. She grasps at the straws of the resolve she’d thought was airtight, coming up with little more than a ghost of a threat, the last cast of a baitless hook. “Not quite.” She folds her arms. Realizes the defensive nature of the posture and almost unfolds them, forces herself to remain in the position for consistency, taps her fingers against her arm. “I’m sure you’re as concerned about Catherine as I am. Would you like me to notify you when she is found?”

His eyes when they lock on hers are baleful, a coldly burning gray that pins her like a butterfly to velvet. “That,” he says quietly, “will not be necessary.”

She takes a breath, but by the time the words come he is gone.

|part 9|

#firebreak book #06/22 #fanfiction #kasey writes #consequences fic #boxcar thing #diana reyes says no to the power of friendship send tweet #hoo boy this one was A Challenge lmao #it took so long bc i ended up rewriting it #it's been a while since i wrote the first version and i understand their weirdo nuanced dynamic a lot better now so here we are rip #the director has almost no idea what's going on in his head lmaooo but she thinks she super does. #meanwhile he's using every scrap of his willpower to refrain from murdering her #especially whenever she touches him. or uses his name. sorry 22 #lmao he got exactly what he wanted in this scene but. I wouldn't call it winning lolll he's gonna regret it next scene

[jgracie]

OFF TO THE RACES — PJO/HOO + F1 TEAMS

masterlist | rules

↳ part 1!

an u can tell i tried to make all of these dramatic cz if ur an f1 fan you'll know how MESSY that sport is LMAO

MERCEDES’ DRIVER LINEUP CONSISTS OF . . .

OO1 — NICO DI ANGELO

the di angelo name has been one that's been plastered on f1 headlines since the beginning of time, and nico is no exception! despite many people sending him hate for being in the sport through nepotism, di angelo ignores their words and simply continues to prove them wrong, coming from behind other drivers when they'd least expect it and swiftly taking their spots on the grid. with a new addition to mercedes, talk has been going around about exactly how much say di angelo has in who his teammate is...

OO2 — HAZEL LEVESQUE

quiet and elusive hazel levesque seemingly appeared out of nowhere, immediately being signed by mercedes - no questions asked. when people went digging for her career history, nothing was found. when people asked her predecessor what had happened, nothing was said. this isn't to say she's a bad driver - in fact, it's quite the opposite! levesque easily challenges all the currently reigning drivers for their spot on that podium, even her teammate and brother— whoops, didn't mean to let that slip!

ASTON MARTIN’S DRIVER LINEUP CONSISTS OF . . .

OO1 — FRANK ZHANG

to both people in the industry and fans of formula one, frank zhang seemed to be nothing more than a hopeless case - always at the very back of the grid and barely managing to score any points throughout the season. however, a certain someone at aston martin saw a bright future for him, which is what landed him a seat at the luxurious team. now, he's finally getting the reins of formula one! we believe zhang is definitely a name to keep an eye out for in the very foreseeable future

OO2 — REYNA AVILA RAMIREZ ARELLANO

poor miss arellano was at golden boy grace's side during the entirety of her formula one career, the two red bull drivers dominating the championship and constantly having flawless 1-2 finishes no matter the track or weather. however, something seems to have happened behind the scenes during the winter break - something which bumped her down to aston martin, with annabeth chase taking her spot on grace's side. she refuses to speak about it, but we'll get it out of her eventually!

WILLIAMS’ DRIVER LINEUP CONSISTS OF . . .

OO1 — PIPER MCLEAN

the daughter of aston martin team principal tristan mclean certainly made a bold choice for her first year in formula one. we all know that tristan adores his daughter, but if that's true, why would she choose to go to a team as unstable as williams? when our insiders asked mr mclean, a dark look washed over his face and he walked away, not uttering a single word. uh oh, it seems like daddy's dearest princess has gone rogue!

OO2 — WILLIAM "WILL" SOLACE

to replace percy jackson, williams decided to sign their namesake - will solace. after winning the formula two championship three years ago, will went to indycar as there were no seats left for him at formula one. however, we all know how magnetic the fantasy of being called an f1 champion is to racers, so it's no surprise he came running back! he and his teammate, mclean, seem to be making a pretty good team, but can they single-handedly bring williams a constructor's championship win?

#nico di angelo x reader #hazel levesque x reader #frank zhang x reader #reyna arellano x reader #reyna avila ramírez arellano x reader #piper mclean x reader #will solace x reader #pjo x reader #f1 x pjo #cynwrites

[asmolbirb]

Birb liveblogs the final Temeraire trilogy: League of Dragons

Overseas travel edition! I devoured this book on a 15hr flight without the ability to update my reactions live, so here they are all in one go, with much less screaming in the tags

So obvs I’m devastated that Tharkay is gone again but it’s tickling me pink that Laurence is like “oh we’re cuddling on dragonback? It’s Tharkay or bust for me uwu”. And it’s undeniably hysterical that in the middle of The Most Important War Effort So Far, Novik is taking extra time to discuss dragonback cuddle logistics. Truly zero notes

Naomi Novik stop killing off everyone Laurence cares about challenge ToT ToT ToT

Laurence screaming and thrashing while Hammond and Temeraire play dress up with him might be the funniest running gag in the entire series

I LIED the funniest running gag in the series is every single description of Temeraire “heroically” expressing 1 singular generosity

The Miss Merkelyte romcom C plot is absolutely sending me. What the fuck is happening lmao

CALL THARKAY A FUCKIN WHACKAMOLE THE WAY HE’S ALWAYS POPPING UP OUT OF RANDOM-ASS HOLES IN EVERY WRETCHED SWATH OF BACKCOUNTRY ON THE PLANET

“I’m soooo over my act of treason it doesn’t bother me at all” <- words dreamed up by the utterly deranged (someone who is not over his act of treason even a little bit)

Awwww baby’s first PTSD…….. :(

This will not surprise anyone but I’m immediately obsessed with Ning. Big fan of a character whose primary narrative purpose is to tell everyone they’re being big old idiots

Hoo boy the way Laurence handles his authority, particularly when reprimanding rude subordinates, sets off my competency kink like no one’s business. And he’s built like a linebacker on top of that?? *fans self* I’m so so glad we get to see him be a proper captain again, it’s a lovely bit of closure to finish out the series

“My dear, that is the Temeraire, herself” PARDON ME I MUST SQUEAL, I’m so unbelievably soft for this owo

Laughing my ass off at Laurence turning his raggedy band of ferals into a bunch of crypto bros

Man remember in the first few books when the divine wind was this mighty and rare thing? And now it seems Temeraire is loosing the thing twice a chapter. I love *clenches fist* a tangible depiction of growth over the length of a narrative

Crying screaming gnashing my teeth over Tharkay showing up out of nowhere at the end of everything and saying “hey. Do u wanna retire with me while ur dragon menaces the government? Do u wanna do that maybe forever? Haha jk……. unless…..?” They’re both so silly and speaking in so much euphemism. It’s gonna take them 10 years to even kiss each other. I’m coming apart at the seams about it

#temeraire #Temeraire spoilers #neko rambles #IM AAAAAAAAA #so sad the series is over #honestly by the end I didn’t even care about the war effort LOL #I just want Tharkay and Laurence to be in love forever

[that-g3-artist]

Palette challenge #3, from @zeldadou! and hoo boy, did this one fight me lol! the other two i did took 2 hours or less, this one took me closer to 5 or 6. I just could not get the colors as bright as i wanted, so I absolutely cheated and used a shit ton of overlay and glow layers. they are all from the palette, i promise!

I’ve got one other request sitting in the inbox rn (which i will definitely go back to my regular painting style for lmao), after that i’ll probably take a break from these. if anyone else sends in a request, i’ll probably just hold onto it until i feel like doing it :)

#linked universe #lu four #palette challenge #every once in a while i try and experiment with my coloring #and then i remember why i tend to stick to basic painting lol #i may come back to this with my own colors because i love the lineart #i think it turned out alright as is i just know i can do better #g3 does an art #lu art

[galkyrie]

1, 4 and 9 for the deep fic author asks (if you are still doing it (btw I loved the newest fates' chapter ❤️💖❤️💖❤️💖))

Thank you! I've been so excited about the feedback you have no idea:

1. what's the fic youre most proud of?

Definitely The Fates' Designs at this point. It's been a challenge writing a long fic like this with so many threads but I really enjoy it and am pleased with it so far

(Skipping 4 because I already answered it!)

9. what's your writing process like?

Hoo boy okay, so I'm a GM for a few ttrpgs and my process of building the story is the same way I build a world for a game's arc except I treat the characters with the POVs being written as my player characters. Their characterization drives the story as the events occur and I focus the pieces on their reactions to those events.

I use trello to track and tag plot points through a rough outline of each "arc" and divide the events into chapters made of specific parts of those arcs. Then I have cards for each character, tracking relevant details of their involvement in the fic and their important charact traits for the story I'm working on. Each major event has comments for how each character would likely react externally and think internally about what is happening.

I also have an idea web involving important facts to keep track of and their relationship to one another, how they're carried on through the story, and whether or not they've been resolved yet. It's easier not to forget loose ends that need tying up that way for me.

For Fates' I basically had a board covered in red string tracking who knew what and when about Tim and Jason's relationship up to the big reveal, lmao

[vvildflowerrr]

⛤🍃🫀🌿welcome to my blog!🌿🫀🍃⛤

(03/30/24 - read while u can i plan to delete a lot of this soon, the internet is a shitty place)

name - Wil (short for Willow!)

age - 24

gender - fluid (they/he and sometimes she)

orientation - poly, queer, sapphic, fluid

- ⛤ -

about me:

I'm here to shitpost and look at pretty things, and hopefully find interesting spiritual anecdotes from other folks too! this blog has turned into - mostly - a collection of information to pair with my real life studies into esoteric knowledge and my personal religious/spiritual path. I also vent on here at times in the form of prose usually, but sometimes just screaming :) lol

I'm currently studying a form of Feral Druidry with some guidance from my former roomie/my good friend, who is a Druid Priest, as well as taking online courses! I started my spiritual path with An Mórrígan from the Irish pantheon. I studied Heathenry for awhile to connect with Hel, whom I still love and work with even if I've shifted in my path more. I incorporate some practice from Cultus Deorum/Roman paganism because I connected with Venus as well last year during Yule! Past those three, who I work with loosely, I also work with the concept of "The Wild" as an overarching theme, they are all the unexplainable energies in my life and push me to challenge myself as much as the Goddess figureheads I love do <3

You'll often find me writing miscellaneous bullshit and putting a melody to it in my feeble attempts at making music. ( check out my youtube channel here: https://youtube.com/@willowcrowluxx )

I have two cats! one is a shorthaired blonde tailless boy named Nubbin, and then a longhaired black, poofy tailed baby named Binx!

I'm currently in therapy working through ptsd stuff etc, so you will definitely see me get emo on the dashboard every now and again. my apologies in advance.

you can find all of my spiritual content under my personal tag: #anmorheljave

- ⛤ -

- ⛤ -

interests:

(things I like and look for on this lovely little hellsite)

skyrim - I just started playing in 2022 and have such a deep love for this game. I finally defeated Alduin! And am now spending time going through all the other questlines and digging deeper into the lore!

queer stuff - I'm some flavor of gay, a fluid nonbinary person questioning being transmasc, figuring it out! but have done my fair share of discourse in the past, not down for that now lol 🙃 queer people are beautiful and wonderful however they identify in good faith <3

music - I have an eclectic taste in music and am always seeking more! and also want to make music for a living in my future :) some faves are: tash sultana, vernon jane, ocean alley, halsey, ethel cain, IDLES, fleetwood mac, hozier, paramore, alanis morissette, janis joplin, amy winehouse, nirvana, alice in chains, brown bird, queens of the stone age, ¡mayday!, lights, bring me the horizon, ghostmane, $uicideboy$, mother mother, tame impala, rainbow kitten surprise, pvris

nature - I find a lot of peace in nature and find a lot of my next steps while hanging out within it. also it's beautiful so I like finding aesthetically pleasing media for it :')

psychology and self-help - I'm a mess lmao, better to learn the whys and how I can improve as a human!

spirituality, paganism etc.

dungeons & dragons - just a big time fantasy nerd

anime - I love one piece, soul eater, sonny boy, chainsaw man, trigun, and others✨

horizon: zero dawn - I started playing this game in 2023 and fell IN LOVE with the world, the story, everything. plus I will always have the hots for femmes who use bows and arrows 🥹<3 I can't wait to play Forbidden West!

percy jackson universe - currently rereading PJO and HoO, have been reading these since I wars 9 and very excited for new book and show!

youtube - I watch julien solomita, markiplier, ethan nestor, strange æons, dan & phil, kurtis conner, jarvis johnson, chad chad, gabi belle, eddy burback, ted nivison, and various other video essays I find on interesting topics :)

- ⛤ -

if you want to know about my music taste, here's a hellishly long playlist with all my faves :)

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2KzaesbV2ESDKI8AB3cfQC?si=muKOSyjMTaWUDb4SWrfPqw

- ⛤ -

sideblogs

@thatferalbogdruid - spirituality & paganism

i hope you enjoy your time here!🌿🫀🍃

- ⛤ -

Anmórheljave.

#druid #modern druid #druidry #feral #feral druid #feral druidry #about me #mushrooms #heathen #pagan #venus #lovist #lovism #irish polytheism #roman polytheism #celtic polytheism #irish pagan #roman pagan #paganism #celtic #balance #growth #religion #spirituality #anmórheljave #vvildflowerrr #anmorheljave

[kingdomoftyto]

Uh oh am I liveblogging ANOTHER IwtV thing? Two nights in a row? Yes, yes I am

I'll try to mush this one all into one big readmore post though, to keep it compact.

Anyway time to rewatch the 1994 movie and compare it to the early version of the script from '92! I hear it's got Different Vibes 👀

So first off, in the '92 script, we actually get to see Louis and Daniel meeting outside the bar, which is interesting. Louis confirms he was indeed hunting and that he only spared Daniel because he introduced himself right away.

... Oof, the portrayal of slavery/POC is even more uncomfortable written out than it is onscreen. And that's all I'm going to say about that.

I'm a bit surprised to learn that the detail of Louis having a dead wife and child goes back to this early draft, though I guess it is an easier shorthand for grief than having to explain the brother thing. (For those who don't know: the wife was invented for the movie. Book!Louis was never married, and the AMC show was actually pretty spot on with his family history. He had an extremely religious younger brother named Paul, who was mentally unwell, and who fell to his death in an ambiguous accident/suicide, which Louis' family sort of blamed him for. It was the biggest catalyst for his spiral into depression and self-destruction.)

Speaking of movie!Louis' dead wife:

That's some pretty LOADED metaphor, there, monsieur 👀

I LOVE this. Lestat casually saving him, then just smugly backing out of the room with a shit-eating grin. Also a neat parallel to the cane-sword thing from the AMC show--I wonder if that was a reference to this somehow...? I don't remember book!Louis drawing any weapons before Lestat attacked him although I may have just forgotten.

Then, Louis still has a confrontation with the gambler who draws a pistol on him. A neat detail that got cut is that the guy actually challenges Louis to a duel, but he just laughs and declines. The guy calls him a coward. I like that.

... Oh. Huh. The entire bit with Lestat flying into the air, asking Louis "Do you still want death?", and dropping him into the river is not actually in the draft. He just bites him and then leaves him in the rainy street. Who the heck decided that the Loustat First Bite henceforth needed to include unexplained levitation?? I'm not complaining, mind; I'm just baffled lmfao

Lestat ghostwrote this part

oh sHIT... beta Louis is not here to play games! He continues to be angry for the rest of this scene lmao

... Oh wow, and then as Lestat is trying to sell him on the merits of vampirism, there's a whole dream sequence of them sailing a ship through a dark ocean, riding horses, attending lavish balls... All this while the sound of heartbeats is overlaid on top of his voiceover. Hoo boy.

REALLY giving Lestat more credit than usual here! Interesting indeed. Also love the detail that he's sitting on the bed. Still Not Gay Enough, but doing his best

... OH. Oh holy FUCK. There's a WHOLE SCENE of Lestat convincing Louis to MURDER A WOMAN WITH A KNIFE. It's the woman who tried to poison his drink earlier--I wasn't expecting that to be foreshadowing anything!! God, yeah, okay, I can see why this was cut from the final version but also this would have made a HUGE difference to the story, holy shit. It would have made Louis' tortured guilt over feeding on people more hypocritical later, and it would have shown that Lestat really did go out of his way to get Louis' informed consent on the turning. This is pretty much canon (not a woman, but he does have to assist with a murder), but it happens pretty quickly in the book and isn't brought up nearly enough.

For the sake of the movie I guess they wanted Lestat to be more irredeemably evil, and I don't blame them for that. But damn, this would have been SO different. It was obviously written with Lestat's personality from later in the series in mind, because he goes out of his way to find an "evildoer" as their target for the exercise.

Ohhh boy. Little out of character, but I'll allow it because it's pretty gay

Jesus, okay, so Louis runs to the crypt of his wife and kid, and Lestat taunts him, asking if he'd rather join them. Louis says he deserves to die for killing the tavern girl, and Lestat punches the crypt open so Louis can see the rotting corpses of his dead family

FELLAS, THAT'S GAY

And then Lestat pulls a fakeout and drops him on the ground, says "you can leave now", and ‼️BLOWS HIM A KISS‼️

Louis cries out "No! Give it to me!" and THEN Lestat finally turns him

PHEW, that is a LOT more buildup to the turning and a LOT more seductive Lestat vibes (as opposed to the final movie, where the selling points he provides to convince Louis to join him are basically just that vampires are free from sickness and death, and wouldn't it be cool to live forever?).

Noooooo not the buttons!! 😭 How could they have cut one of my favorite lines from the book again. Still mad that they didn't reference it in the AMC series

Presented without comment

Then Lestat takes Louis hunting and it's book-accurate (a.k.a. Very Uncomfortably Racist)

There's some quick scenes of them showing-not-telling which vampire stereotypes are myths (Louis sees himself in a mirror, etc), but I think it was wise to just have it cut back to Daniel asking Louis directly like it does in the final cut (and in the book).

👀

Anne Rice over here trying to retcon Lestat into a decent person right when he should be at the peak of his assholery lmaoooo

Then we get the scene where Lestat drinks from the other tavern girl ("Teresa" in the script). In the final cut, Louis looks wildly uncomfortable as this takes place, but the original had him "amazed and amused in spite of himself". Then:

WHO IS THIS and WHAT has he done with my Louis

Also fascinating that Louis didn't succumb to temptation in the original but DID in the final cut. Guess they really wanted that super awkward kiss/bite thing to happen. God the final version of this scene is so dumb lmao

(also this has nothing to do with the draft script but I hate the little claw thumb ring thing they gave Lestat in the movie. Just let him cut people with his nails. They're vampires, for god's sake)

There's a whole scene of Lestat teaching Louis this "game" of taking little sips of blood from people without them even noticing. I don't recall this "Little Drink" concept being mentioned in the first three books, so I'm left to assume it's mentioned later on in the series.

(Similarly, I see the word "swoon" used CONSTANTLY in fanfic and at least once already in this very script, but I don't remember it being a thing in the books I've read. I guess it must be a common terminology later in the series, though, for it to be so pervasive in the fandom??)

(Btw it's a little maddening to me that none of the vampires in the series ever seem to question whether they could live off of these nonlethal bites. They try living off animals but it's Not The Same as human blood, so the craving gets overwhelming. But... why can't they just take small amounts of blood from several people instead of killing a whole person? Morality problem solved?? Hello???)

... Okay the script is now diverging significantly from the movie, so my side-by-side comparison isn't going to work as well. The final version of the movie has moved on to the scene where Lestat teaches Louis that they can drink from animals, and then to the party where Lestat realizes Louis can't read minds. They have a conversation about how "evildoers taste better" and Louis fails to kill the poodle lady.

In the SCRIPT, on the other hand, the mind reading and "evildoers taste better" conversation takes place during the "Little Drink" scene I mentioned before, followed by a quick detour of Lestat breaking into some rando's house and stealing some books (???). Louis then presses Lestat on their purpose, what the meaning of it all is, etc, and Lestat gets pissy with him. I think some of this dialogue ended up in the final cut. But THEN:

WHOA, WE'RE REALLY DOING THIS

They duck briefly into a theater where a production of Macbeth is in full swing. Louis won't drop the subject, so:

my GOD

SHE REALLY WANTED TO PUT HIS ENTIRE BACKSTORY IN THIS MOVIE, HOLY SHIT

ANNE NO, IT'S KIND OF IMPORTANT TO THE PLOT THAT LOUIS THOUGHT LESTAT WAS PENNILESS hadsjgkhdsjfhjdsakg

I can't BELIEVE this. Retcon level over 9000

"KINDLY"??? And god, changing this part of the exposition from Louis telling Daniel to a scene of Lestat telling Louis changes SO MUCH. ANNE... ANNE WHAT WERE YOU THINKING

He's so gentle and PATIENT. This is like a fix-it fic for her own damn dysfunctional characters.

Anyway obviously this is where the rat scene happens in the original script.

... AH. Got it now, this line makes WAY more sense in the original context than it does in the final cut lmfao. Also, Lestat's quiet little "yes" in response to Louis specifically admiring the rat gives me some BIG TIME feelings. Flashbacks to newly fledged Lestat plucking a live rat off the floor in front of some mortals to stare in wonder at its wiggly little toes.

Yeah yeah, this is the "explanation" I always assumed--that they crave the death just as much as the blood itself--but I still call bullshit. The only real problem here is that Louis isn't practiced enough to bite without killing. He just needs to learn the restraint first. I'm gonna remain forever salty about this worldbuilding detail sorry lmao

... Ah, okay, and then we move on to the burning of Pointe du Lac. So the poodle lady wasn't in the original script at all. Makes sense lmfao. That does also mean it didn't have the part where Louis attacks Lestat and Lestat gleefully laughs, "Anger! Fury! That's why I chose you!" and claims "Life without me would be even more unbearable."

...

oh WHOA, REALLY?! One of the BEST bits of dialogue in the entire movie was NOT in the original script? The whole iconic part of Lestat throwing a tantrum in the burning mansion ("Perfect! PERFECT!! Just burn the place! Burn everything we own!" / "You thought you could have it all..." / "Shut up, Louis!") was not in the original. Instead, all she wrote was:

Which, yes, is more Loustat flavored, but at the cost of Lestat making a big dramatic scene. No question which version is better lmfao

God, if ONLY Lestat was even a fraction this forthcoming in canon. They could have avoided all their problems entirely if he'd been willing to actually talk these things out

Man, this script is DETERMINED not to let Lestat come across as the bad guy... and also maybe to paint Louis as the bad guy, a little bit. (Yikes. Even if he is undoubtedly in the wrong sometimes: yikes.)

Okay THIS could have stayed though. Alas, too romantic for mortal eyes. 😔

....

OH. HAHA. SERIOUSLY, ANNE RICE??

Okay so that super romantic exchange I screencapped just now was a full-on REPLACEMENT for the scene with the two whores at the inn. You know, the one where Lestat traps the second lady in a coffin and psychologically tortures her while he needles at Louis to kill her? The scene that the final movie rips almost word-for-word from the book??? She tried to CUT THAT SCENE and skip straight from this tame little argument to Louis wandering onto the plague street.

Just WOW.

For the record, that is ANOTHER of the best scenes in the final movie, because Lestat is completely fucking unhinged in it, and it is also equal parts darkly funny and genuinely horrifying. Thank god the AMC show had the sense to adapt it.

......hpfjkfghdJFHJDSGHDJFKLHVJNJFE

I skipped ahead a little to make sure she hadn't just rearranged some scenes before Claudia's turning, and

indeed, the scene with the two whores has been cut entirely

WE GET LESTAT'S ✨ENTIRE✨ BACKSTORY IN THIS SCRIPT. THE WHOOOOLE FUCKING THING. I ONLY CAUGHT GLIMPSES OF IT BUT HE TALKS ABOUT GABRIELLE! ABOUT ARMAND!! DIRECTLY TO LOUIS! HOLY SHIT HOW IS THIS EVEN GOING TO WORK

Mon dieu, I'm less than a quarter of the way through this script and it's after 3:30 a.m. I'm going to have to split this up into multiple posts at some point anyway, so I might as well cut this off here so I can experience Lestat hogging the spotlight in its full glory, when I'm more awake

#Tyto reads IwtV92 #this is going to take a few posts lmao rip #holy frick though this is a WILD ride

[yenforfairytales]

Assuming that Silver comes into S4 just as rich, bored, and unhinged as he was in KK3, my One Fear is that if the co-dojo loses the tournament he would ask for something like Daniel to be his servant or return to him as a student, etc. Like Kreese hates him and wants him dead, but Terry seems invested in metaphorically scooping out Daniel empty and replacing his insides with something else. People are like his bonsai that way, but Terry isn't interested in shaping Daniel to be his best self...

That is a very valid fear... Hoo boy you got me deep in the feels.

First of all, yes, I one hundred percent believe Terry has been just as bored as he's ever been. Probably moreso than in KK3. From the little we were shown he seems to find the business side of things and people in his life very dull. There's no challenge. He holds the power in every relationship and situation he's in. It's not until he starts scheming and hanging out with Daniel that he seems to be really living instead of just existing.

I think we're going to see a s4 Terry having the time of his life. He's going to go from his world being a black and white television to full on technicolor. Especially after being around Daniel again, in whatever capacity that is. Whether it's more aggressively antagonistic or appearing as a friend again. I think it could go either way.

Secondly, I think that Cobra Kai WILL win the next tournament. Mostly because the writers have planned up to six seasons and I don't see Kreese peacing out after losing in s4 like he promised lol. Season 5 will probably be more training for another tournament in Season 6. And all the drama in between.

And adding those together, your One Fear is extremely plausible. Cobra Kai is going to have the leverage and the power. They'll have Robby. And if there's one thing Terry knows how to do it is exploiting a weakness.

I'm sure he'll threaten Daniel with hurting Robby if he doesn't do as he asks. And Daniel is the self-sacrificing type that he wouldn't hesitate to submit. Although, I'm hoping that when Robby witnesses how they treat Daniel and what Daniel is willing to give up for him, Robby will return to the light.

There's several ways like you mentioned it could go. Kreese and Silver could use Daniel as a punching bag, but I like the idea of Silver wanting Daniel to be his student again. It's so dark and angsty. It's so perfect.

Terry seems invested in metaphorically scooping out Daniel empty and replacing his insides with something else.

THIS. You gave me chills. What a great line. Watching KK3 it's clear that Terry revels in bringing out Daniel's dark side-- the killer instinct as he and Kreese call it. It all started off as a ploy to hurt Miyagi by hurting his student, but Terry's sole focus quickly becomes all about Daniel. Miyagi who? Lol.

I have this theory that Terry genuinely liked Daniel. There's several instances of Terry being surprised at how quickly Daniel learns something. How fast he heals. How Daniel enjoys Terry's little jokes and sayings.

"You like that, Mr. LaRusso?"

Terry happily says that twice to Daniel. It's like he really enjoyed having a student. And the sheer amount of glee and pride he shows when Daniel broke the wooden dummy. When he punched that guy in the nightclub. It seemed genuine to me. And that's without all the gay subtext. KK3 is so gay you guys. I have to make a separate post about the nightclub scene. You will not believe. I'll link it to the bottom here. There was literally no reason for Terry to follow Daniel that night, to take him out back into the alleyway alone. Like what was your plan Terry. Where were you going.

And then of course later that same night when Daniel tells Terry he'll no longer be fighting, Terry looks so disappointed. Disappointed and then pissed. Nobody says "no" to Terry Silver. Nobody. Not even Kreese. Gone is the proud sensei. Silver becomes even more unhinged when Daniel tries to leave him. I swear KK3 plays out like a Lifetime Original Movie about stalking and abusive boyfriends.

Anyway, I got a little off track there. My point is I can easily see Terry trying to corrupt Daniel once again. Someone that thinks like he does and can be shaped how he wants him? Perfect. And I think Terry sees a little of himself in Daniel. How he used to be. And like Kreese, Terry thinks his old self was weak, and can be something more. In a parallel to how Kreese thinks of Johnny.

This brings me to what you said about Kreese's motives in comparison to Silver's, and how that might affect their relationship.

I think it's safe to say that Kreese is also obsessed with Daniel lol. I mean who isn't heh. But it's definitely more hate-fueled than anything.

If the show goes the way of Silver hyper fixating on Daniel again, I think we'll see that put a huge strain on the friendship. They won't be on the same page.

I mean I think it would be amazing and ironic to show their war forged bond break after all these years in a mirror to Johnny and Daniel coming together and uniting.

And possibly, either Kreese or Silver could be redeemed. It depends on who cares about their student more. Hear me out lmao

If Kreese really cares about Johnny, he's not going to like what Terry does to him. Because let's face it, Terry isn't going to have any great love for Johnny Lawrence. Those two are going to butt heads and trade insults and I can't wait. So it's possible Kreese could turn on Terry if he goes too far in his attempts to destroy Johnny.

And the same goes for Terry and Daniel. How far will Terry let Kreese push things, especially if Terry tries to bring Daniel over to the Cobra Kai side(you can't tell me Terry won't be proud of Daniel's rent hike). Terry is a control freak and if Kreese doesn't do as Terry thinks he should, I can see Terry betraying him. A rift is inevitable y'all. There's a reason CK gives us young Terry and Kreese in flashbacks and it's not just so we'll feel sorry for them. One of them is going to pull a Darth Vader and see the light. But probably not until the end of the series.

There's a line in the kk1 novel:

They'll be their own downfall.

How fun. It's going to be a wild, painful ride. My body is ready.

Another thing I'd like to see in the show regarding Terry and Daniel, is their music together from the KK3 movie. Terry manipulating Daniel again is the perfect opportunity to callback to their old themes. @wantedtourist made a beautiful post HERE about a couple of the songs and I'd like to talk about it more but I'll make a separate post, linked below.

Thank you for the ask! I could talk about these boys for hours.

--

Part Two: Terry Silver's Theme Songs

Part Three: The Nightclub Scene

#this got ridiculous and long im sorry #all in good fun #who knows what will happen #it's just fun to speculate #i know nothing jon snow #cobra kai #cobra kai spoilers #cobra kai season 4 #lawrusso #silverusso #daniel larusso #johnny lawrence #terry silver #john kreese #ive watched KK3 a hundred times #send help #asks

[sithlich]

30 day fictionkind challenge

4. do you participate in the fandom of your source? how do you do so? HOO BOY very carefully. lmao. i love cosplay, i love going to conventions, i love reading fanfiction and enjoying fanart. i do not like to socialize with strangers on the internet so much though, so i usually stay out of ‘discussions’ and chat rooms. even by themselves these spaces are usually pretty hostile and looking for places i can be open about being fictionkin? forget it lmao

so basically i quietly reblog/rt fanworks i like. i like making moodboards and playlists for characters and stories. and i do cosplay! and even go to meetups sometimes. but even that has its annoying parts (as will any interaction with strangers lol). for example i was at a big meetup for one of my sources’ cosplayers. and someone who was also cosplaying me was playfully using a fan they bought in the dealers’ room that said like ‘bottom’ or something and it sparked a conversation between them and some other people being like. ‘omg he is SUCH a bottom!!!’ obvs i KNOW my memories nor anyone else’s constitute any ‘one true canon’ and i will not fault anyone for having fun with their silly little fictional guys in a way i find awkward.

but i also hear people having conversations like that and go. ohhhh my god you people have no idea lmao.

[kilhara]

hey since we're on the topic of clones have you considered

G-Man being away tor a while so his clones get to take care of you and make sure youre okay. as in treating you like royalty and making sure youre never harmed and even just a group of them carrying you so you dont even have to walk anywhere

this is a lot more of a wholesome thought because im mentally ill but still

WHY HELLO THERE. You're the first person to leave anon off *smooches ur cheek* 😘 Thank you for gracing my inbox!

But anyway... G' really is top-tier, huh?

Like, this man would treat you RIGHT. Prime husband material right there. Taking care of you and showering you with attention is honestly such a contrast to the stress and horror of his job, and it's about as therapeutic for him as it is for you. He craves a life where he could just settle down with someone and only have to worry about them and not the end of the world at every wrong turn. If he could, he'd choose you over his job any day. But with things the way they are, he has to... split himself between things, for now.

He's more than happy to pamper you and make sure you feel looked after and safe. And splitting is a way that he can experience so much more with you, from different points of view. When you're home, he'll always have some copies prowling the perimeter... guarding his territory :) If any Combine get too close for comfort, they're going to be swiftly dealt with. If you're out and about, he won't be far behind to step in if the CP start getting too itchy.

He's eager to make use of his copies to help out where he can. There's always things to be done, so if he can assist you in getting through your to-do list faster, then that means he gets to spend more quality time with you. He'll sorta treat it a bit like a game... a challenge you could say. He can't pass up the chance to show off a little... try to impress you, all that good stuff. House needs to be tidied? Boom. Squeaky clean in under ten minutes. Although one of the clones decided to be a shit and re-organise your belongings, so you still haven't found where he'd put your damn hairbrush. Or maybe you need some extra hands to help with your work with the resistance? Done. All the supplies have been quality assured and organised so that they're ready to go.

He's gonna make good use of his splits to give you some epic cuddle time too. Three of them cuddling you in bed. You're lying on top of one, and two others are hugging you from each side, you're caught in the middle, snug like a bug in a rug :) And big group hugs, you're just being squished in between like five of them lmao. Also..... jesus fucking christ... can you fuckin imagine what he could get up to with that mouth... hoo boy. Yknow,,,,,, uhh,, just a few of 'em kissing every inch of your body, amongst... uhh... other places 😳😳

He also takes advantage of having copies around to try and learn more about humans. You try to bring him back books and other interesting stuff to look at. A lot of the time you'll just find more than one of his splits lounging around and reading. Once, you'd brought back a book all about the human body, and they'd quickly gathered around, claiming the book from your hands, each of them vying to get a look.

After a while of reading one of them spoke up, looking mighty confused, "You... ah, give birth... to live young?

"Uh... what's that supposed to mean?"

You're all just kinda staring at eachother, bewildered. The copies all glance between themselves, no doubt communing telepathically.

"My kind... we lay, eggs. Dozens, in each... clutch, hmm?"

"Excuse me— you WHAT?"

Cue a discussion about his wild Shu'ulathoi heritage 😂

#the hand speaks #gman #half life #big brainstorm momence

[tumblezwei]

Why Kyoko Mogami is the GOAT

And why y’all are SLEEPING ON HER

Spoilers for Skip Beat, but honestly idk how much of the story I’m gonna get into for this since I’m flying by the seat of my pants. Still, read at your own risk.

Also this is LONG lmao

Kyoko Mogami is a 16 year old middle school drop-out that works two jobs day and night in order to pay rent for the Tokyo apartment that she lives in all by herself 6 days out of the week. Going into the first chapter, there are three things immediately clear about her. 

1. She’s cheerful, kind, and also kind of batshit insane. From the first moment we meet her, her personality is throwing itself at our faces and refusing to calm down. (apologies for the bad quality images, I work with what I have)

2. She loves Sho Fuwa, her childhood friend and rising rock-star that asked Kyoko to come with him to Tokyo after middle school graduation to support his career

3. Nothing matters to her as long as Sho is happy. Sure, she laments that her love for girly dresses, cosmetics, and fairy tale princesses will never amount to anything since all of her money is going toward paying the rent on her and Sho’s apartment, but that’s fine. As long as her precious Sho is happy, so is she. 

And, as you’d expect, things go to shit pretty quickly afterwards. During one her off days from her night job, Kyoko decides to visit Sho at his recording studio with dinner. After sneaking in past the hoards of squealing teenage girls waiting outside to catch a glimpse of him, she overhears him talking to his manager. 

“I’m the heir to a prominent Japanese inn, do you think I’ve ever cooked or cleaned all by myself?” She hears. 

“That’s awful,” the manager replies, “you make it sound as if you brought her just to be your maid.”

“She’s basically been my maid since I was a kid, or else I wouldn’t have brought her along with me. It’s not like I forced her, I asked her a question and gave her the choice. It’s only natural that she’d work her butt off to support me.” 

And he just keeps going. Once he’s made enough to live independently, he’ll send her back. How dare his parents try to set him up with a plain-looking girl like her. She doesn’t even wear make-up! 

As images of flash in Kyoko’s mind of standing in front of make-up stores with no money to buy anything, she takes Sho’s words just as well as one might expect. By unleashing the box of tucked away emotions she’s held in her chest and swearing to take revenge on Sho for using her and throwing her away like this.

. I failed to mention this at the start, but the beginning of the chapter introduces us to the most important piece of symbolism in Kyoko’s character development: Pandora’s box. 

For Kyoko’s entire life, she’s held this box inside herself. In myth, once this box was opened, all of the evil of the world is unleashed, never to be put back inside. So for Kyoko, the metaphor is quite apt. Hearing Sho’s words unlocks the box and unleashes a kind of anger that not even Kyoko knew she was capable of, a kind of determination and vengeance that has her dyeing her hair and staking outside of a talent manager’s house for days on end to whittle down his willpower and give her a chance to audition at Sho’s rival talent agency, LME. Every time she hears his name, or sees his picture, she’s filled with myopic sense of rage that no one can calm her down from. 

Her sole mission in life is to get revenge on Sho Fuwa, a sentiment that finds her at odds with LME’s top actor, Ren Tsuruga, who sees her one-sided quest for vengeance as an insult to people who truly love acting. But as if Kyoko cares, she needs to get revenge! 

I’m gonna drop the pseudo-narration for a bit because I actually need to skip over a fair bit of plot to get to what I think makes Kyoko incredibly compelling, outside of being the funniest female character in existence. We’re going to jump forward in time to Kyoko’s first acting gig. Well, not so much an gig as much as it is a competition. She’s been tasked to play the role of a dignified inn keeper that’s serving tea to the main male character. After having broken her ankle and been challenged by the real lead actress, this is her first shot to prove she has the talent to make it in the acting industry. So in order to immerse herself in the role, she utilizes her experience of being trained by Sho’s mother to take care of the inn that his family owned. It’s here that we finally understand that Kyoko giving up her life back home for Sho wasn’t just a spur of the moment decision brought about by infatuation. It was something she’d been doing for her entire life. Everything she knows how to do, every skill she’s obtained, has been because of Sho. And this is the moment that she realizes that fact too. (the first image is from after the scene is done, wherein Kyoko cannot snap herself out of her character due to the lessons she was taught as a child, despite her sitting position making her broken ankle unbearably painful). 

Even her righteous fury at being left in the dust is focused solely on Sho fucking Fuwa. Is there anything that she has than can be attributed to her own success? Does she have any skills that can’t be traced back to trying to make Sho happy? Who is Kyoko Mogami? Is she worth anything without Sho? 

And I want to make this clear right now, because I know the term “shoujo” makes people hesitate. THIS is what Skip Beat is about. Kyoko’s journey to find out who she is, and with every new role she takes on and with every experience she gains, she becomes just a little closer to finding out who she is and what she wants for herself. 

We watch as her love for acting slowly eclipses her thirst for revenge. A few arcs after this moment, she is contacted about a job to act in a music PV with none other than Sho himself. In the beginning, she accepts the job in order to prove to Sho that she’s climbing the ladder and catching up to him, but her performance suffers whenever she thinks about her revenge. And what saves her isn’t even putting aside her revenge, but prioritizing her own feelings above it. She wants to act! She wants to put on a good performance! So she needs to put aside those feelings of anger and draw from her past experiences to create a character that leaves Sho in the dust. 

I’m gonna bet y’all are wondering about the romance, though. Because this is a shoujo, and of course it has romance. But hey, guess what? That romance is equally compelling and is an integral part to Kyoko’s character too. In the first....5 or so arcs, Ren Tsuruga ‘s relationship with Kyoko crawls it’s way out of the it’s rocky beginnings, and he slowly becomes a mentor figure to Kyoko. He’s her superior in acting, and she looks to him often for support and guidance when she’s struggling to perform a role or having difficulty with her fellow actors. To Kyoko, Ren is the goal, his level of acting is what she aspires to be, so she can stand on equal footing with him. Before there’s even a whiff of romance between them, there develops a solid bond of trust and support. And once the romance starts. Hoo boy. 

To fully understand why it’s taken 12 years irl for a confession scene to finally take place, we need to bring back the metaphor of Pandora’s box. Because not everything escaped Pandora’s box when it was opened. Pandora was able to shut the box just in time for one thing to stay locked inside: hope. In the myth, this is a good thing, while negative and vile emotions run free, hope still exists within people to become better. But for Kyoko, the box isn’t a safe place, it’s a repressed place. She spent her entire life locking away the negative emotions she felt, placing a smile on her face and hoping for Sho’s happiness. And when those emotions are set lose, she locks the box back up, sealing something else inside. Her hope, her confidence in anything having to do with love. 

It’s not just that Kyoko isn’t in love anymore, she feels as if she can’t be in love anymore, that she’s entirely incapable of it. The idea of falling in love with someone else terrifies her. What if she goes back to the way she was before? An empty shell that exists for other people and not herself. The box has been sealed tightly again, and by God this time she’s not going to let anything open it. And like, I don’t want to spoil much in this, as contradictory as that sounds. Because the scene where she realizes she loves Ren? One of the best fucking scenes in any romance manga ever. 

And. God. I haven’t even touched on her mom. Kyoko’s desire for love, that became so warped under Sho and so desolate after his betrayal, can all stem back to Saena Mogami. A woman who, no matter what Kyoko did, rejected any affection that her child tried to give, and gave none in return. “Even a mother can hate her own child.” We get bits and pieces of what Kyoko’s mother was like, and the environment that a very young Kyoko was raised in before her mother left her in the care of Sho’s parents. And eventually we realize that Kyoko isn’t afraid of her love being rejected twice, but a third time. 

Like, y’all, I’m not good at these kind of essays. I keep wanting to go off on tangents, nothing is ever focused, I spend to much time just reading the manga instead of writing this fucking post. But please believe me when I tell you that Kyoko Mogamis character development is like none other. She’s truly at the top of her genre and it’s an actual crime that she’s so underrated. 

I HAVEN’T EVEN TALKED ABOUT KANAE, THE WEISS TO HER RUBY, THE TSUNDERE TO HER GENKI

Before Kyoko gets even a single arc with Ren, she gets two with Kanae. The first with Kanae as a central figure, and the second where Kanae is her support. She’s the one that gives Kyoko the eureka moment she needs to pull of her performance with Sho. They are one of the most developed and deep friendships in shoujo that I’ve ever seen AND Y’ALL NEED TO STOP SLEEPING ON IT. LOOK AT THESE TWO

And don’t take this poorly assembled post at face value, I’ve left out a lot of shit. Starting with how fucking funny this manga is. Kyoko’s special talent for her LME audition is peeling vegetables, there’s a running gag where Ren asks for her advice while she’s in a giant chicken costume, unaware that it’s her, the president of LME is an eccentric millionaire that likes to dress up in different themed costumes every day and loves throwing extravagant parties, Kyoko’s hobby is making voodoo dolls and talks to a miniature Ren doll whenever she needs encouragement or advice. 

And it’s all packaged alongside some of the most compelling character development I’ve ever seen (for both Kyoko and Ren), and some absolutely heartbreaking drama. You will never know true pain until “I don’t have a daughter.”

Read this, ya’ll. You won’t regret it. 

#I'm not going back over this because I KNOW it's not coherent but FUCK IT #skip beat #rambling #long post

[ledamemangociana]

RANKING HAISUTE (or the ones i’ve seen so far)

not that anyone has asked me, but i’ve literally been so hyperfixated on these shows for MONTHS and although i’ve gotten my bestie into them now, it’s not like i can bombard them with all these deep-ish dives into these things and how much and why i love them, so i thought HEY why not just put it out into the ether coz DAMN i really wanna talk about them.

under the cut for length (HELLA LENGTH) and spoilers.

let me preface this first by saying i havent seen ALL the shows yet. i havent ever watched the first run of Itadaki No Keshiki, and i havent seen any of the new Karasuno cast shows yet, as by the time i had gotten hooked on these shows, the time to watch Strongest Challengers and Battle At The Garbage Dump on DMM.com had passed, and with my limited budget (i havent been able to work properly since literally mid-July last year), it’ll be a while before i can afford their twin pack DVD when it comes out next month. ALTHOUGH i am hoping to be able to download Fly High on DMM.com before the availability runs out in the middle of March, if i’ll actually have enough money for that.

additionally, i rank these from my least favorite to most favorite, but that does not mean that i hate or dislike any of them. in fact, i have little to zero negative things to say about any of these shows. i just happen to love some more than the others, and i think you’ll be able to tell by how long i go on about each show. i’ll TRY to keep things concise but im telling you now, i’ve already tried this once until an accidental button press erased everything i had written, and this will not be short. at all.

i’ll start first with the things i love about Haisute in general:

quite obviously, the projections. before i finally saw Haisute this year, i had only ever seen BNHA, KNY and Kuroshitsuji musicals, and while they have awesome set pieces, i had never seen video projections utilized the way Haisute does, and i think it’s so wonderful and creative, and so technically sound on everyone’s part. like, it has to be so precise with cast performance and blocking and sound and lights...like. dudes. shout-out to the tech staff of Haisute, y’all are amazing.

the acting performances in general. i dont think there’s a bad actor at all in any of these. some stiff-ish performances (Noah Ishikura as Lev, but mostly in SoE, which was his first time acting ever, so understandable), maybe, but even those actors do great when they’re having a pivotal moment, scene or dialogue. it’s hard to pick faves but somehow i do have them, lol - Kenta Suga as Hinata (obviously), Kentaro as Daichi, Hiroki Ino as Suga, Kousuke Asuma as Oikawa, literally ALL THREE BOKUTOS, literally BOTH AKAASHIS, Ami Saito as Yachi, Tatsunari Kimura as Kageyama, and my top two faves, Shori Kondo and Takato Nagata as KuroKen. for obvious reasons (see: my numerous gifsets that i still have so much to add to alkdjf).

the music is WONDERFUL. the varieties across shows, teams and characters while still maintaining the main themes are just so good. it’s easier for them to be highlighted to since there isnt any singing, and so many moments are told through the music rather than the music accompanying the moment imo.

the choreography is gold af. im sad we lose HIDALI after Tokyo Battle, but im sure the rest of the shows still keep that amazing spark. but i juST. HIDALI’s choreography is iconic. i’ll talk abt it a bit more in some of the entries in the list.

OKAY, now on to the rankings.

7. View from the Top (2nd Run) so again, I DONT HATE ANY OF THESE SHOWS. the reason this is at the bottom of my list is mostly because of what it doesnt have through no fault of its own, rather than anything that it does. i personally love watching character growth and evolution, so for the most part, the first story in anything that has multiple follow-ups tend to be my least favorite part, and i come to enjoy them more as a “look how far we’ve come” thing. that being said, i do think this was such an awesome show to kick-off what has become an iconic 2.5D franchise. so much of it feels like the transition from potential to kinetic energy. a little show that could, and then did. i do think i enjoy this more with a nostalgic sort of fondness than i do with a “look how cool this thing is!” feeling, but again, that’s coz i enjoy watching things changing rather than at the start. what definitely stands out to me here is that i came to it this as only my fourth 2.5D franchise, and the ones i’d watched before this were so different in staging and execution, and that really had me hooked. also, this franchise honestly is one of the best casting in any show i’ve ever seen in my life, like wtf, i havent seen a badly cast actor at all, even for the side characters i dont really pay that much attention to otherwise. you cant help but be sucked into the bright light that is Kenta Suga, and Kousuke Asuma has to be the most Oikawa Oikawa to ever Oikawa anything Oikawa. Tatsunari, Ryotaro and Justin absolutely jumped right out of the manga and anime and onto the stage as Kags, Tsukki and Asahi. and GAWD do i love me some Kentaro and Hiroki as DaiSuga. i went in a big fan and simp of Hiroki Ino and Sugawara, so for the first couple of watches, i was heavily focused on Ino!Suga, but by the third rewatch, Ken-chan came around a corner and smacked me in the face with a 2x4 wrapped in barbed wire. when that man smiles, i just get murdered.

6. Start of the Giant i honestly had a hard time picking between this and InK for the bottom spot, not because i hate this (AGAIN, I DONT HATE ANY OF THESE SHOWS), but because of how this show feels to me. ultimately, i picked this one to win over InK because of how much character progression is shown between these two shows. stating the obvious, KAZUMA KAWAHARA. HOO BOY. and big, BIG shout-outs to Kouhei Shiota for portraying Tanaka’s emotional roller-coaster so excellently to stride alongside Ennoshita’s big journey and Kazuma’s powerhouse performance. i also wanna spotlight how much more comfortable Tatsuya Kageyama was in his second go-around as Kags, and how well Keita Tanaka and Naoki Tanaka came in as new(old)!Daichi and new!Suga. it took me a while to get to this show because i was so sad to lose Ken-chan and Hiroki after SoE, and i thought i just would not be able to love DaiSuga the same way. turns out that that’s a good thing, because they do play similar but different DaiSugas to Kentaro and Hiroki. it possibly also helped to know that KT wasn’t entirely new, and to have known of Naoki from BNHA (with Hiroki!), although i hadnt known it was him until i started the show up at last, lol. Kentaro got to play a captain who was warm and very much one of the boys, someone who was growing into the role of a captain of a team that had a very real chance of going farther than it had in a while, while KT got to play a Daichi who, fittingly, was more established as a pillar of the group (and im sure the storytelling of this show helped with that), more of that Dadchi that we know and love. Hiroki got to play a gentle but mischeivous Suga who was all about watching over and taking care of the team, watching and waiting for his turn while understanding that Kags was their best chance, while Naoki got to play a more active, more athletic Suga who was becoming more active the closer the team got to Nationals. their performances stood out not just coz they were new, but because of the theme of this story in particular, about captains and leading, so i thought it was quite a nice way to welcome them into the fold. i also of course enjoyed Johzenji and Wakunan, maybe Johzenji more than Wakunan. i saw someone say they’re a bit like Fukurodani and Nekoma lite, and i can totally see and agree with that. this show also feels a bit like Revival lite, in that it’s got a fun first half and then a more action-packed second match with an emotional gutpunch at the end. but ultimately, this is lower on my list because, through no major fault of its own, it felt like a filler show, considering what was coming after this. it felt a bit like “lets’ get on with this story so we can get on to the last hurrah that everyone is looking forward to.” of all the side teams to have been portrayed in the Engeki story, i feel like i remember johzenji and wakunan less. again, that’s not really anyone’s fault, it’s just where this show was positioned in the timeline and what it was ultimately representing. as a parting thought tho, i just wanna shout-out the new lighting scheme they did for this show, especially coming from SoE where there was a lot of darkness or back-lighting. this show is brighter lit in general than most of the shows that came before it, and idky exactly but i do appreciate that a lot.

5. Winners And Losers objectively, this is probably one of the top 3 shows in all of Haisute’s history. but it’s lower on my list because it is the most taxing to watch and rewatch, not because it’s too slow or anything like that, but because it really just is such a tiring story, and i think that’s deliberate on the part of the writers and directors. this was Karasuno’s first major loss, and it was against an opponent they thought they knew, so of course the lead-up had to be a big deal. it’s also a story that revolves quite a bit around kageyama reaching a turning point and learning a few lessons that would ultimately change him, so the story had to also execute that change happening not just in Kageyama but around him. add to that the fact that this was Tatsunari’s goodbye performance (as well as Shohei’s as Noya, but then he doesn’t really get a big emotional moment here) and it’s just heavy on the emotions all around. the comedic distraction of ShoriTaka as Tetsuko and Kenko was honestly quite welcome, lmao. quick little shout-out to Kousuke Asuma and Allen Kohatsu as IwaOi, since they got to really show off the different sides to both those characters in this, and they just are stellar in general. that bit at the end of one of their flashbacks where Iwa-chan tells Oikawa that he’s not the only one fighting, there’s six people in that team, and Oikawa breaks into laughter as Kousuke strips off the flashback jacket, and Iwa’s like “uuuhhh did i hit you too hard, or?” UGH, i love that bit, that almost creepy laugh from Kousuke and the way he comes out of it to say “suddenly im not so upset” is just SO good. im also so happy to see Hiroki get his due as Suga when he finally gets to step up to the plate - or net, as it were - and basically pinch-hit for Kags. he plays senpai!Suga so sweetly, like you really can’t help but love him coz he’s so caring. i also did not expect to be hit right in the feels with the switch back from him to Kageyama, but that bit where he says “it’s frustrating, but hinata’s expression when he’s hitting my sets is different from when it’s yours” really got me. and then when he had to leave the court, asahi and daichi send a fist bump his way, and he gives just this tiny fist bump wave that’s both tired and disappointed and sad, and it’s juST! it hurts me everytime. and before this gets long, im gonna just spotlight the last 10-15 minutes of the show, right after Karasuno loses. Kenta absolutely nails Hinata’s expression in the manga, that wide-eyed disbelief and shock. and then when Daichi tells him not to apologize because he didn’t miss, when Daichi just walks over and hugs him, good gawd. (sidebar, but i’m so glad i got to see that bit with both Ken-chan here and KT in Strongest Team.) and the way Hinata couldn’t move after thanking the audience, not even after Ukai called him back, so Daichi had to actually go get him? my heart was in PIECES. and then the fuggin dinner scene. LORD ABOVE. like, if you dont love Kenta Suga as Hinata, this is the scene that should convince you you’re wrong.

4. The Strongest Team this is right smack dab in the middle of the list because it’s probably the best staged show of all the seven that i’ve seen, but it also hurts me so much for all the obvious reasons. this is the one i’ve rewatched the least, and everytime i rewatch it, i cry as if it’s the first time im watching it. the whole show absolutely feels like a tribute to the Karasuno cast and all the growth they’ve had and contributed to Haisute over their three years with the show, and the entire thing feels so fond, if that makes any sense. everyone on the team gets a big emotional moment, and it’s so sweet to see them each paid tribute. aside from them, i gotta AGAIN shout-out kousuke as oikawa. i like aoba josai enough, i like oikawa enough as a character, but that moment when kousuke absolutely broke down in the locker room after losing to karasuno broke my heart, even more so knowing that he absolutely felt all that gratitude because he wasnt sure he’d be able to come back to the show coz of his hip injury. i think one little moment that doesnt get as talked about as it should is just after he and Iwaizumi have that short convo of always being each other’s partners even after they’ve moved on to different schools. they do their fist bump, and then Iwa walks away, but Kousuke/Oikawa is still absolutely in tears, and as Iwa walks off, he just kind of reaches out and lets out a pained “Iwa-chan!” that’s just barely audible, and that jUST. GETS ME EVERYTIME. hell, im feeling a little heartstring pull right now just thinking about it. i also wanna shout-out Shiratorizawa because Engeki made me actually care about them. like, okay - i dont hate Shiratorizawa, at all. but watching the anime, despite having an entire season be around them, i just never really latched onto them. i like Ushiwaka enough, and i just...dont like Tendou (sue me). but Engeki Haikyuu has a habit of spotlighting other teams and characters enough to make you actually think about them and care about them, and Shiratorizawa was the biggest example of that for me. their theme is awesome, it’s this big, deep, heavy thing that feels as big and broad as the players look. and i could feel their almost militaristic teamwork when the coach is on them, and it’s so good. speaking of Coach Washijo, shout-out to that flashback scene to his younger days. Kenta looked absolutely risible in the wig and giant eyebrows, but i think it was an important touch to have the person playing Hinata be the person playing younger Washijo, because their inner conflicts are basically the same, and Washijo comes to appreciate Hinata’s efforts because of it, so i thought that was a nice touch. (still dont like Tendou tho, sue me.) i gotta end this entry coz it’s getting long, so im just gonna quickly list my favorite scenes/moments:

Yamaguchi’s pinch serve, and bringing out the spear. Kairi Miura wields that spear like he’s been doing it all his life.

Tsukki’s big “GODDAMMIT I THINK I LOVE VOLLEYBALL NOW” moment. the expression on ryotaro’s face right at the end of that scene, where he’s basically saying “it’s just a club, AND YET!” uuuggggghhhh, please i love it. also, shout-out to when Hinata pointed at him and just said “...nice.” like...that always feels like only half Hinata and Tsukki, and more half-Kenta and his best friend Ryotaro, just like the “Tsukki! that one was worth a 100 points!” line that absolutely gets Ryotaro so that on the live cam he had to turn his head away before he meant to for the next bit.

that moment in the last-ish set of the match where everyone is just DESPERATE to win, so it becomes this frantic rally and volley where everyone just starts to grunt and yell louder and louder, and people are running back and forth and jumping and diving, and it’s just this cacophony of sound and blur of movement that just seems to stretch on and on, until finally Shiratorizawa just yells “SHUT UP! WE’RE STRONGER!” and knocks all of Karasuno down. WHEW. that bit is just. WHEW. i almost always forget to breathe at that point. and then the waterworks get turned on as Ukai tearfully tells them to get back up, because volleyball is a sport where you HAVE to look up. LORDDDDD.

the bit towards the end of the match, after tsukki returns from his injury, where they absolutely acted out Ushiwaka pushing Hinata and Tsukki to the floor and holding their heads down. when i first watched it, i gasped because that is straight out of the anime and manga, and then when the rest of Karasuno came in to pull Ushi off, i just turned into a giant sobbing mess.

the graduation curtain call, obviously, but in particular, the bit that will ALWAYS, WITHOUT FAIL, destroy me is when Kenta says “this show was so tiring and tough sometimes, but when i look back, all i can remember are the good times, the best times.” GODDAMMIT IM TEARING UP BADLY RN JUST THINKING ABOUT THAT BIT.

3. Summer Of Evolution this is where the lines between the rankings get a little bit blurred, because i love these top three equally for the most part, but i had to choose a number two (i absolutely know what my number one is), and when i really think about it, SoE just gets edged out by my number two, but barely. i think what i love the most about this show is that this, more than any of the other shows, really portrays these characters as high school kids. and that’s not just because part of the story is set in the school and it’s actually showing the school sometimes, but coz they’re going through and portraying teenage experiences and emotions. most of the other shows portray the team in matches, so we’re seeing them more as volleyball players than teenagers or students, but we get to finally see that here, and it’s really refreshing. other than that, im gonna try to just list some of my highlights and favorites again coz i dont wanna keep going too long:

im so glad to finally have girls on the show, and not just in a “YAY FEMINISM! GIRL POWER! WHOO!” kind of way. kiyoko has always felt like an inextricable part of the team for me, so it was bittersweet to have such a great Karasuno cast but without a Kiyoko, so i was REALLY happy to finally get her here! and for a first time actor ever, Shizune was so awesome! she absolutely has that gentle strength that Kiyoko has, and the way she’s been written in absolutely does feel like she’s always been there. i do wish she got more to do with the third year boys, but all in all, it’s SO good to have an actual Kiyoko who absolutely looks like she came out of the manga.

im also just so DAMN happy about Yachi and her portrayal here. i think ami saito is so dang perfect, and yachi is such a fun addition that fits right in with the chaotic fun of Karasuno. one thing that i REALLY love, though, is how she gets to just act. before Haisute, my only experience of female characters and actors on a 2.5D stage is with Uraraka (and two or three other female students) in BNHA and Elizabeth in Kuroshitsuji, and those characters are your typical cutesy girls, and their movements and body language are so typically girly, you know what i mean, those softer arms and smaller movements, looser fingers, these little “Kyaa~” things, those things. but Kiyoko, Yachi and Saeko arent like that, so that’s not how they’re portrayed here. Ami as Yachi is just as loud and expressive and active as the Karasuno boys, bar actually playing in a match. also, her chemistry with Kenta is SO GOOD. i dont really ship YachiHina, i think they’re cute friends, but BOY DID THESE TWO MAKE ME RETHINK THAT. ami’s Yachi with Kenta’s Hinata made me think “YOU KNOW WHAT I WOULD LIKE TO SEE THESE TWO GO ON A CHAPERONED DATE.” they’re adorable. a particular fave of mine is when hinata climbs a tree to help a baby bird back into its nest and he asks Yachi if she wants to climb up too, and also after Yachi finishes making the Hinata poster, she jumps onto the back of Hinata’s bike and they ride off-stage together. PLEASE IT’S SO CUTE.

also: SAEKO NEE-SAN PLEASE STEP ON ME.

OH HI FUKURODANI. they are such good chaos boys, i love them. i dont have much to say about them here just yet, but WOW im so glad to have them onstage at last.  

NEKOMA IS BACK THANK GAWD I LOVE NEKOMA. of all the teams portrayed, i think nekoma is the one that feels the most connected together (AHA!). like, even when they have a new character and/or cast member, the new ones never really stand out as new, they feel like they’ve always been there. this play really showcases the teams at their most casual so we dont get to see as much of their excellent teamwork and connection as we do in past and future shows, but you really get a sense of their family dynamic and just GOD I LOVE THEM SO MUCH, and honestly dont get me started on ShoriTaka, i will literally never stop

shout-out to Tatsuya Kageyama, he had big shoes to fill not just in terms of character but also as an actor, since this is his first show ever. much like with KT and Naoki as DaiSuga, it does feel like he plays a similar enough Kageyama without just mimicing Tacchu. this is also the right Kags arc to introduce a new Kageyama actor with as well, since there’s a big change after that loss to Aoba Josai and Oikawa, so i think the writing of the show also absolutely helped Kage-chan ease into his role, and helped the audience ease into this new Kageyama. overall, i think he did an awesome job, and we’re really fortunate to have had two awesome Kageyamas before gen 1/1.5 changed to gen 2.

i also just noticed/realized that the backstage video for SoE starts with the introduction of Kage-chan and Fucchi as new cast members, and ends with the farewell to Ken-chan and Hiroki as graduating members, and i know that’s just natural coz the first time the Karasuno cast met the two new members was at the photoshoot for visuals, but also what a nice little circle of life there.

COMING INTO THE HOMESTRETCH NOW, if you’ve made it this far, thank you SO MUCH, im sorry, i really just have a tendency to ramble, and like i said, i dont really have anyone or an opportunity to talk this deep about these shows to, so thanks so much for your time.

2. Karasuno, Revival! WHEW okay, so idk if this is Unpopular Opinion or controversial coz objectively it is the best show so far, and i’ve put it only at number 2. BUT LISTEN: before i saw Tokyo Battle, this was absolutely my number 1 favorite. the Dateko match is so good and so fun to watch, and honestly, that rap battle gives me so much life im almost immortal now. i LOVE that they also got to show ikejiri (THANK YOU KENTA SUGA) and ken-chan as daichi got his moments because of it, and it gave us “katou tou shinakya, katenai!” as an iconic quote and theme for the show, we got a fantastic moment for Asahi that was paid off from the previous show, also honestly “otchita kyougo, tobenai garasu” is just gonna be stuck in your head forever for a while. we also got Kousuke and Allen’s excellent IwaOi back, bringing with them their “Iwa-chan, are you my mom” dynamic (and gawd the cackle i let out when Iwa yeets a volleyball at Oikawa, or that turn and yell that makes Oikawa yelp as he exits off stage lkasdjf), which is always a plus. but! BUT!! best thING FOR ME???? NEKOMA, BABY!! like im sorry, im biased, but i fuggin LOVE nekoma, kuroo is my favorite character in the entire series, and Haisute really gave them a fantastic story and dynamic, because again, there’s so much you can do on stage that you sometimes cant do in anime or manga, so they were really able to highlight Nekoma’s famous teamwork, especially when centered around Kenma. more on that later, but like. it was just such a JOY to watch Karasuno, still kind of scattered puzzle pieces at this point trying to figure out how to best go together to create one big picture, go up against the smooth teamwork of Nekoma, and learn and grow from it. also they honestly have the best team theme music and team dance, fite me. also thank you Haisute for making KuroDai so painfully real lakdsfj

1. Tokyo Battle okay okaY OKAY OKAY OKAY. i think there are some people who actually like this the least coz it’s just too different from the rest of the shows that came before it - no Karasuno, less projections, different music style, aesthetically different stage, etc. B U T. aside from me just being biased because Nekoma are my favorite team, i actually think many of those differences are what makes this show my favorite one. first of all, the music is LIT AF. the themes for each team are so distinct, they really help play up the animal motifs that are played up the most in this show than in any of the others. secondly, THAT CHOREOGRAPHY THO. good gawd. HIDALI said “it’s our last Haisute, let’s go out with a bang” and they really fuggin did. Fukurodani absolutely is TOKYO PARTY TIME, they got to really play up their party birds schtick and i love it. Nohebi i cannot HELP but love because i love snakes, but also, with Nohebi’s cast, you can tell the choreographers were so happy to finally have an actual technical dancer. they had yuu fukuzawa doing the most and then some in playing up the snake theme, and it’s literally so hypnotic to watch his pops, locks and isolations. he’s also just such an AWESOME daisho, and it helps that nohebi are written to be cunning and sneaky. i also love that he and Kuroo seem to actually have a lot of untold history, and i kind of wish we could get a bit more elaboration on that, coz Yuu’s and Shori’s chemistry as frenemy team captains is SO GOOD. and then of course. NEKOMA, BABY!! so okay. kenma absolutely should be the lead of this show, and he is, BUT he’s also, to a certain extent, inextricable from Kuroo and the rest of the team, so that you dont always get that feeling of Kenma being in the spotlight the same way Hinata is (for understandable reasons since Nekoma arent even really the main characters of the story as a whole), and i think that’s important because, again, Nekoma is all about that teamwork and connection. like, Kenma is the lead because he thinks for Nekoma, and Nekoma acts accordingly, instead of how it is usually where the story is showing Hinata’s perspective alone. it also feels like that in terms of the actors. like, technically Takato is zachou, and he is, but also several times in the curtain call speeches, the cast members refer to or mention both Takato and Shori together. even Takato says that when he had spoken to Kenta about how nervous he was about taking up the zachou mantle from him, Kenta had said “if it’s you and shori, you’ll be fine.” they are a unit, and it really comes across in their portrayals of Kuroo and Kenma as well, and even if you love nothing else about this show, you literally cannot help but love that about them. i think the show does a great job revolving the Nekoma team dynamic around that too without making it the ONLY thing that keeps Nekoma together. the star of the show is absolutely the theme of “connection” (more than the other theme of promises), and if you’ve seen the show and you dont cry at the “Tsunage” section as Nekoma wins the match against Nohebi, then are you really watching the show lmao.

OKAY OKAY I’VE REALLY RAMBLED ON, and if you made it all the way here, THANK YOU AND IM SORRY. but also, there’s still a lot of things i wanna talk about that i didnt talk about here coz im mostly a scatterbrain and live half my life radiating BDE - Bokuto Dumbass Energy. so if you’re also ridiculously obsessed with these shows and wanna talk about it, my inbox is open. someone come hyperfixate with me while i make SO MANY MORE GIFSETS OHMYGOD ALL THE GIFSETS geezas crust when i get to Tokyo Battle i will be insufferable.

#engeki haikyuu #haikyuu #haisute #hyper projection engeki haikyuu #haikyuu stage play #long post #REALLY LONG POST IM SO SORRY #Mango Goes To Jail #NO REALLY IT'S LONG

[uselessgaywhovian]

aw man y'all, our D&D game is a great time!

We're currently deep in the Dreadwood trying to save Bael-lys's mom and GOD THERE'S SO MUCH DRAMA BUILDING UP I CAN'T WAIT FOR IT ALL TO POP.

Everybody's got some bullshit percolating, it's amazing!

So we're in the Dreadwood because Bael-lys's mom was captured by Granny Nightshade and that boy is like two inches from snapping, hoo boy y'all. We failed our survival challenge and got lost in the goddamn Dreadwood full of nightmare creatures, and we needed help from this fey motherfucker who trapped us in a puzzle house one time (waaaay back when on our first trip to Seaton), and Bael-lys was Not Having It, it was great.

Meanwhile, y'know how Orvo set a vampire free and didn't tell anyone? Welllllll it seems like there was a curse! on anyone who helped that vampire! And now Orvo might be becoming a vampire!! So that's fun!!! He finally told Eoleo when they took watch together, and also told Eoleo some of the shit he found out from the vampire. Eoleo got weirdly annoyed about Orvo making some kind of impulsive decisions given that Eoleo's also the guy who fuckin' punched Bael-lys while we were actively being boarded by pirates looking to parley (no, i haven't let that one go yet, lmao). Oh, also Orvo was concerned about the fact that he seems to be becoming a vampire and was like "Hey, I don't think you can do this, but if I seem like I'm going to hurt people I need to be put down."

So who did they ask for this favor?

Bree.

Oh god, Bree.

Bree's not doin' good y'all! Not at all!! She's at her goddamn limit!

So like. In the last two months, Bree's parents died. She found her long lost brother who she thought was dead, and they don't... always see things the same way, which is difficult... She started making friends with all us dumbasses and then finds out Yara's a pirate, which, y'know, she lived on an island with only her parents and thought her little brother was dead for most of her life because pirates sank their ship. So finding out your friend was secretly a pirate is less than ideal. Then Yara up and leaves without saying goodbye (in my defense i didn't mean to be gone this long and i DID leave Bree a note..) which Bree's not taking very well. Then Poppy, the little girl we all adored turns out to be Primewater in disguise the entire time, and we had accidentally kidnapped two little kids because Primewater modified their memories to help sell his Poppy act.

And now she finds out that Orvo freed the vampire she had discovered was trapped outside of town, he's turning into a vampire, and he wants her to put a bullet in him if he starts to hurt people.

These motherfuckers were so lucky Yara wasn't here, 'cause she would've lost her shit on Bree's behalf. I can't believe they asked her to just kill one of the ONLY FRIENDS SHE'S HAD IN HER LIFE if they need her to. What the fuck, boys. What the fuck.

But the good news was, that revelation made Bree lose her shit a little bit at the guys and she was then too distracted to ask Shamys more about herself and why she was still tagging along after the party.

Y'know, Shamys? The Tabaxi thief that's fuckin' spying on them for Primewater?

yeah. that's gonna be fun if that gets out before Shamys can bow out. ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

#personal #D&D #Nobody Knows I'm A Pirate™ #Nobody Knows I'm A Spy™ edition

[bukojuiice]

Hello I was wondering if I could get a my hero academia male ship ^^

My name is Emma my pronouns are she/her I am 19 I have shoulder length black hair and grey blue eyes. I pretty much look like mavis from hotel Transylvania, I am on the thicker side I got dem THICC thighs I’m like not skinny but I’m not plus size I’m just kinda mehhh I am also 5’8

I am a Scorpio sun, Scorpio rising and a Aries moon. I am a Slytherin i am an introvert, i am an INTP, I’m pagan if that helps...?

I am super stubborn. Im also SUPERRR sarcastic, like every thing I say is sarcastic in someway. I have low key anger issues. But like I’m also super chill and like go with the flow. I play a shit load of video games mainly animal crossing and Minecraft. I also ramble a LOT about stuff I really like, Greek mythology (it’s my favorite thing in the Entire world to talk about) and tinker bell lore (ITS VERY EXTENSIVE) and many other things. Uh my best speed run is an hour and 15 minutes *duck boy face* I also watch an ungodly about of anime my favorite is MHA but a very close second is death note. I also make a ton of like super stupid puns like dad jokes. And a LOTTTT of sex jokes.

I am actually from Russia but I am fluent in English because both of my parents are also fluent in English and I have live in America for most of my life. I am fluent in Russian (obviously) Spanish and French. I can play the bass, guitar, ukulele, drums, and piano. I am also trained in like swords...? Idk how to say it lmao but I can do a bunch of cool tricks ik I’m ✨talented✨ (I swear I’m not a narcissist and this is a joke)

Uhhhh I can’t really think of anything else

Uh I really like sharks like REALLY like sharks

I’m so sorry I told you like my whole life story. And sorry if some of it doesn’t make sense I did not proofread this.

This is low key longer then some of the things I have turned in at school

julie’s 1.1k event!

hi emma! 💖🤩 no please it’s alr! your description is really extensive but i loved reading through it don’t worry HSHSHSH (apologies in advance if i don’t end up mentioning all of the wonderful things about yourself that you listed down in your request! i hope that’s okay qwq) moving on, 

i match you up with...

Red Riot aka Kirishima Eijirou!

ok ok ok the two of you are one of the most cutest and unconventional couples in UA simply because you’re an inch taller than Kirishima. Do you care? Nope. Does Kiri care? Nope. Do Class 1-A give a damn? Nope either. The two of you are an adorkable pair and... it all started when you complimented his shark teeth.

He was pretty surprised about your compliment because no one has really made any comments on his unique fangs so far. and so, he mentioned that to you, thanked you for noticing, and flashed you a toothy grin. 

the two of you instantly clicked after that!

although there were times when the two of you would act or were fated to be complete opposites. like when you took the pottermore quiz and you were sorted in slytherin whilst kirishima was sorted into gryffindor, when you would be sarcastic and eijiro would be honest, when you would act a bit brash and stubborn, kiri would reprimand you for it, and when you revealed to each other that you are an intp whereas eijiro is an esfp yet... you work things out! the both of you are very patient with each other and very much value each other's skills and talents! when he firsthand experienced seeing your virtuoso self shine with all the instruments you could play, he instantly pleaded you to teach at least one instrument. 

he would use his hardening quirk whenever you would invite him to randomly practice sword fighting just to tease you. he still lets you win tho! you make dad jokes all the time whenever you’re around him and he does the same! i headcanon eijiro also making a lot of dudebro and manly jokes and you just wince every time he fools around like that. sometimes the two of you even challenge each other on who can make the worst dad joke of the day! along with the worst innuendo of the day LMAO 

and lastly, eijiro may not be that book smart but when you got him into greek mythology, watch him literally binge read the pjo and hoo books along with any encyclopedias or almanacs about the greek mythos just for you! 💕

#julie @ 1.1k! #julie @ 1.1k match-ups #dreamsofficialwife

[piraticalarchive]

*poke* hey. i adore you.

me in my best lucas in 2014 voice: i mean .. ur hot. i'm hot. what's not to ship??

okay in all seriousness, you oh you. I live with you and I know I can tell you any of this anytime I want to, but I am horrible with words and my brain has not been cooperating lately. My verbal typos are even worse than my actual typing ones lmao. But ANYWAYS - 8 years ago I was in a place where I never imagined I'd be where I am today. I was bitter about a lot of things, angry at even more and I spent a lot of time being really weirdly introspective. I remember the day before I met I was sitting on campus just sort of chilling in the union where all the places to eat were - and my friends had just all gotten up to leave and go to their class and i was supposed to go to my next one too, but i just kept sitting there. I still remember that moment so vividly and I don't know why - but I remember sitting at that table, sort of watching other tables and watching people laugh and entertain their friends and I just sat there thinking 'are they actually happy? or are they pretending? is that a real feeling that people can feel? or is it something we momentarily make up? you can't always feel like that, right?' - I had no idea who I was. I was miserable and I clung to the belief that I needed to be what I was to make other people happy. I had so carefully constructed a persona and a wall and had gotten really good at being charismatic to the point where people thought we were best friends but would stop and look at me weird sometimes and be like 'wait, i actually don't know anything about you'.

You came into my life and screwed that all up. i was being my woo hoo party time pirate!! self and I literally just yelled at you and kind of dragged you into my life and you came along willingly. And you were the first person who saw me. There were a lot of times I turned to other people because I was so ashamed of who I was in that moment, what I was doing and I didn't want you to know. I cared about you so much already and I never wanted you to stop being my friend or to be like 'okay yeah, you're a lost cause. good luck, mate' - but you never did. There were a lot of growing pains and sometimes there still are haha. Before I met you I honestly didn't think I was ever capable of understanding love and that I would never find someone I wanted to spend my life with (me: i'm an island dammit!!') but you changed that. I've learned over the last 8 years that love isn't happily forever after the first kiss, it's not something that is always an emotion you can feel. Love is "you are really pissing me off!!" and then ten minutes later being like "okay we're still fighting and I know that but - did you take your meds?" Love is you washing my hair when I can barely function and us laughing for three hours over 'there's a goddamn 'h' in it!!' and finishing each other's sentences and getting even more irritated when you're irritated because you're trying to pretend like you're not irritated but the other person is like 'you just breathed out for 5 seconds, you normally only breathe out for like 3. i know you're upset. what's wrong??'. Love is saying to your partner "this is who I am" and having them say back "I know. I was waiting for you to tell me". And when you question if they feel the same, if anything has changed, they say "of course not. it's you. it's always been you. it will always be you.'

Love is spending the rest of your life with your best friend, choosing every day to love them through whatever challenge life throws your way and to hold their hand during it. You have picked me up so much over the last 8 years and I know you kind of got sold false advertising (thank you, mental breakdown for completely rearranging my personality) but you always tell me you didn't. so we'll agree to disagree lmao. I love you so much ! I forever and always will. Thanks for writing our sexy leather clad boys with me uwu

#save ; #you C ALLED ME SO THIS IS DISJOINTED BOOOOO #but i tried. #i love you. #sap // #so much sap // #lmaooo

[asgardian--angels]

WIP tag game

Rules: Post the name of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them and then post a little snippet of it or tell them something about it! Tag as many people as you like.

I was tagged by @ectogeo-rebubbles

hoo boy this ought to be a doozy. most of my wips are isolated clips of dialogue or paragraphs thrown into one big word doc with no delineations... so uh. I’ll try here. I will only include wips that actually have writing, not just outlines/brainstorming, and not just snippets of dialogue that have no story attached (which accounts for most of it lbr). these are all garashir.

Clarity (my biggest wip, orb of prophecy fic)

Shri-tal

expectations

Ziyal angst

The Sound of Her Voice coda

button fic (for the don’t press that button challenge)

holosuite date

I think that’s all I have that are at least somewhat composed. I *try* not to start too much that I’m not prepared to immediately finish, but I do think of a lot of passing ideas and jot them down and then never develop them. So if you do want some random snippet of garak introspection or dialogue you can ping me for that too lmao I have plenty. 

also should mention I have a fairly big idea in the works for my own cardassian speculative reproductive anatomy guide that will come in the form of like... er, I’m thinking a mix of like, snippets from one of Julian’s medical journal papers, and other formats (do cardassians have gossip magazines? how about a conference talk?), all put together? I haven’t fleshed out the mode of delivery but getting my own unique headcanons for Cardassian anatomy down is a priority for me. the medical journal article will be titled smth along the lines of Notes on the Reproductive Physiology of the Cardassian Male, A Case Study. I will literally try and make it as close to actual scientific manuscript jargon as possible. Seeing as I just spent the last four months writing my own thesis my brain is still in that mode hehe. there will be illustrations >:)

#garashir