#I totally did not make space for dialogue whoops

[sirazaroff]

I waaaant these kiddooooos to reuniiiiite

[phoenixcatch7]

Thinking about possible totk dlc again... Listen, we all know we want it XD.

Thing is, I've read the interviews, and I think Nintendo is right. There's just no more mechanics they can add to the game without completely breaking it. Totk is maxxed out on mechanics and options and playability. There really is nothing more they can add ability wise without bogging the whole thing down and causing a million problems, both for themselves and players.

But that's not all there is in a game, is there?

There's master mode, for one. Gold enemies are missing from totk entirely, never mind all the craziness of regenerating enemies, new mob camps just floating around, the gleeok they'd probably put on the great sky island. People loved master mode in botw, there's no reason not to at least drop that button back in.

But... People do have a few complaints. There's stuff they're missing, stuff that leaves loose ends, stuff that wasn't explained well enough. It all mostly boils down to one thing.

Story.

We could have an answer to where the divine beasts and all the sheikah tech went. We could find a giant scrapyard at the bottom of a new/old chasm because hyrule tossed everything in that could be pried up. There could be like five remaining active guardians, just so we can mess them up like we did in botw. There's voids where water is on the surface, there's plenty of space! It'd solve both the 'where tf did they go' and the 'man I wish we still had guardians' issue in one fell swoop.

We could get casual dialogue that all the divine beasts were driven out to sea and sunk! I don't know! Some sort of closure! We could talk about generational trauma responses! The instinctive fear of sheikah tech if there is one! Link is certainly canonically traumatised, did you see him with the first sky tower??

We could get wolfie back! Update his teleportation code so he can keep up with our stupid endeavours and not get caught in crossfire! Make him immune to zonai tech, idk.

We could get a resolution to kass and Penn! That whole storyline ended so sadly, and the lack of kass is straight up disturbing. We could rescue him from the depths where he fell in or smth idk!! Just because you're a bird does NOT mean you can fly a kilometer + straight up in pitch black through a narrow cylinder with lethally toxic sides. Now he's got enough material for life! (and probably trauma. The only food down there is stuff the yiga brought, which - well, it's not like they'd worry about thieves down there.

That stupid chef from lookout landing who ran off to the castle. That's TOTALLY a quest come on :(. Let him come home.

More lookout landing expansion, if you're desperate for stuff that isn't 90% dialogue! Please let me install bigger towers and a bathing area and more shops or SOMETHING. Little outlet stalls from every capital! Let me rebuild the first home in castle town! I! D! K!

More newspaper news! We could randomise it like the spider man ps4 news feed, that was hilarious. Absolute hogwash rumours and stupid feuds between neighbours and the results of pumpkin growing competitions! Mix it up, traysi had bonkers stuff, it was so good. What does life look like from inside the world?

Hylia gossip? We know she doesn't keep strictly to her 'find shrine rewards for increased gains, link' thing. Let her ask link for random stuff for 'power buffs' and give him, like, a random buff that lasts precisely 24 minutes.

Maybe even a 'now we opened the plateau again, people want to investigate' side plot. No one wanted to see :(. I didn't like that the only people up there were yiga :((. Send some new research team dude to wax lyrical and beg link for photos of different areas or symbols.

Gloom hands should be able to attack link in the depths. This would solve nothing and in fact make things much worse, but it happened to me twice and it was so much worse than on the surface lol.

Maybe some idiot managed to make it to a Sky island with balloons but now they can't get down, whoops lol. Some of them really aren't that high up and there's a lot of very determined people XD.

Someone's been captured by the yiga and link has to do a full infiltration and smuggle them the keys to their cell. Come on, the yiga base is underutilised!!

The gerudo stable was being shut down because of the sandstorm turning away travellers. After we solve that, maybe we could help reopen it? It made me so sad...

Link vs the flower lady. She wants a sample of every single flower in hyrule to get it all nice for her majesty! She remembers his crimes...

Link and the new sages could have a silly bonding quest each! Let him test his mettle against them in a spar! I don't know!

The ability to pet dogs and horses! An idle sitting animation that makes link sit down properly to enjoy the view!

Heck, a master cycle equivalent....

There's just a almost infinite amount of options available for real, actual content, it doesn't just have to be new mechanics and new dungeons. Yes, it gets the adrenaline going, but neither the fans nor Nintendo want nor need more of that.

We know the story is more lacking in botw/totk than previous zelda games, an understandable and acceptable sacrifice when you're working with such a huge and complex open world as this, but this is the perfect opportunity to fix that, Nintendo, don't you see? Give that incredibly elaborate coding a break and give the writers something else to chew on.

Tag what quest line or question you want answered in the comments or tags!

[whatevertheweather]

The Space in Between 3, 4, 11 and 12!

HARD HITTING QUESTIONS FOR MY FAVORITE FIC, bless you <3 (Also this has been sitting in my drafts for days, I’m sorry. Thank you, though. I am always happy to go off about this fic.)

3: What’s your favorite line of narration?

Yes that's fine this is fine I can totally pick a single line out of a 100k fic it's whatever. I reserve the right to be wrong about this (as in forgetting I actually favor something else), but off the top of my head I know I really loved the way the whole bathroom scene turned out in chapter 11. This doesn't hit quite the same without the context of the rest, but alas, the question is "line" not "chapter."

He’s hunched over his sprawled legs with his hands pressed to his chest like he can hold the cage of his ribs together, like he can keep it from collapsing, and his mouth is wide, and he can’t get a sound out because you can’t speak grief like this.

You know what, forget “line.” Here’s another.

And Simon had thought that maybe the universe might exhaust itself at some point, that maybe it would run out of demonstrations for the ways a heart can be broken, for every little angle the knife can slip in, but he was wrong.

(To anyone who hasn’t read it, I promise there actually is laughter too.)

4: What’s your favorite line of dialogue?

You've tricked me into rereading 100k. I'm just trying to skim for dialogue to jog my memory, and next thing I know I've reread half of four different chapters, and then whoops, there's three more, and what do I have to show for it? This is hard. Rude, in fact, to make me pick just one. I'm going to pluck this tiny exchange out of chapter 5 and call it good because I do like it, and most other dialogue is riddled with spoilers.

“Snow,” Baz interrupts, pulling his eyes from the mysterious point of interest to look at Simon. “We are in such a position that you might find it easier to just get up and kick me.”

Simon snorts. “I’m just trying to figure you out. It sounds like a bad day and all, but, I mean how could it be worse than — I don’t know, worse than the day your mum died?”

“I’m serious, do you need me to lie down?” Baz asks. “Are you worried your shoes won’t be able to do as much damage?”

There’s another exchange I would choose, but it’s towards the end of the last chapter, so it’s off limits for out-of-context posting <3

11: What do you like best about this fic?

I have big feelings for this fic. Longest thing I’ve ever written, most thoroughly I’ve ever fixated, most fun I’ve ever had writing. And I didn’t write it with the intent of posting it. I wrote it because I was obsessed with it, and I wrote everything that I wanted to. Was there a lot in there that technically isn’t necessary to tell the story? I suppose. But everything in there is something I wanted there.

Everything is a moment that came to me when I was pacing circles in my kitchen or walking the dog or failing at sleeping. Half of chapter 8 exists because I was listening to an instrumental playlist so lyrics wouldn’t distract me, and then Phantom of the Opera came on and I thought, God I want them to dance to this. I remember the exact curb I was stepping onto when I wrote “Braden—looking, as ever, like every white guy Simon has ever seen mixed up into one, with the personality of none—is baring unreasonably white teeth in what might be perceived as a smile by someone who’s only read about them” in my head. I remember the exact balance of excitement and discomfort I felt when I jotted down one of the opening paragraphs in chapter 11 and thought “Man that’s fucked up.”

And that was the fun! I wrote things I’d never written before! I wrote things that were outside of my comfort zone! I wrote topics I didn’t know I could! A lot of it came from wayward scenes I didn’t intend to include but wrote just because they were in my head, and then I did include them! They became important! Because I wanted them to be! Ah!

This fic is just full of good memories, and there’s an overwhelming, nostalgic yearning whenever I think about it, and I love it to bits.

12: What do you like least about this fic?

That it’s based off of two pieces of media that already exist, and I can’t adapt it into its own book that I can put on my bookshelf and stare at.

SO THERE. I hope this was the sort of rambling you were looking for <3

(Questions from this list.)

[kalu-luwa]

ever in your favor pt. 5

a.k.a a continuation of this series, inspiration from @tunabesimpin‘s hunger games event, in the style of a flashback (day 4 basically gives neph a hatchet and insomnia, nothing too major)

special mention goes to sasha (@simpingseafood’s oc)

i’m very sorry if i got their characters wrong or did them too dirty! please tell me so i can fix it ;;

also, please tell me if you don’t want to get tagged!

tw/cw: death (implied at the beginning), bullying, they basically take a bash at neph and everything about them, OOC for OCs and canon (sorry ;;), swearing, i’ll add more as i go along

can you tell i copied most of the reaping scene dialogue from the movie?

(under the cut for dash length)

They turned away in time to hurl whatever they had eaten prior. All of it, until they were coughing up blood and crying their eyes red. This was the third time now, and this one they couldn’t forget.

They didn’t mean to, they promised, repenting to someone who could never hear them.

-

"You've been what?" Semyon's voice thundered across the hall, spooking the everliving shit out of Neph.

"I've been selected as tribute," they replied, wringing their hands nervously. "I- I don't even know how."

The trip to the marketplace was certainly eventful. Larger crowds meant more difficulty in traversing the narrow streets, but also greater chances of being pickpocketed. Throw in total blindness, and you would have a recipe for disaster. The most unusual thing, however, was not the sudden increase in foot traffic, nor the lack of shopkeepers attending to their stalls, but the odd silence that hung in the aromatic air.

"...for the honour of representing District 4 in the annual Hunger Games," a woman spoke, her voice echoing out into the unmoving crowds. "Let us begin."

Murmurs and whispers filled the space between as the people wavered and worried. Mothers hoped their babies wouldn't be chosen, mouthing silent prayers to whatever god could hear them. Fathers held their children close, as if keeping them in their arms would deter the guards from taking them away. The little ones, who were too young and innocent, kept quiet, fisting their parent's clothes and hiding behind their legs. The older ones, stubborn and brash as they were, puffed out their chests, a display of foolish courage and bravado. The career tributes were braver still, whooping and whistling. There was no one better than them in that regard; they were the cream of the crop in all of District 4.

Yet the names she called out were not any of them.

"Our first tribute…" a pause. The crinkling of paper. The faint feedback of the microphone and speakers. "Nephtali Rivke."

A small uproar from the front, the career tributes braying viciously. "Them? The poor thing? They're representing District 4?"

"Blind as a bat, that one. You're making a big mistake!"

"One of us would be better. Look at them! So sickly and weak, they wouldn't last a day out there!"

"Such a shame, this year's Hunger Game won't be our victory if they're going."

Yet none of them volunteered to take their place. This was… odd. Shouldn't they be willing to volunteer? This was an honor for them, so why…?

The masses parted, cleft in two to let Nephtali walk up the stage. Their feet, however, refused to budge. Them? As tribute? They weren't even registered on the census, even if they were well-known in the community. The only way this would've happen is if someone had given their name to the Capitol representatives. It wasn't until a cold metal hand grabbed their arm, pulling them forward, did Nephtali move. The guards had no decorum, showing them clumsily next to the Capitol woman.

"A first for District 4, sending in one of their lower castes," a mocking lilt in her voice, all too happy to see them suffer, "It would add to the diversity. And they will be our first blind victor to ever win the Hunger Games… that is, if they last that long."

"Hah, as if," one of the career tributes snorted, "Nephtali will never make it to the Feast like that."

If Neph could step down from the stage and break that person's kneecaps, they would.

"Moving on," the woman turned away, fishing out another piece of paper, "Our next tribute is… Sasha German."

A few more rumbles from the assembly, but none of the career tributes made a sound. Was this person one of their own?

"Oh great, here comes one of the middle-class." Apparently not.

"How lovely!" The woman cheered, tone too saccharine to be considered joyful, "An older tribute! A beacon of hope for the rest of us past our prime."

There was a wave of laughter from the people, some of them exclaiming that this 'Sasha' was still in his early twenties. The man in question just laughed nervously, almost tripping on the second step.

"Here we are. Our tributes from District 4," the Capitol representative exclaimed, a hand on both of their shoulders. "Well, come on you two. Shake hands now."

It might’ve been from the shock, or the hunger pangs they've had since yesterday, but Neph wasn't all that fazed by being chosen as tribute. Idly, they studied their fellow tribute, feeling his rough hand in theirs.

Sasha, they mused, a wonderful name. Defender of mankind.

"Happy Hunger Games, and may the odds be ever in your favor."

-

"What the fuck, Nephtali?!"

"Semyon, I didn't know either! Don't blame it on me!!"

"Why didn't you tell me?!" The older one groaned, pacing the room frantically, "I would've volunteered!"

"And risk you losing your life? Are you insane?"

"And you aren't? Marnya and the others are after me, what are you going to tell them?"

"God, I don't know…" Neph whined, dropping their head onto the table. "I didn't expect a market trip to end up like this…"

"I was asleep, you should've woken me up," Semyon sat down in front of them, slender fingers running through their hair. "We could've gotten you out of this."

"How?" They tilted their head upwards, tears in their eyes, "We can't bribe them… even if we could, we don't have enough money."

"I could've volunteered in your place."

"That's the same thing as me going, Sem. Elias will cry if you leave."

Semyon sighed, pressing his forehead against Neph's. "I don't know what else you want me to say, sunshine."

"I'm scared, Sem. I don't want to die, not yet."

"Then don't," He concluded with an air of finality, holding them closer, "Don't die. Come back home to us. To me."

"How? I don't know how to."

"Don't rely on other people. They'll only disappoint you. You're not here to make friends. Vulnerability is a weakness, and no one will help you," his grip tightened on their hair, almost growling in their ear, "You're on your own there, Neph. Be careful."

"Aren't the others human too? What if- what if they wanted to help?"

"When it comes down to survival, mi ocelle, they will always prioritize themselves over you."

"But-"

"All is fair in love and war, Nephtali. This is a fight to the death, nothing is fair."

-

"Marnie, where is Nephi going?” Little Elias asked, swinging his legs idly as he sat on Nephtali’s lap. The youngest out of all their siblings, and the only other one who wanted to see them before they left.

“They’re…” Marnya stopped, stifling a sob. “They’re just going to do something important. They won’t be back for… well, they’ll be there for a long time, Eli.”

They always hated it when their sister cried.

“What’re you gonna do?” Elias’ attention turned to their eldest sibling. “Are you gonna bring something back?”

So innocent. They wished he would never lose that, or grow up the same way they did. “I’m gonna play a very dumb game, my heart. If I win, you can eat all the cookies you want, hm?”

He gasped, giggling lightly. “As many cookies as I want?”

“You can have them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner,” they smiled, patting his head softly, “You might even get sick of it.”

“No, never!” They all shared a laugh at this, the mood lightening for a brief moment. Elias snuggled further into their hug, humming contentedly. “Come home safe, please?”

“I will. I promise.”

-

“You’re not coming home, are you?” Marnya asked, leaning against her sibling one last time.

Nephtali grimaced, closing their eyes. This had to be a dream. It had to be. No one was this unlucky to be chosen, and then forced to lie to their youngest brother. “I don’t know.”

“Did Semyon talk to you earlier?”

“Yeah, he did. I asked him to take care of you guys while I was away.”

“He won’t be the same as you, y’know.” Marnya chuckled, a sad and pitiful sound. Their hands clasped together, tight and firm.

“It’s only temporary.”

“I don’t think you mean that.”

“I’ll try my best to come home to you all. Sem told me how.”

“He’s not the best person to take advice from.”

“Better than nothing.”

“What about that Sasha guy?”

“Middle-class, not a career tribute. He might actually have a better shot than me.”

“Nephtali,” she let go of their hand, cupping their face instead, “I don’t ever want to see him come back here.”

The fisher scrunched their face up, mouth set in a playful snarl. “Marnie, that’s so rude of you. He has a family of his own as well. Don’t they want their son and/or brother to come home too?”

“Can’t I be selfish for once?” She pinched their cheeks, stretching them like a stress ball. “Only one of you can come home, and I desperately hope it’s you.”

“I wish we could both go home.”

“I know, but this is real life. We can’t always get our way.”

A silence enveloped the two, stuck in their own world together. Just being together made Neph so extremely happy, relishing in this final moment with their younger sister. They didn’t know when this would happen next. It probably won’t even happen again.

“It’s time.” A guard walked into the room, nodding at Marnya and Neph.

“Please, can’t we have one more minute?” She asked, turning her focus to the intruder.

“I’m sorry, we have to follow protocol.” At least she was being nice about it, guards are usually… not the best of people.

Marnya sighed, getting onto her knees. “Alright, Neph. This is really it now.”

“Hm.”

“Come home to us, okay?”

“I’ll try.”

“We love you. So much.”

They smiled, hugging her one last time. “I love you all too. Wait for me, please.”

[blessednereid]

Love and Monopoly

 Love and Monopoly

Milton Greasley x Reader, 

Fandom: TVDU/Legacies 

Dialogue Prompts: “Try focusing more on your life and less on mine!” and "You make me feel like I'm not good enough."

Fun Take on Angsty Prompts

Warning: Cursing, Drinking, Kissing, Necking, Mentions of food, brief mentions of blood (bunny blood for vamps), Monopoly

A/N: Someone please open my messages and give me a crash course on how to write a makeout scene I can’t do it, OMFH ಥ‿ಥ

Word Count: 2760

You and Milton Greasley had been dating for 5 years. 

You met during your shared time together at Salvatore Boarding School. You were a witch who helped MG calm down whenever he went into a ripper mode. You had used spells to lower his bloodlust. You even made the bunny blood that the school had fed vampires taste as close to human blood as you could without triggering a negative response. 

 After you all graduated, The Super Squad all rented a house in Mystic Falls, and you were all roommates. The house had 5 bedrooms, one for you and MG, one for Lizzie, one for Josie, one for Hope, and one for Kaleb. However, since Josie and Hope began dating, they had moved into the tribrid's room, so now the empty space was more of a game room. There were board games and consoles in the closet, a pool table, and a regular round glass table surrounded by armchairs where you all could sit and play games. 

Tonight was your bi-weekly game night, and you all had decided to play monopoly. Though it was a unanimous decision, you knew it could take days to finish. You were all very competitive, and none of you would go down without a fight. This is why, to finish faster, you decided to have a team game of monopoly.

On the day of, everyone had started going shopping for the concessions for the event. Trays of assorted cookies, hors-doeuvres, sandwich platters, as well as multiple different fruit juices were bought and set on a foldable table in the game room. 

As you were setting and arranging everything on the table, your wonderful boyfriend came around to help you. 

"Don't worry, love, I got it," you chuckled. "I am much capable of setting a party table on my own."

"C'mon, you make me feel like I'm not good enough to do simple things, babe," he laughed with you, though his words triggered something in your brain.

"Oh yeah?" you quipped. "These are some pictures from the last time you set the table for dinner…"

In the photo, the table linen was frowned up, the forks were out of place, some placements didn't even have certain utensils. The plates were pushed to the center, chairs closer to the edge than the food was.

"Oh..." he giggled lifelessly.

"Now you see why you don't use super speed to set up something like that?"

"I mean, I don't think it's the super speed, darling. I was simply being blinded by your beauty that day."

 Your laugh thundered in the room. "Go away MG, I'm not letting you win today!"

"Aw dammit! Alright, love, I'll let you get back to your project," he stated before he walked out of the room.

--Meanwhile--

"Jo?"

"Yeah, Hope?"

The Saltzman twin had been brushing her hair in the mirror, getting ready for the game night later.

"You look gorgeous, so stop taking out every strand of your hair with this damn brush," Hope stated before yanking the brush out of the younger girls' hand. 

Josie embraced Hope in a warm hug. "Thanks, Hope."

~-~-~

"Alright, everyone. Welcome to 'The Super Squad Bi-Weekly Game Night.' I'm your host, Y/N L/N, and you're watching Disney Channel." All of the friends burst out laughing. "Tough crowd, I see I see. Well, let's move on with the game, shall we?"

"First up introducing, He's the founder, he's the mediator, He is… MILTON GREASLEY!!"

They all clapped and cheered for MG before you moved on.

"Next up, She's the brain, she's the brawn. She is the tribrid, and she's got it going on, Hope Mikaelson!!"

Whoops and cheers echoed throughout the room. 

You continued through all of your friends.

"The realistic, the cynic, the man with raps for days… Kaleb Hawkins!!"

"The sweet, the kind, but she can fuck up your mind, Josie Salvatore!!" 

"She's sarcastic, totally bombastic, Lizzie Saltzman everybody!!"

"And ME! Could you tell I was trying to sound like those game show hosts everybody? No? Well, I was. Anyways young ones-" You wore a giant grin to emphasize the corniness of what you were saying before continuing.

"Alright, I'm dropping the act. It's too hard, jeez!" They all laughed at your antics. "I hope you guys are laughing with me and not at me."

You explained the rules for the game of teams.

“Here’s the way it goes, each player has the same amount of money they would have in a regular game of monopoly. However, every team only has one token, teams must make agreements on all purchases, trades, and decisions. Teams must take turns rolling the dice, and one team member must always be present at the board.” 

“Alright.”

“Sounds easy”

“Let’s play!”

You stared at them dumbfounded. “I memorized and recited all that without stumbling on my words, and all I get is ‘sounds easy’?”

MG stood to comfort you. 

“It’s alright, love,” he said, rubbing your shoulders lightly before pulling away. You scoffed.

“Alright then, let’s play. In this hat, I have slips of paper with all of your names, but first, in this bucket are sticks with numbers that will determine the order of selection. Step forward.”

They all stepped forward and grasped the popsicle sticks prior to stepping away from the bucket. 

"Who has number 1?"

"Oh, I do!" Lizzie stepped forward and drew a slip of paper from the hat.

"Kaleb"

She and Kaleb sat back down at the table. 

"Number 2?" 

Hope stepped forward. 

"MG"

They also went to go sit down beside Lizzie and Kaleb.

"That leaves me and you, Jo," you stated happily. Jo and yourself had one of the best team duos. In school, you two would be partnered up for projects often. With that experience of communication, you were sure to win. 

You joined the rest of your friends at the table. Lizzie and Kaleb named their team, Team Siphon Vamp. Hope and MG had been Team 3 in 2, and you and Josie were the 'Twitches from two different misuses.' 

"Alright, before the token selection, I must announce the prize of the game.

"The winners of the game will receive a dish duty pass for the rest of the week." Cheers louder than before erupted in the room.

"Lettuce commence!" The silence in the room was lethally quiet, and you could quite literally hear crickets. "Get it? Because lettuce sounds like let us?"

"It's ok, babe, let's just play," MG said before pulling you down. You grumped before deciding with Josie on the Penguin. Hope and MG had picked the dog, and Lizzie and Kaleb had chosen the dinosaur. 

You, acting as the banker, dished out the money to all the players, and you commenced the game. 

Lizzie and Kaleb went first. Lizzie rolled the dice, rolled 7, and landed on a chance card, which told her to advance to the nearest railroad, and they bought it. Hope and MG went next.

MG rolled a 5 and landed directly on Team Siphon Vamp's freshly purchased railroad, M100 out of their pocket already.

"Ooooh… MG…. Honey, you're losing money faster than you did when that PS5 came out, babe."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever, ok! I'm still gonna kick your ass!"

You were taunting him. "You sure about that, love?"

"Yep!"

"You didn't even try to "kick my ass" last night, darling," you smirked.

Oohs erupted from your friends, and it was evident you knocked his ego down a peg.

At last, it was your team's turn. You and Josie each took one die in your hands and rolled it. You had landed a 6 and a 4, which landed you a visit to jail.

"Look who's losing now! You're literally in jail, babe," Hope teased Josie. 

"Oh, whatever. Focus more on your lives-"

"-And less on ours!" your duo quipped. 

Lizzie protested to this. "Hey hey hey!! That is my twin! Only I get to finish her sentences!"

You all laughed at this but continued your game.

Almost 15 rounds later, and everyone had a fair standing in the game. 

Team Siphon Vamp had had 2 monopolies, on the railroads and on the pink properties. 

Hope and MG had 3 already, the dark blue properties, the brown, and utilities. They also had 2 greens cards, the other being in the hands of you and Josie, as well as 1 red card that was being aimed for by you and Josie, who had the other 2 properties. 

You guys also had monopolies on the yellow and orange properties. If you got the red card of Kentucky Avenue, you would be unstoppable. 

 "Baby," you called out. 

"Yes, love?"

"I'll give you the other green for the red," you and Josie smiled.

"That's not fair babe, you'll own the corner," he protested.

"But the green is worth more. Please?" you pleaded, giving him puppy dog eyes.

Before he could utter another word, Josie spoke. 

"We'll give you M100, and your first landing on any one of our properties will be free of rent."

Hope spoke up. "Sounds good to me!"

"Hell no! You're gonna have to do something way better than that before you fool this genius."

You whined.

"Fine, I'll give you one of my signatures back walks," you leveraged, knowing full well he couldn't resist. "C'mon, baby, I know how much your back has been hurting."

He agreed reluctantly. "Fine, but it better be worth it!"

Team Twitches cheered. 

"Wait, what about us! We'll be demolished, you selfish weirdos." This was true. Lizzie and Kaleb were low on cash, they had rushed too fast to place houses, and now they were paying the price.

"Tough luck!" Hope and Josie chorused.

 Soon, it had been as you all thought.  Kaleb and Lizzie were in debt to Hope and MG. They had landed on Boardwalk Avenue, and it had 3 hotels on it, so they owed them M6000, M6000 they did not have.

Soon, they ended up relinquishing all their properties back to the bank for auction to pay off Hope and MG, gave them the rest of their money, and had to leave the game.

 With 2 full monopolies from Lizzie and Kaleb, along with the last green property they needed, they had successfully turned the game around. Now it was Josie and you who were losing. 

You all decided at this point to split the teams. Each team dividing both the cash and the monopolies equally, and two more pieces were added to the board, on the same spots as their former teammates, and you resumed.

Josie was soon knocked out due to MG within 5 rounds, and Hope was quick to crumble under your might, two turn-loops after that. They joined Lizzie and Kaleb at the pool table. They were now drinking beers since they no longer needed to be sober.

Soon it was just you and MG left in the game. 

MG leaned forward closer to you while you were deciding what to do with your turn.

"You know what you could do, darling?" He whispered provocatively in your ear. "Give in."

You pushed him away. You were not going to lose to MG and his self-righteous ego that night. 

"Shut up."

"Give in, baby. I know you want to."

"Shut up, Milton."

"Hey, Hey, Hey!" He yelled. "No need to get hostile!"

You decided you hadn't wanted to place any more houses, well, you couldn't at the moment. You rolled the dice but were in for a bitter-sweet realization.

You had been ready to pay an M100 luxury tax fee before you realized you landed on Boardwalk, one of the monopolies Hope had let MG keep in the split. MG had only since put 2 more hotels on it, and the price was now M10,000

"Fuck, Fuck, Fuck!"

Soon, your friends rushed over to where you two sat and began cackling, all except Josie, who was still hoping her former teammate would avenge her.

"Babe.."

You began selling your hotels and houses back to the bank, but it still wasn't enough. You sold your properties and gave the rest of your money to MG, but you still owed a few hundred Monopoly dollars. 

"Fuck!"

 He kissed your cheek, much to your dismay, and happily accepted his victory. 

~-~-~

It had been almost 2 weeks, and you were still giving MG the silent treatment. He had been gloating about his win for the entire night, and you were livid.

You knew he didn't deserve it, but you didn't think you deserved to lose either. 

You were staring at the ceiling. You had just woken up, and MG wasn't beside you. 

You had hated those moments. No matter how mad you were at MG,  you hated when you woke up, and he wasn't beside you. 

After all, you guys had been through so much, and you were always worried that he would die abruptly and leave you. Even after the threat was over, you still felt this way.

After a few minutes, MG had come into the room, Kaleb at his side. Kaleb looked bored, and his face said all you needed to know... he didn't want to be there. 

He was carrying a pot of pink hydrangeas in one hand and a pot of coffee in the other. He placed both on the nightstand beside you, disappearing for a short while, before coming back with a giant fruit bouquet in his hands. He set it on the nightstand as well before exiting the room and closing the door.

MG had carried a platter of all your favorite foods. Eggs, just the way you liked them, pancakes, hash browns, and your favorite flavor of yogurt. He had also gone ahead and made a smoothie bowl with your favorite fruits. Berries and banana chips littered the surface of it. 

He placed the platter on the portable desk you had in your room for breakfast and bed and set it down, just above your lap. He then went to the mini-fridge in your room and got all the ingredients he needed to make your coffee just the way you liked it as well as a glass to pour it in.

"I'm sorry for bragging," he apologized. "I know how much you like to win, and it was very insensitive of me." He looked like he wanted to laugh at how ridiculous the reason he was apologizing for was. You turned your eyes away from him and the delicious breakfast he made.

"But baby, I miss you."

He walked over to you. "Please talk to me!"

He started trailing kisses on your forehead, down to your neck, resisting the urge to sink his teeth inside, something you had taught him. He knew exactly how to make you forgive him, and he was using every technique he had learned over the years.

"Please?" He whined, and you could see his pouty eyes without looking. 

He sucked on your collarbone for a while and left a dark mark. Then he moved to the sensitive spot under your ear. 

You moaned slightly, but he could hear it, even without his vampire hearing. 

He pulled away, causing you to frown and whine. 

"MG…" you complained. "That's not fair."

"So you're talking to me now?"

You looked away, you had slipped up, but you told yourself that would be the last time.

You simply ignored him and started to eat your breakfast.

He walked back towards you and began nibbling on your ear.  You threw your head back in pleasure. 

"Look at me, darling." 

He reached his nimble fingers out to your face and trapped your chin between his thumb and forefinger.

"I said I'm sorry, and I really, really miss my girlfriend. I made you a nice breakfast, and I've let you pick the movie every night since monopoly. What more do you want?"

You moved the tray of food to the side of you and stared at him indignantly. 

"I wanted my boyfriend to not be an egotistical asshole. I thought I was dating MG the vampire, not Jed the werewolf."

"I'm sorry... What can I do to make it up to you, love?"

"Let me out of that back walk favor?"

He scrunched up his face in horror. "That was part of our deal."

"Technically, you're not even supposed to be able to make outside game deals in monopoly, so you could let me out if you wanted to."

"Fine." 

"Yay! Those hurt. They're so energy draining."

"Can I kiss you?"

"Yes, you can," you smiled.

[twilightofthe]

Chapter Twelve liveblog of The Mandalorian Season 2!  Let’s go!!!

Ok so I already see Greef on the thumbnail for this and the summary mentions old allies, guess we’re meeting back up with Greef and Cara

Once more Din’s Space Honda is a wreck

You better not be asking the baby for ship advice dude

ALSKDJFLJSKDK YOU ACTUALLY ARE

DIN THAT IS A CHILD

EARLY FATHER/SON BONDING????

DIN NOOOOOOO XD XD XD XD

HE’S GONNA SHOCK HIMSELF

HE FUCKING SHOCKED HIMSELF DIN NO YOU BITCH

Ok good he got a reward for his troubles

Aw poor single dad

Whoooop someone’s remodeled the Mando covert

Hey space squirrel!

Oop dead space squirrel

Lol these dudes are dead 

Oh Cara, was expecting Din, but my opinion stands

Ok she’s still a human wrecking ball

Aaaaand now she’s got an animal sidekick xD

The Siege?  That don’t sound good at all lol.  

Oooof I swear this ship wasn’t as junky when we first saw it

SAME GREEF THE CHILD IS EVERYTHING

LISTEN TO HIS BABY TALK

Awwww there’s a school!!

Din c’mon it’s not like you haven’t left the kid with total strangers like five times already

Awwwww Yodito’s making FRIENDS

Lol wait is that kid eating macarons?

LAKSDFLKDSKLJK BABY FUCKING STOLE THE MACARONS THAT’S IMPROPER FORCE USAGE XD

Heyyyy it’s Mythrol!!  Lol and he basically pissed himself

Hah this is why you don’t come back to visit family Din, they always have favors for you 

Lol I kinda love these dicks bullying Mythrol for absolutely no reason

Ok if y’all are tryna scare Mythrol into coming w/ y’all cuz lava tide, why aren’t you at all concerned with your only ride out getting fried by it?

Aw I hope Mythrol doesn’t die from all of this he doesn’t deserve thiiiiis xD

There’s no guard rail on this WELCOME TO STAR WARS MYTHROL

Wtf are in those tanks

LAKSDJFLKSK ARE THOSE DEADASS SNOKE CLONES??!?!?!??!?!

HOLY SHIT THEY’RE ACTUALLY GETTING INTO THE PALPATINE CLONING CLUSTERFUCK

“Pardon me” hah I love Mythrol

M COUNT?

MIDICHLORIAN COUNT?!?!?!

HOLY SHIT THAT’S HOW THEY’RE TYING THIS INTO THE SEQUELS

THEY WANTED BABY YODA BECAUSE HE’S GOT HIGH MIDICHLORIANS SO THEY CAN TRANSFER THEM TO THE PALPACLONE SINCE REY’S DAD WAS BORN WITH NO FORCE JUICE

Baby Yoda is deadass a donor baby they created

Wait a sec but since when can you transfer midichlorians between subjects?

Or maybe you can’t and that’s what Pershing and the likes are experimenting with rn

OOP OH NO YEP YOU BETTER GET YOUR SON MANDO

“There they are!  Blast ‘em!” is like legit 80% of the dialogue in all of STar Wars

Oh damn so that’s how Cara drives

And awww Mythrol’s speeder!!!!

Oh whoop that’s a bomb that other trooper has

And Greef has em

Oop TIES

Aaaand now they don’t have a gun

Wait “almost there” so those TIEs are just gonna what, stop at some imaginary land boundary?

Oh hey it’s Din!  And his ship’s fixed

And Baby Yoda I would Die For You but that’s nothing new

LAKDSJFLKSDJKFSLK HE STILL HAS HIS LIL BLUE MACAROOOOOOONS!!!!!

HE LOOKS SO HAPPY WATCHING HIS FATHER DOING VIOLENCE

Uhhhh Din ur ship’s kinda trash idk if it’s built for ur fancy kind of stunt flying......

Eh if it works it works

Din craves validation from his-- EW VOMIT

Aaaaand Din has Dad Duty and can’t go for drinks xD

Noooo Greef mention the Palpaclones!!!!!

a “’gram?” what’s that?  Space telegrams now???

Cara’s squirrel friend again!!!

Listen to the officer Cara u gotta let them know before Palps can come back

Aw shit right she’s from Alderaan jeez that has to suck

Ooooop that’s a Star Destroyer

Oh I feel like I’ve seen this actress

OOOP THAT MECHANIC WAS A SPYYYYYY OH NOOOOOOOO NOW THEY’RE TRACKING DIN’S SHIP AAAAAAAAAAA

Ok I love Gideon’s musical theme

Wait what are those things are those the sith troopers???

Hey and Carl Weathers did this one!!!  Good on him acting AND directing it

Ok this is gonna be very interesting, it seems like The Mando Show is actually gonna try and attempt to patch up some of the holes in the sequel trilogy like how the First Order was able to form AND how Sidious was able to return if I’m right and Baby Yoda is one of the cogs in the cloning project

Next episode’s probs gonna be the Ahsoka episode but gah I’m still really hmmmm about her showing up, but eh don’t mind me

[queendollophead-ao3]

Fic questions

Tagged by @khashanakalashtar (thanks!)

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

20! Since the Bingo fics are being revealed soon 👀✨

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

Uhhhhh 134,633 let’s pretend that math adds up the way it should shhh don’t look into it

3. How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Only 3 published, Avatar, Merlin, and Law & Order SVU

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

The Dating Game (ATLA; 476)

Self-Taught (ATLA; 387)

Word of Mouth (Merlin; 369)

Lights, Camera, Friction (ATLA; 340)

FOH/BOH (ATLA; 275)

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

I try to because they bring me much joy but sometimes I get buried in reality and end up taking a while to reply… whoops

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

Uhhhh the “angst” ending option for “Please Fall” haha

7. Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the wildest one you’ve written?

I do not

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

I think I got one or two negative comments on a Merlin fic that is now ✨anonymous✨ but no biggie

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

I do write M/M smut and am capable of writing M/F but just… don’t. I read a lot more than I produce; can’t really write KINKY stuff with much esteem but boy is it fun to consume

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Gosh I hope not

11. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope

12. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

-stares in ‘trying to but we’ve been busy as fuck lately’-

13. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

Oh man I’ve been Rob/Rae shipper since I was like 7 years old (TT Animated, early 2000s show) but Zukka just consumes my whole life lately.

14. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

I have a fic dedicated to struggle with keeping my apartment and asking for help but each time I go back to it it’s just too real. Some of the things I threw in there just for funsies at the time now read as like ‘oh shit how did I not see my own cries for help?’

I started it back in March for Zukka week as the free space option, and then replaced it when it was clear I couldn’t rush something so personal

15. What are your writing strengths?

I think I’m pretty good with dialogue and am getting better at the like, introspective feelings stuff. I also know that I’m pretty fucking creative and have good ideas that just need to be executed.

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

@sintheeuhxo is teaching me how to be better at ‘in between dialogue’ writing, and in general I know I can be pretty repetitive with my own phrases. Lately I worry that becoming more wordy also makes my stuff harder to read

17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I am not capable of this and don’t think I should try since I only speak English

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Law & Order SVU 😅 you’ll never find it because it’s buried in FF.net under a different name

19. What’s your favorite fic you’ve ever written?

Honestly such a rude question because I have very many but I guess I’d have to say ‘Rain Check’ because it was so much fun spinning one of my favorite shows into a fic about my boys 💕.

Honorable mention to Self-Taught for being created out of absolutely nowhere in like 24 hours and bc ‘crack taken seriously’ is a blast.

Tagging: @foyal @sword-and-stars @turtleduckzukka

[rivalsforlife]

"Eventually Miles said, “Do you want to know when it happened, when I realized it, or when I came to terms with it?” / “You have three answers?” / “Technically four. Don’t be a hypocrite, you rejected me even though you were in love with me —”" and the rest of the scene if you want to haha, not a lot fits in the ask box :P

Alright!! I’ll do... most of the scene haha, there is one part of the scene I really want to point out, so I’ll once again put this under a keep reading so I don’t take up all this space on people’s dashboards...

Okay!

So basically this part of the scene existed because... I kind of wanted to touch on Miles’ perspective throughout this entire fic as well as a handful of headcanons for Miles and also so that I could fit in a bunch of narumitsu fluff in there somewhere, since my notes for this chapter were pretty much to just shove as much fluff as possible to make up for the rest of it. 

In some ways I’m kind of regretting talking about Miles’ perspective because that reduces some of my flexibility for possibly rewriting this fic entirely from Miles’ perspective OR the handful of jumbled scenes that could potentially form a sequel someday... but honestly writing has been like pulling teeth lately so who knows if that will happen at all. Either way I’m sure I’ll be able to get it to work somehow. (Also kind of... directly pointing out what Miles was feeling when it probably would’ve been a better decision to leave it implicit but WHATEVER TOO LATE NOW --)

“When did you fall in love with me?”

Miles didn’t say anything, and Phoenix might have thought he fell asleep again if it weren’t for his breathing. It didn’t line up with what Phoenix had learned from experience, when Miles fell asleep.

Eventually Miles said, “Do you want to know when it happened, when I realized it, or when I came to terms with it?”

“You have three answers?”

when you’re Miles Edgeworth emotions are waaaaay more complicated than they need to be huh. Since this scene was just Dumping Ground For My Headcanons they for the most part tend to line up with what I think most of the time, buuut I might go into more detail a little later.

“Technically four. Don’t be a hypocrite, you rejected me even though you were in love with me —”

Phoenix shushed him by clapping a hand over his mouth, except he missed in the dark and slapped Miles’ nose instead. “Whoops! Sorry. Okay. Give me all four.”

aww see they can laugh about it now like Miles didn’t cry for several hours after the rejection :’) 

“I should have guessed,” Miles sighed. He used the hand not currently squished against his side by Phoenix’s entire body to hold Phoenix’s hand, guiding it down from his face and holding it against his chest.

This is me trying to find a way to write affection in a way that isn’t totally awkward... uh so basicallyyyy I am not a very affectionate person and I don’t think Miles is particularly big on physical affection most of the time, so when I write him trying to express affection I typically go for subtler things... like hand-holding and such, because I think even that much would be a pretty big deal for him when it wouldn’t be for some other people.

Pretty much every time in this fic he initiates any form of physical touch (which is pretty often because he is attempting to Court Phoenix (ba dum tshhh)) it’s something that he’s deliberately thought through and deliberately initiated, as opposed to like... Phoenix who does it more unconsciously. (And of course not all of Miles’ initiation of physical affection is strictly romantic, I like to headcanon him making an effort towards platonic physical affection as well towards his friends + found family members... just putting this here to cover my bases so no one thinks every time Miles puts his hand on someone’s shoulder he’s flirting with them haha that’s NOT what I was going for, more that he’s aware that lots of people enjoy physical contact and see that as a way of expressing affection, and he’s trying to get better at expressing affection, and Phoenix happens to be one of those people he is expressing affection to, in both the platonic and romantic sense.)

(That was a very long paragraph for literally one sentence about affection hahahaha...)

“Well, I am fairly sure I had a crush on you in fourth grade.”

“No, you didn’t. I had a crush on you in fourth grade, I changed my whole career for you because of it. You were in love with your law books.”

“I told you I ‘liked’ you and you started talking about girls.”

“O-Okay, sorry I didn’t know about bisexuality when I was nine, give me a break here.”

I waver back and forth on whether Miles had a little baby crush on Phoenix in fourth grade or not, I guess when I wrote this I was feeling that way! Anyways this line is referencing the flashback part of chapter 3:

“Do you like anyone, Miles?”

Miles blinked. “I like you.”

Phoenix’s face reddened. “N-No, I meant like-like. You know, like a girl.”

Miles looked at the ground, and his face was red as well.

this fic would have been over with SO MUCH FASTER if Phoenix actually knew what he meant there -- 

My interpretation is pretty much always that Phoenix had a little baby crush on Miles in fourth grade, but it wasn’t until he got older that he realized that it was a crush and not just pure idolization -- which was definitely part of it too, and I could probably write thousands of words on how baby Phoenix’s idolization crush on Miles when he was younger shaped some of their interactions throughout the trilogy but I’m not going to get into that now. I thiiink I said in this fic somewhere that Phoenix didn’t realize he was bi until he was in his teens, so baby Phoenix just thought that Miles was His Best Friend Who He Wants To Hang Out With All The Time And Hold Hands With And If Miles Were A Girl Phoenix Would Want To Kiss Him, and at some point adult Phoenix remembers this train of thought and goes “... wait.”

As for Miles, in the universe of this fic he figures out that he’s gay pretty young, probably largely influenced by Larry talking constantly about girls while Miles complains to his father “I don’t know why Larry’s talking about how pretty [girl of the day] is, I think Phoenix has a nicer smile” while Gregory tries to pretend his laughter is him choking on his dinner. And I think Gregory was an excellent father who loved and supported his son, and probably talked about it a bit with him and made sure Miles knew he was always loved and supported no matter what and --

Anyways, there’s that.

The next paragraphs are mostly them talking about the situations where Miles did fall in love with Phoenix (Turnabout Goodbyes) and then realized it (after Farewell, My Turnabout/ when Phoenix fell off the bridge) then kind of... repressed it until post-canon because he didn’t think he was ready yet and they weren’t really in the right place. I don’t have much to say about it because it’s all pretty straightforward stuff...

Then Phoenix deflects Miles asking about when he fell in love, because Phoenix is still struggling a bit with expressing his emotions this way haha. Also because he was in denial for a really long time so he can’t quite pinpoint exact moments aside from “the moment Miles stood up for him during the class trial”, but much like Miles he’s probably had multiple realizations of love throughout his life.

My personal headcanons though is that Phoenix genuinely thought he was just helping out a friend throughout the trilogy... and then sometime during disbarment, possibly during one of those Europe trips, he realizes “oh crap I loved him the whole time”. Obviously in this fic Phoenix doesn’t realize he’s in love with Miles until the cherry blossom petals scene at the end of chapter 4 and then can’t quite articulate that feeling as love rather than more general attraction until the end of chapter 8 after reading Trucy’s note. (Where the last psyche-lock breaks!)

What I DO want to talk about though is this line at the end of the scene:

“It doesn’t matter when I realized it,” Phoenix whispered. “What matters most is that we’re here, together, now.”

No one’s pointed it out so idk if it was too subtle or too obvious that it didn’t need pointing out, but it’s a callback to this line in chapter 4:

Edgeworth stared at him with an unreadable expression, almost curious. “Well, you don’t have to say anything,” he said. “What matters most is that I can be here with you now.”

It’s a very slight difference in the last part of the dialogue, but an important one!! 

I had an interesting conversation with my best friend a while ago... long story short her brother was in a relationship for a long time with this one woman then they broke up and now he’s engaged to a different woman, and they dated for a shorter time than the first. And my friend says that she and her family knew that this was a different relationship and that she was “the one” because the way they talked about doing things was different -- more of a “we’re going to do [x]” rather than “she and I are going to do [x]”. This probably isn’t really a real thing so like... don’t use it to judge relationships around you... but I thought it was pretty neat.

So in the conversation in chapter 4, Miles says “What matters most is that I can be here with you now”, which is still like exceptionally romantic, but it still sees the two of them as separate entities -- whereas Phoenix in chapter 9 saying “What matters most is that we’re here, together, now” sort of phrases the two of them as more of a unit. ... not that they’re not still separate entities with their own lives outside of just each other of course but you know. you know. just having some fun with sentences!

Anyways that’s what I really wanted to talk about... I hope you enjoyed!!

[aqvarius]

I hope the rmd mc for kasumi is a bit different cuz she rly be hittin on my last nerve and I don’t think she would rly v✨i✨b✨e with kasumi in her current given state

i’ve decided i need to play matsunaga and cc before getting a better sense of the eicu guys but honestly some of these recent asks feel like my own brain jumped out of my head and started sending me anon asks lmao bc i totally agree. anyway i know it’s a controversial opinion to not like the rmd mc and i’m TRYING to be fair and put aside my bias against her and try to analyse what exactly it is that i don’t like, but yeah i just don’t really find that she has romantic chemistry with the characters (that i’ve read, i.e. takado and hosho). not that anyone ever asked for this, buuuuuut this ask has basically triggered yet another mc rant so stop reading here or get ready and settle down with some popcorn lmao.

DISCLAIMER: this is all just my personal opinion! and i’m sure many of you will disagree with me. please place a “i think/believe/feel” before every claim i make as everything i say here is just my own feeling towards her. i also need to disclaim that i have only properly read takado and hosho’s routes (bc i’m still...mad at sen’s route, and i’ve only made it through one chapter of matsunaga so far) and i understand (and fully subscribe to) the idea that mcs read differently depending on the route as well. and as always, please don’t let my opinions affect your own enjoyment of any characters or titles that you love!

ALSO as i was writing this, i went back and read my previous rant about her and i realised that i’m more or less reiterating the same points i made there but in a (hopefully) more structured and slightly more developed manner whoops. 

so here’s almost 3000 words and a whole bunch of screenshots under the cut because i don’t want to spam everyone’s dashboards with my unprompted Opinions(tm).

so anyway i’ve been thinking it’s a translation/tone thing. when i have the time/energy, i might sit down and really try to analyse the actual language, but just going off my intuition, i think maybe it’s because:

1. sometimes they choose to express something idiomatically and so that tone doesn’t come across as sincere. this isn’t a real example, but let’s think about the difference in tone between “oh no!” and “yikes”. because of modern day vernacular, we kind of associate “yikes” with a sarcastic and judgmental tone, whereas “oh no!” might connote a more genuinely concerned reaction. so sometimes i think that the use of very contemporary vernacular (which, lbr, trends towards a more sarcastic tone in general bc us gen z kids are mean) results in a lack of sincerity which makes the mc come across as a little more callous and less... actually kind and nice? i did get the feeling that hlitf mc has recently swayed towards this sort of tone as well and suspected that they had the same translator (which was confirmed later in a voltage Q&A). i’m definitely #biased but i can forgive this more because we had a good amount of content with her being adorable before the tone switch so i have a pre-established impression of her in my mind. 

by the way, i just want to say that while i do have this critique, i do really admire and respect the voltage translation and localisation team (and am... super indebted to them) and i do think they do fantastic translations generally. 

anyway, i believe this linguistic issue is at least partially responsible for my personal perception of the rmd mc’s personality that i expand on in the succeeding points, but my next point has more to do with the writing and characterisation of the most recent wave of mcs.

2. rmd mc has very few visible vulnerabilities. i think this is one of my biggest qualms with the new title mcs like rmd, destind and mk but i think stories are at their best when you get to see the mc fail and be vulnerable and wallow. the reason why i love certain mcs - particularly the ones whose titles and storylines centre around their careers (hlitf, irresistible mistakes, my last first kiss, scandal, celebrity darling, kiss of revenge, sleepless, otbs, arguably msb, etc.) - is because we get to see them fail and then grow. not only that, but you often get to see the relationship between the mc and the love interest deepen in these moments. but if you have a ‘perfect’ mc, then there’s no room for growth, so plotlines are forced to fall back on drama and trauma on the love interest’s side which... is exactly what rmd and mk do. 

this is not to say that rmd mc doesn’t make mistakes, because she certainly does, but i don’t find that they’re ever genuinely serious mistakes. for example, think about hlitf mc’s repeated mistake in season 1 of going after small crimes without seeing the bigger picture and thus potentially messing up an entire investigation. they allow her that space to mess up and be completely wrong for public safety. then they give her the time to be self-reflective and run away back to nagano really think about what her mistakes are, and where to go from there. she is confronted with humbling failure, and is forced to address issues about her own pride/ego, and matures into someone who has a more nuanced idea about justice. on the other hand, rmd mc never has to (consistently, afaik) go through a genuinely humbling experience, so she her pride/ego/arrogance never gets seriously called into question. maybe this is because the premise of rmd has to do with life and death and they don’t want to make it seem like she’s directly responsible for someone’s death, but hlitf also deals with life and death issues and the mc learns that if she messes up to save one civilian, she may actually be jeopardising the lives of tens or hundreds or more. 

anyway, taking takado’s route as an example, because this was our exposure to her as a character, the most frustrating thing is the way that she tries to lecture takado that he’s wrong about his attitude towards amputations, and never actually has to personally experience the potentially disastrous consequence of putting her ideology into practice. i think i would have enjoyed the route a lot more if she had gone over his head and naively made the decision not to do an amputation and then the person ended up dying or having to have a larger section amputated all because she was like uwu we can’t just cut off people’s limbs without waiting. i think if that situation had happened, we could have seen her actually have to confront her own naiveté and realise that she’s a noob and too idealistic and that reading a lot of medical journals does not translate to having actual field experience and intuition and who is she to question him like that when she knows nothing. she only realises that omg... we may have to consider some things with something called nuance... basically when more of takado’s backstory is revealed.  

(maybe this is because i work in academia so it extra-frustrates me, but omg if i had to one-on-one mentor a student like her, i would genuinely go nuts. she reminds me of some students that some colleagues and i have had where they  “well, actually” at everything you say bc they read some stuff on reddit or twitter that has absolutely not been proven through practical application of, or research conducted through the lens of, their theory. like imagine i told my advisors “despite being experts in [their respective fields] and having written numerous very important books, you’re wrong because i don’t agree but i have never myself conducted proper research to counter that!!”)

basically i wish they treated takado’s route like kaga’s routes (bc lbr takado and kaga are maybe... the same person?). look at the self-reflection here:

and here:

she does get down on herself at times, but look at the way that she humbly accepts her mistakes. sometimes she wallows on her mistakes, as anyone would, but look at the way she examines her failures and turns that feeling of inadequacy into motivation to work harder and smarter. 

by the way, these screenshots are from his ms1 and ms2 - so pretty early on - and we get to see her learn from these mistakes because she’s allowed to make them. we also get to learn more about kaga’s strictness and his kindness because of these mistakes.

i don’t know if the whole refusal to allow rmd mc to make significant errors is a response to readers who are like “omg.... why are voltage mcs so weak, why can’t they be perfect women who never get anything wrong” but ANYWAY i just feel like they never confront or address her hubris properly. 

3. following on from point 2, i find her one-dimensional. i’ve mentioned this before in a rant, but i don’t find her to be a very deep character bc to me, she reads as mostly surface level sass. i said: “her dialogue with them often reads as like they put 100 points in “snark” and 0 points in any other personality trait” lmao. so she’s great in one-off screenshots where you can see her bite back with a very screenshottable one-liner, but i find it tiring to have 30 chapters of her just literally running her mouth. because of this constant tone that they keep giving her, i find it really difficult to see any emotional depth in her character. because she’s the perspective character, her internal dialogue is just as, if not more, important as the love interest’s external dialogue in terms of carrying the emotional weight of falling in love, and i just don’t understand how there’s any sense of two people falling in love and getting to know each other when every sentence out of her mouth is just sass. can you imagine you meet someone and you get to know them but never have any genuine conversations bc every line out of your mouth is sarcastic? like your date is opening up and telling you about some difficulties he’s going through (which i’m sure you all know is a very vulnerable and scary thing to do) and instead of being empathetic and kind and understanding, you’re just like “sucks to be you dude”. and instead of saying “you don’t need to carry everything on your shoulders”, you say “you’re STUBBORN and i’m RIGHT”. OF COURSE i’m being kind of hyperbolic here (not even that much tho, see screenshots below) but that’s basically the tone she constantly takes. 

so when takado opens up about the rina thing, instead of being like “oh shit i’ve been judging him all this time and i’m genuinely sorry because i didn’t know a thing about you and yet i’ve been running my mouth”, she says “your head is as hard as a rock ya know?” and then KEEPS GOING. 

where’s the empathy sis? where is it? i’m looking but i can’t find it.

EVEN TAKADO WAS LIKE “I WAS TRYING TO TALK SERIOUSLY ABOUT IT”

and then the writers just push off her rudeness as like “it’s okay it’s chill!! takado laughed about it afterwards and it made the issue sound insignificant!!” even tho it’s obviously an extremely traumatic thing? WHY does he even fall in love with her??? i don’t UNDERSTAND alsdkfjs she has NO FEELINGS!! i just want genuinely romantic moments... is that too much to ask... it’s called romance md...

once again, let’s compare that to hlitf mc, when she finds out about kaga’s trauma. literally the FIRST reaction she has is to consider his feelings.

without even hearing his side of the story, she defends him because she trusts him and immediately empathises with him and the first thing she does is try to understand him and where he’s coming from. 

later on, when she hears him just dismissing things and playing callous, she actually cries on his behalf, which shocks him because he’s not used to people caring about him:

isn’t that a MASSIVE difference in reaction to essentially the same character opening up about their trauma? which do you find more conducive to developing emotional intimacy? in my opinion, it’s so much easier to fall in love with someone who supports you and has your back and trusts and believes in you and tries to understand you and can have a genuinely caring conversation with you when you need it. by the way, it’s not like kaga’s mc doesn’t sass him either! they have great bantery chemistry and she shit-talks him ALL THE TIME (a lot of the time under her breath and he’s like HUH? it’s great). 

and yet... we still actively see her caring about him... instead of being like WHOOPS my tongue slipped, i can’t help that i’m naturally insubordinate ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

by the way, i’m not trying to put the onus on female characters/heroines to be caring/empathetic/kind/loving. i’m putting the onus on ALL characters to be caring/empathetic/kind/loving in their own ways if we’re supposed to be convinced that they’re falling in romantic love. sure, kaga’s mc is exceptionally loving but kaga returns that love with his own ALL the time ;~~; anyway i’m gonna stop talking about them for now bc otherwise i would just completely derail and keep going on and on about them. 

anyway, back to takado, i actually find him to be more caring and loving than his mc? i actually genuinely like takado as a character and i think that real life me and him would be great together so i’m like extra offended that he’s with her rather than ME??? i would treat him so much better. 

i consider this lack of emotional depth to actually be a bigger hindrance on my enjoyment of the game than the lack of flaws thing. voltage’s recent wave of mcs with the love choice titles have been trending towards the ‘perfect woman’ type of mc, but while i have some Thoughts(tm) here and there about the other protagonists, none of them strike me as being as hard to get along with as rmd’s mc. so i’ve mentioned my issue with the masukisu mc’s weird moral boundaries (more an overall voltage issue that manifests the most strongly in her character), but i also do find that they don’t let her make big mistakes and they present her as this perfect superwoman figure with no weaknesses which like... unrelatable. but at least her banter is flirty banter and there’s a lot of chemistry there (even if it’s sometimes lacking emotional depth, as in some of kazuomi’s scenes - and that’s not her fault, that’s 100% on kazuomi lol). you can definitely understand why they’re attracted to each other at least, and you can definitely see real, deep love form between her and yuzuru the most. even though the masukisu mc is a ‘perfect woman’, the premise is designed to spark relationship conflict and the writing really helps us understand the emotional turmoil of falling in love with a target because of how much it lets the mc dwell on it. destind too basically has a perfect mc in terms of work/career, but they let her have her very glaring weaknesses and, once again, the premise forces her to address her shortcomings with regards to her idealistic view on soulmates/destiny and explores the head vs heart thing where she has to really examine her emotions and how they potentially come into conflict with her preconceptions of and preoccupation with numerical compatibility. 

thinking about it objectively, i feel like takado’s mc and mlfk ayato’s mc have a couple of similarities in the way that they don’t realise they’re in love for the longest time (although obviously childhood friends to lovers provides a better context for not realising that love - same with my boi natsume), but there’s just something lovable about mlfk’s mc that i don’t see in rmd. without going too deeply into it bc (1) i’m tired and (2) i’ve been going on about this for WAY too long now, i think that comes back to tone or writing (and possibly translation) style. i think at some point, i might actually go and compare the language in the “omg am i in love...?” scenes between takado’s mc, ayato’s mc and natsume’s mc but uh... not tonight haha. 

actually, at some point, i genuinely wondered if rmd mc was aromantic. i really just thought she did not experience romantic attraction because i literally got no sense of it through her internal monologue bc they kept pushing the whole like “i only relate to people’s ~aesthetics~” thing. and then i wondered how they were going to make an aromantic mc fall in romantic love...? because... it’s an otome game? (btw i’m not saying that aro people can’t enjoy otoge, i definitely know people who do! but there’s a big diff between someone playing an otoge vs someone being a character falling in romantic love in an otoge. but please call me out if i’m misunderstanding aromanticism!). anyway, long story short, rmd mc (takado’s especially) falling in love is absolutely unconvincing to me because i find her dialogue - both internal and external - rather unfeeling. 

these three points (1. translation that favours colloquialism over communicating emotional tone; 2. characterisation of a hubristic mc who doesn’t need to overcome significant challenges; 3. lack of emotional depth and empathy/understanding) are basically why i don’t think that she has good romantic chemistry with the love interests in romance md that i’ve read so far. i also have some very petty personal gripes (sekai...........) but they’re not relevant to this particular topic and frankly just... really petty so i don’t want to get into them here.

so anyway, long story short: i agree that i don’t think she would really vibe with kasumi in her current given state. like, they could be friends, maybe.

[captain-s-rogers]

It’s time for a challenge ladies and gents!

I absolutely love the TV show Psych! It’s one of my all time favorite shows and the dialogue in it is downright hilarious! Because of this I thought why not do a challenge using the dialogue from the show as prompts! That being said, I have selected 50 quotes from the show for the prompts! 

ON TO THE RULES, REGULATIONS AND PROMPTS!

Rules

No need to be following me, but it would be nice, this is open to everyone.

Send me an ASK with your prompt choice (along with a backup) and your pairing of choice. Reblogs or replies with entries will be ignored. Asks without pairings indicated will be ignored. It just makes everything easier for me to keep track of this way.

I will be answering these asks privately so I don’t clog up everyone’s dashboards, which means no entering on anon. If you want to enter and will be posting on a side blog just let me know the name of the blog in your ask.

There will be only one spot open per prompt, however if this garners enough interest and all the prompts get taken I may open it up to two

This can be used as a oneshot, drabble or start of a series. Please don’t make it part of an ongoing series, I want to be able to read every fic in the challenge and I will not be able to catch up on a bunch of series.

Use the tag #ivehearditbothwayschallenge within the first five tags on the post

Be sure to mention that the fic is for my challenge as well as tag me in the actual post.

All pairings are welcome but please check my FAQ to see what I do and do not read.

Your pairing must be within the Marvel fandom.

It can be as short or as long as you’d like. All I ask is that if it is over 500 words to please use a keep reading feature.

Sign ups begin as soon as this is posted and will end April 30, 2020 the day before the challenge due date.

Posting begins whenever you finish writing!

Entries will be due by May 1, 2020. If you need an extension at any point or need to drop out just shoot me a message chances are I’ll say yes – we all have lives and things get in the way so I totally get it.

I will update the prompt list as often as possible with what is still available. Once a prompt has been filled I will cross it out.

Some of the prompts have characters’ names from the show, I will put these in [ ] so you know to change them!

HAVE FUN! I want you guys to enjoy this!

I think that just about covers it for the rules! If you have an questions feel free to drop an ask! Now let’s move on to the prompts!!

Prompts

“Just because you put syrup on something don’t make it pancakes.”

“Well, much like Lady Gaga, I was born this way.”

“We take our hand-held entertainment very seriously.”

“Everyone stop what you’re doing and only pay attention to me.”

“They tell me I got something called Narcissistic Personality Disorder. But, uh, the truth is this lustrous hair and dimpled chin are merely chapter one. I’m a veritable cornucopia of high-octane maladies, such as outrageous intelligence syndrome. And a little obsessive successful disorder.” @captain-rogers-beard

“I can’t help being a gorgeous fiend. It’s just the card I drew.” 

“What isn’t clear is why people always say ‘goes without saying’, yet still feel compelled to say the thing that goes without saying. Doesn’t that bother you?”

“First question. What is your name?” “There is a murderer on the loose.” “That is not your name.”

“Sorry, I was too busy James Bonding it up in here.” @sagechanoafterdark

“I will eat you in manageable, bite-sized pieces.” 

“She’s obviously meeting a new boy toy. Maybe one even younger than the last.” “Younger? Who do you think she’s meeting with, Justin Beiber?”  @arrowsandmixtapes

“[Guster], you have to wake up to the real world: people have sex and kill each other. That’s the real world. Not some magical ‘feelings’ place.”

“Holy crap, are you checking your email?” “I get productive when I’m nervous.”

“I wanted to be heroic.” “Oh, [Mary], with a flare gun?” 

“I’ve seen it all.” “You’ve seen it all through the cracks in your fingers while you were hiding your eyes.”

“I still smell like stinky nuts!” 

“I’m not big on nude handshakes.”

[Gus] don’t be Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Marzipan.” “It’s Azkaban.” “I’ve heard it both ways.”

“I don’t lose things. I place things in locations which later elude me.”

“I’m just saying, technology is way overrated.” “That’s interesting -- just yesterday you told me you intend on having your wedding in space.”

“Are you in my apartment?” “Please. I haven’t snuck into your apartment for weeks. Which reminds me, you’re all out of peanut butter.” @thorfanficwriter

“I can’t believe you thought that text was from me. It lacked all nuance, my signature mocking tone, and was utterly devoid of emoticons.” 

“Well, fooling around with your best friend’s sister certainly wasn’t your most brilliant idea.” “No, that was the toaster alarm I invented in the third grade that woke you up by smacking you in the face with a waffle.”

“I have an idea, but we’ll need cool names.”

“[Mindy] it’s official: you’ve won bitchiest banana.”

“Just call me the suck-stopper. No, wait. Don’t ever call me that.”

“Well, at least that gives us the ‘how’. Now we just gotta figure out the ‘why’, which reminds me, [Gus], will you please get us those tickets for The Who?” “Where?”

“Where do I get a juice box and does it come in grapalicious.” 

“I think your shirt and his shirt should get together and go bowling.”

“I’m gonna crack her like a bad back!” 

“How about you play six degrees of kiss my ass?”

“Where’d you get that suit, the toilet store?”

“Oh, yeah? Well, I’ve got an ice-cold can of whoop-ass just sitting in that fridge!” “Actually, it’s diet whoop-ass.”

“Hooray for loopholes!”

“The chips say you’re a cheater, cheater pumpkin eater!”

“Clouds don’t kill people. People kill people.”

“We find the mystery lover, we find her.” “Dude. Why don’t I ever get to say things like that?” 

“There is something I’ve got to get off my chest.” “Is it your shirt? Please say no.”

“Heard about Pluto? That’s messed up.”

“This place is trashed.” “Maybe Johnny Depp stopped by.” “I’m sorry, did that joke just arrive in a time machine from 1992?” 

“Don’t touch that, it’s blood.” “It’s not blood.” “Enjoy your hepatitis.” 

“There’s a Lt. Crunch here to see you.” “Crunch?” “Actually, I’ve been promoted. It’s Captain Crunch.” 

“How do you just eat when there’s a dead guy laying there?” “What, is that rude? Am I supposed to share?” @mermaidxatxheart

“I just got a lap dance from Patrick Swayze!” 

“Kudos on the childrearing. Let me know how the therapy goes.” 

“You’re dating a murderer!” “Not exclusively.” 

“Okay, you have got to stop calling your nose the Super Smeller. If you want to nickname a body part, nickname your butt, man. Call it the Tight-Bouncer or the Hexagon. Ladies are gonna dig that.” 

“You cannot sit here alone in the dark in a parked car. You’ll get picked up for Mopery.” “Mopery?” “With intent to creep. Trust me, you don’t want that. It’ll put a big hole in your future.” 

“How can you tell that someone’s a compulsive liar? I mean, assuming that their pants aren’t on fire.”

“And that, ladies and gentlemen, is precisely why time travel is not only possible but may have already happened.” 

Tagging for interest and signal boosting!

@arrowsandmixtapes @the-murder-strut-murdered-me @growningupgeek @captain-rogers-beard @star-spangled-man-with-a-plan

[japanne]

Making Comics Process 2020

Someone mentioned in a comment on some page that the brief thumbnails I was posting would be interesting to see as a comics making compilation, so I decided to make a current one (the last one I did was from 2015 or something??  I was still doing my pencils and inks on real paper).

So let’s commence using chapter 47, Page 12 as the example.  

I usually do something a little differently every time I do a chapter, but one thing that has never changed over the almost 20 years I’ve been doing this, is my affinity for using Microsoft Excel to organize my chapter writing.

This details the page in question.  I’ve got a basic description of the events in the first column, the year in the second, the chapter in the third, and details in the fourth.  (I pulled out the rest of the scene so as not to spoil it).

After the writing for a scene, it’s time for thumbnails!  I still enjoy doing these in a notebook.

I use a dedicated spiral notebook, split my page into quarters, write in the dialogue, and maybe adjust it at this time if I need to.  I changed Collamair’s dialogue to: “Oh.  Whoops.  Sorry.  This is my room.  I forgot to give you one, didn’t I?” (you can also see I misnumbered my pages somewhere earlier so 11 here is really the comic’s 12th).

I use the frixion erasable pens for this, so if there’s small changes to make I’ll just erase and fix.  For major changes I’ll just move onto the next open page space.  You must not remember to set hot things on your pages or the ink will fade.  Put it in the freezer to try and return it!

 Following the success of paper thumbnails it’s time to move to Clip Studio Paint.  At this early stage I do a couple of chapter wide passes.  

1. Create all the page files with the grey and red bordered template page I have.

2. Put a ruler on that file rough in the sizes of the panels.  Think about panels that might go for full bleed and delete the template border as a note for myself.

3. Put in the text.

4. Translate thumbnails digitally which brings us here:

I shifted Collamair’s dialogue a little more, and I flipped the last Collamair from my thumbnail.  For some reason he was facing the opposite direction, even though it’s a general rule to keep your characters facing the same way if possible in a conversation.

After the first pass of real rough sketches are laid in, I do a second slightly more detailed pencil pass

I’ll get all the expressions in, and the outlines of the clothes on the characters.  I’ll adjust the size of the people and the position of the text bubbles.  And this is as detailed as I get for my pencils.

I will also mention here, I’m not sure if I forgot to include this or actively decided not to, but “Colly and Struan laughing and having a good time” got dropped at some point???  Who knows when or why now???

Once I’m done with these sketch layers, I merge them together and start inking.  This is done in a scene by scene basis.  First I’ll open all the files for a given scene, flip all the canvases and draw the faces of the characters.

Then I’ll flip them back to look for weird parts and ink the rest of their bodies.

After inks are done, I’ll make another very rough sketch pass on the old sketch layer for the backgrounds.

Then, again, scene by scene, I’ll go through and ink them.  These backgrounds were blissfully easy.

I started something new this chapter.  I saw a video on twitter randomly talking about how to make panels with Clip Studio, and it’s SO EASY.  So I started doing those in this program as well.  That was one of the last 2 things I used to do in Photoshop.  

After all the inking and the panels are done, it’s time to color.  I have a shitty swatch file that you can see below where I keep track of colors for outfits and backgrounds in every chapter.  

The second new thing I started to do was flats in Clip Studio.  I’m excited about it so I broke it down a little bit in detail.  Below is a Struan that I have used the fill bucket tool on a new layer with the inks marked as a reference.  I do this for backgrounds and foregrounds.  You can see just plain old fill bucket leaves some stray pixels that are hard to get, especially in Struan’s sleeves here.

Well, worry not, for there is something else I saw on twitter, the Filter>Correct Line>Adjust Line Width

When you do that you can see the color overflows the lines a little bit.  But all the internal white pixels are gone.

NEXT!  you take you fill bucket with the color marked “clear” and some area scaling, and you just click a bunch of times in your panels outside of the characters.

Ta-daaaaahh.  There’s a few places where a little bit of manual cleanup is needed, around his elbows, but this method appears to be much faster than the old B-Pelt method I was using in PS, and I am happy with it!!

Here’s the fully flatted page with this method used on the bgs and fgs. Eyes are also added in, but on their own layer so they don’t get desaturated at all. And Colly’s shirt has his pattern to add at some point.

When flats are done, it’s time to move, scene by scene, through the shading process.  I’ve started using “Hard Light” blending for the shading since the last chapter, so this is also pretty new!

The bg and fg again get their own shading layer.  I’ll cover the bg in the shade color and then paint or gradient fill the highlights in over that.  I might add on some other extra mode for fancier lighting or if I want to shift all the colors, but I always add on an adjustment layer for desaturation at the end. 

Brushes that I use are almost all from Frenden.  The pencils are blue and red “real” and  “layouts.”  Faux-rel Painter Scratchboard is my inking pen.  Most of the shading is Concept Craig normal and Wet.  Hair highlights are Painterly (Wet), and I also use the default soft airbrush on a variety of things.  The plaid is “real pencil.”

And here’s a final view of the total layers I’ve used for this page, and also the ridiculous palette file if you’re interested in that!  

[kastlenetwork]

Forgive me if you're getting this Ask twice-- I couldn't tell if it went through the first time. Thank you for agreeing to help me! I am a grad student working on a literacy learning project in which I need to immerse myself in a form of literacy that I do not have experience in. I am a reader of fanfiction and a huge fan of Kastle, so I decided that I would write my own Kastle fanfic. Would you and the Kastle community share with me what you as readers typically look for in a Kastle fanfic?

The first one did send through, but it’s totally okily dokily! I would also like to preface this by saying I was just sat here and I’d answered with this with an actually not horrific response and then my laptop died out of absolutely nowhere, :) without warning :) [which happens all the time, because my computer is dying in general, but still I’m miserable about the loss lololol anyway] – so, this one isn’t as well thought out.

I’m just gonna say that the main thing that I look for in Kastle fanfiction is close to canon characterization. We’re all different people with different eyes and ears and brains, so when we watch the show, obviously different things might stand out or feel more prominent in who they are, than other things to other people. So, I’m not bothered by different headcannons or anything like that. I mean, it’s fanfiction, that’s the point – I’m reading it to read that writers’ take and have a good time……or a bad time, depending on if the writer is trying to squeeze out hearts lolol. But, there’s a general base line for who the characters are that has to be met for me to really get attached to what I’m reading. I’m this way for any fanfiction for any couple, to be honest. But, it’s super prominent when dealing with Karen and Frank, for whatever reason. If they stray too far away – their characterization, their vibe, their dialogue – I start to slowly check out of what I’m reading. I might just flat out stop. And if they’re in a Different Scenario where one doesn’t want to focus too heavily on the heavy, how that’s adjusted to fit the more lighthearted piece.

I mean, take Frank for example. If I open a fic and he spends the entire thing absolutely miserable with no small bright spots, at all, that’s just as off-putting to me as him being some weird happy sunshine man. Because, Jon’s Frank Castle (and that’s all I can go on on Frank, at all, honestly. I’ve never read a TP or DD comic lol whoops) finds things amusing. I mean, he’s literally lying in a bed having a deal worked out for him to go to prison in Gen. Pop. and he’s making jokes about it. Karen’s screaming out at him that refusing to cooperate with her and his lawyers, so that they can help him, will do nothing but result in him failing to get answers to about his family and have him rotting in a cell. And his immediate response could be more misery and more doom and gloom, but instead he’s turned on impressed and amused by Karen’s outburst. He admires the blunt and fearless goddess before him the honesty and the blowup and he teases her choice of wording. He’s light in a moment where she literally just said the results of his actions might be that he never learns the truth and he’s taking delight in her explosion despite it. 

Yes, he’s angry. He’s violent. He’s depressed. But, sometimes he talks about his family and he’s smiling. He’s laughing. Does it more than likely melt back into his ever present grief? Absolutely. But, it doesn’t mean that show of levity isn’t there. And Karen’s character and characterization faces a similar path in the show, just in the flipped direction. The core of her is built around something traumatic and sorrowful, but her general demeanor is positive and determined. 

Frank is funny. Karen is funny. Frank is sad. Karen is sad. 

They’re feeling a lot of things at various times.

So, the main thing I look for in Kastle fic is the appropriate balance of that. If I feel like it’s too far off the mark, I more than likely won’t finish it. 

The second thing I look for ties directly into the main thing, which is simply the dialogue. How they talk to each other. Especially once it’s starts bleeding further into the actual romance aspect of the story and not just the build up. Frank’s not adverse to endearment – he’s obviously someone that cares EXTREMELY DEEPLY for those he loves. (To the detriment to the gangs of New York). And we’ve seen him call Leo “sweetie” and stuff, this sweet little girl that he gets a big soft spot for. But, we’ve also seen him talk about his wife on multiple occasions and give big romantic speeches about his wife, like when he and Karen were on a date sitting in the diner. He calls her “my old lady” and he says he would literally chop his arm off at the table if he could just have another moment with her and feel what he thinks Karen must feel for Matt (*coughs* k sure, Frank) and it’s all really depressing ‘cause he’s destroyed, but he and Karen are on their date wow what a date sitting there and he’s talking about love and it’s just such a good moment. 

He’s not gonna call Karen the things he called his wife, obviously, unless they’re general terms of endearment. But, I think it’s a good example of the way he talks. I look for as close to canon characterization on the way they speak. Like, if Frank starts calling Karen his “beloved” it’s suddenly not Frank anymore – it’s some guy who happens to be as hot, but there’s been a mind swap or something. If Karen’s calling Frank “sugar plum” I’m kind of scratching my head, because who’s that blonde lady that’s suddenly speaking, what’s going on?

And I think the final thing I look for is simply that Karen is given more agency in terms of the relationship they’ve got. Because, in TP1 and TP2, it’s very much Karen who’s standing there with her arms flung open going, “I want you to be in love with me, like I know you are! I see you pushing it away! I am in love with you! You are allowed to love and have a life! Have a life with me!!!!!” And then Frank basically trying to push her back to Matt for literally no reason. I think a part of this is just Frank himself in his constant sabotage mode, because that’s his entire life after his whole family was murdered. He’s on destruction path, even when he’s trying, in moments, to get out of it. But, I ALSO think part of it is just that they didn’t have Karen for the full season, either season, and, even before they knew Marvel Netflix was heading to the grave, the shows refused to appropriately connect and were instead taking the ’’’easier’’’ path. Because, it was made pretty clear that they’d put her in the whole show if they could, but only could get her for so much time, and they wrote for that time.

So, in fic, I look for Karen getting to have her feelings actually be on display, instead of just being there to bounce his feelings off of, because they didn’t have her for enough time in either season to go more deeper on her end, since she wasn’t actually their character. And for her to get to have more agency in what’s going down with all that wanting them to be in love stuff just feels crucial to me, at this point, seeing as Marvel refuses to just make my dreams come true and announce that they gave a shit about these shows and are bringing them into the fold with the same casts.

Other than those two things, which I consider to be fairly standard, and that one thing where it’s just my exhaustion with my girls always having to fix everything – I’m pretty open to anything in terms of actual story. (I’ll even read a pregnancy/baby fic if it’s well written – and I’m…adverse to fanfic about babies). I just want an appropriate balance of their individual traumas to the sass master’s that live inside them and appropriate dialogue to who they are as people.

(I’ve got a whole thing about what I look for in a fanfic in general, but it’s not specific to Karen and Frank – it’s just like….spaces and pacing, which doesn’t have much to do with this.)

\\\\

What do you all look for in Kastle fic?! Help @chaiteacookiesnglitter out and reblog this and put in your two cents about what you’re inherently looking for. :DDD

[cabbagebender]

excerpts from unfinished fics #3

Legally Speaking, It’s My Birthday (voltron: legendary defender)

Major Alcohol Warning - This is a fic about alcohol. Discussion of underage drinking as a concept, multiple 18+ characters shown being drunk, one 21+ character shown being extremely drunk, dialogue mention of a drunk minor. Set: Between S7 and S8 Relationships: Gen, with mild canon-compliant levels of Hunay and pre-Allurance. *inhales deeply* The K&S stuff is platonic. Words: 2283 Likelihood of Writing More: Middle to High (especially if requested)

It’s April 3rd, the first April 3rd since the paladins returned to Earth, and in grand Garrison tradition, the cafeteria is serving cake.

“I can’t believe this,” Pidge says, digging into her slice. “Usually they only do this for the really important people.”

“You’re pretty important,” Shiro says. “You’re a paladin of Voltron. You’re a war hero.”

“I mean, yeah,” Pidge says with her mouth full. “But I’m also still a cadet.”

“For some reason,” Keith grumbles.

“I mean, she is still a kid,” Lance says, and grins as he ducks away from Pidge’s angry swipe.

“You’re not even two full years older than me.”

“How old are you today?” Allura asks.

Pidge shoots Lance another glare, without much heat, and turns back across the table towards Allura. “Honestly, I don’t know. We missed a couple years after the explosion, and even before that, we weren’t always keeping track as well as we should have been. But according to my best calculations based on recovered data from the Castle, I’m still sixteen. I’ll actually turn seventeen, like… sometime this summer.”

“Oh, man,” Hunk says. “We have new birthdays to worry about?”

Keith’s forehead scrunches up. “It’s still technically her birthday. It’s just not her… age… changing day.”

“Well, that’s got a ring to it,” Lance deadpans.

Keith makes a face at him.

“Happy age-changing day to you…” Shiro sings quietly. Keith elbows him in the side, and Shiro breaks off, chuckling.

“Okay,” Hunk says, “but I still need to know how many candles to put on the actual, non-cardboard cake I’m gonna make you later. Sixteen? Seventeen? Or, what is it, nineteen–”

“Twenty-one,” Pidge says nonchalantly.

“What?” Lance exclaims.

Pidge stares up at the others’ wide-eyed expressions, her fork halfway to her open mouth. “It’s been twenty-one years since I was born,” she says, like it’s not that big a deal. “We missed almost four years.”

“Okay, wow.” Lance drops his fork and leans back in his chair, processing. “A decaphoeb is longer than I thought it was.”

Hunk shakes his head. “Twenty-one? That’s so old.”

Keith crosses his arms. “Gee, thanks.”

“Yeah,” Shiro says, pointing his fork at Hunk, though his eyes are twinkling. “Have a little respect for us old-timers.”

“Wow, so that makes me…” Lance holds his fingers up, counting off.

“Twenty-two,” Pidge says. “Twenty-three,” she continues, gesturing towards first Hunk and then Keith. “Thirty-one,” she finishes, nodding at Shiro.

Shiro chokes on his cake and drops his fork. “I’m what?” he says weakly.

“Oh yeah,” Hunk laughs, “definitely an old-timer.”

“I’m ten thousand and twenty two decaphoebs old,” Allura says wryly, “so I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”

“Yeah, Allura’s definitely the oldest,” Hunk concedes.

“It’s just legally,” Pidge says to Shiro. “We all know that on the inside, you’re, like, eighty.”

“No, that’s on the outside, too,” Keith says, grinning at Shiro’s white hair.

Shiro rolls his eyes with fond exasperation as Pidge cackles. “Alright, I get it, I’m gray, I’m old.”

“Well, hang on,” Allura protests. “White hair is not old.”

“For humans it is,” Pidge says.

“And to be fair,” Keith points out, “you did just say that you’re over ten thousand.”

“Yeah,” Hunk says, “how do we know your hair didn’t turn white while you were in the cryopods?”

“It didn’t!”

“You sure?”

“This is my natural colour!”

“Wait, guys,” Lance interrupts, and the others turn to look at him. He’s grinning so widely his face seems about to split open, and Keith and Hunk exchange a nervous glance. “Pidge just said legally. You know what this means, right?”

“No,” Keith says, “but I’m pretty sure you’re about to tell us.”

“It means,” Lance continues, “that, as of today, all of us are legal to drink in the U.S.”

Pidge’s eyebrows shoot up, and she turns to look at Lance speculatively. “You’re… not wrong,” she says. Then she chuckles. “They probably wouldn’t actually serve me, though.”

Lance smirks back at her. “Only one way to find out.”.

“Oh no.” Hunk lifts his hands. “No, no, no, no, no, bad idea.”

“Wait, excuse me,” Allura says, accidentally cutting off Lance as he begins to fire back at Hunk. “Did you just say, legal to drink? As in, consume liquid?”

“They mean alcohol,” Keith says. “It's… slang, I guess. You have to be 21 here.”

“And alcohol is…”

“It’s like fermented nunville,” Hunk explains, and Allura’s expression shoots through a rapid sequence of clarity, mild alarm, and then amusement.

“Oh. I see.”

With one fluid motion, Lance slips off the bench and circles around Pidge to throw his arms over her and Hunk’s shoulders. “Come on, it’ll be like old times,” he wheedles, leaning towards Hunk. “We’ll hit the town, see the sights, check up on the rebuilding efforts–”

“Drink poison we’re not developmentally equipped for,” Hunk counters.

“It would be an interesting sociological experiment,” Pidge says slowly, pushing her glasses up her nose. “You know,” she adds, with a grin. “For science.”

“Pidge,” Hunk groans.

“All right!” Lance whoops, swivelling forward to face Keith across the table. “What do you say, team leader?”

Keith scowls. “We have to stay sharp,” he says. “Waking up with hangovers would be nothing but self-sabotage.”

“Keith,” Allura says, “you know I’d usually be on your side about this, but it’s not as if we have training in the morning.” 

“Yeah,” Pidge says. “You and Hunk haven’t even been cleared for combat yet.”

“All the more reason to try to maintain good habits!”

“Yes,” Hunk pipes up at the same moment, “that is a good point. Should we really be drinking with concussions? Methinks no.”

“No one’s telling you two to drink,” Lance says, “we just want you to come with us.”

“Well, I think it sounds like fun.” Allura exchanges a warm look with Pidge. “We could all use a night off.”

“Right on,” Pidge laughs, and Lance lifts his hand from Hunk’s shoulder to high five a grinning Allura. Keith shoots Allura a look of total betrayal, and then turns to Shiro, silently pleading for backup.

“I’m with Hunk and Keith,” Shiro agrees. “I really can’t encourage underage drinking.”

Lance waves his hand, brushing that aside. “Good, good, you’ve gotten the whole ‘responsible adult’ thing out of your system. Are you coming with us or not?”

Shiro opens his mouth and glances back and forth between the four teenagers and Keith. Finally, he sighs and shrugs helplessly at Keith. “I can’t let them go unsupervised,” he says apologetically.

“Oh, come, on, seriously?” Keith yells, while Pidge and Lance cheer. “We shouldn’t be letting them go at all!”

Shiro lifts an eyebrow. “You really think we can stop them?”

“I–” Keith pauses, then slumps forward with a resigned groan. “No,” he admits.

“I, for one, am totally ready to be stopped,” Hunk supplies. “I would much rather stay here and drink water.”

“But, Hunk,” Pidge says, her voice going quiet as she looks up at him with wide eyes, “you’ll be missing my birthday party.”

“Oh come on, that’s not fair,” Hunk complains. “Don’t give me the puppy dog eyes. Don’t do this to me, Pidge.”

Pidge’s eyes grow wider, her lower lip trembling slightly. Hunk cringes, trying to tear his eyes away, but seemingly unable. Then, finally, after a few long seconds–

“Oh, all right,” he concedes.

“YES!” Pidge shouts, jumping up and pumping her fist in the air.

“So, what’s it gonna be?” Lance says to Keith, as Hunk starts grumbling beside him. “You gonna stay here and brood, or are you gonna join us for Pidge’s 21st birthday party?”

There’s a long moment as Keith’s jaw ticks. Then:

“Fine. I’ll come.”

-

Ten minutes later, Lance, Allura, Hunk, and Keith are packed into the back of a Garrison van, with Shiro at the wheel and birthday girl Pidge riding shotgun. Pidge is tapping away at her phone, and Lance’s leg is bouncing rapidly as he stares out the window, clenching his jeans tightly.

Allura puts a hand on his knee, and Lance startles, snapping his head around to meet her gaze a bit wildly.

“This won’t be like last time,” she says quietly. “No one’s attacking, and Shiro is a steady driver.”

Lance swallows, glancing out the window again. “Right,” he says. “I know that.”

But it isn’t until Allura’s hand finds his and gives it a squeeze that his body relaxes and his leg goes still. Hunk glances down sideways, his eyebrow lifting slightly, but says nothing.

“Coran, Matt, and Shay are gonna meet us downtown,” Pidge announces.

“Oh, nice,” Hunk grins. “Shay’s coming?”

“I thought you might like that,” Pidge says slyly.

“I texted Romelle,” Keith adds, sticking his head out from the sliver of space between Hunk and the window, “but she’s not answering. I think she might be asleep.”

“That might be for the better,” Lance says. “I don’t know if any of us could handle Romelle drunk.”

“Okay, remember,” Pidge says, “the goal is not to get drunk. It’s just to find out whether or not bartenders will actually serve us.”

“Don’t bartenders let people in with fake IDs all the time?” Keith asks, maybe a little too casually.

Shiro makes an odd choked noise from the driver’s seat and everyone turns to stare at him.

“Uh, sorry,” he says, as if feeling all their eyes on him, and especially Keith’s, burning directly into the back of his skull. “Hiccup.”

“Gesundheit,” Hunk says.

“I mean, yeah, people sneak in all the time,” Pidge says, turning back to Keith. “But this is different. We’re not gonna pretend to be older than we are.”

“Wait,” Lance says, “we’re not?”

“No! We’re gonna walk in, tell them exactly what happened, and see how they react. Our situation is completely unprecedented; they’re gonna have to figure out fast whether they think they can get in trouble for serving self-professed minors with legal birthdates.”

“Well, what about me?” Allura asks. “I don’t have any identification.”

“That’s the second experiment,” Pidge says, her voice picking up speed with her excitement. “How do they react to aliens without identification? Will they react to you and Coran differently, since you look so young, or will they require ID from Coran as well? What about Shay, who doesn’t appear human at all? All important questions for a changing world like ours.”

“This is actually really cool,” Hunk says. “I’m sorry I doubted you.”

“But also,” Lance says, “we’re gonna get drunk.”

“Yeah, see, you, I don’t regret doubting.”

Shay is waiting for them outside the first bar. 

“The guard would not let me in. He said I lacked identification.”

Pidge pulls out her phone and starts tapping notes. 

[…]

“Ay,” Lance mutters, almost to himself, “of course el flaco’s a lightweight.”

"You guys… are the best.” Keith throws one arm over Lance’s shoulder and the other over Shay’s. “Lance… you’re, you’re my right hand man, buddy, I d'know what I’d do without you, and Shay… I d'know you that well, but Hunk thinks you’re amazing, and Hunk’s amazing–”

“Are you getting this on camera?” Pidge mutters.

“Oh, yeah,” Hunk grins. “I want to remember this forever.”

“You okay there, man?” Lance laughs, and turns to the camera. “Are we sure this is Keith, and not some weird alien parasite?“

At that point, Shiro returns from the bathroom. Keith immediately launches himself off of Lance and Shay and directly into Shiro’s path. 

"Shiro! Shir, Shiro.”

Shiro reels back to avoid walking into Keith and blinks. “Hi, there.”

Keith grabs Shiro’s cheeks and stares him down, like it’s absolutely vital that he hear whatever comes next.

“Shiro.”

“Uh-huh?”

“You’re the most important person in the universe.”

“Yeah, that’s Keith,” Pidge says, and everyone laughs. 

Shiro pries Keith’s hands off his face and holds them between his own to soften the gesture. “Hey, Keith, you wanna have some water, maybe?”

Keith nods, and Shiro (literally) hands him over to Allura, who wraps her own hands firmly around Keith’s wrists like a tether. 

Keith stares down. “Are you arresting me? Wouldn’t be the first time.”

Lance very nearly does a spit take, but luckily his mouth is empty. 

“You’ve been arrested?” Pidge asks.

Keith nods. “Loooootta juvi.” He twists his hands around and grabs the inside of Allura’s wrists. “Arrested you back.”

Allura looks up at the others, utterly nonplussed. “I don’t think that’s something you can do.”

“Dare to dream the impossible.”

“Oh, god, this is art,” Hunk whispers, still holding up the camera. 

“I am confused,” Shay announces.  

“You don’t seem phased by this,” Lance says, when Shiro returns with a water glass. 

Keith tilts his head backwards to look at Lance, his hair falling backwards off his forehead. “He’s seen me like this before.”

“I thought you said you don’t usually drink alcohol,” Allura says. 

He rolls his head back forward. “Not anymore. Snuck into a bar once, Shiro hadda get me out.”

“He was fifteen,” Shiro supplies. “Keith, water." 

Keith extricates his hands from Allura’s and takes the glass.

Pidge whacks Keith’s arm. "You hypocrite!”

Keith just grins.

[…]

“Uh, guys,” Pidge interrupts. “Allura’s crying.”

They all stop and turn, following Pidge’s extended hand to the couch in the corner. Allura is hunched in on herself, her arms wrapped tightly around her stomach like she’s barely holding herself together, tears tumbling from her screwed-tight eyes. Lance leaps to his feet immediately, but sways dangerously; Shiro hops up and catches him. 

“I’ll go talk to her,” Shiro says, and then glances back at the others. “Um.” He hands Lance towards Hunk. “Here.” 

“I’m fi- I’m fiiiiiiiiiine,” Lance protests, but he lets Hunk guide him back to a seated position once he sees that Shiro is heading in Allura’s direction.

-

Author’s Note: I only vaguely remember what came next, but I think Allura was going to be upset about how utterly displaced she felt from her home and her people - finally letting it get to her that she found out about an Altean colony, and then they lost it again.

I don’t know where Matt and Coran went when I was writing, but I imagine they’re probably having a drinking contest a few seats down the bar and teaching each other drinking songs.

The main reason this fic didn’t get finished is because I don’t drink or go to bars, and my creativity ran out of juice.

[theashemarie]

For the Pearlina request, how about Marina's first day/night staying with Pearl? Or for some angst, nightmares.

send me pearlina requests! - [STILL OPEN]

This one is about double the length I wanted it to be, but I’m happy with it. No real romance because they basically just met, but it was super fun and interesting to explore their early friendship. 

The house is huge, bigger than she’s read about, with a never-ending stream of rooms. “They’re all for storage,” Pearl jokes as she leads Marina up the stairs. Marina, weak in the knees at the sheer size of this place and the fact that she’s free, that she no longer has to struggle to survive underground, in a society that only wanted her for what they could get out of her, how much they could control her, laughs a choked laugh. The banister is smooth under her hand and she can picture Pearl sliding down it as a child, free as... Well, free as an Inkling.

Pearl offers her the first room they come across, for which Marina is thankful. She can’t imagine going further into this labyrinthine house, can’t imagine navigating her way around without Pearl to guide her, and she gratefully follows Pearl inside after she swings the door open grandly. “This is one of the smaller guest rooms,” Pearl says, glancing nervously between Marina and the canopied, queen-sized bed. The room is massive compared to Marina’s standards, with enough space for her to have sparing practice if she so desired. The bed is large enough for three of her, and what little she can see of the bathroom is also far too large—a tub the size of her room back home, a sink she could swim in, and a shower that could double as a second bedroom.

Marina isn’t sure if Pearl has the capacity to look sheepish. In the short time they’ve known each other, Pearl has made no indication that she feels anything other than smug self-confidence, but here she is rubbing the back of her head, watching Marina look over the room with something that looks a lot like apprehension. “You can say you don’t like it,” Pearl assures her. “It’s small, but you said you don’t like big spaces, right?”

She did say that, long ago, when they first ran into each other and Pearl caught Marina laying on her back and staring at the wide blue sky. Well, what she actually said was that she wasn’t used to large spaces, but she was actually grateful that Pearl misheard. It’s easier to explain not liking large spaces than not being used to them, considering she’s pretending to be an inkling. She still can’t believe that Pearl believed that, but then, what would Pearl assume she was, other than an inkling? It’s not like octolings are running around on the surface.

“Yeah,” Marina answers, and steps forward slowly. The plush carpet gives way underfoot, absorbing the impact of her bare feet like a cloud. She’s never felt something so soft. “It’s perfect,” she adds as she wiggles her toes.

“Great!” Pearl whoops. “Not that I was worried,” she adds quickly. Then, seeing Marina’s bemused smile, she begins to back away. “Anyway,” she claps her hands, “I’m gonna go scope out what’s for dinner. Make yourself comfortable.”

+

Dinner is quiet because it’s just the two of them and the giant house. The cook goes home before they finish, and Pearl assures Marina that usually there’s a butler, but she gave him the day off. “Because I didn’t want to overwhelm you...” she says, and then adds, “Because most people are overwhelmed, not because you’re weird or anything. If you are overwhelmed.”

Marina may not be from around here, but she can tell when someone’s accustomed to being stared at. Pearl has a lot of money, and despite her cool, calm demeanor, it’s caused some problems in her life, socially. Marina wonders just how many people have used her.

Of course, Marina is used to having nothing, so she’s not exactly sympathetic to Pearl on the whole, but she is sympathetic to the fact that she’s not sure who she can trust. More than anything, Pearl seems like she wants to impress, as if she’s not used to being so worried that someone will like her home, and that’s touching in a weird way. Marina doesn’t have high standards, but to have Pearl so worried makes her feel a little flattered. And embarrassed, mostly because she doesn’t want their friendship to start off like this.

So, they eat dinner quietly, with just the clack of silverware between them. Marina can’t identify what the food is, but it’s delicious. She studiously ignores the way Pearl keeps peeking at her.

Eventually, the food is eaten, and the dishes need cleaning, so Pearl leads her into the kitchen. It’s just as large as everything else, with lots of chrome and granite. Distantly, she wonders after a dish washer, then realizes that she can hear it gently whirring, somewhere else in the room—probably full from the cooking. Carefully, they wash—or rather, Pearl washes and Marina dries. Marina gets the feeling that Pearl hasn’t done this that often, considering how she uses way too much soap and stares at the plate too hard. Marina doesn’t intrude though, because she knows how that feels, to want to do something for yourself.

That, or Pearl just doesn’t want to seem like too much of a spoiled princess.

They couldn’t be more different really, and that’s what makes this all so interesting and new. Marina is all self-sufficiency and survival while Pearl is all self-indulgence and ease, and that’s intriguing. Marina can’t quite wrap her head around all this new world, but she imagines that Pearl will help her navigate. In return, she’ll give Pearl the friendship that she so desperately desires.

And, maybe, just maybe, they’ll make a little music together too.

“Let’s get you in something comfortable,” Pearl says, apropos of nothing, once they’ve put the dishes away. She looks Marina up and down, at her cheap, thrift store clothes of tight jeans and a thick t-shirt. “This is a sleepover, after all.”

Marina has no idea what that means.

+

They end up on the couch, watching something Marina can’t make sense of. It’s loud and in her face, like a lot of surface culture is, and it’s exciting, exhilarating. She sits up straight with her legs pulled into her chest, dressed comfortably in one of Pearl’s oversized sweatshirts (well, it’s oversized on Pearl; on Marina it fits okay). Pearl, meanwhile, is leaning back, head lolled over to one side, and every now and then she speaks along with the characters on screen, as if she’s seen it a thousand times.

It’s a cute movie, with animated animals and plenty of songs. Pearl says something about it being a remake of a human flick, which explains some of the weird dialogue. Mostly, Marina is glad to have something to relax to. She hasn’t felt this at ease since... Well, she can’t quite remember when. But now, she’s got Pearl’s overstuffed, soft couch and a children’s movie to keep her company, convince her that maybe everything will be okay. Pearl is a comforting presence at her side, and Marina can’t help but begin to hope that things will fall into place.

Then, of course, there’s a distant pop! somewhere nearby. It’s not loud, but it is familiar: an explosion, and Maria can almost feel the smoke in her nose, smell the acrid tartness, and she jumps. Not too much, just a tiny jerk, but her hearts are hammering in her chest and she can feel her teeth clench, the muscles in her jaw tightening. She prepares for the assault, can picture a swarm of inklings hammering on the windows, primed with bombs, inkzookas, inkstrikes, every weapon imaginable.

She covers her ears as the pop comes again, louder, and her hands are shaking.

“Marina?” she hears Pearl, and feels a soft, unafraid hand lay itself on her shoulder. Marina almost rears back, but some rational part of her brain keeps her place, allows her to be comforted. Pearl pats her shoulder awkwardly, ignorant of that fact that Marina could snap her half in she so desired.

“It’s just the splatfest fireworks,” Pearl assures her, as if that will help, as if Marina knows what that is. “I totally forgot that was tonight. Early bird versus night owl. Kinda dumb if you ask me—everyone I know is a night owl.”

Marina tries very hard to focus on her words, trying to ignore a loud crackle of fireworks followed by multiple consecutive concussive booms, and she mostly succeeds. “Splatfest...” she mumbles, trying out the unfamiliar word. “It’s like... a fight?”

Pearl gives her a critical look. “Wow, you totally weren’t kidding when you said you weren’t from around here. Yeah, everyone is given two options and you pick one. Then there’s this giant rager in the plaza and everyone dukes it out. The Squid Sisters perform and everything! It’s killer. We totally have to headline a splatfest someday.”

Marina tries to imagine that—performing in front of all those people, with all that activity, under those lights. But then she gets to the part where there will definitely be more fireworks, right overhead, closer than ever, and she very nearly backs out of the whole thing, panics and tells Pearl actually, I don’t think I can do this whole singing thing after all— But Pearl is still talking.

“Everyone will love us! You have a great voice and I can hype the crowd! And you can do that sexy walk of yours, that hip swing. I’ll jump a lot because that’s what you do when you’re hyping the crowd. Have you ever been to a concert? I used to headline a punk band and let me tell you: they were hype. I know how to do my shit. Our splatfests will be the best—”

Marina can’t help it. Maybe it’s the stress or the panic, but she laughs. Pearl’s earnest spiel is charming and relaxing all at once because she’s so certain—so certain that they’ll make it, that they’ll get that coveted spot as the headlining act, so confident that they’ll sell, and everyone will love their music. It’s intoxicating in a way, that confidence, and it also helps Marina feel a little better about the future. Pearl is security, with all that certainty packed into her small body, and Marina can’t help but smile.

Of course, the fireworks will be another matter, but she has a feeling that Pearl will help her get through those.

[sherokutakari]

I’m gonna do something I never do, and that is write a reaction post for an entire goddamn season of Voltron. Spoilers will ensue.

Firstly and foremostly, I think we all need to heave a big ol’ ball of fuck you at the creators over Adam, and WHATEVER ship name you call him and Shiro by.

That was not representation

That was not “respecting your lgbt+ fanbase”

That was a straight up Bury Your Gays trope, and I am sick

Although if we’re being honest with ourselves, it can’t even really canonically be BYG at this point because

not

ONCE

was it even touched upon in the season that Shiro and Adam had been a couple. We had some heavily subtextual lines but had we not had direct confirmation outside of canon that Adam was Shiro’s ex, it would have just been another ship. Klance has more frequent and meaningful interactions. Shieth has more frequent and meaningful interactions. Hell, much as I hate Allurance personally, and as stunted and forced as that relationship is, even they have more frequent and meaningful interactions. Even goddamn Acxa/Kieth have more on-screen dialogue about romantic feelings than goddamn Adam/Shiro.

And I promise this reaction post won’t all be ship related, but on the subject, they did both Klance AND Allurance dirty, too

With Klance the hints and baiting from cast and crew are undeniable. Now being a pretty low-key Klance shipper, I have not compiled all the evidence thereof like so many other blogs have, but at the least

at the very least

we were told to expect more time for Kieth and Lance’s relationship to develop again, much like it had in season three. Outside of them saying each other’s names first in battles, we basically got diddly.

In fact, we got Lance saying Keith should be set free from their weird ass test because he’s an amazing leader, and half Galra, and called him the future. What a great start, right? And wow! Keith even also chose Lance!!!

... so that... he wouldn’t have to spend time with Lance ever again.

What in the actual hell?

Also wasn’t there an interview or something that said Keith and Lance got stranded on the astral plane while the rest of Team Voltron were “asleep for a long time”? Hope is in the stars? Et c. whatever??? Idek anymore. There’s so much crew talk involving Klance that I can’t remember even HALF of it at this point.

Anyway, ALLURANCE

I absolutely hate the idea of this ship just because of the lack of, or at best one-sided build up, but I know a ton of people were looking forward to it under the right circumstances

Something like Lance and Allura actually, I don’t know, talking to each other about this type of thing? The fallout of Allura’s relationship with Lotor? Lance maybe NOT taking an interest in Romelle just ‘cause she’s there?

But no, we got a suddenly blushy Allura, who had previously shown NO interest in Lance and in fact still chose Lotor over him after learning about Lance’s feelings, being all “come back safely~”, and then newly introduced characters having to be like OOOOOOH THE PRINCESS LIKES YOU TOO. I HAVE TO SAY THIS OUT LOUD OR THE AUDIENCE WILL NEVER BUY IT. THIS IS TOTALLY NATURAL.

Like

Come on.

And correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t there something about Lance pairing up with someone who “isn’t what he wants (Allura since day one) but who he needs (shut up, we all have theories on who this is and I’m not fighting anyone over it,) so did they just drop that bit for him?

And what about Lance being Allura’s rebound being referred to by (I think) Joaquim as being “a disservice to both those characters”

Meanwhile Lance’s promised development has STILL

not

goddamn

come

We got him being very competent in battle and... still... being belittled by his teammates at every opportunity. Like ha ha I get it Lance is the cheap shot comic relief but all Lance really seemed to develop this season is a Millennial’s nihilisticly suicidal sense of humor. Which I mean #Mood but we still haven’t addressed Keith’s suicide attempt, and Lance has already DIED (and not talked about it,) and is making outright “Don’t worry, we’ll all be dead soon anyway” jokes. And when he and Veronica were about to die and Red saved him, that was just Red saving his Paladin like always, not Lance successfully calling him to Earth. (As evidenced by the other lions all lighting up and flying away, and the like two second shot of Red just... sitting there, entirely dark.)

Not only that but we’ve seem to gone backwards? Where was his sword Bayard, hm? Why did he unlock traditionally “Keith’s” weapon (albeit a different style sword,) if that wasn’t going to come into play once Keith was back?

and SPEAKING OF KEITH AND LACK OF DEVELOPMENT well firstly a pause, for the lovely Keith and Hunk scene. That was a long time coming and absolutely wonderful.

But suddenly Keith is just... IN leader mode? No adjustment period, no getting reacquainted with the rest of the team, not even a scene to talk with goddamn Shiro over being more willing and able to accept leadership. Two years in space with one other person and an animal, not matter how cool that animal is, does not suddenly a leader make. Oh, and there was no follow-up whatsoever on said two year time gap either, by the way.

And Krolia just leaving again, after making a big deal about not doing that again?? Like hey son we had a fun and terrifying vacation on an enormous space whale, but once again, mission above all else, peace out. They definitely couldn’t just bring Kolivan with them until he’d recovered and have a few scenes to put a proper plan in action that may still have had Krolia leave, but at least have it make sense. Nope, better just leave right now immediately while Kolivan is almost dead because there aren’t quite as many knives in this wall as their should be.

MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE RANCH GALAXY GARRISON, no one had ever thought about MAYBE defending the earth against POSSIBLE ALIENS when the Kerberos team disappeared!! We’ve known since season one they knew it wasn’t pilot error! We’re told this from the files Pidge is going through!!! WHY WAS AN ESTABLISHMENT CALLED THE GALAXY GARRISON SENDING PEOPLE ALL THE WAY OUT TO OUR FARTHEST PLANET, WITHOUT HAVING ANY SORT OF PLANETARY DEFENSES IN THE WORKS

But instead, let’s just macguffin our way out of danger for half a season straight.

Can’t fly the Galra pod Shiro crashed it? Or the Altean ship Sam brought?? No worries, we SOMEHOW got Navs up and running well enough to make simulators for how to fly them just in case

We have good pilots on the simulators now? Good thing Sam knows how to actually build the things!!

The ships are short range and burn through non-crystal powers quickly? GOSH if only we had some of the season’s first episode’s macguffin left HAHA JUST KIDDING WE DO

Need the Lions from four planets away? Now you can AAAAALL CALL YOUR LIONS, REGARDLESS OF BOND LEVEL OR THE FACT THAT ALLURA KNOWS HER BOND IS THE WEAKEST AND NOT YET UP TO PAR

The lions can come to you, but can’t actually do what you want them to? WHOOPS THEY CAN NOW, IF YOU JUST CONCENTRATE EVEN SUPER DUPER HARDER

Oh no, we built a giant ship! But it won’t!!! Run without a crystal!!!!! or like 7 super massive blackholes!!!!!!!!! Coran: CHECK OUT MY BLING

But Coran, your bling is too small! Look at how big the bling hole is, and your bling is just too smol! Bling: BITCH IT’S MAGIC

THE DEFLECTOR PLATES JUST HAPPEN TO HOLD OUT LONG ENOUGH FOR THE ATLAS TO GET IN PLACE

THE ATLAS’ SHIELDS JUST HAPPEN TO HOLD OUT LONG ENOUGH FOR THE LIONS TO DESTROY THE CANONS

SUDDENLY DUAL WIELDING VOLTRON

SUDDENLY SHIRO IS BASICALLY OLCARIAN BECAUSE OF HIS DOPE NEW FLOATATION DEVICE ARM

SUDDENLY ATLAS BECOMES ANOTHER GIANT ROBOT TO TAKE ON THE SMALLER GIANT ROBOT THAT JUST BEAT THE TITULAR GIANT ROBOT’S ASS

- d e e p   b r e a t h -

Like don’t get me wrong, there was still a lot about this season I liked. I mean I stayed up just to finish watching it all the way through. But with how hyped it was, and honestly how positive the reviews mostly were, I was expecting a better. A lot better.

They did Adam dirty.

They did their (largely lgbt+) fanbase dirty, while patting themselves on the back for idk thinking they pulled another Korra? (Which, haha, no.)

They did lots of ships, characters, plot lines, and honestly their own universe dirty.

I’m hoping to hear more from the cast and crew soon, about things in this season, things in the upcoming season, and honestly just what the heck just happened. Because tbph? For once, Voltron has actually left a very bitter taste in my mouth.

And I want to believe they can fix it before it’s too late.

[neo-ally-spl]

One-Punch Man

I read this pretty early on (when it was being translated + the webcomic) and I've talked about his elsewhere but now I want to put my theories here too!

I'm just going to list every one of my speculations first and then explain my thoughts. Also the sentences in italics was my original opinions, just in case that's not clear. Or usually I will say, "I wonder", "here I wrote down", "I had said", etc.

Mar. 2018:

"Scary thought but the manga might not be very long?.". So I don't exactly remember why I thought this but there is a substantial amount of webtoon contnet to cover so I don't think it will end before say 250 chapters. Interesting that I thought this.

"Monster king Orochi is just like Saitama and he could be the most formidable opponent. Or he's just another one hit kill and there's a better opponent in the future." - so he literally was just the latter. I had thought three years ago that maybe he was actually Blast and that's why he couldn't be contacted. But the outcome is so much better. Honestly for a villain he was pretty cool, the only thing about this manga that is sometimes boring is that you know that none of the characters will die. Nobody loses powers either. EDIT: haha I had to make an amendment here. In chapter 143 a hero loses an arm and it seems as if Tanktop Master was crushed. Like- I was wrong lol. Also Darkshine loses his hands not too long after..soo whoops.

The next thing that I posted on twitter said, "what if Blast was manipulated and made into Lord Orochi". And then I had an accompanying image where Psykos confirms that Orochi was once a human being and was "gruesomely perfected". - he is definitely not Blast that's for sure. Blast's introduction was pretty cool. I was shocked for a few hours, it was good. But yeah I don't know who Orochi once was, but that's not true lol.

Oh about my first bullet point, I found another tweet while looking through my twitter and I had said that I thought this was the last arc because it seemed to be the major conflict, but ever since my re-read of the webcomic I think that's no longer true. Not 100% sure though.

The last thing that I said in March, was "what if the final boss is God himself"? This manga is a satire on heroes as it is, but that would be wild and funny as hell. I don't feel like it will happen but idk. Would be cool and totally on par with the insanity of the series lol

April 2018: I guess around this time was when I was able to read the Elder Centipede chapter. Because I mentioned that Blast "fought with it two years ago." At this point I was still running with the idea that Blast died or something else happened. Maybe he was frustrated with the fact that no one else could match up to him. Which now since his reveal in the manga is just not true, he's fighting somthing that's messing space, time and gravity itself.

I think I was just really excited imagining that Blast was greedy or something lol

I also wondered if his "disappearance" was just a big plot hole. Because how was the Hero Association able to know that Blast doesn't want to come into work? Like who was he talking too???

Also the fact that Child Emporer and Metal Knight have outside communications. (Which now we learned was because C.E was his assistant). Made me wonder who was speical enough to get into contact with Blast, it wasn't Tatsumaki because she would have been all haughty about it. lol

June 2018:

Psykos kidnapped a child or maybe a human. I still really wanted to know who Orochi was 😂

I also wondered if someone was looking for him, like they were close friends or if he had a wife and she'll never be able to know what happened. 😟 I don't know what chapter it was but there was a scene where there was a shadow talking to another human. Idk I would've liked that information. :/

March 2021:

This is where I did a big re-read of the series (webcomic and manga). At this point I had been waiting a long time for updates so I forgot a lot of important key details. Like Tatsumaki and Gyoro both say "bald guy" meaning that she heard about this mysterious person (Saitama) and kept that to herself.

Around this time is when I stopped having big speculations and it was more questioning about future chapter events. And then I was just very excited about each new chapter and it mostly turns into reactions.

Before chapter 135 I wondered just how important Fubuki was going to be. I thought it was really interesting that she can sense other life forms, and maybe that her powers were evolving. I still don't know how important she is.

I literally lost my shit at chapter 135 LOL. Like in my notes all I put down was, blast face, BLAST FAEC!!1! And then I also really enjoyed the development between Sweet Mask and Zombieman in this chapter.

Ch. 138 notes: What the- I've got no words. Ya'll need to experience reading this chapter. It has the coolest lore I've seen from this manga yet. Like they connected to another dimension. Can you tell that I was really excited at this point? lol

Ch. 139: *screaming* and that's it, that's the notes lol jk. Here I wrote down about the group worshipping something far underground, like if that is the next enemy? Or is it the dissolution of the H.A from the webcomic?

Ch. 142: Tatsumaki caring about information about Blast was really sweet to see. But if I didn't read the webcomic I wouldn't understand why he means so much to her. I hope ONE and Murata have her backstory in the manga as well. I literally spoke too soon about this because two chapters later we get that information. :O || Sweet Mask got such a bad injury that it makes me believe that he died. Not sure tbh. Something that happens differently in the webcomic is that it's revealed that he was a mysterious being. Like he has the ability to alter himself. He gets harassed by everyone (mostly the public) because they didn't expect him to be an ugly monster. And this kickstarts the public not rlly trusting heroes. And a lot of other shit happens.

Also about Ch. 142 I wondered why Watchdog man wasn't there. Was his city safe? Also I liked the fact that we actually get dialogue from Pig God.

Ch. 143: I don't like Drive Knight anymore lol. It seems like Genos could've actually died for real this time. And lastly Fubuki is a queen. She's turning out to be a really good character.

Ch. 144: It seems like a death flag sprung up for Tatsumaki. Also I kind of understand her thinking because to tatsumaki, blast was the only one that could/would save her. It's not a curse but more like a deep scar on her heart. ;-;!! I wouldn't trust others if that happened to me either. || When I seen the council of swordmasters I thought that they would betray the heroes, lol. || And finally in my notes, I said that it seems like TTM is down for the count too.

Ch. 145: I went back to re-read it and I just noticed in one panel, Pig God says that in the prophecy he needs to save up is power? Is he OP too?! I guess he'll be the savior maybe, that is if Saitama doesn't show up anytime soon. I'm starting to really like Pig God's character a lot too now.

Ch. 146: Ooh! Looks like the spotlight is on Darkshine now. I hope he continues to be a hero because in the webcomic he completely loses his confidence. It's really nice to see. I had some really bad foreshadowing, all I'm going to say is rip darkshine. He didn't die but oof. I also said that it was nice to see that the S-Class could actually hold their own. It wasn't looking promising there for a while.

Ch. 147: oh saitama is on the cover will he finally show up? He in fact didn't. 😔 also I liked the interaction between Atomic Samurai and Bang, he said that it was his job as the master to right his wrongs. I like that he's no longer looking down on him because of Garou. Like how could you expect someone to just be able to make a decision right away and deal with their own student? Like he obviously was important to Bang. That's such a hard thing to do. || Also about Garou he gets a new form 👀

Ch. 148: before I read the chapter, I wrote down that I had different expectations. Because in the webcomic Saitama comes out and supports Garou, he isn't okay with him being killed. Also around this fight is when Sweet Mask gets "revived" and is in monster form. Saitama is the only one that doesn't have a major issue with him. In the webcomic Saitama wasn't missing from the fight but he also wasn't playing a major part yet. || Anyways so the chapter ends with bang appearing to start the fight.

Ch. 149: I felt really bittersweet reading this chapter because the council was wiped out. It would've been cool to understand why there were so few of them left. The lore about the two swords was really cool though. So many events within the last ten chapters veered off from the original plot in the webcomic. I have no way to know what to expect, but I'm not complaining, I like going into these chapters newly experiencing them.

From here on out this is all new observations. Like today i just re-read 150. I would've had a reaction to 151 but it's not out, in fact I feel like I've been waiting a long time for that to release, the last time I checked was early july...

Ch. 150: Poor Darkshine. Also Metal Bat comes back!! I missed his character :o || Haha King is still being caught up in misunderstandings, i can't wait to laugh my ass off in the next chapter. because I know it'll be funny between sprm and king.