#my 2 fave bureaucrat

[holdfastperseus]

Wait you guys what if we get a Jimmy Woo and Mobius team up I—

#this is such a random pairing but idk?? it’s very interesting to me #get darcy in there too and it’ll be a comedy show #DO YOU SEE THE VISION???? #loki #mobius #jimmy woo #my 2 fave bureaucrat #wandavision

[ktwritesstuff]

The Babysitter (a Last of Us fanfic) pt. 3

Title: The Babysitter Fandom: The Last of Us Rating: Explicit Characters & Pairings: Joel Miller x Reader Word Count: ~2000 Summary: Playing house with Joel is not all it's cracked up to be. As always, lovingly beta-read by @bs-fangirl. Additional content notes below the cut

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 (below cut) | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7

Content Notes & Warnings: mentions of assault, depression, p-in-v sex, & violence.

I consider my personal brand to be "All your faves want to fuck fat chicks" but the post-apocalyptic setting makes that harder to convey. Given that the diet culture of the 90s and early 2000s fucked us all, be on the lookout for body talk and mentions of disordered eating.

Atlanta 2007

It was a miracle you were alive.  That was what the doctors said when Joel and Tommy managed to find a FEMA clinic nearly 48 hours later.  The bullet had hit Joel first, just grazing him, but slowed down enough that when it struck you the impact didn’t send you into cardiac arrest.  It entered a few inches below your right shoulder, missing the lung, the subclavian artery, and the bundle of nerves controlling your arm, and exited the top of your chest before lodging in Sarah’s stomach where it tore her apart from the inside.  Some miracle.

The clinic doctors decided to send you to Dallas by helicopter, where there was supposed to be a working trauma center.  Of course, by the time you got there everything had gone to shit.  But the fluids and antibiotics they had already pumped into you kept you stable.  You hunkered down for a few weeks until Joel and Tommy decided it was safe to move you.  

From there you headed east, eventually making your way to a refugee camp in Atlanta.  It was a fucking mess–most folks had fled their homes without gathering important documents, but the bureaucrats were still insisting on trying to verify peoples’ identities.  The people outside were begging and bribing for someone to vouch for them.   

With Tommy being military, the government knew everything down to what underwear he had on; Joel managed to hang on to his wallet so thankfully he still had photo ID.

“This is my daughter,” he said, pushing you in front of him at the gate.  “Sarah.”

The powers that be immediately pressed Tommy into service helping to control the crowds and guard supplies, leaving you and Joel to get settled into one of the canvas tents on site.  It wasn’t much, but you had a cot, a toothbrush, and a bar of soap, which was quite a bit more than you had arrived with.

“Why’d you tell them I was your daughter?” you asked.   

“Because I’m pretty sure it’s still frowned upon for grown men to be traveling with a random teenage girl,” Joel replied gruffly.  “It’s just temporary.”

But after four years this temporary stopover looked more and more like home and you felt more like a mother than daughter: washing, mending, cooking when there was food which there usually wasn’t.  You had lost more weight than was probably safe, but you weren’t quite as rail-thin and sallow as most of the other evacuees haunting the camp.  

Still, you regretted all the time you had spent starving yourself when there was plenty of food around, desperate to shrink down to nothing.  Your body had kept you alive in impossible circumstances and you had promised yourself you would do what you had to to take care of it. 

With Joel, it was a different story.  About a month into your stay at the camp, a man whistled at you in the breadline for weekly rations of beans and government cheese.  It was so strange and unexpected that you didn’t even realize it had happened until Joel had jumped the guy.

“Stop it!”” you screamed, helping two other guys pull him off.  “You’ll kill him!  Daddy!”

Even after one of the guards slammed his rifle into the back of Joel’s neck, he still wasn’t satisfied.

“I’ll kill you, you son of a bitch!  She’s mine!  I’ll fucking kill you!”    

The guards probably would have hanged them both if not for Tommy running interference, but that didn’t keep Joel from picking fights wherever he could.  He had a death wish and that made him dangerous. 

Losing Sarah had broken something inside of him, how could it not.  Keeping you and Tommy safe had kept him grounded for a while, but now that things were (relatively) stable, he had no reason to keep going.  You sympathized, of course, with the unfathomable grief of losing a child.  That didn’t mean you were content to stand by while he self-destructed.  

It was past noon and Joel was asleep, passed out, you realized as your toe connected with the bottle that had rolled under his cot.  

“Get up,” you said, pushing on his back.  “Laundry day.  Get up.”

Joel grunted, balling up under the blanket.

“Well that’s just great,” you said.  “You want to drink a week’s worth of rations in one afternoon, fine.  But if you think I’m gonna let you get a staph infection from sleeping in the same filthy clothes for weeks, you’ve got another thing coming.”

You grabbed the corner of the blanket and pulled with all your might.  Joel fought you, growling and thrashing, but ultimately you managed to wrestle it away.  Joel harumphed and turned over in bed.  You threw the blanket into the laundry basket and stormed out of the tent.

Tommy was on rounds and you passed him on your way to the little stream that ran through the east side of camp.

“You need to talk to him,” you said.  “Cause I am at the end of my rope.”  

Joel had been shutting down for weeks and things seemed to be getting worse and worse.  You knew he wished you had died instead of Sarah.  As if it wasn’t bad enough that you'd always be left to wonder if you hadn’t turned around when you did, would that bullet have passed through Sarah and killed you.  You would have taken her place if you could.  This wasn’t the life any of you would have wished for, but this was the life you had.

“Cut him some slack,” Tommy said.  “Birthdays and anniversaries are always rough.”  

“I’m sorry,” you said, as Tommy walked with you toward the edge of camp.  “I’m sorry.  I can’t imagine how hard this has been for you–I know how much you loved Sarah and we can’t even talk about her.”

Tommy shrugged.  “You compartmentalize.  Deal with it when it’s safe.”

“So never?” 

“That’s the job,” Tommy said.  

You shook your head.  “The job sucks.  And we still need to figure out what we’re going to eat this week.  I already traded my last tampon for the month.”

“Don’t tell me that,” Tommy chuckled.  “I don’t need to know that.”

“Yeah, well, I figured your back was getting tired from carrying us,” you teased.

Tommy waved you off, jogging back to his post before his C.O. noticed he was gone.  

You sat down by the river, sprinkling your weekly allotment of laundry powder onto the stones.  Having to do all the scrubbing manually certainly gave you time to think.  When weekly assignments came around, you usually asked to be on the cleaning crew–it wasn’t a desirable chore, but you liked knowing that the communal showers and horrible pit latrines you had to use were as sanitary as possible.  Besides, as long as you weren’t greedy you could get away with pocketing extra hand sanitizer and disinfectant–that shit was better than gold around camp.  

But FEDRA was trying to get a factory up and running about a mile outside camp, hard work, double shifts, and shit pay.  But there were fringe benefits for those willing to take the risk.  This dude called Axel had a pot farm on the other side of the fence.  He was always looking for people dumb enough or desperate enough to move his product–they were always getting caught at the gate.        

So you wrung out and hung the laundry and marched down to the big house to sign up for the next truckload of workers leaving camp.

You worked the graveyard shift, and made it back through the gate the next afternoon with half a kilo of weed in the hidden pocket you had sewed into the lining of your jacket.  As you suspected, the guards were more interested in groping your breasts and between your legs during their pat-down.  You headed back to your tent with the most money you had ever held in your hands–before the outbreak or after.  

Your euphoria at your success was only somewhat diminished by the realization that Joel and Tommy had spent the morning tearing the camp apart looking for you.

“Where the hell have you been?” Joel said.  He looked frantic, disheveled, cold sweat, the works. 

“Working,” you said, digging the wad of ration cards out of your bra and handing it over to Tommy.  “Maybe you can find us some real food now.”

“Jesus, kid,” Tommy said, flipping through the cards.  “Where’d you get this?”

“Why? They’re good, aren’t they?”

You toed off your shoes and pulled off your sweatshirt as you came into the tent.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Joel followed after you, wiping a hand across his forehead.  “We’ve been worried sick–thinking you were dead in a ditch somewhere, or worse–and that’s all you have to say for yourself?”  

“Can we have this conversation later,” you groaned, shimmying out of your bluejeans and collapsing on your cot.  “I’m exhausted.”  

When you finally woke, Joel was sitting on the folding chair beside your cot.

“So what are you a whore now?” 

“Jesus Christ, Joel,” you groaned, sitting up, pulling the thin blankets up around you.  “Does it fucking matter?”

You had considered sex work, but the truth was there wasn’t much of a market for it.  Assault was more common than toilet paper in the camp–there was hardly a woman who hadn’t been groped (or worse) or a man that hadn’t been mugged for that matter.  You figured the only reason you had been spared so far was that Tommy and Joel were so fucking scary.  

“Yeah, it fucking matters, Sweetpea,” he growled.  You had never seen him angry before, not like this.  You would have been terrified if you weren’t so goddamn tired.  

“I am responsible for you.”

“Oh, spare me the sanctimonious bullshit,” you said.  “I’m not a child.  I am grown.  I’m certainly not your daughter.”  

“You think I don’t know that!”  Joel grabbed you by the chin.  You met his gaze; for a moment, you weren’t sure if he wanted to hurt you or something else.

“Prove it,” you said, the corner of your mouth lifting into a sneer.  “I fucking dare you.”

In the space of a breath, Joel had crushed his mouth against yours.  You moaned against his lips, leaning back in bed, but Joel held the back of your neck, keeping you close.  You put your hands on his face, running your fingers into his hair.

Joel climbed on top of you in bed, the thin mattress sagging under your combined weights.  He sat up long enough to unbuckle his belt and paused.  

“Say yes,” he instructed, leaning down, planting his lips in the space where your jaw met your neck.  

You sighed, gripping his shoulder, turning your face to expose your neck to him.  

“You have to say yes.”

“Yes,” you breathed, pulling your ratty t-shirt off over your head and dropping it on the floor.  

Joel pulled down his jeans and ran his hands down your back, looping them into your panties, pulling them down.  You kicked them off to hook your ankles behind Joel’s thighs as he kissed your throat.  

He pressed into you all at once; you were so exhilarated you hardly felt anything.  Then pressure and a sharp tug behind your pelvic bone as he withdrew and pushed deeper. You gripped his arms and squeezed your knees into his sides. 

“Good?” he asked, kissing and sucking a trail down your chest, grazing the mounds of your breasts with his teeth.  

You took a few deep breaths and relaxed your face which had tightened into a grimace.  

“It’s a lot,” you said, running your hands down his back.  

“I know,” Joel breathed.  “I know, Sweetpea.  I got you.”

Joel moved one hand between your legs, to the bundle of nerves at the peak of the wishbone where your bodies met, massaging in circles with his rough fingers.  You felt something coiling inside you, hot and tight.  You arched into him.

“That’s better?”  

“Mmhm.”  You nodded, relaxing your thighs.  “That’s nice.”  

Joel moved against you, hips flicking up into the bowl of your pelvis as he massaged you.  He cupped one breast with his spare hand, pressing his mouth over the other, tongue circling the sensitive nipple. 

“That’s nice.”

He bucked into you harder; you bit your lip to stifle a cry.  You could feel the knot in your belly spreading, unfolding.  Your body stiffened and relaxed and with a low moan, Joel dropped his weight onto you, tired and spent.

You felt your heart rate slow and your breath grew deeper.  Joel rested his head on your chest and you ran your fingers through his hair.  You noticed it was damp and smelled faintly of mint.

“Did you shower?”

Joel nodded, his beard rubbing against your skin.  You smiled.

“You do listen to me.”

“Mmhm.”  You ran your hands over Joel’s shoulder girdle; felt the tight knots of muscle relax under your touch.  

Joel’s lips found the ragged scar under your collarbone where the bullet had left your body.  He kissed the scar gently, running his fingertips over it.  For an instant you felt like he was worshiping you, in awe of you.  And you marveled at your own sweet self for being able to give such pleasure.  

“Don’t ever scare me like that again,” Joel said.  You pressed your eyes closed.

“I may not have a choice,” you sighed.  “Axel wants me to do another run at the end of the week–I don’t think he’ll take no for an answer.”

“I’ll take care of it,” he said. 

After a moment, Joel rose from the bed, pulling on his pants as you pulled the blankets up over you. 

“What are you going to do?” you said.

“I said I’d take care of it,” he repeated.

“Joel,” you warned.  “You can’t narc on him…you can’t kill him.  Don’t kill him, Joel.  Please.”

“Don’t worry,” he said, leaning over to kiss your cheek.  “Eat something.  Tommy brought you peanut butter.”

You had half a mind to try and stop him from leaving, but who could resist peanut butter.

Baby's First Taglist: @stilllivindue2spite, @amethystwonders11 & @teacupcollector

#joel miller x reader #the last of us fanfiction #the last of us #the last of us hbo #joel miller #pedro pascal #tlou fanfiction #tlou #tlou hbo

[laylainalaska]

Originally posted on DW a few days ago.

I read Greg van Eekhout's California Bones this past weekend, the first book in his Daniel Blackland trilogy, and you may be observing fic from me in the very near (now) future, so I’m cross-posting the DW posts in which I talked about it this past week.

It's very good - wildly creative urban fantasy/alternate history in which "osteomancers" consume the bones of extinct animals to absorb their powers, whether it's a real-world ability (swimming and breathing underwater from an aquatic creature, strength of a mammoth, etc) or a magical one: dragon bones for flight and fire, the bones of an invisible mystic serpent to avoid pursuers, etc.

The La Brea Tar Pits are consequently the magical equivalent of a major oil strike, leading to a vastly altered world in which Southern and Northern California are independent countries, LA is a canal city a la Venice, and also a horrifying dystopia in which magicians eat other magicians to consume their magic, and the city in general is a dystopian police state.

The book is a heist novel, with the protagonist and his friends trying to pull off an impossible break-in of the vaults of the city's absolute dictator, the superhumanly powerful Hierarch.

Of course, in my classic way - h/t to rionaleonhart on DW for describing this phenomenon perfectly - I immediately found the worst person in the canon and made a beeline for them. This is not, fortunately, the Hierarch, who is a straight-up villain, but rather, the Javert-like character who is hunting the heist gang, and his partner, a human hound who can smell magic.

I still wasn't that far gone and in fact was kind of uncertain whether I wanted to go ahead and read the next books in the series, because they are pretty dark, so I checked out the fic on AO3 and found that:

a) All of it features my problematic faves, so clearly I'm not the only one who latched onto them. (And in fairness, I can see why; I'll talk more about it under the spoiler cut, but they're definite fandom catnip.)

b) It's all extremely good!

I was expecting the usual small-fandom experience where there's 1 fic in Portuguese, 2 Harry Potter crossovers, and 1 drabble that's part of someone's 200-fandom drabble collection ... but no! There are only four fics, but they're all excellent, they hit my buttons delightfully, and while they did spoil me for some later developments in the series, they also took me from lukewarm about whether to read onward, to slamming the hold button on the books at the library and then, um, rereading about 12 times every scene in this book in which these characters appear and thinking about nothing else for the last couple of days.

It's actually kind of an interesting phenomenon because the characters didn't mash down my id buttons on this level until after reading the fic. The book has a very emotionally restrained, kind of bleak style, and I think it took the extra emotionality of the fic to push me over the edge. But once I went, I went hard.

Under the readmore gets pretty spoilery, especially for the first half of the book, but LOOK, I have to talk about them or I will EXPLODE.

So Gabriel Argent is a mid-level bureaucrat in the Evil Dystopian Ministry of Whatever. He is careful, conscientious, an enormous nerd (he does math in his head to calm himself down), very annoyed by incompetence and slacking, and tries to do his job to the best of his ability and very carefully not think any more than he has to about the ethics of everything he's doing.

He occupies a weird, slippery place in the Lawful Good to Lawful Evil spectrum. I would call him Lawful Neutral, except that increasingly, as the book goes along and Gabriel keeps running headlong into all the various ways that his orders and his moral compass conflict, and gets increasingly pissed off about the dystopia he lives in, he doesn't decide to stop following the rules, he instead decides to Change The Rules so that he can keep following better rules, even if it means murdering his way up the hierarchy to reach a high enough level that he can change the government so that it serves the people instead of the other way around.

So that's Gabriel. He's hunting the heist team protagonists, and in order to do this, Gabriel needs the services of Max, who is a magic-sniffing hound.

Since they're living in a horrifying dystopia, hounds are human beings who are taken from their families as children, brutally trained until there's little left of their original personalities (in theory), and kept naked in cages except when they're taken out on collars and leashes to hunt down magic users. They have no rights and are for all intents and purposes considered animals and treated as such. Max is scheduled to be executed ("put down") in two days because he killed his last handler, but as he's older than most of the hounds, he's the only available one who is trained to trace the unusual and rare form of magic that the hero uses.

Max is smart, sarcastic, bleakly cynical, and very clearly not an animal, and as soon as Gabriel realizes this, he also realizes that the way to deal with Max and not go the way of his last handler is by treating him like a person.

Gabriel stepped up close to him. He reached for [Max's] neck. "I'm not going to hurt you," he said, unnecessarily perhaps. Max made no movement. Gabriel unbuckled his collar. "Shall we continue?" Max's throat moved as he swallowed. "They'll make you put the collar back on when you return me to the kennels." Then he turned and resumed sniffing.

(It's worth pointing out that Max is not actually doglike in any way except a heightened sense of smell. He's a human being whose legal status is "dog.")

Understandably, he's an enormous psychological mess.

Gabriel descended the stairs with Max trailing him. Max moved tentatively. "You're used to leading, not following," Gabriel said. Max looked at him. "You can walk ahead if you want." "I don't know where I'm going," Max said. "If you're not going to keep me on a leash, you could at least tell me where we're going." "Fair enough. But can you tell me one thing?" "I can tell you if I know it. I don't know much. I'm a hound." "Why did you kill your last handler?" Max's answer came without a moment of hesitation. "I wanted to die." Gabriel found himself frozen, halfway down the stone steps. In the dim light, Max's eyes were the brightest things in the stairway. "Why, Max?" "I thought I already said, Inspector Argent. I'm a hound." "Do you still want to die?" "Not before I've had a chance to pee," Max said. Gabriel nodded. "Then you have something to live for. Come on."

Gabriel files paperwork indicating that he needs Max for the current case and Max isn't going back to the kennels and his scheduled death until Gabriel is done with him, however long that takes. He also gives Max normal clothes (a spare set of his own, technically) and ordinary food (hounds in the kennels are fed a "nutritionally balanced slurry") and basically, well, treats him exactly as a partner instead of a dog. Max continues to be a sarcastic nihilist with a death wish.

"Is my time up?" Max asked. "Are they coming for me?" He still didn't seem to care much whether he lived or died. "They better not be. I filed all the right paperwork. You just stay here and keep working on our problem while I see what's going on. And if anyone asks, we are doing *anything* except contemplating the death of our leader." "What leader?" Max said. "Good ..." Gabriel checked himself. He'd almost said "Good dog." "Good," he said again, shutting the office door behind him.

Things go on like this until Gabriel gets himself on the bad side of the regime (basically by scrupulously following protocol and not taking into account that he's working for a horrifyingly corrupt dictatorship) and they end up on the run, being hunted by the authorities. When it becomes clear that the police are killing and terrorizing everyone Gabriel's ever known to get him to give himself up, Gabriel tries to do the noble thing for once, but Max is having none of it.

"What are you doing?" Max snarled. He sensed Gabriel's intentions before Gabriel could even act on them. "I'm going to turn myself in." "They'll kill you." "Not right away." He took a step down the sidewalk. Max gripped his shoulder and spun him around. "You don't have to come with me," Gabriel said, calm, despite the painful pressure of Max's fingers. "While they're busy arresting me, you can hide." Max tightened his grip. "I have no friends. No money. No place to go. Without you, I'll be tracked down and killed. With you, I have a chance. A very small, very sad chance. I need you."

SO YEAH. I mean, I'm not going to spoil the entire thing (this takes us about halfway through the book) but they are absolute id catnip for me, especially as Gabriel increasingly develops a very weird, nerdy, rules-obsessed version of a conscience and starts to act on it, and from the spoilers I've gotten from fic, there is a ton of excellent loyalty kink ahead for them as well, in the books I haven't read yet. Not that I'm checking several times a day to see if my holds have come in yet or anything.

#daniel blackland series #greg van eekhout #gabriel argent #max the hound

[trillscienceofficer]

☕️ + unused dax plotlines we were robbed of

send me ☕️ + [topic] and i’ll tell you my opinion on it!

First of all, you're the real MVP for sending me two asks for this meme, love you Beej 💜

Second, oof this question. I could go in so many directions here. Due to the fact that the writers only figured out who Jadzia actually was (and what being a Trill entailed) during the course of the show AND the fact that so much of Ezri's screentime was devoted to answering the question 'will she end up with Worf or Julian?' (sigh) I feel like there's a lot of possibilities when it comes to lost plotlines that I'd have liked to see.

Here's a few of them, just at the top of my head:

1) An away mission with Kira other than the one in "The Siege". It's just something that's missing. If you ask me the whole show needs approximately 500% more interaction between women, but an episode focused just on Kira and Jadzia would have helped pushing in the right direction. And I'd have loved also one focused on Kira and Ezri—you know what, maybe if we saw them having to work together it would be a lot clearer how Kira got over her initial reaction to Ezri.

2) I feel like Jadzia and Ezri don't get to have a lot of emotional continuity from episode to episode. Other characters in general are allowed to express some kind of reaction to past episodes, and sometimes so does Dax but not nearly as often. (Don't get me wrong, I know DS9 was still experimenting with serialization, but when it's your fave character that experiences the jankiness...) One thing I feel particularly robbed of is the aftermath of "Children of Time" for Jadzia; while the episode does have consequences on Kira and Odo's relationship it has apparently no effect on Jadzia which makes no sense. It would have been interesting to see her struggling a little after that, especially when it came to taking initiative. We know there is a side of Jadzia that is prone to insecurity, and "Children of Time" should have brought back a lot of her issues, I think, and especially since the show gets into the Dominion War arc right after I feel like an episode dedicated to that kind of struggle could've fit in perfectly.

3) One thing that everyone notices is that Jadzia doesn't seem to have a close relationship with her family on Trill, and we never meet them. While I don't necessarily think that makes her a less developed character it's something noticeable about her. I hate to mention "Divided We Fall" (because these comics are so horrible) but there is an interesting plot point in it: Jadzia is sent on Trill for a while by Starfleet, likely during the arc of the Dominion occupation of DS9, in order to update the planet's defense grid. I always found it a very very interesting setup because we know she doesn't like to go back, but of course I don't think she'd refuse such a task. It would've been great to see her having to deal with her homeworld up close, especially so late in the show's timeline where we already know a lot of what she's gone through because of her joining. It doesn't need to be another Joran-conspiracy-related plot (I'm getting real tired of those) or an anti-reassociation-stigma plot (honestly I just don't think that's very realistic), just... a smaller plotline? maybe even just a B plot? About Jadzia, her family and her home planet with the war looming closer. That's it.

4) Just let us see how Jadzia and Leeta became friends goddammit

5) I would've liked a plot that dug deeper in Ezri's apparent disregard for most Trill traditions (most notably, the stigma around reassociation). I don't have anything specific in mind but having her to deal more with the, uh, let's say bureaucratic (?) consequences of her strange joining would be a start. I'm repeating myself here but we know so little about how either Jadzia or Ezri feel about their homeworld which is weird because everyone else gets to have big feelings and struggles re: the Federation, Bajor, Ferenginar, the Founders etc etc. But not Trill! Please I just want them to have the same opportunities for feelings as the other characters.

I'm sure that when I hit post I'm going to come up with another ten ideas at least but this is a start, I think.

#askbox #ask meme #dax tag #jadzia dax #ezri dax

[laughingpinecone]

for the blorbo ask thing..disco, obviously ;)

blorbo (favorite character, character I think about the most) once again the P in laughing p. ineapple stands for "predictable" so... Kim. Intensely Kim.

scrunkly (my “baby”, character that gives me cuteness aggression, character that is So Shaped) They're all so shaped that's part of the charm! But Harry is both the most Shaped and the one who legit looks scrunkly in here. Runner-up in the Shaped department (and also scrunkly in her own very different way past a stellar Composure), Soona whose face is just draw a vertical oval, now draw a horizontal one, okay you're good

scrimblo bimblo (underrated/underappreciated fave) I'm glad there's at least some love for everyone in Martinaise but if I had to pick one, Ruby! Local entroponetic genius and overall torque dork tries to get out of organized crime, ilh. I hope she becomes the next great insulindian cryptid.

glup shitto (obscure fave, character that can appear in the background for 0.2 seconds and I won’t shut up about it for a week) OUR GOOD FRIEND THE INSULINDIAN PHASMID, not that she's particularly obscure but her part is tiny. Roy maybe? Feels like the most inconsequential out of my big faves. Steban and Uli definitely have the highest ratio of "personal faves" to "most people haven't even met them"!

poor little meow meow (“problematic”/unpopular/controversial/otherwise pathetic fave) oh Evrart I think. Well, both Claires really. WHAT a bundle. What long game are they playing, tell me evvvvvvverythingggggg... If there's one character I hope is a second sneaky book cameo I hope it's these guys (imagine my face when the first sneaky book cameo turned out to be Madre. Of all people!)

horse plinko (character I would torment for fun, for whatever reason) Hm. Joyce.

eeby deeby (character I would send to superhell) The usual crowd - racist #1, racist #2, racist #3 (lootable), and EU bureaucrat who has somehow managed not to disappear up his own ass.

#disco elysium #de #meme. #mindblownie

[kidmetsu-no-yaiba]

What They Do When You’re Having A ‘Split’ And Become Angry  

This includes: Tsukishima, Kuroo, Bokuto, Kita, Suga, Ennoshita, Ushijima

This is just how I perceive them as what they would do for a best friend/romantic partner that experiences BPD anger in a similar way as I do. Also I'm off my stabilizers haha..ha.

Also none of these are meant to be mean about the characters I literally chose my faves for this.

Uh TW for bpd I guess?

Gender Neutral reader bay bee

Tsukishima (Not the trigger):

Doesn’t even recognize it at first, thinks its just a normal bad day from work

After, like, 30 minutes of you just sitting there and glaring at your phone without talking or even changing your expression he starts to get a clue.

Goes about his normal chores that upset you, but he plays your “Calming” playlist out loud on his phone just loud enough for you to hear

If he’s exhausted every chore and you still haven’t talked, he purposefully looks for funny or interesting news articles about stuff you like and reads the headlines out to you to get you to look at him or talk

Once you start at least looking at him, hopefully talking too, begins trying to coax out what triggered you

Ignores if you make any outright mean or just passive aggressive comments towards him instead of answering but will get aggressive in return

If he manages to get What Happened out of you he immediately calls you an idiot. Regardless of what it is. Is a mean comforter.

“Getting mad over your best friend talking on the phone too long while you’re hanging out isn’t an excuse to be mean”

“You’re stupid if you think it’s your fault that your friends aren’t paying attention to you, not everything is about you.”

It hurts but, it works even if sometimes it feels like he’s going a Bit Too Far

Will watch comforting videos or shows with you if it calms you down but that's about it. Very big on “You’re an adult and I’m not your psychiatrist, figure it out yourself.”

Kuroo (Is the trigger):

Instantly recognizes the Shut Down while teasing you, when you stop responding, your face is blank except for your down turned eyes.

‘Oh I’ve Fucked Up™’ is his immediate thought

“Y/N you know I didn’t mean that right? We were just playing, I’m sorry!” “Don’t you have a proposal to finish.”

Immediate shoulder drop. Is also upset now but decides to wait a little bit before trying to calm you.

After 30min or so of you hiding under your blanket he decides it’s time to try and pull you out of your head.

Cooks your most aromatic favorite food so the smell wafts into your room

Blasts your comfort playlist on a speaker and loudly sings along to it

When you still don’t come out when the food is done, sits outside the door saying “oh FUCK this shit is BUSSIN’” comically loud, overexaggerates your favorite things about it outloud.

When you eventually give in, just to get some food, he corners you with his body

“What about what I said upset you?” As a genuine question, not a mean one

After you explain, he lets you eat and offers a sincere apology when you finish

Offers to draw a bath with your favorite scent if it’ll help you. It does.

Bokuto (Is the trigger):

You came home and Bokuto had the tv up high while watching tiktoks and listening to music. After a moment the tea kettle went off. Before turning it off he realized you had walked in and bounded over to you. There were Too Many Noises.

He tried to talk over the noise but realized your eyes were boring into his and you had The Look

Also a ‘Oh I’ve Fucked Up™’

Rushes to take the kettle off the heat and turn off his phone before checking on you only to see you’ve already gone in and shut the bedroom door. You didn’t even take your shoes off..

Big pouty, sulky fool. Mopes around for a bit after turning off all the noise in the house.

Eventually looks for other things that upset you and finds that the house is, kind of a mess actually. Decides to clean as quietly as possible.

Does all of your least favorite chores first incase you re-emerge from the bedroom too soon

When everything seems to be done he opens your door and finds you tucked into bed and scrolling on your phone, very quiet music playing from it.

It was only 5pm but he took off his street clothes and climbed into bed as well. 

Absolutely gets up behind you and grabs you around your waist and snuggles in without saying anything even though he wants to

When you finally feel comfortable you look over your shoulder to see Bokutos already fallen asleep. Idiot. 

You order takeout for when he wakes up because, even though he tried his hardest to be quiet, you could hear him washing the dishes and didn’t want to ruin the work he did for you

Kita (Not the trigger):

Very straightforward the second he realizes you are Not Good

"Y/N if you tell me what's wrong it'll end quicker" 

When you don't even look at him he still continues talking "We both know you hate when you're like this. It'll make you feel better if you just talk to me even if you don't want to."

Is fairly stern when talking to you at the beginning. Not mean but just very much like 'this is going to get done whether or not you cooperate.'

If you don't cooperate then he begins to ignore you until you snap and eventually scream and air out everything that's wrong and what triggered you. 

Goes through everything you said with you and gives you an objective perspective although it basically boils down to "I know you can't help it but your ego is hurting you. Not Everything Is About You."

Once your conversation on that is over he asks if you want him to watch tiktok or listen to music or something with you

 Suga (Is the trigger):

He hadn’t meant to ignore you all day. He’d woken up before you and been so busy at work all day he didn’t get a chance to text. It was the club he advised’s meeting day and it was dragging on longer than usual, he hadn’t texted anyone all day to be fair

When he finally comes home he’s confused as to why you’re tucked in on the couch

“Hey Y/N you tired? Sorry I didn’t get a chance to talk today there was a lot of bureaucratic shit going on and then the club president decided we were all going to stay until the end of the activity. Kids am I right?” He laughs and smiles towards you but you continue to ignore him

After some physical encouragement, poking and whatnot, it dawned on him that you are Probably Going Through It

Jesus Christ

Immediately decides he is not having it and moves your legs off the couch so he can sit next you

“Y/N I looovvveeee youuuuu~~~” He says as he pulls you to him by the shoulders “I love you I love you I love youuu” 

Just babbles honestly, goes on and on about how he didn’t mean to ignore you and how he was honestly busy but he’s here now

And like yeah, he is here now so eventually you level out and let yourself be coddled for a bit longer

Makes pinky promises that he promises to text you when he’s busy or going to be running late

Also runs you a nice bath just in case

Ennoshita (Not the trigger):

Knows what's going on because he’s been watching you stare at the tv for about 20 minutes but, the tv is off. 

Is objective with his words like Kita but with more emotional appeal

“Y/N I know you’re in the middle of something but when you’re ready, I’ll be ready to listen to you,”

If, after a while, you don’t make any effort to talk to him he tries to point you in a better direction than staring at walls and moping around

“You don’t have to talk to me but I found a tiktok I think you’d enjoy” or “You know you haven’t tried that new nail polish you bought a bit ago” 

Is okay with just letting you figure it out on your own so you can apply the stuff you’ve worked on with your psychiatrist but will feel a little guilty if he doesn’t say anything at all

Will do anything that you need to get done but aren’t because of your episode like dishes or tidying your room

Ushijima (Not the trigger):

First of all, calls your episodes “tantrums”

Literally has no clue when you’re in an episode unless you tell him, he is not very bright

If you do tell him that you’re having issues he defaults to trying to use physical affection against whatever it is that you’re feeling

May or may not make you angrier by doing that

Although he wasn’t the original trigger, him being so dense might override it tbh

Like you love him but oh my god oh my god oh my god how have you survived this long 

Eventually decides “I do not know how to deal with this” and just leaves. He goes to the store and gets the shopping done for the next 2 weeks and gets some cool looking snacks. 

Thinks ‘well I’m already out, I might as well get the car washed’ after, turns into ‘Oh Y/N needed to get their new prescription too..’ ‘I think I remember a discussion about their package getting stuck at the post office..’

Literally accidentally does every single errand that needed to be done for the next month because he didn’t want to go home and upset you more

When he finally comes back home with 50lbs worth of shit from errands you’re like ????? because how did he know that you were stressed about all the house stuff that needed to be done????? 

It’s not an instant mood changer but you definitely go from seemingly uncontrollable rage to ‘Okay I was being a bit much’ but as you watch him prep veggies before storing them away the way you usually do it, you level out

He is unaware you’ve levelled out so he tries to remember the coping skills you said you talked about with your psychiatrist and you are deeply confused when he asks you to open your palm and places an ice cube in it

When you realize what’s going on you laugh and tell him you’re okay and apologize for how you were being earlier and explain what triggered you

He gives you the cool looking snacks

#Haikyuu #tsukishima #kuroo #bokuto #suga #sugawara #kita #Kita Shinsuke #Ennoshita #Ushijima #tsukishima kei #kuroo tetsur�� #Bokuto kotarou #sugawara koushi #ennoshita chikara #Ushijima Wakatoshi #Ushiwaka #haikyu imagines #imagines #this is my first time writing anything for anything and im dead inside

[historicity-was-already-taken]

Guest Post: On Japanese Internment Camps

Since I am currently very 

I’d like to post a piece of writing from one of this blog’s fave guests (and humans in general), Dr. Stephanie Hinnershitz; please note that this was originally posted to her personal facebook page, and is shared here with her permission: There's a reason why historians are moving away from using "internment" when discussing the forced removal of close to 120,000 Japanese Americans during WWII. I also realize that I recently used "internment" in an article I wrote. This was a stylistic choice on behalf of the editors and I should have pushed back more, but it made sense for context and readership. Incarceration is the appropriate term. Here's why: I received a few private messages and emails from friends and strangers asking if I knew that German Americans and Italian Americans were also interned during WWII. Yes. I am aware of this. Many times, people bring this up in a "gotcha!" way to try and prove the point that the incarceration of Japanese Americans was not racially-motivated or had no racial angle to it at all because if it did, why did close to 15,000 "white" people end up interned? In a more charitable way, people bring up the internment of German and Italian Americans because they did not know about it until well into their adult years and assume that I might not know about it. But let's return to the internment issue. I study the removal and incarceration of those--foreign and American-born--of Japanese descent. The internment of "enemy aliens" is not my area of specialty. Under American policy, internment during WWII was a specific term for the detention of immigrants who were nationals of enemy nations (Italy and Germany, for example). Now, there were certainly Japanese enemy aliens, but the majority of them were held with other German and Italian enemy aliens in detention centers overseen by the Department of Justice. Internment fell under the DOJ.

The word "internment" doesn't apply to Japanese Americans who were removed from their homes by the Army and then transferred first to "assembly" (detention) centers and later to the "relocation centers" or "camps" (or concentration camps--yes, this phrase was used by many officials in memos and correspondence--prisons, prison camps, etc.). The reason why internment is not the correct term is because the majority of those Japanese Americans who wound up in one of ten prison camps were American citizens, not "aliens." They were not "enemy aliens" because a) they were from America and America was not at war with America and b) they were citizens. Even the planners of incarceration and a lot of the military officials I researched were careful to avoid the term "internment" when discussing the removal and imprisonment of Japanese Americans after Executive Order 9066 because it was basically incorrect. (Side note: Many government and military officials knew that incarcerating American citizens was constitutionally a bad idea and tried to persuade FDR to avoid including Japanese American citizens in enemy alien roundups.)

Because internment was not really applicable to the majority of ethnically Japanese American citizens, the government created a new agency--the War Relocation Authority (WRA)--to oversee the ten prison camps. The Army was supposed to be free of any responsibility once Japanese Americans were transferred to the camps, but--if you read my article--this didn't work out. The WRA a bureaucratic nightmare, a massive waste of taxpayer money, and just a poorly-managed civilian agency tasked with running an unconstitutional program.

Internment of Germans and Italians WAS NOT the same as incarceration of Japanese Americans. Two different programs overseen by different agencies. So, really, there are responsible and interesting ways to place incarceration and internment in conversation, but you can't really responsibly do it if you're trying to say that there were not racial elements to Japanese American incarceration.

BUT--if you want to try and make that argument, here are some other reasons why you're wrong:

1) When you make a decision or policy based on the belief that an entire group of people behave a certain way because of racial characteristics, that's racism. And that's exactly what happened with Japanese American incarceration.

2) Did General John DeWitt (in charge of the military zones along the West Coast where most Japanese Americans lived) believe that ALL enemy aliens should be removed from vulnerable areas regardless of race? Yes. BUT this starts to break down once we get into citizenship...

3) German and Italian Americans (whether foreign or American-born) made up a HUGE portion of the American population, particularly on the East Coast. Initially, government officials thought that even American-born citizens of German and Italian descent should also be removed and incarcerated like Japanese American citizens, BUT Italians and German Americans should be given an opportunity to explain themselves--due process--before a committee. Japanese Americans did not receive this consideration at any point AND the idea of removing and incarcerating German American and Italian American citizens was eventually dropped. Officials argued that it would be impossible to do this because there were so many Italian Americans and German Americans. Also, because many of Italian and German descent were American citizens, they were obviously loyal to the U.S. and we shouldn't really be concerned

....

Wait--what?

I hope after reading that you were able to stop and think, "But I thought you just said the majority of Japanese Americans who ended up in the prison camps were American citizens?"

Yes! I did say that! Please continue reading.

4) Officials determined that Japanese American citizens were less trustworthy than Germans and Italian American citizens because even if ethnically Japanese individuals were born in the United States (and many of those incarcerated were members of the second generation--never been to Japan, went to public schools, had plenty of American-born friends), their parents (immigrants from Japan) were unable to naturalize or become American citizens...BECAUSE RACIST LAWS SAID ASIAN IMMIGRANTS WERE UNABLE TO NATURALIZE. See what's going on here?

5) Okay, so the next "whatboutisms" that usually pop up include planned attacks by Japan coordinated with Japanese Americans in the U.S. and the dual-citizenship of those born in America to Japanese parents. Were there attempts at or completed attacks of the West Coast by Japan? Yes, the "Bombardment of Ellwood" for example. Is there any proof that these were coordinated with the help of Japanese American citizens or even "enemy aliens?" No. Were there Japanese enemy aliens who did suspicious things or expressed anti-American attitudes? Yes--just as there were with German and Italian enemy aliens. But the fact remains that it was predominantly Japanese American CITIZENS with no connections to any subversive plans who ended up in the camps--a significant difference compared to German and Italian Americans.

As for dual citizenship, if you use this argument to justify the incarceration of Japanese Americans, congratulations! You're a bona fide 1920s racist! This is the exact argument used by 1920s racists and there's a grain of truth in there: Because of citizenship laws and negotiations in Japan and the United States, Japanese Americans born to Japanese parents in the United States before 1924 were automatically both citizens of Japan and--because of birthright citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment--were also U.S. citizens. Officials used this to argue that with dual citizenship, even Japanese Americans born in the U.S. had loyalties to Japan and deserved to be locked up. What this argument did (and does not) take into consideration is the fact that between 1924 and 1940, Nisei (second-generation Japanese Americans) began to renounce their Japanese citizenship--approximately 70% (according to records kept by the WRA and other data). And after 1924, this dual-citizenship situation no longer existed.

6) The end result of this was that the government and the military determined that even Japanese American citizens were less trustworthy simply because they were of Japanese descent. Discrimination and segregation laws along the West Coast made sure that Japanese Americans had a difficult time fully integrating into American society...and then this was used against Japanese Americans to argue that because they remained unintegrated, this meant they were disloyal to the United States! Anti-Japanese sentiment had been building for a long time along the West Coast, and enterprising and racist politicians and farmers who wanted access to Japanese farmland (Japanese were incredibly successful farmers because they took risks and developed different crops in California especially) took advantage of wartime hysteria and lobbied for removal. And it worked.

So what does this all mean? You can't compare Japanese American incarceration to German and Italian enemy alien detention if you're trying to make the argument that there was no racism in incarceration. Some 11,000 German Americans (most enemy aliens) were interned in enemy alien detention camps. As for Italian Americans interned, you'll see the misleading figure of 600,000 Italian Americans interned. This is not true. The government classified 600,000 non-citizen Italian Americans as enemy aliens and they were placed under curfews and other restrictive actions that violated their civil liberties--but 600,000 Italian Americans were not interned. About 10,000 were removed from the West Coast and ultimately under a thousand interned--all enemy aliens, not citizens. Additionally, on Columbus Day in 1942, FDR officially declared Italian Americans no longer enemy aliens (he got a lot of pressure from Italian American Democrats in NY who basically said, "If you want our support for the New Deal, don't even think about it, clown."). Japanese American citizens were removed from their homes, placed in prison camps in terrible areas, and denied due process. People also like to say incarceration was not that bad because Japanese Americans had places to live, the camps provided games and entertainment, and they got to leave to go work by 1943. All true. But many of you can't even wear a goddamn mask without griping, so to say that "it's not a big deal" to have the government remove you from your homes and place you in a desert somewhere is a little disingenuous, no?

And if you're still going to say it's not a big deal--Japanese American citizens also had their guns confiscated. So there's that.

AND here's the best part: About 15 years ago, some members of Congress tried to issue pass legislation to issue a public apology to German Americans interned during WWII and create some required programming in school curriculum to be sure kids learned about this. But you know what? Republicans refused to have anything to do with it because it was "un-American" and unpatriotic.

#world war II #japanese internment

[luckyricochet]

I want you to answer A-Z on the fandom asks so I can peer into your psyche 👀

Wow I love you. This actually took around three hours since I wanted to think about the answers. See them under the cut!

A - Ships that you currently like a lot. (They don’t have to be OTPs because not everyone has OTPs.) Friendships, pairings, threesomes, etc. are allowed.

From Hanyou no Yashahime — Sesshomaru and Rin

From The Mandalorian — The Mandomera’s been creeping up a little bit. 

B - A pairing–platonic, romantic or sexual–that you initially didn’t consider, but someone changed your mind.

Honestly can’t think of one. I’m very set in my ships. 

C - A ship you have never liked and probably never will.

From Naruto — SasuSaku. Sasuke was cute as a kid so I get Sakura having a crush on him then, but I think she would have gotten over it when he became a homicidal clown who abandoned the village and tried to kill her and her teammates multiple times.

D - A pairing you wish you liked but just can’t.

From Harry Potter — Ron x Hermione. I’ve always thought their personalities didn’t match and not in the good “opposites attract” kind of way.

E - Have you added anything cracky/hilarious to your fandom? If so, what?

I only know how to write angst, drama, and introspective musings so no. 

F - What’s the longest you’ve ever been in a fandom?

Over fifteen years in the Harry Potter fandom, but I’ve had to separate that from JKR herself in the recent years. 

G - Have you ever had an OTP? If so, do you remember your first one? Who was in it?

“Have I ever had an OTP”? *laughs from shipping hell* 

From The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare — Nat and Kit were my first OTP. Read this book in fifth grade and was immediately loved them. Boy literally risks banishment from the colony to help prove she’s not a witch. 

H - What is your favorite source text for fandom stuff (e.g., TV shows, movies, books, anime, Western animation, etc.)?

I love visual media, so TV, anime, and film

I - Has Tumblr caused you to stop liking any fandoms, if so, which and why?

I’m not going to let tumblr dot com put me off of a particular show/book/etc. itself, but it has definitely made me think less of certain types of fans who are in a fandom. 

J - Name a fandom you didn’t think about until you saw it all over Tumblr. (You don’t have to care about it or follow it; it just has to be something that Tumblr made you aware of.)

The...period drama fandom? More widely, the history fandom. They both create some of the most beautiful edits celebrating history and I love it. 

K - What character has your favorite development arc/the best development arc?

 From Avatar: The Last Airbender — It’s gotta be Prince Zuko

L - Say something genuinely nice about a character who isn’t one of your faves. (Characters you’re neutral about are fair game, as are characters you merely dislike. Characters that you absolutely loathe with the fire of ten thousand suns are exempt, as there is no point in giving yourself an aneurysm over a character that you hate.)

From Harry Potter — I think Ginny is a Mary Sue but I loved when she stood up for herself in Half-Blood Prince when Ron was trying to slut-shame her. 

M - Name a character that you’d like to have for a friend.

From Parks and Recreation — Leslie Knope. Unending positive affirmations, thoughtfulness, and support!

N - Name three things you wish you saw more or in your main fandom (or a fandom of choice).

I don’t really have a main fandom but I haven’t mentioned Free! yet so let’s go with it for this one. 

1. Less Nitori because I can’t stand him.

2. More female characters! I get half the appeal is the boys, but I’d love to see a girls swim team in some capacity. 

3. More Haru and his family dynamics! Doesn’t have to be a ton, but I want to know what his relationship with his parents like, especially as an adult.

O - Choose a song at random. Which ship or character does it remind you of?

Salt and the Sea - The Lumineers. “From the destruction, out of the flame. You need a villain, give me a name.” Such an Odesta song. (Finnick x Annie from the Hunger Games)

P - Invent a random AU for any fandom (we always need more ideas).

For The Mandalorian — A historical AU set in early 1900s New York City where Mando’s just some government agent sent to “report” on slum conditions to satisfy some housing law. He goes meaning to write up a generic report but then finds the orphaned Baby Yoda abandoned in one of the tenements. Shocked by the conditions of the slums, Mando goes from being an apathetic, middling-level bureaucrat to being an anonymous investigative journalist reporting on the corruption in the government that allows for the city’s most vulnerable citizens to live in squalor, leading the government on a search to find who within their ranks is exposing them. 

Q - A fandom you’ve abandoned and why.

Sherlock, because it just took so long for the third series to come out. I had moved on to other fandoms by the time it did. Still have fond memories of when I was active in it, though. 

R - Which friendship/platonic relationship is your favorite in fandom?

From Lord of the Rings — Aragorn and Legolas. This is played up a lot more in the films but I love it. 

S - Show us an example of your personal headcanon (prompts optional but encouraged)

For Lord of the Rings — Boromir definitely taught Faramir swordplay when they were little kids since their father didn’t want to. 

T - Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending?

From Hanyou no Yashahime — Rin made the first move. Sesshomaru would be way too clueless to even know how to go about it. 

U - Three favorite characters from three different fandoms, and why they’re your favorites.

From Pirates of the Caribbean — James Norrington: Commodore in the Royal Navy during the 18th century, must I explain any further? Cool, calm, and collected on the job while looking v good while he does it but a nervous wreck in front of the woman he fancies. Tell me that’s not straight out of Austen.

From Star Wars (OT) — Luke Skywalker: An unapologetically good person in a crapsack world, doing his best to bring light into the world. A classic hero archetype who grows out of his naïveté to become a cunning—but still benevolent—Jedi. 

From Prince of Tennis — Yukimura Seiichi: His duality is *chef’s kiss*. Super scary and in charge on the court, gentle sweet boy who loves art and culture off the court. He struggled for so long but was able to overcome it all through his hard work and willpower.

Bonus favorite, because I couldn’t resist...

From Band of Brothers — Doc Roe: He’s doing the MOST for his guys but he really just needs a hug. Plus he’s got the accent.

V - Which character do you relate to most?

From Little Women — Jo March, especially as portrayed by Saoirse Ronan in the 2019 adaptation. Writer, holds grudges, opinionated, stubborn, eschewed “girliness” in her youth but is more open to it and romanticism as an adult. 

W - A trope which you are virtually certain to hate in any fandom.

I’ve gotten to the point where even the hint of a love triangle tests my patience.

X - A trope which you are almost certain to love in any fandom.

It’s about the yearning: Longing Look

Also will definitely always ship the Brooding Boy and the Gentle Girl

Y - What are your secondhand fandoms (i.e., fandoms you aren’t in personally but are tangentially familiar with because your friends/people on your dash are in them)?

Anything in the MCU or general superhero content.

Z - Just ramble about something fan-related, go go go! (Prompts optional but encouraged.)

I love fandom so much. I’m sort of facetious about being obsessed with people who aren’t real on my other social media accounts, but in all seriousness, being able to escape the real world to get excited over characters and relationships that face their own struggles, triumphs, and emotions is such a gift. So often they speak so powerfully on the human experience—How can you read, or watch, any of Tolkien’s work and not be moved by what he has to say about humanity and the power of good? Even if the stories are fictional, the messages they impart about life aren’t, which is what I love so much about them.

#itsacanofpeachessir #ask

[deathvsthemaiden]

Hi, so I've recently read the first 2 mistborn books (not 3rd yet because brain hates me) and you seem like a woman of taste, what are some books and series that you like/would recommend?

Hi! And also omg! Taking a brain break before the 3rd book is valid there’s So Very Much that goes down in it and I feel you totally about ur brain hating you 😐 I’m flattered you’d like recs from me! I don’t think I’ve read a lot of books that are like Mistborn? Mostly because I’m not big into dystopia and just haven’t delved into the genre a lot in general. But here’s some recs that vaguely remind me of it for various and not necessarily concrete reasons:

By Light We Knew Our Names by Anne Valente. A short story collection. A mixed bag but the ones I loved most I really loved and they made the whole thing a 5 star read for me. The last story especially (click link to read) took a bite out of my heart and made me super sentimental for like. A week. I think this would be classified as magical realism. A ton of hard-to-place and varied concepts in here, but warning for rape and its aftermath and sexual harassment/exploitation in a considerable chunk of the stories. If you like this one/the sound of it you might also like Census and/or How To Set A Fire and Why by Jesse Ball or The Beautiful Bureaucrat by Helen Phillips (warning for miscarriage) they’re all otherworldly and the kinds of books that don’t give you straight answers to the weird happenings in them but in the specific way that I personally enjoy.

Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett. First in a trilogy, the second one came out recently but I’ve yet to start it. Brandon Sanderson himself reviewed it positively, imo Bennett’s world building is very similarly rich as Sanderson’s. A very very fun time overall!!

Sunshine by Robin McKinley is one of her weirder books. The only urban/supernatural fantasy book she’s read that I’ve tried/can think of. I know there’s some unexpectedly sexual scenes in here but idr the specifics so I can’t give warnings or remember if they’re necessary, but I don’t think they were gratuitous or frequent. Anyway the mc is this short tempered, resilient girl (nicknamed Sunshine) who works at a bakery in a world where vampires and demons exist but are kept out of the public eye. She’s the greatest pull of the book to me and feels like a more vocal Vin? A fun and niche little adventure.

If you try Foundryside and like it/the premise intrigues you also consider giving his much shorter standalone Vigilance a try. It’s intense and considerably darker than what I’ve read of the Founder’s trilogy. Also grimdark and not hopeful but like. With purpose because it’s social commentary but I don’t really remember how I felt about that aspect of the book because it’s been a few years (baaaaad I know! Take this rec with a grain of salt) warning for gore/wanton killing.

Sabriel by Garth Nix is another fantasy book with a teenage girl lead who I like just as much as Vin. Tbh Sabriel and Vin remind me of each other (and it’s not just because they have similar hair I promise whdhsbd!) Sabriel’s the first in a trilogy but works as a stand-alone and from what I have read of Nix’s other stuff, nothing really holds up to Sabriel but I may be biased. I’ve loved her for a long long time💖

Speaking of good female leads, Mistborn is described as a take on Cinderella sometimes so if you’re into fairytale/myth retellings with female mcs: Keturah and Lord Death by Martine Leavitt is (I’m 99% sure) inspired by the Grimm tale Godfather Death and one of my favorite sweet and simple romances. And Till We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis is a Cupid and Psyche retelling that ironically focuses more on sisterly love than romance. Also an all time fave.

The Dreamblood Duology by N. K. Jemisin. It’s the only work of hers I’ve read (so far!!) and the one I’ve heard people buzz about least, and I had some medium scruples with the ultimate ending but I really loved the characters and the causal diversity was refreshing. I was also really attached to the world she created, I’d gladly read more books set in it if she were to write any.

Damsel by Elana K. Arnold. majorrrr major warnings for graphic rape/sexual assault. A dark subversion of the “maiden rescued from a tower by a knight” trope. Personally I think the ending makes sitting through the violations and abuse the main character goes through worth it but it’s. A lot. It’s dreamily written and the world building isn’t in depth but it’s enchanting. Very (unsurprisingly) twisted fairytale esque.

The Round House by Louise Erdrich. I’ve also read The Plague of Doves by her and loved it. Anyway this is heavy ownvoices realistic fiction, the plot centers around the sexual assault of a Native American woman. The main character is her son and honestly considering the premise I was expecting this book to be even harder to swallow than it was. I left it feeling glad for the characters and hopeful but I also had a long convo with a friend after the fact who was firmly convinced the whole thing was a tragedy (and the book does have a lot of tragedies! So there’s a chance you’ll end up agreeing with her POV instead of mine, which is perfectly valid)

#OK so actually a lot do these aren’t very Mistborn-y after all and I know you didn’t specify that they had to be but it’s the one thing I #could confidently sure you liked so I used it as a jumping off point whdjendndn #asks #mine #if you have more specific preferences feel free to send another ask! #*a lot of these #*confidently be sure #book recs

[recentanimenews]

Manga the Week of 3/31/21

SEAN: March ain’t going out like a lamb when it comes to manga.

ASH: True, that!

SEAN: Airship has two print books; Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash 14.5 and Mushoku Tensei 9.

Denpa’s website lists femme fatale: The Art of Shuzo Oshimi for next week. An artbook dedicated to the creator of Flowers of Evil, Blood on the Tracks and more.

They’ve also got The Girl with the Sanpaku Eyes 2 listed.

Ghost Ship has Yuuna and the Haunted Hot Springs 13.

No debuts from J-Novel Club, but we do get the 10th and final volume of The Combat Baker and Automaton Waitress. We also see Demon Lord, Retry! 6, The Epic Tale of Reincarnated Prince Herscherik 4, Holmes of Kyoto 4, My Instant Death Ability is So Overpowered, No One in This Other World Stands a Chance Against Me! 4, and The White Cat’s Revenge as Plotted from the Dragon King’s Lap 4. Desu.

Kaiten Books has a 2nd volume of My Dad’s the Queen of All VTubers?!.

Debuting in print for Kodansha is Chasing After Aoi Koshiba (Kyou, Koshiba Aoi ni Aetara), a yuri manga from Ichijinsha’s Comic REX. It’s got the writer of Masamune-kun’s Revenge (ehh…) and the artist of Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki (yay!). A girl hopes to meet up with her first love at a reunion.

ASH: Seems like it has potential.

MELINDA: Agreed.

Also in print: Don’t Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro 6, Heaven’s Design Team 4, The Quintessential Quintuplets 13, and Shikimori’s Not Just a Cutie 3.

Digitally we get two debuts. The first is She’s My Knight (Ikemen Kanojo to Heroine na Ore!?), which runs in Kodansha’s Palcy, and features a popular young man having to deal with falling in love with a girl more popular AND more manly than he is!

ANNA: This sounds amusing.

SEAN: We also get Those Snow-White Notes (Mashiro no Oto). This is a biggie, as it’s already 27 volumes in Japan. It’s multi-award winning, runs in Weekly Shonen Magazine, is by the author of Baby & Me and A Vampire and His Pleasant Companions, and is for the Shamisen what Chihayafuru is for Hyakunin Isshu. It also has an anime this spring!

MICHELLE: I’m super excited about this one!

ASH: I love shamisen so much.

MELINDA: Okay, I’m ready!

SEAN: And we get A Condition Called Love 7, Elegant Yokai Apartment Life 21, How Do You Do, Koharu? 2, I Want To Hold Aono-kun So Badly I Could Die 7, My Unique Skill Makes Me OP Even at Level 1 3, and Saint Young Men 11.

MICHELLE: I need to get caught up on several of these.

MELINDA: Same here.

SEAN: Seven Seas debuts two manga based on light novels they also have. Drugstore in Another World: The Slow Life of a Cheat Pharmacist (Cheat Kusushi no Slow Life: Isekai ni Tsukurou Drugstore) runs in Takeshobo’s Web Comic Gamma Plus, and is about… well, the title.

ASH: So many titles these days are helpful like that, perhaps overly so.

SEAN: And there is also ROLL OVER AND DIE: I Will Fight for an Ordinary Life with My Love and Cursed Sword! (“Omae Gotoki ga Maou ni Kateru to Omou na” to Yuusha Party o Tsuihou Sareta node, Outo de Kimama ni Kurashitai), which runs in Micro Magazine’s Comic Ride, and combines yuri and gore-filled grimdark quite nicely.

Seven Seas also has the digital debut of four more Alice books, which focus on Elliot March and Tweedle Dee/Dum. If I recall correctly, the Twins books were the smuttiest in the series.

ANNA: No thank you!

SEAN: They’ve also got BL Metamorphosis 4, the third and final volume of Ghostly Things, High-Rise Invasion 17-18, Himouto! Umaru-chan Vol. G1 (also a final volume, sort of – it’s a one-shot continuation), the fifth and final volume of How to Treat Magical Beasts: Mine and Master’s Medical Journal, Made in Abyss 9, Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid 10, and Precarious Woman Executive Miss Black General 6.

MICHELLE: Someday I really will read BL Metamorphosis.

ASH: You really should! It is wonderful.

MELINDA: I also need to read it!

SEAN: Two debuts for Yen On. The first is a spinoff. I Was a Bottom-Tier Bureaucrat for 1,500 Years, and the Demon King Made Me a Minister (Hira Yakunin Yatte 1500-nen, Maou no Chikara de Daijin ni Sare Chaimashita) features Beelzebub and her demonic crew from I’ve Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years having adventures of their own.

The other is Yokohama Station SF, the story of a boy who is allowed to search the giant subway terminal that the world of Japan has become. This looks pretty cool, actually.

MICHELLE: It looks super cool! I always love stories about exploring sprawling structures (like BLAME, for example).

ASH: I’m definitely picking this one up! It looks like it should help fill the SF hole left by Viz’s Haikasoru imprint being on hiatus.

MELINDA: This one sounds so interesting!

Also out next week: 86 ~Eighty-Six~ 7, new reprints of the 5th and 6th Haruhi Suzumiya novels, The Hero Is Overpowered But Overly Cautious 6, and Rascal Does Not Dream of Siscon Idol (the 4th in the series).

Yen Press has many manga debuts next week. We start with Can’t Stop Cursing You (Dareka o Norawazu ni Irarenai Kono Sekai de), a dark little horror title from Gangan Online. A curse detective uses their powers to track down killers.

ASH: I’m curious about this one.

MELINDA: This actually does sound like my kind of thing.

Goblin Slayer Side Story II: Dai Katana gets a manga version of its light novel. It runs in Square Enix’s Manga Up!.

Love and Heart (Koi to Shinzou) is a shoujo horror title from Hakusensha’s Manga Park. A college woman recovering from a breakup now finds she has a new roommate, who says he’s her old childhood friend. But… is he?

ANNA: I’m intrigued by the idea of shoujo horror.

MICHELLE: Yeah, this could be interesting.

ASH: Shoujo horror is one of my faves.

MELINDA: Ooooooooo.

SEAN: Love of Kill (Koroshi Ai) runs in Media Factory’s Comic Gene, and is about a pair of assassins engaging in… sigh… a deadly game of cat and mouse. (No, they’re not cats and mice, I just sighed at the cliche.) I’ve actually heard this is pretty cool.

ANNA: Sometimes I enjoy assassins!

ASH: Likewise!

MELINDA: Me too!

SEAN: Lastly, we see When a Magician’s Pupil Smiles (Mahou Tsukai no Deshi ga Warau Toki), a 3-in-1 omnibus collecting the entire manga. It ran in Shonen Gangan, and also seems to fall into the horror suspense theme Yen’s March debuts are falling into.

ASH: I tend to enjoy a fair amount of the subgenre, so I’m okay with the trend.

SEAN: In non-debuts, we get 86 ~Eighty-Six~’s second manga volume, Bungo Stray Dogs 18, Carole & Tuesday 2, Do You Love Your Mom? 4 (manga version), Fiancee of the Wizard 3, Im – Great Priest Imhotep 8, Kaiju Girl Caramelize 4, Karneval 11, Last Round Arthurs 2 (manga version), Lust Geass 3, Reborn As a Polar Bear 5, Strawberry Fields Once Again 2, That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime: The Ways of the Monster Nation 4, and The Vampire and His Pleasant Companions 2.

ASH: I am so far behind on my Yen reading!

SEAN: Oof. There is a lot there. Do you see favorites?

By: Sean Gaffney

#Anime #News #Manga Bookshelf

[rcmclachlan]

R.C.’s McShep Fic Recs

Hey, remember when the Stargate: Atlantis fandom put out god-tier content on a nearly constant basis like 10-14 years ago? BECAUSE I SURE DO. 

For the last two weeks, I’ve been revisiting my favorite McKay/Sheppard fics and, to my delight, discovered a couple of new ones (none of which are on this list, but still)! Here are the best of the best, imo. Block yourself some time to read, because most of these are loooong. (** denotes a personal all-time fave) +

Transcendental by astolat **

tran·scen·den·tal (trăn'sĕn-dĕn'tl) adj.

1. Philosophy. Concerned with the a priori or intuitive basis of knowledge as independent of experience. 2. Surpassing all others; superior. 3. Beyond common thought or experience. 4. Mathematics. Of or relating to a real or complex number that is not the root of any polynomial that has positive degree and rational coefficients.

In This Era of Liberty by Chandri **

They lose the Daedelus at the beginning of the fifth year. That's the first night John crawls into bed with him.

Sheppard's Law by Speranza **

"Weird? You don't know what weird is. Weird is being in a— with the— and the crazy alien—" He stopped, incoherent, hands flailing. "And then your best friend is twelve, and you're his piano teacher. That—now, you're talking weird!"

paper cranes (upstairs, downstairs) by verity **

"Oh my God," Rodney says, stricken. "This is—this is one of those British costume dramas Ronon always wants to watch and I'm the uncouth American!"

The Mute Shepherd by auburn

John's never been able to ask for what he wants, but sometimes silence itself is the sin.

How Not to Fly by toomuchplor **

And then the door chimed, and Woolsey came in looking mournful and anxious, and everything got derailed.

Small Parts Isolated and Destroyed by DevilDoll

It took Rodney and Zelenka four days to write the program that turned the Atlantis star drive into a self-destruct mechanism.

Rewind, Reboot, Restore by Rheanna

Liking Rodney McKay was very similar to how Douglas Adams had described flying: the trick was to throw yourself at him and miss.

Indelible by shaenie **

John has a useful gift for compartmentalization: he discards the irrelevant and moves on. Then Rodney makes an ill-considered move on a mission, John steps up to take responsibility for making reparations to the locals, and things take a turn for the complicated as Rodney, an alien society, and an armada of ships make standard operating procedure completely impossible.

Mother Country by Chandri **

None of them were made for this bureaucratic nightmare, but they couldn't just leave the people of Pegasus to twist in the wind. That wasn't why they were here.

The New Atlantean Dictionary of Literary Terms: A Complete Reference in Four Volumes by thingswithwings

Anthropomorphism to Zeugma; the history of a city.

Written by the Victors by Speranza

Caroll, Franklin R. Atlantis Revisited. New York and London, Routledge, 2011. Chapman, Denise. Several Kinds of Genius: The Life of Rodney McKay. NY: Harper Perennial, 2015. Croft, Rosalind. City of Spires: A Memoir. Toronto: The Mercury Press, 2009. Dugan, Paul. A Political History of Atlantis. Oxford: OUP, 2012.

Straight as a Circle by toomuchplor **

John Sheppard wakes up straight.

The Difference Engine by copperbadge

Sheppard remembered dying in Afghanistan, but since he was still walking around he didn't pay that memory too much mind.

Pick Yourself Up, Dust Yourself Down by leah k (blinkiesays)

Rodney lurches in the conference room door twenty minutes late and says, "I have a plan," with this look in his eyes that says, but you're not going to like it, in about ten languages.

Theory of Everything by Rheanna **

"'Maybe all you need is a vacation'," Rodney echoed. "Please, I'm not stupid, you know." Then he looked stricken. "I'm not stupid yet."

The Black Helicopters Series by whizzy

"I know," John agreed, without sympathy. Rodney could hate it all he liked; he couldn't afford to know the truth. I lied. It doesn't matter who walks through that gate with you. No one else owes you what I do. No one else is going to protect you the way I would.

until she shines by verity **

In which Ancients come and go, Rodney reinvents Babelfish, Ronon resumes his career in library science, and Teyla is awesome.

#mcshep #sga #john sheppard #rodney mckay #fic recs

[bowlerhatduck]

for the character ask: Penguin (gotham) Haida (aggretsuko and steve (stranger things)

Yay thank you so much!!!

Penguin:

First impression: Well I think I was excited that Penguin was already in the first episode, but I had no idea how big role he was going to have, I just hoped he would be in lot of episodes (I wasn’t let down, haha!). I remember being excited that he was young and working at a club. He seemed a bit meek maybe? I was like “please Penguin, don’t whack at that man with a club, you’re better than that” xD Impression now: Woow he can endure like anything?! Also in season 4 I didn’t like him in the beginning so much as he seemed a bit too bureaucratic etc. I like him better when he is more in action or when he has been an underdog for a while and then triumphs, haha. Also I like when he is on Jim’s side. His season 1 haircut is the best. 

Favorite moment: Oh there are so many since he is in like every episode! I really like the scene where he says to the mayor who thinks has outsmarted him and has Penguin surrounded by gunmen: “Oh you are always one step ahead... never three!” and other gunmen are pointing at Mayor James and his gunmen, haha. I like how in some extra materials it’s said like he is like a chess player and thinks his moves a lot beforehand. But sometimes (lol well often) the emotions get best of him, fascinating combo for a bad guy. There are so many other scenes but this reply would just become too long if I listed them all! Okay, I gotta say that I just love Penguin and Butch’s bamf entry with the bazooka.

Idea for a story: Something about him having bad Arkham flashbacks or something activated in his mind/more Hugo Strange experimenting, I remember there being a hint of that in season 2 and it never got answered in the series?! Story would involve Ed! Also a story about him and Fish, maybe the early days? Unpopular opinion: Hmm not sure do I have any unpopular opinions of him. He was a better mayor than James or Galavan lol! 

Favorite relationship: With him and Ed being pals and partners! And him aiding Jim, they make an interesting duo. Also Penguin with Selina is hilarious. And him and Butch. And of course him and Fish Mooney. Favorite headcanon: He kills a tailor if they make a bad suit for him. Hmm not sure is that my favorite headcanon, it just popped in my mind. Also he seems like a person that forgets to eat. I feel like Ed is like this too (well he basically dissects his lunch lol), what a disaster couple xD They would be more docile if they ate more, haha. Haida: 

First impression: Hmm I am not sure did I have any first impression, probably a surprise there was a hyena character in anime. Also he seemed like he was trying to be “cool” but not succeeding. Impression now: The best fluffball of misery ever, poor Haida! He’s a good guy. I feel so bad for him! He’s my fave. Favorite moment: I like his shy moments so much. 

Idea for a story: Haida getting laid off from the work due the company not doing good enough and he being unable to tell that to Retsuko and Fenneko and then they one day wonder why Haida is not at work.... ;__; I’d love to write/read such a fic. Unpopular opinion: I would have liked to see what had happened if he had punched Tadano xD Favorite relationship: With him and Retsuko, hehe. Also i kinda loved it when he teamed up with Gori and Washimi, I’d like to see him becoming friends with them and Retsuko not knowing this.Favorite headcanon: He would like to do something creative for a living. He starts some sport hobby secretly to become more buff, haha.  

Steve:

First impression: Ugh, an asshole.Impression now: Awesome best character ever best babysitter so funny so random best friend of Dustin yayyyy Scoops ahoy!Favorite moment: Like so many good moments in season 3 especially. And when he gives advice and encouragement to Dustin in season 2. Also love the bit in season 2 when he yells to the the arguing boys “come help me, all i see who is helping me is this random girl” (Max) or something like that. Cracks me up so badly. Idea for a story: Ooh so many story ideas....! Steve feeling left out/dumb because the kids and Nancy&Jonathan are all so smart and at the rental place the nerd Keith is picking up on him. Angst/hurt/comfort of course! Unpopular opinion: I don’t know what is in or out in Stranger things fandom. I don’t like Steve/Billy ship at all. Too many fics with that ship. Favorite relationship: Steve and Dustin as best bros! And friendship with Robin! Favorite headcanon: He spends a lot of time with Dustin, they watch videos together and have sleepovers at Dustin’s place. Also that Nancy is still surprised about the change in Steve and seeing him more interested hanging out with kids than trying to date girls. 

Yay this was so much fun, thanks for the great asks! :D 

#character asks #thatdoodlebug #thank you ramblepal! #wow this took an hour whoops #too fun #penguin #gotham #steve stranger things #steve harrington #haida #haida hyena #aggretsuko #long post #asks

[theroseandthebeast]

Spooky Podcasts for the Spooky Season

a little over a year ago I made a spooky podcast rec post - here’s the updated, even spookier version 🕸🕷🎃

* for extra quality spook

Short and Spooky

Finished, 6-10 episode stories that are perfectly encapsulated for a relatively short listen. 

Limetown* - 6-episodes. Ten years ago, a small scientific community disappeared. Our intrepid reporter asks, “what happened to Limetown?” There is, allegedly, a season 2 coming down the pipe, but if you don’t mind not having all the answers, the 6 episodes already produced are of top-notch sound quality, writing, voice acting - the works. The mystery of Limetown is a great one.

Six Stories Told At Night - 6-episodes. When Sam’s best friend Joëlle disappears, Sam follows her into Faerie, paying her way with stories. Specifically focused on Canadian folktales, which is very neat.

The Deep Vault* - 7-episodes of an almost-post-apocalyptic drama about a group of longtime friends searching for a mysterious bunker that was an urban legend in their hometown

The Call of Cthulhu Mystery Program - Live tabletop roleplaying with some 1930s radio serial flavor. 8-part miniseries of unknowable horror and black comedy, as five housemates of dubious moral fiber band together to solve a murder most foul and risk their very sanity.

Deadly Manners - A 10-episode dark comedy murder-mystery. The wealthy Billings family is holding their annual dinner party, but with a snowstorm outside and a murderer (murderers?) inside, the bodies are starting to pile up. (Kristen Bell! Denis O’Hare! Alona Tal! RuPaul! LEVAR BURTON!!)

Serial Horror

Each season is a different (though often connected) story, for when you’re craving a particular flavor.

Within the Wires - part of the WtNV umbrella [note from me - THE BEST PART]. The first season is set up as a series of instructional tapes, but it soon becomes clear that the tapes’ narrator is speaking to the patient very specifically. the second season is a series of museum audio guides from the artist Roimata Mangakāhia regarding her fellow artist and lover Claudia Atieno - including Claudia’s disappearance. the third season is told through a series of dictated notes from a bureaucrat to his secretary regarding the trials and tribulations of building the New Society. S3 is currently ongoing, but WtNV always churns out on time. 

Archive 81* - the first season follows an archivist starting a new job cataloguing recordings made by a historical society; unraveling ensues. the second season is a… futuristic horrific fairyland? the third season centers on two siblings as they try to perform a [redacted] ritual, perhaps following in their estranged father’s footsteps. while the seasons absolutely have shared characters + a shared universe, you could start at whatever season sounds most to your interests. 

Liberty, Tales from the Tower* - the Liberty podcast is excellently scripted sci-fi - also alarming, and worth the listen - but Tales digs deep into the “myths, legends, and horrors that haunt the Citizens of Atrius.” 

Longform Horror

Finished but longer stories.

The Black Tapes - intrepid reporter wants to believe; curmudgeonly paranormal investigator says no, but things are WEIRD AND SPOOKY. imo does not stick the landing, but a lot of the journey was pretty fun.

Our Fair City - podcast in a future dystopia. after a climate change-related disaster, humanity lives in subterranean cities powered by lightning rigs above the cities. mole people! mad scientists! algae bars! the first “episode” is very long and a bit rough, tbh, but after that it is ONE OF MY ALL TIME FAVES.

Ongoing Horror 

Series that are currently ongoing -- at the moment, none of these are abandoned, they are simply unfinished, though some have good stopping points.

The Darkest Night - horror anthology narrated by Lee Pace that all ties together in the end. some stories better than others, imo. Season 3 just started. 

Mabel - ladies who love ladies, fairy tales, haunted houses, disappearances, magic, horror, DELIGHT. Season 4 and a bonus season currently completed; season 5 coming in the new year. 

SAYER - scifi/horror podcast set on Earth’s man-made second moon, Typhon. SAYER is the self-aware AI designed to help new residents adjust to their new lives - what would go wrong? Things start tying together in the third episode, and it turns into a jumbly horror ride you never want to stop listening to. Last season currently ongoing. 

The Magnus Archives* - Weekly horror podcast from the archives of the Magnus Institute, an organization devoted to researching the esoteric, supernatural, and terrifying. The stories seem unrelated until you realize they have come together like a trap sprung shut around you. Season 3 just finished. 

The White Vault* - The collected records of a repair team sent to Outpost Fristed in the vast white wastes of Svalbard. Unravel what lies waiting in the ice below. Season 2 just started up again.

#podcast #podcasts #podcast recs #time to GET SPOOPY

[spiritcc]

Watch to watch with: Valentin Gaft

It’s been a while ma boyas but I’m back on my bullshit again. Remember My Dearly Beloved Detective? Remember my absolute fave man Lester? Well, it is all about him today.

~the more you know~ insert: apart from acting, Gaft is also famous for his poetry and especially epigrams. This man praised and destroyed many celebrities with the dabbest four-liners ever, some of them are so “jeSUS CHRIST he did not just fucking say that” you’d honestly start doubting his claims about these not meaning to be insulting. I own two of his poetry books (they’re mostly the same) and in my humble opinion, he’s great. Flies throwing nazi salutes on his wall, giraffes being mistakes, him feeling bad about blocking the power of the sun itself with his toe in the morning - just among some memorable moments. He also wrote a whole poem to Livanov about Holmes, for example. A problematic little shit, in other words.

So let’s flex our muscles:

1. The Garage (1980)

civil war 2

Gaft’s involvement: one of the many protags

~1h35mins | Youtube, English subtitles | boink

What and why: an extremely delightful comedy that I swear, just never got old in terms of social commentary. A bunch of peeps in one zoological institute were making contributions towards personal garages, when the day X came, it turned out that due to some outside issues, there won’t be enough garages for everyone. An EXTREME shitshow ensues when they try to eliminate the extra people. An hour and a half of non-stop drama and allegedly intelligent people being petty bitches over fucking garage spaces. By gods this is one of my favorite movies.

2. The Wizards (1982)

bye

Gaft’s involvement: Sataneev, the antagonist

2 episodes, ~1h12mins each | sovietmoviesonline, English subtitles boink (nags to register)

+ or my google drive with slightly improved subs | EP1 | EP2

What and why: as I’ve said before in Vasilyeva’s post, this is also one of my favest movies fucking ever, and Gaft there shines in his full glory. SOVIET MAGIC! BUREAUCRATIC WIZARDRY! NEW YEAR? WOW! It has it all. Gaft manages to show his full comedic capacity in this film and he’s one the major reasons why all of this is so fucking great. Support Soviet magic. Support Satan. He just wanted some love.

3. Hello, I’m Your Aunt! (1975)

swolentin gaft

Gaft’s involvement: the servant, minor role

~1h37mins | sovietmoviesonline, English subtitles (nags to register) | here

What and why: my fave movie as a kid, give or take. One random dude has the misfortune to break into a house of some other dudes that are waiting for the arrival of their disgustingly rich aunt. SHENANIGANS ENSUE when circumstances force them to dress up the protag dude in drag and make him pose for that aunt. A fun and noice movie that is a bit heavy on the caricature humour, has one (1) very nice song and Gaft’s infamous fucking guns. Look at them. Look at em Anakin.

4. An Orphan of Kazan (1997)

best quality: HIS SMILES!!!!!

Gaft’s involvement: dad no.1

~1h20mins | my google drive, English subtitles | enjoy

What and why: oh hey I’ve just subbed this movie recently so eh it’s your lucky day, it’s nowhere yet besides my drive. Another New Year wholesomeness about a gal looking for the dad she never saw. Three dads show up. WHOLESOMENESS ENSUES!!!! The first movie where I saw Gaft crack a genuine happy smile and it just broke me, ma dudes. Pleas be my dad too.

Honourable mentions:

1. The Master and Margarita (2005)

some ancient guy/some soviet guy??? | 10 episodes, ~50mins each | Youtube, English subtitles | playlist

It’s only in the mentions because his role is relatively small, otherwise, imo, a great show with delightfully bad CGI, has FANTASTIC music (fuckin Voland’s theme) and in general I enjoy it very much. Gaft is like...first some angry dude in the Jesus timeline and then some Georgian KGB guy who wasn’t in the book? Fun fact: in the blocket ‘93 version, he was Voland himself. Good luck finding that version.

2. Say A Word For The Poor Hussar (1980)

Hussar captain | 2 episodes, ~1h20mins each | Youtube, no subtitles | EP1 | EP2

Tbh this is more of a Bas moment, but gotdang Gaft SINGS in this movie, shows his GREAT ass and looks like THIS

3. Seventeen Moments of Spring (1973)

American delegate | 12 episodes, ~1h15mins each | Youtube, English subtitles (hardsub) | playlist

Yeah I’ve talked about this one many times, best show ever, all that. He’s there. In the background kinda. But there.

Final comment: if i never made this clear before, hello i love swolentin gaft forever GAFT/OSTROUMOVA OTP 4 LIFE BITCH

#what to watch #valentin gaft #nobody disrespects gaft in my house #his lester is criminally overlooked #imo one of the best things about the detective movie

[sluttyhenley]

Answer & tag!

tagged by @redbelles because she’s rude as shit

1. nickname: my parents are the only people who call me anything but my given name, and then it’s meg, meggie or another variation that i don’t know how to spell.

2. zodiac: libra, a couple days away from scorpio

3. height: 5′6″

4. last movie i saw: aquaman and it was insane

5. last thing googled: this coffee shop called lestat’s

6. fave musician(s): florence and the machine, hozier, amy macdonald, sara bareilles 

7. song stuck in my head: here comes the change by kesha

8. other blog(s): nope

9. do i get asks?: no but i would love to

10. following: 215 blogs

11. amount of sleep: i barely function on 8

12. lucky number(s): 12

13. what i’m wearing: a rainbow unicorn on a grey cut off tank and army green skinny jeans and sandals. oh and idic earrings, i feel like it’s important to mention that

14. dream job: i would love to not work, then i could travel and write and do things. now if someone wanted to pay me to do those things then that would be cool. actually wait, i want to be the communications officer on board the starship enterprise (uhura. i mean uhura)

15. dream trip: god everywhere, hebrides with @redbelles since she brought it up, also hawaii but that’s mostly because i’m still bitter about my dad’s constant refrain of i’ve been there while i was growing up (i haven’t!), but honestly? i just feel like the contiguous 48 states and western europe isn’t nearly enough of the world to have seen

16. fave food: i have an impossible sweet tooth. i also love food too much to pick just one

17. any instruments? clarinet, saxophone, bassoon, a very little bit of piano and even less of guitar

18. languages: italian, spanish, french and i’ve played around with vietnamese, russian, arabic, and japanese

19. random fact: i once told a relatively high up eu bureaucrat that i had developed temporary amnesia

20. describe yourself as Aesthetic things: short hair, sunshine through the windows, oversized mugs, edison bulbs, waves crashing on a rocky beach

tagging: anyone who wants to

#if anyone is interested

[alien-versus-yakuza]

VOLUME 19 EXTRAS! (PART TWO)

Last part of the extras! They’re only characthers profiles but, to be honest, those are one of my fave things. Also, thaks to them we can confirm that Lizzie and Tohei are a couple for real, just in case any of you were wondering.

Name: Kyo Hyuga (Japan) Age: 20 Height: 176 cm Weight: 75 kg Base: Western diamondback rattlesnake (Crotalus atrox) Favourite food:Umeboshhi adn anything that mixes well with rice Hates: Erotic novels in wich the climax is too sudden Eye colour: Black: / Blood group: A DOB: September 21 (Virgo) What he prefers the most in aquariums: When the manager is around and offer to give some explanations.

Son of a  bureaucrat and a University teacher, he has always received an exceptional education. Ay high school he was forced to Join the Rugby club, in which he was scrum-half, but he never got along with his team and it wasn’t strong. It was going to go to University but he run away from home and joined First Cutody with Tatsuhiro. he listens to AM radio.

Name: Tatsuhiro Someya (Japan) (Yeap, there’s a printing error in the volume) Age: 20 Height: 194 cm Weight: 165 kg Japan Ranking: 2

Favourite food: roasted beef and guts in a  questionable cooked condition. Hates: Combini that doesn’t have the Champion magazine Eye colour: Light brown / Blood group: B DOB: August 8 (Leo) What he prefers the most in aquariums: When he worries about the rock that spent all time underwater

His father was Fijian and  his mother Russian-Chinese but their citizenship was denied as well as Tatsuhiro’s custody. He was adopted by and old couple from Saitama. At high school he played rugby and he managed to get a position in a very elitist centre. However as he tend to get sick and his asthma worsened he had to abandon the sport and go to a public school. He listens radio in FM and hater people who feel special for listening it in AM. He  straightens his hair. He was in 8th position before. 

Name: Jochi Hongo (Japan) Age: 26 Height: 180 cm Weight:82 kg Base: Desert Locust (Schistocerca gregaria) Japan ranking: 6

Favourite food: dry fish, miso soup Hates: rugby clubs that do not level the field after raining Eye colour: black/ Blood group: AB DOB: December 29 (Capricorn) What he prefers the most in aquariums: Thay they let you touch sea cucumbers and other animals

His parents were an office worker and a stay at home mom. He had good grades and was great at soccer so he was quite popular among girls. He wasn’t very talkative and looked really serious so even when a girl declared herself to him after about three dates he would stop recieving more invitations. He kept his distance with women, his sister included, because he considered them as  capricious.

As he has always lived in a small flat, his dream is to live in the country in a huge house and with a big dog. He’s able to play in any position but as he doesn’t like recieving indications he prefers being on the front. 

Name: Sho Saito (Japan) Age:21 Height: 168 cm Weight: 60 kg Base:  Mediterranean field cricket (Gryllus bimaculatus) Favourite food:Karaage Hates: Maths Eye colour: Dark / Blood group: 0 DOB: November 24 (Sagittarius ) Favourite classic: Analects of Confucius

He changed schools several times in primary and when he was in 4th grade he met Akari. After finishing basi education he started working for a while but when the medical costs of his mother started to accumulate he started working illegally and became a gang member. In a few years he became the boss of a criminal gang in Tokyo. He learnt English, Chinese and Spanish, which are the languages that his clients and subordinates use. He’s not good studying but he’s great collaborating with people. His target women include from his age to 20 years older than him. 

Name: Tohei Tachibana (Japan) Age: 19 Height: 176 cm Weight: 64 kg Base: Rat

Favourite food: Rice with egg Hates: Tough steak Eye colour: brown DOB: July 7 (cancer) He’s a genius that reached University at 17, passed all the subjest of 4 years in one and specialized in  aerospace engineering and IT systems. His skill with compures are high level.  His dream is to become an astronaut and his second dan in karate.

His parents passed aways when he was a kid and was raised in a orphanage that was destroyed because of a fire.  He sold himself to U-NASA to get money to rebuild it, he doesn’t regret it. His recent worry is that his romantic partner has become more “agressive”

Name: Elizabeth Rony Age: 19 Height: 168 cm Weight: 52 kg Base: Domestic cat

Favourite food: not too tender steaks Hates: rice with raw eggs Eye colour: Blue / Blood group: B DOB: May 5 (taurus) Boxer she admires: Keiji Onizuka

Former Bantamweight champion in the boxing nationals from USA in high school. At 16 she killed her opponent and sold herself to U-NASA to pay the compensantion and as a punishment. She doesn’t regret it at all.

Her most recent worry is that her romantic partner does not make any kind of advance even when she’s looking for him.

Tohei you fucking chicken! Dumbshit virgin!WHAT?! MY CUP? E, any problem?

+6*-9 (I’m gonna leave this as a reminder of what implies trying to write when living with a kitten)

#terra formars #terraformars #terra formars volume 19 #terra formars spoilers