#But really I find it dumb that no one considered the alternative route of making Binti his daughter instead

[kaythefloppa]

I was today years old when I found out that Zazu was supposed to have eight babies in The Lion King 2.

Concept artwork of them done by Ritsko Notani and approved by animator Wendell Washer, (both of whom have worked on various other Disney direct-to-video sequels and spin-offs) was sold on Ebay just this weekend (godspeed to whoever is living in LA at the moment).

In early drafts of the sequel dating back to 1996, Zazu was intended to be accompanied by a female hornbill known as Binti, who would have been his mate by the end of the film. Together, they would have had eight hornbill chicks. The executives and writers deemed Binti and Zazu's storyline to be unnecessary and she was cut from the movie. When Binti was phased out, Zazu no longer had any narrative reason to have children, and thus they were cut. Zazu's role in Simba's Pride was diminished greatly as a result of this.

If the link doesn't work, here are some photos ripped directly from the site.

[primoredial-jade]

heartbeat

“ my heart's on fire for your love. “

pairings: childe x gn!reader

cw: awkward / wholesome love confession confrontations, spoilers of liyue’s archon quest, reader is a medic, reader has hair long enough to put behind ear, reader resides in liyue, few mentions of light injuries and wariness of death, childe calls reader “doc’” 

a/n: i had finished this and left it in the drafts from over a year ago! this is an alternative story i wrote for a prompt didi ( @monocaelia ) sent me for a drabble i wrote called to be in love, and i guess i totally went a different route for that one. hope you enjoy this one as well!!!

“i don’t get paid nearly enough for this.” 

the harbinger has the audacity to chuckle under his breath, leaning further back into the examination table with one of his hands covering his eye. he keeps his voice light despite the apparent discomfort he’s in. 

“don’t worry, doc’. i could offer a little donation to show my gratitude, if that’s what you’re worried about.” 

you can’t help the exasperated, heaving sigh that escapes your mouth. you knew his pockets ran deep, but you weren’t being serious. had it been anyone else, you would have kept quiet to maintain your professionalism, but with childe, this all went out the window. 

being a disciple of baizhu and gui at the renowned bubu pharmacy of liyue, you were prone to getting oddball patients every now and then. having to resuscitate a boy from nearly dying eating jueyun chili’s here, selling medicinal herbs to a woman that ate them raw on the spot there.

but truly, no one was as odd as childe. 

as a medical professional, you couldn’t just turn away a patient if they needed your help. the first time he turned up to the pharmacy with cuts and bruises all over in search of painkillers, you had an inkling who he was aligned with based off of the colors of his outfit alone, never mind the fact that he was obviously a foreigner. 

at that time, liyue harbor had only just survived osial’s attack, and word had gotten around that the fatui had much to do with it. while you remained as concise with your words as possible when handing him the bottle of painkillers, you could not repress the urge to make the passive-aggressive question that, 

“it really is a shame that some renowned factions, despite their cunning in their quest for world domination, do not have professional resident medics on standby. don’t you think?” 

you probably should have been killed on the spot for making such a crass comment. as his eyes rose to slowly meet your own, you found a deep sea torrent of both interest and fascination instead of anger. it had taken you aback, but you kept your chin held high.

needless to say, childe’s interest was piqued. 

he had begun to make it a habit to visit at least once every two days. granted, he really was injured or needed medicine when he dropped by, and you were definitely not happy about it; not only because it was him, but because you didn’t necessarily like to have regulars in this type of job. seeing the same patients, even if it was childe, getting hurt over and over again didn’t do your heart any favors.

sometimes, you would seriously consider if he got himself injured on purpose just to see you.

he initiated small talk during your examinations, and while at first you were curt and to the point, he managed to weasel his way past your walls. little by little, you were falling prone to his undeniable charm.

his stupid grin and quirk of his brow when you made an offhand comment made your pulse quicken, his dumb jokes that you didn’t understand unless you were snezhnayan still made you crack a smile, and the fact that he was always honest with you– you were beginning to tolerate him. maybe, more than you had anticipated.

it wasn’t like you were dumb. you could feel the longing looks he gave while you tended to his shallow wounds, his methods of finding cheeky ways to retain your attention for longer, the way he openly talked about his family. fatui don’t reveal personal information like that to just anybody.

today, it seemed as if he had gotten hit in the face with a dirtbomb from treasure hoarders, judging by the dirtied spots on his clothes. some of it must have gotten in his eye.

“i’m not even specialized in optometry,” you mumble, but he shrugs his shoulders innocently, disregarding your comment entirely.

“so long as you can help me see again, it doesn’t matter to me,” he answers easily.

“let me, then,” you urge in a quiet hush, peeling his hand away from his eye.

he has it still scrunched up in discomfort, and you can see the defensive tears from that eye covering the expanse of his face. while you know he isn’t necessarily crying voluntarily, it still brings a pang to your chest.

with the knowledge that he’s a capable fighter with a pain tolerance that is unrivaled, yet even just a little dirt can incapacitate him– it shocks you. at the end of the day, he was human, just like you.

and if he wasn’t so lucky the next time, it could even get in both of his eyes. who knows what would transpire on the battlefield next. he could… lose.

you’re clearly shaken up by your thoughts, and childe waves his free hand over your face, amusement clear on his expression.

“i didn’t come to one of the best pharmacy’s in teyvat to get spaced out on,” his tone softens, sounding more serious, “i’m fine, trust me. nothing to worry about, see?”

he gives a charming half-smile, and you resist the urge to pinch his cheek in retaliation.

“i’m going to flush it out. don’t force yourself to open it, but if you feel the discomfort easing up, just do it slowly,” you instruct, taking a bowl of clean water to his side.

childe, usually one to make more joking complaints, is uncharacteristically compliant with your demands. the room is quiet as he lets you pour the cool water over his eye, and slowly but surely, he opens it up again.

it’s red-rimmed and has seen better days, but you let out a hushed sigh of relief knowing that it’s still functioning fine from what you can tell so far.

“does it still hurt?” you ask, taking a towel and gently wiping away the wetness of the water on his face. it feels… oddly domestic, somehow.

childe shakes his head no, but squints up at you. “not really, but it’s still a little blurry.”

you hum, sliding closer to his face to get a better look, assessing it for a final time just to make sure.

this close, you can feel his breath fanning across your face. it distracts you, but not nearly as much as the endless pools of blue that are staring right into your own. it should unnerve you, the way they don’t sparkle like anyone else’s would, but it doesn’t.

his eyes flicker all across your face, and you feel heat rising up your neck.

once you nod in affirmation and pull away, it’s only then do you realize the flustered state that you left him in. he’s fidgeting, hands clenched into loose fists and ears pinking. you give him a funny look, unable to suppress a smirk.

“it looks fine to me, childe. thankfully it does not look like there will be lasting damage, but you should really see a qualified optometrist, so–“

“i have to tell you something.” he interrupts, looking bashful. you’re immediately on high alert. childe is never bashful.

“childe, i’m still on the clock,” you remind, already having some idea of what he might have to say.

“then consider this a… a patient telling you about their life, or something,” he finishes lamely, chuckling nervously. you can only chew on your lip in anticipation, blood pounding in your ears.

“well, i...” he takes a breath, “i think... well. i’m in love with a nurse,” ajax admits, posture suddenly straightening, confident. “i have been in love with them for a while now, actually. so… if i were to confess, how do you think they would react?” he purses his lips in anticipation at your response.

despite his unwavering voice, his red ears indicate how he really feels in this moment. he’s cute, you think. you briefly hold eye contact, smirking when he is the one to break it. it brings you a sick sense of pride to see such a powerful man brought to his knees from something like this.

he looks definitively taken aback at the airy chuckle you give, responding, “ah, i see.”

now he is really confused. “i– what?” he sputters, eyes darting over your face to get a read on you. 

the quirk in your brow, the knowing smile you have on your face. really, looking at how beautiful you look in this moment only confirms his feelings. 

the cogs in his brain are turning every which way, until finally, it clicks. he brings up a hand to his forehead, letting out a low grumble of embarrassment. with zero shame, he pulls you toward him by your wrist and leans his head against your shoulder. allowing him this brief moment of reprieve, you bring up a hand to card through his hair.

“you knew?” he asks, clearly ashamed at his lack of finesse. you snort, pulling away slightly to meet his eyes.

“well, you haven’t exactly been discreet…” 

he can only bury his head into your shoulder again, completely flushed.

“okay, well,” his breath tickles your skin as you give another chuckle, “i’ll ask again. how do you think this nurse would react?”

pulling completely away from him, you point up at the clock. he huffs, unhappy with your consistency to uphold professionalism.

“maybe you should ask this nurse in another hour after their shift is over.”

childe rolls his eyes. “alright, alright. then i hope this nurse will be happy to meet me at wanmin’s restaurant with their answer– i will only be expecting good things.” 

he laughs the entire way you shoo him out, and only eases up to lean down and tuck a stray piece of hair behind your ear.

“i’ll see you soon, doc’.”

[stargazeraldroth]

Okay okay okay, so- Hear me out. I’ve got an AU (…AM? Alternate Multiverse?) idea that could go the way or horror, humor, or both, spawned by your mention of the evil team in your Pokémon AU. I’m never gonna do anything with this, but it made me laugh and I wanted to share it and see where you’d go with it (your AUs/AMs are fun sue me!!!).

So. Consider this, if you will- Dream and Blue decide to try and be a lil silly with Ink for whatever reason. Payback for a prank? April Fool’s? The reason isn’t important, what’s important is that they decide “go big or go home” and enlist a few AUs to pretend to worship Ink as a god in some weird, Ink-oriented cult. Why a cult? Who knows, maybe they got drunk and ran with it. Maybe they were feeling chaotic. The idea is that Ink will go to these AUs, find the “fake cult,” and try to figure out what the hell happened, this isn’t in the script??? Before Dream and Blue eventually reveal their Dastardly Prank (and they intend to reveal it, they abide by the confuse don’t abuse rule!) and have a good laugh together!

Except there’s one teeny tiny… Itsy bitsy little problem with that.

Somehow, someway, the AUs didn’t get the memo that the cult was meant to be pretend, and now there’s a real, actual Ink Cult spanning the goddamn multiverse that’s rapidly growing. There are rituals and prayers going around, they’ve heard whispers about sacrifices (of what, they aren’t sure- art supplies???), someone started a goddamn holiday, it’s all a mess, really.

Depending on how you take it, you could go a humorous route and have Blue and Dream frantically trying to hide this from Ink while fixing the entire mess, or at least mitigating it somewhat (stop trying to sacrifice actual people- they don’t care that it’s willing, use cupcakes or paints or something!!!), to varying degrees of success… Or you could go a more horror oriented route of Dream and Blue frantically trying to keep their friend out of the grasp of his rapidly growing worshippers, all while wondering how everything went so damn wrong and stars, they’re so sorry, Ink-

Anyways yeah, Accidental Cult AU/AM go brrr.

Ah, splendid. I just call all of my alternate multiverses AUs, it helps me with consistency and everyone knows what it means. I don't know which idea I like better, the funnier one or the more horror-oriented one. So! I'm going to address both of them separately!

Also I'm glad to hear you find my AUs fun to read about, making AUs is one of my biggest hobbies rn-

~Funny Version~

For once, Ink's not the one who caused the problem. This is already going wonderfully, my baby's innocent

The idea of the cults trying to sacrifice actual people to Ink is hilarious. I can picture Dream and Blue trying to discourage it by saying that Ink doesn't condone this kind of behavior, which is true, but with varying degrees of effectiveness. Ink will, however, accept food and art supplies any day of the week

They have to enlist CORE's help in tracking the cults' activities, much to CORE's displeasure. How did they let the situation get so out of hand? They're sorry, CORE! They didn't think this would happen!

I can't tell what would be funnier: Ink being painfully oblivious of their involvement (how did the AUs even find out about him? He keeps himself well-hidden, he thinks!) or Ink being entirely aware, but pretending to be dumb. He wants to see if they can handle it on their own, first

Just the image of Dream and Blue trying to keep the cults hidden from Ink is golden. Especially if they eventually cave and tell Ink about it, expecting him to freak out... only for him to either wonder how they did it or him laugh and tell them he already knew about them

Imagine the cults have like, shrines dedicated to Ink. Little Ink statues

What if, in this version, the cults aren't even all that dangerous? Their rituals are more along the lines of "We must pray to the Protector and give him offerings, so that he may ward the Destroyer off from our world!" Just silly things like that

~Horror Version~

Dream and Blue's efforts to stop the cults from using live sacrifices are less successful here

You mentioned they're trying to keep Ink away from the cults, so let's take a look at what might happen if they were to get him

They wouldn't do anything bad to him, of course, but it's a very... odd situation. Ink's being surrounded by these cloaked figures showering him with praises and worship. And when he tries to leave, they won't let him, so he kinda... has to resort to extremes

Maybe the cults start treating Dream and Blue as Ink's messengers or heralds, of sorts. Not just to "deliver his words", but to also relay the cults' prayers and wishes

Alternatively, maybe some cults start going even more rogue and scheme ways to capture Ink and use him to change things about their world. Surely, if anyone would have the power to change things, it would be their lord? They didn't get the memo that Ink doesn't create or control AUs, only protects them (like half of the fandom)

Maybe a cult tries to force Ink out of "hiding" and answering their summons by capturing Dream or Blue and preparing to sacrifice them

I wonder how they might react to PJ and Gradient...? Being the children of Ink, surely they'd be respected. But being Error's children, too... maybe some groups don't take too kindly to their existences

[tomatograter]

What are your Thots on jake’s pq route?

I already wrote some about it in this post where I discuss the problem with taking dirkjake as a literal parallel to tavris (Mainly, that it’s inaccurate to both situations and misrepresents the dynamics at play) but it’s been long enough since release that I feel like I can talk about it without that criticism being taken as a personal witch hunt. TL;DR: As a general rule of thumb I don’t cite Jake’s PQ as part of his characterization, and I think basing your Jakewriting on it will only lead you astray.

I liked a lot of the Pesterquest routes and the alphas were among some of my favorites, but I think when you play the four of them in sequence Jake’s really... stands as the odd one out. It’s almost as if he’s afforded way less sympathy from the get go for some indiscernible reason, or like MSPAR took a day to say ‘I can’t stand this kid in particular’ after dealing with waaaaaaaay more mindboggling troll customs or stupid dangerous situations that tested their patience and their limits. When it comes down to it, it’s mostly an issue of framing.

Let’s go with the “Just the Alpha routes” example, because I think that makes the overall context clearer and the response/reactions it gathered (or the lack thereof) easier to understand. The alpha kids were the last 4 Pesterquest episodes. They were also afforded entire volumes just for themselves, which cemented our expectations on “oh, they’re going to really dig into unexplored territory!” and for the most part, that’s what we got! It was really nice to see the internal mechanics of Jane as someone raised within a corporate echochamber, Roxy as a grieving, isolated kid, deprived of all human contact, and Dirk as a nerdy doomsday prepper haunted by private flashes of himself as a supervillain. It all works! Those are things the alpha kids were dealing with on the background of the broader Homestuck story, things we were only hinted at as the *larger* problems played out. It makes you understand their point of view. Except on Jake's route, where nothing about his life seems to be relevant at all? 

With Jane we get discussions about HIC and her family, with Roxy beautiful passages about a mother they never met and growing up alone— Same for Dirk, who gets a whole brother zapped from an alternate timeline. But on Jake's route there's not even an expansive dialogue path dedicated to Grandma English, Skaianet, the rebellion, or the giant red ship that came and murdered her in the night and then bombed his house, leaving him trapped inside his only surviving tower. No understanding passage realizing that this kid has had to fend for himself in an island full of Actual Giant Alien Monsters trying to eat him alive, or that he cremated his guardian specifically to avoid attracting predators to the scent of fresh blood drying on her mutilated corpse at the age of an actual toddler. The text refuses to dig into any of the psychological implications or impact an environment like this could have on a kid, which is even weirder when you consider MSPAR has met and helped Vriska get out of a similar situation. The whole thing with Jane in the previous volume has just happened, even, while Jake's particularities go unremarked. He was just supposed to deal with it. And that's because a choice was made to portray all of Jake's problems in this route as sort of... single handedly Dirk's fault? Something he should have Just Dealt with?

There's not even a hint that Jake knows Hal exists. Which is important! Jake can pick out Hal from Dirk based on *verbal cues*, and the fact that he considers Hal a barrier between him and his "real friend" getting to communicate with one another is a whole point of contention (and even comedy) in the story proper. Instead of examining Jake's isolation, or grief, or how he literally locks himself in his room and plasters it with cinematic posters to pretend he's just the main lead of a wacky adventure movie in the face of the immense shitshow outside, we get brobot acting nonsensically and threatening to break into Jake's room to beat him up. 

A general reminder on brobot: He was programmed to scout the jungle and deal with predators so Jake could a) Be allowed to safely leave his room (something he simply didn't do before age 13 out of sheer terror, and we know this because dirk and jake talk about it on his birthday conversation, when he first gets brobot) and 

b) Learn how to defend himself in the case of a surprise attack, with different combat settings adjusted to his level. The brobot has a novice mode Jake feels patronized by, but pushes him up levels quickly enough. In Homestuck proper, the brobot only enters "stalking mode" after Hal gets pissy with Jake for finding him out, and forcefully switches the setting on to make Jake work for the Uranium inside it. When you take Hal out of the picture, this plotline makes no sense! Jake's route is set way before the Alphas even think of entering the game, so this particular event hasn't even happened. Jake goes on to text Roxy and she turns the stalking setting off remotely anyways, so even if brobot was programmed to murder Jake in his sleep, or jump him inside the safe zone of his room (he's not) he has literally no reason to be acting like that when he's been set to Baby Buff Up Mode.

(Brobot does end up spontaneously pulling himself apart to give Jake his reward after this)

Which brings me to my other problem with the general framing of this volume; the alpha kids don't feel present in Jake's life as friends at all. It's all "romantic options" and "shipping discourse" and MSPAR making these silly logic jumps to justify insisting on this line of query, and all it does is completely flatten out anything of interest having to do with Jake as a Person, to build up an image of Dirk as being suspicious and shady for his volume and more or less come to the conclusion that Jake sucks because he just Cant Choose Who To Date Between All His Friends! And that's why jake is just like tavros… and dirk is just like vriska! Or something. 

And just as a reminder, here's Jake talking with Roxy so I don't have to explain why that feels like a weird choice to me. (click to zoom)

And then there's the endings. On the vriska ending, MSPAR just ends up weirdly angry at jake for being such a piss baby and not getting that he's tavros and dirk is vriska so he had to… uh… take all his anger out on this 13 year old alien girl he has never met and teach her a lesson to prepare to do the same on dirk, or something. And on the other ending Jake mentions his pen pal, is zapped to meet jade, they have some non-committal greetings and then a cosplay party where Jake insists that he totally likes Lara croft not because she's a femme fatale and he relates to that, because he's never ever in his life thought of anyone being interested on him. Or Something. He likes Lara croft for normal reasons only. He wears really tiny shorts and does sexy poses because he's not aware at all of how other people find him attractive. He's just too dumb to get this, or the shipping thing, or that he's tavros and Dirk is vriska (who the hell are these people?).

Jake feels like an afterthought in the grand scope of events. Sidelined on his own episode. This volume is busy with rehashing age old fandom arguments that have little to do with his character, because said arguments were started and maintained by bored teens engrossed on fighting online instead of analyzing Homestuck; we introduce vriska for no interesting reason at all (thank god at least Jake has enough decency to say he's not into hitting on 13-year-olds, because that would have been particularly rancid.) And aside from catchphrases and old slang sprinkled liberally into his dialogue like a fog making machine, none of the motivation for the character is there. What does he want? What does he fear? Why does he act like the way he does? What would accommodating him look like? What would helping him look like? We get this on Jane's volume, Roxy's volume, and Dirk's volume. To really heart-wrenching and dramatic results, too. You get to know who they are, where they live, what they want, what they fear, what might help them get better, but Jake is just sort of There. He's a burden. MSPAR either ends this volume berating him for not doing what they want or finding him weird and confusing and like they don't know each other at all, and the fact both of those were marked as dubiously bad ends in the game files speaks for itself, I think.

[miserabull]

A very long meta-analysis on P2 Bad Grief

So, I've gone over every dialogue with this guy a few times, and there is some stuff I've never seen addressed before. This is a mix of analyzing and theory that have been in my head for a while, and I’d love to know if it all also makes sense to other people

The thing about Classic and P2 Grief, is that they are very different characters playing the same role. Who is Bad Grief? A thief, a kingpin of the town's criminal underbelly, and a smuggler working for Big Vlad. In P1, he's also a dangerous murderer who kills people for fun, but denies it, even claims that he kicks people out of his gang for daring to take up knives. Dude lies a lot. In fact, he maintains the lie up until the last route, the Changeling's, and then tries that on her too but ends up confessing. This is my very wordy way of saying that while I kinda agree with people who are like "he's not a violent murderer like P1 Grief", P1 Grief also claimed to not be one up to the last minute. I don't think they are making him a sadistic killer this time, yeah, but I'm pretty sure he's a liar, and that there's a darker secret. The game implies Grief keeps his cards close to his chest and there is more to him several times, like here, when you talk with Lara's reflection

Lara's Reflection: You see, she puts her stock in deeds and not in words. So Stakh was always close to her; for he would hear his heart, and act. A trait you share, Burakh.

Haruspex: And the most taciturn of us all, Bad Grief.

Lara's Reflection: He speaks so much yet does so much more.

or when Artemy confronts him at Aspity's Hospice:

Bad Grief: You heard about Rubin? Know why the Kin wants him dead? He's walkin' around all downcast, doesn't sleep. Says not to ask. Says it's safer like that. What's he done, I wonder? I wanted to ask Sahba, but maybe you know?

Haruspex: You're lying. That's not what you wanted to ask. I can tell.

Bad Grief: If I did lie, I wouldn't tell you the truth now anyway, would I? So back off. 

I'm not gonna go over the blowing-the-train tracks quest now, though I have some thoughts on it/what I think might be his plan there. For now it suffices to say that that whole thing is very odd, that his plan doesn't make sense(yeah, blowing up the tracks is a bad idea for his business. kinda meaningless though if the alternative is being hanged). That is to say, I'm pretty sure there's a hidden agenda there that we're probably only finding out in Changeling route.

So, what I mean is, if you think P2 Grief is harmless, or just a clown, or became a gang leader by accident, then, well. I think honey, you got a big storm comin'

A few more notes on Grief's character, and what I think of what we got so far:

-I believe the reflection(I have some thoughts about the nature of those too, actually lmao) is telling the truth, mostly. He is terrified, he doesn't want Artemy to think badly of him, he never wanted violence. P2 Grief is younger, more sympathetic, and very obviously more scared than his P1 counterpart. I don't think he's out there killing for fun. Still, I think he has a lot of blood on his hands anyway.

-I think his loyalty to his friends is sincere. He's kind of really big on companionship and loyalty, which fits, as a gang member. I really think that he wants to belong, to a gang, to a friend group, somewhere. Artemy mentions he's "always been weird" a couple of times, or stuff like "I knew you'd end up like this." and that thing with Lara's reflection... I think Grief was always a little bit on the margins, even in his own friend group, and that's why he made a place for himself as the leader of the misfits, of the people who don't fit what the town considers to be good society. I gotta get on with this because this is gonna be long enough without me rambling about every single thought and feeling I have about this bastard though

-He doesn't give away Stakh's hideout accidentally because he's goofy and dumb. He mentions more or less where it is like, three times. I think it's obvious that he's practically asking Artemy to go check on him, but he doesn't want to be a snitch, so he plays the fool like "Oooh no I gave you a hint, I sure hope you don't go looking for him now, don't ask me because I’d never tell!!". He's playing the clown, he's not that stupid

Okay, now we're getting to the heart of things. In P1, along with the reveal that he's actually a violent murderer who played another violent murderer(Barley) into taking the fall for his crimes, we get something else: he's working under the patronage and protection of Vlad Olgimsky. In P2, they put a lot more emphasis on that, Grief will tell you about it in the first AND second conversation you have. There is even a certain imagery associated with it... actually, allow me a quick digression here, I wanna go over some motifs around Grief. 

Grief is pretty into clockwork and gears, going by his choice of decoration for his Lair. The town itself is compared to a machine several times, by himself, by Big Vlad, and regarding how the Kains view it. I risk to say that the way Grief sees it is rather different from the Kains, at least at first.  For him it seems to be more of a blunt factory machine, while to the Kains...it means something else, more complex. Grief seems to have glimpsed what that is inside the Cathedral, near the end. That reminds me of something else, in the Diurnal End when Grief talks about how he used to be a clocksmith before, and now he's going to be "another kind of clocksmith", I don't think he's necessarily being literal in either case. Curiously, there's also a Clocksmith inside the Cathedral in Marble Nest...but I'm going off topic again

Bad Grief: Not a keeper of stores, but stories. This town, this great machine, the gears don't turn on their own, no, not till they're slick with secrets. 

But so, webs and puppets. We return to Vlad Olgimsky(old), who uses the metaphor of his “web”. There's also an important character in Grief's journey that is strongly associated with (spider)webs and strings, and that's Aglaya. The most notable time Grief himself refers to it though, I think, it's in the Theatre of Death, if you let him die:

“My path was not called 'The Spider'. No, think wider. It was 'The Silkworm'! The end of a railroad, I pulled strings firm; unaware someone more cunning pulled mine upstairs.”

So about that. He’s referring to the PTB right? Probably, but not only. A theme in Patho is like...these layers of manipulation. I’m gonna pass the mic to P1 Clara and Saburov for a second:

Alexander Saburov: Begin with the Olgimskys. That is the most important sin for me, and the least for him, for it is not his fault. So did Olgimsky protect his illicit trade? Did he benefit from it?

Changeling: He didn't just benefit; he presided over it. Grief was his stooge.

Alexander Saburov: Now then, we shall skip the issue of the barber gang, since it's clear now who their true mastermind was... thanks to your courage, my brave girl.

Changeling: Don't skip it just yet. Barley was as much of a puppet in Grief's hands as Grief himself was for Olgimsky. Everyone has their toys.”

Grief is a puppet in Vlad’s hands both in P1 and P2, as there he says he’s Vlads “eyes and ears” in the warehouses. In the Cathedral, he seems to more or less realize the extent of it, and how it goes against what he always wanted in the first place: to not be trapped by anything. 

Bad Grief: I used to be a thief, yet they made me a storekeeper. And what a perfect fit I made! I got my Warehouse kingdom, and with it, the insides of the Town's great machine. I kept Vlad's riches while havin' all I could dream of. Can't imagine a sweeter life.

Funnily enough, by that time he’s trapped in someone else’s web: Aglaya’s. That seems to be his thing, he thought he was in control and playing everyone, knowing all the secrets and pulling strings. In the end, he’s a Silkworm in the web of bigger fish. I mean, spiders.

Bad Grief: ...Yet they, too, are controlled by someone. Insane to think what kind of teeth you need for that.

But okay. Back to the start, I believe Grief has a lot of blood in his hands even before shit breaks loose. The things he seems to be most afraid of are also… interesting. This ties to his connection to Big Vlad, and the Kin.

Grief’s role in the payroll seems to be as a stool pigeon. He knows where everyone goes, what people are talking about, what they don’t want to become public. And he responds to Big Vlad. What I think is, hm, you know, even after Victoria passed it seems like the Kin and the Bull Enterprise never really defied Olgimsky, or had a leader in any way. Grief, too, seems to enjoy a pretty comfortable life for a gang leader. As an important piece to Vlad, he really doesn’t have that much to fear, since the guy “owns everything” and is very explicit to Artemy about how he can destroy anyone who doesn’t obey him. And probably has done that before. My guess is, Grief kept the machine working right by tattling, so no leadership or enemy to Vlad’s Enterprise could rise. I’d speculate that Vlad possibly paid the favor not only financially, but by maintaining Grief in that position. Basically, I think with Grief’s info, Vlad could eliminate any potential problem. That would mean that maybe without even having to shed blood himself there might be a lot of deaths Grief is responsible for, not to speak of the maintenance of that horrible system in the town. I think the route they are going for here is that Grief is a class traitor.

Why do I say that? Well, first let’s look at Grief’s relationship with the Kin: he’s remarkably close to them for a townie. Geographically, obviously, and also in the sense of living on the margins of society, but he also shares many of their superstitions, and seems to hold Aspity’s opinion in high regard(even calls her Sahba). I find it easy to believe that many of his men are part of the community as well, due to not being welcome in the town. At that time we see him in the Hospice though, and talking with the Kin people there, it’s pretty clear that they are planning some sort of uprising. That it’s imminent. Grief seems to know it. Seems to be absolutely terrified of that too, and to feel betrayed by Vlad.

Bad Grief: It's too late for me, Cub. I've only got one road ahead of me now. Perhaps the outbreak is for the best... Plagues are like fires, people forget old scores. And all hell will break loose here soon.

Haruspex: Any dark prophecies to share? You're the criminal mastermind here, after all.

Bad Grief: No need to prophesize. People fear hunger. Even honest workers will turn their hatchets and hammers to crime. Burglin' houses, lootin' corpses, guttin' each other. They will. Oh, they will.

Haruspex: Not all of them, Grief. Not all.

Bad Grief: The turf's so dry, you don't even need a match-a glare would start a fire. And when the Kin bares its teeth, that's when we'll all dance! They're slow on the start, but oh so fast on the draw! The Master likes them mute and obedient, but apathy makes them that way, not stupidity. They're only obedient till the time comes. And here it comes.

And the people who lose their jobs? They won't be too fond of staying home. They'll find new hobbies, like looking for food, or venting their anger. ...And Fat Vlad shut his facilities down the day before yesterday, didn't he? Crafty... Didn't whisper so much as a single word to me. Do you think he knew?

At the same time he seems to think that he deserves this, and it’s inevitable. “We reap what we sow”, paraphrasing him. He talks a few times about how there’s a vile beast inside each person in the town, about how they are all wretched and everything, including him, which I think might just be a way of coping like “yeah, I sold out, but anyone would do the same if they were in my place”. 

So, yeah. What I think is that Grief was a guy that had no power and money, with absolutely no perspective, who due to his very particular skills had an opportunity to climb up and took it(all while still getting to pretend he’s an outlaw, free from the chains of society!). And it’s...very bad. And he knows it’s very bad, and he’s not evil or sadistic, but he’s immature, cowardly, and desperately wants to be in control of his own destiny, and to not be alone, and all that. He’s still Artemy’s childhood buddy, a loyal friend, and someone who never really wanted to cause that much damage. He also knows that what he did is unjustifiable, and that no matter what he truly feels, the damage is done and he’s guilty of horrible shit.

[helloooofandoms]

Alphabet Soup

Here's an itadori fic I originally posted on ao3 with an alternate ending because I didn't write this one at 5 a.m. whilst falling asleep. Also reader is a girl here.

Crouched against a wall you breathed in deep breaths. How'd you get here again? Oh yeah, your teacher sent you on a mission thinking it was just to receive some dumb kids from a haunted hospital but apparently a special grade demon lived here. Not one, but two! You weren't the main protagonist and yet here you were holding your breath as a lower grade demon passed. Your sensei told you that finding the kids were the main priority. Your teammate Sugoku had shouted out 4 minutes ago that he found a kid and your other teammate Meili had yet to say a word. Good thing you were good at tracking cursed energy. Standing up slowly you peaked around the corner of the wall you were hiding behind. You could see her footsteps trailing up the staircase. With one last glance you darted up the stairs. There was no use in fighting more demons when you still had children to save after all. As you ascended the stairs you could hear faint grunts and sounds of metal being hit together. Following the sound you were greeted with your teammate Meili who seemed to have a dislocated right shoulder as she fought one of the special grade demons.

You wholeheartedly could feel her pain just standing there and the look in her eyes said she was about to give in at any moment. Without caring you charged forward managing to push her out of the way of a large attack. This sent you flying into the wall, a large crack in it from where you landed. Sliding to the ground you seethed. Meili was alright, for now. You noticed the young boy that was behind the demon. He was shaking as he stood frozen in fear. If only you could get to him from here. Focusing back on the demon he only spared you a few seconds of inner monologue before he began charging at you once more. At least he wasn't attacking Meili this time. Breathing in you took to your feet and began running to put some distance between you. Your technique wasn't the best suited for close combat and your physical strength wasn't very high at all. That's okay, as long as you could move your feet you were guaranteed some kind of hope. Making sure to run past the boy, you grabbed Meili and pulled her forward. The next thing you knew she disappeared and was now next to the child. Your Technique Flash Steps allowed you to make a shoe imprint in the form of a footstep to use as a teleporter. As long as you had enough cursed energy to maintain it and multiple footsteps to teleport to and fro it was a good bet.

You got distracted having your eyes on the Meili and the young boy you didn't see the arm coming at you at full force. Therefore you took another hit right in the stomach. It'd be a miracle if you got out of this alive. Being knocked right back into the wall you so graciously met a few minutes ago, your head was now pounding. Bloodied and bruised you took some time to stand up this go around. If only you had some kind of weaponry. What would Yuuji do at a time like this? He was sort of your inspiration in a way. Not only did he have crazy stamina but also really good physical strength unlike you. You made up for what you lacked in speed and intelligence. The one thing you both had in common though, was that you never gave up! Earlier you left a footstep by the entrance of the hospital, not knowing that two special grades resided here. You tried to focus your energy on keeping that teleporter opened. Your energy was fading on that specific marker and you could tell many people had unknowingly trampled onto the footstep which gradually made it weaker. Along with the fact that you weren't pouring ridiculous amounts of cursed energy into it. Getting into a defensive position you glared at the demon as he began to attack. Ducking and dodging was your current strategy as you thought about the best way to get Meili and that young boy out of here. Your stamina was decreasing steadily along with your will to fight. You would give it another five minutes before you passed out. Most of your energy had been used up earlier fighting lower ranked demons not to mention having to continuously pour a higher amount of cursed energy into the footprint you left at the entrance.

You would have to put down another footprint in order for Meili and the young boy to be able to escape. The energy in the current one on which they stood was also steadily fading out. It would be less of a strain to make a new marker that can quickly be used than to pour energy into the one on which they stood. Whilst also trying not to get killed. What can you say? You definitely weren't the strongest and you hoped that you'd be able to live in the future where you can fight against a powerful demon and still have large amounts of cursed energy left while using it in a technique. Blocking an attack with your arms you were pushed back but other than the burning sensation you were fine. "Meili! I need you to run at the demon with the boy." You said ducking under a punch.

Meili looked at you worriedly then at the boy whom she was cradling. "You have enough strength to make it! I won't let you get killed I promise. He's our priority remember and you won't stand a chance fighting this demon by yourself." You managed to land a direct hit, buying you a bit of time. "You're the only one that can do this!"

"But you'll die!" Meili choked out.

You smiled at her knowingly, one of your eyes was only half open from the bruising you endured and you were pretty sure half of your ribcage was broken. "That's what I signed up for." You said truthfully. This is a job for which you must be prepared to die. Your dad used to tell you a story about a scarecrow when you were younger. It was a silly tale. One day the scarecrow's friend had been attacked by crows. They pecked and pecked until his friend was no more. The scarecrow was saddened and came off of his post to hold what was left of his friend in his arms. He could hear his friend repeat the motto he lived by. "Those who break the rules are scum, but those who abandon their friends are worse than scum." In the end the scarecrow stayed there until the crows eventually pecked him away as well. You like to think in the end the two friends were united.

With a battle cry you watched Meili charge up behind the demon as you charged at him from the front. Thankfully he was more focused on you then on her. With a stomp you placed down a footprint and slid under the demon. Once he turned around and stepped onto your footprint an explosion ignited from under him. That was your attack called Flash Bomb. It allows you to detonate a footstep. Blinding him for a second, you placed another footprint down and pushed Meili onto it. "Tell sensei and Sugoku I'm sorry." You said before she disappeared as well as the curse energy you felt from the footprint she was teleported to. It seems you're only escape route had left as well. The demon stared at you as he now understood that you're friend had left. A low grumble of a laugh emitted from his throat and you winced as he pushed you into the wall. There goes your vocal cords, now. You couldn't scream for help as his hands were on your throat. So this is how you were going out, strangled to death. Couldn't he have killed you in a less painful way? "I hope whoever should find you next, offers you a swift and painful death." You gasped. His eyes turned red and he cocked his arm back getting ready to punch the life out of you. Shutting your eyes tightly you inhaled sharply and awaited your death. To your surprise a gust of wind was what hit you.

That doesn't make any sense. Opening your eyes you could only see pink hair and a red hood who had caught the demon's arm before it got the chance to hit you. The man before you returned s punch of his own which in return sent the demon soaring to the other end of the room. He turned around to look at you and you gasped for air. You weren't sure if you were that surprised or if it was because you were being choked to death a mere moments before.

".......Yuuji" you hummed a grin on your face. Maybe you would actually get out of this alive.

"Y/n when Gojo said we had to rescue a team I didn't expect it to be yours." He spoke loudly his eyes trailing your body with concern. A part of you almost looked twisted and it scared him to think this is how much damage demons cause average humans with no cursed energy. It hurt him even more to know that this demon had hurt a classmate of his. "Anyway, consider me as backup. I accidentally stepped onto one of your teleporters in the hallway and ended up here." He said with a small smile. You were glad to know that at least a little bit of your cursed energy still resided to activate your technique. "Don't move okay, you look like you're going to fall off your own skeleton." He said before turning around and in the speed of light he had landed an attack on the demon. You couldn't help but wonder what his training process was like or if he was always this physically strong. Your punches only managed to move the beast a few steps back, Yuuji on the other hand had no issues knocking him into the wall.

Your eyes could barely keep up as you watched the two going at it at an incredible speed. Before you knew it though Yuji had taken some damage and slid back right into you. "Your sensei is fine, Gojo is helping her out. He said something about her being weak. Your teammates also made it out with both of the kids safely thanks to you. If I can just keep this up long enough until someone else comes then we have a chance of getting out of this." You could imagine your sensei now, she always had a sweet demeanor but anything about Gojo Satoru made her blood boil. You couldn't really blame her. It was heartwarming to know your teammates were alive and probably waiting on you to join them. You just wished you could do more. Be stronger, have more cursed energy, be able to fight better. Then again this was a demon way out of any student's league.

"I have a plan" you said to him. Yuuji wrapped an arm around your waist pulling you away from the demon who had come speeding at the two of you. When you were within safe distance he removed it. Yuuji wasn't usually the planning type, but he wouldn't knock it if it meant that you'd both be safe. "Okay start talking because he's coming fast." The pink haired male pointed to the approaching demon.

"I'm going to activate my technique! Wherever you see footprints just hit it. As fast as you can and as hard as you can." You said and he nodded. With a cough you did a hand sign and unleashed your technique. "Flash forward!" You exclaimed as footprints began to form on the demon's body. Without further explanation Yuuji launched forward punching the spots with footprints, occasionally he also used one of his known techniques called black flash.

Your technique flash forward allows you to highlight the weak spots on the opponents body. It's in the form of a shoe print. You began sending kicks as you could tell the demon was being affected. That technique took almost all of your cursed energy and the only thing that kept you from fainting was the fear you were experiencing. You and Yuuji stepped back to take a breather. The demon winding up to charge at you again. "You don't happen to have another teleporter hand do ya?" Yuuji frowned.

"Nope." You said simply as you held onto him for dear life. At least you two would die together.

In a flash of light you heard a very familiar voice. "Let me show you what real teleportation looks like." Of course a smirk came along with the delivery of that line. Ah great now the last thing you'd see before death was Gojo Satoru.

ㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡ

It's been 3 weeks since the fight at the abandoned hospital. It turned out that the two boys went in there to play hide and seek and only got lost and tormented by the demons. Gojo Satoru ended up killing both or the special grade demons and your injuries landed you in the school's own hospital for a week and a half. Turns out you did have a few broken ribs and your vocal cords were slightly damaged. With some rest you'd be fine after some time. It's been a week and a half of steady rest and you would often attend your classes and go to your dorm room to get some shut eye or entertain yourself with some manga and terrible reality TV shows.

Today in particular you were in for a surprise. It wasn't particularly hard to miss a 190 cm man with white hair standing outside your door. Especially when he seemed to be out of uniform. Random visits from Gojo weren't unexpected but they still took you by surprise every now and then. This time it seems he brought something. You kept your head down as you used your keys to open the door to your room and walked inside. He entered too closing the door behind him. "Y/N!" His cheerfully loud voice bounced off your walls. Here we go again. "What aren't you happy to see your favorite cousin?" He said giving you a tight squeeze.

"Gojo...." You squeaked as he was hugging too tightly. Once he let go, you glared up at him. "We are distant relatives. So distant we most likely aren't related."

Gojo tilted his head to the side. "Hmmm, that didn't stop your clan from trying to kill me." He answered and you sighed kicking off your shoes. He was right after all. Even if your clan was a very very distant branch of his they still held on to past grudges and hated how the main family and clan treated them. You understood why your elders were mad but right now the only member who cared to do something about it is a high school teacher and possibly the only person standing in the way of demonic destruction and your lifespan on Earth.

"What brings you here? And with gifts. You don't usually bring me anything." You said taking a seat at your small dining table that only had two chairs. He placed the bags in the middle of the table and sat down on the opposite end.

"Are you trying to say that I don't care for my best cousin?!" He feigned dramatically as he placed his hand over his chest.

"I'm the only one you even know. Besides that's not where your heart is, you maroon." You laughed.

"Oh I know." Gojo smirked. Ah you really did hate him at times. "These" He started off waving his hands around. "Are from Itadori. He wanted me to bring you this soup because he knows about your throat and he was trying to give this to you earlier but he couldn't seem to catch up with you."

Your eyes widened. He actually cared enough to send you soup? This small action only intensified the growing crush you had on him for months now. Well if he bought you the soup then who bought whatever was in the other bag?

Gojo watched your eyes trail over to the bag and he spoke up once more. "Aww glad you noticed your nice older cousin decided to gift you with some sweets." He hummed. "I ate half of them on the way here though." He said laughing his ass off.

"Get out!" You pointed towards the door.

"I would but I do have some compelling news. I heard that your clan was thinking of promoting you due to the skills you showcased during that fight. They thought it was highly commendable and was shocked you were even still alive." He said leaning back in his chair. Ah yes the elders of your clan. You weren't shocked to hear what they thought of you now that your powers have been showcased. They were always focused on status and power. No one even came by to check on you or call in to see how your studies were going. Not when they had others your age who were way above you in terms of skill.

"They can promote someone else. I'm not interested." You said grabbing the soup and started opening it. Who cares if it was cold? You felt like suppressing your anger somehow.

"Isn't this a good opportunity for you?" Gojo asked folding his arms as he quirked an eyebrow.

"Perhaps, if my clan wasn't so power driven." You shoved a spoon into your mouth. They treated weaker members no different than how the main branch treated them, bunch of hypocrites.

"That seems to be a hereditary trait." Gojo said making you laugh. "You know if you really got a handle on your strength and cursed energy limitations you could surpass anyone in your clan." He leaned forward watching you eat. You could catch a glimpse of his eyes when his shades fell a little off his nose. "If I had a cousin like you I'd be proud." You dropped your spoon into the soup a bit frightened by what you had heard. He seemed so genuine about it too. "IF I had a cousin that is." He teased sticking his tongue out at you.

What were you going to do with this idiot? Even if the two of you weren't the best of friends you still shared some familial bond and you viewed Gojo as an older brother in a way. "Anyway I've got to go. Being the strongest doesn't allow me to mope around all day like you do." He said getting up and heading to the door.

"Don't let the door hit you on the way out." You grumbled from your seat.

"Y/N please, you know it can't." He turned to leave and you heard the door close. A few seconds later it opened once more. "Do me a favor and ask out Yuuji, he's driving me crazy blabbering on about you." And with that he left and your room was silence once again. Looking down at the soup you could see that it was none other than Alphabet soup Yuuji had gifted you. He wanted you to ask out the guy that gave you alphabet soup? Laughing to yourself you put the lid on and rushed to the kitchen to put the rest away. Maybe you'd take Gojo up on that offer if he wasn't so annoying. You figured Yuuji could bother him some more and talk about his favorite cousin after all. Speaking of the sorcerer, how were you going to thank him?

ㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡ

The next few days resulted in you running from Itadori everytime you got the chance. It was harder than it sounded, that boy was fast, really fast! He managed to corner you this afternoon in a hallway. "Y/N! You forgot your homework!" He sped at you like a charging bull waving the paper around. Thanking him you accepted the paper and met his eyes. "It's so hard to catch up up with you." He sighed. "I've been wondering how you were doing after that fight. It was really grueling, and you were in the hospital for weeks! I got out after a couple of days but I do heal a bit quicker than most. I made sure to visit you everyday." He rambled on.

You listened to him and appreciated the fact that he took it upon himself to make daily visits to you. How'd he even manage that everyday? Didn't he have like a busy schedule usually? "What about Sugoku and Meili?" You asked as you began to fold the paper in half.

"What about them?" Yuuji lifted an eyebrow in confusion. The look on his face was so endearing it made you crack a smile.

"Did you visit them too?" You hummed and watched as his face grew surprised and then bashful.

"Ah well...." He started out then looked away. You noticed a tinge of pink on his cheeks. "I....I uh- didn't have the time."

"Itadori you're a terrible liar." You chuckled and he just stared at you for a second before laughing it off. You didn't want to pry but if there was really a reason behind why he visited only you, you'd be pretty ecstatic to hear it. "Thanks for the Alphabet soup by the way. It was really good." You nodded.

"I'm glad you liked it. It's my favorite kind because I can spell out lots of things in it. My favorite thing to spell out is probably my name but I wanna see if it would work using cursed techniques." You saw his eyes light up when he mentioned the latter. Hmm, you suppose that would be interesting.

"I'm willing to test that theory, Yuuji." You made a mental note to buy him alphabet soup if he should ever get sick. Looking down you listened to see if he had anything left to say. After a few moments of silence you started to turn away. "I'll see you in class then! Thanks for the homework!"

"Yeah....see you" You looked back to see him still where you left him, waving at you.

Why didn't you just ask him out?! It's obvious he has to like you right? At least as a friend. Besides he would never turn down food. Stooping in your tracks you clenched your fists and turned around. "Yuuji!" You shouted down the hallway and saw the boy spin around pretty quickly, causing himself to lose his balance for a moment. "Let's go get alphabet soup later!" You said loudly and he gave you a thumbs up.

ㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡ

It was the weekend. Exactly 3 days since you had asked Yuuji to get some soup with you. It was never specified that it was a date and you honestly didn't mind whether it was or wasn't. I mean how could you now after he had invited his team along too? Kugisaki and Megumi almost seemed like twins sometimes with their reactions to Itadori's odd behavior but then a switch would hit and Kugisaki would be right along with him acting like a fool. Megumi, however was more occupied with his phone or anything else he deemed to be 'less embarrassing than you two'. It was nice seeing their dynamics as your team only had one boy and 2 girls whilst theirs was the opposite.

It was nice making new friends for a change. Kugisaki had worked up quite the rebellious reputation at school but she was really just straightforward about everything. Megumi was feared by quite a few people in your school even in higher grades but he was sort of just a presence in a way. Not positive nor negative just there. Itadori was liked by most people but he wasn't a social butterfly so you enjoyed seeing him relax with his friends.

When Itadori dragged Megumi along to buy something from a store you had the chance to speak with Nobara as the two of you waited for their return. "He's such an idiot." The brunette said glancing in the direction that the two boys had run off to. You stayed quiet wondering if there was more to what she had to say and there was. "This was supposed to be a date right y/n-chan?" Surprised at the honorific attached to the end of your name you shook your head.

"Not really" you dragged out.

"So that's a yes?" Nobara concluded.

"I think its a little too early to go on a date with the guy since he doesn't exactly know how I feel, besides he managed to introduce me to some pretty cool people so I think the alphabet soup was worth it." You laughed.

The rest of the day went by smoothly with the boys hauling all of Nobara's shopping bags. You only bought a few items and was more than happy to carry your own bags to take the load off of the guys. Arriving back at the school you sighed as you flopped onto your bed. What an eventful day. It was pretty funny seeing the things that the team got caught up in even without their teacher around.

I'll take you on a proper date next time, but we still have to get alphabet soup.

A buzz from your phone that was in your pocket alerted you. Reaching to grab it you looked to see that it was from none other than Itadori. It read:

Your eyes widened as you sprung up out of bed. He caught on?! Happily you jumped around your room making a mental reminder to apologize yo your downstairs neighbors if need be. Remembering you still needed to text back you grabbed your phone off the bed.

You've got a deal!

Now who to text first? Nobara, Meili or Miwa?

[princeasimdiya12]

My Problem with Akudama Drive

So the new anime by Kazutaka Kodaka called Akudama Drive has been out for awhile now. For the most part, I do enjoy it. The animation and backgrounds are beautifully drawn, I like the abilities and personalities of the characters, and I’m excited to see what will happen in the story. That said, I do have one problem with the show.

Brawler’s characterization and story role is filled with colorist writing.

As it stands, Brawler is the only main character in the cast with dark skin. Mixed with his dreadlocks, he is meant to be an Afro-Japanese coded character. I personally love Brawler and consider him to be one of my favorite characters on the show because of his cool design and boisterous personality. That said, I have noticed several points in each episode that often paint Brawler in a negative light. And considering how Kodaka is heavily involved in this project and Brawler’s creation, it stands within reason that Brawler was written with colorist tropes. I bring this up since this technically isn’t the first time he’s used colorist writing in one of his works. So this post will be mainly me discussing issues I have with Brawler’s character and his relations with the other protagonists.

For starters, his character is based on The Dumb Muscle Stereotype.

Given how his primary talents lie in his super strength and fighting abilities, his apparent drawback is that he’s an idiot. Kodaka even mentioned in an interview that he was written as a built idiot. It’s technically an issue that the one dark skinned character in the show is recognized primarily for his physical strengths and lack of intelligence while his light skinned colleagues are recognized for their intellectual themed talents (Hacker is technologically savvy, Doctor is a professional medical expert, even Hoodlum is smart when it comes to money-laundering and smooth talking to people).

Another issue I have is that every episode often features Brawler being ridiculed or insulted by his light skinned coworkers for his stupidity. Most of the Akudamas are portrayed as more level-headed, mature or reasonable compared to Brawler. This has the implications that dark skinned people are considered to be more stupid, reckless and impulsive compared to their light skinned counterparts. Literally, every episode has the Akudamas taking jabs at Brawler whenever he does something they consider to be stupid.

And this only happens to Brawler. He’s the main one out of the group who gets insulted and ripped on for being an idiot. The only other Akudama that matches Brawler’s idiotic tendencies would be Cutthroat. When he’s not in attack mode or fawning over Swindler, Cutthroat is shown to be just as childish and carefree about his life. Yet none of the other criminals take jabs at him when he does something reckless. Like in Episode 2 when he crashed the blimp bus because he wanted to touch the red button.      

Another thing that rubs me the wrong way is how gullible and easily swayed he is. Brawler eagerly believes anything that is told to him and he doesn’t question it or show reasonable logic. Hoodlum of course uses his stupidity to his advantage in order to use his muscle for protection or to proceed with the heist. It’s roughly the equivalent of convincing a child to do something for you by playing onto their interests.

So it looks preeeeetty messed up that a 35 year old man like Brawler can be easily manipulated in order to use his strength.

The next big issue I have with Brawler is how his fighting talent is lackluster.

As I mentioned before, Brawler’s main contribution to the group is his fighting spirit and his super strength. For me, it feels like he got the short end of the stick when you compare his talent with the others.

Courier owns a futuristic bike and is skilled enough to navigate cities using alternative routes and high speeds.

Hacker is capable of breaking into any computer or security system in seconds.

Doctor has the medical expertise of a regular doctor and knows how to use regeneration technology to heal herself and her coworkers.

Cutthroat has a variety of knives in their person and is efficient when it comes to killing people.

All of them have expanded abilities and tools that make them more impressive and valuable to the grand heist. Whereas Brawler is only able to use his fists and strength when needed. He doesn’t even have expansive knowledge in regards to his fighting techniques or what he uses to maintain perfect physical endurance. If he actually explained what he has that makes him so durable or if he was shown practicing unique fighting techniques, then maybe he would be on the same level as the other Akudamas. But as it stands, his fighting is all just free form.

Also, you can’t even consider Brawler as the only valuable fighter of the group. Three of the Akudamas (Courier, Doctor, Cutthroat) are shown to be just as competent and dangerous when placed in a situation that requires them to fight back.

Courier has his gun and bike to attack enemies.

Doctor is skilled with surgical knives and uses a variety of chemicals during combat.

Cutthroat is a professional serial killer who can use different knives at a fast speed.

So unfortunately, Brawler really isn’t special when it comes to fighting.

Another issue, albeit minor, is the not-so subtle racism from Doctor.

In episodes 4 and 5, Doctor refers to Brawler as a dreadlocked gorilla as a way of insulting him.

I unfortunately am not familiar with how Afro-Japanese people take to being referred to as gorillas or apes. But from an American perspective, this comes off as pretty offensive that Doctor, a light skinned woman, would refer to her coworker, a Afro-Japanese coded man, as a gorilla. Everyone and their mothers know about the racist history with black/African people being referred to as anything related to the primate family. It’s uncalled for and rather distasteful. And of all the animals or insults she could have used against him, why would she use gorilla?

And while Brawler does find the insult to be “cool” since it associates him with being strong, I can guarantee you that no person of African descent in the real world would take kindly to being called a gorilla by their white/light skinned colleague.

And my last issue is the lack of variation in this show.

As I stated before, Brawler stands out as the only main character with dark skin. Because the cast is predominantly made of light skinned characters, they can range in having diverse personalities, abilities and roles as nothing would be lost on him. But because Brawler is the only dark skinned character, his role as a dumb muscle character can promote negative stereotypes and ideas on what dark skinned Japanese people are like and how they are treated by their peers. If there were more dark skinned characters who were shown to be effectively intelligent or had creative talents, then this wouldn’t be too much of an issue. But as we’re already 5 episodes into the series, Brawler is the looking like the only dark skinned person right now.

 Given how we still have 7 episodes left, I can only hope that Brawler will get positive character development or can contribute something more to the group’s agenda/plot that can make him more than just a dumb muscle stereotype. Or at the very least, it would be nice if we had more positive/complex dark skinned characters can be introduced into the plot later on.

And that is my complaint with Akudama Drive. Thank you for taking the time to read all of this. If there was anything here that you agree with or disagree with for any reason, feel free to reblog this with your thoughts. I’d love to hear them and I’m always up for friendly discussions.

Thank you and may you have a pleasant evening.

[hypexion]

It’s time for some season three Miraculous Ladybug thoughts. Now there’s more emotional trauma, extra convoluted secrets, new shocking twists and the same old Hawk Moth failures. Also there’s a worrying uptick of “stand around doing nothing while someone is akumatized“. In one case, Hawk Moth is literally right there! But I digress.

Marinette: After two seasons of the Adrien crush being a barely concerning issue, Marinette has finally slid into full-blown obsession. Which I suppose is a direction a character can go in, even if it’s a lot dumb. This dire shift in behavior is mostly targeted at Kagami, who has done literally nothing wrong. Indeed, Kagami even joins the crowd of people telling Marinette to get it together, blissfully unware that she’s in a superhero show, meaning Marinette simply cannot. The whole Adrien thing even bleeds into her Ladybug side, leading her to accidentally pour more problems onto him when she gives him the Snake Miraculous. Then after three seasons of Adrien pining, Marinette ends up with Luka. Which is perhaps for the better, since she can actually have a conversation with him.

Adrien: Someone get this boy some therapy. And away from his wretched excuse for a father. Now, I’m not saying it’s certain that Adrien’s need for approval caused him to spend months reliving the same five minutes in an attempt to impress Ladybug, just that it’s probably a contributing factor. Either way, the whole Aspik thing seems like it wouldn’t be good for anyone. However, Adrien’s only route for therapy is Plagg, who in spite of his occationally noble intentions, isn’t really enough. Consider the deeply worrying implications of Gabriel being suprised that there’s only joy in his home before continuing.

Also there is now an evil british version of Adrien which is hilarious. Somehow Felix being introduced in the episode after Chat Blanc makes it even more absurb, given the constrast between “abused child destroys France“ and “Adrien’s evil coustwin“.

Kagami: A new hero appears! Then she immediately leaks her identity to Hawk Moth. Kagami somehow appears to lead a sadder and lonelier life than Adrien, which means for a moment, Tomoe Tsurugi manages to come off as a worst parent that Literal Supervillain Gabriel Agreste. Eventually, however, Marinette gets over herself long enought to share the wonderful Friendship with Kagami. But is it just Friendship? Since that icecream scene reads less like “will Marinette choose Friendship or Love“ and more like “does Marinette love Adrien... or Kagami!?“. (It’s just Friendship since Kagami was clearly going to be paired with Adrien from her introductory episode.)

Luka: A new hero appears! You can tell Luka will be a better user of the Snake Miraculous than Adrien because Viperion’s costume doesn’t suck. I’m sorry, but it’s true. As secondary love interests go, he’s very much there, being a creative type to go with the creative type Marinette. Also is it just me or is his skin weirdly flat and smooth? There’s just something about him that just doesn’t look quite right.

Chloé: Who could have guessed that letting Chloé get away with her behavior with no negative consequences would itself have negative consequences? Truly her descent into villainy could not be forseen, not because it’s a sudden turn in her character, but rather the whole plotline needed an extra episode or two of setup somewhere. Now, don’t get me wrong here - Chloé is clearly a bad person, it’s just that there are some steps missing between “tears up a picture“ and “joins the baddies“. Honestly, Hawk Moth’s entire plan with the Bee Miraculous was really stupid and risky, since Chloé could have decided to prove she didn’t need Ladybug by immediately hitting Mr. Moth with her venom ability and taking his Miraculous. He should have pre-loaded it will an Akuma at the very least.

Lila: The other thing I knew about Miraculous Ladybug going in was that Lila exists and a lot of people hated her. Which is something I now understand, although she honestly comes off more as a malevolent narrative force than an actual character. Plus she’s only a threat because everyone seems to think “[She’s] not dangerous, she just craves attention“, ignoring that Lila’s need for attention is what makes her dangerous. She basically coasts on people’s underestimation of her, until she exploits Marinette’s seemingly irrational vendetta against her to “win“ the “war“ that only exists in Lila’s head. Although maybe Marinette should have put some effort into doing anything about the person who nearly got her skewered by Oni-chan instead of harassing Kagami. Can’t really complain about people with only in-universe knowledge thinking Marinette is reacting to Lila and Kagami for the same reasons, especially as to most people, it’s Lila who is nice and personable while Kagami is prickly and mean.

From a more meta perspective, Lila seems somewhat redundant if Chloé is still around and now an antagonist to both Marinette and Ladybug. If Chloé was actually trying to be a better person, Lila could slot into the role of “mean to Marinette“, but in a more subtle way. Alternatively, Lila could be a “reverse Chloé“ who hates Ladybug but who actually wants to be friends with Marinette for whatever reason. As it is now, Lila could probably be excised from every episode that isn’t Volpina, since the whole “frame Marinette“ thing could be done be Chloé, and the whole “Gabriel gets someone to spy on his son“ thing could also be done by Chloé.

Master Fu: Local boy accidentally destroys Ancient Order. Or rather, Ancient Order destroys itself by giving local boy access to powerful magic items. Yes, it turns out Master Fu’s dubious infosec is because he wasn’t a true Guardian, and also that the Guardians are idiots. I really can’t think of another reason why they’d use a real Miracle Box containing the most powerful Miraculous as part of a training exercise. Did they really think that no acolyte would ever be tempted by the powers of the Miraculous? Having ruined Fu’s life, the Guardians manage to flip him off one more time by erasing his memories when he gives up the Miracle Box. Seems like that would cause more problems than it solves.

Gabriel: But what if the worst parent in Paris could sink to even lower depths? With strong competition from both Audrey and Tomoe, Gabriel needs to step up to keep his trophy, by destroying his son’s relationship just so he can akumatize a heartbroken Marinette. Then when it doesn’t work, he akumatizes his own son. He also sends Akumas after teenagers he doesn’t like, flips out when Adrien suggests he might be moving on from his dead* wife, and is now performing his post-defeat rants to his comatose wife. At this point, he’d probably be more successful if he got Nathalie to akumatize him immediately after Ladybug and Chat Noir win.

Hawk Moth: Starting to feel creeped out by just how many of this guy’s plans revolve around teenaged girls. Sure, the genre of “teenage superheroes“ means he’ll be akumatizing a lot of them, but still. He launches a harassment campaign against Chloé, is a little too exicited to akumatize Marinette, and hires Lila to basically be his minion, then apparently starts calling her his muse. Perhaps if he spent less time using teenagers as chess pieces and more time review which Amukas were good and which weren’t, he’d actually succeed at things.

Speaking of success, Hawk Moth finally finds Master Fu and seizes the Miracle Box. Then instead of taking it home and finding a non-deadly Miraculous for Nathalie, he proceeds to give it to Miracle Queen then lose it. As a pity prize, he at least gets the translated grimoire, which allows him to fix the Peacock Miraculous. Now he can accompany every useless Akuma with a Sentimonster, instead of just Reflekta.

Mayura: If I had a Miraculous that slowly killed me when I used it, I would simply not use it unless I literally had no other option. Nathalie thinks differently, and uses the Peacock Miraculous for great plans such as “bring back Reflecta and give her a robot“ and “fail to convince Chloé to join you“. Not only does Mayura fail to achieve anything, the damage to her body means that the actually good plan of “let’s just do Scarlet Moth again“ fails. It would probably be tragic if it weren’t so stupid.

[parisa-astra15]

~♪ Rhythm of Your Heart ♪~ (Days 3-7)

Summary: A series of compilation  stories set in my College Alternate Universe, where the  Lolirock cast are just normal  teenagers heading off to college trying to figure out life while settling into adulthood. Musically set to the tunes of Marianas Trench. 

Ships: Talisto, Levyna, NatIris,ZackPrax, Rorissa and MattAuri a few others sprinkled in there. 

*If it’s not your cup of Tea that’s 100% fair, go enjoy  all the other awesome content from the fandom ~

**If you are here for Talisto week 2020, welcome! Hope you like  the stories!

Day 3: First Kiss 

The sound of music and dancing was the universal sign of a good time. She had come out tonight to feel normal again. Enough time had passed and yet here she was.

Talia blended into the crowd and began to sneak out of a party, purposely avoiding her friends, taking the route off the roof by using the fire escape. She frowns as tears stung her eyes as she hugs her arms softly. After a few steps she sighed leaning against  the wall taking a  seat outside of Lev’s apartment. She wanted to leave, but it was a shitty thing to leave without saying anything to Iris and Auriana. This only made the pressure of anger in her lower abdomen  knot and twist as she took a seat on the steps of  the fire escape.

What  brought on this mixture of melancholy and angry frustration? A stupid song, her ex’s favorite song, it had been a month since she and Kyle had broken up.  And some dumb song shouldn't make her feel so many emotions all once, it was like remembering something she had desperately to forget and bury yet couldn't.

Suddenly there was a click from the sliding  door opening and a surprise gaze of a young burgundy hair man holding a bowl of chips. He looked surprised to find her there.

She knew him vaguely from campus, he was in the drama department with Lev, and he noticed her  crying because his first words to her were. 

"Hey… are you okay?"  He asked softly, looking at her. "You like you've been crying…"

Talia gave half a sigh mixed with a dry laugh "....Just… heard my Ex's favorite song play...I don't  know  its stupid" he took a seat across from her and gave a small smile.  "Hey, no… it's not dumb...I'm a theater kid… if there's one thing we know is a broken heart… Now unless you want to belt out a ballad of  self empowerment, Talking about it usually  helps. And who better than someone you probably won't see again" he winks at her which made her smile, the  joke helped to ease any tension or embarrassment she felt. There was something in his eyes that gave an air of kindness. She gave a nod "he was my highschool sweetheart…. " she started 

The hours passed and she told him, her story,  of how she was with this guy for years and all of the sudden he just broke up with her because her college was too far away and long distance relationships don't work. They passed around the snacks till the empty bowl was all that was left. Finally when she finished Talia took a deep sigh of relief, she had no idea how long she  had kept that inside her chest. Locked up under the guise of self control and keeping up appearances that she was fine. To share it with someone felt nice, she felt heard and looked at Mephisto who had processed the whole ordeal with her. 

At first he frowns "Wow…that's such a jerk move….just everything he did it sounds like he was just looking for a excuse to break up and instead of talking to you and not completely blindsiding you he just one day decided to be jerk and make up an excuse…." He said sighing deeply as he ran his fingers through his hair and looking at her with a soft gaze.  "He genuinely doesn't deserve you. When he grows up and realizes that. I hope he has enough backbone to apologize for what he's done…as for you feeling sad…. It happened a month ago. You should let yourself grieve, However you want to. It was a long  relationship, a relationship you put a lot of your heart into loving them and that doesn't just go away… It may have been for him, but that took a while and he had his time to figure his feelings. So should you. You didn't wake up one day with the thought that everything was leading up to a break up. You genuinely thought things were okay between you two and suddenly they weren't, you need time to process that. You know?"

"I…. Thank you…." She whispers and nods "that's really solid advice… and I never considered letting myself do that… I'm the tough one you know… nothing gets to me…." She sniffles a bit wiping her face with the back of her hand.

He shook his head "no one can be okay after that…it's okay to feel and recover…"

Talia made a small noise of agreement "Hey, let's get out here and enjoy the party….could I know your name?" She asked as she got up, he gave a nod and smiled getting up too. "Mephisto, it's an honor to make your acquaintance milady " he said in a dramatic manner making her laugh  "I'm Talia, thanks for hearing me out." She leans over and kisses his cheek softly, just an innocent kiss on the cheek as they headed upstairs to the party. Mephisto felt a small blush on his cheeks "aw, it's no biggie… I'd do it any time… hey do know the Coffee place on Bartley street?"

"Yeah, the book shop?"

"I hang out there, mostly to read scripts and drink coffee if you ever want to hang out?"

Talia smiles "sounds like fun"

They were unaware of it at the time but a friendship was made that night on the fire escape.

Day 4: Retro Fashion 

Talia had never considered performing  in a fashion  show before but Lyna had put in so much effort into her  final project. Lyna had sat in several of Talia’s american history courses  to learn about the 1920’s. Her professors were surprised to find out the curious young lady with the lengthy notes wasn’t actually enrolled in the courses and was actually a  fashion major. 

Throughout the  semester  Lyna would come over  with revised  sketches of the gowns she was making. Asking Talia for advice on accessories and accuracy. Which was more than happy to give feedback but she was  genuinely caught off guard and  flattered when Lyna asked her to model  the stunning gown inspired by the ever glamorous Josphine Baker.  “Of course” She smiles. It was a strapless  black and white ball gown decorated and accessorized with her signature pearls. 

The collection  was something  her friend had worked so hard on. Talia was happy to support her.

Later that afternoon, she sat on the  counter top as Mephisto chopped vegetables for dinner. 

“So are you free next Saturday afternoon?”  She asked. Mephisto glances over as he  reaches over his head  for a  bowl on the shelf. “ Yeah I  should be  done with  finals”

“Do you want to come to a fashion show?” 

“Fashion show?” He smiles “ Are you modeling  for Lyna’s  Final?”

“Yeah.” She blushes a bit “ Do you think it's silly” 

“ Now why would I  ever think that? I think it's gonna be awesome” He kisses her pouty cheek. “ I’m going to take so many pictures~”

“Oh my  god” 

“ and Facetime Izira.” 

She laughs burying her face into his shoulder blade “You are such a  dork” 

“ You love it” He grins.

Day 5: Sport AU

Author’s note:  I know nothing about  sports, Zero. Nada.  My knowledge  of sports comes from sports animes and I watch them for the cute boys and nothing else.So! Instead  have   Praxina, Mephisto and Talia trying out Auriana’s  pilates’s class.

Praxina’s frown deepens as she glares at her brother “ You have  5 minutes to explain why I’m here.” Talia looked  equally exasperated at her  boyfriend who, being the only morning person of the trio grins. “ I figured finals  stressed us  out and Auriana is teaching her  first  pilates  class so let's go be good friends and get some exercise too!.” He said  with a grin as the girls gave a groan  “ You are  making us  breakfast  after this”  Praxina yawns.  “ yeah” Talia smiles softly “ you  do know  Auriana’s  classes aren’t  beginner friendly  right… She’s tough.” 

Mephisto pales a bit realizing he  might have made a  mistake. ”Oh-”  They headed up to the studio  greeted warmly by the  chipper redhead who claps  her hand together. “ Alright  Class!  Lets have an awesome  warm up!”   While Talia and Praxina both being  dancers could easily  keep up with the beat and tempo  set by Auriana. Mephisto was having trouble just keeping his breathing in  check. 

This was just a warm up. He was doomed. After the  class, the group  ended up in the small apartment where  Praxina  lived with her  dog  Brutus. Mephisto lays on his sister's couch his body feeling like  jelly as Brutus the  pomeranian lays on his back.  “  You should have just sat down after  the warm up”  Talia said sips  on her water. Watching him from her seat  on the love seat across  the  coffee table from him.

“No that was quitter talk, Can’t stop, won’t stop!” He said muttering into the couch cushions as  Praxina  laughs walking over picking up Brutus  “ He just hates being  wrong, I don’t know where he gets this competitive  attitude from~”  Praxina comments to Talia before she grins and leans over to his ear and says “ I’m the alpha twin, now~”  “Ahhh” His muffled groan came from the couch making the  girls laugh as they order breakfast off their phones since their  cook was down  count.  Overall the  stress of test week is long  forgotten.

Day 6+7 Gift Giving at the School Festival

Author’s  note: Roark belongs to Kireiscorner~ I asked her before borrowing him~ 

It was a silly  campus  tradition, past over from one  generation to the next.  On the evening of the School Festival, to  give a  gift to your  significant other before the firework’s show. Mephisto had always thought his  mother’s  story  was a little corny, but the romantic in him  had also found  it a little  sweet.

He wanders around the shopping  district, his  eyes  looking in the  different stores looking  for the  right  gift. He had his heart set on finding a pair of earrings that match her  favorite  bracelet.  “ Young man!”  A  sing-song  voice  called from a small  stall. “ You look like a  crafty  gentleman~ Would like to buy our  jewelry crafting set! Only  3 installments  of 29.99!” 

Mephisto pointed to himself and gave a thought he must look  desperate by now because he was actually  walking  over. “ Hold it” A  familiar  voice  stopped him.  “ yikes man… you  weren’t actually  going to buy  kiosk  craft kits-” Lev said walking over wrapping an arm around his best friend and  shaking his head at  sales girl “ Sorry  sweetheart, not today” He winks at her as the  kiosk sale girl glares at him. 

Mephisto sighs “ I’m a little desperate… I’ve been looking for a  gift for Talia all morning and I’ve come up empty... Please tell me your Father owns a discount jewelry shop?” 

“Nope, my old man owns and sells engagement rings and high end jewelry… but I know a man who might be able to help”  Lev grins as they head out of the  bustling  area to a quiet shop.  It was an antique shop  designed on  restoring metal pieces.  “ Hey Roark buddy, you in?”  Lev called out as a massive man  walked out from the back.  He gave a small grunt  greeting them  with a welcome.  “ Roark buddy,  this is  Mephisto.  Mephisto, this is my  buddy  Roark.  He’s  in the robotics  department with me.   His  family owns this  shop. Bud, we are in a bit  of  a time  crunch. Do you mind if  Mephisto here looks around the  jewelry  section?”   Roark  gave a  shrug and  continued working on the counter as  Lev showed him over to the  section of the counter  where the  restored  jewelry  was found.   Mephisto’s  eyes  light up when he spotted them,  sapphire  earrings  restored from old gold.  “ How  much?!”  Roark  gave a tired  look as he got up and  fetched the  earrings  they were around 95. Mephisto  looked at everything  he had saved up.  That would leave him with 30 in pocket for anything at the  festival.  He nodded “ Okay… Could I get  wrapped in a box?  Blue please!”  

Lev watched him with a small smile “ You really like this  girl, huh…” 

Mephisto blushes “ Yeah… I do… I just want to make her smile.” 

Lev chuckles “ It’s  nice to see you this  happy again.”  Roark came out the back, the earrings wrapped up in a  small box, tucked neatly in a paper shopping bag.  “ Thank you for your purchase,”  Roark said.  “ Thanks  Roark you’re  the  best  buddy”  Lev winks as  Roark rolled his eyes with a small grin. 

 Mephisto  paid and  thanked him too.  

Hours passed and Mephisto couldn’t help but  enjoy  every moment he spent with Talia, this whole  year by her side had been  special to him.  He helps her over to a nice spot to watch the  fireworks where it wasn’t too crowded. “ Hey… So… It's… kind of a  corny tradition but tonight some  couples exchange  gifts… and I wanted to give you  something…” He pulled out the small box from his  jacket pocket.  

“It's a thank you for being you and  sharing yourself with me.”   Talia eyes  widen and a blush  spread  all over her  face “ Thank you… but I didn’t know-”

“Yeah it's okay  you aren’t  from here so I figured you wouldn’t  exactly know the  stories… But It wouldn’t  have  felt  right to  celebrate  without telling you how I felt.”   

She blushes brightly as she  kisses him “ You idiot... I  love you… Thank you… I can’t  wait to celebrate with you  next year…”  She  whispers hugging him close. 

“That’s a  promise” He smiles holding her  close as the  fireworks begin.

===========The  End============

Author’s Note:  And that was  Talisto week 2020  everyone!~ As always  thanks  for your  support! It was awesome to see everyone  again~  and to  celebrate with you all - Lots of love as always, Kikki~

[luuxxart]

GIVE US THE NEW WARRIORS HEADCANONS UR REDESIGNS ARE AMAZINGJAKMAKWJDKSL💖💖💖

aaaa omG thank you!! :’D I’m actually strangely attached to these characters so I’ll try to do my best to explain the design choices I made and everything

ok so here we go.

SCREENTIME

* first off

* Not an entirely bad name??

* I would prefer Worm tho as a reference to the Morris Worm

* And I did make his design a little more wormy. Kinda Doc Ock-ish.

* So his tragic backstory... Well. Long long ago... when he was just a little kid... his dad fucked his mom.

* Jkjkjkjk. But it would be better than fucking “internet gas.”

* To take this in a darker route, I think it would be cool if his grandad had been experimenting with creating cyborgs and turned his dad into one. And then turned Screentime into one. So Screentime escaped sort of half-finished and is just trying to help others who might mirror his situation of abuse.

* I like to think his first superhero story was he was just like fucking buying bulk ramen and then hears a dude harassing a girl in the next aisle over and is like. huh. word. guess I can intimidate this guy by threatening to take his fucking social security and make it public knowledge.

* Bc he can hook up to the internet and updates his database frequently so he can just Mr. Robot people.

* He’s probably like 18 or 19. Never was schooled and college is kinda pointless when you have the whole internet in your brain.

* So he’s just living in a rundown apartment. Payin bills by doing odd jobs and doin bitcoin stocks.

* On the battlefield, he’d definitely be a mind games kind of guy, but he’d also use his worm limbs for dexterity and could probably discharge bursts of electricity at the cost of losing some information in his database.

* Also it’s probably really hard to tell, but Screentime is my favorite out of the original designs.

TRAILBLAZER

* again! Not a bad name at all!

* Made me think of fire though... and hiking... so

* We really don’t have much information on these characters so they were kinda fun to play around w and I think she was my favorite in terms of concepts.

* Also what the fuck are those red things on her head am I just fucking dumb???

* They look like devil horns. So I’m gonna run with it.

* Ok so she got a backpack from a god.

* Well that god was a god of Hell and also her godfather. Her actual father was another god of Hell. And idk how gods really work in the Marvel universe?? But I think there’s probably at least some high-ranking demons of Hell. I think Hell exists??? If I remember Doctor Strange correctly? (Maybe not Doctor Strange... bro everything is so hard to keep up with)

* Anyway, her dad was killed by some hero traveling through Hell at some point probably. And so she’s been preparing since to go avenge him.

* Then she gets to earth and is kinda like... well, avenging can wait.

* And the reason she can’t just get anything she wants out of the backpacks is because the backpacks are alive. But over time as she gains their trust, they start to become more and more useful. So, like magikarp to gyarados.

* her outfit was so fucking hard to redesign. like,,, I still don’t like it. The backpacks and stuff yes. Everything else no. But it’s better than the Neon Nightmare.

* Her powerset shouldn’t be limited to just her backpacks though. I saw a lot of people complain about that. Bc anyone could steal them from her and use them?

* So I think she should have superhuman strength. Also, her backpacks should only respond to her command. It’d be cute if they were also kinda cheeky about it. Bc yeah she’s a spoiled little brat. But she’s their spoiled little brat so they’re not opening up for anybody but her.

* She’s defo the youngest of the group

* Even if she is an immortal demon kid lol

S

bro I can’t even say it

I’m renaming them Shuriken. Effective immediately.

SHURIKEN

* So Shuriken is non-binary. Which I think is really cool! They’re not the first non-binary character that Marvel has,, bc Loki exists,, but while they’re not a good step forward... they’re a step forward nonetheless and I kinda commend them for at least trying.

* But goddamnit why did they have to go and name them S

* Sn

* please don’t make me say it

* So Shuriken has ice powers that are sort of threatening to take them over. Like if Iceman couldn’t control his powers ig. Their powers sort of came to them mysteriously in the middle of them already having a gender crisis and high school is happening and all that blah and now they’re just like,,, so ,, “superheroing seems to be a good venture right now. Maybe I’ll find myself in heroics and forget about everything else”

* And most of the heroic ideal is on their brother, ,,,, uh,,,, Quarterback,,, who idolizes the “classic” heroes like Cap, Iron Man, and Thor.

* Shuriken prefers reading news stories about Night Slasher and Punisher, Jessica Jones, and just generally, the other edgier heroes.

* But because their brother idolizes heroics so much, it makes it sort of a surprise when Shuriken takes up their mantle before Quarterback realizes anything is going on.

* And how does the ice stuff affect them? They’re sort of on the fence about finding a cure and whatnot. Most people speculate its like later-in-life mutation, but Shuriken isn’t satisfied with this answer.

*they sometimes chop off the spiky ice parts for convenience(they have no feeling in the frozen over parts of their body)

*(I’m toying with the idea of them having a crush on Ms. Marvel ngl)

QUARTERBACK

* not much to say about him? Other than goddamn that neon was terrible.

* Also I’ve seen jocks wear pink, so some youtube dudes complaining about that can fuck off. Maybe not that bright of a shade?

* But I figure with a defensive character, you would definitely want a bulkier frame. At least Power Man levels of a bulky frame? Like I’m not talking Hulk or Thing. Just.. yknow. At least a good Cap size dude.

* Also a blockier costume would make sense. Since he’s supposed to be. Uh. Safe. For people to like,, crowd behind. Like a safe

* Like a safe sp

* Like a

* safespace.

* I also like to think he was sort of a stereotypical jock and then here comes his little sibling (by like,, 7 minutes) who’s finally just like “yo fuck the gender spectrum” and so he finally opens up to his own interests that he’s been burying

* Like the color coral

* Which is definitely not pink my dudiest of dudes ;)

* He’s definitely more

* CHILL

* than Shuriken about the whole ice taking over his body thing. Like, at the end of the day, he’s still a jock even if he did turn out to be a mutant. Like , the world didn’t just end because he’s got some cool ice powers

* Also only being able to create a shield if it’s for others?? What a fucking joke man come on

* He can create platforms of ice and just mainly uses the ice as shields.

B-NEGATIVE

* OK THIS IS MY SON

* not the original he kinda just looked like he took one look at Welcome to the Black Parade and said “I can do that outfit. But crappier.”

* Listen,,,, I constructed a son

* It’s like that thing from that movie

* I was like

* “We can rebuild him...”

* is that fucking robocop

* At any rate, yeah yeah, Morbius stuff is still withstanding

* What if

* And hear me out

* His parents were sort of antivax sort of anti-mutant sort of folk. They get into some sort of car accident when he’s kinda young. He gets a blood transfusion against his parent’s wishes and in the end also gets adopted by this weirdass doctor who probably has some nefarious purpose, considering he used Morbius’ blood in the first place.

* This would explain how he could survive having vampirism since a doctor would probably have easier access to donated blood and stuff.

* Should the blood be going to people who actually need a transfusion? yes, however, this doctor is clearly ,, off his fucking rocker and corrupt as hell,, and what is his purpose?? The world may never know

* I don’t think B-Negative cares about anything. Like he just seems like that kind of character? Totally and inherently aloof and selfish because he’s just been fed blood on a silver spoon his whole life?

* Just does not care

* He does care about music though. Specifically rock(alternative, punk, hard, etc) and the history of it.

* me personally I really like Pink Floyd and I’m not going to,, shove my beliefs onto a character but

* I’m going to shove my beliefs onto a character and say his favorite song of all time is probably Welcome to the Machine

* And he probably will not shut up about how righteous of a song it is and how pertinent the message is

* Bc I think it fits,,, a lot of things about the stuff I’ve wrote with the backstories of these characters

* and yes

* he can perfectly mimic Great Gig in the Sky. the man!! has pipes!!!

* I also think it would be cool if he’s the oldest of them? Like, younger than 21 but he’s out of high school. Just trying to get a bachelors in music history at fuckin uh. NYU probably.

* he unironically likes twilight

[yakumtsaki]

Alright you guys, sorry for the delay, I’ve had to restart this post 20 fucking times because my changes weren’t being saved in the draft and then I kept getting the ‘upload failed’ error. In case you don’t remember wtf is going on you might wanna re-read the last update (I certainly had to) which is apparently from JUNE 2018. Jfc I suck so hard. Now this was gonna be really long but tumblr wouldn’t post it so I’m breaking it up in 3 parts, part 2 to be posted tomorrow. For those that don’t feel like reading back, general recap of the last couple updates:

Jojo cheated on Wyatt with Max Flexor and my solution to that marital crisis was to adopt our first dog ever, a puppy hilariously named Maxx.

The puppy grew up to be an asshole and is constantly beating up the cats, who have turned into giant pussies (no pun intended) and are losing every fight to him despite the fact they’re named after Mortal Kombat characters. They’re a fucking disgrace to Alegra’s/Victor’s/Ronroneo’s memory and I haven’t settled on a cat heir yet because they both suck.

Jojo is perma miserable, I don’t even remember how much money away from his 100k LTW, and still not a werewolf despite my pathologically persistent attempts to make him friends with the wolf.

Fucking useless Wyatt didn’t get promoted while Komei was alive providing us with his 100 townie friends, we spent 20 updates befriending every rando that crossed our lot to secure his promotion, and then finally on the day he was supposed to become Captain Hero, Wyatt got, of course, fired and is now on track to take longer to complete his literal career based LTW than Komei took to get 6 pets on the top of their careers.

Absolutely everyone hates noogie addict Shajar, she got a Kylo Ren makeover, and we still don’t know what her sexual orientation is thanks to her ridiculous fitness/fatness turn ons and cleanliness turn off.

Golden child/10 nice points freakshow Cyneswith grew up, rolled romance with the most disturbing turn-ons/offs possible (grey hair/mechanical & charisma turn off) and the 20 simultaneous lovers LTW.

Wulf grew up into a kid, got an Amadeus makeover, is officially a Wyatt clone and the only member of this family I don’t completely hate yet.

Now I’d like to begin the first Union post in more than a year by requesting you do me a solid and lower your expectations for this thing as far down as humanly possible. Like really try to recreate the Jules Verne classic “Journey to the Center of the Earth” with your expectations here, because my brain is so fucking fried that there’s a 20% chance I randomly start citing sources at some point during this post. This grad school crap has seriously been the worst trade deal in the history of trade deals, maybe ever. And speaking of bad trade deals, let’s get this update rolling with the man, the myth, the legend, the husband who managed to make Komei look like a dreamboat in comparison..

..Wyatt fucking Union, née Monif. It’s been a long time, but I’m not gonna lie to you Wyatt, not nearly long enough. Looking good man, just one small question, where the fuck are your eyebrows?

-You àccidéntally deléted thém, imbécilé, et I cannôt exprèss my irritatiόn prόperly becausé I hàve non eyebrôws!

Did your selective French accent get thicker this past year or is it just me?

-It géts thickér whén je suis distrésséd, givé moi mon eyebrôws bàcc!!!

No can do, brother. Actually can do, but I think the Mona Lisa look is working for you, and more importantly I still hate you, so I’m just gonna hardcore ignore you for the rest of this post if that’s ok. Talk to me when you finally get promoted, aka never the way this shit is going.

-Non! NON! MON EYEBROWS!

It’s been lovely catching up.

Jojό I mean Jojo, goddammit Wyatt, is spending most of his time building robots in the mausoleum (sweet hipster band name alert)..

..giving financial advice in Shajar’s room (inb4 what’s the difference between the mausoleum and Shajar’s room)..

..building evil snowmen alone in the middle of the night, like all mentally healthy middle aged men with 3 kids are wont to do..

..and getting the piss harassed out of him by the cat ghosts in the bathroom (sweet hipster band name alert #2). How is this like the fourth time this happens in the exact same spot, will you just stop autonomously cleaning the bathroom after midnight? It’s obviously where the cats hang out, give it the fuck up already.

-I’m actively TRYING TO DIE you absolute moron, what does a guy have to do to get killed around here?

Yea can’t say that I blame you but not happening, you can commit suicide by Ghost Alegra after the kids fuck off to college, ok? I promise.

-Oh like you promised me being heir was a route worth pursuing??

Um obviously you too need to go back and re-read your own life story, because I spent the entirety of our “““cherished””” time together telling you heirship is a shitty gig at generation 2. And then to top it off you went and married Wyatt to ensure maximum shittiness, so there you go, fucking enjoy. God I am so sick of both of you losers and we’re only 5 pics in. Let’s check in with your spawn, I’m sure they can’t possibly be more annoying than their parents-

-oh right, I forgot, this is the generation with 10/10/9 active points where the party never stops. Cyneswith are you somehow twerking to classical music?

-How else am I gonna attract all those hot senior citizens per my grey hair turn on and 20 lovers LTW?

Ok great yea I see how this is gonna go, you’re trying to entice people into voting you for heir based on how torturous playing this fucked up LTW is gonna be for me, well forget it, my readers are intellectuals and completely above such petty entertainment. (istg mofos, don’t even think about it, i already did Komei’s 5 pets career shit, i will burn this place to the ground if you saddle me with Cyneswith banging the elderly for 30 years)

-No need to worry your stupid little head, I will beat Cyneswith for HEIR just like I beat her HAIR up daily! HAHA!

Shajar no offense but you’re a fucking war crime of a sim, nearly everyone who’s ever met you hates you including your parents, and the fact that you’re the alternative here is really not helping my situation in any way. Also how the fuck are you gonna be heir when the only thing you seem to be attracted to is giving noogies, you’re like one week away from college and I still don’t even know if you’re str8 or gay or bi or w/e the fuck you are. You have Jojo’s personality combined with..

..yes exactly, DANIEL’S SOCIAL ABILITIES. I mean I was joking with the whole ‘Shajar’s the spawn of Satan’ thing, but this combo of traits was clearly drawn up in Hell’s boardroom.

ANYWAY. It’s a snowy Sunday morning, and anyone who has been a teen knows what that means:

Time to go clubbing! Man I remember being like 15, waking up on a freezing Sunday morning and my mom making me a cup of hot chocolate before I drove off to the club. Those were the days.

-Uh, Shaj, when did you learn how to drive?

-Don’t be stupid, Cyneswith, people don’t need to ‘learn’ how to drive.

-They absolutely do, actually.

-Well what can I tell you, the dark side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural.

-Here we are, safe and sound! Celebratory noogie!

-YOU RAN OVER 9 PEOPLE

-How many times to I have to explain this to you, Apartment Life townies are not people.

Can’t argue with that logic. Let’s just go in and find out what Shajar’s sexual orientation is once and for all so I can spend the rest of this update aggressively promoting Wulf’s candidacy.

Now I consider ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ one of the dumbest sayings there is, but even I have to concede that this particular picture truly is worth a thousand words. Quick poll, what is more horrifying, Shajar’s literal Joker face or Cyneswith, whom I’ve never seen read a book ever, autonomously pulling one out in the middle of the dance floor, in what I can only assume is an attempt to attract old perverts with the schoolgirl routine?

And I know what some of you are thinking, you’re like ‘bro, you’re just reaching to make a bad joke bro, Cyneswith is just a sweet nice introvert and not like other girls, she doesn’t feel comfortable in the club’, well to that let me reply with another picture that is worth a thousand words:

Yea that’s right, on the first minute of our first time out WE RUN INTO THAT ONE ELDER TOWNIE THAT HAS WRINKLE MAKE UP ON. GODDAMMIT CYNESWITH

Do you guys remember how Jojo was obsessed with Stephen Tinker as a teen? Are you seeing the connection here?? Those kids have literally inherited the worst possible traits from both their parents turned up to 11, it’s fucking unreal.  

Right after I get over Wrinkle’s presence I turn around and what do I see, those 2, who have never had a non-noogie physical interaction, autonomously doing the family kiss thing. I didn’t even catch it on time because I was loling irl, we came out here so these assholes can find age-appropriate partners, and instead they’re kissing each other. Seems about right with this family, and clearly Striped Scarf’s dumb ass ships it.

-They look so much alike, it’s meant to be!

Yes, and they even share the same last name! Talk about written in the stars.

Thankfully Abhijeet is here to save us from incest by perving on Cyneswith. GTFO ABHIJEET. Anyone like ‘bro townies just autonomously come to greet your sims on community lots regardless of age, stop calling them perverts’, see you in about 5 pics down.  

I try to have Shajar chat up Striped Scarf and suffice it to say Shaj ~stole her heart~ and presumably put it on this stick to wave around.

NO. CYNESWITH NO. I’m seriously having déjà vu of all the times I was like ‘NO. JOJO NO’, jfc.

Shajar is unsurprisingly exhibiting no interest in socializing with anyone around her, instead she’s trying every activity this terribly lit place has to offer, and she looks demented while doing it:

I’m feeling a primal urge to photoshop Darth Vader’s melted helmet on the bowling ball here, someone please remind me to do it for the heir vote photoshoot.

-HA. SUCK IT DENISE JACQUET

That’s Denise Jacquet?! I can’t tell who anyone is for shit anymore. The default replacements are a scourge upon premade brands, I’m getting rid of them pronto. Speaking of scourges, where the hell is your sister?

-Who cares?

I wanna say ‘me’ but we both know that’s a lie.

Oh ok, THERE SHE IS.

-So you see Cyneswith, just because something is technically ‘illegal’, doesn’t mean it’s morally wrong-

Yea yea fascinating stuff, now get out of the hot tub or I will fucking neuter you, I don’t know if a eunuch mod already exists for medieval games but I will make one if it doesn’t.

Here, Cyneswith, drink some water, have a nice G-rated convo with your sister about violins and stop pissing me off. 

-First of all this is straight vodka.

Great.

-Secondly Shajar is talking about Mozart’s coprophilia.

-I sure am.

Amazing. Well, I guess it’s at times like these when you need to look inside your heart and truly ask yourself, what did you expect from Jojo’s children.

ABHIJEET ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME DID YOU EVEN HEAR ME TALK ABOUT CASTRATION

-Ha, I went home and put on my most elderly-looking formal wear!

-I hate to see you go but I love to watch you leave Ab <3

CYNESWITH SHUT UP. I can’t believe you people are actually making me miss Gunther’s teenage whoring, at least he kept it age appropriate.

-Is some random lady pressing her breasts against my head?

She most certainly is, Shajar, because it is now crystal clear that this bowling alley doubles as the site of annual perv townie convention and we walked right into it-

-and it’s also clear we have serious issues and are enjoying ourselves. Shaj I legit don’t know what to tell you, this is the first time you get along with someone right away and it just had to be the adult with the bad haircut and the flasher’s trench coat???

-You’re damn right it did.

Alright then, I’m officially going to nope out of this situation, safe in the knowledge you’re a noogiesexual and nothing will actually happen with this freak, so I’ll focus on Cyneswith instead who is much more of a loose canon. 

Here Cyn, talk to this guy, who I’m 90% sure is the same guy your father rejected in favor of stalking Stephen Tinker when he was your age.

-Ohhhh, he’s dreamy!

Omg really?? Halleluj-

-oh never mind, you were of course referring to adult ass Brandon Lillard. I do like that our townies have recurring roles each generation, we should make rejecting Blondie a rite of passage in this family. We should also officially gtfo because this is happening:

-Um, now that I’m looking at you in harsher lighting, it’s gonna be a no from me dawg. 

Oh, thank the fucking lord.

-Let’s celebrate the fact we didn’t get hopelessly obsessed with any adults here by doing the traditional Dance of Normality!

-We beat Dad’s genes, we beat Dad’s genes!

-We’re normal!

Yes, and we’re definitely showing it. Can we please leave now so I can make sure I’ve uninstalled Inteenminator and turn off free will? 

-Nop! Venue change!

-Got-out-of-the-car celebratory noogie!

-Made-it-to-the-door celebratory noogie!

Shajar you unironically have a noogie addiction, I’m not kidding in the slightest, you need to see a doctor.

Great, great, not another teen in sight and to top it off Denise followed us here to ensure maximum elder presence. I feel comfortable officially declaring this day a complete waste of time.

God, the vintage pink dress and the pink alcohol combo is some straight up current era Taylor Swift nonsense. That’s it, we’re outta here, back home where no one is lurking, waiting to strike at us-

-SOPHIE NOOOOOOOOOOOO💔💔💔💔💔

-The Lord is my shepherd.

NO HE ISN’T EVERYONE KNOWS YOU CAN’T HERD CATS PLEASE DON’T DIE

-Nop, I’m over it. Goodbye heathens, it’s been nice, hope you don’t find your paradise. 

UGH SOPHIE, my beloved Westboro lunatic, the last gangsta generation 1 cat we had.. I can’t believe you’re gone and all I’m left with is stupid Goro and D’vorah who can’t even beat up the fucking dog. This is truly painful.

Yes, pets, I agree, Kaylynn is completely to blame for Sophie dying of old age. The time has now come to decide on a cat heir-

-and since Goro ran away like a little bitch after Sophie’s death despite the fact he didn’t even like her, he’s automatically disqualified and will be going off to live on Melody and Daniel’s farm once returned to us. Congratulations to D’vorah I guess, on being the least terrible of two terrible options. 

On the topic of terrible heir options, Cyn has non-stop wants to go on dates and have her first kiss and all that crap, and since our Sunday morning clubbing was a bust we invite over the matchmaker.

-Hello there young Union, I see your house has been upgraded since I was last here.

Oh right we haven’t required your services since Daniel was a teen and we lived in a trailer, well we are flush with cash now!

-Hopefully your payment reflects that.

It will!! Just please give us someone good, I can’t deal with single teen Cyn for one more second.

-Oh my, what a beautiful BLANK PIECE OF PAPER.

WHAT!? NO THAT’S 5K IT’S JUST A SNOW GLITCH 

-What do I look like to you, a money thawing service?

Does such a service.. exist??

-It does not, so I have to go home and use a hairdryer on this!

Just come inside and we’ll give you non-frozen money!

-No, no, you’ll get what you paid for..

-Have a magical time!

...

.........

......................

Lakshmi this was so fucking evil that I almost want to age you down and see if you and Shajar hit it off. 

-As if, the whole neighborhood knows what you did to Komei.

Helped him achieve his insane 6-pets-career LTW?

-Turned him into a servant while your sim was lounging around all day!

Oh yea I did do that. But Wyatt was also a townie and he does literally nothing, Jojo is the servant now!

-Only because Wyatt is too fucking stupid to do things! Word has gotten out, no townie will ever marry in this family again unless they’re brain dead, so it’s Wyatts only for you from now on, sister!

Well this has been a complete fucking disaster. It was great seeing you again, Lakshmi, thanks for the dream date with the adult farting machine, 5k well-spent.

Pretty sure it was you bro, and yes, how about we don’t do that again.

Wyatt has brought over Amanda from work! (Aka Victoria’s only friend and subsequent lesbian lover, who is really pretty and is definitely getting married in at some point, preferably after the brown hair genes have been weakened so we can go back to being gingers.)  

-Wow Shajar, your grandmother, God rest her soul, mentioned you were her favorite and now I can see why! Loving the Kylo Ren look!

-Is someone being genuinely nice to me?! What is happening?

-Yes, please stop being nice to her, Amanda, we don’t want her getting used to it.

Jojo istg.

-Cyneswith dear, tell Amanda all about how much money your grandmother left you so she can stop being nice to Shajar. 

-Soooo much money, Miss Amanda!

-Ah, what a polite child I’ve single-handedly raised.

-Now, Cyneswith, you really need to get back on the dating scene so you have ample time to find the perfect spouse and continue our line, since you’re clearly the only one of my children that is remotely heir material. 

-Dad, Shajar and Wulf are right next to you.

-Oh they are? I’m wearing my special contact lenses that make those disappointments invisible to me, but even better, they need to hear this. Shajar is a noogiesexual and thus incapable of reproduction, and Wulf is not even a Union, I mean have you seen that kid? Wyatt reproduced by himself like the amoeba he is. Now, your grandmother-

-YOU MENTIONED ME 3 TIMES AND HERE I AM

OH FUCK VICTORIA, deleting the default replacements gave you base game hair!!!!

-That’s the part you’re scared by, not my Beetlejuicesque entrance?

There’s literally nothing scarier than your ghost sporting this haircut for all eternity, I’m re-downloading that default immediately. 

-Oh mom, so good to see you! Let me just hug my beloved child, Shijer-

-Shajar, dad.

-SHAJAR, let me hug Shajar, like I do all the time. 

-I’m glad to see you’re not picking favorites among your children like I did, the way I treated David-

-Daniel, mom.

-DANIEL, is the one thing I’ve truly been regretting in the afterlife. That and not skinning Marisa Bendett alive when I had the chance. 

-Well, as you can see by Shajar’s totally normal and not at all shocked reaction to my hug, I am a wonderful, fair, and emotionally available father. 

(Bruh this freaked me out so much when it happened, I mean I KNOW it’s an animation glitch but I was convinced my sims had become sentient for a good while after)

-Is your grandmother’s ghost still on the premises?

-Yup. 

-When will this nightmare end, paying attention to you is the worst. 

-Ok she’s gone.

-FINALLY. Now it’s back to the crypt for you, and don’t you dare go complain to her urn!

-Ah, Stephen, Stephen, my life is crap and I can’t even🎵

And with the knowledge you have composed a theme song for Stephen Tinker, part 1 of the Union comeback update is concluded. Will Shajar’s sexual orientation reveal itself? Will Cyneswith find true love? Will Jojo become a werewolf? Will Wulf continue to be the only dignified member of this family? Will D’vorah have kittens? Will Wyatt do literally anything worth mentioning? Tune in for parts 2 & 3 to find out, unfollow button on the upper right corner for those who need it. 

[eisforeidolon]

Episode: Back and to the Future

I get why, thematically, they chose that song for the previouslies that kick off the final season. However, from my perspective I just do not think it actually works at all.  It is far too sedate for the action it’s recapping and the scene it cuts into.  The juxtaposition of such different paces is just ... odd.

I guess I'm supposed to feel all sad and shit from the lingering shots of dead!Jack's burned out eye holes?  Maybe if he'd had a personality other than being an amorphous shifting blob of unbelievable power and permanent intellectual infancy I was supposed to care about because of the number of times they had the other characters say he was their son/family/awesome.  As is?  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I wish I could say I was surprised that the veritable army of animate corpses making a beeline for the Winchesters and Cas just … somehow … let them escape and run away.  I'd have been a lot more surprised if the writers had actually bothered to do the work to get the characters out of the corner the last finale put them into, at this point.  Then there's the bit where the writers shove some nonsense into Dean's mouth to try and make it seem like this whole thing with Chuck isn't a sudden random asspull to go for the most absurdly overpowered villain they could think of for the last season.  Totally believable, oh yeah.

Although the idea of a sewer running through a graveyard including right to the wall of a crypt does not exactly seem likely to me, I do actually give the writers points for having that not actually work as an escape route.  Also awarding some points for them remembering that as an angel, Castiel should be able to see demons.

As other people have already pointed out, considering what he did to the Novak family and how haphazardly he handled Claire, especially?  Him bitching about any other creature defiling somebody's corpse is pretty fucking hilarious.  Though I'd possibly be more sympathetic if demon!Jack didn't already show a 500% more interesting personality in thirty seconds than actual!Jack did in two seasons.  So far as I’ve been concerned, the only think Jack has really had going for him is Alex, so Alex as a different character, even a demon, I’m calling a win.

I honestly do not get the decision of trying garner fan nostalgia by bringing back ghosts from previous seasons if they're just going to arbitrarily make them kill anyone at random for kicks.  Would it have been that hard to have shown “Bloody Mary” killing one person who might have had a secret where someone died?  Because I could buy it for one of those teen girls, but not both.  Or limiting the “Woman in White” to attacking men along highways who might possibly be unfaithful?  Maybe we're supposed to believe that they're all just so pissed off at having spent all that time in hell that they have completely lost touch with what originally tied them to earth and drove them to kill in the first place?  I don't mind them no longer being tied to a physical location since they were banished and unnaturally returned, but to be so disconnected to what drove them to become angry spirits seems much more intrinsic to who and what they were.  I guess even the ghosts lose their personalities to become cardboard in the hands of Dabbernatural.  

Oh, look, mysteriously, big G God's tantrum opening up hell is not actually big enough to impact the whole planet – or even, you know, more than the literal next town over.  This is my surprised face.

Then we get to the bit where the Winchesters find an abandoned car with a bloody mess inside and are all, “Look at this Woman in White kill!  Obviously it was a Woman in White!  Totally the specific one we sent to hell!  Because … car!  And, uh, blood!  And, oh, because the fucking script says so.” REASONS, YO.

Aren't all garage doors required to have an emergency pull for if the power goes out?  Obviously the script required the pair of VotW end up stuck hiding in the garage, which, uh, a ghost can't find people hiding now?  Did I miss something in there that explained that silly convenience that makes the ghost even less spooky in an episode that really really fails on that count even more later on?

I guess maybe I should be happy that it's Castiel that gets hit with the dumb characterization stick to necessitate Sam & Dean not work together to clear out the town? Look, at this point, considering the way the writers have had him act as a constant disaster zone of idiotic choices and betrayals for several seasons now, my ability to sympathize with Cas is a wee bit limited.  To have him now sulk like a toddler and refuse to work with the demon to help the Winchesters save an entire town full of people and prevent the spread of angry hell ghosts to the world beyond that? Because oh noes it's wearing Jack's face and he was just sooooo attached?  Even though all of them supposedly thought of Jack as their kid?  He doesn't even try to offer up alternatives to working with the demon with the very convenient solution, just whines about it? 

So basically this billions of years old angel somehow has less fucking practicality than the Winchesters (despite how easily he killed the shit out of his fellow angels when it suited his plans).  Not to mention that by refusing, he's saddling Dean with having to work with demon!Jack. The human guy who was just recently convinced he had to kill Jack for the good of the world after Jack killed his mother, only to have a change of heart when he saw Jack’s understanding, only for Jack to end up killed anyway – you know, emotions a hell of a lot more conflicted about their supposed kid's than Castiel's?  Castiel is just fine with that!  What a self-centered dick.

I liked Dean's conversation with Rowena on the phone and his response to her presumable demand to ask more nicely.  I laughed at Sam accidentally shooting Cas and Cas' resultant reaction.  I thought it was curious that they had the demon bring up Dean's time as a torturer in hell, though I'd be pleasantly surprised if it was anything but a way to segue into the Cage getting opened.  One utterly wasted Michael storyline is apparently not enough for Dabb!  Maybe it's just supposed to be some kind of weird demon idea of flattery, but I did find their interactions interesting.  I would be intrigued by the weird flashes when Cas was trying to heal Sam (Another angel power that actually works for once?  Wow!) … if Dabb hadn't already yammered on about what it means in an interview.  That dude is absolutely allergic to leaving any kind of major storyline an open mystery or letting it retain any intrigue for fans to speculate about.  I was not impressed with Sam getting damsel-ed to be saved by Castiel at least twice.  Come on, show.

As I speculated before and said above, I’m fine with the Chuckified nature of their release meaning some rules don’t apply.  I could maybe even understand the thought process that them being out in the daytime, without being limited to darkness, was scarier? I just wish anyone behind the camera was awake enough to actually look at the aesthetics of what they did here and realize that no, it's really really not.  The whole thing just looked so embarrassingly mediocre - pantomime actors in bad bargain basement costumes silly.  I think it was @hippychick006 that suggested gifs of the whole end portion looked like they should be set to Yackety Sax?  The context of the episode does not in any way negate that. Just … wow.  Like with the wire fight, I am flabbergasted that this made it to air without somebody finding the brakes.

I'm not sure if the writers actually made a failed reference by having the Woman in White say Dean was the one who took her home when it was Sam, or if they meant to imply he and Sam together had been there/responsible and Dean was the one she was addressing.  Regardless, I'm not impressed with how all the ghosts Sam & Cas were being confronted by just … stood there to be shot one by one for a while.  And then … ran … literally ran … chasing them down the street instead of doing the whole ghost teleport thing.  There are way, way too many times in this episode where the guys get away or win a fight because reasons and there is absolutely no tension in that.  Even if it didn't also look ridiculous.  Dean’s part of the confrontation was a little less absurd in that respect, at least.  And the spell effects actually looked reasonably cool.

I'm a little annoyed at myself that the obligatory brother scene at the end of the episode kind of works on me.  Though I’m not particularly impressed with Sam's conclusion that God is totally going to leave them alone now.  Sure, Chuck has a long habit of leaving when he's bored, but he isn't leaving this world because he's bored.  You guys actively pissed him off!  Yet Sam treats it like a foregone conclusion Chuck will have buggered off instead of sticking around to watch his previously favorite but now uncooperative toys suffer and die first. Though I'm not sure if that's a writer issue, actually, or just a legit choice I don’t care for.  I could see Sam insisting on trying to sell a potential positive side with no room for doubt with as fatalistic as Dean is being.  I could also see it just being one of those things Sam convinces himself must be true because he's reasoned it out in his head and refuses to consider alternatives may exist.  Like how he was so convinced it could only be God planting visions in his head back in season 11.  Still, I like the callback and I can even see why Dean is the most immediately cynical and pissed off, so hey!  There was actually one whole entire scene I enjoyed in there!

[dabistits]

i didn't know abt hori liking the avengers movies but i'm not surprised. what i mean with "by design" is that wheter he noticed or not he's so inspired by american comics that he ended up adopting the most overarching trope of mainstream properties: even if the heroes are vigilantes and the villains sympatetic the villains are always wrong and the heroes are (or at least try to be) in the side of the law. but question: can we say bnha villains are leftifts when their ideologies are so hollow?

 oh, yes, i definitely agree with that! for your question, i think asking whether any ostensibly villain in a centrist/liberal narrative is really leftist is going to just be a resounding ‘no.’ and that’s because the creators never really understand nor are they really sympathetic to leftist causes. let’s take erik killmonger, who actually does espouse a specific ideology—even while he promotes armed liberation for the black diaspora, rightfully remarking upon the global presence & violence of antiblackness, he regularly assaults black women on screen (including killing his gf) and proudly speaks of his exploits in the (imperialistic) US military. (and of course the movie can’t decide what it actually wants to say about imperialism, bcs killmonger working in the military = bad & villainous, but everett ross being an actual... cia(??) operative = good white ally.)

so the thing about these narratives is that they fake you out on some level. we start out with a premise that will find a lot of sympathy among general (or sometimes specifically leftist) audiences, whether it be liberation from antiblackness, justice for xmen, or opposition to institutional violence from pro heroes. the problem is, stories crafted by non-leftists can never really follow through to the logical conclusion of that premise: injustice must be swiftly confronted and the system must be dismantled, violently if necessary. but that position is completely anathema to most viewers, and it’s most certainly anathema to the execs who green-light these “creative” pursuits. that’s why the narrative ‘good guys’ (t’challa, charles xavier, izuku & co) are moderates who will push for change at a pace that’s palatable to liberals and even conservatives. the real life counterparts to their efforts also wind up being mostly toothless, which is not coincidental. capitalists that run these enterprises know that ‘change within the system’ doesn’t work irl; that’s why they push for it in the stories they churn out, because if they can convincingly sell to you that change outside the system is bad, what more do you have left?

they accomplish this task by writing these ‘well-intentioned extremists.’ starting with a premise that most people are sympathetic with, they then push that premise into the realm of absurdity: “killmonger and magneto want to give people ways to fight their oppression asap? well, they’re also basically genocidal maniacs who have no empathy for anyone or anything beyond their ideology! don’t you see that this is the natural conclusion of changing things too fast? you don’t want to be like that, do you? :) ” alternately: “people like shigaraki and stain actually make excellent observations about hero society and flaws that canonically exist, but they’re also murderous maniacs who are just using ideology as an excuse! perhaps those people who say blue lives don’t matter just secretly want a reason to kill, huh? makes u think.” the choice to make these characters irrational and murderous is a deliberate one; the creators choose to take this route, rather than giving those characters a revolutionary politics that’s conscientious, thoughtful, and rooted in empathy, because then their ideas would actually be sympathetic. capitalists want to avoid that at all costs!

so to finally answer your question: are they leftists? no. they’re a boogeyman of leftists. they’re leftists as characterized by people who fear leftists. and if you look at the kind of rhetoric used by anti-leftists, you’ll see that this is true, because they touch upon the exact same points: “change too fast will just make people oppose you!” & “wanting to kill billionaires makes you just as bad as hitler (i.e. a genocidal maniac)!” & just refer to the entire black book of communism, which consists of fabrications, exaggerations, and twisted truths for the purpose of making communist efforts seem as murderous as possible. where can you look in our society that doesn’t seem to view leftists, to some degree, as villainous, whether as entitled children who want things handed to us on a silver platter or as a red army prepared to send any random person (and their friends and family and children!!) to the gulags?

so, yes—we might reject the politics of bnha villains if we judge them strictly through canonically-provided information, but at the same time we can (and probably should) expand our frame of reference to include the creator themselves, their intentions, and their biases. if we consider all this, then i think it’s easier to understand why there are leftists who enjoy and joke about the lov (or idk! maybe it’s just my dumb ass! i don’t think leftists care about bnha actually :( ). anyways, it’s less about what the bnha villains actually are than what they represent, and what characters like killmonger or magneto or poison ivy also represent: fear of the left being sold as propaganda which makes us out to be scary, cruel, ruthless villains.

[thirteen-beaxhes]

Our Last Words - Chapter 4

Summary:  In a universe where the last words your soulmate speaks to you are printed, Cyrus Goodman wants nothing more than to never meet them. And he definitely doesn’t want it to be the blonde-haired boy in his class.

ALL LINKS IN REBLOG

~~~~

Fear and Loathing - Marina and the Diamonds

It had been a couple of days since Cyrus’ birthday, and he was still confused. Well, confused was an understatement. He still had no idea what had happened that night. The memory still had a 4 am hazy feel about it, but there was no mistaking its reality. That had happened. He and TJ were on the couch and they had almost kissed. That should have sent Cyrus jumping in glee. The possibility that his crush liked him back? It seemed perfect. So it was unexpected when it left Cyrus with nothing but a deep sense of dread and fear. He walked into school that Monday with one thought in his mind. He couldn’t face TJ.

Was he being irrational and anxious for no reason? Possibly. But that moment with TJ on the couch was terrifying. Terrifying because of how much he was drawn to him, how he was prompted by some mysterious force within his soul to lean in further, to push the boundaries. That force scared him. Because no way was it just his crush. It was too strong.

And he didn’t want to consider the other possibility in the slightest.

TJ Kippen couldn’t be his soulmate. He wouldn’t be.

Maybe avoidance wasn’t the best strategy. But would that stop Cyrus from doing just that? Hell no.

Avoiding TJ was harder that Cyrus could have expected. He was not aware of how their lives were intertwined until he tried to disentangle himself. He spent the next few days taking alternate routes to his classes that didn’t involve passing TJ’s locker and averting his eyes every time he noticed TJ looking for him in crowds. It killed him, really it did. But Cyrus consoled himself, telling himself this was self-protection. He was just sparing them both from immense pain.

This is for the best. I’m just protecting myself.

Of course, he couldn’t do this for too long without one of his friends noticing. Buffy caught him one day and pulled him aside. “Why are you avoiding TJ?” she asked, her voice indignant.

“What? No, I’m not avoiding him.” Nice one, Cyrus. Totally you aren’t.

Buffy scoffed at his pathetic attempt of denial. “Oh yeah, you aren’t. So, you haven’t at all been looking away and leaving the room when he walks in looking for you or taking longer routes to class to miss him?”

Cyrus sighed, and turned away from Buffy. “It’s nothing, Buffy. Can we just drop it?”

“No, we can’t,” Buffy said, grabbing Cyrus’ arm and spinning him around to face her. “Cyrus, TJ is the one person you never avoid. Something’s wrong. What happened?”

“Nothing! So can you just stop interrogating me? You don’t have to know everything,” Cyrus snapped, walking away from Buffy annoyed. He really hadn’t meant to snap at her. But her question was just something he didn’t want to answer.

While he walked away, he ran into someone head-on. Of course, first glass doors, now people? Good job, Cyrus.

“I’m sorry,” Cyrus said, stopping when he saw who he ran into. TJ.

TJ just looked at him, as if he wanted to say something, but he was struggling to find the words. Before he found them, Cyrus pushed through the crowd and walked away as fast as he could.

He didn’t need to look back to see the look of hurt on TJ’s face. He’d rather not have more of TJ haunting him.

*

“Hey, Jonah!”

Jonah turns around to see TJ running up to him. He looked tired, as if he hadn’t been sleeping well.

“Hey TJ, what’s up?” Jonah asked, confused and concerned.

TJ ran a hand nervously through his hair. “Has Cyrus spoken to you since his birthday? He’s been avoiding me in school all the time.”

Cyrus hadn’t spoken to TJ? That did not seem right. At all. Jonah had spoken to Cyrus, but he wasn’t going to bring it up and make TJ feel worse. He wasn’t dumb.

“Why would Cyrus do that? Doesn’t sound like him.”

TJ bit his lip. “I have an idea, but I’m not sure.”

“Why? Did something happen?”

TJ seemed hesitant, so Jonah quickly added, “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“No, no. It’s okay. I trust you, Jonah.”

Jonah smiled slightly, happy that TJ trusted him. He was glad Cyrus had helped them reconcile. Since that day, he and TJ had hung out more, not all their meetings ending in great decisions, but all fun nonetheless.

TJ fiddled with his bag straps as he seemed to think over his words. “At the sleepover,” he said, his voice low. “Around 4 am, Cyrus and I were talking and.”

“And?”

“We almost kissed,” TJ said, in what was practically a whisper.

“Oh,” Jonah said, realising what TJ probably was thinking. “So, you think Cyrus is avoiding you because of that?”

TJ nodded slowly.

“Look, dude,” Jonah said, trying to reassure TJ. “Cyrus wouldn’t avoid you over that. Trust me.”

“So then why is he?” TJ asked, unable to wrap his mind around the situation.

Jonah just shrugged, unable to help TJ. He had no idea what was up, but anyone with half a brain cell knew that Cyrus couldn’t make himself willingly avoid TJ. Something was up. And he didn’t know what.

“It’ll be okay, dude,” Jonah said, holding onto TJ’s shoulder.

“I hope so.”

*

After another run-in with Buffy with a firm talking-to, Cyrus knew he had to talk to TJ. It was unfair, leaving the other boy in the dark. Plus, he missed him. Way too much. He owed TJ an explanation. And he knew where he would find him. Andi told him that he had been going to the swings as often as he could, presumably waiting for Cyrus. That made Cyrus smile a bit. After everything, the swings were still their place.

Cyrus headed there after school was out, strengthening his resolve with every step. He had no idea what he would tell TJ because there was no way he could tell him the real reason he was avoiding him. He’d figure it out. He would.

When the swings came into his sight, he spotted the unmistakable figure of TJ sitting on one of the swings, his head down. His shoulders were drooped. He looked exhausted. It sent a pang of regret into Cyrus’ heart. He had caused that by avoiding him. But he could stop him feeling sad by just going u to him and talking.

Cyrus was ready, he would just go up to TJ and just talk to him, and they could go back to how they used to be. Everything would be normal. Cyrus had almost reached TJ when he glanced down at his watch.

6:00 pm.

Oh no, he couldn’t be around anyone, especially not TJ at that time. He couldn’t risk it. He wouldn’t risk it.

Cyrus could feel the panic build up in him at the possibility of what would happen if he went up to TJ and when they parted, the words on his shoulder would be grey. No. He couldn’t even think about that. He couldn’t risk losing TJ so soon. As quietly as he could, he turned around and walked away, trying not to alert TJ of his presence.

It killed him to leave TJ looking so sad and alone on the swings, but Cyrus told himself he was protecting them both. He would talk to him soon. But not then. Not at that time.

As he walked away, Cyrus promised himself something.

He had to keep his distance from TJ. Especially at that time. It was better that way because that way, no one gets hurt. No one gets hurt.

No one.

~~~~~~

Hey guys, hope you liked this chapter! Sorry all the links have to be in the reblogs, but that’s just cuz tumblr is being stupid to work with

[incarnateirony]

Tumblr chaos, post rescue; Castiel, ratings, etc etc.

So tumblr decided to go bonky but in a way I could save an old post, that won’t turn up by direct link anymore, or open the Keep Reading.  Keep in mind this was made mid-season-13, and I haven’t been arsed to update it since then, but this is just me like... rescuing a post. HOPEFULLY THIS ONE WORKS.

So we’ve all heard the divisive wank. First, it was that “Cas ratings are the lowest rated” and, some that STARTED clue-ing in backpedaled to “well he has no POSITIVE effect on the ratings.” - whatever it took to try to make it seem like Misha had no personal positive impact to the show.

This is a topic I covered in an old video of mine, but I decided to do it modernly again, complete with automated spreadsheet. Episodes have been listed by number, demo, raw viewers, and then Cas Y/N. For the sake of argument, at another point I’ll also do breakouts based on “Cas promotion” to show how the shift is incredibly more drastic there, but Northern Sparrow did that back in Season 10 with expectable results.  So for now, let’s cover this. And I’ve literally tried to postulate as many of the anti-arguments to discredit pro-Cas things as possible.

The following episodes are based on “Did Cas appear in any capacity in these episodes in this season,”

Arguments have been made such as removing the Premier as an alternate total for Castiel, under the extremely generous assumption that fans and GA do not generally expect Cas in the Premier at this point, and that none of the numbers are in any way related.

This is a buffer provided in the interest of anti-arguments, rather than from the angle of Pro-Cas. Finales do not have the same effect, as they generally drift from the premier demo, as quite literally witnessed in all the charts below. The charts are then sorted by N/Y on Cas, but you can doublecheck the numbers as you wish.

All numbers have been rounded to hundredths (0.xx) for demo and x.xxx for million viewers. If it is missing another unit, that means it was a 0, and Excel ate the 0.

( Numbers are sourced from the highly popular https://tvseriesfinale.com/ )

SEASON 11

Possible anti argument: Cas was only in voice in Baby. Even still I urge you to do the math and realize it does NOT bring Cas down to the season average or No Cas thresholds as is. Minus the premiere, Cas still pulls 0.044 above episodes that do not have him. Minus baby it drops to the 0.03 range-ish. Go on. You have a calculator.

SEASON 12

This is the closest one to date, if only because various negative impact of 12x19′s airdate is NOT being removed, again, in the interest of giving anti-Cas people every benefit of the doubt (and it wasn’t the size of the one I’m about to talk about soon), and every angle, without removal or exemption for special rules that would give him any positive edge. Even with this hit, 0.016 demo still cements Cas above episodes without him, even with the premier removed.

HERE’S WHERE IT GETS FUN THOUGH.

SEASON 13

You’re probably wondering what the hell all of that at the bottom is. That’s me literally giving haters every possible argument in the book I could think of in their interest to drag Cas down.

Cas Minus Premier you’ve figured out by now.

Cas Minus Premier Minus Thanksgiving seems like we’re giving Castiel an extra “but but but!” argument.

But you will also see that “No Cas” has been given an exception on the mass pre-emption of 13x17, with an option removing that from the tally, despite not doing so for season 12 in his favor (which you will notice very similar number shift on 12x19).

Both Thanksgiving and the NYC blackout of airing were exceptional events, and each “side” reasonably has one, so while giving the NYC exemption, and knowing the network has said they’re aware of Thanksgiving and writing it off as a “special” due to the holiday, both are receiving options of Exemption from the totals.

In the interest of comparing the excess effects of Scoobynatural, a bracket has been made for “Total without Scooby,” “Cas value without Scooby,” and “Thanksgiving without Scooby.” Obviously we can not include “No Cas NYC without Scooby” as that is already self-exempted as an episode that contained Cas.

The results are as to be seen. The only way, whatsoever, that ratings operate at-or-better than the average result of episodes with Castiel included are if you: Include Thanksgiving’s crash to Cas, while giving non-Cas eps an exemption on NYC, and remove Scoobynatural’s bonus. That’s right. If you give them a free pass on their reasonable crashout episode, but make Cas take the equally reasonable crashout episode as a penalty, and remove a good episode of his entirely as a special, the episodes would almost match.

To clarify:

Castiel, Thanksgiving Included, No Scooby: 0.59, and removing the premiere ticks it to about 0.58.

Non-Cas eps, NYC exempt, letting them get the benefit OF Scooby’s ratings without including it to Cas... even though... Cas was in the ep? You’ll get 0.585.

That is literally the only way to break it even. If you remove Scooby from their season average since... Cas was... in Scooby... and not getting the benefit... they still drop under the line.

Obviously the most reasonable comparison would be to remove Scooby from both for the “special” argument (which really only strips bonus from Cas), and give either neither, or both, their respective exemption. (Thanksgiving, NYC)

Cas, minus premiere, minus scoob, minus thanks: 0.607

Non-Cas, minus NYC crash: 0.577

Cas, Minus Premier, scoob, including Thanks: 0.59

Non-Cas, including NYC crash: 0.557

[drums fingers on desk] So what I’m reading out of this is, if I penalize every possible Cas route and give every possible benefit to non-Castiel episodes, they break even. If we do equal penalty or lack thereof, we get 0.030 difference and 0.033 both in Castiel’s favor, kinda like I said he runs us roughly 0.03 difference depending on the night, modernly?

And we had an identical effect in S11? And... S12, it appears to be half, when allowing Castiel to still take every penalized episode, but it’s still above the same base line?

And then there’s also the fact that raw viewership on all S11-13 totals are also higher on average, if people want to spin that angle, even if it’s technically demo that matters.

I wonder what this MEANS.

WHAT COULD IT MEAN?

That’s at least three years. I could probably go further back, as I imagine this divide started gradually inclining from S9 for misc reasons, but it’s here, and we’re here, and we’re now. Digging back into archives of season 6 (if there’s even a true net negative going on there, which I doubt, just saying “ancient history”) doesn’t matter when we are in TODAY. This is three consecutive years. With EVERY REASONABLE ANTI ARGUMENT AVAILABLE AND SPECCED OUT FOR THEM. I am literally arguing a case FOR THEIR END and the only way to do it is to WILLINGLY twist it into the most ridiculous penalty/reward imbalance to even make it even.

And while this prepares to reblog and no doubt get skewed, I’m going to provide a useful attachment in advance for the inevitable, pre-telegraphed, “But ratings are down compared to before and that’s cuz Bro Only fans left and they’re the TRUE MAJORITY” (as if we never had a Cas/Destiel fan exodus in S9 and 10 too or anything from other drama) so have a link on why that simply isn’t true. As well as addresses a bunch of other dumb-as-rocks talking points people who don’t understand what they’re looking at tend to use to bag on people/the show.

There’s a reason S12 crept into the top 20 shows for digital calls in the world for the first time last year, including resources like Hulu and Amazon that, while they do not report to Nielsen for demo numbers, report to the network for digital sales. S13 is doing even better. I can’t wait to get the numbers on that when season is done.

And before anyone challenges my “link on why that simply isn’t true” I’m going to issue a simple challenge: Find me a show aside from the Superbowl that gets, today, the 10.0s that were fairly common high-ish end TV back in 2005. I’m not gonna make it ridiculous and ask for the 20.0′s that ER was getting at the time. Find me a 10. Because ratings everywhere have declined.

I keep issuing this challenge for people to find me even one 10.0 current nightly show this year, but it’s like... it’s like nobody can find it. I wonder why!

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It’s fine if you don’t like Cas. Nobody says you have to like Cas. Acting like he has no net positive impact is ridiculous. Spreading misinformation because someone with a myopic episode-to-episode, strictly-fandom-bubble, argument-of-the-hour-for-only-their-preferred-perspective, is absolute insanity.

And before anyone does the OTHER telegraphed argument of “WELL... THAT’S... JUST... 0.03ISH!” you first need to recognize that’s a 5%~ loyalty viewership impact over the season, but those are strictly STANS THAT ONLY TUNE IN WHEN HE IS THERE. That is NOTHING to say of the ramifications that would happen if he would leave entirely, permanently. And considering the myopic “no positive impact” is direly wrong, you MIGHT want to consider how much of the GA outside of the hatred-bubble has drawn an affinity to him as their primary interest. All existing demographic information says about 33%. Some have said over 40% would quit if he didn’t come back at one point. This was a 10,000 head census, IP-checked-for-individuality polling with over 60 individualized questions. Dean still got 50% of preferred character interest. Sam’s made me cringe with how low it was but it unfortunately matches all other global trends on other platforms, and that sucks. But even if it was “low” respectively, they’re both important. Between the two it meant J2 - as two separate individuals - pulled about 67% of the show popularity, with Misha pulling the other third. And considering the regained S7-8 demographic, thataboutmakessense.

Like I said, at some point I’ll do one on the effect of Cas promos, but at one point, Northern Sparrow did this in S10, so I mean

Have that to pacify you for now to see that this was already an ongoing this even back then.

Hopefully I armed people with some good information the next time someone spews this age-old horse shit at them.

[persona-rrau]

Is the shuake ending really a bad ending? I guess it is in the sense that Minato dies for it to happen, but it seems to settle a lot of things in the story and everyone's relationships better than your original pegokita storyline now because a lot of things come to light in Akira's and Akechi's perspectives. I don't think I would consider it a bad ending at this point when Minato takes on a similar sacrificial role that he's known for in canon. It all just fits into place imo.

TNT: Original pegokita storyline? I don’t think I’ve outlined my original ending yet? Or even talked about it (Akechi’s end)? I’ve kept quiet because I’m in the process of outlining a huge Akechi-centric post that tells you exactly what steps he took to become retainer, and what led him to betray Minato in the end. 

Straylize’s end and mine aren’t the same (Our Akechis are completely different). I give a lot of thought to alternate routes because I find it entertaining to think of what the outcome would have been if things played out a little differently.So, when you say “it fits into place” I’m happy it does, because that was the intention. 

I wrote the shuake end wanting to explore Akechi more as a morally gray character, because in this particular AU, both Akechi and Akira have killed people. Just not for the same reasons. So, in a way, they can reach a resolution based on their similarities. Akira could argue Akechi forced himself to kill for “no reason”, but Akechi could equally argue that Akira forced himself to kill for “no reason” because it would have been easier to “imprison” the guilty. He points out that Akira just didn’t “want” to because it would leave Minato vulnerable to another attack if those prisoners ever got out. These two arguments follow my canon as well and aren’t exclusive to the shuake bad end.

Though, I love that specific shuake end a lot because of the reasons you listed, anon. I write all my endings based on BIG DICK ENERGY (just based on what is a cool concept and what would make for a good alternative to play with outside of canon established story) and I love when things come full circle. It’s a bittersweet ending, in a way, but noncanon nonetheless. It’s still an alternate universe I’ll probably draw for/play with because of the potential between Akira and Akechi, and the grief that Akira and Akechi will go through because of Minato’s sacrifice.

It’s a bad ending because Akira and Akechi still feel unhappy with the turnout (Really, all endings that aren’t pegokita are kind of bad endings bc this is a pegokita au. Even an ending where Akira gets together with Hifumi and Minato gets together with Aegis would still be considered bad end. I think it’s just a “catch all” tag at this point, even if the endings themselves aren’t necessarily “bad” in turnout). They don’t regret settling their differences but they’d have fought for/preferred a different ending if it were up to them. I love absolutely all bad endings, but this shuake one in particular is one of my favorites because of the way Akira and Akechi are forced into the roles that they thought were “easy to manage” and “if I was in their shoes, I’d do things differently” when it actually isn’t that simple.

The canon story I want to tell with Akechi is focused more on how unhinged and broken he becomes because of the shit he forces himself to do. However, in this universe, he isn’t exactly ‘forced’ to do anything like he is in canon (not that canon forced him, but he made a dumb choice, really. Here, he has time to opt out whenever by his own will because no one will step on him if he quits). It’s something he ‘wants’ to do- a choice. I want to give us what canon didn’t give us: Akechi, but a really cunning and downright terrifying antagonist. Becomes so warped and distorted you can’t help but to want him to succeed because of how motivated he is and how careful he is about achieving his goal. He works on it slowly in steps- breaks Minato down and renders Akira useless so progressively that no one suspects a thing. Also, Minato genuinely fucked up twice with Akechi in canon. Should have penalized him the first time he broke rules, but didn’t. Shouldn’t have made Akechi retainer (Minato broke tradition for selfish reasons- ie: Akira needs help, so to hell with tradition, I’m making Akechi second retainer) and Minato suffers because of his own actions, despite being manipulated into making Akechi second retainer (not that Minato was aware of it- but Akechi managed to persuade Minato to make him retainer). 

However, in this AU’s canon, if Akechi attacks Minato, it’s absolutely game over for him. 

Given how P5′s canon Akechi has nothing to lose and wants to be loved… he wouldn’t hesitate to exploit Minato if it granted him some lasting effect of love well after he’s gone. If Minato won’t give him what he wants, he’ll just have to take it by other means. Forge his own happiness. The Akechi in this au is so starved for attention that he fools himself while he’s trying to fool Minato- makes himself believe he can replace Akira completely and be Minato’s only retainer and special person. I’m trying hard not to go into detail about what it is, but I plan to make sure that people hate/love Akechi in au canon specifically because of how good he is at being an antagonist. Manages to fuck the whole system, driven by sheer pettiness, and become retainer (despite it never being possible before), covers his tracks so he can’t be framed for murders, sends Akira out on wild goose-chases by spreading rumors in town (because he knows Akira gets leads by rumors sometimes, and there’s NO WAY Akira would take the bait if it came out of his own mouth) so Akira spends more time away from Minato and leaves Akechi to work closely with Minato in his place, manipulates Minato by mimicking Akira’s mannerisms and habits to subconsciously make Minato feel safe in his presence, renders Akira useless by taking on more burdens as retainer, etc. All the while, Akira knows something is up with him, but he can’t figure out what because Akechi doesn’t give Akira room to catch him red-handed.

Akechi’s character is so versatile thanks to canon that I can practically pull him in either direction for either a bittersweet end, a good end, or a fucked up and truly bad end. Bittersweet end would be those shuakes, the good end would be the minakeshu where no one suffers and NO ONE DIES, and the truly fucked up one is where he embraces his antagonist role and becomes a menace to both Akira and Minato- so much that Minato suffers greatly in the end for making Akechi retainer, and Akechi suffers for crossing Minato greatly as well. 

Minato basically gave an unhinged person a huge deal of power. That has to come with some very dire consequences for him, given he’s a leader, and it’s his responsibility not to let his dick do the thinking.