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whatwillyoudodifferently · 4 years

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Look, Louts! Lilies! - Yuri For A Hope-Flung Present and Hopeful Future

Look, I’ll be frank. I typically try to keep to a more formal tone when I write for this blog. I’m not in a formal mood. It is June October 2020, and I, like the rest of you, have been under quarantine for a little over three almost seven months now due to the Covid-19 virus. Throw in a eensy, teensy bit of massive political movements and change in response to police violence and racism, and an increase of police violence and racism in response to those movements, and I think it’s fair to say it’s been a tumultuous couple of months. Except, strangely, it also hasn’t been, because so much of this time has been characterized by ennui and isolation. Stressful, yet soul-numbing. In short, it’s been a very weird place to be in.

So, we’ve all found our different ways to cope. My sister’s way has been getting really into succulents(?), and my way has been buying digital manga and video games. I’ve finished stuff I’ve put off for literal years and bought stuff I had heard was good but wasn’t that hyped to get into. And somehow, the one thing I’ve really gotten into has been yuri?

Now, yuri has a very long and rich history, as well as its own sets of conventions and nuances, so it is with a great, great, GREAT deal of respect that I say that I’m going to simplify it for this essay as “Japanese media with a particular focus on romance between women” for brevity’s sake. If you want to know more, there’s actually quite a lot that’s been written about it in English, but I’m aiming this essay at English-speakers who have had at least a little experience with yuri and more than just passing knowledge.

Because you see, I’ve found that yuri fans have a lot of things to say about yuri! And a lot of those things really bug me!! “Yuri is only fetish quasi-porn written by men,” “yuri is only bland wholesome fluff,” “yuri is only high school drama,” so on, so on. It made me mad, but it also made me realize something: a lot of people simply must not know how big this field of lilies truly is! How else can we get people saying “yuri is oversexualized” and “yuri is sexless” as gospel truth? Something’s not adding up here, guys!

So, all that is to say I’m doing something different for this blog: I’m writing up a recommendation list of yuri. A large chunk of it will be stuff I’ve read and can officially give my seal of approval to, while some of them are just titles I’ve heard of that I think will interest others. All of them have been specifically chosen to counter common untrue things I’ve heard about yuri as a whole. I hope you can find at least a few things on this list that you will enjoy and help you keep your head as the encroaching darkness lurches yet a few inches closer!

1. “Yuri is all schoolgirl stuff! Where’s the sci-fi, the period pieces, the action, the fantasy?”

Otherside Picnic

What It Is: A light novel series written by Iori Miyazawa (illustrated by shirakaba). Ongoing, four volumes at time of writing. The story is being adapted into a manga by Eita Mizuno, and an anime adaptation directed by Takuya Satou will be airing in January 2021.

What It’s About: It was on her third trip to the Otherside that Sorawo Kamikoshi almost died, and it was on that same trip she was saved by an angel. Toriko Nishina is a beautiful and confident young woman who also happens to have intimate knowledge of the Otherside, a dangerous yet captivating world that Sorawo can’t help but being drawn to. Toriko convinces Sorawo to join her on her expeditions to the Otherside, fighting off bizarre creatures that have somehow been ripped out of Japanese urban legends and finding strange artifacts in order to make a little extra cash-- all the while keeping an eye out for someone dear to Toriko’s heart.

What I Think: Otherside Picnic is heavily inspired by the novel Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky and features several creatures and scenarios from ghost stories, net lore, and-- there’s no other way to put this-- creepypasta. On paper this sounds deeply unoriginal, so it’s pretty surprising that OP has an incredibly strong identity. The idea of fusing horror with a yuri love story excited me enough the moment I heard about it, so when I finally got to read it for myself, I was delighted to find that the horror elements and the romance elements are both quite strong.

I will say that thanks to the author’s commitment to following his sources of inspiration to the letter sometimes causes him to undercut his own writing (good example: in one arc there’s an ominous train that keeps being mentioned, causing the reader to dread its arrival with each passing page, but seeing what’s on the train will inevitably fall flat in comparison to the reader’s imagination), but those moments are made up by the more original moments-- the things that are left unseen and unexplained.

The place where the story truly shines is the relationship between the two leads. Sorawo and Toriko are great characters, both incredibly charming and deeply flawed, and they achieve a great chemistry with each other right off the bat. Sorawo is a very interesting protagonist, one who turns out to have a deeply tragic past that has made her into a reclusive, somewhat selfish young woman. What’s great is that Toriko, vivacious and confident, everything Sorawo isn’t, accepts this part of her, in a way. Toriko flat out admits she’s not looking for a particularly virtuous person to accompany her, but an “accomplice.” A big part of the appeal of OP is seeing these two “accomplices” bounce off each other, and eventually come to care about each other, all playing against a background of some genuinely spine-crawling horror. Otherside Picnic is a truly underrated series, and I deeply hope that the anime adaption next year will finally get it all the eyes it deserves (menacing phrasing very much intended).

Where To Get It: The light novels are published by J-Novel Club and can be found via various digital platforms and bookstores. The manga will be published by Square Enix Books starting May 2021. The anime will start airing on January 4th, 2021.

Goodbye My Rose Garden

What It Is: A manga by Dr. Pepperco. Three volumes, complete. It inspired a stage play that ran for a while in Japan, but not much information is available about it in English.

What It’s About: Hanako has two goals: to meet Victor Franks, the mysterious author who pens the books she adores, and to become a writer herself. Despite having the mettle to travel to England on her own to pursue her dreams, she soons finds that it’s difficult for a young, unwed Japanese woman to dream in 20th century London. However, her luck seems to turn around when she meets Alice Douglas, a noblewoman who offers her a job as her maid-- as well as a surprisingly warm friendship. Alice even offers Hanako a way to meet her idol… but at the price of a horrifying request.

What I Think: In the afterword of Volume 1, Dr. Pepperco openly admits that Goodbye, My Rose Garden was the result of them trying to marry all of their favorite tropes (“Victorian maids! Loads of frills! An English family manor!” are some standout items), and this is apparent in the best way possible. GMRG is a lush period piece that will likely appeal to fans of movies like The Handmaiden and Portrait Of A Lady On Fire, with loving attention paid to details like clothes and settings.

The relationship between Alice and Hanako is quite charming, with Alice supporting Hanako as much as she can while still taking every available opportunity to tease her, while Hanako constantly surprises Alice each time she shows her moxie and strength. It’s an adorable, sweet dynamic, yet a dark, melancholy weight lurks in the background in the form of Alice’s request-- in short, it’s a relationship that feels tailor made for me. Still, I believe this “darkness” never threatens to overwhelm the story, only enhance it in such a way that the reader will soldier on, hoping for a happy ending for our two leads. With an engaging plot and gorgeous art, this is a great manga for both longtime yuri fans and newcomers looking for an introduction to the world of yuri.

Where To Get It: Seven Seas Entertainment has translated the first two volumes, with the final one coming to English soon all three volumes into English.

Seabed

What It Is: A visual novel by paleontology, a Japanese doujin circle.

What It’s About: Mizuno Sachiko is a designer who is haunted by visions of Takako, her vivacious childhood friend and former lover. Narasaki Hibiki is a psychiatrist who wants to help Sachiko make sense of these hallucinations. Takako is… confused, trying to figure out why she keeps losing her memory and why she and Sachiko drifted apart despite being so close. Seabed is a story that spans the pasts and presents of these three women as they attempt to find and understand the truth.

What I Think: At first glance, Seabed seems simple, but it’s a bit of a hard story to explain. In a way, there isn’t much to explain-- it’s a very slow, down-to-earth story that gets almost tedious at times. I think it would be a hard sell to someone who isn’t used to visual novels, but I could imagine it being challenging even for fans. All I’ll say is this: if you give Seabed a chance, it will draw you into a surreal, gentle, melancholy tale akin to slowly sinking beneath the water of a strange, yet not unfriendly sea. For its simplicity, it’s got quite a few surprises in its long, long runtime, and any attempt to explain further will just ruin an experience that’s meant to wash over the reader over time. The only thing I’ll say is the one thing I think everyone knows: the climax will make you cry.

Where To Get It: Seabed is published in English through Fruitbat Factory and is available on Steam, Itch.io, and Nintendo Switch.

SHWD

What It Is: A manga by Sono. Ongoing.

What It’s About: Sawada is one of the few women working for the Special Hazardous Waste Disposal, and the only one in her office. But that changes when the stunningly-strong yet staggeringly-sweet Koga is hired, and the two become close in no time. Sawada trains Koga and soon the two go on their first mission to dispose of the “hazardous waste” left after a recent war… the dangerous, organic anti-human weapons known as the Dynamis.

What I Think: SHWD opens with several close-ups of Sawada’s arm muscles as she works out. I have found that page alone is sometimes enough to convince someone to read SHWD, and if not, pictures of Sawada and-- especially-- Koga are often enough to do the job. In all seriousness, what I love about SHWD can be summarized by something Sono said in an interview about the manga:

‘The first motivating force was "I want to write a yuri manga featuring strong women." I was very drawn to strong female characters by watching "PERSON of INTEREST" and "Assassin's Creed Odyssey." However, I felt that I should differentiate myself by doing something other than a "strong woman" and "weak woman" dynamic. So, I thought about coupling women with different types of strength. This is why all of the SHWD main characters are "strong women."’

It’s a mindset I love a lot. Koga is remarkably strong in a physical sense, but her mental fortitude is fragile due to her past experiences with the Dynamis, and as such, it’s Sawada who uses her immense mental strength to support her. Indeed, every character in SHWD so far bears intense trauma born of the Dynamis in some way, and it’s hard to see how their pasts still hurt them in the present. But that just makes it satisfying to see these women come together to support one another. SHWD drew me in with a unique and often dark action-oriented story with horror elements, but it’s this idea of “strong women” who make up for each other’s weaknesses that really makes it dear to me.

Also, it can’t be stated enough that Sono is so so so so so (etc) good at drawing muscular women.

On a completely unrelated note, there’s a side story about Koga and Sawada playing sports together. This includes judo. I am saying this for no reason.

Where To Get It: The English translation of the manga is released in chapters by Lilyka Manga.

Sexiled: My Sexist Party Leader Kicked Me Out, So I Teamed Up With a Mythical Sorceress!

What It Is: A two volume light novel series by Ameko Kaeruda, illustrated by Kazutomo Miya. Possibly complete.

What It’s About: Tanya Artemiciov is an absurdly talented Mage. So why the hell was she kicked out of her adventuring party? Her leader and former friend sums it up in four words: “You’re a woman, Tanya.” In a fit of rage, Tanya channels her anger into a “venting” session that involves swearing her head of and casting a volley of Explosion spells into the wasteland… and accidentally releases a legendary sorceress! Luckily, Laplace is actually quite nice, and just as powerful as the legends say, so the two decide to team up so Tanya can have her revenge!

What I Think: So, this is a silly one, but after a couple of darker entries I think it’s a good palate cleanser. Sexiled is a loud, not-even-remotely subtle, unabashedly feminist take on the “power fantasy” light novel, especially the “revenge fantasy” subgenre-- and even if that sounds awesome on paper to you (ex. me), it will probably feel over-the-top at times to you (ex. me). But in a way, that’s actually kind of its charm.

I like that Kaeruda utterly refuses to let up on what she wants to tell you, especially because the story was inspired by a real case in Japan. One may be tempted to think “this story is ridiculous, no one would ever be this cartoonishly sexist!” and then you read a news article about how in a famous Japanese medical university was found rigging the test scores of women, and you realize, “oh, people are still this cartoonishly sexist.” So I’m fine with Kaeruda letting it all out in this story. At the same time, I think Sexiled is best when it’s focused not on Tanya’s revenge but on her kindness, and the way her compassion, her strength, and yes, her anger inspires the women and girls around her.

Sexiled is a fun and often very funny romp about assholes getting theirs, with some surprisingly deep and nuanced moments hiding in a very unsubtle story.

Where To Get It: The light novels are published by J-Novel Club and can be found via various digital platforms and bookstores.

BONUS: Other titles with sci-fi/fantasy/action elements that may interest you!

The Blank Of Describer: A one-shot manga by kkzt about a pair of two dream-builders. They’ve taken all kinds of commissions in the past, but one job they recieve throws them for a loop: a request for a shinigami that can predict and report death. And then comes the kicker: the customer asks the two of them to give it features that the both of them “adore the most…” (Published in English by Lilyka Manga)

A Lily Blooms In Another World: A light novel by Ameko Kaeruda (illustrated by Shio Sakura), author of Sexiled, about Miyako, a Japanese wage slave reincarnated into another world based on her favorite otome game. However, she’s not interested in her would-be love interest, but in Fuuka Hamilton-- the game’s villainess! After Miyako confesses her love, Fuuka decides to give her a challenge: if Miyako can make her say the words “I’m happy” in fourteen days, she’ll stay by her side! (Published in English through J-Novel Club, available on various platforms)

Superwomen In Love: An ongoing manga by sometime about the sentai villainess Honey Trap and her infatuation with the masked superheroine Rapid Rabbit. After being kicked out of her evil organization, Honey Trap decides to team up with her former nemesis to fight evil-- and hopefully, find romance! (To be published in English by Seven Seas Entertainment, coming in April 2021)

2. “Yuri is all stories about teenagers! Where’s the stuff about adults?”

Take a look at the previous section: there’s the stuff about adults! Otherside Picnic, Goodbye My Rose Garden, Seabed, SHWD, Sexiled, The Blank of Describer, A Lily Blooms In Another World, and Superwomen In Love are all stories with adult-aged protagonists! But if you’re searching for a more down-to-earth romance, I’m happy to report there’s quite a bit of options to look into!

Still Sick

What It Is: A manga by Akashi. Three volumes, complete.

What It’s About: Makoto Shimizu is an office lady with a secret: she’s a yuri fan who draws doujinshi. She’s able to keep her two lives separate, all until the day she comes face-to-face with her co-worker at a convention! To Makoto’s horror, Akane Maekawa is amused by her nerdy secret, but Akane may have some secrets of her own...

What I Think: This one was a roller coaster for me: I loved the premise of the manga, but wasn’t sure about the dynamic between the leads… that is, until near the end of the first volume, where something happened and everything changed. Without giving too much away, I implore people to give Still Sick a chance-- it has a much deeper story than one might initially guess, as well as an interesting character dynamic between the two leads with some surprising turns.

Where To Get It: The first two volumes of Still Sick are published in English by Tokyopop, with the final one coming soon All three volumes have been published in English by Tokyopop.

After Hours

What It Is: A manga by Yuhta Nishio. Three volumes, complete.

What It’s About: After being ditched by her friend at a club, Emi Ashiana is ready to write the whole night off. All that changes when she meets Kei, a DJ who seems to be everything Emi is not-- cool, confident… employed.... But Kei and Emi hit it off and Emi’s life changes as Kei draws her into the world of Japan’s club scene!

What I Think: It’s hard to explain exactly why I like this manga, but I reeeeally like this manga.

There’s just something about the sleek art, the amazing atmosphere of the scenes set in nightclubs, the chemistry between Emi and Kei, the focus on more mature topics.... it’s a manga that’s remarkably magnetic for how down-to-earth it is. It’s also just interesting to read stories about subcultures that don’t normally get a spotlight in comics. To sum it up, After Hours is just a lovely manga that’s severely underrated that’s perfect for someone who’s looking for a story that’s both fun and mature.

Where To Get It: All three volumes are published in English by Viz Media.

How Do We Relationship?

What It Is: A manga by Tamifull. Ongoing, five volumes at time of writing.

What It’s About: Miwa and Saeko’s first meeting is… interesting. But despite that, and despite their clashing personalities, the two of them become fast friends. Well… actually, perhaps more than friends. You see, pretty soon the two of them learn that the other is into women. With that in mind, Saeko suggests they try dating each other-- might as well, right? “Might as well” seems like a strange place to begin a relationship, but perhaps even something like that could end in true love?

What I Think: “Why do romances always end when they decide to start dating?!” That’s the question Tamifull poses in the afterword of Volume 1. And it’s a great question! What makes How Do We Relationship? an interesting manga is how oddly realistic it is, highlighting things like the compromises people make in relationships, people who get into relationships for pragmatic reasons rather than love, the whole “thing” about sex… as well as highlighting the additional issues queer people have to deal with. That may sound like a heavy story, but it’s actually quite light-hearted, as well as very, very funny at times. With a cute art style and surprisingly deep premise, HDWR is a great manga for older yuri fans who are craving a more mature story.

Where To Get It: The first volume has been published in English by Viz Media, with more on the way.

BONUS: Other titles with adult protagonists that may interest you!

Even Though We’re Adults: A manga by Takako Shimura about two women in their thirties. Ayano and Akari meet each other in a bar and almost immediately feel a sense of chemistry between them. There’s just one problem: Ayano is married to someone else. (To be published in English by Seven Seas Entertainment, coming in January 2021)

Doughnuts Under A Crescent Moon: A manga by Shio Usui. Uno Hinako wants nothing more than to be seen as a normal young woman, but she just can’t seem to make a “normal” romance work. But maybe Sato Asahi, a woman who works at the same company as her, can show her a new kind of normal? (To be published in English by Seven Seas Entertainment, coming in February 2021)

Our Teachers Are Dating: A manga by Pikachi Ohi. Hayama Asuka is a gym teacher, Terano Saki is a biology teacher. One day, they come into work both looking suspiciously happy… because they’ve started dating! (Published in English by Seven Seas Entertainment)

I Married My Best Friend To Shut My Parents Up: A one-volume manga by Kodama Naoko. Morimoto is sick and tired about constantly being badgered about finding a man to marry, so her kouhai from her high school days offers a solution: marry each other to make her parents back off! (Published in English by Seven Seas Entertainment)

Now Loading…!: A one-volume manga by Mikan Uji. Takagi has just snagged her dream job at a games publisher, but being put in charge of a mobile game that’s barely pulling in any attention isn’t exactly what she was hoping for. What’s worse, she’s drawn the attention of her strict higher-up Sakurazuki Kaori… who also happened to design her most favorite game of all time?! (Published in English through Seven Seas Entertainment)

3. “Yuri is all schoolgirl stuff! Where’s- wait, didn’t we already do this one?”

Yes we did. And you know what? I’m making a stand! There’s a lot of really, really good yuri stories set in high schools, and I think more people need to give them a chance! Here are some high school titles that I think are worth a second look for one reason or another!

Bloom Into You

What It Is: A manga by Nakatani Nio. Eight volumes, complete. A twelve episode anime aired in 2018, covering about the first half of the series. A three volume spinoff light novel series written by Hitoma Iruma was also published.

What It’s About: Yuu Koito has long dreamed of the day she’d find That One, Storybook Romance that would make her feel like she was walking on air, but the day that a boy confesses to her, her feet remain firmly planted on the ground. When she meets Touko Nanami, a girl who seems to have the same strange, distant relationship to romance as she does, Yuu feels like she has found a comrade. But what will happen when the next person to confess to Yuu… is Touko?

What I Think: What can I say about Bloom Into You that hasn’t already been said? There’s a reason it’s basically considered a staple of yuri despite being only five years old. The art is beautiful and delicate, the story has a deft mastery of comedy, drama, and romance, and the characters are deeply loveable. Really, the only reason this one is here is to tell you to get to reading this manga (or watching the anime) if you haven’t already. So get to it!

Where To Get It: The entire series-- as well as the spinoff light novel series Regarding Saeki Sayaka-- has been published in English by Seven Seas Entertainment. The anime is currently streaming on HiDive.

Yuri Is My Job

What It Is: A manga by Miman. Ongoing, seven volumes at time of writing.

What It’s About: Hime wants nothing more than to be adored by everyone and to someday bag a rich husband. Of course, being loved by all takes a lot of work, and she prides herself in keeping her perfect, adorable facade so well-maintained. But of course, the one time she slips up, she ends up injuring the manager of a local cafe! Hime finds herself strong-armed into working for this cafe under their star employee, a kind, graceful girl named Mitsuki. But things aren’t quite so simple-- you see, this cafe has a gimmick in which all the employees are constantly acting out yuri-inspired scenes for the customers, so in a way, the employees also have their own facades. And under her facade, Mitsuki… hates Hime’s guts!

What I Think: Yuri Is My Job is an odd duck, but in a good way. It’s advertised and initially framed as a comedy, but it becomes a surprisingly thoughtful drama about the personas people adopt and why they do so (though, luckily, the comedy never truly goes away). There’s an interesting web of relationships between the girls, and having those interactions take place in a setting where they must act out a completely different sort of drama adds an extra level of drama and intrigue. The cute, polished artwork is just the icing on the cake. YIMJ is a good manga for those who are already familiar with yuri tropes and those who are interested in a drama that doesn’t get too heavy.

Where To Get It: Six volumes have been published in English by Kodansha comics, with the seventh on the way.

Riddle Story of Devil

What It Is: A manga written by Yun Kouga and illustrated by Sunao Minakata. Five volumes, complete. A 12 episode anime aired in 2014.

What It’s About: At Myojo Private School, an elite all-girl’s academy, Class Black has a secret. Twelve of the thirteen girls are actually assassins who have been offered a dark deal-- one wish will be granted to whoever manages to kill Haru Ichinose, the thirteenth student. But there’s still hope for Haru in the form of Tokaku Azuma, one of the assassins who has decided to defect to Haru’s side-- and defend her from the other girls at any cost.

What I Think: I’m not sure… if I can say Riddle Story of Devil is “good.” It’s definitely something. Although its premise is vaguely similar to Revolutionary Girl Utena, its tone and atmosphere remind me a lot more of the Dangan Ronpa series. It’s schlocky and ridiculous and often over-the-top and at times exploitative. It’s pure junk food, basically… and I believe that’s where the charm comes from. It’s my guiltiest of guilty pleasures. It may not exactly be good, but more often than not, it’s fun. It’s hard not to be immediately interested in a yuri battle series, you have to admit.

And if it does have one undeniably good element, it’s Tokaku and Haru’s relationship. They contrast each other nicely, and while one might expect Haru to be boring and helpless, she’s actually quite proactive at times, and some of the most interesting, engaging parts of the series come from seeing how the two work together to fend off the latest assassin. It’s a short read and if anything, it’s worth it to see how each girl ends up. I recommend it for older viewers who are okay with violence and ludicrous battle scenarios.

Where To Get It: All five volumes are available through Seven Seas Entertainment. The anime can be watched through Funimation.*

*Please don’t watch the anime.**

** At the very least, please don’t watch the anime unless you’ve read the entire manga. Riddle Story Of Devil was one of those unfortunate cases where the anime adaption was produced before the manga reached its conclusion, and as such it has a very strange, rushed ending that includes none of what I enjoyed about the actual ending. Several scenes were also changed, and if I recall correctly, fanservice was added in several places where there was none previously. All in all, I’d really only recommend it for big fans of the series.

Side By Side Dreamers

What It Is: A light novel by Iori Miyazawa, illustrated by Akane Malbeni. One volume, complete.

What It’s About: Saya Hokage has been suffering from insomnia, but one day finds relief in the form of Hitsuji Konparu, a strange girl who can put people to sleep. As it turns out, Hitsuji is a person who has the special ability to move freely in their dreams, known as a “Sleepwalker.” The Sleepwalkers have been battling beings that possess people through their dreams, and it turns out they want Saya to join them in the fight.

What I Think: Side By Side Dreamers is short and… well, dreamy. I really enjoyed the premise and I think it’s a good novel for people who think Otherside Picnic may be a little too much for them. I also enjoyed each dream sequence-- I tend to find that the writing in light novels is a little dry, so the use of figurative language to describe these scenes was really refreshing and interesting. SBSD is a fun oneshot that I think is especially ideal for newcomers to yuri.

Where To Get It: Side-by-Side Dreamers is published by J-Novel Club and can be found via various digital platforms and bookstores.

Cocoon Entwined

What It Is: A manga by Yuriko Hara. Three volumes, ongoing.

What It’s About: Hoshimiya Girls' Academy is a strange, almost otherworldly paradise with a peculiar tradition. For all three years, each girl grows out her hair to absurd, breathtaking lengths, in order for it to eventually be cut and weaved into uniforms for future students. Perhaps it is these strange uniforms that seem to whisper about the past that makes the school seem frozen in another time… picturesque, yet stagnant. But one day, a shocking incident shatters the quiet peace of the academy, and the tumultuous feelings that have long been hidden in the hearts of these girls come rushing into the light.

What I Think: Cocoon Entwined is, in a word, eerie. It’s not marketed as a horror story, and I don’t think it’s intended to be one, but I’ve seen some that say they get horror vibes from it. I definitely understand that-- there’s a deep sense of unease that permeates the entire story in a way that’s a bit hard to articulate. The running thread of uniforms made from human hair definitely doesn’t hurt (it does-- I’ve seen many people understandably turned off by this element), but it’s more than that. It’s the sense that everything at Hoshimiya feels frozen and fragile. It’s the sense that everyone is burying their true feelings under countless layers. It’s the fact that in one scene, Saeki reaches out in a dark room full of uniforms and feels her arm touched by countless hands made of hair.

Cocoon Entwined is a strange manga, and I feel it’s not for everyone-- besides the way many are put off by the central premise, the way that the story jumps around in time can be a bit confusing to follow. But in my opinion, I love it for these elements: the uniforms and their marriage between beauty and grotesque, the sense of frozen time, the delicate artwork that feels like it might be shattered by the weight of your gaze, the strange, airless atmosphere, the girls and their clear exhaustion of having to be ideal women. It’s a strange little series that I think should be given a shot, particularly if you want something a little more out there, or a darker take on Class S tropes.

Where To Get It: Yen Press has currently published two volumes in English.

BONUS: Other high school titles that may interest you!

A Tropical Fish Yearns For Snow: A manga by Makoto Hagino. Konatsu Amano has just moved to a new town by the sea, and must deal with her new school’s mandatory club policy. Luckily, she meets Koyuki Honami, an older girl who runs the Aquarium Club. Recognizing her loneliness, Konatsu decides to join her club. (Published in English by Viz Media)

Flowers: A four-part series of visual novels published by Innocent Grey. Flowers focuses on Saint Angraecum Academy, a private high school that prides itself on overseeing the growth of proper young ladies. One notable thing about the academy is the Amitié program, a system that pairs students together in order to foster friendships between the girls. But friendship isn’t the only thing blooming… (Available in English from Steam, J-List, and JAST USA)

Adachi And Shimamura: A series of light novels written by Hitoma Iruma and illustrated by Non that has recently received a manga adaptation and an anime adaption. Adachi and Shimamura are two girls who encounter each other one day while cutting class. Little by little, the two girls become a part of each other’s lives, and feelings begin to form. (The light novels are published in English by Seven Seas Entertainment, the anime is licensed by Funimation)

And there we go! 24 different yuri titles. I didn’t even go into the series that I tried but personally didn’t like that still might interest other people. I primarily made this list to gush about yuri that I liked, but I also tried to include a fairly wide range of things so that, hopefully, any random person who read this whole list could find at least one new title that interests them. And I hope that includes you!

The yuri scene is quite large and wonderful if you know where to look, and it too often gets a bad rap. I hope that this list could give you a new perspective on what kinds of titles are available, and I hope it gives you something new to try. And remember: if you want something specific, try looking for it! There’s a good chance the story you’re craving is already out there, waiting to be discovered!

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demonfox38 · 3 years

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Okay. Made it through the last season of Netflix's "Castlevania" interpretation. Thoughts are below the cut.

I've often thought of this series as the exploitation version of "Castlevania," and hiring Malcom McDowell confirms that.

Although, I find it hilarious that both Malcolm McDowell and Patrick Stewart have ended up voicing the same character. I'm sure there's a "Star Trek Generations" joke to be made in there, but I'm not Mike Stoklasa.

Also, I was cracking up a bit when Varney's plot twist happened. Mostly, because it came off a bit Skeletor-esque in vocal performance.

Also, also—laughing that the final boss went the "Castlevania: Lament of Innocence" route despite barely touching on that game's plot.

Animation had its ups and downs with this season. It seemed like there were some frame issues (not enough inbetweening.) I do appreciate how they incorporated more of Alucard's SOTN animations into his fights, however.

Additionally, some of the fight scenes' pacing seemed to have issues, particularly regarding weapon recovery.

The whole bit with St. Germain was off. Like, he's a weird asshole in "Castlevania: Curse of Darkness", but he's more of a weird asshole there in the same way that casually encountering "Doctor Who"'s Doctor would also be strange. Not a straight up villainous boob. Kinda makes sense thematically to have another character who is willing to do horrible shit for their lost loved one, but the series honestly did not do a good job establishing her. Like, did she even have a voice actor? Or a name? All I'm saying is it was much easier for outsiders to get the Lisa revenge thing Dracula had going.

Also, how dare you joke about not being deaf and then have a villainous monologue, TV show.

Greta's a good girl. Well, outside of being an occasional homewrecker. Point is, she's competent and trying her best to save people in a bad situation, and anyone having issues with her is not to be trusted in the same way that you don't trust people who don't like Rochelle from "Left 4 Dead 2."

Look at me. Do not trust people who do not like Rochelle from "Left 4 Dead 2." Yes, her writing could have been better, but she's still a viable character. Let people Thunder Child their ships on the rocks of your better self. Got me?

Also, y'all really need to embrace more polyamory. Or understand the fact that Alucard's not going to love just one person in his life. Dude lives to be at least 600 in the game's timeline. For a dude who loves humans, constricting him to just one who may live to be 100 at best is cruel.

There are some interesting philosophical dialogues going on here, but I can see where some people may lose their patience for them. Considering one of Castlevania's most popular memes is a philosophy debate, you're just gonna have to suck that up. My personal favorites included the topic of acting versus reacting, as well as having agency in one's story.

Striga's battle theme was cool, but otherwise, the music was forgettable. Yes, that is a sin. Punishable by Death? In this series, maybe!

The gore's still over the top. Which, okay, fine. There's a bit of that in game. It's just generally a bit more reserved with it or uses it in crucial boss fights.

RIP doggie.

The Targoviste plot's a bit of a wash, but it doesn't feel as useless as Trevor and Sypha's previous plot predicament. It's just nothing of a surprise, considering how many times the writing has played the "authority figures are useless" and "dark secret surprise" tropes in this series. Like, Greta being reliable is actually more surprising than anything with this plot.

I cannot emphasize enough how boring I found Carmilla's interpretation and plot arc. You guys could have had a giant, naked lesbian riding a skull and spewing magic at people while her cat-eared girlfriend jumped them for extra damage. But no. Vanilla lady with a scarlet sword for you. So long. Farewell. Auf Wiedersehen. Good night.

Gotta say, as much of a deviation from his source character as he is, Isaac really turned out well in this series. He's definitely evidence that you don't always need to stick to source material.

His Abel is fucking sick, dude. Way to go, king.

Also, I was expecting more violence from Hector this season. Oh, well. At least he got a teeny bit of a spine.

Look. I'm not an alchemist by any means. I'm just a bit baffled by this season's emphasis of obtaining a Rebis. Like, any time the game series has talked about the Magnum Opus of Alchemy, it's more been in pursuit of making a Philosopher's Stone (or at the very least, a Crimson Stone, as seen in "Castlevania: Lament of Innocence.") Pulling a Rebis out of the aether is…well. Could have been more interesting than it was. I mean, it was a bit nightmarish, but it really didn't do much.

Sypha's really never getting back to her family, is she?

Love the idea that the cross subweapon is basically a fancy chakram.

GERGOTH. BUDDY. FRIENDO.

Really appreciating the monster variety in these last two seasons. I mean, that's a big selling point of the "Castlevania" games. Not so much vampires standing around and bickering in dick-waving contests.

Breaking out of the bullet points to hit on the big subject of this season—that is, the ending being surprisingly happy.

There's been a lot of shit that's happened over the last few years. Obviously, a pandemic. Konami's run by pricks. Then, there's the situation with the allegations of sexual coercion with Warren Ellis. Additionally, the terrible ending of "Game of Thrones" likely impacted how this season was developed, considering it seemed to be chasing its progression in construction. (I mean, look at Carmilla and Daenerys.) I don't know how many people were happy with the last season of "Castlevania," but from my POV, it double-tapped itself in the foot with the way it pushed simultaneous sex and violence in its last two episodes. My point is, there was little taste for additional darkness, considering everything that has been happening. Society is drained.

A happy ending was what people really wanted. And man, did this pull through, in that regard. But, there's a conversation to be had in if this swerved too far or if it violates some artistic integrity to give people what they want. So, let's have it.

Look. Man. Have you seen a "Castlevania" ending? When you do it right, it's crumbled castles and rainbow-colored skies. If you do it really right, it results in a pretty girl holding the main character's hand. There is happiness in these games. Hope. Forgiveness and redemption. If this is supposed to be any bit an accurate interpretation of these games, it absolutely should end in such a joyful fashion. (Okay, maybe giving Dracula and Lisa a second honeymoon at the end was a bit much, but I get where people would want that.)

Did some items need to be addressed more? Absolutely. Alucard staking people and Hector getting sexually coerced into servitude are some pretty big topics to just wave away. (Oh, shit. That second part is even worse now with what Ellis was allegedly doing, isn't it?) I suppose I'm just glad the series didn't go full Sephiroth with Alucard. And at least Hector finally took some stand in his situation, even if it wasn't the bombastic, hateful revenge I'm used to seeing from this character in other stories.

I think the creators of this series were trying to save this show from the fate of "Game of Thrones." (To some extent, perhaps the "Voltron" re-interpretation as well.) There's so much media out there anymore that if a production team doesn't nail the ending, their creation gets wiped out of the collective consciousness. To that extent, I think the creators were successful in saving their series. Did it do damage to itself in yanking out of its construction and themes? A bit. But, in doing so, it pivoted back to being more like a proper "Castlevania" product. (And of course, by proper, I mean anything ignoring "Lords of Shadows." God, people need to stop chasing other products when developing "Castlevania" stuff and just let the series be as it is.)

I am very curious as to how much of this season was part of an original draft and how much was revised in backlash to everything that has happened. It doesn't seem like Trevor was intended to survive, but to some extent, Sypha had to. (I mean, until she has a kid, anyway. See "Lords of Shadows" series for dickery regarding that.) I'm also wondering if there was more intended for the Carmilla subplot, as much as the series was banging on about her invading locations. I'm not even sure St. Germain was intended to be a villain all along. Getting into a bitchfight with Death? Sure. Doing what he did here? That's a weird arc, dude.

If you come away from my POV with anything, it should be this: GO PLAY THE GAMES.

Do it. Do it, you ghouls. Go to the Steam store and download the "Castlevania Anniversary Collection." Boot up your PS3 or 4 or 18 or whatever and get "Symphony of the Night." Throttle Nintendo's stores until "Aria of Sorrow" or "Dawn of Sorrow" or "Harmony of Dissonance" or whatever rattles out of their moldy pockets. Find a ROM. Find an ISO. Just play a game. Especially, one of the ones made before 2010.

"Castlevania" as a game series isn't about hordes of vampires dick-waving at each other or edgy swearing or being grim and dark. Some of that stuff's there, sure. But, at its core, it's what game developers created when they looked at Universal Monster Movie creations and went "That's cool. Let's fight that!" It's a series about pushing technology in MMC chips to make rich, vibrant music. It's about flourishing artwork and layers of sprites dripping particles and gore onto players. It's sober and goofy and very pro curry.

The thing is, "Castlevania" players have their own unique connection to the series. We're the weirdos you see clapping their hands when a mutilated dinosaur shows up on screen. It's not because the monster alone is cool. It's that we've fought and struggled and bodied that thing through several floors like a goddamn "X-Men: Children of the Atom" stage. It's kicked our asses. We've kicked its ass. We've got a connection to it that you just don't get from passively watching it barf lasers through a computer monitor or TV screen. Like, you know how people go, "Well, the movie wasn't as good as the book?" It's obnoxious, sure. But, those who read the source materials have to go to the effort of constructing their own sets and people to understand what's happening. In a similar fashion, game players build up their own skill set to reach that next rung.

Maybe you don't always get a payout when you invest your resources into something. But, there is a sense of accomplishment, seeing what you can do.

There's a reason this series got an adaptation. I mean, outside of Konami's head executives wanting easy money. "Castlevania" is a fantastic video game series. Has it got a few problems? Oh yeah. Especially after outsourcing and pachislot machines became all the rage. But, there's a reason Simon and Richter Belmont are playable in "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate." There's a reason I spent a significant amount of time playing these games and writing or drawing fanworks for it. These games are wonderful. Beautiful. Difficult, but inspiring. Reasons I will still bang on about them decades years down the road.

When I get exasperated by layers of angst and edge lord content this Netflix series generated, I want you to know why. The roots of this show are good games held captive under poor management. Some people on staff know this. I wish they had more scenario and writing control. But mostly, I don't want to shit on them or their work. (Well, other than perhaps the obvious target.) I just want you to see what I love in these games.

And also to watch Crashervania. Because that's legit.

#castlevania #netflix castlevania #spoilers #tl;dr play ball or SOTN or a Sorrow game or something

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makeste · 4 years

Text

BnHA Chapter 270: Harry Potter Rules

Previously on BnHA: Present Mic punched Ujiko in the face! It was awesome. I’m thinking about getting a tattoo of it. Meanwhile Endeavor saved Mirko’s life by setting her on fire (reason #15 why I will never become a superhero), and Aizawa did some sexy Spider-Man poses for our viewing pleasure while fighting the rest of these Noumus which are still annoyingly refusing to die. Anyway but back to Present Mic, the undisputed MVP of this chapter. Because you see, in addition to the punching, he also used his Loud Voice attack (literally the actual attack name; Horikoshi will steal all of my jokes and leave me with nothing) to smash open Tomura’s Noumutank! Which I really thought was going to immediately lead to Everyone Dying, but apparently I was wrong! Anyways so yeah, right now Tomura’s just lying down all heart-stopped and not-breathing. Which seems very anticlimactic, BUT I JUST HAVE THE CRAZIEST FEELING that maybe, just maybe, the super powerful villain lad who just spent the last three arcs slowly upgrading his bad self just in time to wage war on the world as the story reaches its climax, might not actually be dead though.

Today on BnHA: DON’T MIND THAT OMINOUS ORGAN MUSIC PLAYING IN THE BACKGROUND, IT’S NOTHING, IGNORE IT. Ahem. So first of all, as some of the bolder among us dared to speculate, Tomura is not, in fact, dead. He’s still very much kicking it with his nipple-less pecs and truffula tree hair, putzing around in his mental landscape filled with crumbled buildings and disembodied Theatrical Gesture Hands. For some reason he doesn’t have shoes or a shirt in his mental landscape, which was a very interesting choice on Horikoshi’s part, but we will speak no more of it. Anyway so to sum things up, Tomura’s family is all “TENKO WE LOVE YOU” and he’s all “oh hey” and then AFO fucking appears and he’s all “COME HERE MY BOY” which is exactly as creepy as you would expect, and for some fucking reason TOMURA ACTUALLY DOES COME HERE. And lol it turns out Ujiko gave him AFO. Like the quirk. Yes, that quirk. So long story short, Tomura is about to be possessed by AFO’s evil soul or some shit, and to put the cherry on top, fucking Deku out of fucking nowhere, MILES AWAY, is all “HE’S COMING.” Because of course he can sense it, because AFOFA IS REAL, AND FUCK ME THIS IS ALL HAPPENING TOO FAST, FUCK.

I know this chapter has been out since like 1pm, but I’m not getting to read it until 5 hours later because for once in my life I was trying to be responsible and actually get some work done on a Friday. I thought this might lead to less oh-god-I-still-have-to-get-that-done anxiety hovering over my weekend, but instead it just led to oh-god-I-have-to-get-the-chapter-recap-done anxiety hovering over my now! anyways so this might be a bit rushed lol

(ETA: yeah turns out this wasn’t exactly the kind of chapter you could just read quickly and get on with your life lmao. so, then!)

what a nice panel of Present Mic taking out the trash

you heard ‘em fellas. the doctor is secured. good job everyone we did it, manga over, congratulations. now to cut away to a two-page spread of Dark Shadow comically smothering Dabi’s flames with a giant stock pot lid, and that’ll be that! what a wonderful, extremely short and strangely underwhelming arc in which we haven’t even seen the actual main characters do anything yet. but I guess we don’t need them since the main bad guy is lying dead on the floor! everything is just so fucking dead and secured!! do you think if I keep repeating it enough Horikoshi will finally be like “okay geez I get it” and reveal his hand already

Mic is now ordering Ujiko to power down the Noumu, which again, I’m sure he will definitely do without a fuss since after all the good guys have clearly won the day

OH SHIT OH FUCK

rip X-Less. gonna just take a moment here to imprint your beautiful face onto my memory before it turns into a pile of ash. your face, I mean. not my memory. well my memory more or less already is a pile of ash but that’s neither here nor there ANYWAYS

:’)

what are these little sound effects. I think that’s supposed to be a buzzing noise?? anyways whatever it is PLEASE STOP IT, I AM NOT HAVING A NICE TIME SO STOP

ffff Horikoshi sure has done an excellent job of setting the mood in such a way that all of these panels of X-Less doing incredibly mild things are sending my stress levels through the roof. like is anyone else reading his lines more or less like “WELP, TIME FOR ME TO DIE, ANY SECOND NOW, WE’RE REALLY DOING THIS, THIS IS REALLY HAPPENING, HERE IT COMES”

(ETA: when is this poor sweet innocent man going to fucking die already.)

LET’S CUT BACK TO MIC ESCAPING THE IMMEDIATE VICINITY

I have the clearest mental image of Horikoshi standing by with a walkie talkie in one hand and one of those remote bomb detonation clicky switch thingies in the other, patiently waiting to receive the go-ahead once all of the important characters have gotten to safety

anyway so now Ujiko is talking again

no fear everyone this is just the beginning of his verbal noumu deactivation sequence. nothing to worry about. everything is fine

yes for some reason his code phrase to put all the noumus back to sleep involves going into rambling detail about his work researching quirk singularities and shit. it’s fine. it’s not a big deal. code phrases are just like that sometimes all right

just ignore the increasingly panicked look in Mic’s eye as he slowly realizes he was way too fucking keen to just leave the “dead” Tomura back there with his laser-eyed hero buddy. anyway so let’s continue learning all about the Quirk Illuminati or whatever the fuck

okay so... he faked his own death? 70 years ago, at age 50 or thereabouts? I mean, that’s interesting and all I guess. not saying I wouldn’t be thrilled to spend the rest of this chapter learning all about Ujiko’s boring evil life. I don’t need to say it because it’s implied on account of Ujiko sucks and is the worst. so yeah can we get a move on though

oh shit?!?

WHOSE NARRATION IS THAT IN THE BOXES TOMURA IS THAT YOU OH GOD OH GOD

also, comparing AFO’s smile to a buddha’s really sent an actual shudder of disgust down my spine for some reason lmao. I personally would have steered that comparison in a different area, maybe less to buddhas and more to Norman Bates from Psycho, but to each their own

oh shit wait up

okay but this is actually a pretty big revelation though, isn’t it? because it’s been hinted for a while now that AFO and Ujiko had some method of duplicating quirks (the fact that all the Noumu share the same regeneration quirk was the biggest clue, but there was also John-chan’s quirk, as well as Hood’s Muscular-esque quirk), but as far as I can recall, this is the first time we’ve had it confirmed. though to be fair I wasn’t joking when I said my memory really has been shit lately sob

anyway so for real though, can you really call it a BnHA chapter if you’re not spending a good chunk of it being hopelessly confused over the ownership of some ambiguous thought bubbles. WHO IS THIS. I do seriously feel like it’s Tomura, because he’s the wrathful one, but another hallmark of a typical BnHA chapter is me constantly questioning everything I know as I muddle my way through

(ETA: yeah I’m pretty sure it was him. still impressive how vague it is though! it could also potentially be Ujiko, Mic, or even Deku. hopefully Caleb’s translation on Sunday can shed some more light on this. though he wasn’t really helpful last time this happened lol.)

SOMEBODY PLEASE TELL ME WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON

didn’t... you just... say that “preservation” was your quirk?? what do you mean that you wanted it?? CAN YOU JUST FINISH YOUR SENTENCES LIKE A NORMAL PERSON

anyway so here’s a summary of this chapter thus far

present mic: okay goodbye forever x-less

x-less: what a strange thing to say! :) also is it just me or is this machine fucking staring at me

present mic: turn the noumu off please

ujiko: seventy years ago... society... singularity... he’d be 120 years old now...

??: [REPULSIVE FEELING EW WHO’S TOUCHING ME]

ujiko: all for one has the smile of an angel...

??: [SON OF A BITCH I’M SO FUCKING WRATHFUL]

ujiko: my quirk... preservation... the truth is... my quirk... preservation... the truth is... my quirk...

all caught up?? grand. also btw is anyone else super disturbed by the fact that Ujiko recognizes Mic as being “Kurogiri’s friend”, like holy shit though? how would he know that. I can’t think of any implications of this that aren’t super disturbing tbh

anyways back to -- LOL WHAT THE

Horikoshi Kouhei: [furiously scribbling notes to himself at 3am] BUT WHAT IF THE FOLDING CITY FROM “INCEPTION” HAD MORE GIANT HANDS

jesus christ. is this like some mental representation of what shit is currently like in Tomura’s mind? lots of crumbly destruction and traffic lights and the house his father built (isn’t it? I feel like it looks familiar), and SO MANY HANDS, HE JUST LOVES HIS HANDS

anyway so at this point it’s a coin toss whether or not anything in this fucking chapter is ever going to make any kind of fucking sense! but here I am voluntarily along for the ride while Gene Wilder sings that creepy boat song right in my ear!

DSFKLDSJ

ACCURATE REPRESENTATION OF SOMEONE WHO HAS BEEN FLOATING IN A JAR FOR THREE MONTHS TBH. that is some luscious quarantine hair

SDFLKJSDLFKJSLKFDHLKSDJFLKJLKSDJL:FKJSDL:KJ

(ETA: that Tomura in the top left may be my new favorite panel. look at him. all he is is a nose and chin and ~*~HAIR~*~.)

HANAAAAAA AHHHHHH OH MY LORD OH MY LORD! OKAY I’M FINALLY PAYING ATTENTION NOW FOR REAL! NO MORE JOKES! EVERYBODY SHHHH!!!

FFFFFFFFFF

“LOOK AT ME I’M A MAIN CHARACTER I CAN HAVE STRANGE VISIONS AND TALK TO DEAD PEOPLE IN MY DREAMS, SOUND LIKE ANYBODY ELSE YOU KNOW?” TOMURA SHUT UP I DON’T HAVE TIME TO ANALYZE THIS SCENE THEMATICALLY RIGHT NOW I’M TOO BUSY BEING SAD ABOUT YOUR DEAD SISTER WHILE SIMULTANEOUSLY CALCULATING THE ODDS OF THIS SOMEHOW BEING FORESHADOWING FOR HER NOT REALLY BEING DEAD. OH GOD, OH FUCK YOU GUYS, I’M FREAKING OUT

WHAT KIND OF YOUNGER BROTHER DOESN’T CALL HIS OLDER SISTER “NEECHAN” TOMURA WHAT KIND OF ANIME CHARACTER ARE YOU

AT THIS POINT HIS HAIR IS ITS OWN INDIVIDUAL CHARACTER WITH THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS WOW

HORIKOSHI PLEASE STOP SHAKING THIS CHAMPAGNE BOTTLE OF SIBLING FEELS SO VIGOROUSLY I AM SO TERRIBLY AFRAID OH GOD

“BY THE WAY TENKO I JUST HAVE TO SAY, YOUR MAN BOOBS ARE SERIOUSLY IMPRESSIVE AND YOU SHOULD BE VERY PROUD.” YES HANA I WAS JUST GOING TO SAY. HOW ASTUTE OF YOU TO POINT THAT OUT. BOY HAS BEEN HITTING THAT BOWFLEX

WTAF IS HIS HAIR THOUGH SERIOUSLY??!

IS IT JUST ME OR IS THIS DIALOGUE BUBBLE ACTUALLY COMING FROM THE HAIR ITSELF. TOMURA. TOMURA BLINK TWICE IF YOU ARE IN DANGER

SJJKJSKJSW

TENKO IT’S ME YOUR GIANT MOM I’M BEHIND YOU HONEY TURN AROUND AND LOOK HELLO HI I LOVE YOU DO YOU STILL WANT TO BE A HERO

ffff why is he so pretty all the time lately

you are very handsome with your billowy hair and ken doll abs, you. sure are having a lot of trippy visions for a dead guy too there

HEY!!!!

WHO SAID YOU WERE ALLOWED -- DO YOU THINK YOU CAN JUST -- ffffffffff I need to be alone with my thoughts for a few minutes fuck

okay well. but since it is getting late I guess we’ll just pack these feelings up real quick and put them inside a box and neatly label it “feelings I have about Tomura having a vision of his mom and immediately turning back into his innocent little boy self in said vision as soon as he sees her.” not too sure about the contents of this box yet but I will have to explore them thoroughly at a later date

oh hey it’s this asshole

“THAT WAS TWENTY YEARS AGO, DAD.” jesus Kotaro. get over it

and also guess what, if you go and get Tomura all riled up so he wakes up grumpy and disintegrates the first hapless guy he sees, I will hold you solely responsible for that poor man’s death. I’m just warning you now

oh my

I remember this conversation going a bit differently the last time, but hey

LOOOOOOL

HIGH FIVE. PUT ‘ER THERE

WHY WOULD YOU LOOK SO SURPRISED LOL DID YOU NOT JUST TURN TOWARDS HIM WITH A SINISTER MURDER FACE LIKE TWO SECONDS AGO. LIKE WTF DID YOU THINK WAS GONNA HAPPEN

OH NO OH SHIT

FUCK ME, GUESS IT WOULDN’T BE A DRAMATIC BNHA DREAM SEQUENCE IF THIS ASSHOLE DIDN’T MAKE AN APPEARANCE AT SOME POINT OR OTHER NOW WOULD IT

-- HOLY SHIT?!

RECORD SCRATCH, FREEZE FRAME??

holy shit. holy shit. holy shit. holy shit. holy shit. holy shit

holy shit. fuck

...okay so

is this implying that AFO has been Noumufied? but that doesn’t make any sense, does it? he already had multiple quirks. what other advantages could there be to him becoming a Noumu. well whatever I’m just typing out all of my thoughts real fast for the time being and I’ll try to make sense of them later

or is it because he sees Kurogiri as a father figure? and AFO also?

or is he using Kurogiri’s quirk????? IS HE SOMEHOW WARPING INTO TOMURA’S DREAMS

because that third one, to me, is what this panel most looks like? Tomura says he looks like Kuro, but he doesn’t though. Kuro has a very distinctive face which this is very much lacking. instead it looks to me much more like one of Kurogiri’s portals, with AFO’s buddhaesque smile sticking out. so yeah. I got nothin’. except, again, fuck

(ETA: yeah I obviously have more thoughts about this now, but we’ll get to those in a bit.)

...

.......

-- !!!!!!!!!!LKJLK!JLKJ

oh shit oh shit oh shit

OH SHIT

NO BABY NO DON’T DO IT

GASP

THEY’RE TRYING TO SAVE HIM AHHHH

I HAVE LIKE TEN THOUSAND THOUGHTS IN MY BRAIN RIGHT NOW YET SOMEHOW MY MIND IS ALSO STRANGELY BLANK?? I DON’T EVEN KNOW?? I’LL JUST KEEP READING

KOTARO ARE YOU TRYING TO HELP HIM OR ARE YOU PULLING HIM TOWARD AFO??

OH HE’S PUSHING HIM BACK!! OH SHIT IT’S A WHOLE FAMILY EFFORT

THEY’RE TRYING TO SAVE HIM AFO IS GOING TO TAKE HIM OVER AND THEY’RE TRYING TO PROTECT HIM OH GOD OH JESUS

BABY TENKO EYES OH MY GOD HE LOOKS SO MUCH LIKE DEKU THAT I THOUGHT IT WAS DEKU FOR A MOMENT

NO TENKO!!!

FUCK -- DOES HE NOT CARE? HE ACTUALLY UNDERSTANDS WHAT’S ABOUT TO HAPPEN BUT HE DOESN’T CARE?? IS HE TRULY SO PROFOUNDLY MISERABLE THAT HE’D GO AHEAD AND ACCEPT THIS FATE WILLINGLY

NO SOUNDS. NO WORDS. YOU COULD HEAR A PIN DROP IN MY ROOM RIGHT NOW

except that I have the most incredible, chilling, disturbing, electrifying feeling that my mental soundtrack is about to start blaring AFO’s theme from the anime on full blast...!

LOOOOOL SOB OH FUCKK

THE MOST TERRIFYING, DRAMATIC KIP UP YOU’VE EVER SEEN IN YOUR LIFE!! THIS IS IT, IT’S BEEN REAL FRIENDS, THIS IS WHERE WE DIE

-- ARE YOU REALLY, TRULY, GENUINELY SHITTING ME RIGHT NOW

NOW OF ALL TIMES IS WHEN WE FINALLY CUT TO THE TRIO, I’M CAN’T, I’M FUCK

AND THAT’S THE END AHHHHH

holy shit holy shit holy shit. wow

okay so. I don’t really have any sort of neat and tidy way to wrap up this hot mess of a recap lol. so, just... have a whole mess of all of my stupid whirling thoughts

those first four pages really did nothing to brace me at all lol

okay, so. here’s my understanding of all this, I guess. basically we’re going full Harry Potter rules here. AFO horcruxed his quirk, and from the looks of it, a piece of his soul (perhaps even the main piece) along with it. he then passed it on to Ujiko to implant into Tomura

horcrux!AFO then wakes up, and takes over Tomura. so then my understanding is that he’s going to be possessed by him. and I also got the impression that he’s fully aware of that, but just doesn’t care at this point. he knew his family was trying to warn him, but he didn’t care. and that look in his eyes when he disintegrated them just seemed so fucking resigned to me, though. jesus

but now the more interesting thing! so we can liken Tomura to the resurrected Voldemort from book 5 and onward, reborn after transferring his power into a new vessel. which would go a long way toward explaining how AFO was able to sense what was happening from all the way in Tartarus; because if we liken it to Voldemort and his horcruxes, it would mean that he still has a connection to them (similar to the connection between Voldemort’s mind and Harry’s)

but so now comes the really interesting thing -- what does this then imply about the connection between AFO and Deku? because you’ll recall that AFO alluded to a similar mental connection back when Deku first activated SIXQUIRKS. and now we have Deku somehow being magically aware of AFO’s sudden resurgent presence in this chapter. but why?? if the reason AFO and Tomura share a psychic link is because of a shared quirk, why would Deku also be experiencing the same link? the answer is, he wouldn’t -- unless he, too, had the same shared quirk

in other words, I think All for One for All is fucking confirmed you guys. I can’t think of any explanation for this other than that OFA is also a horcrux quirk. a little piece of AFO broken off and embedded in his brother, and then passed along through the generations. and now residing within Deku

anyway. so that’s a hell of a lot to ponder lol. I guess we can at least be grateful for the fact that we’re not waiting two weeks for chapter 271 like Hori originally planned. can you fucking imagine. what a fucking asshole lol

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laufire · 3 years

Text

Supernatural s2

I’m halfway through s3 already (technically a rewatch, but there were episodes I didn’t watch the first time around), so this post is a little overdue lol. At this rhythim the posts will overlap. Plus I’m hoping I can finish s4-5 during the holidays to see the ~intended ending~ before I have to slow down on the binge-watch. After that, a season a month sounds achievable AND won’t take longer than 2021 xD

ANYWAY.

-Overall, I’ve enjoyed it more than the first one, but at the same time I’ve found myself missing how... claustrophobic? Insular? Compact? That one was. s2 was about the world opening up just a little bit more, introducing new characters to the brothers’ life, etc. I do love the detail that this is something that can only have, narratively speaking, once John is dead. Again: this show gets abusive families, consciously or not.

-The foreshadowing is beautifully done. 15 seasons make for a lot of unintentional and ironic foreshadowing later on, I’m sure, but the purposeful foreshadowing is superb this season. About the crossroads deals, of course, but especially about John’s last words. I already knew he’d told Dean he might have to kill Sam (father of the year, seriously. Though I side-eye the fandom even more for always having acted as if this is only awful for Dean lol), so I was hyperaware of every single detail. My favourite moment was the absolute horror of hearing Gordon proudly, cheerfully relate how he murdered his sister when she became a vampire (which, btw, as someone that’s still bitter about what went down with the Gunn siblings on Angel, I found it healing to see something like that treated as a horror story).

-Speaking of Gordon: I unashamedly love his character lmfao. Sterling K. Brown is mesmerizing, always. At the same time, I have serious mixed feelings (especially after seeing his arc in full in s3) because man, if it isn’t a racist mess. I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s not exactly revolutionary that the first time we see the story from the monster’s POV (something I want the show to do! Often!), it’s when white monsters are stalked and brutalized by our first black hunter. Especifically a white woman, btw (although I’m happy to see Tara Maclay as a brunette vampire. I didn’t know I needed that in my life, but I did). And you can tell that the show thinks it’s just so SMART and FUNNY to have a ~racist black hunter!! I mean, the comment about how psychic kids would be “betraying their race” if they allied with demons?? FFS.

And ofc there’s the fact that he’s condemned for the exact same type of stuff that makes Dean be hailed as a hero lmfao. Though I won’t like, I love the moment where, faced with the comparison, Dean’s response is “I might be like you, I might not. But you’re the one tied up.” I love those kinds of character moments. As of s2 I officially have a love-hate relationship with Dean Winchester, I hate it here xDD

But still, on his own, Gordon is an amazing character (it’s one of the most frustrating things about the show, the greatness tainted by the bigotry :))). Charismatic, terrifying, and ofc superbly acted. Also, I love that the fact that he praised John (as opposed to every other hunter having a rockier relationship with him) is clearly supposed to be a red flag LMFAO.

-I enjoy how the seasons delves more deeply into Sam’s ~~dark origins, since it was my fave thing about him way back when. I’m already mourning the (as I suspect) lost of his powers, ngl. There’s a little more attention in how he tends to over-identify with supernatural creatures struggling with their ~dark sides too (bitch me too, the fuck xD), which I LOVE to see (among other reasons because at least in that way we get a little of their POV in the forefront lol). One of my favourites in that sense was the episode centered around the ghost-who-didn’t-know-she-was-ghost, played by Tricia Helfer. I clocked early one what was going on, but it was still very enjoyable, especially with Sam’s empathy with her (contrasted by Dean being a total bitch about it, btw. I can’t believe I still see post about how Dean is all heart/kindness/compassion/whatever the fuck. Dean is all about selective empathy and only when it conveniences him, pls).

I was more divided on the episode with Madison the werewolf, tbh. OTOH it put Sam in a better position, for a change xD. As the one willing to make The Hard Choices by fulfilling his promise to kill her because she was dangerous, even when Dean offered to ~take the burden from him. OTOH I hate that kind of thing lol. YOU GUYS KNOW A HUNTER PRO LIKE BOBBY, I BET HE COULD’VE FIGURED OUT SOMETHING TO CONTAIN HER A FEW NIGHTS A MONTH. Also, my immediate reaction was to compare this to when my man Angel had a crush on a werelady and helped her every month lmfao. But then, very few characters can withstand a comparison with Angel, in any sense :P

I also liked Sam’s subplot with his fellow demon-psychic kids, though I wish it’d lasted longer :/ (also: RME at the queer girl dying almost immediately AND her power being killing people, her girlfriend first of all, with her touch. The black guy was the last one to die at least...?). My fave was Ava, by far. I loved her since her reaction to helping Sam stealing a psychiatrist’s records was yelling “I’M AWESOME!!”. It made it easy to buy that someone that appeared so mundane, with her easy life and her fiance and whatnot, would become so power hungry and go off the rails, IMO.

BTW: RME at Dean being all “oh Sam is going too dark/becoming to cold” when Sam kills Jake. Jake ripped off his spine and killed him first!! It both amuses me and infuriates me all the times Dean tries to push Sam to be more like himself and then freaks out whenever Sam is not all sunshine and rainbows (while still remaining, IMO, far less cold than Dean himself. Besides, it’s not easy to be colder than Dean, lol).

Lastly, a little character detail I loved was when Sam was jealous about Dean being in the federal database but not himself lmfao.

-I loved the new foreshadowing crumb with Sam finding out Mary knew the demon, too (information he’ll withhold from Dean, which I approve of LOL). I mean, I know exactly what’s up, I’ve watched most of s4 xD (also, what is UP with this family and making deals with demons. Everyone but Sam so far!! And then HE gets dragged for ~getting too close to one smh. Maybe lead by example!! Also also: yes, it was meant to be ambiguous, but I can’t help but notice the only kiss-pact -or further, depending to how close YED was to Lilith’s levels, since to make a deal with her you have to fuck xD- we didn’t see was the one that must’ve happened between John and YED. Cowards!! xD). Still. I’m so curious about her. Her resurrection is one of the main reasons I’m determined to make it to the later seasons, ngl.

-Another thing I LOVED about this season is how they used sibling relationships to parallel/foreshadow stuff about the brothers, the way s1 did often with fathers. I’ve already mentioned Gordon and his sister, but the others are not less brutal imo: Andy having to kill his evil twin, who wanted him all for himself (... Dean is that you xD); the little girl’s ghost who wanted her grand-niece to commit suicide to stay with her, and didn’t give in until her old sister agreed to die in her place. It was chilling. Also, at one point the parallel was between the brothers and a married couple (the ghost-who-didn’t-know-she-was-a-ghost) and asñdlfkajsf. I’m guessing they had fun with the shippers lol.

Speaking of the brothers’ relationship, this season also goes a little further in escalating the violence between them, when Dean punches Sam in the face and he refuses to respond (“you can hit me all you want, it won’t change anything”. Fuck), or when Dean again punches Sam after Sam was possessed by Meg ¬¬

-Going back to my love-hate relationship with Dean, lmfao. My biggest beef remains how much validation his POV gets from the narrative, granted or not; he’s one of the most irritating cases of protagonist-centered morality and I know it’s only going to get worse smh. At least this season it feels a little more balanced than in s1, with episodes like the one where the civilian Sam had tried to keep away dies halfway through the ep because Dean allowed him to get involved, for example. Still, it grates on me xD. The continuing prison rape jokes/demonic possession rape jokes (with Meg and Sam), his general grossness with women and his lack of sympathy for non-humans even when they’re not trying to hurt anyone don’t exactly help. Also, I often see him praised for some of his political views, a lot of which I agree with (his mistrust of cops, saying convicts don’t deserve to die no matter what they do), but when contrasted with his general attitude across the show it’s really grating ngl.

But then he has such AMAZING character details thrown in, that make me appreciate him as a POV character nonetheless, as much as I often want to curb stomp the guy xD. I loved his speech about how there’s no such thing as a dignified death. I love how he refused to come near his mother’s grave, both at the beginning and at the end of the episode (this show is like, the cure to DCCW’s shows false fuzzy sentimentality istg). I love his pop-culture references, like when Sam mentions Dean always thought OJ was the murderer or Dean jokes about freeing Katie Holmes from Scientology’s cult xD (sometimes it really hits you how old this show is lol). I enjoyed his Wishverse episode, and his lines after Sam dies/he sells his soul to save him (“I had one job”, “my life can mean something”) hit HARD.

But most of all? I LOVE how and why he starts losing respect for John. It’s so fucking cold and abrupt and makes so much sense!! Like, yes, part of it is John’s message about killing Sam (... again, father of the year!), but most of all it’s about John making a pact with a demon and dying TO SAVE DEAN (and probably, simply that he died at all. That shit de-mystifies anyone). IT’S SO FUCKING GREAT TO WATCH. “He spent his life chasing that demon. He was supposed to die fighting, not making a deal with the damn thing. That was supposed to be his legacy, not this." Damn, Dean xDD. The *contempt* with which he said that killed me.

I also love his inherently atheist vision of the world (even if yes, it’s extremely funny knowing this show has canon God and angels and shit -no Jesus Christ though, which I find endlessly funny-, or that they actually meet the archangel Gabriel in disguise xD. Either way, the episode with the fake angel and its foreshadowing was hilarious), his anti-destiny stance, and that it’s him and not John who gets to kill YED.

-I liked Ellen and Jo. Not LOVED, but I liked them. I keep fearing that secondary (especially female) characters will feel empty/shallow but the show keeps proving me wrong, even with one-episode wonders, and at first I wasn’t sure about them, but I was sold quickly. Partially because of the actresses, they both had this... humanizing, endearing quality? It worked really well. I also loved the explicit contrast between John and Ellen’s parenting styles, with Ellen wanting Jo to return to school and be safe from the hunt, and Jo wanting something different. Also, I wouldn’t ship it if you paid me, but LOL at anyone who actually buys Dean sees Jo as a ~little sister just because MEG said that rme.

This show is just REALLY good when it comes to giving depth to a character with only a couple of brush strokes, which makes it all the more frustrating when they abruptly die or disappear to never be seen again/only once more (to abruptly die!) :)))

I was less sold on Ash; he was amusing, but having a Genius Hacker TM helping them out seemed like the beginning of increasingly giving the brothers ways of deux ex machina-ing them out of problems, when one of my favourite things about the show is seeing them creatively find ways out themselves. I like when they’re competent! Like with the multitude of codes they have to improvise plans, like in the episode where with two words through a lawyer they implemented a quick scheme so that Sam would escape from a police precinct. I like that stuff.

-I’m still so bitterly jealous about the dead man’s blood hurting vampires detail. SO BITTERLY JEALOUS. I love a lot of what this show does with its lore but that little bit is the worst offender. I want it so bad xD

#talking to the void #my thoughts #spn thoughts #supernatural #sam winchester #dean winchester #gordon walker #ellen harvelle #jo harvelle #spn s2 #the winchesters get to have a tag I GUESS

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boneswriteswords · 4 years

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I Like The Way You Move - Leonardo

A/N: This was something that started as a self-insert Mikey fuck but turned into a dom-ish Leo moment and I’m not sorry. (No that’s a lie, I am sorry that I never got my self-insert Mikey fuck)

Enjoy. Or not. IDC man, you control whether you read it or not.

Its smut.

Pairing: Leonardo x reader

Word: ~3100

You hitch your backpack so its sturdier on your shoulder as you approach the building your studio was renting space in, sending a quick text to Leo that you made it safe.

Not that you needed to. You knew he was watching you. Ever since you and him tipped into the 'we aren't together but we actually kind of are because I don't have eyes for anyone but you but neither of us have made an actual move yet because this is kind of like foreplay and its exciting' territory, you could feel his eyes on you everywhere you went. At home. At the gym. At your favorite shops. At the park. At work.

Everywhere.

And he was there as you weaved in and out of the people in the city as they rushed to get wherever they were going, watching as you slipped the key into the lock and went inside. Watching as you entered the fifth story room and waited for the other dancers to arrive.

He was always watching.

Guarding. Protecting. Treasuring.

You have never felt more safe in your life.

Even the rowdy construction men who hooted and whistled like the pigs they are whenever you passed by the construction zones down the block from the studio didn't register as a threat to you anymore, despite being triple your size and aggressive.

Leo was bigger. Leo was stronger. Leo would never let them harm you.

You sighed dreamily, feeling the stirrings of arousal pool low in your abdomen as you thought about him.

How he'd grip you tight against him to pull you from those who would try and take you from him. How his body would shield yours as he tore the hands off anyone who'd even think to touch you without permission. How he'd carry you away and check you over thoroughly to make sure you were unharmed....

The door opened, ripping you from your daydream, and Mila walked in, smiling at you and tossing her bag near yours. You made polite conversation until the rest of the students and Mr. Parker arrived, doing everything you can to try to ignore the wetness in your panties.

"Y/N," Mr. Parker calls once class is finished, motioning you over in the universally recognized signal for 'I need to speak to you.' You pull your baby blue sweater on - something you deliberately picked because you knew Leo would feel some type of way about seeing you in it - over your bodysuit and make your way over to him, making sure you are directly in front of the window.

"Yes?" you ask, tilting your head to side.

"I just wanted to congratulate you again on all your hard work," he smiled, green eyes squinting, "You are one of the most talented dancers I have ever taught and you deserve the role of Ella."

You beam under the praise, "Thank you sir. It means a lot."

"But," he exclaimed abruptly, "make sure you practice! You may be the perfect dancer but Ella is a powerful woman. Fierce! Confident! Sensual! She is more than just perfect landings and pirouettes! Her soul is one with her body!"

You promise, unable to keep the grin from your face. You had been cast as the lead character - Ella - in an new play created by a well-known playwright and it felt like all your hard work over the last few years was finally getting you some where as a professional dancer.

Mr. Parker rolls his eyes fondly as he ushered you out, "Bright and early tomorrow Y/N."

And you do come in bright and early. So early in fact, that it isn't even bright out and Leonardo hadn't even finished his patrol before you had left your apartment and there is no one at the studio and there wouldn't be for hours.

Which he wasn't too happy about but you couldn't be bothered to care when his message suggested your 'punishment' would not necessarily be something you wouldn't like. He kept it as vague as he possible could but the undertone of arousal and promises had you aching for the rest of the day.

Still, despite the wetness between your legs, you eventually manage to channel Ella in all her sensual glory. You can feel her energy, her passion, her elegance streamline into your very veins as you go through the routines. She envelopes you, guiding you until you are no longer alone in your body and you can feel her as deeply as you can feel yourself. There is a buzzing under your skin where she has settled and you feel warm all over.

You end the final routine with your knees splayed and head tossed back, forming an arc with your spine, gaze resting on a blank bit of ceiling as you try to regulate your breathing back to normal. There is sweat dripping down your body, sticking your bodysuit even closer to your skin.

So far gone into your head space as you were, you almost didn't realize that you were being applauded.

But when you did, you jumped, terrified. No one was supposed to be in the studio aside from you. You snap your head around, scrambling into a less vulnerable position off the hardwood floor, eyes zeroing on the intruder.

Leo's eyes are dangerously dark as he leans against the wall by the door, strong arms folded over his hard chest. His makeshift armor was gone but his weapons were placed on one of the chairs in the corner, suggesting he had been watching for a while.

"Leo!?" you question, voice no more than a whisper. He smirks, straightening up and making his way over to you until he was standing in front of you, blue eyes looking into yours.

The Ella inside of you nudges to the front of your brain, whispering 'Get closer.'

"What-what are you doing here?" you ask, leaning in to him a bit before you overthought it.

"I saw you through the window," he purred, "I wanted a closer look."

"O-oh."

He tilted his head down and for a brief moment you thought he was finally going to make the move. The move that will transform the current state of your relationship with him into the one that you both wanted.

"Keep going, lovely. I want to see it again," he murmurs, the faintest touch of his lips on yours as he does and your breath stutters, a whine bubbling and dying in your throat. You loved being called soft, feminine nicknames - it made you feel womanly and perfect and beautiful - and the timber of his voice molding around the world did wonderful things for you. His dark eyes roam over your face, licking his lips, before stepping back and taking his place by the back wall.

You turn back to the giant mirror, taking in your wanton appearance, the very visceral, physical effect he has on you obvious, and take a few deep breaths before calling Ella back to the forefront.

You start the routine over from the beginning, determined to give Leo a show. You ease into it like you would if you were alone. You were used to him watching you and the proximity of where he was didn't change how you felt about it. Besides, Ella was powerful and self-assured. She knew what she wanted and she takes it without hesitation.

With her at the helm, you felt like, maybe, you could too.

Landing on the bar after a high jump that has your thighs burning, you break the silence. "I like when you call me lovely. And sweetheart. And a good girl." You can see him in the reflection in the giant mirror, watching you shamelessly, and your body hums in pleasure.

His eyes narrow, smirk widening, "Do you now?"

"I do," you choke out, an admission, but suddenly Ella is gone and its just you now. The confidence is gone but its too late to take it back. Leo is on his feet and crowding you again, a hair's breath away and smelling way too good for it to be natural. He smells like man and strength and slowly dissolving restraint and you want to bury yourself in him.

"You like when I call you a good girl," he repeats calmly, eyeing the way your body is perched on the bar and putting his hands on your hips, "Then I guess you wouldn't mind is I called you 'my good girl' hmm? You want to be my good girl, lovely?"

A whimper rips from your lips before you can stop it and you nod desperately, no longer caring about anything aside from his hands on your body. He runs them over your legs before skirting back upwards and over your nipples through the bodysuit. Electricity fires through you at the touch, pushing back into his hands as he flits them over again.

"You like it when I touch you sweetheart?" he coos, catching you as you buckle, keeping you from collapsing onto the floor.

"Yes," you whine as he hoists you up like you weight nothing. With his mutant strength, you probably don't and the possibilities that the image of him holding you up invokes sends a thrill down your spine. He hums darkly, setting you on the ground, moving your hands to his shoulder to brace yourself so he could wiggle the bottom half of your bodysuit and leggings down.

A flash of insecurity floods over you as he tosses your clothes off to the side and grips you so your body is flush against his, fingers dancing along the edges of your soaked panties. Leo's face is set in stone, stoic aside from the darkness flashing in his eyes, and you worry that your body isn't what he wants. Maybe he doesn't like what he sees?

"I always new you were pretty, lovely," he grumbles, his fingers flexing and pulling at your body, encouraging you to press into him and grind into him. You could feel the bulge in his pants pressing into your mound and you try not to buck into it. "But this - you naked and needy and dripping - is so much prettier than I was ready for."

"I don't- I-I" you gasp as his hand trails down your back and grips your butt, spreading your cheeks wide and kneading the flesh.

"I'm a lucky turtle," he growls, voice somehow deeper and darker than before, "I see the way people look at you, princess. I see the way they move closer to you to get a better look or catch a whiff of your perfume. I see them watch you as you walk by, saying crude things about your body, your mouth. I see them want you. But they can't have you, can they?"

It takes you a minute to realize he wasn't asking a rhetorical question. "N-no Leo."

He hums approvingly, "And why is that honey?"

"B-because I'm your good girl?"

"That's right lovely. You are MY good girl. And you wouldn't look at any of them twice. Not when you have me at your beck and call. Not when you know I'll come running to you."

The impromptu confession of his devotion sent your skin buzzing and you could feel yourself calming down, the edge of desperation softening into a dull throb. This was more than sex. This was more than a game. This was a real connection bleeding into a different form of intimacy. He found you desirable but it ran deeper than lust.

A low rumbling churr vibrates under Leo's plastron once he focuses on your lace panties - dark blue and soaked even darker. Leo's large hand cups your face and you nuzzle into the comfort of it. The turtle's fingers are strong and thick as he pulls you to him so his lips could meet yours. His tongue wastes no time in forcing its way into your mouth, leaving you breathless as desire coursed through you. It was everything you had imagined but nothing at all at the same time.

"Princess," he murmurs against your mouth, "so sweet."

The praise envelops you like an aphrodisiac. Leo's fingers trace the edge of the lace before moving down, taking two fingers and swiping across your soaked entrance over the soaked fabric. Little sparks danced across your clit at the touch and you tried to grind down into his hand, whimpering when he pulled his hand away.

"So wet baby," he groaned, kissing you again hungrily, "Want me to touch you? Stroke your pretty little clit and stretch you nice and wide for me?

You nod, almost mad in your lust, bucking into his hand, "Please Leo. Want you. Want you so much. Don't make me wait." You are rewarded with another bruising kiss.

He removes one of his hands from your body to untie his pants and drop them onto the floor. His cock is huge, bigger than anyone you'd ever seen before, and dark with blood. You always pictured him to be proportional to the rest of his body but the reality surpassed all your fantasies thus far. He was going to be so big inside you -the stretch...

"I've thought about this princess," Leo murmurs, dark blue eyes fixed on your face again as he kicks his pants away from him and moving closer again. You could feel his cock against your belly, smearing precum on your skin. "Thought about how you'd look. How you'd feel. Hot and tight and mine. How'd you taste. Have you thought about me? Have you thought about me when you touch yourself at night? When you stick your pretty little fingers in your pretty little pussy?"

Shaking, you grip onto his arms to steady yourself and nod, "Yes, Leo." His fingers edge underneath the panties and slid them off you and you launch yourself forward into his arms, burying your face into his neck and clinging to him. You spread your legs, dripping as he teases your clit with his finger before tentatively testing the give of your entrance.

A load groan erupts from his mouth when it slips right in to the first knuckle and you clench around him, trying to pull it in further.

"Oh my lovely girl," he sighs, claiming your mouth in another kiss as you whimper and buck in his grip. "So good for me. All wet and wanting. I'm going to stretch you out nice and good."

"Please," you whisper, head tilted back as he moves down your neck, biting and nibbling licking as his finger slides deeper inside of you. He drags you right to the edge of an orgasm before pulling his finger free, grinning at the long winded whine it drew from you.

"Uh uh my good girl," he shushed, "You will come on my cock or not at all. Do you understand? Do you want to keep being my good girl?"

"I want to be your good girl, Leo please," you whine, canting forward to kiss him again. You could feel yourself being lifted, large green hands guiding your legs to wrap your legs around his waist so he is the only thing holding you up. The head of his cock nudged against your entrance as he hovers you above it and you try to cant down onto it, needy and wanting.

He pulls away from your mouth, panting, "Tell me I can."

Arousal made you slow and stupid so it took longer than it should have for you to understand what he meant. When you did, you trembled and nodded, pleas falling from your lips like a mantra.

Leo smirks, adjusting you in his grip before lowering you down, pushing the bulbous head of his cock into you. You fall against him again, licking and kissing his neck and shoulders as he lowered you down slowly, his cock sliding in inch by inch until you were stuffed full.

The stretch was so good. You feel so good.

Leo swears under his breath, nothing more than a growling whisper of words as you clench around him. He can feel you expanding around him, convulsing as you adjust to his size and grinding down to gain desperately sought friction.

Lifting you up, he adjusts his stance a bit for better leverage before gripping your waist hard and slamming you back down on him, praising you as he does. He's panting, breath ghosting over your slick skin as he lifts you up and down, impaling you over and over again like a rag doll. His lovely little fuck toy.

There are actual tears in your eyes from how wonderful it feels to finally be joined with him. Months of teasing and playing and flirting culminating into this desperate, passionate act of mutual adoration. You had waited so long for him.

"Oh baby girl. I'll never make you wait again." Had you said that out loud? As much as you wanted to be embarrassed, you couldn't be - not with the way he was thrusting inside you, hitting your special spot, and kissing your face and mouth.

"Feels - feels," you moan, breath hitching as sweat drips down your face and back.

"How does it feel lovely? Tell me."

"Feels so - so good. Leo. Leo! Leoleoleo!" You cry as you cum, writhing against Leo's plastron as he fucks you through it, hand slipping down to toy with your oversensitive clit. White lights dance behind your vision and you arch into the touch at the pain.

And oh, he likes that.

"Oh," Leo growls, sparks of fire dancing behind his eyes, "I'm going to enjoy you."

You preen, limp in his arms, and his pace builds until hes slamming into you brutally. When he cums, its deep inside you, burying his load and filling you up. A grunt forces his way out of him and you squeeze as much as you can around him, fucking him through it like he did for you.

You were always big on reciprocity.

You slump together onto the floor in a tangle of sweaty and sore body parts, enjoying the high as it ebbs between you both. He gently pulls out of you and you whimper at the loss and the feel of his seed trickling out of you.

Minutes tick by in silence before you open your eyes and stare into his. He's watching you intently, trying to gauge your reactions. He wants to know how you feel, how you are taking this new change in dynamic, if its something you want long term now that the game is over. He wants to know if you are his.

You smile, keeping your expression soft as you reach out for him again.

A beat and his smile presses against yours.

~~~~

End

~~~~

#tmnt imagine #leonardo #leonardo imagine #tmnt #tmnt 2 #My writing #teenage mutant ninja turtles #lemon

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delcat177 · 3 years

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FALSE DUALITIES: How NOT to address The Serial Rapist

Hopkins keeps doing these “wacky” Drip stories where he’s a bumbling uwu sillypants and I frankly can’t think of a single worse way to “redeem” a character

More rape tw plus abuse tw, csa tw, fucking generally grotesque shit under cut

Drip is canonically the sin of Lust and has raped, tortured, and killed at least a dozen women onscreen and hundreds more off (there is a LOT of detail about it), including a cave full of enslaved souls he molests at will while they beg and scream for mercy, one particular enslaved soul who he raped multiple times daily after Death gave her to him for the sin of avoiding death, his own kindergarten-age son,

...and, as much as Dave wants us to forget it, *countless* victims in (ugh) Musical Holes, a game he invented to play in Hell’s arena with damned souls, at fifty women a go:

Oh yeah, the karmic punchline to this one was gay rape is scary and reprehensible whereas rape rape is pretty entertaining:

Same character. But look, he’s got big soft eyes and he’s kinda dumb! It’s not creepy at all!

It’s not creepy at all that she’s using real-life self-defense scripting against real-life rapists (soil yourself however possible, bring up pregnancy, ask about women in the rapist’s life, humanization etc)!

It’s especially not creepy when you realize that this character, Megan (sorry IRL Megan it never stops being weird) was stalked, threatened, brutallized, humiliated, raped, and fucking dismembered over a series of violent events in her own arc, by three different rapists, at that, one of which also wanted to rape the little girl she was trying to save! This is a character who should by all means be in the middle of raging PTSD shock, but it’s funny and cute because her buddy from that arc might eventually rescue her after having sex with everyone else ol’ silly Drip tied up to rape-murder later!! u fucking wu!!

This is my Thing. I have no problem with dark fiction. I have no problem with noncon or rape fiction, even (with a good list of caveats, but let’s not digress). I have no problem with creators tackling mature subject matter, the response to there being terrible things in the world is not to pretend that isn’t the case.

But that’s exactly what is happening here. And it is fifty kinds of fucked up. If these were completely whole cloth characters...well, I’d still have a LOT of problems with this comic, not least because Silly Drip’s comeuppance is getting raped himself and then shamed by the rapist leaving his TV to tape gay porn so the cops laugh at him (HA HA, HA HA HA HA, MUSICAL HOLES ALL OVER AGAIN, GOD HOPKINS WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU), but it would read a lot kinder than its reality--an attempt to reform a character who was built specifically to never be redeemed by giving him a soft outline and hanging a lampshade on his dick.

And there’s no damned reason for it, except brand. People like Drip. People *love* Drip. He’s their fantasy. So Dave goes “okay here you go but remember Drip is a BAD GUY” and then whines that nothing he does is ever enough for the critics.

This is why, Dave. THIS is why. You can’t take a character, spend fifteen years having him as a worshipped figurehead for brutalizing innocents, and then turn around and make him Boner Mickey Mouse. Your audience knows what they’re looking at. Paint him pink and call him Bippo the Clown, he’s still going to be the one who raped his own kid not only because he has no qualms with child rape, but because as self-stated, he wanted to use it to hurt another character on the deepest level possible. He has done nothing to earn redemption, learned nothing, has given no compensation to his victims, has no accountability.

Oh yeah, and the last time he and Megan met?

It was just soooooooo cute! That darned wacky boy uwu

yeah no he ripped her tail out at the spine because he didn’t get a chance to rape her and she never recovers it and nearly never recovers from it. They have to remove her to Heaven to keep her from dying and they can’t regrow her tail because.......well, Heaven is Hell with a paint job in this comic. They’re the lawful evil to the chaotic evil of Hell. There is no recourse for souls. There is no recourse for the wronged.

Except WACKY DRIP ARCS!!

*laugh track*

Yes, he states these are “comics for friends” and have “no relation to his other comics”, and, I imagine, come from roleplay sessions or streams. I do understand the professional distancing of the character that you write for a serious publication and the behind-the-scenes “actor” quality of those characters, that running silly antics with them is a fun exercise for blowing off steam and letting them say and do things they wouldn’t otherwise do. It makes them stronger as characters, builds in detail, provides material to make the organism of a story work better with itself.

But you don’t fucking invite the serial rapist to the party and expect people to go “oh he’s so cute now”.

That is, of course, exactly what’s happening in the comments. Honestly, I would be lying if I said I didn’t find this comic to be kinda cute, because I do like Specks, I like Megan in theory, and I thought that the two had chemistry to interact in. It even has a page where a character asks if they can choose not to consent to sex for rescue and the reassurance that no, that’s not the case, which is something I legitimately never thought would ever be addressed in a Jack comic. Which is why it is so goddamned frustrating that it remains the most fucked thing I’ve seen all week, and I’m working with Screaming Barrel right now.

Don’t whitewash the rapist. Don’t fucking do it. For the love of God, Montressor.

Fucking kill Drip already.

Don’t bring him back.

Jesus.

ETA:

A visual aid

#jack #dave for god's sake #david hopkins #dave hopkins #jack webcomic #rape tw #abuse tw #csa tw #probably nws #i covered the majority of the bits i think #but really honestly #nws #criticism is not for profit and covered under fair use

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ariyadaivaris · 3 years

Text

- oh god vic please come back. where have you gone. we miss you

- NEW GEAR! NEW GEAR FOR TONY the track jacket is obviously new (its very cute i like the rolled up sleeves+tape up to wrists look a lot) and his new goofy lil emblem on his kneepads. also its the same candy red as ariya's. unbearable! i can't stand them. good for him

- "a red wedding of sorts, if you will" HUH? YOU CAN'T SAY THAT. WHY DID HE SAY THAT

- ARIYA DID THE SLASH ACROSS THE THROAT THING!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IT FEELS LIKE LIFETIMES SINCE HE'S DONE IT i love him. terrible. awful. scary <3

- the windup on ariya's elbow drops <3 he is a delight to watch...

- god i wish wish WISH 205 had some fucking storylines again!!!!!!!!!! i love tony and ariya and i love the bollywood boys, you know this, but if i have to watch another mostly directionless tag match that won't go anywhere or lead to anything because the cw division's plot-important stuff is relegated to nxt with an entirely different group of people and none of these guys are considered in high enough regard to reap the rewards of a division they built and carried on their backs for the last 5 years with NO fucking help or faith in them at all i'm going to go off the deep end. i would take an in-ring promo at this point. anything at fucking all - commentary keeps pushing the "they're working harder than ever to get a title shot" thing and it's just so. i'm insanely depressed about it. does ANYONE genuinely believe, watching this, that they will ever be given a title shot? do the four men in this ring right now have any hope that they will ever see that title on their show again, never mind get a chance at it? - ariya really isn't ever gonna be a champion is he. the division gets some steam and he's never going to be a part of it. i'm so mad all the time. lol

- its...a struggle to watch 205 recently. it is a struggle to do fucking anything recently but this especially is hard because 205 is like. My Thing. that is the one thing that i am in it for, this is the one thing i have to look forward to on a weekly basis, to mark the passage of time for myself. and i just can't keep doing this! watching alone, having to sustain interest on my own, ignoring the parts of the division that have things going on because its dudes ive never seen on 205 and have no interest in and because its a lot of miserable shitheels and predators that dubya considers relevant for reasons i will never understand (their loyalties have always been clear but given how little anyone cares about like, devlin, who has never done anything in dubya at all even if you ignore That, its like what tradeoff could possibly be worth this unless you want to just signal that you will protect abusers which EVERYONE KNOWS ALREADY), watching and desperately finding scraps of character development in reruns of the same three match configurations over and over and over again involving more dudes that you don't really care about even after all this time because they joined post-plot-or-character and its all with no build, no leadup, no EXCITEMENT, while everyone has already kind of moved on from it for reasons that seem better and better all the time. i don't want to let go of it or stop hoping because i WANT to see if anything happens, i care about ariya and tony's weird fuckin story arcs that much if anything and honestly i think letting go of it at this exact point in time is admitting a loss that i could not withstand at the present moment, but its so...i have to force myself to watch it at this point. and i know it all sounds sooooo pathetic because it is, but i'm just. im so tired!!!!!!!! im so fucking tired of it all

- OHHH SAMIR'S SAVE INTO THE NECKBREAKER OWNS

- ITS FUCKIN SUNIL TIME BABEY!!!!!!!!!! SUNIL SINGH EPIC MOMENTS COMPILATION!!!! GOLD STANDARD DOESNT STAND A CHANCE LETS FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOOOOO

- ariya tagging tony in and just kind of collapsing and rolling through the ropes to have a little lie-down on the apron. sunil singh unstoppable, undefeatable, cannot be survived

- ARIYA KNOCKED HIMSELF OUT ON THE POST. ARIYA

- TONY TWO KNEES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- TONY GET CLEAN PIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ARIYA WIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- oh my guy ariya's not lookin too good lol

- he’s fine <3 (he IS okay if you are worried)

- oh now lorcan cares about the cruiserweight division again huh! interesting ^_^

- legado del fantasma should be allowed to do that. i think its okay

- i don't really care about him besides going huh, fun aesthetic i guess, but i like grey's entrance music a LOT. maybe it's just the vocals making it distinguishable from whatever new team is doing the themes and making them all the same boring generic hinting-at-metal pop punk instrumental shit. oh well

- commentary making suuuuuuuch a big deal over grey doing things The Right Way to beat mansoor and IF I DO RECALL CORRECTLY tony as well and ignoring that he cheated to beat ariya. ariya gets cheated out of the recognition he's earned once again i see...pretty sure grey wasn't doing it The Right Way when he put his feet on the ropes against the BACKBONE, the BLOOD, the SPINE of the cruiserweight division but whatever............

- you know what i miss? high flying. that thing that 205 was originally about showcasing in a lot of ways? where did that go (to the corner to sit through timeout for being too good apparently) god i miss lhp i miss cedric i miss babyface moose i miss angel and humberto and AKIRA!!!!...i even miss buddy...wails and gnashes my teeth. i miss alicia and kenta and lio and the kanellises though i am glad they are out of dubya. some of these people aren't high flyers which was the original point whatever i still miss them. i need to rewatch 205 so i can try to have fun and not freak out over just how much of it i have to skip over

- he is so handsome <///3

- ariya is both very VERY interested in august cheating to beat him and furious that he's not cheating to beat anyone else. why WOULD he do that? he didn't care about it when he had to beat ariya. ariya's not the ONLY heel in the division, and not the only person who would cheat to win. august can position himself as righteous--he's doing things HIS way, after all--and noble, but ariya knows better. august is losing by doing this, too! he's not WINNING! he cares more about his principles than about the win, which is CERTAINLY news to ariya. turnabout is fair play against him, apparently, because It's Daivari and anyone can do anything to him and get off scot-free. ariya watches grey refuse to cheat against anyone else, and he listens and he is commended as a hero for it, and it is driving him up the wall to watch. of course, ariya getting humiliated and treated like shit by people who then get lauded as clean babyfaces who continue thinking of him as a dirty cheater beneath them as they do the same things is uh. he’s encountered it before

- "YOU blew it! you let your pride get in the way! YOU blew it! don't ever forget that!" HM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- this is so fucking juicy. ariya ranks winning through any means above his pride! ariya would rather win dirty than lose clean. he's disgusted that grey won't use his brain to see that a win is better than a loss. ALSO! ariya going "you let your pride get in the way" is SO interesting! self righteousness as arrogance in his eyes feels very illuminating. NO he's not exactly PROUD of the shit he's done but it's the smart thing to do. he's survived, hasn't he? how many other cruiserweights could say that? did mustafa survive? did cedric? did akira? did their principles help them survive? did akira having his arm ripped off just to outlast ariya The Right Way do anything to help him in the long run? what good is doing things the right way when it is so so so fucking hard not to die in here already? on the other hand, ariya is also kind of proud at times! ariya's pride being wounded is what led to the huge character shift he went through to begin with. his pride got in the way of joining drew and tony on the same level and it got in the way of fixing things properly between him and tony until they had to grow back together, and when i say grow i mean it in the sense of...like...a tree. slow and deliberate and taking fucking forever. and it's still never been addressed out loud, really. when ariya says grey's pride got in the way of somethig, he has some idea of what he's talking about ugh. UGH!!!!!!!!! this is all so fascinating. ariya daivari top five characters of all time

#205 lb #meta tag #VERY fun episode for ariya this week. i DID have a good time please ignore the breakdown in the middle

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thisgirlhastales · 5 years

Text

“Wayward Son” — Is There Peace When You Are Done?

What we have here is an essay of sorts: a loosely organized mishmash of thoughts and opinions. Disclaimer that this is highly subjective, as it is based on my own experiences and expectations going into this novel :)

And, naturally, many Wayward Son spoilers below the cut! If you haven’t read it yet and are planning to do so, please do not proceed further. If you’ve already read it or don’t care about spoilers, c’mon in! Ain’t nobody here but me!

First Thing: I thought the plot was cool — I loved seeing the characters again, loved seeing the different magical culture within the United States as compared to the UK; all the geographical variety and how that impacted magical abilities and politics, the creatures and the nature of magic as it applied to people who aren’t mages, the syntax, and Shepard. All of that was fascinating. It felt organic and real, even though our main dude, Shepard, did drop a few exposition bombs. I loved it all.

The magical creatures touch on something that I think all the main characters learn and re-learn (and may be symbolic of their issues as a whole): there is no one way to do or be magic. The word magician can apply to any creature who is or practices magic. The UK’s mages have an expansive but selective history. They do not acknowledge people like Lamb (see Nicodemus), even though they are technically part of their world. I wonder if the UK vampires have something like what the Las Vegas vampires do — i.e. ways to feed without killing, ways of living without standing out so much, a hierarchal structure, their own historical narrative, etc.

Agatha coming into her own was fabulous, driving the plot with the vampires on her end; she wasn’t a character I enjoyed in the last book too much (I thought she was very real, even practical, she just didn’t appeal to me as a person), but in this? Loved her. And she figured out her own way to be, though there’s still a ways to go for her, I think …

There is no one way to be anything, and that’s a lesson everyone in this book needs to learn (and talk about with each other, please, please, please).

Second Thing: Dealing with Trauma — I do think this was what resonated most with me, as someone who likes it when things are not perfectly hunky-dory after severely traumatic events.

Simon is Not Dealing. He stopped going to his psychologist. He thinks about the Mage, but doesn’t fully process the impact of having killed him. He’s in mourning over his magic and the Mage and all of it, but he’s choosing to not digest it fully — every time he was happy on this road trip, I, like Baz, was thrilled, but I also knew that it was fleeting because he hadn’t really dealt with anything. The underlying cause of his depression and listlessness wasn’t being addressed. His bursts of anger, his heartbreak, his inability to let go of the wings … He goes back and forth a lot, as well, tormenting himself.

Baz is Not Dealing. Baz was suicidal in Carry On. Baz barely knows anything about vampires. He lives in fear of being a monster, and of being executed as one regardless of his actions. As much as I detest Lamb, he had knowledge: How to feed without killing your prey. How to live amongst people and blend in better. He looked physically healthier. Baz’s grey complexion is actually a sign that he is starving more often than not. Remember how powerful he is now, and imagine how powerful he could be if he took better care of himself. And how much more comfortable in his own skin he’d be, which would help with so many of his bitter self-recriminations.

Penny is Not Dealing. Wow, that break-up with Micah was rough. She has a few more moments of self-realization than Simon and Baz do, but she’s also completely caught up in her own magical world, culture, and plans for the future; she has trouble reconciling what Shepard tells her, and is still processing (accepting? Healing?) from not only that breakup, but everything else that has ever happened to her and Simon. Penny copes better, but still not necessarily well. Her can-do, will-do attitude is a huge boon, but when it fails? Yikes. I rather feel like she had overly-rationalized (maybe even over-simplified) every trauma she went through with Simon, and … the world isn’t rational or simple at the best of times. I really, really hope she can come to terms with that (and that we get to see it).

Simon and Baz Together Are Not Dealing. It goes without saying that these two NEED to talk. But their separate issues are a huge roadblock — I feel like the chances of misunderstandings occurring are high. Each is convinced that they are bad for the other. Baz is slightly better about it, but he’s so afraid of the consequences of broaching the subject, he simply won’t. And the thing is? His instincts aren’t wrong. Simon does want to break up with him. It’s based on the whole you deserve better than me assumption, but Baz is actually sensing correctly that Simon is on the verge of leaving him. They need to deal with their own, separate traumas, and they can do that together or apart, but they need to start healing in some capacity. I fully believe that they can be together, even with a break, but that break needs to come with communication? Point being, we all go through healthy and unhealthy periods, as individuals, as part of a family, as part of a couple. They are right smack dab in the middle of a rough, not-so-healthy part — however they cope with it, (TALKING AND LISTENING ARE MUSTS), we at least know that they love each other. Love alone is not enough, but it is a powerful, wonderful force in their corner.

The expansion on magic implies legion of ways in which to exist, and such is the case for coping with pain, sadness, regret, and all the other fun aspects of being humans who experience trauma in innumerable ways. Sometimes we choose things that are unhealthy as a stopgap, because we’re not ready for the work and pain that is healing. Y’all, healing sometimes is on par with the issues that made it necessary — in simpler terms, it can really, really suck at the start. Again, some of you may come from different perspectives, but this struck a chord with me.

I definitely went in with the expectation that all the issues would be laid out, and then addressed … We got the first half in spades … Did not get the second, nope.

Third Thing: The structure of this book implied right from the start that things may be unresolved, but, er, it was still a bit hard to deal with — having an epilogue at the beginning and a prologue at the end implies to me that this second book is a launch point. The prologue at the end is the start for the next (hopefully larger) narrative. That makes Wayward Son something like a sprawling behind-the-scenes look into these characters before we launch into their following, more detailed story.

But I didn’t feel too great about having been plunged so deeply into this ‘verse, only to not have a lifesaver tossed my way … Which is to say, it kept me breathless, and knowing that people survived allowed me a reprieve, but the core of this novel — the overall mental well-being of Simon, Baz, Penny, and Agatha — had me tight in its grip from the beginning and then just … kept right on squeezing at the end. Even tighter.

I don’t mind a plot-based cliff-hanger, but the fact that all the emotional and character arcs were left hanging as well? I felt like I got a decent resolution, or partial conclusion, on a few plot points, but next to no resolution for the emotional and/or psychological arcs. That I have a lot more trouble accepting. Particularly when I’ve spent an entire book with characters forced to live in each other’s space, in close quarters, and still not communicating. I wanted to rip out every beautiful thought Simon and Baz had about each other and throw it in the other’s face. Because they were gorgeous and wonderful, and for all that they are currently fractured and bleeding, they so clearly want what is best for each other. They are (mostly) selfless in their love (with a few selfish foibles, but they made sense to me).

I was also rather … not happy with the fact we got no mention of Lucy, of Davy, of them being Simon’s parents. I’m really, desperately hoping we get that in the next chapter of this series.

The positive thing I can take away from this point is that when we get to the next book (and I know there will be one — my copy literally has a number 2 on the spine, which heavily implies series to me), we will be firmly grounded in what is facing these characters both internally and externally.

The biggest issue that lies ahead is COMMUNICATION. I know (I hope like hell) this will be addressed in the next book, but I craved it so, so badly in this. Not just for Simon and Baz but PENNY. They are all sitting on shifting sand foundations now — their worlds have been completely overturned, over and over again in the past year or so, and they haven’t found firm footing yet. When Micah broke up with Penny, I very much thought that was the kick off for a road trip filled with introspection and epiphanies and finally, lots of talking about said introspections and epiphanies — I got half my wish. The latter half, I suppose, will have to wait until the next novel. I didn’t expect all the character/emotional beats to be acknowledged and resolved, but at least some of them, with room for others to be resolved in the next story, so we would have more (and more room) to explore in that novel.

As a result, Wayward Son, for the many things I loved about it, didn’t feel like a complete story for me. It doesn’t stand on its own quite as well as Carry On did. Maybe when the third book comes out, I will retroactively love it more, but for now I’m just sort of … floating along, waiting for that lifesaver. It did, honestly, feel a bit like half of a story. Half a good story, fantastic even, but still … Half.

In addition to these thoughts I’ve shared, here’s where I’m coming from, as a reader — we all come at these books from different places, different life experiences and wants and expectations.

One of my most formative reading experiences was Harry Potter. I read Harry Potter practically as it came out. I had to wait years between some of the books. By the time the last book arrived, the characters had matured about as much as I had. Because the middle books were so chunky and dense (and I loved them for it!), I was a little thrown off by how slim Deathly Hallows was in comparison, and that ultimately was reflected in my reading — it went by so quickly. While I loved it and sobbed all over the damn place, when I hit that epilogue … that’s the first time while reading that I did a full stop. All the pain and agony of that book, as quick as it had been, had been amazing, and it felt like it demanded some kind of … reflection and communication between the characters, and I thought after ten years of these books, we had a definite basis for an epilogue that could’ve added another third to this novel — maybe one that jumped through the years, showed us different characters at various stages of healing? Something involved and detailed to a degree.

Wayward Son had that rushed element to it … and I think part of that feeling was enhanced due to the lack of resolution to those character/emotional arcs — we were tumbling, running forward into a free fall and then were frozen right at that point before falling.

However, Wayward Son gives me more positive feelings than that epilogue in HP. Yes, it still feels incomplete, like half a story. But Wayward Son isn’t an end. Unlike Deathly Hallows, there is more to come, and that’s what I’m looking forward to most. It definitely has its flaws in my view, but I can reconcile them somewhat, as you’ve seen.

(There is also a whole thing involving the way these sorts of arcs would resolve in fanfiction versus the medium of a book intended for a broader audience, but that would be a whole other post, methinks. Let me know if you want me to discuss that, because I do have some thoughts on it, though they’re a little haphazard at the moment. Um. Assuming all this rambling isn’t wildly boring and/or awful for you.)

Final Thoughts: At the end of the day? I loved reading this book, even for all that I wanted to reach into the pages and knock the character’s heads together. I said, “Oh no!” out loud when I reached the end, but it was because I desperately wanted more right then and there. The fact that I want more means that, despite any flaws, I’m still on board for this universe and its characters — I still love all this magic, and this dragon boy and his vampire boyfriend :)

And now, 2000 plus words later, I am done, holy crap. If anyone actually made it to the bottom of this, thank you? Not too sure how coherent I was, but I hope some of this was of value to someone :) *many hugs*

Edit: Apparently I still had some things to say, so here is a sequel to this ramble — Simon and Baz Carrying On Like Wayward Sons.

#wayward son #wayward son spoilers #snowbaz #simon snow #rainbow rowell #tyrannus basilton grimm pitch #penelope bunce #agatha wellbelove #rants and ramblings

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letmetellyouaboutmyfeels · 4 years

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um hi who’s steve moffat??

Oh my goodness. Okay, my sweet summer child, buckle up. I’ll try and keep this short. I assume you’re asking this since I just reblogged that post about Moffat creating the new Dracula show for BBC, so I’ll explain the particulars of why that’s upsetting as well.

So, Steven Moffat is a British television show writer and creator. He created the very popular (and well-done) comedic show Coupling, which was a take on the modern-day dating world and apparently inspired by how Moffat met his wife. He was also a writer on Doctor Who, the long-running British science fiction series, and this is where the fun (note the sarcasm) begins.

See, Moffat wrote some very very very good episodes on Doctor Who. In fact he wrote two of my favorites: the two-parter “The Empty Child”/“The Doctor Dances” (which includes my all-time favorite television moment, “Everybody lives, Rose! Just this once–everybody lives!!!”) and “Blink.” “Blink” is considered one of the best, if not the best, DW episode as it works so damn well and is so well written and ALSO functions very well as a standalone episode. Someone who has never seen a single DW episode could watch “Blink” and enjoy it.

Given Moffat’s good writing chops, everyone was super excited when he became the showrunner for Doctor Who after Russell T. Davies, the original showrunner, left, and when Moffat also announced he was creating Sherlock, a modern-day adaptation of the beloved Sherlock Holmes character.

I will direct you to this highly entertaining video that explains why Moffat’s show running skills and BBC’s Sherlock are, well, garbage.

Please do watch that video when you have the time since it’s fucking hilarious but here’s the gist of it: Moffat relies on building cliffhanger after cliffhanger and never actually delivering any climax, catharsis, or answers to the questions he gives. He makes his shows about one “super special genius” male character whose only function is to be “super special genius” and never actually has any character development and really actually is an asshole to everyone around him. And he writes female characters horribly, Irene Adler just to start. He crams in LGBT+ characters and other such “minority” characters in order to get “woke” and “diversity” points but he doesn’t actually give them any legitimate layers or nuance. The genius straight white male always saves the day and he does it while being a dick to everyone.

Yay.

Moffat’s constant reliance on twist after twist after twist without any character development, conclusion, explanation, or even logic, means that eventually his shows spiral into the absolutely absurd, as happened with season four of Sherlock. I would argue the show went off the rails in season three but that was before I saw it completely jump the shark in season four. Holy shit.

Which brings us to Dracula.

Look, vampires are sexy, I will be the first to admit that. But Dracula himself is not a vampire you want to swoon over. In the original book he is a sexual predator (the passages where he feeds on Mina are particularly disturbing and evocative of rape) who brutally and mercilessly murders people by twisting their spines and bashing their heads in until their brains burst out, sending wolves to tear them to pieces, and ripping their throats out. He literally throws a toddler to three vampires who do something so horrendous to it that Jonathan Harker blocks it from his memory.

Dracula is also, to add to all of this, a metaphor for two things a) the powerful and charismatic but “forbidden” gay relationship/love (and the shame that comes with that because this was the 1800s) and b) the racist/xenophobic fear of the “pure Aryan race” being “corrupted” by the “impure” eastern/non-Aryan bloodline.

Yeah, you heard me. The second one is pretty damn obvious and it’s a real sign of continued xenophobia and racism if you ask me that no adaptation (save for the silent black and white film Dracula: Pages from a Virgin’s Diary) has addressed this issue. Dracula literally says that he will destroy the Western race of heroes “through your women, and through them your children! I shall have them and through them I shall have you!” and basically says yeah I’m gonna rape your wives and they’ll have my children and your pure bloodline will be corrupted. This is far from an uncommon fear. It’s a repeated threat from the non-white villain in racist texts and it’s a common rhetorical trick. You even hear it in historical films when the heroic leader stands up and is like “would you have them kill us and rape our wives?” The fear isn’t just death, it’s that the “oh so pure bloodline” will be corrupted by the “unclean” race mating with the “clean” one.

AND THAT’S IGNORING THE BLATANTLY RACIST STEREOTYPE OF THE ROMANI PEOPLE AS EVIL STOOGES OF DRACULA LIKE WTF STOKER I’M GONNA RAISE YOU FROM THE DEAD JUST SO I CAN KICK YOUR GODDAMN ASS–

*ahem* Anyway.

The first one is also pretty obvious given that the entire first third of the book is Dracula flirting with Jonathan up to and including making innuendos about Jonathan teaching him English by “showing him how to use his tongue” (NO I’M NOT MAKING THIS UP). Most people believe that Dracula was based on Vlad Tepes aka Vlad the Impaler but actually, while Stoker did research on good ol’ Vlad, Dracula was based on a popular actor and close friend of Stoker’s, Henry Irving. Dracula was originally supposed to be a play, written for Irving, with Irving in the title role. When Irving refused, Stoker changed it to a book.

In fact when people who knew the two read the book they all went, “holy shit Dracula is totally Irving and Stoker is totally Jonathan.” Contemporaries noted that the relationship between Irving and Stoker was toxic, with Irving being manipulative and narcissistic, taking advantage of Stoker, while Stoker was too damn in love with Irving to stand up for himself even as he knew that Irving was being an asshole.

SO THAT MEANS WE HAVE: queer subtext, racist subtext, and vampirism as a metaphor for sexual assault.

None of which Moffat has a history of handling well.

It’s a sad tradition in Hollywood to change Dracula into a sexy anti-hero, and to claim that Mina Harker, the heroine of the book who saves everyone’s goddamn bacon, was actually attracted to Dracula and wanted to be with him. Y’know, the man who in the book makes her drink his blood in a way that is explicitly worded to make it sound like she’s forced to give him a blowjob (no seriously reading those passages is genuinely disturbing). Seeing how Moffat treated Sherlock and The Doctor on their respective shows, he’ll probably turn Dracula from a monster that is legitimately scary (because y’know he rapes people) into yet another pale white super special genius Mary goddamn Sue.

Seriously, the next time someone asks me what a Mary Sue is I’m just directing them straight to the Moffat-run seasons of Doctor Who and BBC’s Sherlock.

And given how Moffat handled the character of Irene Adler by turning her from a woman who received the world’s first unsolicited dick pic and was forced to use it to protect herself from persecution by royalty in order to quietly marry the love of her life into a dominatrix whose bisexuality was used as a one-off line to show how “irresistible and sexy” Sherlock is and is beaten by Sherlock, is a villain, not just a villain but the lackey of another villain, and has to be rescued by Sherlock twice instead of being the clever quick-thinking woman who gets one over on him and teaches him not to underestimate women and that he’s not always right…

Yeah. I don’t have high hopes for how Moffat will treat Mina Harker, the meticulous wannabe journalist who loves her friends to death and has a fucking backbone of steel and memorizes train schedules in her spare time like the utter dork she is.

And even if you set all those things aside! Even if you hope that Moffat will do justice to the women in the series, that he’ll properly address the sexual, gay, and racist subtext in Dracula, even if you hope that he won’t make Dracula another annoying can’t-ever-do-anything-wrong-jackass that treats the people around him like shit but we’re supposed to think he’s cool for it and people still somehow inexplicably stick around him and forgive him for it…

EVEN IF YOU HOPE FOR ALL OF THAT

…there is still Moffat’s major storytelling issue which is that he never tells a complete story. He never delivers on any of the promises he makes to the audience. He dangles cliffhangers that promise some big revelation is upcoming, but he never actually makes good on that–he just gives another twist instead, so that you never conclude any story arcs. It’s like listening to a song but having no resolution in the music so it’s just hurting your ears. Moffat is all about sound and fury, about making things look and sound cool, but without giving them any actual substance.

Moffat has done some great writing work, but it was always when someone else was in charge reining him in and forcing him to tell a complete story. He was given carte blanche with Sherlock and look how well that turned out. Season four was so bad people actually wondered if it was a joke. Yeah. Seriously.

So, people are understandably frustrated about this upcoming Dracula adaptation and have zero hope that it will handle any of the characters or the complex issues with any kind of nuance or substance. My personal bet? The women will be treated as props who fawn over Dracula, Dracula himself will be an asshole that we’re supposed to somehow like, his bisexuality will be a throwaway thing and the men who fall for him will behave in stereotypically gay ways and God forbid he actually get a long-lasting substantial relationship with any of them, Van Helsing is gonna be a woman and be either his bitter ex or eventually fall for him, and oh yes the racism/xenophobia in the original text will never be addressed ever.

That, my dear, is Steven Moffat, and that’s why people hate him and aren’t happy about him creating a Dracula television series, bisexual vampires or no.

#mads answers things #dracula #dracula bbc #moffat #steven moffat #I'm paraphrasing the Dracula quotes because I've read that damn book ten times by now #and I'm too lazy to go find my copy to get the exact quote right #I hope this explains everything satisfactorily my dear!#apologies that it's such a long answer lol #I tried to be succinct #nalgenewhore

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keichanz · 5 years

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Another Day in Hell || Ch. 3

I am so freaking inspired for this story you don’t even understand I had to break down this chapter into 3 separate chapters because it ended up being 32 pages long lmaooo

So I know I’ve said it before, but I’m gonna say it again: this is not based on the show The Walking Dead. Obviously there will be some elements from it, and some ideas that I liked enough that I’m probably going to borrow, but it’s definitely not going to be as plot-heavy as that series. I’m going for a more humorous feel for this story and while yeah, there will be some drama and death, it won’t be any of the main characters - c’mon, you know me; like i could ever kill one of them off lol - and it definitely won’t be as angsty. GOD that show has made me cry so much already and i’m only on season 7 a;sfjailfhf

Oh and I guess i should mention that supplies in this story aren't as scarce as they are in TWD. It’s not about surviving with minimal resources anyway; it’s about sticking together in hard times, finding happiness in a place riddled with hate and death, and keeping hope alive long enough to last Another Day in Hell. lololol see what i did there a;djfiaofj *gets bricked*

Anyway, a big thanks to those of you sticking around for this story! It’s not as popular as some of my others but I’m still having a blast writing it and I’m glad there are others who are enjoying it just as much! :D

Read on AO3.

Ch. 1 || Ch. 2 || Ch. 3

When Kagome opened her eyes from what was probably the deepest sleep she’d had in over a month, her body’s reaction was instantaneous: her breathing quickened, her pulse skyrocketed, and she started shaking, full body tremors that made her extremely aware of the throbbing, burning agony in her left shoulder that was arcs of stinging pain down her arm.

Her eyes darted around frantically but all she could see was dark, shadows closing in around her; there was no light, crushing, cold blackness that burrowed beneath her skin and took chilling residence in her bones. Her mouth opened on a scream, but no sound came out; her throat was dry, tight with panic with chapped lips and a heavy tongue. Her ears buzzed, so loud, head pounding, she couldn’t hear, couldn’t see, she was alone, isolated, not safe.

It was cold; so cold, consuming, ice replacing the blood in her veins and taking root in her heart, deadening the issue, her flesh, killing her from the inside. She was bit; her shoulder was on fire, throbbing and pulling and rotting and it was her fault, she shouldn’t have fallen asleep, oh god, why did she sleep, where was she, it wasn’t safe, she was going to die, no no no it wasn’t fair, she’d tried so hard to survive, why—

Hands, burning hot, sharp points pricking into her skin, seized her arms and Kagome thrashed, she struggled, she screamed. No, it was one of them, it was going to tear into her flesh, finish what the other had started at her shoulder.

“—ome!”

It hurt; her shoulder, her throat, her chest, she couldn’t breathe, it was so hard, why couldn’t she breathe? Her fingers clawed, scratched, dug into the flesh that sought to rip into her, tear her apart, kill her—

“—sha! It’s me! You’re safe!”

She heard a hissing sound, heard a growled curse and she gasped when her hands were suddenly restrained, warm shackles circling her wrists and she sobbed, cried, no please, she didn’t want to die, hadn’t she suffered enough already, it was her fault, Houjo didn’t deserve—

“Kagome! It’s me! Dammit, Kagome, open your eyes!”

With a deep, shuttering gasp, Kagome’s eyes flew open and she found herself staring into twin pools of glowing amber. Her body jerked and her mouth opened on another hoarse scream, the tears hot on her cold skin—

“You’re safe,” a voice told her, low, urgent, and Kagome stilled. “You’re safe Kagome, it’s okay, calm down. Hey, c’mon, look at me. Look at me Kagome, you’re safe.”

A whimper escaped her and her vision blurred with more tears as finally, finally her heart calmed in her chest, the buzzing in her ears stopped, and she could breathe.

She was...she was safe. Inuyasha. Inuyasha had saved her, he was here, and he’d treated her shoulder—gunshot wound. She’d been shot, not bitten, she wasn’t going to die.

She was safe. She was safe. She was safe.

“Inu—” she choked out, her throat tight, dry. “I—”

“Hey, hey, you’re okay,” he rumbled and released her hands, reaching out to tuck a damp strand of ebony hair behind her ear. “You’re alright. You’re safe.”

Dragging in deep breaths of air, eyes wide and staring into concerned honeyed eyes, Kagome swallowed thickly and finally managed to jerky nod, closing her eyes briefly as she attempted to steady her breathing. Her hands found the solid strength of his arms and hung on, the reassuring warmth of his skin helping to ground her, remind her where she was, that she was safe, she didn’t have to be afraid anymore.

When she opened her eyes again Inuyasha was still staring down at her, the concern writ large on his face, and Kagome took a moment to take everything in, belatedly realizing it wasn’t dark anymore. He must have turned on the light at some point when he realized she couldn’t see anything. He was kneeling above her, shirtless, jeans unfastened and hanging low on his hips, and idly she wondered if he’d been in the middle of dressing when she’d started panicking.

Kagome blinked. “Hi.” Her voice was rough, wispy, and she winced when it scratched her throat.

His frown didn’t lessen any, but he looked relieved. “Hey,” Inuyasha rumbled back and brushed her bangs away from her eyes. “You alright? You started screaming and scared the shit outta me.”

She managed a trembling smile and gave another shaky nod. “Yes,” she breathed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. It...was dark and it took me a minute to remember where I was and what happened.” Her shoulder twinged and she grimaced. “And for a moment I thought the pain in my shoulder meant that...”

She couldn’t finish, dropping her gaze to stare at his chest, riddled with scars and old wounds. With a guilty flush she spotted three red scratches on his left pectoral, remembering his the sound of his pained hiss.

He must have noticed where she was looking and quickly shook his head.

“S’okay,” he muttered and brushed her cheek with a finger before drawing back. “Don’t worry about it.”

Inuyasha studied her quietly for another minute, making sure she was truly okay before leaning back and offering a hand. Sucking in a breath, Kagome placed her smaller hand in his and allowed him to carefully pull her up, grateful when he reached around with his arm to catch her around the waist in an attempt to stabilize her shoulder. It throbbed with the movement and she gritted her teeth as pain lanced down her arm to the very tips of her fingers.

Inuyasha made sure she was steady before abruptly shifting around with a soft grunt until he was settled behind her. With one leg hanging off the bed and the other stretched out beside her, he snagged her around the waist and carefully dragged her between his legs so he could take a look at her shoulder.

“Can you lift your arm?”

Claws lightly grazed the small of her back as he started pushing up her shirt with the intent to inspect her shoulder and an involuntary shudder crawled along the length of her spine. Flushing darkly and praying he hadn’t noticed, Kagome gave a jerky nod and sucked in a breath, holding it as she slowly raised her arm.

She bit down hard on her lip to stifle the whimper of pain that threatened to escape. She was grateful when Inuyasha acted quickly, stretching the wide sleeve over enough to pull off her arm before lifting the shirt up and over, exposing the red-stained bandage covering the back of her shoulder.

“You good?” Inuyasha asked as she lowered her arm back down the second she was able to, ears flicking when her breath left her lungs in a heavy whoosh of air.

“Fine,” she replied a little breathlessly, gritting her teeth.

He paused at the strain in her voice and stared at the back of her head, listening as she attempted to breathe through the pain. She was tense and he could hear the rapid beat of her heart.

“You don’t sound fine,” he stated conversationally and started carefully cutting off the bandage wrapped around her torso with a single talon.

“What, should I be laughing?” Kagome muttered bitterly, tensing as another twinge of pain stabbed at her shoulder.

Inuyasha frowned that time and bit back a retort that was sure to sour her mood more than it already was. He didn’t know if it was because she’d just woken up or if it was something else on her mind, but he figured that his lack of tact would not help the situation, either.

The bandage fell around her waist and carefully he peeled away the red-stained gauze pad covering the injury. Puffy, discolored, and the sutures predictably an angry red, at least it looked like he’d managed to treat it before the infection really set it and he was relieve that was one less thing they had to worry about.

“Looks good,” he told her and brushed his thumb across his handiwork in a feather light touch. “A little swollen and you got a nasty bruise going on, but looks like we caught the infection before it had a chance to set in. Another two weeks or so and you’ll have a wicked battle scar to tell your grandkids about.”

Moving from behind her, being careful not to jostle her shoulder too much, Inuyasha stood up to retrieve fresh bandages, antibacterial ointment, painkillers, and a bottle of water. Kagome grunted and still didn’t look too pleased, a slight pout of her face as she glared at the floor, and Inuyasha shot her a look as he offered the water and Ibuprofen.

“It could be worse,” he reminded and settled behind her again. “Shot could’ve nicked an artery and you woulda bled out before finding help. The asshole coulda aimed at your head and you’d be dead. Lotta possibilities and you lucked out with a non life-threatening one.”

Inuyasha paused and his brows dipped down into a slight frown. Come to think it of, Kagome actually had been extremely lucky she’d only gotten hit in her shoulder and not anywhere else, and suddenly he was wondering if the shot to the shoulder had been intentional. The wound was small and neat, suggesting the gun had been held by a steady hand. Inuyasha was beginning to suspect the gunman had wanted to slow her down, not kill her, and the ball of dread that landed in his stomach, leaden and uncomfortable, chilled him to the bone.

Kagome made an inarticulate noise, grumbled, and then released a sigh and closed her eyes.

“Sorry,” she muttered, feeling guilty for snapping at him and a little foolish for acting like a child. “You’re right. I just...I guess I’m just not made for this kind of thing.”

Warm fingers spread something oily and cold across her shoulder and she hissed, tensing slightly before relaxing.

To her surprise Inuyasha snorted and wiped the excess ointment off on his jeans before grabbing a fresh gauze pad and carefully pressing it to her shoulder.

“I don’t think anybody is made for this kind of thing,” he remarked and started wrapping up her shoulder again. “Out of anything we could have gotten stuck with, it had to be motherfucking zombies. Christ.”

Kagome had to smile at his less than pleased tone. “You seem like you’re doing alright for yourself,” she opined, sweeping her eyes over her surroundings.

He grunted. “That’s mostly because I’m a stubborn asshole and I refuse to let a fucking corpse get the best of me.”

He eyed her shoulder and gave a satisfied nod before tugging the shirt back down and helping her slip her arm through the sleeve again.

Kagome actually laughed softly that time and feeling accomplished, Inuyasha stood to put away the medical supplies and toss the bloodied bandages. After that he finally took the opportunity to finish dressing, fastening his jeans and digging around for a clean t-shirt.

His ear flicked at the whisper soft sound of disappointment that came from behind him and he had to fight the smirk that threatened to spread across his face as he pulled it over his head.

“Thank you,” she murmured and he glanced over to find her staring at him with a soft smile on her face, a becoming shade of light pink coloring her cheeks. “I know I said it already, but...really. You didn’t have to help me, but you did, especially since it’s not uncommon for someone to only be concerned with number one and be reluctant to share their resources.”

Inuyasha crossed his arms and studied her for a moment, amber gold searching chocolate brown, before he tipped her a fangy grin.

“Well, lookie that,” he murmured, cocking a brow. “You’re on a roll with this luck thing you got going for you. If the world hadn’t gone to hell I’d ask you for the winning lotto numbers.”

“Five, twelve, twenty, twenty-one, forty-seven, and one.”

He stared at her. “Cute.”

Kagome grinned.

Rolling his eyes and shaking his head, Inuyasha turned to rifle through the “pantry” for some breakfast and found some Poptarts stashed behind a box of no doubt stale Frosted Flakes. He had no idea how old it was, but grabbed it anyway. There were only two food items that were predicted to last through the end of the fucking world, and those were Poptarts and Twinkies.

He gave one to Kagome, snagged the other one for himself, and tossed the empty box toward the trash bin. He missed, heard Kagome’s badly stifled snort, and tossed a mock glare her way. She blinked and smiled innocently at him before tearing open her breakfast and taking a tentative bite, no doubt having the same concerns as himself.

Plopping down in his comfy armchair with a grunt, Inuyasha sliced open his Poptart and they lapsed into silence as they indulged in the dry and slightly chewy breakfast pastry. Unsurprisingly Inuyasha finished his first, however when Kagome discovered that her stomach was not going to rebel she wasn’t far behind. Despite it only being the run of the mill Poptart that had probably passed its expiration date a while ago, for being the first substantial thing she’d eaten in days, it was the most delicious thing in the world right then.

Still, even though she wanted to cram the rest of it in her mouth, she forced herself to slow down and eat the second part a little slower. Knowing her luck, her weakened body would reject the sudden abundance of nourishment and she’d end up embarrassing herself by getting sick everywhere. She definitely wanted to avoid that and not waste the food Inuyasha was generously sharing with her.

She knew what the world had been subjected to now. It was kill or be killed, look out for number one, and it was rare to find someone willing to help a perfect stranger. Inuyasha had more than likely saved her life, and Kagome would be forever grateful for that.

Swallowing her last bit of Poptart, Kagome started down at the foil wrapper in her hands, worrying her bottom lip as she mulled over her thoughts. She flicked a glance to her half-demon host and wasn’t very surprised to find him already staring at her, head propped in his hand with his foot resting on his opposite knee, looking utterly at ease.

She blinked and offered smile. Inuyasha’s brows dipped into a small frown and she sighed, looking back down at her lap.

“Listen, Inuyasha...” she began, brow wrinkling as she attempted to put thoughts into words. When she looked back up again Inuyasha had both booted feet on the ground and he was leaning forward, giving her his full attention with elbows propped on his knees and golden stare directed at her.

Her expression gentled into another small smile and she continued, the words suddenly coming so easily to her now, “If it hadn’t been for you...if you hadn’t followed me, killed off those rotters, and brought me here, I’d probably be—” Her voice cracked and she swallowed thickly, brown eyes huge and earnest as she gazed at him.

“You saved my life, Inuyasha,” she said roughly. “And I don’t know how I’ll ever begin to repay you for that. So if there’s something...anything I can do repay you, please tell me. I mean, I admit I...I can’t do much, especially in my current condition.” She looked a mite sheepish as she shrugged apologetically. “But I promise I’ll do my best. If you let me stick around, I’ll do whatever it takes to earn my keep. I can learn, I can—I can adapt, just please...”

Sucking in a shaky breath, Kagome briefly closed her eyes, steeled herself, and then looked directly into amber eyes regarding her intensely.

“Please don’t send me back out there. “

Staring into those gorgeous pools of dark brown, so open and pleading and impossibly wide, something in Inuyasha’s chest tightened and his hands clenched into tight fists. The urge to protect surged within him so strongly his entire body tensed, as if preparing for a fight, ready to defend this vulnerable woman with his life if he needed to. Which was absolutely fucking bizarre since he’d just met her, but at the same time, he supposed it made sense.

The others always liked to tease and badger that he had a soft spot for those smaller and weaker than him and looking at her now, heart on her sleeve and practically begging him to not feed her to the wolves �� or in this case the undead – Inuyasha had known from the second he’d seen her, curled up, bloody, and terrified, that he’d never be able to send her off on her own again.

She was under his protection now, and he’d be damned if she was going to get hurt again under his watch.

Kagome was starting to get anxious from his continued silence, squirming on her seat and biting down on her lip in uncertainty as she dropped her gaze. He could smell her trepidation as she feared for the worst, hear her heart speed up a bit in her chest, and Inuyasha acted quickly, hating the smell of her fear.

“I’m not gonna send you back out there, Kagome,” he assured her, his voice firm, and was gratified when she snapped her gaze back to his, twin pools of dark brown glinting with barely concealed hope. “And there might be something you can do for me, but first I need you to tell me something.”

Her brow furrowed slightly in confusion but she nodded, curious.

Inuyasha studied her for a moment, golden eyes assessing, revealing nothing, before entreating quietly, “Tell me what happened. Where were you before I found you? Do you a place to get back to? Your family? Friends?”

For just a split second, and something he probably wouldn’t have even noticed had he not been paying such close attention, a deep, soul-crushing sorrow flashed across Kagome’s face and eyes but it was gone as quick as it had arrived before she averted her gaze.

For just that second a hidden agony had been so palpable Inuyasha had felt it like a physical blow to his gut and the shocked breath he sucked in was completely involuntary. Jesus...what had this woman been through to portray such deep pain, even for just an instant? Inuyasha opened his mouth to tell her she didn’t have to tell him, that he would still take her in anyway, but her quiet voice quickly shut him up and his ears strained forward to hear her soft words.

“We got separated,” she began, an audible strain in her voice and still avoiding his gaze. “M-my family and I, just moments after the outbreak started. We were all inside our house, minding our own business, when someone who had been praying at the shrine suddenly came crashing through the door, bleeding from the neck and screaming about the dead coming back to life, before falling to the floor, dead. He’d...he’d been bitten.”

Kagome took a calming breath and closed her eyes, recalling with clarity what had happened next. Her voice was cracked and unsteady as she continued, “We...we didn’t know what to do. We were all standing around, stunned as the man bled all over the floor, when more of them came through the windows and door. Hungry, starved for human flesh, they came after us and we did what any normal person would do.

“We ran. Gramps tried to stay and fend them off, but Mama managed to drag him away and toward the basement where we could go downstairs and out the cellar door. I remember hearing Souta screaming – he was crying...scared – and Mama trying to tell him it was going to be okay as I ran after them, scared out of my mind. But something caught my leg, and I fell. The man on the floor, the one that’d been bitten, had turned and grabbed my leg. I managed to shake him off and go downstairs after them. Mama was waiting for me and she grabbed my hand and when we got outside to the street...”

Her voice caught and she shuddered, wrapping her good arm around herself as if to preserve heat. Inuyasha dug his claws into his palms, resisting the urge to go over and protect her even from the chill of the basement. He’d suspected her story was something like this, but still, hearing it first hand was tougher than he’d thought it would be. Fuck, he hated the thought of Kagome going through this, being subjected to such terror and horror.

“It was...it was chaos,” Kagome went on, voice rough, and he brought his attention back to her. “People dead everywhere, b-blood...everywhere...groups of undead feasting on dead bodies, hordes of them chasing after fleeing people. Screaming, cries for help, children sobbing for their parents...g-god, it was—”

She put a hand over her mouth as her eyes fluttered close, holding back a sob.

“Kagome, you don’t have to—”

Hastily she shook her head. “It’s okay,” she rasped. “I’m okay. Just...give me a minute.”

Frowning deeply and looking like he wanted to disagree, Inuyasha nonetheless clenched his jaw and nodded, waiting for her to continue.

Taking several deep breaths, Kagome managed to compose herself after another minute and went on, her voice a bit steadier.

“We ran. Gramps found a still running car and herded us toward it. I was holding Souta’s hand, half-dragging him and Mama was in front of me. One of them caught Souta’s arm and jerked him back. I...I screamed and just started punching and kicking it, yanking him back to me, and when it finally let go I shoved him toward Mama who got him into the car then herself. I was going to follow but escaping people ran in front of me and cut me off, knocking me over in their haste to get away. I heard Mama screaming my name, Souta crying, and then I heard nothing but gunshots and the sound of a car driving away.”

Inuyasha’s stomach plummeted to somewhere the same region as his feet. His expression was a mix of pain and outrage while the hard lump in his throat was making it hard to breathe. Did her family just leave her there to die?!

Kagome stoke a peek at him and accurately guessed what he was thinking. Her smile was wan and trembling.

“They didn’t leave me,” she told him and Inuyasha’s growl abruptly cut off—he hadn’t even been aware he was making it. “The people who knocked me over got into the car with my family and drove away, forcing them to leave me behind. I don’t fault them for that.”

Grimacing, Inuyasha dragged a hand down his face and nodded, feeling slightly ill. “What happened next?” he asked, his voice rough and he cleared his throat.

Sighing, Kagome wiped at her eyes, at the unshed tears brimming them, and explained, “I escaped from the rotters trying to eat me and started running. I didn’t have a destination in mind, just...anywhere safe, I guess. Somebody must have been looking out for me because my friend H-Houjo—” Her voice cracked again and she sucked in a breath.

“Houjo found me and took me to his family’s house. They had a bomb shelter with food and water and that’s where I’ve been staying since it all started. Well...until recently.”

The look Inuyasha gave her was equal parts skeptical and incredulous. “Your friend has a bomb shelter in this day and age?”

Her answer smile was small but genuine and something eased in his chest. “Houjo’s father was a bit eccentric, but it turned out to be a good thing. The shelter was underground and fortified with layers of thick sheet metal, cement, and brick. It saved our lives, along with a few others Houjo’s family took in. They were good people, generous and kind, and Houjo...he was among one of the most kindest, genuine people I knew.”

Inuyasha stiffened and his jaw tightened as he sat up a little straighter. Ice entered his veins, chilling him to the bone, and he swallowed once, twice. His voice was thick when he could speak again.

“Kagome...what happened to Houjo.”

She’d used was. Past tense.

Kagome’s eyes connected with his and those deep pools were haunted as she breathed, “We were running out of food. I volunteered to go on a run to find some because I wanted to do something to repay them for taking me in, but Houjo wouldn’t let me ago alone. He had a gun—it didn’t have a full round and he didn’t know how to use it, but it was better than nothing and he wanted to make sure I was protected. So together we left and managed to evade the roamers long enough to get inside his house to see if anything was left. It was a mess inside, of course, full of dead...uh, undead, and not much was salvageable, but we looked anyway.

“I was in the kitchen looking through the pantry and didn’t notice the one coming up behind me. Houjo did.”

Inuyasha paled. Oh...shit.

“He shot it at and missed. He drew its attention so I was able to get away and he just kept...shooting at it until he was firing blanks. I grabbed a kitchen knife and stabbed it in the neck, trying to slice the head off, but all I did was get its attention back on me, and I was frozen, terrified, unable to move and Houjo, he...”

Kagome stopped to let out a sob and cover her mouth again, squeezing her eyes shut tight as she forced out through gritted teeth, “He shoved me away and took the bite meant for me. He—I remember his scream as he took the knife lodged in its neck, yanked it upward, and tore the head off until the only thing connecting it was skin. By then the noise we were making drew more of them inside and suddenly we were surrounded. Houjo, he—he told me to run. He sacrificed himself so I could get away and I—I—”

Unable to bear it any longer, Kagome broke down, hiding her face in her hands as she emitted gut-wrenching sobs and Inuyasha reacted without thinking.

Standing up with a curse, he crossed the distance between them and sank down beside her, wrapping an arm around her shoulder and tugging her into his side. Kagome gasped and clung to him, hands fisting in the back of his shirt as she buried her face in his neck and cried. Her arm protested the movement but the pain in her heart trumped the pain in her shoulder so it was easily ignored as she wept for her friend, wept for the kind-hearted boy she’d known since child-hood and his untimely, grisly death.

Ears pinned flat against his head, Inuyasha closed his eyes and sought to comfort her in any way he could, running his hand through her hair while the other massaged her back, rumbling in his chest as he let her cry against him for however long she needed. He wanted to apologize, tell her everything was going to be okay, but he couldn’t find the words. His throat was tight, his chest hurt, and he gave his silent commendations to the boy that had sacrificed himself to save her.

He wanted to do more for her – he wanted to track down every undead, rotting son of a bitch responsible for her agony, wanted to bring her friend back to life, find her family, introduce the assholes that had separated her from them to Tessaiga. But he couldn’t, so he did the only thing he could do: he held her tight and bore her pain with her, every sob cutting him to the quick, every whimper driving the knife deeper into his heart. And as the warmth of her tears soaked his neck and dampened the collar of his shirt, Inuyasha cradled the back of her head and vowed she would never have to go through something like that ever again.

Maybe it was a foolish vow, especially when death was unavoidable during these trying times, but that didn’t matter. He was going to do his damnedest to protect her, physically and emotionally, no matter what it took.

He didn’t know how long they sat there but Inuyasha didn’t care, content to let her lean against him as her sobs gradually died down to sniffles and shaky sighs. When she finally leaned away from him, rubbing at her eyes and nose, she was much more composed and the smile she tipped him, though wavering, suggested she’d needed that release badly. It wouldn’t have surprised him if she hadn’t had the time to mourn properly before now. Running for your life tended to take up your full concentration, no matter the circumstances of your inner turmoil.

Inuyasha tucked a strand of hair behind her ear before retrieving her water bottle that had fallen to the floor and handing it over. She mumbled her thanks and uncapped it, taking a few delicate sips and then a few mouthfuls.

“Okay?” he murmured and unthinkingly put a hand on her back, massaging the muscles in an absentminded gesture of comfort. Kagome sighed and relaxed into his touch.

“Yes,” she breathed in a voice slightly hoarse. “Thank you. For...letting me do that.” She aimed another smile at him, dark eyes shining with her gratitude. It felt good to tell somebody and let it all go.

His ear flicked as a slight frown marred his features. “You didn’t tell his family?”

Kagome winced and immediately he regretted it. “Shit, sorry, I—”

“No, it’s fine,” she insisted, shaking her head, and he was glad to find she wasn’t about to start crying again. “After...it happened, I did what he told me to do and ran. I thought about going back to the shelter, but I...I couldn’t. It’s my fault he’s dead. I couldn’t bring myself to face them. The guilt was too much and like a damned coward I fled. It’s my fault, if I hadn’t insisted on going—”

“No,” Inuyasha interrupted her and gabbed her chin, turning her face and locking gazes with her. Kagome’s eyes widened and a soft gasp escaped her lips at the intensity in his eyes.

“I’m gonna stop you right there,” he said firmly. “It’s not your fault, Kagome. Your friend died protecting you. He knew what he was doing when he shoved you away. Hell, I’m sure he knew what was going to happen, but he did it anyway. You can’t blame yourself for the actions of others, Kagome. You can’t. It’s too much to carry and the guilt would crush you.”

He clenched his jaw, swallowed thickly, and with Kagome’s wide eyes gazing up at him, dark and brimming with more tears, he said gruffly, “Trust me. I’ve tried. So instead of burdening yourself with fault that’s not yours, honor your friend’s sacrifice, be grateful, and keep moving. He died so you could live, Kagome, and you need to honor that. And if you let me, I can help you do that.”

Bottom lip trembling, Kagome took a shaky breath and let it out slowly, digesting his words and mulling them over. She would always feel a small measure of guilt, but she couldn’t let it amount to more than that. He was right; Houjo had died saving her, died so she could continuing living, and she would do her best to honor his sacrifice because what other choice did she have? She didn’t want to die and since she didn’t want to die...well.

She’d just have to keep living, wouldn’t she? If not out of spite or fear of the monsters wreaking havoc on the earth, then for Houjo, and for her family that she refused to believe was dead as well.

With a hardened resolve, and feeling better than she had since this whole shitshow started, Kagome stared into his eyes and nodded.

“How?” she whispered and Inuyasha knew what she was asking.

Gratified to see resolve in her eyes, the spark of life bringing color back to her cheeks, Inuyasha had to refrain from grinning as he said, “I can teach you how to survive. Show you how to fire a gun, take it apart, clean it, put it back together and reload it. I can teach you how to fight and how to defend yourself. I can do all of that, but you have to want it, Kagome. You have to want to become stronger and be willing to put your life at risk sometimes. I’m not gonna sugarcoat it; you’re gonna have to kill if you wanna survive, Kagome, and I’m not just talking about the undead fuckers out there. There are gonna be people who wanna kill you because you have what they don’t, assholes that wanna kill you just for the hell of it, but you already knew that. And it’s gonna be hard; I won’t lie about that. But I swear to you now that I’ll do my best to prepare you for this world gone to shit and I’ll teach you everything I know to survive.”

Inuyasha watched some of the color leech from her face and she winced, looking like she was about to taste that Poptart she’d eaten for a second time in a not so pleasant way. He didn’t take it back though, didn’t tell her he’d protect her from that if he could. Because she would have to kill if she wanted to survive. It was the way of the world now and nobody could avoid it. It was either that, or be killed yourself, and he hoped to God she realized that, because he wouldn’t sway her. Kagome had to make this decision for herself, she had to choose to fight, no matter how hard it was going to be.

She had to choose to survive for herself, to keep fighting, no matter how bad Inuyasha wanted to protect her from it.

Kagome took in Inuyasha’s features with wide brown eyes, the set jaw, lips tightening into a thin line, and eyes the color of whiskey burning into her own with an intensity that made her breath catch. His words resounded in her head, loud, serious, laced with an urgency that had every hair on her body standing on end. But there was something else, something that he wasn’t telling her, but Kagome picked up on it nonetheless. She saw it in his eyes, felt in the way his hand gripped her arm, firm, but not enough to hurt.

Inuyasha was asking her to trust him far more than what she already had, because if she said yes, if she agreed, she had so much more to lose than her health. He was essentially asking her to put her life in his hands so he could teach her how to protect it and that should have given her pause, should have made her take a proverbial step back and seriously consider what he was offering.

But she didn't because Kagome already instinctively knew she could trust him. He’d already patched up her shoulder, given her food, water, a place to sleep and regain her strength. Hell, he’d trusted her first, bringing her into his shelter and putting at risk his own health and safety. Granted, he was much stronger than she and he probably hadn’t been at all worried about her trying to overtake him, but it was the principle of the matter.

So of course Kagome already knew what her answer was because she did want to be stronger. She didn’t want to be a burden on him or anybody, she didn’t want to have to rely on other people to take care of her and get her food or whatever. She wanted to be able to take care of herself, defend herself and protect others who were in the same predicament as she’d been.

And when she finally saw her family again, she wanted to protect them as well and make sure nothing ever happened to them. She swore what happened to Houjo would never happen to any of them. Not while she was alive.

“Yes,” Kagome finally answered, staring directly into his eyes, and the relief that swept through him was powerful. She smiled, no doubt seeing it reflected on his face, and she nodded. “I want you to teach me, Inuyasha. I want to become stronger and defend myself so when I find my family, and I protect them, too.”

A corner of his lips quirked up into a half-grin. He had to admire her determination; it was definitely a good trait to have, especially for what she was about to endure in the coming weeks.

“Good,” he rumbled, giving a nod himself as he squeezed her arm. “I’m glad you don’t wanna die just yet. I’d be pissed if I wasted my medical supplies and food on a lost cause.”

Kagome had to laugh. He was right, so she wasn’t offended.

“I do have one question, though,” she admitted and he cocked a brow. “You said that you might have something I can do for you before I explained what happened to me. What is it?”

He shrugged. “You just agreed to it.”

Kagome blinked. “What?”

“You agreed to let me teach you how to fight and protect yourself,” he answered as he stood up and wandered over to the table to belt on his holster and gun. “So you already did it.”

She shook her head, confused. “But how would you teaching me how to fight benefit you in any way? You already know how to fight and all that stuff. I’m more of a liability than an asset.”

Inuyasha glanced at her as he clipped the radio to his belt. Then to her surprise he grinned and crossed his arms as he turned to face her.

“There are others back at the dojo I own. Twelve altogether, including me, and now it’s thirteen since you’re officially part of it now. Me teaching you benefits us all because it means there’s another person defending our shelter and the people who live in it. It’s another person looking for food, supplies, water, weapons, anything that would help us better survive. There are strength in numbers, Kagome, and while others think that too many people means more mouths to feed and clothe and protect, we see it as an opportunity to save more lives, kill more monsters, and make the world just the smallest bit safer. So basically, the glass is half full, not empty.”

Kagome stared at him with wide eyes, mouth parted slightly in astonishment. She liked that theory and liked even more that there were others like Inuyasha. She wouldn’t have to be alone again and it was all because of this magnificent, strong man who she’d been fortunate enough to find. Or rather, fortunate enough for him to find her.

Ridiculously feeling like crying again, Kagome gave him a trembling but genuine smile as she sniffled and dashed a hand over her eyes. At his panicked look a watery laugh bubbled up and she shook her head, managing to stave off the tears and taking a calming breath.

“Sorry,” she muttered. “I’m okay. It’s just...I’m relieved and...glad I don’t have to be alone again.” Kagome lifted her face and her next smile was truly brilliant, dark eyes glittering with her gratitude, and absurdly Inuyasha’s heart skipped a beat in his chest.

“Thank you, Inuyasha. You’ve already done so much for me in such a short amount of time, and I just...” She sighed and nodded determinedly, eye flashing with resolve. “I won’t let you down.”

Inuyasha watched her silently for a moment, golden eyes searching her face, her eyes, before a smirk spread across his face and he nodded once.

“Good. I’m counting on it.”

Ch. 4

buy me a coffee? :)

#another day in hell #ch 3 #inuyasha #kagome #inukag #zombie apocolypse au #keizfanfiction #fanfiction #ZOMBIEEESSSSSSSS

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fortunatelylori · 5 years

Text

GOT: That awkward moment when Daenerys Targareyen turned into Mount Vesuvius

Oh, rejoice all you Dany critics, all you Jonsas and all you Sansa stans! Our deliverance is here! From this day on we can finally shed the shackles of the anti-Dany tag, stop censoring the conqueror’s name and go wild in the Daenerys Targareyen tag! Dark Dany has arrived!

Praise be! Praise be!

General impressions

This was, by far, my favorite episode of the season. Miguel Sapochnik really delivered on this one. It looked stunning, the fighting was interesting and realistic in that it showed the type of carnage that is handed down when an army attacks a highly populated city and the visual effects were incredibly impressive.

This shot right here might just be one of my all time favorite GOT shots:

It was also, frankly, a relief to finally have Dark Dany out in the open. The show has skirted around the issue of Dany’s turn to the dark side since season 2. If you were shocked by what happened in this episode and think it came out of nowhere, you have no one to blame but yourself. In this corner of the fandom we have been speculating Dany would end up burning King’s Landing for years.

Also ...

That’s season freaking 2, you nincompoops!

And they really weren’t stingy on the Mad King imagery now that the Her Darkness is here. Dany starts the episode looking like this:

What is the most pressing thing on khaleesi’s mind?

Girl! If you’re so worried about Jon’s lustrous, romantically jealous, always put together cousin, do yourself a favor, put a comb through that hair, slap some foundation and blush on and get a freaking grip! You need to be bringing your A game to this fight!

Luckily, Tyrion decides to give Dany the incentive she needs in order to tend to her person hygiene ... Getting ready for an execution, of course!

Dany is wearing a piece from the Targareyen nuclear winter collection. Very avangarde.

Things don’t improve from here and, as we all know, she ends up Dacarys-ing her entire fandom:

The city surrenders, the bells ring just as Tyrion had stressed through out the episode and Dany ponders ... She’s come to Westeros expecting to be embraced and loved. Being loved and accepted is very important to Dany. Without those two things, granted unconditionally and uncritically, she feels undervalued. King’s Landing ends up paying for that lapse in adoration:

This episode, GOT decided to take a break from ripping off How to Train your Dragon and decided to rip off Pompeii (2014) instead:

Pompeii:

GOT:

Pompeii:

GOT:

Pompeii:

GOT:

So yeah, guys! Daenerys Targareyen is a cataclysmic event! Can I get a hallelujah? Cause this delulu, sexually frustrated, teenage soccer mom is having fun!

Apart from the sweet taste of vindication giving me LIFE, the reason why I enjoyed this episode so much is that it focused on the 3 characters who actually had an arc this season. Apart from Dany, those are:

Arya Stark

I think the most important line Arya has uttered this entire season was this:

Arya: I know death. It has many faces. I look forward to seeing this one.

In true GOT fashion, be careful what you wish for. Arya is confronted with the most extreme versions of death imaginable, first in the specter of the Night King and his armies. And now, in the shape of Daenerys Targareyen and her dragon raining fire on a defenseless city.

And while the White Walkers rattle Arya’s cage, they don’t manage to break through it. Her reaction to the destruction of King’s Landing is far more emotional than what she experienced during the Battle for the Dawn.

I think that’s because the White Walkers were existential threats, catalysts of violence. They were not willfully cruel, they weren’t there to punish. They had a purpose and they served that purpose until the end.

The destruction of King’s Landing, on the other hand, is a human act. Someone makes the decision to destroy this city, burn people alive, murder and rape them. Daenereys chooses to do this:

The Stallion that Mounts the World serves Arya the most extreme lesson in revenge she could have ever gotten and the results finally break through Arya’s shell.

Another top ten GOT shot:

This is so visually striking! The blood framing her eyes just jumps at you. She looks like a rag doll on the verge of being tossed against a wall. This girl who has gone through such harrowing experiences, the brilliant assassin who ended the Night King is now in danger of being squashed as if she were an ant.

It really drives home not just the immense power Dany is wielding but also that in being rendered powerless, Arya always manages to find strength in herself and her basic empathy:

I’m really curious how her arc is concluded next episode.

Jaime Lannister

I was never a Braime shipper so, while I get your dissapointment, guys, I definitely don’t share it. I absolutely love how Jaime’s arc was concluded. I do think there will be differences in the books (I still believe Jaime is the valonqar). However this:

was foreshadowed back in season 1:

Cersei: Jaime and I are more than brother and sister. We shared a womb. We came into this world together. We belong together.

Jaime’s story started with Cersei, he dedicated more than 20 years of his life to this relationship, to the detriment of everything else in his life. It feels natural to me that his arc would end with hers, as well.

I think, in a really sad way, Brienne was Jaime’s last stitch attempt at getting Cersei out of his system. That would explain his awkwardness during their sex scene. And it almost worked, because Brienne is someone Jaime cares about. However when faced with the possibility of Cersei dying, Jaime goes back to her because he can’t bare to let her go through that alone.

I mean ... if you look up the definition of tragic couple, I half expect a picture of Cersei and Jaime to pop up. And I find it supremely ironic that the couple who shocked and disgusted everyone back in season 1, now gets a tearful reunion, the male character fighting a death duel to get back to the woman he loves and the woman who hardened herself against everything finally becomes human in the arms of the only person she truly wants.

This, to me, is love ...

Yes, I’m fucked up. Let’s not dwell on that!

However, as much as I enjoyed watching these three characters make their way through this episode, there are still two things that managed to tarnish this episode for me.

Let’s start with the obvious, shall we?

Jon Snow

This used to be Jon Snow, back when he had a POV and a spine.

In this episode Jon Snow stands idly by while a man gets burned alive:

Jon’s POV continues to be blocked and, at this point, I’m tired of trying to figure out what is going on behind the curtain. I’m just not willing to do it anymore, simply because Jon’s actions this episode speak louder than any supposed intention he might have in acting the way he does.

I want you to follow this conversation very carefully:

youtube

Varys: We both know what she’s about to do.

Jon: That’s her decision to make. She is our queen.

Varys: Men decide where power resides, whether or not they know it.

Jon: What do you want?

Varys: All I’ve ever wanted. The right ruler on the Iron Throne. I still don’t know how her coin has landed but I’m quite certain about yours.

Jon: I don’t want it. I never have.

Varys: [...] You will rule wisely and well, while she ...

Jon: She is my queen.

This discussion is crucial to the ultimate question of whether or not Jon Snow bares responsibility for what happens in King’s Landing. And I would say that based on this, the answer is a resounding yes.

Varys starts plotting in episode 4, the moment he realizes that Dany is about to treat King’s Landing and all its inhabitants to some good ol’ fashion fire and blood. He tells Jon in this scene that they both know what she’s about to do. Jon doesn’t contradict him. He hankers down on the “whatever my queen wants” party line.

Whether or not Jon is political or simply a idiotic coward, the fact remains he knows enough of Dany at this point to figure out there is a strong possibility that she will sack the city and many, many innocent people will die. Varys is trying to get him to act. He’s had chances to formulate some sort of resistance against Dany since episode 1. He has chosen not to. He’s chosen not to plot against her, he’s chosen to tell her the truth about his parentage instead of using it to his advantage, he’s chosen to abandon the dragon he could have used against her and to keep those closest to him in the dark about his motivations.

He’s made his choices. If he’s done it out of love for Dany, than he’s an irresponsible and selfish fool. If he’s done it to protect the North and his family, he has done so at the expense of everyone else in Westeros. Either way, these are the consequences:

This man, and I’m very sorry to say it, is not fit to be anyone’s king. In this episode he barely manages to keep his men from killing indiscriminately and raping women. He doesn’t even take charge of protecting civilians and trying to take them to safety, the way Arya does.

Instead, Jon drags his men after him and runs from the city with his tail between his legs....

I just .....

My other point of contention with this episode doesn’t really have much to do with the episode itself but rather that the set-up for the pay-offs delivered here wasn’t done properly in past episodes. For example:

Cersei’s downfall: We all knew it was coming and it was bittersweet and moving. However they’ve given Lena Heady barely anything to do all season. She’s had a total of 4 scenes so when the end eventually comes, it feels shortsighted and incomplete.

Claganebowl: Another one that was telegraphed in advanced. The scene itself is brilliant however the set-up for it is so hamfisted. The Ds couldn’t think of another way these two could meet but for Sandor to just up and decide with no prior warning that he’s going to KL. Why now so damn particularly? In that vein, The Mountain is supposed to be a mindless zombie. How come he is now perfectly capable of disobeying orders from both Cersei and Qyburn?

Arya’s story: As I mentioned, I absolutely loved Arya in this episode. However, I can’t help but wish they had put more work in her POV and in her revenge vs. humanity dilemma to truly make Sandor’s advice and her journey through the burning city as emotionally rewarding as it could have been.

Tyrion: I get that I’m not allowed to understand what the hell is going on with Jon, but why has that extended to Tyrion all of a sudden? Tyrion starts off the episode betraying his only friend and condemning him to a fiery death and for the life of me I don’t understand why. He’s clearly terrified of Dany. Considering her state of mind when he informs her of Vary’s betrayal, she’s one step away from executing him as well. When he sets Jaime free, he seems resigned to being executed by her later on. So why not try to work with Varys to overthrow her? It certainly isn’t that he thinks she’ll make a good queen. He can’t possibly think that in this episode. Is it greed and desire for power? They haven’t done a good enough job for me to buy into that wholesale. So what is it?

Favorite scenes:

The “Are you unforgiven too?” scene:

youtube

So close, no matter how far Couldn't be much more from the heart Forever trusting who we are And nothing else matters

All the while, the Lannister theme plays in the background .... PERFECTION!

The “Love Thy Brother” scene:

youtube

I know I criticized the set-up but the scene itself is spectacular. The visuals alone are breathtaking. The fighting is brutal and absolutely horrendous. And the two of them falling into a bottomless pit of flames, feels particularly chilling and sad considering the Hound’s fear of fire.

My favorite part of the scene, though, is the cutting back and forth between Sandor and Arya. Coupled with their conversation that convinces Arya to give up her list, this creates a wonderful parallel between the two characters and a nice bookend to their twisted but, surprisingly, poignant relationship.

The “In the queen’s ashes” scene:

youtube

Maisie Williams has been a real champ this season. And this episode, in particular, was her coup d’grace. I absolutely loved her acting in this scene. On top of that, the imagery of the destruction around her, the eerie quiet after the chaos that had come before and ultimately the discovery of the charred bodies of the woman and child she had tried to rescue, with echos of the Stark theme in the background, make this a truly outstanding scene.

It becomes even more poignant when you think that this is the city that started Arya’s tragedy when her father was executed and her book wish that King’s Landing would burn to the ground. When faced with the reality of it, Arya finds empathy, not satisfaction.

In the BTS, the Ds compare Arya to Virgil taking her journey through hell and it truly feels that way. Up until she jumps on that horse and fades into the fiery landscape.

Beautiful!

Episode MVPs:

Lord “It’s been an honor, sir!” Varys

I’m going to nominate only one MVP for this episode because this man truly is in a league of his own.

He is the true hero of this episode and the fantasy show equivalent of a martyr. He is the only one ... THE ONLY ONE ... that actually tried to stop Dany from committing genocide. And as thanks for his bravery and commitment to saving innocent lives, he was betrayed by his best friend and burned alive.

#got8 spoilers #got 8x05 #got review #my got meta #got meta #jon snow #daenerys targaryen #arya stark #jaime lannister #cersei lannister #house lannister #anti-daenerys #jaime x cersei #house stark #lord varys

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thebeauregardbros · 5 years

Text

A collection of unfinished character writing drafts.

Meet my character [here].

1: Things

Alus loved his things. His antique teacups he’d carefully procured for his café, his lavish clothes he was so specific about - always cleaning them with the fanciest of alchemetical chemicals to keep them pure white. He loved his shoes, the ribbons he braided into his hair, the silk flower accessories that completed his every look - He loved hair brushes, his rare makeup products, all these things that made him feel unique and powerful to be himself.

These things were all pointless in reality - things that could rip and break at any moment, things that were not useful in the life of a war field healer. Though he had the respect of a commanding hero in the Maelstrom and a Warrior of Light, the whispers of his overgrown vanity for things so specific to his tastes flourished always - more every time he showed up wearing an even more expensive garment of fragile lace and silks. Alus was a kind and floaty person, however, that even if someone were to decide they disliked him, it would rarely ever escalate to a truly bad place - Alus was rarely ever bothered by others’ negative emotions, and always patiently tried to help them out of it in his solid belief that sadness and anger tends to come from a person’s own self instead of others. Alus rarely blamed; he did not believe in the idea of it.

Alus could explain about the subjects of his vanity.. but he knew he was ultimately foolish in their eyes, and he knew their ideas were valid about him.

2: Death

Alus often did his best to finish his enemies off nonlethally. But sometimes, people still die. A person with a preexisting medical condition, whether known or not, could get one last push to knock on death’s door. Alus lamented for ages over the deaths he caused, directly or indirectly, and regularly prayed for mercy on the souls of his fallen enemies. He knew it to not be enough, but he also knew

3: Psychology

Alus had a problem with truly ever hating anyone. In his view it was not a problem, but to his brother - and nearly everyone else at war - it was something unnecessary and foolish. He was often strong enough to hold his ideals up, but when he failed, his failures felt all the more horrible and self-inflicted. Yet he still didn’t learn to think differently - even when he witnessed his friends die in front of him, even when he was held for moons in secret in a Garlean camp and tortured endlessly, even when he faced the monstrosity of Zenos - he felt pity more than anger. He had no desire to kill anyone. That is not to say he did not when he had to, but he never felt the judgement of Nald and Thal could ever possibly be just - not when he knew that any villain could reform themselves. He truly believed, above all, that every single person was born with good in their heart. He would betray the twelve to keep this ideal in his heart. Even when the warriors of darkness told him that would bring an inevitable end to his world, Alus just... did not care.

Alus understood that the death of one could save many more. But he still reached out his hand to any he ever felt could possibly take it. The scars on his body from the various stabs, slashes, and burns of betrayal in his trust made most of the skin under his clothes feel numb. Yet he did not stop. Why?

“I took that choice. I know that even if they do not understand why I fight for them, I live and continue to fight wanting one more smile. Is that not why you fought, as well?” he said to the jailed warlord. “I understand that my stance is oft foolish. But like you, I am stubborn.”

4: Stargazing

Alus was never one to be up during the night. Historically, it seemed like he hadn’t truly stargazed in years now - not since his childhood days travelling by caravan with his father and brother, mischievously waking up in the ill hours of the night to climb up on top of their carriage and lay facing up, meditating for seeming bells, staring in wonder at the beautiful sparkling gemstones of Thanalan’s sky. In one such event the siblings slept on top of the carriage, and a frantic Gwenneg Beauregard woke up in a panic trying to find them again.

Whilst his years at school, he had a strict curfew. ‘Twas that, or

5: Childhood

In childhood - tales of heroes were treasures, valued like prized rubies or diamonds or hundreds of coins of gold, unable to be lifted by the small fragile hands of the young cat-tailed twins. A pat on the head, a warm snuggle in a shared blanket - their eyes shined in response and reflection to these sparkling metaphorical stones, listening intently for every possible tip to also one day save the world from dragons, evil encroaching empires and even simple bandits threatening the dignity of pretty maidens - in such of saying mean things, of course.

The silver-haired man looked nothing like them; his limbs were long and lanky, his ears pointed from his sides - but he was also their hero as an adoptive father, a man to give them a name. He was a man who purchased dreams and stories in exchange for walking legs, always doing his best to bring the boys a new hope for their world; their happiness and smiling faces was the sparkling stony treasure to him, far more valuable than money or personal romance. Their life was hard, but full of color and wonder, never ceasing. When times grew minimal, the silver-haired Gwenneg brought the brothers to hear heroes’ stories first-hand from the source - Alus and Arc’s beliefs in heroism never ceased, was never doubted, their love for stories only increased as time passed. They trusted the world, they adored the world, they wished to grow up strong to join the ranks of Hydaelyn’s chosen to also protect this world from ‘baddies’, making more and more good-hearted friends along the way. To Gwenneg, he had created heroes of inevitable time, he created the knowledge two rowdy twins would impart kindness onto others as he did upon them. To Gwenneg, he himself was a hero; he would be there to support them.

At least, that was a happy ending that they all wished would exist.

One small mistake. One small misunderstanding, and like a wick – a flame blown out, a story ended unlike any he had previously told them. The question as to why such an occurrence existed in a land the brothers believed to be full of wondrous heroism, unwavering victories even at the last second - it eats away at the back of their brains to this day, resurfacing within every moral injustice that occurred in front of them long after. Although the calamity of the fallen moon was ultimately a victory for Eorzea, their father - as well as many others - still perished. The world was still cracked and destroyed. Being a hero was just not enough to save everything on that day.

Alus and Arc - still but teenagers - found themselves incredibly lost. While Alus passively followed suggestions of friends of family to become a private school student, funded by the generousity of Gwenneg’s former companions - Arc seemed to disassociate entirely and try to find his own path. Alus spent the next several years with his heads in the clouds, quiet and unsocial.

6: A Letter

Dear Father

‘Tis hath been the longest journey at this time. I wish nothing more than dost progress far away from this living hell; For the chaos hath been brought upon us of our own undoing, and dost we respect an inevitable incoming judgement: One I shall never agree with, yet still ethically cannot seek much more in hopes. Hath I became a true pessimist when it was I who believed to have kindness in mine heart? Tired am I to play devil’s advocate when I hath been trying much too hard to play an angel to get into the 7th and highest heaven. I must forgive.

I am no longer a warrior of light.

7: Hero

Passion, bravery, a will of protection above all else - duty, honor. These are the things that made Alus fight so well. A pure heart, a righteous ideal. Nothing could stop him - nothing, he had felt, in that moment of clashing metal.

But as the villain fell to his knees - Alus felt a chill go up his spine. His hand suddenly felt so sore from gripping the hilt of his sword so intensely and for so long, yet he only noticed it now. His eyes widened, his sword arm went limp, and his body nearly staggered backwards - He could feel the eyes of his military superiors on his back though they may not be there. He could feel the eyes of far-off aspiring adventurers wince up in disappointment if he dropped his sword. He did not understand what to believe in that very moment, that quick - short moment of weakness where everything in his head came crashing down.

Arc had placed a hand on Alus’ arm, and swiftly landed a kick to the villain’s face - finally felling him to the ground and knocking him unconscious. Alus could feel his heart tighten in that moment. “H… he’s al..right .. right…?” Alus spoke quietly to his brother, his voice shaking and cold.

8: Inner Thoughts

I wanted to be a hero.

What kind of hero murders those just like him?

Those with dreams just as passionate, and those who didn’t even know why they were here?

Those who were innocent until proven guilty, and I have the right to make the judgment? I have the right to play god, to decide who lives and who dies?

#alus beauregard #writing #ffxiv rp #final fantasy xiv rp #most of these are several years old fyi

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