#when i think about good old days when naruto and bleach were still on-going

[dogstarblues]

20 Questions

got tagged by @artemis-devotee. seemed like fun! ty botan!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

i have 11 works and i can tell you four of those are poetry.

2. What’s your total AO3 words count?

17,831

3. What fandoms do you write for?

on ao3? used to write for the ch**tiverse, still write for Victoria Goddard's Nine Worlds. well, okay im on hiatus from participating in fan stuff bc i got too much going on and i have complicated feelings abt fandom. but. on ffnet? naruto, inuyasha, bleach, fairy tail, danny phantom. i think.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

we have time (love this one - much needed natural hair content in that fandom, much needed)

you can't even see how much you're mine (i'm really proud of this one)

before we have time

just for now

gazing at the sun

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

i respond to everyone's comments if i can remember LOL

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

you can't even see how much you're mine. really exorcised my polyamory baggage with that one LMAO

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

mmmmm none of them end poorly but they end heavily, if that makes sense? but also they don't. like most of my fanfiction as an adult in my 30s is discussion of wants and needs in a relationship and hashing out things that need to be talked abt

8. Do you get hate on fics?

i have on ffnet when i was a teen and giving every naruto character in my biopunk fanfic like 4 codenames SDKVDFLVMS

9. Do you write smut? If so what kind?

yuh. "just for now" is smut (old man yaoi). and there's another i think. i wanted to really confront my sex repulsion and explore my own boundaries around what i write.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

naur i never understood crossovers v well. i love an AU tho

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

probably not. on ffnet it was SO goth edgelord and now it's extremely poetic prose. (and when i say POETIC prose i mean it tend to be concise and abstract, not that its purple) who wants that LOL

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

naur

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

yes! my first fanfiction was with my childhood friend Sunshine and we posted a double-self-insert absolute MANIC fanfic set in the world of Inuyasha posted to ffnet. one of my fondest memories. i dictated, she wrote.

14. What’s your all-time favourite ship?

i don't have one these days but i shant say what it used to be only that it made me insane from the time i was 14 to the age of 25.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

i had an old man yaoi urban fantasy au wherein a character who used to be the chosen one had been imprisoned and was surviving the trauma of that as a music teacher and i read a ton of prison literature for it and watched documentaries and watched interviews and spent WEEKS researching trauma from incarceration and what it means to be incarcerated (part of this was because my birth father was about to be incarcerated and i was trying to write through my understanding of what he'd be going through) and researching what town councils do. and then a (now former) friend had torn apart the fic paragraph by paragraph during beta and wrote how boring parts were and no one wanted to hear abt me talking abt poetry in the fanfic and it was my FIRST fanfic since i was in my early twenties and i basically deleted the whole thing out of embarrassment and hurt. iykyk who it was. idk if i can ever go back to that. i just don't. i want to but. even strangers in workshops aren't that cruel LOL

16. What are your writing strengths?

i'm a pretty/poetic writer good at relationship shit i think. i'm good at grounding the reader in a sense of place and my writing is very tactile. it's embodied.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

i am a pretty/poetic writer

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

i know some spanish and a little french and even less russian (i'm like learning that one through osmosis) but it's not v applicable. hmmmm i wouldn't try unless i was fluent.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

inuyasha

20. Favourite fic you’ve ever written?

either the naruto biopunk fanfiction on ffnet (i turned that one into a fanfic from a biopunk short story i had written in high school it's v close to my heart even if edgy) or "you can't even see how much you're mine" bc i put a lot into that or "we have time" because your partner doing your natural hair IS a love language.

if yall wanna hop in i'm tagging @toopunkrockforshul @cadencekismet @markeyverse

#dogstar speaking

[theviridianbunny]

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking recently about my special interest over the years…

my first ever proper special interest was naruto. I remember being 11/12, in my first year of secondary school. My school had a library that that had manga in it and they had all of the original manga. I picked up the manga and fell in love with it. I then started the anime and the special interest really kicked in!! Me and my best friend at the time would sit together in class and hype over naruto (and not get any work done- but we were good kids- we were having fun- and put our heads down when we were told XD) I remember doing little doodles of gaara or rock lee in the margins of my note books- or all over my school planner !

Through school I was always picked on / bullied for being the weird kid- in the later years of secondary school I pushed away my love for anime/manga- also things like gaming/pokemon . I wasn’t allowed to like that stuff no- I could not because fuck - I was so tired… But in recent years- I’ve been in learning the negative associations/ thinking around the passions. It’s not cringe bunny- if you like it- it’s not cringe- nothing is cringe! (It’s something I tell myself every day now)

If I could go back, I’d tell 12 year old bunny it’s ok- to not listen to the boys who picked on me- or to not pay attention to the girls who’d look at me weirdly- I’d give her a big hug and tell her everything is going to be ok- to keep her head up- rough times we’re on the horizon but - she’d make it through… Naruto bought me so much joy during a time of my life where everything sucked! Other anime’s did too (like bleach and then code geass R1 and R2) - but for now I’m just talking about Naruto!!

I’ve been revisting some of the anime - to be specific my favourite arc- the chunin exam arc!! I’ve been rewatching a bunch of the second round fights and -!The neji and Hinata fight- the family struggle that came with it… and then- oh my god the gaara rock lee fight!! I’d forgotten just how hyped I used to get over it! Like just oh my god- I didn’t even have the words for that fight- literally it was my favourite part of the whole series hands down!! The character design in naruto will always stick with me! Orochimaru’s design especially- just ugh- the purple eye shadow and his piercing yellow eyes!! The soundtrack SLAPS as well- the animation is so of its time- the cell shaded (?) blocked shading in areas- the areas of line weight- ugh it’s just- it’s something special to me !

Naruto will always be special to me, it will always have a place in my heart- even if it’s no longer a proper special interest. Every now and then I revisit it- the same childlike wonder and hype is still there… a lot of nostalgia as well…

#bunny screams into the void #naruto

[starsdeath]

———  basics! ♡

(PEN)NAME:  boo / bo / spookington

PRONOUNS:  she /

ZODIAC SIGNS: taurus

TAKEN OR SINGLE:  single, so single, i only like fictional people

TIME ZONE:  mountain standard time aka midwestern america pretty much

———  three  facts! ♡

i have a close to 13 years old kitty named lyra, who i named after a fictional magical leopard with wings from one of my favorite books series that i had when i got her (which was about 13 years ago lol).

i am very slowly working on building my own d&d world as i love d&d / critical role / dimension 20, and I am also working on a couple novel ideas and a lot of poetry.

i have fantastically bad luck with computers a lot of the time lol.

———  experience ! ♡

i started rping technically in about 2009 with some of my friends, a lot of which was a combo between pen and paper, as well as using facebook messages to rp, and it was a lot of naruto / bleach / whatever anime we were all into at the time worlds that we rped in. i definitely had a very overpowered and mary sue-ish character, though i've tried to do a lot of work in making my characters less like that and more like, reasonably powerful / odd in relation to the world they're for and the lore i've built for them? if that makes sense.

i didn't rp for about four years and then picked it up again sometime in 2016 where i did tolkien rp (which was actually quite fun) and then i proceeded to go more into the video game direction for what universes and characters i wanted to rp in, and up until about last year, i only rped as my own original characters because i was way too scared to try my hand at canon characters. the most i did canon-wise was write characters that were canon adjacent, such as one of my current muses, though the blog is on hiatus rn, who is the good hunter / ashen one / chosen undead for the souls games, and that is the closest i got until friends got me into genshin and eventually this blog was born.

i did rp the most consistently during the 2018-2020 period probably, with ocs, but with life in general i tend to take a couple month long breaks periodically.

———  muse preference !  ♡

ladies and nonbinary folks are the muses i'm most comfortable with (and definitely part of why i headcanon so many canon characters as being nonbinary), though over the last year / year and a half, i really have been trying to write more men and get more comfortable writing men. so, even though i sort of default to nonbinary folk and ladies, i also do enjoy writing men, even if i still feel like i struggle with them a little bit sometimes.

———  FLUFF / ANGST / SMUT! ♡    

FLUFF:  i can not stress how much i love fluff. i love it so much, and it always brightens my day!

ANGST:  i enjoy it! i have learned that i do have to be careful to not write too much angst with nothing else, esp if there's a lot going on irl because it just isn't good for me, but as long as i can manage it well (which i'm pretty good at by now i like to think), then i actually really enjoy doing angst. especially if it's a thing that can help with character development. plus, i have a lot of sad thoughts about my muses so, it works lol.

SMUT: i'm pretty chill with it! i like smut, though i am very out of practice with it lmao, and it's not something i've done too often. i'd be open to doing it more, even though i do tend to gravitate towards fluff the most, if i can combine smut with fluff or angst, then i'm definitely groovy lol.

PLOT / MEMES:  i don’t mind either approach honestly, though i feel like i struggle with plotting sometimes so i tend to do memes more. however! i would like to do plotting more / get better at plotting. on the other hand though, i love memes so much, and i do like to hoard them sometimes, so yeah. i really like both though i tend to do more memes even though i am trying to definitely be better about plotting.

TAGGED: stole it from @txnichtgut

#out of emblems || ooc #about the mun

[ladyhime]

Seeing people complaining on social media about how the AoT fandom is the worst because of how they react to the ending really brings back memories to me. Those people probably never were in Naruto or Bleach fandom, because if they saw what people from Naruto and Bleach fandoms (especially NaruSaku, SasuKarin and IchiRuki shippers) did in 2014 and 2016 after those manga ended (and a lot of them are still salty about the endings to this day) they would know the true definition of the worst fandom. Like I am not justifying anything those EH shippers and AnR supporters are doing right now, but believe it or not it used to be even worse back then. You are just late to the party. 😂

#when i think about good old days when naruto and bleach were still on-going #and how we were waiting every week for new chapters i feel really nostalgic #sometimes i think about that and i am like: bring me time machine #so i can take myself back to those times #even though one part of the fandom was really toxic i was still enjoying the ride #also i was still a teenager and in high school and everything used to be so simple back then #i miss those times #and when the final chapters were dropped we were celebrating our victory here #ngl i liked naruto's ending much more than aot ending #like of course aot is more dark story than naruto so i wouldnt expect it to have a totally happy ending #but i still think eren and mikasa deserved better #delete later

[stillness-in-green]

I felt like the plf war was rushed

1.Plf advisors getting hype but no payoff

2.Only miruko, Momo, and Kirishma got time to shine

3.Machia got defeated to easily

4.The war felt more like a raid

I don't know if I feel like it was rushed, per se--it's by far the longest arc in the story so far by number of chapters, and would be even if you cut off the Tartarus jailbreak and the entirety of the hospital aftermath. What it absolutely does feel like to me is unbalanced.

You note that the "war" feels more like a raid, and you're right. As a caveat, it's worth keeping in mind that "Paranormal Liberation War" as a name for the arc in question is entirely an invention of the fanbase. To the best of my knowledge, the reasoning for the name was that big action shonen series like BNHA (Naruto, Bleach, Hunter x Hunter, etc) always have a war arc, so what we were seeing in the lengthy, mass combat confrontation with the PLF had to be HeroAca's equivalent. It's not a term that's in the manga itself, however, not called as such by the characters, not referred to as such by Horikoshi or his editors, not even namedropped in chapter or volume titles. If it feels like a raid, that's probably because that's what it was intended to be.

And that's the problem, really. This arc shouldn't have been about a couple of raids; it should have been about a war.

(Below the cut: a bunch of fired-up complaining. Uses some harsh language, and talks about both injuries and deaths we did see and some we logically should have.)

From the outset, we were told that the resources Shigaraki had amassed were "on par with, or even stronger than" the resources of the hero-saturated society. Yet, we're expected to believe that a force that strong is so easily taken down by a single coordinated set of raids? Yes, the heroes had the benefit of surprise, but there's just so much that doesn't work for me.

First off, and to get this out of the way, it's ridiculous that the heroes even had the benefit of surprise. The MLA had an unknown number of hero double agents. They had people in the government; they had people in the infrastructure. This is an organization that had been living undercover completely unsuspected for multiple generations--how did the HPSC ever manage to carry out a massive, country-wide investigation on such a secretive group and coordinate multiple simultaneous, comprehensive raids without a single person finding out and alerting the higher-ups over a period of only three and a half months?

When exactly did Hawks have time to go and revive Best Jeanist--which he tells us he did personally--such that none of the bugs and micro-cameras he was covered with picked up on it, and both he and BJ could be back in the positions they needed to be in for the raid to begin?

How did Skeptic find out about the raid such that he only discovered it at the last possible second and not minutes, even hours, before it kicked off? How did hundreds of heroes (and even "hundreds" is being conservative, given the fact that they had seventeen thousand people to detain) close in on the villa without anyone from the PLF noticing, either Skeptic with his information network or mundane precautions like people on watch?

Even granting the heroes their surprise advantage--which I don't want to--if the advisors were all supposedly "stronger than the average hero," why didn't we see any of them winning? Okay, yes, Hose Face beat Midnight, but he had every possible advantage in that "fight"; I hardly count it as some big impressive defeat that shows us that the villains were holding their own.

Here's another thing: the MLA styled themselves as an army--they were demonstrably trained in troop tactics. When we saw them in Deika, even their nameless on-the-ground people were capable of coordinating with each other on the fly in response to the movements of the enemy, as we saw come up repeatedly:

Yeah, they were off-guard at first, but as soon as the advisors made the front line (which, you'll note, was immediately), that disadvantage really should have begun eroding. Certainly once Geten--Geten! The number one MLA member most willing to disregard collateral damage! And there he was being a proper leader!--got to the front and started yelling orders, we should have seen the PLF rallying, and I can't imagine any sensible justification for the tides not turning when a) Re-Destro showed up to occupy the highest-ranked hero on the field, b) a bunch of heroes peeled off to try to stop Machia only to get trampled for their efforts, and c) Trumpet got dug out.

You know who don't style themselves as an army, though? Heroes. Oh, they get some basic lessons in cooperation as students, but the extent of such lessons we see is stuff like "why it's important for heroes to have signature moves"--so that on group missions, their reputations will precede them and fellow heroes will already know their shtick. U.A. teaches the odd lesson plan that involves the kids fighting in groups, but there's a huge difference between you and 3 to 6 of your buddies fighting a similarly-sized group in a practice fight, or a handful of heroes teaming up to take down some criminal low-lives, and the mass combat scenario that was the raid. For heaven's sake, look at our closest other equivalent: the raid on the Hassaikai base. At every turn in that encounter, the heroes let themselves get split up and picked off, winnowing down their numbers. It's even explicit in the narrative that hero team-ups were, in the age of All Might, uncommon, and heroes are only just beginning to adjust to fighting in teams. The erstwhile MLA should have had the advantage there.

As to Machia's defeat, I think the big problem with it is not how it happened, per se, but the timescale involved. The plan itself was sound enough, and even with all the kids' efforts, it still took Machia reaching Shigaraki and not getting any new orders to follow to really do him in. Given what we can extrapolate about his movement speed, though, I just don't think the kids should have had time to set all those traps, especially given how much of that equipment would have had to be fabricated by Momo on the fly. I know she's gotten stronger and all, and good for her, but you're telling me that in the four months between Joint Training and the raid, she went from passing out because she created a bag of goodies and one (1) cannon to being totally fine and still able to coordinate her fellow students while cranking out 23 jars of sedative, dozens of feet of rope/cable, multiple fire-resistant coats, explosives they somehow had time to bury, and three cannons?

For fuck's sake, Jirou gave Machia's ETA as under ten seconds. Yeah, Mount Lady slowed him down, but "only a little"--how much time could she possibly have bought them, that the kids were able to to coordinate and enact everything that plan involved?

You guys, go read this post by @codenamesazanka. Machia is so fast. So unbelievably, incredibly fast. "Twice as fast as the fastest train in the world" fast. "Horikoshi clearly did not stop to think about the distances involved here" fast. Three miles in ten seconds fast. It would have been hard enough to square with the needs of the plot that the kids were sufficiently far from the villa to have the kind of time they needed to swing Momo's plan at all, but Horikoshi explicitly letting Machia get right on top of them before the kids even start just makes it completely impossible for me to credit. Machia clearly being slower aboveground than he is when burrowing does not make that much difference to my suspension of disbelief.

My other big complaint? More people should have died, for real. The PLF warriors would not have been holding back. They were ready and willing to kill anyone they came up against. The heroes did have to hold back, because heroes, as we're told over and over again, are not supposed to kill, no matter how dire the circumstances. That difference in ability to exercise force should have been yet another significant advantage for the PLF. I could write an entire list of characters that I think could have reasonably been killed during the raids. That wouldn't be to say that I think any individual, specific character on that list should have died, just that, based on the parameters as they were presented to audience, some number of them should have.

I mean, honestly. How did Horikoshi wanna show us Gang Orca's unmoving claw in the wake of Machia's passage and not have Gang Orca on the list of the dead? How did Fat Gun run right into a mass melee and still have enough fat left over afterward to survive getting trampled by a walking mountain? How did Thirteen survive not getting pulled out of the hospital basement when Shigaraki's Decay hit? How did Trumpet survive getting a staircase dropped on top of him? How did Gran Torino survive a fist through his tiny old man chest cavity?

I could go on and on, but it's not just about the deaths, either. I'm not saying that Kamui Woods necessarily should have died by swinging himself face-first into a blast of blue fire, but I am saying that he should have been out of commission for longer than three goddamn days. You bet your ass I'm saying that after telling us that Hawks' weak point is fire, making us watch him spend at a solid minute or more with his wings wholly enveloped in Dabi's 2000 degree flames, and having Dark Shadow exclaim that his back is completely burned away, Hawks should never have grown his wings back, much less so quickly that they were already visible under his shirt a single day later.

More deaths, more maiming--heck, even more retirements. I'm not saying I love that kind of thing in my fiction--I don't, actually. I think an overreliance on it is a sign of edgelordy nonsense. But the scenario that we had demanded to be treated with the kind of gravity that would have led to such an outcome. To set up a conflict like the raid and have the villains only barely be able to scrape a partial escape, to try to tell us that Shigaraki's victory in Deika granted him such a terrifyingly powerful force only to have them lose every battle they got into, to tell us this was a blow that shook Hero Society to its core, only to be so unwilling to kill or retire any heroes the audience cares about that Midnight is literally the only significant loss… It doesn't work. None of it works.

I don't have much to say on which characters did or didn't get a highlight. I think there were a few more people than you listed that got some good scenes--Tokoyami and Uraraka both got material I liked quite a bit; Dabi famously out-trended the U.S. presidential election on Twitter when he (literally) came clean, and Mr. Compress gave us some wonderfully interesting and characteristically opaque material to chew on. On the whole, though, adding more character moments would only have been dragging out the problem: the scale of the PLF's threat and the HPSC's chosen method of dealing with it are simply incompatible with the feeble "neither side truly won or lost" resolution we got.

And that's my rant on that--thanks for the ask!

#and yet #i still hate it less than the shitshow that went down with lady n and overhaul #inkbuckets #paranormal liberation front #meta liberation army #bnha #stillness has salt #stillness answers

[nicetomeetmew]

If LU was an anime (VA headcanons)

Okay so! A while back I uploaded a video (which you can find here) giving the LU boys voice actors. And in the description of said video, I promised that I was going to post a list of explanations for my voices and link it. Which I am only doing now.

These choices, bar a few, are my own personal opinion, so I'd love to hear your thoughts about them! I spent far to long working and watching anime for this but I am pretty happy with the end result, bar one (glares at Four). So I hope you enjoy! And prepare yourself. Cause this is LONG.

Legend - Vic Mignoga (Edward Elric from Fullmetal Alchemist and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood)

So fun fact. Back when I first discovered LU, I almost immediately imaged Leg with this voice. He had strong Ed vibes for me and when I started making this list, he was the only one I immediately knew was perfect. At least to me. It just has that quality; the snark with the capability of being genuine and emotional (I do apologise if the voice clips I included in the video made you sad. That's a hazard of FMA). I didn't consider anyone else for Legend, even though I did briefly consider Vic Mignoga for Warriors (more on that later).

Sky - Aleks Le (Zenitsu Agatsuma from Demon Slayer)

Man, I considered a fair few KnY voices for this list, including the voice of Tanjiro for Wild and the voice of Giyu for Twilight. But this is the one that stuck. I was struck between Sky having a youthful, soft voice or an older, soft voice (I knew his voice had to be soft. I mean. It's Sky.)

I watched the dub of Demon Slayer solely for this and it never would've occurred to me to consider Zenitsu's voice for Sky. But as the show progressed and I heard it when he wasn't... you know... begging some poor lass to marry him, I realised he actually has quite a soft voice. And when I heard it get all serious I thought "Yep. That works." And thus I placed Aleks Le as the Chosen Hero. You could argue that his voice is a bit too youthful for him but I still think it works.

Wind - Amanda Miller (Boruto from Boruto: Naruto Next Generations)

Ugh. Ugh. *increasing sounds of disgust*. I hate this.

But let's start from the beginning. Right off the bat, I was 99.9% sure Wind would be voiced by a woman. Okay so he's not 10 (that will make more sense in a second), but he's still pretty young and I imagine him with quite a youthful voice. For him, I considered Sarah Natochenny, the current voice of Ash Ketchum in Pokémon, and also Colleen Clickenbeard's voice for Monkey D. Luffy in One Piece. But these two voices shared the same problem. They were too raspy. I just cannot see Wind with a raspy voice. I guess if you really, really, really focus on it it could work but I just could get it to work for me hfff.

And then... ugh. I spoke to a mate about. He doesn't know about LU so I just told him I was making voice headcanons and couldn't think of a good one for a 14 year old boy. And he said "have you heard Boruto's English voice?" And I think my response was something along the lines of, "Ben, I have standards." But he insisted it would probably work so I watched a clip of Boruto on YouTube and much to my horror, it did seem to work. But there was problem. None of the clips had lines I could picture Wind saying. And because of that I was struggling to actually give Wind the voice. But something told me that it was the right one so... I... *shudders*... watched Boruto. I watched I think 5 full episodes before I had no more braincells and skipped thorough a bunch more and sure enough, I could finally see Wind with that voice. I think it fits him great and it honestly might be my favourite choice just because I had to watch that nightmare.

Hyrule - Justin Briner (Izuku Midoriya from My Hero Academia)

Ah. This one is much more pleasant. First of all, I never realised this at first but Midoriya and Hyrule are kind of similar. For one thing, they do kinda look alike. And for another they have the same "I will never give up" kinda thing going on.

Roolie is another one I knew would have a soft voice. I think Justin Briner was always down as a choice for him, except for when I briefly considered him for Four (more on that later *big sigh*). This is another anime I watched the dub for solely for this and there were a ton of lines right from the get go I could instantly imagine Roolie saying. So yeah. Aside from the tiny moment I almost assigned Justin Briner to Four, this was a pretty easy one. Midoriya has a soft voice that I could easily imagine Hyrule having. And when he got angry and his voice got harsher, I could also easily see Roolie like that too. Fun fact: there's another BNHA voice on this list... heh.

Wild - Michael Sinternklaas (Dagger from Black Butler)

AW YEAH. YOU HAVE BEEN DIAGNOSED WITH BRITISH BOI.

Ahem. Anyway. Yes Wild is British. Everyone rejoice. I was unsure of how people would react to this but I think this is the only voice on the list everyone agreed on. Which I'm happy about.

As I mentioned, I considered the English voice of Tanjiro (Zach Aguilar) for Wild. There were issues with this; mainly that it was too soft, too young, and made him sound too similar to Sky. Now here's the thing. I WANTED to give Wild a English accent. I am almost certain he would have one, like most people. However the only anime I could think of with decent English accents was Black Butler (and yes I know his final voice is from it, bear with me) and there was a problem with that. Most of the voices from Black Butler are ridiculously posh. Now you may be thinking "But Kai, Zelda has a posh English accent" and to that I would say "Ah yes but she's a princess and Wild is not". And now you might be thinking "But Kai, he's a knight an probably spent a lot of time in a place with posh English accents". To which I would say "But he wasn't always". Two words. Hateno Village.

Let me explain.

I feel like a lot of people hear the words 'English accent' and immediately think of an accent like Zelda's (and no, I am not saying everyone does and I'm also not implying that there aren't people out there who aren't British and know that there are multiple accents). Anyway, English accents are different depending on the place. And, since one can assume Wild is from Hateno Village, I would imagine their accent is different to that of those born in Castle Town. So that's why I was reluctant to give Wild a voice from Black Butler. Because all the voices that weren't insanely fancy were either far too old or did not have the right vibe.

Then one day, taking a break from this, I was watching season 3 of Black Butler (one of the only anime I watch dubbed) and I heard two voices that I suddenly thought, hang on just a second. One of those was the voice of Ronald Knox, who's a grim reaper. And the other, of course, was Dagger. I was leaning towards Dagger and what sold me was one scene in particular, which I chose as the final voice clip for Wild (you cannot tell me that is not exactly something he would say). And that was it. But Wild's was easily one of the most frustrating (not the most *glares at Four again*).

Time - David Matranga (The Father from Wolf Children)

Another tough one and also one I heavily considered for Twilight (for obvious reasons). Time's was kind of tricky because I knew I wanted it to be deep but there's such of variety of deep voices. At one point I even considered dumping the deep voice idea because it was so hard. It was a this time I thought of the voice of space cowboy extraordinaire, Spike Spiegel. But my brain said "hell no". There were other voices I considered for him, loads of which I cannot find the notes for and another one which will likely appear in part two as another character (no spoilers), but when I was picking a voice for Twi, some of the lines the father said just kept ringing big old Time vibes with me. So in the end, I decided to for it. Like I said, I imagine time with a deep voice and while to father's might be a bit more... gravelly (?) than I imagined, I think it fits him pretty well. It's serious and mature but still a certain kindness I'd imagine Time's voice to have.

Warriors - Johnny Yong Bosch (Ichigo Kurosaki from Bleach)

Don't lie. You knew Johnny Yong Bosch was gonna be on here and not just because I put his name (albeit spelled incorrectly) in the thumbnail. When I started making this, I knew I wanted to fit JYB into it. In my mind, LU would be an amazing anime and almost all amazing anime have Johnny Yong Bosch in it.

Now, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out whether he would be better for Wars or Twi. At one point I was convinced he would be best for Twi and that's when I briefly thought about Vic Mignoga for Warriors (his voice for Tamaki Suoh from Ouran High School Host Club. Don't tell me Tamaki and Wars aren't at least a tiny bit similar). But I could bear to part with Vic for Legend so I decided heck it, Johnny is Warriors and I'll find someone else for Twi later. As for the voice in particular, the two voices I considered for Twi definitely did not fit Wars. And then I remembered Bleach and immediately I thought "Yep. That's the one". I imagine Warriors having an authoritative voice, not too deep and very... uh... I don't know the right word. Clean sounding? Anyway, Ichigo just seemed to fit nicely and thus it was so.

Four - Micah Solusod (Yukine from Noragamai)

Ugh. UGH. Okay. This is my least favourite. Four was, excuse my French, A FUCKING NIGHTMARES. There was not ONE SINGLE VOICE that seemed to work for him at all. I watched a bit of the Noragmai dub because I was thinking about Yato's voice for someone (I can't remember who. It might have been Wild) and I heard Yukine's and decided to put it into reserve. As in, my last resort. And I had to use it. Oh my god Four. I love you but your voice is literally a nightmare. Is it high? Is it low? Is it young sounding? Surprisingly grown up sounding? I DON'T FREAKING KNOW.

I mentioned earlier that I considered Justin Briner for him. I was thinking about his voice for Luck from Black Clover, which may have honestly worked a bit better, but I was pretty attached to Justin as Roolie by this point. So I had to whip out Micah.

Let me be clear. No, I do not think this works well at all. I appreciate the people who tried to see that good in it, but I honestly just don't think it works. The only reason I went for it is because Yukine's voice switches between older sounding and younger sounding throughout the show and since I could decide what Four's would sound like I said to myself "Fine. Four can be the same", found some clips, slapped it together and never looked back.

I am still looking for another voice for Four and if I find a decent one, I will include it in part two.

And last but not least...

Twilight - Aaron Mitchell Dismuke (Tamaki Amajiki - My Hero Academia)

Told ya there was another BHNA voice.

So Twi was another tricky one. As I mentioned, I was seriously considering Johnny Yong Bosch for him. More specifically, his voices for Giyu Tomioka from Demon Slayer and Kiba from Wolf's Rain (for obvious reasons). I did almost go for Kiba but something was stopping me. I'm honestly not sure what.

So I was talking to a mate (and by that I mean I rambled. A lot) about VA's and at one point he suggested Aaron Mitchell Dismuke but not for Twilight. I can't actually remember who he suggested it for but anyway, that didn't work out. But when I was looking through his work, I saw that we played Amajiki and I was curious. I listened to him and I liked it.

Okay to be fair I wanted a country accent for Twi. Of course I did. But I could not a find a decent one. They few I found were absolutely terrible. So I gave up on that and decided that was Amajiki. And that was that.

And that concludes the Links VA headcanons! I am happy with most of them and once more these are my opinion but I would love to hear your own ideas!

As I have said many times, I am working on a part two and as a sneak peak (sort of) I'll tell you two of the characters that will be featured (excluding Four, if I find him another voice).

Dink (even though he hasn't, technically shown up yet) and Malon (which is proving to be a lot tricker than I thought). There a couple more but my lips are sealed heh.

Oh and speaking of Dink, the voice I considered for Time and then thought it would be better for someone else? Yeah that's the voice that's currently in the lead to be Dink's :)

I hope enjoyed my long winded explanations! And thank you for reading/watching!

#phew #well that was fun #legend's is my favourite I think #closely follow by wild and maybe sky or wars #and like i said im very happy with wind because *ow* #linkeduniverse #linked universe #hehe... part 2...

[retrocontinuity]

rev, rev, fight the power: thoughts on the first half of chainsaw man

Spoilers through the end of the Bomb Girl Arc.

Devil Hunting in the Age of Fascism

As one of the cohosts of a podcast on Gundam Wing in 2020/2021, I've been thinking a lot about how authoritarian regimes and the concept of societal control is treated in anime. Which is to say: usually in a very limited sense, and based on the actions of a few bad actors, as demonstrated with its effects on a few unfortunate protagonists. It's not that creators don't care about the issue, but rather a sign that the genre (and yes, I do consider manga/anime to be a genre more than just a medium, but that's for another time) and its conventions are not particularly well-suited to showing you those effects.

So, Chainsaw Man. On an individual character level, Fujimoto has some stuff to say about the choice between death and life, and I do want to talk about that and what it says about the characters and what life means in CSM. But it's hard to tell whether or not he meant to create a world with some really fucked up institutions too. 

For instance, the civilian, non-public sector Devil Hunters. These appear to be explicitly authorized by the Japanese government, to the point where it is a crime for the Public Safety division's hunters to kill a devil that a civilian is in the process of capturing. They don't have guns (this is Japan!) and I imagine they are only allowed to kill Devils, but just, like, think about this. What if you kill someone else in the process of trying to kill a Devil? What if you suspect someone is a Fiend but actually they're just acting weird? What if you kill someone, then claim later it's because you thought they were a Devil?

This is likely the American in me talking, but I can’t help thinking about how badly this would be abused and how horrible an idea that would be. And I can’t help but think about how the Devils allow the world of CSM to separate fears from human nature. By which I mean, in the world of CSM, evil is otherized in a very specific way; they’re represented by very individual, very distinct, and very monstrous representations. Here is the fear of scissors, the fear of sharks, the fear of the future, and so on. But in the real world, we know it isn’t just fear itself that is the problem; it’s people, well-meaning or otherwise, animated by those fears that create the most evil, or people harnessing those fears to gain power. This may be unfair—I don’t know what Fujimoto has planned for Makima, whose mythos and power seems very much wrapped up in the idea of using Devils to her own advantage. But there’s an assumption here that all actions taken towards eradication of the Devils, or maybe just one Gun Devil, is a de facto good. And in 2021, that’s a very unnerving position to take.

Death in Chainsaw Man is a sacrifice. In these early arcs of the series, death is a "contract," an expending of activation energy to achieve something else. So Pochita gives Denji life (which is really a contract repaid, for when Denji gave him life), so the Devil Hunters "trade" something in a contract with a Devil for power (like Aki giving away literal years of his life to his curse sword), so Denji dying to the Eternity Devil would have freed the rest of the team. But there are plenty of deaths in the series where nothing is traded, nothing is given. These tend to be nameless victims or, in one harrowing scene, convicted felons who die at the hands of Makima as she chases down Katana Devil. 

What did they gain? What was the contract formed by the deaths of these 雑魚?

Makima says at some point when she's attacking the gangs that are affiliated with the Katana Devil that "the truly necessary evils are always kept collared and controlled by the state." Which I think is at its face about the fiends and Devils kept “collared” by the Public Safety Bureau. But maybe it’s also about the idea of sacrifice, about giving yourself over to the state, in order to control a world thrown into chaos. The contracts formed by the deaths of those ordinary citizens is meant to bring about an eradication of fear. It gives birth to the Public Safety Devil Hunters, to Devil Hunters in general, to the use of whatever means necessary to achieve an end. But whatever those consequences are, we only see them in the fates of Denji, Chainsaw Man, and the impossible characters around him. 

A state under threat, a state that feels like it must collar evil in order to survive, will have ruinous consequences. I just hope we get to see what those are. 

Just A Teenage Dirtbag, (Bomb) Baby

I read some reviews about Denji being the anti-shounen shounen manga hero which I can presume were written by people whose only frame of reference is Bleach, Naruto, or One Piece. Sure, the Big Three were, in their most simplistic forms, feel-good series, and CSM's first half is basically a feel-bad series, but that hardly makes it unusual. It's really not dissimilar from other manga like Homunculus, Freesia, and Oyasumi Punpun. Of course, only old fogies like me, who still remember getting scanlations of these series off of IRC, and query, of course, whether or not those series are shounen at all, or more like seinen. If it were up to me to name the genre, and of course it is not, I would call it “simply another line of stories about fucked up things happen to fucked up people.”

Many fucked up things have happened to Denji. I’d call it traumatic, but I don’t think “trauma” covers what this poor man has been through. The effect, though, has been to make Denji less than human, even in his human form.

Denji and Power's nonchalance towards the fate of their human coworkers who die to Katana Devil and Sawatari is framed by the manga through Denji as a potential sign of callousness. Kishibe notes it as a sign that they are "insane," in other words, "not like other humans," and thus capable of bringing down something like the Gun Devil, which would otherwise drive "normal humans" insane. 

But like, huh? Denji and Power's reactions are, on the contrary, extremely human, because there’s no reason for them to extend feeling towards other humans. Simply put, they’ve never been human to the humans around them. They seem to be bonded most closely to each other, and in fact almost all the Fiends are, because the wider Public Safety employees treat them so poorly. Remember how the Infinity Devil Arc starts? Basically, they're told to be the advance guard, and threatened to be killed if they ever act out. Denji is kept on a short leash, and is so proud (in front of Reze) that he's allowed to go places on his own now.

Which, I'm not saying that that's wrong. Denji is incredibly dumb, holds monstrous power that could easily be tricked into using for horrible purposes, and appears to be the target of a number of Gun Devil's allies. Power is... well. I wouldn't let her out of sight either. But what Makima does that makes Denji feel so loyal, so utterly tied to her, is simply treating him as a human. She convinces him he has a heart, just like any other human. She tells him about all the love experiences he'll have in the future, because he's just a human teenager. And just like Makima, Reze is able to bond with Denji by treating him like an ordinary 16-year-old horny boy. Is it because as a Devil she knows what he wants the most? What he is craving, and never had? It doesn't matter that Denji had been just an ordinary human before fusing with Pochita or before he began his life as a Devil Hunter; as an orphan growing up on the street, unwanted and unloved, he was no more human than a Devil.  

The ending of the Bomb Girl Arc—with Denji asking Reze to run away with him, only to be stood up—reminded me so very much of Aku no Hana. There's the classroom scenes between Reze and Denji, of course, but mostly I think about how Denji—betrayed, injured, manipulated Denji—still asks Reze to run away with him. I'd written about Aku no Hana before, how one of the saddest things about Nakamura is that she cannot imagine a world beyond her current circumstance (and, in fact, the manga ends up dooming her to stagnation). Denji and Reze are Nakamura and Kasuga's perverse mirror. It is because Denji doesn't have the capacity to imagine a larger world beyond his immediate now, three meals a day and a job and this woman who taught him how to swim, that he asks her to do this impossible thing, to run away with him knowing that to do would mean both of them betraying their masters. It is because Reze knows that it is impossible that she does not meet Denji at the cafe. Reze is more human than Denji, because she is capable of dreams, and because she is capable of dreaming, she knows she cannot afford their luxury. She knows too much about the world and its cruelty. And, so, she walks straight into its open maw, and straight into her death.

I don't think we can take Reze at her word that she wanted to be a town mouse, or rather we should say instead that Reze proves that the division between the town mouse and the country mouse is immaterial. The issue is that both, in the end, are only mice, dreaming of a safety they can never achieve. Safety, in the world of CSM, is neither town mouse nor country mouse. It is to not be mice at all. It is to be the dog that digs them out from the cold winter dirt. 

It is, in fact, to be Makima, the person who orders the dogs to kill the mice.

Denji, aim for the top! Transcend the town mouse/country mouse divide! Or else you will constantly be hunted and used!

(Side note: CSM goes at a break-neck pace, and I think the speed through which Fujimoto rushes through these early storylines has made it very difficult for me to actually connect with the characters. Reze and Denji’s relationship is one of the victims to this pacing. Do I believe that Denji could fall for a girl and be willing to risk it all for her after about 3 chapters worth of interaction? Sure, he’s that kind of guy. But does it work for me? Not particularly. We’ve hardly had time to linger with Reze before she swears she’ll protect Denji forever, as long as he’ll run away with her. Though the reader at that point knows there’s something off about Reze, it’s still just not believable. Reze’s actions seem like someone trying to bulldoze her way into Denji’s affections, and though she herself is a bittersweet character, I just really feel like CSM could have spent less time with Bomb Devil vs Chainsaw Man and more time with Reze and Denji.)

No Ethical Women Under Capitalism

The Eternity Devil arc, for all its mini-boss game feel (it wouldn’t be out of place as one of the floors in Tower of God), struck a nerve with me, if only because it felt, however unintentionally, to be a story about working under modern capitalism. A floor you can never leave, that loops endless, where the only way to escape is to destroy it, literally, from the inside, by making it so painful, an eternal feedback loop of destroying ourselves and destroying it, before it opens its heart to us. The Capitalism Devil threatens us, tries to tear us apart. Asks us to sacrifice the strongest, the weakest, anybody among us, as if by climbing over the bodies of our friends and coworkers, we can come out ahead. It makes us suspicious of each other, ready to tear into any weakness for an advantage. 

No wonder this is the chapter where Kobeni lays bare her reasons for joining the Public Safety bureau. She needed to work, to make money. Her options were to be a sex worker or a Devil Hunter. Either way, she was selling her body to the system. Kobeni is a victim of capitalism, which forces her to do what she hates, for goal that are not hers, and then gaslights us into thinking that she’s wrong for being crazy, she’s wrong for losing her shit, for not being able to handle it.

But... that's an asspull for me, even if it's my ass and I'm the one pulling. I'm truly not sure how to feel about Kobeni. Like, what is her deal?! I’m not sure what to make of her appearance in Chapter 20 in her sister’s hand-me-down. Are we supposed to pity her? See ourselves in her? Even in what I think was intended to be a mic-drop-ish line (at least for her), telling Aki that she didn’t quit because she was waiting on her bonus, landed flat for me, too deadpan to be pathetic and not sharp enough to be actually funny. Part of it may be because she is a character very much shaped by her circumstances as opposed to her personality or any interaction/action she does onscreen, but we don’t actually see her family situation in these chapters. We’re left with a painfully shy and cowardly woman who can’t seem to form any human connections with any of the other characters, who in multiple scenes is shown caving to the slightest pressure or threat.

Do the rest of the women fare any better? I’m not sure. Kobeni is unique in that she does not use her gender/sex appeal to manipulate the men around her and/or Denji (even Power lets Denji cop a feel to get her cat back!). Himeno, Makima, and Reze all hide their intentions for Denji behind the veil of his attraction to them (weak or strong) and are either unable or unwilling to be forthright in their desires and ambitions (Himeno to care for Aki; Reze, to accomplish whatever mission Gun Devil had her set out to do; and Makima, for fuck do I know at this point, but she’s up to something!!). Meanwhile, the men are straightforward to a fault. Did Fujimoto intend this? Is this just a subconscious reveal of his own conceptions of gender and Bitches Be Weird? 

I’m not a person who needs to have a strong female narrative in a story, but when you start a story with a protagonist whose life ambition for many chapters was just to feel a boob, you better be careful, you know? CSM doesn’t lack for women; Makima and Power are both formidable characters in their own rights, self-assured and unbeholden to anyone but themselves. But so far almost every arc has featured a woman offering herself to Denji sexually in order to get him to do what they want. It’s getting real old real fast. 

#chainsaw man #reading too deeply into the text

[carrackian]

‘Toxic’ Anime Fandoms (But I’m just angry)

Ok so this is gonna be a long stupid ramble because I (An idiot) found some articles online about toxic anime fandoms... and by god does it piss me off. SO in this essay I’m gonna incoherently scream about why these articles I found are just lacking in explanation, and then I point at the glaring flaws. Not to mention I’m using multiple articles, but they all like to use similar arguments.  Warning, I’m gonna paraphrase because these articles are long winded about literally nothing.

The Naruto fanbase is toxic because people compare everything to Naruto, and people get upset when you don’t put it in your best anime list!! Honey... HONEY, that’s how all fandoms are. Naruto was likely people’s first introduction to anime, and people are defensive over their nostalgia, I mean like you saw the uprising with the new Ben 10 and Teen Titans Go, other than the fact that they’re BAD, but people were upset and still are (which is yet again understandable)  Seriously, if I made a list that said ‘Best Things Ever’ and I didn’t include something that they liked, then I understand why someone would be upset, and maybe comment something. It’s the day in age where if you have an opinion someone will probably be upset with you.

The Deathnote fanbase is toxic because people like to say it’s good and act offended if you haven’t watched it! Well I mean... Yeah? That’s how fans of a show can act, it’s just exaggerated. I mean seriously, if someone told me they haven’t ever played Undertale, or heard anything about Homestuck- I’m gonna wonder about what part of the internet you’ve been on because I played Undertale for the first time in like 2019 thanks to how much my friends praised it, and I only got into Homestuck in very late 2020 because one of my friends went on a three hour rant about homestuck and I needed the context for so much stuff. Hell, I only have any knowledge on Deathnote because my friend took their old Deathnote Manga and gave it to me for my birthday- which was a touching gift since they really love Deathnote. 

The Hunter X Hunter fanbase is toxic because it doesn’t get attention from weebs, and the fans sometimes get angry. Seriously? That’s what we’re mad about? This is literally so fucking petty my god- next ffs.

The Jojo fanbase is toxic because ‘is that a jojo reference memes’ and because fans want you to watch Jojo. Fucking- AGAIN!? jesus christ. You wanna know how I got into Jojo? My tooth was pulled, and it was the first time I ever got any teeth pulled, so I was high as hell and spitting out blood occasionally. I didn’t want to walk home that day (for obvious reasons) and so I stayed late so I could get a ride from my friends parents. So when another mutual acquaintance came up, and he was playing the Jojo game on an emulator. This got into the three of them telling me about Jojo, but only super vague pieces of it. High off my ass I got home, binge watched like two seasons of it, and forgot everything that happened after the first episode. So I managed to get through the first season (again) before I got caught up in other things (ahem, pokemon) Not to mention that its normal to want to share something you like with other people. Back when I read books regularly I used to keep a list of books to recommend to my friends.

The Demon Slayer fandom is bad cuz too many spoilers :(  Okay? This... This doesn’t a toxic fandom make. Yeah it’s shitty, but like full fucking on- that’s not toxic?

The Dragon Ball fanbase is toxic because people think Goku is the strongest and argue about it, and it’s dying, but like I’m also proof that DBZ fans aren’t bad! Okay? And? Like I full on mean that. I’m a Dragon Ball fan and let me tell you- I’ve literally never seen a single fucking person actually say anything like that unironically- or during a power leveling video that’s an actual discussion about power scaling. Not to mention that for the most part people watch shows for the actual show? Like the plot, characters, storyline- ya know, the actual fucking show?

The Attack on Titan fanbase is toxic because fans sent death threats to the author for ending the manga. Jesus fucking christ- okay, yeah that’s toxic! So... where’s the catch? They also wrote their own endings to the manga. I swear to GOD- WHAT THE FUCK. Fanfiction has existed forever you ignoramus, bleach-snorting, styrofoam eating IDIOT. Seriously, I literally fucking rewrote the entirety of Naruto (Multiple Times over) are you gonna say that I’m Toxic? How about the multiple other hundreds of people who have literally rewritten entire works of fiction.

Now, what do I consider toxic fanbases? The top three are: Undertale, Homestuck and Steven Universe. The Undertale fandom managed to be so bad that people were actually kinda scared of it. Not to mention that it is a good game, people just went a bit too far. If you killed anyone people would send death threats, Markiplier (a really cool youtuber) had people yell at him for giving Sans a southern accent, and I mean the fact that it’s so big made it worse. The Homestuck fandom had many bad moments where some fans caused harm to others, damaged products, the girl who nearly killed herself trying to dye her skin for a cosplay, AND LITERALLY CHANGED THE CONVENTION FIELD. The Steven Universe fandom nearly killed a fan because she drew a fat character thin, they turned on the fucking creators for saying this was bad, multiple racist, sexist and homophobic things just existing while people pretend to be fake woke.

And this has been- I literally knew all of the bad fandom stuff because I lived through it. Problem is, I lived through the popularity of every single anime on this list while actively in more internet spaces, and I don’t fucking see it. Seriously, when I think of toxic anime fanbases I think about anime like Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid, where a bunch of 30 year olds get horny over a child and then say that they’re fine because she’s ACSHUALLY 2,000 years old! I mean fuck, my favorite meme is literally the- “Men be like “You’re not a real anime fan if you don’t watch ‘Is it wrong to piss on my bunny sister’s feet?’“ Like- fucking exactly. Both these fucking articles have ‘I think that when someone is a little mean or says something kinda annoying they’re TOXIC!’ Like bitch no, when I think toxic I think of the gaslighting fanbases that end up with multiple people with mental disorders or someone dead- which let me tell you, is a surprisingly large amount of fandoms? 

Anyways so I’m done, mainly because it’s like super fucking late and I’m so tired

#Anime Rant #Toxic Anime Fanbases #So close to snapping #Seriously why are these articles so bad #W H Y #why professional articles so bad

[loosenedidylls]

Blessings, Curses, Autism

My earliest memories are of waiting rooms with musty carpets and buckets of donated, broken toys. I guess it was worse for my parents, who had nothing to stare at but walls and trashy lifestyle magazines. Eventually, the professionals decided I had a condition called Asperger’s Syndrome, and there was one thing they wanted me to understand:

“It’s a blessing, not a curse.”

If someone asked me to list blessings off the top of my head, I’d mention 20/20 vision, pitch-perfect hearing, or George Foreman’s chin — not a neurological disorder that transforms the most natural stages of personal development into a confusing struggle. In hindsight, I would have preferred more concrete advice than ‘it’s a blessing, not a curse.’ Something like:

“Watch out for the train!”

…But the quippy slogan is what stuck. My parents dispensed it like a cheap plaster, and I still don’t know whose benefit it was for — mine, or theirs. What I do know, is that I never once believed them: I felt I was being brushed aside, or told to accept something blatantly untrue. Besides, children don’t care to question whether they’re blessed or cursed, so it was an answer to a question that hadn’t been asked. Existentialism is for adults trying to make the best of a bad situation.

Being an Autistic Child.

Autism is not a superpower. Thanks to certain pieces of popular media, you might think of autistic people as quirky-yet-brilliant detectives, awkward-yet-sexy hackers (always female), or nonverbal children with a deep, instinctive connection to whatever animal or alien the protagonists are trying to communicate with. Often, people with severe autism are plot devices in the same vein as a forbidden orb or set of nuclear launch codes. Instead of damsels waiting for Bruce Willis to save them, they’re objects waiting for Bruce Willis to understand them.

A lot of autistic people are brilliant academically, though not for the reasons you might think. A common feature of autism is hyper-fixating on ‘special interests’, obsessing over a subject until one has learned everything about it, before moving on to the next. Very few people become maths geniuses this way; more often they become diehard Sonic fans or start giving lots of money to Games Workshop. Here are a few of the phases I went through:

-          Thomas the Tank Engine.

-          Pokémon.

-          Old English monster myths.

-          Naruto.

-          Peter Jackson’s King Kong (both the movie and the video game).

-          Bleach (the anime, thankfully, not the cleaning product).

Fairly normal interests for a young person, right? Now remember the hyper-fixation part. People with Asperger’s tend to focus on certain interests at the expense of others, and those ‘rejected interests’ are usually vital for social development. Now remember that high school is a psychopathic hellscape crawling with cruel little monsters ready to vent their newfound territorial instincts on anyone who doesn’t fit in. The kid who wants to discuss the depiction of brontosauruses in a sort-of-okay remake of a 1933 movie isn’t doing himself any favours — constant bullying drives him even deeper into reclusive interests and solitary hobbies, and from there, it’s the luck of the draw whether those hobbies resonate with any of the kids around him.

I’ve always known a lot about things no one knows about, and nothing about things everyone knows about. This, along with the fact that a lack of social life makes it easy to focus on one’s studies, creates the illusion that some autistic kids are eccentric geniuses-in-the-making. Parents — especially the parents of autistic children — are quick to latch onto any display of intelligence. They watch intently for any sign their long struggle is paying off, and when it happens, they praise their child endlessly, reinforcing behaviour patterns both good and bad. Because adults told me I was intelligent, I told other children I was intelligent, and you can imagine how well that went.

This misapprehension — confusing a bunch of random trivia for genius — followed me into high school, hurting me all the while, which is ironic, because it was the only positive way I could think about myself.

I’m lucky to have found books and writing as lifelong passions, but that almost didn’t happen; in fact, I used to despise any writing task the teacher set for me, to the point of outright refusing to do the work. In my defence, I was trying very hard to be somewhere else at the time — mentally, that is. The idea of putting my feelings on paper, for all to see? I couldn’t conceive of anything more terrifying.

Harry Potter changed things. I was gifted The Deathly Hallows when it was first published, and even though I had no idea what was going on in the story (I hadn’t even seen The Order of the Phoenix yet), I thought it was wonderful — maybe because I was getting a sneak peek into a future movie. Since then, I’ve always had a book close at hand, and it wasn’t long before I started writing my own novels (more on those another time).

 Voracious reading was, technically, another un-social activity that would consume my waking hours, but at least it was productive. My grades improved dramatically. I got good at writing essays. I became better at expressing myself, and I started to consider other people’s points of view. I made friends, lifelong bonds. I wouldn’t say I was happy at that stage of life — bullies tend to push back against things like improved mental health — but at least I was growing.

Looking back, I can’t help but wonder how close I came to disaster. I was 13 or so. If I’d left it any later, I doubt the outcome would have been so peachy. There are plenty of autistic adults with no friends, no employable skills, no human contact but ageing parents and rare, fleeting therapy sessions. Many of these people are quirky and brilliant, but there’s no happy ending for them.

Being an Autistic Adult.

Autism never goes away. It never gets ‘better’. It isn’t curable because it’s not a disease, despite what the vaccine deniers might tell you; autism is an intrinsic part of my neurological makeup, and living with it is a process of compromises.

I had to accept, early on, that I’m not the same sort of human being as the people around me. My brain is a different brand of brain: it makes different connections, processes different bits of data at different speeds. Things that seem obvious to you, need to be explained to me. I struggle to read a room, and I’m never quite sure if the person I’m talking to would really rather I shut up.

Put simply, my childhood experiences made me keenly aware of myself as an outsider. I need to watch for people’s reactions to anything I say or do, all the while navigating a maze of social cues and left-unsaids — but sooner or later, I’m always going to slip up. When you are differently-brained, it’s easy to misinterpret instructions, or to misjudge which thread of discussion is most important; and when you’re processing so much data at any one time, small-yet-vital points are going to slip under the radar. The result is being told off, being laughed at (‘laughing with you, not at you’ is another fun slogan I’ve learned to endure), and generally feeling stupid or useless for overlooking one point of data among hundreds.

 As I grew into an adult, I got better at performing normal. Nowadays, only those who spend a lot of time around me can spot the signs of my condition: I seem confident, funny, sympathetic, and I make friends easily. As I write this, I can’t help but feel uneasy: it makes me wonder, and not for the first time, how much of my personality is genuine. In high-stress situations, the generic piece of advice is ‘relax and be yourself.’ Succeeding in life as an autistic person means learning not to be yourself, or at least creating a version of yourself that can exist in public — so, where does the real me end, and the performance begin? Are they one and the same? I’ll never know the answer to that question.

Being an autistic adult, then, means pretending I’m not autistic for the benefit of other people. It’s a lifelong, often exhausting performance, and the temptation to retreat into my shell is ever present. But, just like anyone else, I long for human contact, so the compromise is a necessary one.

Blessings & Curses: Redux.

Terry Pratchett wrote that humans need to learn to believe the little lies so they can believe in big ones. There’s something I wish I knew during the bad years; that I was far from the only person suffering from my condition. My parents were stumbling in the dark just like me, except they had to pretend everything was under control.

My dad confided in me, recently, how he used to cry — a lot — during those days when I would return from school after another worst day of my life, talking about footballs thrown at my head, being cornered and verbally abused, or being removed from class after another tantrum. These were practically daily occurrences, and they’ve left their lifelong marks on me, but I’ve never lacked for brilliant people willing to help, people who were alongside me in my suffering. Raising a child is hard, and raising a neurodivergent child is even harder. Can I blame my parents for wanting to believe in blessings, and not curses?

Most of the time, those bad years seem like a distant memory. I don’t see autism as my blessing or my curse; it’s just a part of me — a frustrating, limiting, often embarrassing part of me, but one just as vital as my eye colour or ethnicity. I’ve come to accept it and be content despite it, and I suppose that’s the best outcome I could hope for.

#autism #neurodivergent #mentalwellness

[suga-kookiemonster]

20 questions tag

Tagged by: @underthejoon and @kpopfanfictrash, i luh u frens 🥺💕

Tagging: anyone who wants to do this bc i’m tired and about to go to bed LOL

1. what do you prefer to be called name-wise? ashley! friends and family call me variations of that, but in general, ashley works just fine 😊

2. when is your birthday? september 14

3. where do you live? why? you gonna send me some merch? 👀

4. three things you are doing right now? answering these questions, trying to brainstorm a christmas fic, trying to will myself to finish rewriting the 3k of ego that i lost when my computer crashed 😭

5. four fandoms that have peaked your interest. aside from bts obviously, bleach (pissed off about this one till this day, rip 😔🙌🏾), naruto, atla, vld

6. how has the pandemic been treating you? ehhhhh. for the most part, i can’t complain! i’m healthy and my family is healthy and i’m still employed, for however long that will be. this pandemic is starting to hit me more in the financial and anxiety depts, but i’ve been trying to focus more on things that bring me joy, as well as exercising more and trying to get sun whenever i can. it’s crazyyyy how the brain works, y’all! i don’t even like exercising like that, but a little walk outside really does wonders. i’m actually really nervous about what this winter is going to be like once we’re all truly trapped inside--winters where i live are always brutal, but at least in the past we were able to properly socialize! but i’m trying to stay positive.

7. a song you can’t stop listening to right now? sit down! by nct 127. i’ve got a whole nct playlist that has been great to work out to, and this is the first song on it 🤣

8. recommend a movie. i don’t watch a lot of movies!

9. how old are you? just turned the big 3-0 😬

10. school, university, occupation, other? nunya 😏

11. do you prefer heat or cold? i would prefer a nice 60-70 degrees, but since that wasn’t an option, i’ll say cold! i’ve always said, you can always add layers, but once you’re naked, there’s nothing else to do but suffer LOL

12. name one fact others may not know about you. hmmmm...i’ve gone skydiving before! @jjk what’s good 💅🏾

13. are you shy? not particularly! but, believe it or not, i’m pretty introverted, especially around people i don’t know. i’ve always pondered how to describe myself because i won’t strike up conversations with strangers, but i won’t necessarily shy away from crowds and i enjoy going out and having fun with my friends. i discovered a couple weeks ago that the term that i’ve been looking for is social introvert. 

14. preferred pronouns? she/her

15. biggest pet peeves? white men and how they think they own the earth and how society allows them to think that, narcissists (and more specifically, people who don’t bother to consider how they may affect anyone else before they do/say things), when people with a lot of money choose to wear party city wigs, cultural appropriation and gentrification and how it can start out as small as normalizing calling elotes “street corn” and rapidly snowball

16. what is your favorite “dere” type? min yoongi (aka TSUN)

17. rate your life from 1-10, 1 being crappy and 10 being the best it could be. i’ll say pre-corona it was building back up to a solid 8, now it may be a 6ish

18. what’s your main blog? @makasouls

19. list your side blogs and what they’re used for. @suga-kookiemonster is my bts writing blog, now turned general kpop blog where i thirst over everyone but still just write for bts lol. @kimchi-recs is my fic rec blog. i also have a to-read blog and a blog that’s one of my old urls that i just use to help me keep up with ongoing fics. i’d prefer not to share those!

20. is there something people need to know about you before becoming friends? i’m a pretty direct person, and am completely aware that i can come off as judgmental if i’m not careful. i do not give advice/freely share what i think about a situation unless i am asked and/or positive that the other person would welcome it (which happens more often with close friends). but once i’m asked? i’m never intentionally malicious in any way, but i won’t sugarcoat what i think someone needs to hear either. i think this is one of my best qualities, but i also think it’s a double-edged sword because not everybody’s tryna hear that lol

also, i'm not always the best at reaching out to people first, and sometimes i forget to answer messages. that doesn’t mean i’m mad at you/don’t like you, but it does mean i’m a dumbass lol

#mentions #tag game #mine

[seirei-bh]

Yes, I still love Eren

Ok, I didn't want to write this whole post because I don't like to discuss with other people and I always try to be patient, be quiet and just ignore this kind of stuff and keep moving foward with my life, but this is getting on my nerves.

Sometimes I wonder if some people on this fandom are a bunch of kids or teenagers who never have read/watch cruel and complex fiction stories before, like Berserk, Game of thrones, Evangelion, The last of us, etc, or just people so dumb they can't differ ficction from reality...

Repeat with me: people can love villains, people can love drama and horror in ficction and that doesn't mean those people are bad :)

It's frustating being an Eren's fan, because some people just can't understand that you can love villains and characters who are assasins or a bad person IN FICTION without being pro genocide in real life. Seriously, people SHOULD know the difference between fiction and reallity.

I love Eren Jaeger, because he's complex, well written and one of the most interesting MC I've seen in my life. I love the "hero-to-villain" arcs (like Anakin Skywalker). I love a lot of characters who are not good people because of their complex backstories, personnality or conflicted development. Ex: Joel of TLOU murdered a lot of innocent people at the ending only to save ONE person, but you can understand why he's doing that, despite you don't like his actions.

Besides, you know what? "White and perfect" heroes are boring.

A lot of people is saying now "I hate Eren, uuuhhh, you're a bad person if you love him uhhhh, Eren is the worst, he's the baddest of all the characters, the members of Alliance are the only good ones, Eren must die" only because in the last chapter we've seen the collosals trampling babies... seriously?? Yeah, I was shocked too and I feel sick and sad the first time I read it, but I can deal with it because SnK was ALWAYS cruel.

I guess people just conveniently decided to forget a lot of details of the first arcs and seasons.

Heeey, remember when Annie killed a lot of soldiers, all the Levi's squad and a lot of innocent people in the Central district while she was fighting agains Eren and the Survey Corps? She even played to yo-yo with one the the soldiers hahah :D Do you remember that Eren DIDN'T want to fight agains her and only did it because his comrades Armin Mikasa, Jean, Connie, Levi and others FORCED HIM to fight? oh, and innocent children suffered and died too in the middle of that fight. But of course, people just don't talk about it, because now Annie is now one of the cute wifeys of the "group of good heroes" :) (I love Annie and aruani, btw, but I just hate when some people are so hypocrytes to love Annie, Reiner and Bert, and also the members of Alliance and just sentence Eren for do something he was obligated to do to save his people, same as the Warriors tried to do to before to save people of Marley)

Eren tried to find a pacific way to resolves the problems during 4 years. He infiltrated in Marley alone, cutted his leg and hurt his eye, and talked with Reiner, only to try to understand his actions. But while he was forgiving his enemy and old comrade, he was listening a lot of people of the world clapping and smiling when Willy Tybur declared the war and extermination of Paradis. And in that moment Eren got a sad expression on his face, because he understood the entire world was their enemy so he was forced to become in a mass murdered and the devil of the world to save his people.

People of this fandom no longer talk about all the innocent people who were eaten by the titans that Marley dumped on the island. They don't talk of the number of Eldians that nations elsewhere have locked up in concentration camps, who are tortured and humiliated every day, simply for being Eldians, just like Jews in WWII, as we saw in Zeke's and Grisha's flashbacks. People forget Erwin, Carla, Armin's granpa, thousands of innocent people who lived inside wall Maria, and hundreds of soldiers died without even know the real reason why.

People in this fandom don't talk enough about Armin was the one who told Eren "to defeat your enemies, you have to become a monster", that Levi was the one who told Eren that he will have to take difficult choices if he wanted to survive, and that other people might die but he should be prepared to deal with it. That it was Mikasa who fought without hesitation against Annie and urged Eren to fight vs their enemies, along with Armin, Jean and Connie. That Hange and Levi tortured, killed and manipulated other soldiers in season three to archieve their purposes, that Reiner admitted in front of Eren that he destroyed the wall not because they forced him, but because he wanted to be a hero, so his parents could be together and be proud of him.

No. Because it's much easy only to throw shit at Eren because he's killing babies of background characters who were totally fine with the idea to exterminate the eldians of Paradise, and yes, that includes inocent eldian children, Historia's baby and all the kids she saved at the orphanage. But I guess people is not ready to talk about this.

People don't talk about the fact Armin, Jean, Connie and the rest of the cast admited in ch 133 that they are sinners too. That they forced Eren to do this, that despite they wanted to stop him, they couldn't give him a realistic and a good alternative solution. That the Alliance killed their own comrades and ignored Eren's depression for four years. Now they regret ir but it's too late.

Btw, Armin is my favourite character of snk, and I LOVE Jean with all my heart and I like the rest of the cast. But all these things are true. Eren is the one who is commiting a global genocide, but the rest of the cast are not heroes, they're guilty about this as well. So stop picture them as heroes and Eren as the only villain of the world. This story is much more complex than that.

 If you can't deal with characters with complex moratily and cruel actions, perhaps you should go to read Fairy Tail, Bleach or Naruto, where things are solved because the perfect and heroic main character is a saint who can solves all the problems of the world with the power of friendship and/or is able to change the mind of everybody just using the "talk-no-jutsu". And I'm not saying this like a bad thing, Naruto is one of my faves mangas and I like B and FT too.

and about the ending, I see a lot of people expecting some kind of cliché and easy ending, like the typicals about heroes-vs-villains stories of most Marvel's movies and mainstream animes, despite of Isayama himself has said in lot of interviews he wanted to hurt his readers and he loves controversial stories of murderers and monsters.

I don't know how Isayama will finish this. I wish it could be a peaceafull ending where eldians and humans can solve all their problems, but snk was never so positive. If Alliance wins and kills Eren and Isayama still is able to do a realistic and logical ending, giving the world convincent reasons to forgive the eldians of Paradis after that, I will be satisficed. But if Eren wins and kill all the people of the world because that's really the only way to save eldians... I won't blame Isayama. I love bittersweet, different and controversial endings.

I don't want the Alliance to die, specially my babies Armin and Jean, I love them too much, but  whatever if is either Eren who wins or either the Alliance, I would like to see an ending where Eren's survives, because I think that would be very interesting, to see him dealing with the guilt of his crimes during the rest of his life, with some kind of PTSD and trying to keep moving foward with his life despite of that. That would be a million times more interesting than "just kill him because he's bad". No, he deserves to suffers the burden of his actions, same as Reiner did after he back to Marley. The scene when Reiner tried to suicided but didn't it because Falco and Gabi were his reasons to keep living made me felt a lot of emotions, I know a lot of people considered that scene like a meme now, but the emotional impact was amazing. So, if I could choose, I prefer to see a scene of Eren like that, instead ot just being murdered.

#eren jaeger #snk #snk 134 #shingeki no kyojin #attack on titan

[fullbattleregalia]

Tag Fic Game

Yay! I have been tagged for a thing! I love being tagged for a thing! Thanks, @ionfusionpunk!

Let’s shed light on some of your favourite lines you’ve ever written—you may pick one, two or a hundred, that’s up to you!

(Hmmm... these are probably going to be more “chunks” than lines.... Oh, well! 8D )

 1) From my WIP A Gift, Freely Given (Mad Max: Fury Road, Max-isn’t-exactly-human-and-hasn’t-noticed!AU) 

He remembers Before.  Remembers so much farther back than he should and doesn’t understand why or how.  Remembers warm soil beneath his feet teeming with life and great dirty gums overhead and her laughter crashing across the rocks in sprays of damp salt.  Remembers her hair that swayed and twisted like kelp. It’s faint – muddled and hazy – but he remembers.  More sharply he remembers the pain.  The pain that fell from the sky and burned his skin as she withered and blew away leaving nothing but the salt of her tears crusting the ground.  Remembers how the life teeming around him slowly faded with her until he was alone.  And he remembers that he was never made to be alone. (Made?  How could he have been made?)  Every day he is dying, dying, dying, but he never dies.  He doesn’t remember going mad with the loneliness and the anger and the unrelenting pain, but he must have.  Because he is finally waking up.  As if he’s becoming truly aware of himself for the first time in a long time.

He never quite runs out of water. Always seems to have just enough guzzoline to see him through even if only barely.  His hand heals clean despite the rusty bolt that pierced clear through his palm.  This does not seem strange to him (this is the way it’s always been), but it finally occurs that perhaps some would find it strange.

2) From What You Knead (Naruto, Butterfly Effect!AU and honestly I adore the hell out of the whole story)

“Hey, Kakashi-nii, is that your gennin team?”

Kakashi straightened up to find Naruto pointing at his old team photo.

“More or less, though we were all chuunin when that was taken.”

“You were so short!” Naruto laughed.  “And-” He paused, squinted more closely at the picture, and then screeched at an ear-bleedingly loud volume, “OH MY GOSH, YOU WERE TAUGHT BY THE YONDAIME?!?”

Kakashi waited until the ringing in his ears had subsided before responding. It was okay – he probably hadn’t needed that eardrum anyway.

3) From For Innocence Lost (Bleach, featuring that time I really needed to write a cathartic death scene)

“Momo?” Aizen wheezed.  He stared at her in horror.  This couldn’t be happening!  It just wasn’t possible!  He’d spent decades forming this girl into his perfect subordinate.  He’d made sure that her entire world revolved around him – that she couldn’t live without him!  

“There is no place in Heaven for demons and false gods.”  Her words were quiet and solemn and spoken with absolute conviction. Hinamori raised her zanpakuto and brought it down unerringly across Aizen’s neck in a killing blow.

4) From One Good Eye (Wakfu)

The most important things to a Cra were her hands, her eyes, and her bow. Cleophee had her bow and two good hands. She wished she could say the same for her eyes.

5) From my WIP Amabo Te (NCIS)

It was rather impressive that their captor was managing to look so thoroughly frustrated while standing stalk still wearing a balaclava.  Tim couldn’t really blame him, though.  (For the frustration, not the kidnapping.  Tim was totally okay with blaming this guy for kidnapping them.) Really, giving Tony the truth serum concoction hadn’t been the best idea, Tim would probably been the much better candidate – and if McGee had been feeling inclined to, he probably would have informed their captor of this, but he was still miffed about the whole being kidnapped thing and it was general NCIS policy not to willingly give information to bad guys that could help them in the completion of their evil plots.  Tim would have been frustrated, too, if he’d been the bad guy giving Tony truth serum.  The instant the guy had stepped back, now-empty needle still in hand, and made it as far through his evil monologue as “truth serum,” Tony had looked up at him and grinned that manic grin that Tim had learned through long, hard experience meant trouble.  Then the senior field agent had opened his mouth and proceeded to have an entirely one-sided conversation about movies, specifically Bond movies, never pausing long enough for their captor to get a word in edgewise to throw him off topic.

6) From my WIP One Lab Accident Away from Becoming a Marginally Decent Human Being (Mystery Science Theater 3000)

“Gimme that.”  Kinga turned and grabbed the obnoxiously large key Max was still wearing around his neck.  Max cowered but didn’t protest.  He clearly realized that he was on very thin ice with her at the moment.  “Stay here and get me a full refund or I’m feeding you to the space eels.”

“But-” Max hesitated.  “We don’t have any-”

“I will BUY some just so I can feed you to them!  And if Heston is dead, I’m buying space eels anyway!”

“Full refund!  Absolutely! You got it!” Max squeaked as Kinga stomped away.

7) From From the Ashes (Justice League/Justice League Unlimited, Justice Lords!verse)

Helena was contemplating murder.  It sounded like a very appealing idea and the best way of dealing with the chiming communicator on her bedside table.  She finally managed to grab the blasted thing on her third flail.

“I hate you,” she told the person on the other end by way of greeting.

“Have you seen the latest addition of the Free Press, yet?” Barbara asked, ignoring Helena’s statement.

“It’s 6am, Babs.  Some of us cannot subsist on caffeine alone.  I went to bed less than two hours ago.  NO, I have not seen the paper.”

“They ran an article on the Phoenix Corps.”

“WHAT?!?” Helena screeched, the sudden shot of adrenaline sending her bolt upright in bed.  Next to her Vic groaned and stirred but didn’t wake.  The man could sleep through a tornado if he put his mind to it.  She started poking him in the side with one finger.

“I tried to call Q, but his communicator’s off,” Barbara was saying.

“Yeah, that’s because he remembered that he actually needs to sleep like the rest of us mere mortals,” Helena muttered, not really paying attention. Damn it, Vic was going to wake up and suffer through this bad news with her.

“Wha’z it?” Vic mumbled cracking open an eye.  He hadn’t had enough sleep, yet, to erase the dark circles he got under his eyes from being up for thirty hours straight.

“Your boss published an article on the Phoenix Corps.”

“Oh….  ‘Kay.” He rolled over, apparently intent on going back to sleep.

“What?!  This is bad, Vic!”

“Were gonna find out ‘bout us event’lly.  Nobody’s dead.  Nothin’s on fire.  ‘Sall good.” He went back to sleep.  Helena didn’t smother him with her pillow, but it was very close.

Well, I think that’s enough for now - I’ve rambled long enough. ^^  These are some of my favorites that are typed up (which make up about 10% of my writing - I like writing long hand)!

I tag: @greentrickster, @agirlnameded, and anybody else who wants to play! <3

#i got tagged #yay! #agentmalkere #fanfiction #fanfic #writing #the phoenix corps #what you knead #from the ashes #naruto #mad max #Justice League Unlimited #ncis #wakfu #bleach

[grayluforever]

My Top 10 Worst Dumbest Anime Relationships (My Opinion)

1. Inuyasha and Kagome Higurashi (Inuyasha)

Kagome is nothing but a whiny, manipulative woman-child who really has to get everything her way and always has to be in the RIGHT especially when it comes to InuYasha who at some times would point out the obvious to her and instead of taking it in strides and realizing her mistake she would unfairly make him SIT with those stupid beads around his neck. Also, InuYasha at the time was going through some serious personal, emotional issues of his own and trying to face the ghosts of his past and dealing with his former lover Kikyo being resurrected against her will. Kagome always tried to make it about herself when it came to that scenario with them and was always able to get the others to feel sorry for her. So yeah, it's not only her attitude (and her uselessness) but her treatment towards InuYasha which is something else that I have come to notice when you go back to watch it again is that those two can't get along very well and they can't seem to go almost a single day or even a week without bickering with each other and most of the time it's over the same stupid stuff.

2. Sasuke Uchiha and Sakura Haruno (Naruto)

I love Sasuke and after all he's been through I think he deserves better. I think I would have been okay if he ended up with Ino. It still would have been bad but atleast it's better? I don't know. I just don't like the fact that in the beginning Sasuke hated Sakura and payed no attention to her whatsoever. But all of a sudden in Boruto (It autocorrected to burrito  ) they get married. It just doesn't seem right. In Naruto The Last they showed him in the desert walking around and stuff while Naruto and Hinata were having the whole movie dedicated to their romance. It's no secret that Sakura has been in love with Sasuke for a long time. It was even a dream come true for Sakura when the two were put on the same team together, but from day one the romance between them has always been one-sided. Sasuke originally had little to no interest in Sakura. Even after she admitted her feelings in tears, Sasuke seemed to care very little about her.It continued this way even after Sasuke attempted to kill Sakura and yet despite that, the two eventually got married and had a child. Unfortunately for poor Sakura, Sasuke is a bit of a deadbeat who's rarely ever home to be around his wife or daughter. If their relationship has proven anything, it's that Sakura has the patience of a saint

3. Gray Fullbuster and Juvia Lockser (Fairy Tail)

Juvia's attitude is also disgusting. During GMG, she fantasized about how good it would be if the Fairy Tail GMG Team had an injured member, that way she can be with Gray. Not funny. I didn't laugh and I didn't see anything funny. Then, Lucy did get injured at some point and she ran over and "acted" like she "could" help. Pathetic. She couldn't do anything and she acted as if she cared when she treated Lucy bad all the times that she has. Disgusting.....

4. Ichigo Kousaki and Orihime Inoue (Bleach)

Her feelings were never the slightest bit disturbing. Instead, her love was shown to be unconditional and incredibly selfless, to the point that Ichigo is the one to pursue Orihime in the end without her ever having to confess first. There was no pressure or obligation there; she was never “trying” to get Ichigo to fall in love with her—he just did. Just like that. People just tried to twist her feelings into something negative because they didn’t want her to have feelings for Ichigo, because she wasn’t the girl they shipped him with.

5. Goku and Chichi (Dragon Ball) 

Maybe this one was doomed from the start, considering Goku thought marriage was a kind of food at first. Goku may be DBZ's most powerful warrior, but his skills as a husband and family man could use work. Goku's mind is focused solely on fighting and getting stronger, which leaves little time for things like spending time with his family or getting a job to support them. It's not that he doesn't care for them, it's more that he doesn't understand that they need him on a personal level. On the other side of things, Chichi's high expectations of Goku cause her to often lash out when she feels he's not doing his part. Between Goku's naïve, free spirit and Chichi's angry outbursts, it's clear they're just not compatible. It says something when even someone like Vegeta somehow makes it work with Bulma.

6. Kirino Kousaka and Kyousuke Kousaka (Oreimo) 

There's absolutely no reason why these two should even be together. Kyousuke and Kirino have no chemistry. In fact, most of their interactions are just arguments and verbal abuse. Yet somehow, even though there were many girls that surrounded Kyousuke that would make for a better romantic interest, he ultimately chooses to be with Kirino for seemingly little reason. Already it's a bad Tsundere romance, but addressing the elephant in the room makes this go from uncomfortable to extremely icky. They're also brother and sister.

7. Yuki and Yuno (Future Diary)

Yuno is a token Yandere character, which means she can be sweet one second and then utterly psychopathic the next. She is obsessed with the anime's main character, Yuki. Yuki does not have the same feelings towards her but decides to manipulate her to his advantage since she is smarter and stronger than him in combat.  Due to Yuki's fear and needing Yuna to protect him; he endures being drugged and kidnapped by Yuna and her attempts to kill his friends. He even continues to follow through after discovering that she killed her own parents.

8. Natsu Dragneel and Lucy Heartfilia (Fairy Tail)

Natsu and Lucy are supposed to be the two main protagonists. Now, I’m not saying that the two main protagonists can’t be together!  What I’m saying is after seeing it so much in different anime’s and manga... It just gets a little old, and kinda boring. Just because they’re the two main characters doesn’t mean they HAVE to be together. That really doesn’t make sense. Lucy has told Natsu many many many many many times to not invade her privacy. Not to touch her in certain places. And what does Natsu do? Exactly that. Every. Single. Time.Invasion of privacy, breaking and entering, unwanted touching. That is not romantic in the slightest. It’s more harassment if anything. Natsu does not respect Lucy. I see him respecting Lissanna, Erza, Juvia, Levy... But not Lucy.“Oh, but Gray has done it before!!1!2!” Yes, but he only did it once, Lucy told him not to, and he never did it again.Not only that, but Lucy yells and Lucy kicks him over and over again. You’d think it would’ve stopped the first time around. But no.You see... Lucy needs someone who is mature, someone who would respect her wishes, and someone she can handle being in a romantic relationship with... That someone’s not Natsu Dragneel.For Natsu, he needs someone who knows how to handle him, someone who understands him, and someone who accapts Natsu for who he is and doesn’t get at him for just being himself... That someone’s not Lucy Heartfillia.

9. Naruto Uzumaki and Hinata Hyuga (Naruto)

I hate NaruHina for a number of reasons. I hate the idea that when there is a threesome of main characters that the main guy can’t be with the main girl! The same nonsense happened in Harry Potter and it is just utterly annoying. Then there is this big idea that NaruHina and SasuSaku are "canon" when they are not. Canon is defined, usually as something that happened, is it not? That makes the ONLY Naruto canon couplings Minato/Kushina and Asuma/Kurenai.  Naruto and Hinata have nothing in common. Fans of the couple claim that she “loves” him. She even said so! *gasp* So did Sakura, and Sasuke proceeded to knock her ass out and leave Konoha forever. Have any of these fans ever read a shojo comic? How many love confessions are unrequited? Hell, even may shonen comics have many confessions of unrequited love; look at ANY harem-style comic like Love Hina or Gacha Gacha! Shonen or not, Naruto does not follow any type of formula where every confession of love, however rare, is returned.  Naruto is a strong person, but a submissive personality. At least I think so. Hinata is much to tame for him. She would not be able to curb him. He needs a girl like Sakura or Temari who is rough and has no qualms about smacking him back into place. At least when Sakura is with Naruto, she acts like herself instead of a blubbering fangirl.

10. Louise Francoise Le Blanc De La Valliere And Saito Hiraga – The Familiar Of Zero

Louise and Saito are probably one of the most infamous examples of a Tsundere romance. After accidentally summoning Saito to her world from Japan, Louise makes the poor boy her familiar and proceeds to verbally and physically abuse him for any little thing. 

Even though he's very clearly a human, Louise treats Saito more like an animal. Eventually, the two begin a relationship, even though nothing really changes in their relationship. Why they decide to stay together is a complete mystery, since their relationship feels both disingenuous and neither side does anything to earn the other's affection.

#anti inukag #anti gruvia #anti ichihime #anti sasusaku #pro healthy relationships #anime #anti oreimo #anti kirino kousaka #anti natsu x lucy #anti naruhina #anti kishimoto #anti nalu

[tsarisfanfiction]

Fic Rec Bingo

Okie dokie, this is the Fan Rec Bingo - idea courtesy of lightvials on twitter, but I don’t have a twitter that I ever use, so I’m filling it out here instead.  Let’s see if I can fill it all out!

I did, and then some.  To save poor dashboards, it’s all under the cut!  If I know author tumblrs they’ve been mentioned - I know pitifully few so if anyone knows the ones I don’t, let me know so I can mention them, too!

A fic you love without knowing the source material: The Dragon-King’s Temple by Kyral (Stargate SG-1/Avatar the Last Airbender)

Through the spite of the spirits or plain rotten chance, a door that would have been better left untouched has opened. On the other hand, with Fire and Earth as one's allies, sometimes escaping is the easy part. Rated: Gen.  AO3 Archive Warning for Graphic Descriptions of Violence. Characters: Zuko, Toph Beifong, Janet Fraiser, Sam Carter, Jack O’Neill, and more Words: 196311.  Status: Complete

I very rarely read fics without already knowing the canon, but one that I think counts would be a Stargate/ATLA crossover, because I know nothing about Stargate and I have yet to finish ATLA!  This was recommended to me due to the creativity of the author regarding a language barrier (something I always enjoy, and my friend knows that).

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A fic series with a premise that shouldn’t work but it does: Crazy=Genius by blackkat (Bleach/Harry Potter)

Minerva McGonagall isn't about to let Harry go back to the Dursleys after his first year. She finds an alternative, and along the way, Bazzard Black finds that he might have more family left than he'd ever thought. Rated: Teen.  AO3 No Archive Warnings Apply Characters: Bazz-B, Harry Potter, and more Words: 21682.  Status: Incomplete

Okay, I cheated and picked a series.  Not my fault blackkat decided to make this universe a series of oneshots rather than a single entity and you’re certainly not getting me to only pick one of the five already published ones.  Bazz-B being a Black and also kinda a wizard is a brilliant concept, and having him adopting Harry is pure gold.  Not sure how crazy Quincy adopting poor, neglected Boy Who Lives works, but it does!

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A fic you’ve reread several times: The Guardian (Director’s Cut) by SGTBrowncoat (Naruto)

Itachi Uchiha receives his first mission in ANBU: protecting a certain trouble making Jinchuriki. He bonds quickly with the boy, but dark forces rise to threaten Itachi, Naruto, and those they care for most. Rated: T.  Canon-typical violence Characters: Uchiha Itachi, Uzumaki Naruto, Uchiha Shisui and more (includes Uchiha Itachi/Inuzuka Hana background pairing) Words: 35945.  Status: Complete

Back to my first ever fandom, here, and a really fun non-massacre AU fic, with lots of Itachi and Shisui goodness.  There are a fair few ANBU-looking-after-kid-Naruto fics but this is by far my favourite of them!  There is a sequel, but unfortunately it’s not finished and hasn’t been updated in a long time (I live in hope!)

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A fic you still remember many years later: While The Ring Went South by Thundera Tiger (Lord of the Rings)

What happened after the Fellowship left Rivendell but before they came down off Caradhras? Behold the missing scenes. Rated: K+.  Canon-typical violence Characters: Legolas, Gimli, Aragon, Gandalf, the whole Fellowship Words: 149624.  Status: Complete

I refound this fic completely by accident the other week, after first reading it (according to when I favourited it on FFN) in 2011!  It was just as amazing as I remembered, and is really the standard I hold all other LotR fics to, especially ones that involve the entire, pre-Moria, Fellowship.  It has a sequel but sadly that’s not been updated in some time (but again, I live in hope!)

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A comfort fic: There May Be Some Collateral Damage by metisket (Bleach/Harry Potter)

Ichigo’s been ordered to go undercover at a magic school to bodyguard a kid named Harry Potter, and this would be fine, except that he’s about as good at bodyguarding as he is at magic. And he considers it a good day, magic-wise, if he hasn’t set anything on fire. Rated: Gen.  AO3 No Archive Warnings Apply Characters: Kurosaki Ichigo, Harry Potter, Weasley Twins, and more. Words: 61209.  Status: Complete

I have no idea what this means by ‘Comfort Fic’ but if I want a laugh and Umbridge getting a pile of comeuppance, this is definitely the fic I’ll turn to.  As the A/N says: ‘sending Ichigo to Hogwarts is basically the same as swinging a wrecking ball directly into the side of the castle’.  Beautiful chaos is what we get.  Beautiful, beautiful chaos.

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A cathartic fic: See You Again by cookietosser (One Piece)

Rocinante has been through a lot in his life. Adding uncontrollable time travel into the mix? That's just the icing on the cake. Rated: Teen.  AO3 Violence and (canon) Character Death Warnings Characters: Donquioxte Rocinante|Cora-san, Trafalgar Law, Heart Pirates Words: 15755.  Status: Complete

You want to rip my heart out and trample it into lots of little pieces while still making it all better because Law and Rocinante?  Well, this little time-traveller’s wife AU fic is just the one for all that.  Sad moments, frustrating moments, happy moments, all wrapped up in this oneshot!

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A fic you’d print and put on your bookshelf: Thrower of the Dart by Vathara (Artemis Fowl/The Avengers)

What might have happened instead of Artemis Fowl book 6, if it'd happened in the Marvel Universe. Megalomaniacs ahoy! Rated: Teen.  AO3 No Archive Warnings Characters: Artemis Fowl II, Tony Stark, and more Words: 101272.  Status: Complete

It’s long, it’s epic, and it would nestle in perfectly at home alongside my Artemis Fowl books on the bookshelf!  It’s not so much a rewrite of book 6 as a complete replacement of it, with a new plot and an all too familiar villain!

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A fic you associate with a song: Goodbye, Brother by Serena Estelle (Bleach)

Ilforte's final moments as I like to picture them-with his brother. Rated: T.  Canonical character death Characters: Szayelaporro Granz, Yylfordt Granz Words: 3073.  Status: Complete

Might be cheating, because the author actually names a song in their starting A/N, but this definitely brings to mind Exile Vilify by The National, and I fully recommend listening to that (on loop - there is a 10-hour loop version on youtube) as you watch this for maximum tear-jerking effect.

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A fic that inspires you: Magic of the Rose Cross by Awensweth (Harry Potter/D.Gray-Man)

In Harry's 4th year the Triwizard Tournament is brought back to live, but the appearance of a fourth mysterious school about which only Dumbledore seems to know brings new secrets with it for everyone. Who are the students of Rose Cross? Rated: Mature.  AO3 Chose Not To Use Warnings Characters: Harry Potter, Allen Walker, and more Words: 66632.  Status: Incomplete

I have been inspired by many, many fics, but I chose this one in particular because it was the main one that inspired me to join the HP/DGM Triwizard Tournament wave of the early 2010s - indeed, The Combat School is one of my most popular fics, but without this and other fics of the trope, I probably would never have written it!  That’s not to say I’ve copied this fic - aside from the base trope I tried my best to make my own work unique against the others, and hope that I succeeded!  Sadly, this fic is incomplete and hasn’t been updated for some time, but it’s still worth a read.

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A fic that brought you on board a new ship:  Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell by MsChunks (Boku no Hero Academia)

Uraraka and Bakugo have a secret. It’s not what their classmates think it is. Rated: Teen.  AO3 Chose Not To Use Warnings Characters: Bakugo Katsuki, Uraraka Ochako Words: 182478.  Status: Complete

Putting Bakugo and Uraraka together was something I’d never considered, and I started this fic with some trepidation after a friend recommended it to me, but said friend has never steered me wrong with fics and didn’t start now!  Fake dating, Uraraka actually being badass, the most terrifying couple in class 1-A?  That’s this fic.

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A fic you wish could be a movie: Mission Impossible by Loopstagirl (Thunderbirds)

Being selected for his first solo mission should have been exciting for Captain Scott Tracy of the Air Force. But there was something else at play. Something dangerous and deadly. Something that could cost him more than his life. Rating: T.  Warnings: Violence Characters: Scott Tracy, Gordon Tracy Words: 55048.  Status: Complete

Air Force!Scott?  W.A.S.P.!Gordon?  On a joint mission together?  Yes, gimme, gimme, gimme.  Gimme Scott’s awkwardness alone on a boat of WASP personnel, gimme Gordon’s horror when he realises the suicide mission pilot is his older brother, and now give that all to me on screen!  And we can’t forget the Hood, of course!  Might be a bit higher rating than the current Thunderbirds stuff, but hey, I’m old enough.  Gimme.

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A fic that led to you becoming friends with the author: The Gabriel Project by Aceidia (Bleach)  - @thetwelvecaesars​

When Szayelaporro knew Aizen's reign in Heuco Mundo was coming to a close, he took matters into his own brilliant hands. He reincarnates himself and the other nine Espadas into a new life full of surprising turns and irony. Yet, the harmony and ignorance is not forever as they begin to remember. Rating: M (violence) Characters: Szayelaporro Granz, the Espada Words: 116030.  Status: Complete

Well, this fic sparked off a friendship that’s still very much there, even if neither of us write much for Bleach any more!  What started off as a challenge to identify who the Espada were turned into essay-length PMs about anything and everything, and then RP groups and now random emails about whatever at random times of the day (different timezones don’t help)!

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A fic you’ve gushed about irl: Living Like Kings by CLynnB (Thunderbirds)

The world wants to know more about the Tracy brothers. So Lady Penelope takes it upon herself to show the world just who they are. Through YouTube. Rating: Gen.  AO3 Author Chose Not To Use Warnings Characters: Lady Penelope-Creighton-Ward, Tracy Family (background Pen/Ink, Scayo, Virg/Brains) Words: 35348.  Status: Complete

I love social media fics like this one, and my poor boyfriend got the brunt of it while we were on holiday... he knows basically nothing about Thunderbirds except for what he’s heard from me (which is a lot because he’s amazing and lets me gush).  I mean, Tracy boys playing “The Floor Is Lava?” and tackling each other to the ground?  Gimme.

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A fic you associate with a place: Thunderbirds Meet Thunderbirds - Alan trip in to the movie verse by ak47stylegirl (Thunderbirds) @ak47stylegirl​

Crazy stuff always happens to Tracys, don't they?  Add felling into a different world to the list. Rating: Gen. AO3 No Archive Warnings Characters: Alan Tracy, Tracy Family times two Words: 25599.  Status: Incomplete

This might be a little random, but this fic was one that I found while I was ill on holiday to the Lake District last autumn.  Sadly, it’s the only trip there I’ve ever done where I couldn’t climb a single fell (and my car’s clutch burnt out after having to reverse up a pass... thanks bus coming the other way), and this fic’s updates while I was there kept me sane!  This has actually very loosely inspired a fic of my own which is in the making - which might get posted in the next year if I’m lucky...  Still waiting eagerly for this fic’s next update :D

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A fic that made you gasp out loud: The Colours Of The World by MaiKusakabe (Fullmetal Alchemist/Harry Potter)

When Roy Mustang went to retrieve his eyesight from Truth, he wasn’t expecting to end up doing a job in exchange. It couldn’t even be an easy job, of course, because Edward’s assessment of Truth was a pretty accurate one. Rating: Mature.  AO3 No Archive Warnings (but watch for canon-typical violence) Characters: Roy Mustang, Albus Dumbledore, Sirius Black, and more Words: 120578.  Status: Incomplete

Badass Roy yesss.  Twists and turns and Truth is a pretentious you-know-what but Voldemort’s even worse so where does that leave poor Roy except caught in the middle and very much a war veteran at this point... much to the horror of a few wizards!

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A fic you found at the right time: Seafaring Heartless: Exit North Blue by Avian Swallow (One Piece)

Pirates may be considered evil by the majority, but Law had met quite a few of the world's navy who were corrupt to the core and putting up a very thick facade. He reasoned that if he was going to manipulate and scheme his way into that goal, at least he was going to be honest enough to admit it. Rating: T.  Canon-typical situations Characters: Trafalgar Law, Bepo, Penguin, Shachi, Heart Pirate OCs Words: 159644.  Status: Complete

Is there ever a ‘wrong time’ to find a fic?  (a 100k+ at 4am debatable, but shh).  When I craved Heart Pirate content, this fic (and its sequel, still in progress but updating) appeared!  Only loosely clings to canon at the moment, thanks to some SBS revelations, but with well developed OCs to fill the faces we have no names or personalities for at the moment!

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A fic that you would read fic of: Only a Boy by Riddle Lee (Harry Potter/Merlin)

Merlin has changed Camelot forever but while that part of his life is complete, destiny has a new task for him. Now he has to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, hide the fact that he's the Merlin, and defeat a Dark Lord that's messing with magic he knows nothing about. Rating: T.  Canon-typical situations Characters: Merlin, Draco Malfoy, Hermione Granger, and more Words: 340998.  Status: Incomplete

An amazing universe with Slytherin!Merlin, no Harry Potter/Boy Who Lived, and the good old ‘hiding real identity’ trope to underpin the whole series.  Currently just into the start of Merlin’s third year at Hogwarts, aka “The Prisoner of Azkaban”.  This universe has so much to give, although Riddle Lee is doing a fantastic job at it.  It’s incomplete and slow to update but does update!

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A fic that made you laugh out loud: HOW’S THE COMA GOING by ossicle (One Piece)

Kidd and Penguin keep trying to murder each other and Law is done with their shit. He assigns them to take care of each other’s injuries so they’ll learn to get along. It doesn’t work. Rating: Teen.  AO3 No Archive Warnings Characters: Eustass Kid, Penguin, Trafalgar Law (background KidLaw) Words: 2062.  Status: Complete

Oh this one had me in stitches basically the whole time.  Kid’s bedside manner should not be mimicked in the slightest, but a beautiful bonding fic in typical pirate fashion - beat ‘em up ‘til they have your approval.  Poor, poor, Law.

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A fic with a line (or two) that you’ve memorised by heart: On Their Side by Gumnut (Thunderbirds) - @gumnut-logic​

She trusted these boys with a great deal. Rating: Teen.  AO3 No Warnings Apply Characters: Colonel Casey, Virgil Tracy, Gordon Tracy Words: 1116.  Status: Complete

I think I have basically the entire thing memorised.  This one also falls into several other categories, most notably ones that made me laugh and ones that I’ve reread several times, but it really belongs here on this list.

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A fic that gave you butterflies: it’s a long way forward so trust in me by aloneintherain (Miraculous Ladybug)

Six times Marinette carried Adrien (plus one time he carried her). Rating: Teen.  AO3 No Archive Warnings Characters: Adrien Agreste|Chat Noir, Marinette Dupain-Cheng|Ladybug (all sides of the love square) Words: 5611.  Status: Complete

Aaah I have a weak spot for strong!Marinette and this fic ticks that box time and time again, with a side of blushing!Adrien and general love-struck Adrien/Chat.  I mean, what more could a girl need?

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A fic that embodies something you value in life: Team Itachi by Killer of thy Cookies (Naruto)

What if the Third Hokage stopped the council before they could order Itachi to commit the Uchiha Clan Massacre? Itachi is one of the village's strongest ninja, and has now been given the task of being a Jonin sensei, assigned to Team 7 with his little brother Sasuke, the 'dead last' Naruto Uzumaki, and fangirl Sakura Haruno. This is Team Itachi. Rating: T.  Canon-typical situations Characters: Uchiha Itachi, Uchiha Sasuke, Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura, and more Words: 155092.  Status: Complete

(Yup, another non-massacre AU.)  Loyalty.  Honestly, there are so many fics that have loyalty in them, especially in fandoms like Naruto, where loyalty is a pretty big thing anyway (alongside friendship, of course), but this one is Itachi staying openly loyal to the village because Sarutobi actually saved the clan, and of course lovely bonds between the team!

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A favourite AU: A Son By Any Other Name by carryonstarkid (Thunderbirds)

Cursed as a child, Scott Tracy lives a life in which everyone he encounters must follow all of his given commands. Rating: Teen.  AO3 Chose Not To Use Warnings Characters: Scott Tracy, Tracy Brothers, Kayo Kyrano, and more Words: 83429.  Status: Complete

I rarely read AU fics - my preferred sandbox is the canon one, or a nice slice of canon diversion, rather than completely taking characters out of their home and dumping them somewhere entirely new.  This fairytale AU, however - reminding me very much of Sleeping Beauty except instead of sleeping it’s, well, what the summary says - is fantastically well done and addresses the strain such a thing would put on even the closest of family relationships.

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A fic you stayed up too late to finish reading: As N Approaches Infinity by Corisanna (Bleach/Puella Magi Madoka Magica)

Despairing as yet another timeline goes horribly wrong, Homura wanders into Karakura. There she discovers that while the spiritually-aware people of Karakura were distracted by Ichigo Kurosaki and Xcution, Kyubey had managed to contract the Kurosaki sisters as magical girls. Drawing the attention of the shinigami could be just the advantage Homura needs. Rating: Teen.  AO3 No Archive Warnings but watch out for canon-typical situations for both fandoms (especially Madoka) Characters: Akemi Homura, Kurosaki Karin, Kurosaki Yuzu, Urahara Kisuke, and many more Words: 465297.  Status: Incomplete

There are many fanfictions that have kept me up til dawn.  Many.  This one, however, has literally robbed me of all my sleep and I’ve still been unable to finish it in one sitting.  It’s good, the pacing is fantastic, and with Homura as our leading lady, that means those time resets really hit hard when they happen (and they happen.  They really, really, happen).  Might be incomplete, but is still updating - and there’s plenty to keep you occupied in the meantime!

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A fic that made you feel seen: A Seed Once Grown by Darkestwolfx (Thunderbirds) - @darkestwolfx​

Believe it or not, they did have a garden on Tracy Island. It looked a little like a… tip. And that was being kind. Rating: Teen.  AO3 No Archive Warnings Characters: Ned Tedford, Tracy Family Words: 4785.  Status: Complete

Okay, so I’m taking this literally because I spend a lot of time feeling invisible on the internet so having a fic written for me from someone I’d barely spoken to before was a whole pile of screaming.  Not that it’s the first time someone’s written a fic for me, but the other ones have been done by friends I’d already known for some time, and not someone in a fandom I’m just starting to find my feet in.

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Free space: whoo boy, fun time!  There are a few fics on the top of my head that didn’t fill any of the above prompts (or got beaten to the punch by another), so my wildcard space is going to be a few fic links without the extra detail because I’ve already spent about 12 hours on this to get to this point (did I get sidetracked and re-read a bunch?  You bet) and I’d quite like to also get some fic written today, too!

Eight-Day Week (JoJo Spotting) by TrufflestheMushroom (JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure)

The Trouble With Eastern by teaandtumblr (One Piece)

Remembrance by ClioSelene (One Piece)

Legacy by MaiKusakabe (One Piece)

A Fleeting Smile by AnonymousTwit (Boku no Hero Academia)

Too Loud For Comfort by vaporeon_ninja (Boku no Hero Academia)

A Dragon’s Hoard by Chezka (Boku no Hero Academia)

Nine Lives by P_Artsypants (Miraculous Ladybug)

Chat’s Eye View (Love Letters To Paris) by Icka M Chif (Miraculous Ladybug)

Gabriel’s Lament by Chaotic Neutral (Miraculous Ladybug)

What The Cat Dragged In by Kyral (Avengers/Miraculous Ladybug)

Weekend Warrior by BlackDog_66 (Avengers)

Fitting In (Tiny Spaces) by aloneintherain (Avengers)

Autonomy by beetlebee (Naruto)

Great Minds by ScreamingViking (Final Fantasy VII)

Dear Kunsel by Sinnatious (Final Fantasy VII)

Cracks in the knight by authorettejasmin (Magic Kaito)

To Wrap An Elvish Princeling by Jael (Lord of the Rings)

There are more, many more, and I’ll probably post a few more recs around - you can also find some on my blog and I’ll try and get that updated with a few more at some point because there are many more than that!

#thunderbirds are go #avatar the last airbender #stargate sg1 #bleach #harry potter #naruto #lord of the rings #one piece #artemis fowl #the avengers #mcu #d.gray-man #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #fullmetal alchemist #bbc merlin #miraculous ladybug #puella magi madoka magica #jjba #ffvii #final fantasy vii #magic kaito #fanfiction #fanfiction recommendation #long post

[domesticsns]

More Izuna being a little shit please🙏🙏

Izuna being a little shit is becoming my bread and water (jk nobody pays me) 

Izuna was in the shower one evening while Sasuke and Naruto were doing grocery shopping so he was alone in the apartment. He heard the door of the bathroom and he figured it was Sasuke because the two knew each other pretty well when they were kids, i mean sure they hadn’t been this close anymore but he figured maybe Sasuke being a bit more open. So he didn’t think too much about it. That is when the curtains were pulled open and Izuna blinked a couple of times seeing Tobirama Senju. 

And he is looking him up and down and goes, “You’re not Sasuke.” 

“I am the upgraded version,” Izuna snaps back, folding his arms. 

“Yes, you’re so much more compact.” Tobirama says staring looking down at Izuna’s crotch zone. 

“How would you know?” 

“We have showers at the precinct.” Tobirama answered calmly, moving his eyes up to meet Izuna’s. 

“Sasuke doesn’t use those. He finds communal showers disgusting. He rather showers at home in a bathroom he cleans thoroughly twice a week.” 

“Fair enough. You got me, I have no idea how it looks like now” Tobirama admits. “So you’re not as dumb as you seem.” 

“I went to university....Before dropping out and touring with a band over europe. They were the opening band of this other band...I forgot the name it was years ago. Lots of groupies...I got an STD for the first time...Threatable of course. Made me a lot more cautious.” 

“Chlamydia?”

“No Gonorrhoea.” Izuna says. “Always better than aids.” 

“Congratulations you did not get aids during hoe-phase that is lasting till...How old are you 34? 35?” 

“At heart I am twenty-one.” Izuna says with a little smile on his face. 

“Right...” Tobirama says, “So where is Sasuke?” 

“Grocery shopping, probably banging in the car since he is too shy to have sex in the house with me around. But it was apparently okay to suck Naruto off just proof a point to me...Whatever sometimes I don’t even get him and I was basically his translator when he couldn’t talk.” 

“He couldn’t talk?” Tobirama asked. 

“Oh he didn’t tell you? I thought he told everyone. After my aunt shot herself through the head right in front of him he didn’t speak for years. At most he got a few words out and that was like the biggest progress he had until he went to middle school. Man he bugged the hell out of my uncle. He hated it. He spend so much money on these speeches coaches and therapist and counselors . He got so fed up. Man he locked him up in a closet for a whole day. My dad had to get him out and tell my uncle it was borderline abuse. Which was ironic because my dad had a short fuse himself and once threw me across the room as a child and I cracked my skull...You can still feel it, u wanna feel it?” 

“No thank you, but your behaviour is starting to more sense to me.” Tobirama says. 

“Hmmm, so what ya here for?” 

“I got a lead, I wanted to move on it but seems he’s not here.” 

“What’s the deal with you two anyway?” Izuna asks. 

“We’re having a whole conversation while you’re naked.” Tobirama notes. 

“I am comfortable in my body.” Izuna states. 

“I admire that.” 

“Tell me, what’s the deal? You into him? You wanna fuck him? You’re crushing?” Izuna gasped, “Are you in love?” 

“He is a co-worker. I despise slightly less because he carried my brother’s dead body to me instead of leaving it in a forest to be eaten by wolves and told me his words.” 

“How intense...What where they?” Izuna asked, a little overstepping.

Tobirama looked up from his thoughts and whispers, “That he loved me.” 

“Oh..That story sounds a little familiar...Oh my god...Oh I should not tell you this.” Izuna says, pulling the curtains back so he was hidden. 

Tobirama pulls the curtains away again. 

“What?” 

“No, I am not going to say that. This was told to me in confidence after i gave Sasuke like two pot brownies.” 

“Oh certainly don’t want to be tray that confidence. I admire that. However, he did tell you that your outfit today...Looked really bad. Like you were some cheap whore.” 

“Did he say that!?” Izuna looks angry. 

“Yeah, he said more awful things about not having your shit together and being a burden.” 

“What exact did he say about my outfit!?” Izuna insisted. 

“You looked like a cheap whore...that exactly.” Tobirama says. 

“Oh...Uhu...As if he is dressed nice with those suits and the ties and-” 

“To be fair it is mandatory clothing.” 

“Oh yea, are you in the right headspace to  receive the news that will probably make you feel like shit and want to punch Sasuke in the face?” 

“I always want to punch him in the face....Also kinda want to choke him. Go on.” 

“So he was high he told me about the first kid saw dying for the first time and how stomach was slashed open-” 

“That how my youngest brother died...” Tobirama said. 

“Yes he also told me he lied about his last words when his brother, I assume it is you,asked. He made it up. He told him..Oh well you...That his last words were that he loved you, but truly his last words were screams of agony and the disbelieve of seeing his bowels hanging out from his stomach. He just couldn’t bring himself to say the that.” 

Tobirama goes quiet. 

“I know, I know. He can be a bitch. What exactly about my outfit looked like a whore? Did he say something specific?” 

“Uh...No..No he did not.” Tobirama said. 

“Hey, you okay?” Izuna puts his hand on Tobirama’s shoulder. 

“You’re making me wet.” 

“I make a lot of people wet...” 

“Not me, my clothes, idiot.” Tobirama takes a step away. “Anyway if you see him tell him...You know what don’t tell him I was here at all. I’ll handle it myself.” 

“Or...Or..and hear me out...You join me in the shower, we fuck, and we can enjoy the sheer pleasure of the knowledge that we did it in his shower which will piss him off.” 

“Fucking in the shower? Or us fucking in his shower?” 

“Us fucking in the shower.” Izuna says.  “Come on, you won’t regret it I am pretty good. Most of Sasuke’s moves. I taught him.” 

“I doubt that.” Tobirama says, thinking of the time he accidently caught the show of Naruto and Sasuke doing.

“I did work in two porns, they’re on the internet. I still get money when somebody presses the add.” 

“You’re not afraid your family will find out?” Tobirama asks. 

“I am not stupid...I had a wig on. Short black...Spikes in the end. I even used an alias... I said my name was Sasuke. So y’know if my family sees it they think it is him and they won’t say a word because if he does it..It is because of his traumas, but when I do it..I am an attention seeking whore.” 

“you have issues, boy.” Tobirama says, “I am going to be honest with you. I don’t really care about sex, but...” He looks Izuna up and down, “I guess why not. If it pisses Sasuke off I am in.” 

“And y’know, you get me.” Izuna said, indicating to his body. 

“Sure, it is not bad.” Tobirama says as he takes off his jacket. 

Oxoxoxox

Sasuke and Naruto come home from grocery shopping and they put the bags in the kitchen. 

“Izuna?...Zuzu? Where are you?” He knocks on the bathroom door. 

“Just a minute!” He hears Izuna shout. 

“Zuzu, you’ve been in there since we left, this is beyond freeloading.” He says and he opens the door and he pulls the curtains away and took a deep, deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeppp, breath. And he looks at Tobirama and then he looks at Izuna. 

“When you’re done...I want you to clean this bathroom from top to bottom with bleach and I want you out of my house.” 

“Me?!” Izuna frowns.

“No, not you. You’re family we’re connected by blood. I have to deal with you.I am talking about number seven you slept with this week.”  He looks at Tobirama.

“We’re not sleeping we’re just fucking in the shower,” Izuna says, “So can we finish?” 

Sasuke walked out of the bathroom closing the door.

Naruto was in the kitchen and said, “Tobirama is in there with Izuna, isn’t he?” 

“How did you know?” Sasuke sighed. 

“The window to the fire escape is open.” 

“Clever.” Sasuke said. 

“You seem upset, for someone who is married...”  Naruto noted carefully. 

“I am not upset I am mad. That is my bathroom. I shower in there. He has his own bathroom, they should do it in his apartment.” 

“I feel like that...That’s not the reason why you’re upset.” 

“Yeah also...You expect someone to give you a heads up. That is my cousin and that my co-worker. It’s weird like if I would date his brother.” 

“I mean they already made out and Izuna did state he was interested in him. This should not be a surprise for a detective.” Naruto made a clear point. 

“It is just awkward.” Sasuke said. 

[theskyeandsea]

The Hope Cure || Morgan & Skylar

Location: Tower Music and Comics

People involved: @mor-beck-more-problems, @theskyeandsea

Hands idly tapping the side of her leg, Skylar waited outside of Tower Comics, her phone resting in the pocket of her jeans. She didn’t want to be scrolling through her phone when Morgan arrived, that would be rude, right? And it had been really nice of her to offer to visit the store with her in the first place. Skylar winced-- she really didn’t know much about what Morgan did and didn’t like, besides her Etsy things, magic, and some kind of hospital drama that had been playing when Skylar had visited her home. And here Morgan had invited her to go out and do something that she specifically enjoyed. Mmmm. She needed to be more attentive to other people; just because she was going through her own… situation, that didn’t mean she couldn’t try to help people. Sighing, she shook her head. Maybe next time she would invite Morgan to watch something at her place? Or try and help her with magic that didn’t involve knives. Mm. She’d figure it out. Noticing someone walking down the street in her peripheral vision, Skylar glanced up and she saw the other woman approach her. “Hey. Thanks for meeting me,” She said with a warm smile. 

Morgan gave a wave and a big smile at Skylar as she approached. She’d lost track of whether exactly she’d given enough recompense for the debacle with the blood magic or if she was opening another door that would have to be balanced. With the kids in town, it was easier to give, send energy outwards in little ways, than to take their compassion, their understanding. Those were precious gifts, gifts that curses might take notice of. But either way, Morgan needed a break. So did Skylar. There were enough angsts and traumas to go around in this place-- maybe they really could just help each other, and this whole thing could even out to zero without causing much of a cosmic stir. That would be okay, right? 

“Hey!” She said, coming closer now. “Of course! I’ve been needing to get out of the house. It’s an awful time of the semester. But I guess you know that from the kids you work with too. Why don’t you show me around?”

Nodding at Morgan’s words, Skylar let out a sigh. “Yeah… That’s a fair point. There’s a lot that’s been going on lately. It’s been keeping me on my toes.” Though she wasn’t a teacher, she was getting used to the shifts in mood with her students. Now that most of the big holidays were over, the younger kids were counting down the days for spring break and her high schooler was stressing over his up-coming SAT test. So, there was a lot going on, on top of all the general… weirdness happening outside of work. “Mhm, for sure.” She said, holding open the door for Morgan before slipping inside. The comforting smell of the comic shop welcomed her, of old paper and a slight scent of dust gathering on some of the old records that lay on the other side of the shop. “So, there’s a bunch of serialized comics over here, some manga in that section, and then graphic novels. They’ve got a really great selection.” Skylar said with a nod towards the shelves full of books, the tables laden with box after box of comic books.

The comic store had a comforting smell inside that but Morgan’s body more at ease. It was the same as libraries, as bookshops. Soft, cool paper and ink, bound and accessible. Knowledge, history, story. Morgan only had the vaguest of ideas about what made those categories distinct. There were a few famous titles she was familiar with, but most of it, especially the manga, was uncharted territory. “I know you said you like manga,” Morgan said, scanning the shelves. “Any recommendations? I still haven’t seen all of Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, and uh, I saw Spirited Away once? When it first came out and everyone was talking about it. Not sure if that’s much to go on, though,” she said, smiling sheepishly. “How are you, by the way--?” She gave the question gently, as if that might make it lighter. Skylar had been through it lately, just as much as she had, and all the worse for being so young, and so much more on her own.

“I like a lot of different things, honestly. And the thing with manga, there’s all kinds of genres-- you have your basic fighting shounen stuff, slice of life romance, sci-fi fighting robot things, and some neat LGBTQ stuff too.” Skylar rambled as she led them towards the corner of manga. The typical books were out on full display, Naruto, Bleach, Blue Exorcist, things like that. But, she’d never really been too interested in the big action kinds of things. “Mmm. If you liked Spirited Away, you’d probably like some of the other Hayao Miyazaki movies. I don’t know if they’d have it here, but he did a manga series for Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind. It’s worth checking out, either reading or watching.” She said with a nod. Focusing on the spines of the books in front of her, Skylar tilted her head as she mulled over the question. “I’ve been better.” She decided, as she pulled out one of the books from the shelf, looking over the cover for a moment. “But, I’m getting through things. One day at a time, you know? How about you?” She asked, turning to look at Morgan intently, “Are you doing okay?” 

“Valley of the Wind?” Morgan repeated. “Sounds beautiful, just from the name.” She scanned the shelves, picking up pieces with artwork centered on magic, or gentle landscapes. Some of these seemed to just be about kids getting by, harmless trouble, and puttering along with ease. She could get on board with nestling up to one of those, if only to dream of everything being so easy. She looked sidelong at Skylar as she spoke. “Anything you feel like talking about?” She said, plucking up a book. “I can listen pretty good in person too, you know.” But of course, Skylar, sweet kid she was, wanted to know about her too. “I’m getting there. Pushing along, as we do. Still compiling information about my-- curse, thing. Knowledge really is power, but the picture it’s giving me isn’t a pretty one.”

“Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind,” Skylar said with a nod. “It’s a beautiful movie. It’s about a lot of different things, but I think it’s a story about the power of compassion.” She shrugged. The idea of facing adversity and suffering with kindness and understanding, it was… more applicable than she ever thought it would have been when she’d first watched the movie as a child. “Ah.” Biting the inside of her cheek, she shook her head. “Not really. Just, erm, trying to adjust. Still trying to deal with some of the, the fallout.” She said before turning her attention to the books. If she looked at the books, then Morgan wouldn’t see how watery her eyes were getting at just the thought of talking about her family right now. But, she couldn’t help but think about the lies, about her phone call to her mom, about how her phone calls never went through anymore. Skylar hummed, not entirely sure how to respond at first, “I’m sorry that it’s not going well. But… you’re one step closer to figuring things out, right?”

Morgan smiled, caught by the universe again, she thought. Compasion, kindness, suffering. She couldn’t seem to get away from those no matter what she told herself to the contrary. The people she met were too nice, too brave in the face of their suffering to be used or endangered recklessly. The longer she looked, the more imbalance she found, and there wasn’t enough energy or enough strength to hold or fix it all. If she could just get the shadow lifted from her shoulders, though, she could try. She could shove as many of them into her arms as possible. If she didn’t drown mysteriously in the river or get wrecked by a tornado or get trampled in the street or fall off a cliff like her ancestors had at various points in their cursed lives. 

She caught the strain in Skylar’s voice and paused, looking over at her. “I’m sorry for you, too,” she said seriously. “They shouldn’t have lied.” She turned her attention back to the stacks, picking up another volume to look at later. They were trying to take a break, right? “And, uh, yeah I’m--building a timeline. I think it happened while my great-great grandmother was young. But the details are, it’s either in some record that didn’t know or care about any of them, or it’s some personal account that’s trying to put words to something you just can’t. You run out of ways to say your world broke, and why is this happening anyway? It’s endless. And you start to wonder if this is all just a bad trailer for the future, but--” She could deal. She would. She had to. “Knowledge is still power. I think that’s going to be true for both of us. So, found anything good?”

Eyes flitting over the covers of some of the manga, Skylar’s attention turned to an old classic. Neon Genesis Evangelion. Shinji, a character who’s entire purpose and abilities hinged upon something he feared and actively shied away from… A lump formed in the back of her throat. Mmm. There really was no getting away from things, was there? Swallowing, she met Morgan’s eyes for a brief moment as the woman spoke. “They shouldn’t have. But, they did. And now I’m trying to… deal with what it all means. It’s okay, though. I’ll be okay.” Skylar said with a timid smile. She’d told Remmy that it would be okay, she’d tried telling herself that it would be okay. But, the more and more she thought about it, how could things ever be okay? How could she ever be okay, when she wasn’t even human? She just… wanted to be normal.

 Drawn out of her thoughts by Morgan’s own situation, Skylar focused in on the other woman’s words. A bad trailer for the future? “Morgan…” Reaching out, Skylar touched her shoulder gently, hoping that the gesture would provide some kind of comfort, “I’m sorry. You’ll find something, though. I know you will.” Clearing her throat, she slipped her hand back into the pocket of her jacket and shook her head. “Mm, not really. I’m kind of in a comic book mood. Have you ever read any comics?” She asked, leading the way towards the boxes of comic books, neatly organized and arranged.

Morgan instantly felt guilty for getting distracted enough to ramble to Skylar. This wasn’t hers to carry. Of course she wanted to, because she was kind and she knew, way too well, what it felt like to be alone, to feel outside of the world, to be the kind of tired that Morgan sometimes felt. Maybe that was why she’d slipped in the first place. She smiled with genuine softness at the girl’s gesture. “Thanks. And I’m still hopeful to, for the record. Things…aren’t always the way they should be, you know? But that doesn’t mean we give up. We owe it to ourselves to manifest the life we deserve, or at least, to try to, even if it’s an uphill climb.” But they would get there. Skylar would find her peace within herself, and Morgan would break her curse. They had to. What other options were there?

We owe it to ourselves to manifest the life we deserve. That was some deep stuff that Skylar really didn’t want to unpack right now. Because… what did she deserve? Her entire life, she’d been nothing but a burden on her family and now, the more of the truth she uncovered, the more she questioned things. “Mhm. We can’t give up.” She said with a nod. Even if she didn’t fully believe it, she had to try. Things would get better, they would. Walking over to the comic section of the store, she started going through some of the Marvel comics. Her fingers paused as she looked at the box labeled “X-men.” They were her favorite comic books, some of her favorite heroes came from those pages. Pulling one of the issues of the Astonishing X-men out of the box, she skimmed through the pages. The Hope Cure. Something that would cure the mutant, that would fix them. Make them human. “With curses, is there any tried and true method to breaking them? Or is it like a… case by case basis?” 

Morgan leaned against the shelves and started poking through her small armload. Reading right to left was a heck of an adjustment. She didn’t notice Skylar’s attention wandering to the X-Men title, but listened and went on. “Oh, case by case, always,” she said. “Sometimes there’s something specific written into the spellcraft, and sometimes you can use one spell to undo another. There’s no one size fits all solution to anything. Mine’s complex enough that I can’t do anything without knowing what, exactly, was put into it. You can fall into some bad messes trying to put the wrong key in the wrong hole. It has to be done carefully.”

“Case by case.” Skylar echoed as she slid one of the comic books out of its protective sleeve and began to thumb through the issue. Her eyes fell on a particular speech bubble, a woman at a podium offering an answer, The mutant strain can be eliminated. Safely and irreversibly. There is such a thing as a second chance. A second chance. What she wouldn’t give for any kind of chance at a normal life. “How would one spell counteract another one? Wouldn’t that just make things worse?” She asked, still holding the open comic book. “That makes sense why you’re trying to sort everything out. It’s like… you need all the pieces of the puzzle before you can begin to put it together.” She said, hoping that the metaphor made sense. She wouldn’t pretend to understand any of this magic stuff, but this was the best way she could conceptualize any of this.

“Hm?” Morgan had been trying to work her way through a story about wolf siblings, but zoned out somewhere along recounting the various means of spell breaking. “Yeah, you need the whole picture, the history of the thing, and its intentions. If, say, your apartment was flooding from a leaky pipe, you could sop up the water in a room, but it wouldn’t be as helpful as finding the leak and fixing it. But, obviously, sometimes you really just need one room not flooded. A patch job is still a job. Not for me, but in general. And some spells were written just for, well, dispelling others. Voiding the bargain of another spell, basically.” She finally looked up enough to look at Skylar properly again. “Find anything interesting?”

Running her fingers along the panels of the comic book, Skylar mulled over Morgan’s words. If her situation could be compared to a leaking pipe, her entire apartment was underwater, all the pipes were burst, and she was just trying to keep afloat. But, if magic… if magic could do something about it, if a deal could be made, if something could be done to get rid of this… part of her. She was willing to try. “Is that another case by case situation? Or is it always a one-to-one kind of thing, like… if two people were cursed with a similar thing, would the same spell work on both of them? Or is the magic unique to the person and their situation? The, the intention?” Skylar asked, trying to use some of the wordage that Morgan had brought up. Slipping the comic back into its sleeve, Skylar shook her head. “Not really. Just an old issue I’ve read before.” 

“Similar, not guaranteed; identical, yes,” Morgan said. She looked at Skylar thoughtfully, puzzled by her sudden interest in spellcraft. It was sweet, in its own way, trying to work her head around Morgan’s situation, even if she didn’t have the access to magic to do anything for her. “You don’t need to know all this stuff, though, okay? Magic is weird and complicated. There are so many pathways to achieve something, so many calculations, so much to balance--I could spend the rest of my life doing nothing else and still have more to learn at the end. It’s a lot, for anyone, and you already have so much, Skylar.” She smiled at the girl, touched by her efforts nonetheless. “But, if you’re that curious, I can try and explain the theory stuff to you. But, I’m still a way’s off from trying something big. Okay?”

Humming in understanding, Skylar’s eyebrows pinched together, brow furrowing. Mm. Maybe if she did research, if she tried to find other instances of things where people had been turned into animals and then cured-- Beauty and the Beast, Princess and the Frog, there had to be a grain of truth there, right? If Interview with A Vampire was real, there had to be something that could help her. “Hm?” Startled by Morgan’s gentle tone, Skylar blinked. Wait. She thought-- oh. “It’s okay, really. I want to know more about this. If I’m in this… I want to know as much as I can. And I want to help you, really.” She said. That part was true, she did want to help Morgan. She really did. The other woman’s situation was… awful. Tragic, even, in a way that she could never fully understand. So, if she could help Morgan while also getting some answers towards her own… cure, everyone would be a winner. Right? “Theory sounds good to me.” Skylar said with a nod.

But you aren’t in this, Skylar, Morgan thought. You can’t be. But the girl wouldn’t understand that, would she? She would see someone else hiding something, or pushing her away, and it wouldn’t matter that she was doing it to keep a cosmic target off her back, the fact of it would hurt enough. If Morgan were truly her mother’s daughter, she might withhold everything, even her support altogether. But she couldn’t do that now any more than she had been able to as a child. She knew the sting of being on the receiving end too intimately to stomach inflicting it. She’d find different lines to draw, and hopefully it would be enough. “Just the basics first, of course,” she clarified gently. “And--there’s other people in town, your age, who have a grip on the magic thing, at least broadly speaking. But, okay, there is one thing I can show you that pretty much applies across the board.” Morgan flushed as she took out her keys, sheepish even though Ruth was no longer looking over her shoulder. She snapped off one of the charms and dug for some pocket lint. “Magic wants to be balanced, it wants fair value in the universe. That’s not how things are all the time, obviously, but with magic--you can give--” she put the items on the pop socket on her phone and reached down into the universe, sighing with ease. The items clinked together, melded into a silver seal with a jacket like Skylar’s, melded again into a fifty cent piece, the kind Morgan had grown up coveting. “--and you can receive. Nothing is a waste, if you’re doing it right. Everything you’ve lost finds its way back somehow, even if it’s a little different.” She gestured again and returned the items back to their form. “And that, Skylar, is how I know we’re going to be okay.”

Taking in a breath to steady her nerves, Skylar nodded at the other woman’s words. “I’ve talked to a few of them--” She stopped herself, not wanting to out anyone without knowing if they’d told Morgan themselves. Rio had taken that away from her, she didn’t want to do that to anyone else. Instead, Skylar focused on the Morgan’s hand, at the charms on her key chain. Listening intently, she watched as the tiny objects that sat in her palm come together and formed a half dollar coin. Everything lost finds its way back, even if it’s a little different. Did that mean that… Was there a chance? That she could be normal, that she could just be… a human? Could magic help her? Looking over at Morgan, Skylar nodded, “We’re going to be okay.” She was going to be okay. One way or another, she would find a way to be okay again.

#p: morgan beck #p: thc #//lol this paras abbreviation is thc; unfortunately no weed is involved