#I'm gonna do some writing and forget real humans exist for a while

[dreamxmaker]

Just a vent about internet platforms being internet platforms.

“For real, do you like all the trash talk about you and ** people? You fucking love it bc you know it's true hahaaa!”

…

Do I like being continuously made to feel completely foreign? Do I like having everything I say repeated back to me in a caricatured voice amid facepalms and snickering when I'm trying to be serious? Do I like being told in 100 round-about ways a month ‘we hate you people, but you’re okay, I guess’? Do I like seeing people laugh at political unrest and subsequent suffering bc you see it as some kind of indirect victory? Do I like the constant mass vibe of people feeling like they need to ‘put me in my place’?

Obviously not, and I thought that was the point???

[a-twisted-sideblog]

Okay, so I'm gonna quickly summarize the dream this AU is based on before I get into the actual AU, so that way anyone who isn't interested in this sort of thing doesn't have to read it.

The main character (who I don't remember anything about other than their existence) buys a book from an old library that's going out of business, goes home, accidently ends up summoning a demon, demon goes on a rant about their job and ends up shoving their duty onto main character before leaving.

Main character goes on a walk to clear their head, gets kidnapped, their kidnapper attempts to sacrifice them to summon a demon, main character fights back and accidentally kills the kidnapper, then the demon gets summoned. And that was the point where I woke up.

Now, I'm adding my actual idea for the au under the read more, because knowing me I'll go on a rant and it might get long.

So, obviously this takes place in a world where it's believed to be just humans and magic is a thing of fiction. Yuu (who is obviously the main character in this) heard that an old library nearby is being shutdown and that the owner is selling the books. They decide to go see if there's anything that interests them and, alongside some of the books they would have expected, they find a book that's different from the rest.

Other than the fact that its cover didn't have any sort of title, the writing in the book didn't look like a real language and the pages had a bunch of different symbols that were strange.

Yuu asks the owner about it and they mention that someone just left it in the return section one day and they figured they might as well keep it since it's a library. The owner offers it to Yuu for free, saying "no one would pay for a book like that" and "it's just picking up dust with me" and Yuu agrees because who doesn't like free stuff?

So after that, Yuu takes the strange book and a couple of other books that they bought home with them, putting them on the counter so that they remember to put them away later. Of course they do forget at first, but they remember later when they go back to the kitchen for a drink and see the books.

Yuu accidentally knocks the strange book off the counter and onto the floor, and when they go to pick it up, it suddenly starts glowing. And before they have much of a chance to react, the room goes dark before there's a sudden flash of light, which they cover their eyes to stop themselves from getting blinded.

When they open their eyes, they see a weird bird man who introduces himself as Crowley, says he's a demon, and goes on a bit of rant about how someone or something is trying to force open rifts between the demon realm and human realm to bring destruction to the human realm, which if they succeed will end up destroying both. He says that, despite it being his job to stop things like that from happening, demons aren't supposed to interfere in the human world to that extent unless they're specifically summoned to do so. Then he puts the book in Yuu's hands, telling them it's their job to stop the world from getting destroyed because the book chose them, wishes them luck, and leaves while completely ignoring their protests and questions.

After that, Yuu leaves the house to go on an evening walk to get some fresh air, pretty sure that what happened wasn't actually real because why would that have actually happened?

But then they get kidnapped by someone who wants to sacrifice them to summon demons. And when they wake up, tied down to make sure they don't run, they desperately hope for a way out, only opening their eyes when they feel the ropes suddenly disappear.

And what do they see, but the same book from earlier?

Now, feeling even more freaked out than they were earlier, Yuu picks up the book and leaves the room they were in to start looking for a way out.

Unfortunately, they end up in the room where their kidnapper has just about finished preparing the summoning ritual. The last thing they need? The sacrifice of a human soul.

Of course, they don't have the jump on Yuu like they did earlier, allowing Yuu the opportunity to fight back.

One thing leads to another and Yuu ends up accidentally killing the kidnapper, leaving Yuu frozen in shock as their kidnapper's blood drips onto the summoning circle.

Even if they didn't notice it glowing, they definitely noticed the way that the room seemed to darken and how all the heat in the room seemed to disappear.

They absolutely noticed the two figures that began to form in the summoning circle.

[transingthoseformers]

I am vividly reminded that as of the current timeline, around nearly years have passed since the unicron arc up until let's say the start of the Tarn and Fallen fiasko. This got much longer than expected, and i admit this isn't new information but a collection of previously established information organized into a timeline because uwu time periods. I will heavily rely on @ivycorp 's contributions, as I'm gonna be real they're the reason the TFP au exists, are very great at writing, and pretty much the coowner of this au.

(Technically, I wasn't going to include this, but Hazard arrived very shortly after the cosmic rust plague episode and a little bit after when Megatron woke up. This is because they are a fucking bloodhound when it comes to plagues and chemical weaponry.)

Orion was on the Nemesis in the Orion arc for, let's say three at minimum five maximum? months. [Remembering our forgotten games happens at some point in here, happens at some point around here, and I'm betting this becomes a whole hidden thing for a lot of the Orion arc— this will have consequences] About halfway through this the Elite triad arrives and there's a whole emotional thing once Optimus regains his memories and comes back.

Their little extra spicy dance lasted a While before Soundwave's revenge began, before that the Decepticons got more attached to earth culture, I would also say that lasted around six months enough for the 'cons to get used to Megatron's flustered and horny antics. So that places us at around eleven months max?

At the beginning of Optimus's emotional renaissance and increasingly awkward battles is when Dreadwing arrives and almost immediately fucks off into the woods. Soundwave bridges Arachnid into the Atlantic ocean to rust at the bottom of the sea, she survives on the Harbinger for a while, finds the Insecticons as she has a bridge key, and fucks off into the middle of Australia to set up the hive (which becomes very energon lucrative) Wheeljack arrived with Dreadwing, and stays around a little longer with Boyfriend Bulkhead than canon.

More towards the mid mark, Shockwave is revealed to be very alive and comes down on Earth. He drags a half baked Predaking with him, to nobody's knowledge just yet. [About when Colleagues with very enjoyable benefits is set] Juncee begins here with Sweet and Tenative Hope and it's so goddamn sweet. Pharma (and very quickly Tarn and the DJD) around the mid mark finds his way onto Earth on an escape pod actually. [This is when Rival Exes who at least pretend not to have feelings with each other happens uwu] He's very stern on Not leaving the base, and eventually everyone picks up the vibe that he's got unpleasant history with Tarn. Nobody questions this just yet, and we focus more on the Breakout, Megop, and continuing Ratchma antics. [Permanent honeymoon is placed in this section] This is around when the vehicon couple who had ran during season one and lived on the downed Eros get caught and offlined.

Closer to the end of the spicy battlefield dance arc, Everyone's starting to get very tired of the exponentially increasing Battlefield Megop. This is actually the first time the humans witness Megatron with a visor and when ge finally gets to pin Optimus— and then proceeds to get struck by lightning. They do not see Megs with a visor again for quite a while, because he's a stubborn asshole and forgets them more often then not. [And they were exes at war (oh my god they were exes at war!) Is placed here]. Exactly pretty much immediately after that are the events of [Megatron & his servo], which begins the glorious Soundwave's revenge arc!

[This is when I mention that Following the pull that bound us together (I will not let go) by far spans the most time, starting somewhat before Orion first heard of Megatronus alllllllll the way until the night after the fateful comm call that lead to the Soundwave's revenge arc lol]

The whole Tarn fanfiction ordeal likely started around when the guy first arrived and decided to turn in fics instead of reports. The domino effect of Soundwave and Starscream saying nothing of this for a while, KO and Breakdown learning through a loopy seeker and sharing unofficial information on the GC, Tarn turning in more fics, and eventually Star being allowed onto the GC and he comes bestowing an absolute archive of Megatarnma fics— of which Fowler immediately sees and that's hilarious. Quickly at the start of Soundwave's revenge arc, Megatron (who is distinctly not in the GC) has so many backlogged reports to do under Soundwave's supervision and this is when he learns of the fanfiction. Tarn, who is also not in the GC, spends quite a while longer completely ignorant of anyone knowing of his secret fantasy love triangle. [Detailed in the events of Tarn's imaginary love life - and the repercussions of his self-insert fanfiction] Let's be real this is another reason nobody on the Nemesis likes Tarn.

The Soundwave's revenge arc lasted a good four weeks. The Soundwave's revenge arc (calling it this is more if a misnomer by the end, as the revenge part fades quite a lot once they learn how much of a disaster Megatrons's internals are) is around when Miko started making a game of Houdiniing her way onto the Nemesis, naturally. Megatron is pretty much confined to the medbay for a nice while. At thr beginning of this Soundwave decides it's time to involve Swindle into this, and he arrives pretty soon as his one man ship The Hustle which is specifically customized his small stature and being fast arrives. [Quickly after this arrival I'm betting the events of Of holograms, galas, and unexpected guests happen] [This is also around when the powerpoint in Life on the Nemesis for the majority of its crew is shown, with the one vehicon that gets mentioned likely having been assigned to Hazard duty (mind the pun) in the mid to end spicy battlefield dance arc] Also among events is Dreadwing's rather gory death via the DJD, with bits of him being left across multiple countries.

At the three week mark Megatron gets his quarters back, and this only lasts three days. Then which Starscream half blows herself up live on stream thanks to Megatron's little problem distracting her. Megatron's newly returned private Quarters privileges get revoked, again. Rather quickly after this, Optimus's surprise visit happens. The toys get burned (by Primus not the toys!), the absolutely dope and iconic 2 v 1 fight occurs, annnd that ends in the charred remains of Orion and 'Tronus's collection are left on the battlefield. [As the events of When your nemesis is no longer coming to fight you in the field]

[ Megatron as a patient, or how Soundwave tries to not go insane with his leader’s unfortunate addiction to a certain Prime spans all the way from the start of Soundwave's revenge to the tail end of it]

But, eventually the autobots do learn, giving us another stretch of time as Silverlight's existence prompts a very important treaty and negotiations and "how much do you want me involved with childcare" conversations that need to happen. I'm gonna say this lasts a good three four months? Putting us at 18 to 19 months, around a year and three quarters. During quite an amount of this there's the whole extra protective Megatron stuff and the medics' antics to get checkups on both of them (... and hell, once they do that it's Optimus's turn) Tarn's starting to get super agitated and asks a lot of questions that nobody gives him a straight answer for, the rest of the DJD can kind of sense this and it blows up in everyone's face soon.

At some point, Megatron regains his quarters, and no more incidents seem to have occured or he was just quiet enough about it these times.

This is actually likely when the Grabbening occured, and honestly this is something I've been really itching to talk about more because it's a whole situation. I can see this being an ambush (that on the Decepticons' part is on accident, they did nOT know that there would be autobots out here) with Jazz and Elita, also naturally including Arcee and Bumblebee. It's the first time anyone besides Optimus has seen Megatron, and there's a serious initial fear of "oh FUCK, Megatron is not only here but we don't have Megatron aaaaand the kids and Fowler came with us frag frag frag—", at least until they notice how he isn't on his game. Like, time to start cracking half serious terrorcon and zombie jokes time. Hazard is also here, a rare sight on the battlefield, and absolutely terrorizes the hell out of the humans. The autobots immediately call for a groundbridge,, Soundwave tracks Megatron who's most definitely not supposed to be out of the medbay who the fuck let him outside for a flight, and sends out a bridge as well (don't worry this one isn't very close to the autobots' bridge, no shadowzone adventures for today). Everyone hears thunder, and as is Cybertronian policy to immediately GTFO and there's convenient bridges right there (Megatron, who's already certainly feeling like a terrorcon, actuallyis avoiding being struck by lightning! What an occurrence!). The catch being at least a few Decepticons having bluescreen moments and grabbing all four humans and booking it back to the Nemesis. Because naturally Knockout, Starscream, and Soundwave own the functioning processor components right now. There's a whole discussion about this the moment they get back, with so much arguing in Neocybex that the humans at this point have only vaguely learned some of. The humans are only on the ship for a good twelve hours because certainly the autobots are afraid as hell. Miko isn't because Miko is bold as hell, and at this point has somewhat desensitized Soundwave to her presence. Hazard drags Fowler to their lab with the intent to run experiments onto him and the kids are just kinda vaguely near the commanders. More terrorcon Megatron jokes ensue, because all he wants to do right now is make the most of his re reinstated quarters privileges. Fowler discovers the lost vehicon, (who i now dub Sidewinder because ykw ykw we've mentioned this guy enough that he deserves a two part name) which is a whole thing because he's gotten attached to them. Soundwave, who upon learning that Hazard has gotten the vehicons' favorite human and those guys are making a convincing case. Soundwave comes to the rescue for Fowler and Sidewinder, most certainly scruffs Hazard because of the rules violations he sees immediately upon entering the lab. The other vehicons actually nab both Sidewinder and Fowler, and it's a whole thing about rushing the mech to quarantine and frantically thanking both Soundwave and Fowler for rescuing him. Eventually, the autobots find their way onto the Nemesis and boy do the humans have a story to tell. This would also explain why in the sparkling fic Soundwave would've been pretty concerned about Megatron getting off the ship (btw he bribed Breakdown with string lights, the really good multicolored ones, and by pleading him to let him fly. Megan had no intention to give him the lights but Soundwave much exactly went in and got them for Breaky)

The surprise child is revealed after some missed appointments (likely merely a week). Around this point the neutral hired theraputic medic Rung arrives in the Chance, and upon the first visit he's pretty surprised at the emotional support sparkling. Also around this point, Tarn's presence is being slowly less and less tolerated on the Nemesis but let's be real that's also because of his one sided and slightly scary rivalry with the beep beep jeep, and the knowledge that he's most definitely still writing Megatarnma fics. At some point in what I'm now dubbing the beginning of the Oh Shit A Child arc, Swindle cut a deal with the Autobots with trading earth based luxury goods for Cybertronian luxury goods he has obtained. Surprisingly this does actually go fairly well for both parties, and neither betrays the other.

I'm betting the autobots didn't learn about the sparkling for hear this yet for another threeish months because wow they didn't want to deal with the awkwardness of telling them. I haven't quite decided how, exactly, but dear Primus it is juicy. At some point, Megatron is allowed back on the bridge and is a little less obsessively territorial with his sparkling. Which leads to so many cute interactions where he's holding Silverlight and mecha try to hide their gawking at a respectable distance. So 13-14 months? Tarn, at this point, is just... not allowed on the Nemesis. He's too dangerous and unpredictable to be around something so vulnerable and way important to their leader who already has notorious murderous leanings. Swindle is pretty relieved at this because i mean he definitely doesn't like being grabbed, and Knockout is glad because it means he doesn't have to treat another one of Tarn's stab wounds from said picking up.

Inevitably, Tarn learns of Silverlight and is very not happy that it threatens his fantasy. The Fallen sees this and thinks "okay finally we can get all of this moving a little faster" ... this may also be because I'm thinking thoughts about how Tarn's Voice has an impact on the Fallen even through the dimensional barrier. Sure, not Nearly as strong as it would be on a complete mortal, but it's somewhat an influence. He may be manipulating Tarn much easier than he did in canon with Steeljaw, but he cannot deny that this Tarn has more power than previously thought. The demigod is not used to being dare I say scared after millennia of being trapped. This is when Tarn's darkness in this au starts to really become apparent.

In this short time period in the first month or so after his discovery, Tarn's scorn is limited to quite a few savior fics fics involving Optimus and the sparkling. But eventually there is a public outburst where he sees Pharma for the first time in ages, and Pharma outright states that nobody loves Tarn, especially not Megatron nor himself, and that he honestly couldn't see why anyone could love Tarn. Which, might've been a shitty thing to say but this is when the events of Delphi get revealed so. Aaaand this is when Tarn, before openly threatens Megatron, Optimus, Pharma, Ratchet, and the sparkling (because let's be real Tarn has really and truly snapped at this point, and is willing to do just about anything to get what he wants.)

This will not end well for him.

So... that totals up (using the maximum ranges of the numbers i stated up above, naturally this will not be exact, and since this au is absolutely open to you guys' input as well, I'm fully willing to hear any of y'all's thoughts on the timeline and what you think should be changed to make more sense) bringing us to roughly a little over a year and a half 😁

Originally I was going to include all the way until the end of the Tarn and fallen fiasko, but it got so damn long i didn't have the energy to elaborate on that. But, for context, there's that, there's the events between it and the war over party, what happens beyond that and before the insecticons come up (which i imagine smack dab in the middle of that time period is the discovery about the true nature of the additive), the insecticon stuff, a lil gap between that, a relatively short ordeal with MECH and after that... afterward is pretty much the happy ending

[mytragedyperson]

Thoughts I had while watching/regarding bungou stray dogs

Before I begin I just want to say I don't want any hate for any thoughts and opinions here. We're allowed to disagree and have a different opinion regarding this show and these characters but what I don't want is a bunch of people being rude because we disagree on this show and these characters. Unlike the characters in this show I'm actually a real living human being with real human emotions. I'm not going to be a dick to you for your opinions, I just ask that you don't be a dick to me for mine. Also I'm lazy and I've already sent most of these thoughts to my friend who does not watch this show so I'll just be copy and posting those messages here as I wrote them to her. As I write this I'm on S3 E36, but I have been sending these messages to my friend since I started watching it yesterday and since I'm posting literally every thought I sent to my friend there will be things that are wrong whether I know it or not, so just a little forewarning for that. Also most of these thoughts will be going up to the first episode of S3 though I may later add to this with other opinions when I inevitably rewatch this and get to season 3 again.

And then he instantly ate the candy before she could try it but the thought was there. Also it was funny. Then again I also thought Dazai having Atsushi throw the phone just so Akutagawa would jump after it and immediately hanging up was funny. It was cruel, it was mean, i still laughed because I'm not so secretly a terrible person and this show brings out my worst qualities. What more can I say.

Wait I'm once again watching bungou stray dogs and I'm actually feeling so good right now. So there's a character called Ranpo and there's this traumatised 14 year old called Kyouka who basically had no childhood, and one of the first things Ranpo did is go out and buy her a shit ton of candy she's never tried before. Also he's just generally one of my favourite characters. He's 26 but he's childish, can barely do regular human things but he's really smart like think sherlock Holmes and he doesn't give a fuck but at the same time he's so sweet and just wants everyone to praise him but he can also be kinda snarky and sarcastic? Idk if those are the right terms. Ugh I love him

And then there's dazai who is basically a walking red flag and used to work for the mafia but he is so fun and interesting to watch. He's so manipulative, I actually couldn't tell you how much of his personality is real, how much is fake, and how much is a bit of both. He's also only 22 which I didn't realise until now. I stand by this but now I'm pretty sure nothing he says is a complete lie. Like he manipulates people with the truth more than anything. It's fascinating to watch. And terrifying

Also I there's this sweet friendly happy country boy who seems really Naive but (since this is a world where superpoweres/special abilities exist) he has super strength like can lift a car with one hand strong. He can beat up an entire gang with a smile. But he only has this super strength when he's hungry. That's another thing I like, some of the abilities are overpowered but others have limitations or only work in certain conditions. However then you have the main character who can turn into a weretiger and that for some reason gives him restoration abilities. Like he legit lost a leg in one of the first episodes then turned into a tiger and it was just back with no sign he'd ever lost it. Okay I'm gonna admit I still forget this guys name. Kenji? I will look it up so I can tag him. I'm sorry I don't dislike him I'm just terrible with names. Also I interrupt this past thought to bring you my current thought. I'm currently paused on cannabilism part three. I'm pretty sure Ranpo and Chuuya are still in Poe's book. Also I don't think I mentioned Poe that much in my messages to my friends but I love him. He simultaneously wants to be the best, be praised and get one over on Ranpo. At the same time he wants to be friends with Ranpo. He's adorable, he's lonely, there's something kind of sad about him. Honestly there's something kinda sad about most if not all of these characters but we'll get back to that later. Now on with my previously scheduled old thoughts

And then there's a woman in it who can heal people but only when they're basically dying so if she wants to heal a minor injury she has to almost but not quite kill her patient before she can heal them. I don't have much more to say here, Yosano seems cool and badass and all that but we don't really see much of her. I did really like the S1 episode we got with her but that's the only point she's really had a chance to stand out which is sad.

Also this isn't an old thought but I love how S3 showed that even though Ranpo is childish at times he can be mature when needed.

Could do without the incest they randomly hint at or just throw in in general but I understand its more for humour than anything else and it's rare enough that it can be ignored.

And then the head of the mafia has like a girl who's around 10 near him and idk if it's a translation issue or me overthinking it but it does give me a slight pedophilic vibe the way some things are said.

And yet somehow he seems to actually care about the people working for him. It's so interesting to watch a show where the characters treated as the morally grey imperfect humans they are. Like dazai left the mafia but he didn't magically become good and forget everything that let him survive in the mafia. He never claims to be a good person and he doesn't care. He doesn't care about being good or doing the right thing. The show doesn't treat him like he's always a good person or someone who always does a good thing. Sure, the main character sees him as good or at least not bad but that's because Dazai took him in and got him a job when he had nowhere to go because he's an orphan. I'm also not sure how many of the people he works with now know he's in the mafia. Like in the third episode or something it's said that no one knows what he did before. But it's at the end of that episode we the audience find out he used to be in the mafia, and three of the people he works with are there but they're all either unconscious or dying so it's unclear if any of them actually heard and idk if they actually heard and nothing seems to change after that and it's never mentioned by the detective agency whether they know or not. But the mafia isn't treat like they're wholly evil or bad either. Yes they're criminals, they're murderers they do bad things but they seem to be somewhat supportive of each other and care about each other somewhat, you know kinda like a very fucked up, toxic family that is abusive towards each other but is also like wtf only I can be mean to them, they are my fellow mafia members, no you may not hurt them, only we can kill and abuse our family members dammit kinda way. The kind of thing that's horrifying in real life but can make for some interesting scenes. Also Kyouka and the Red haired woman, I'm sorry I completely forgot her name- the way this woman cares about Kyouka as if she's her own daughter and wants her to be happy.

Also you gotta love a show that isn't afraid to kill off some kids because yes these are dangerous criminals and they're going up against other dangerous killers. You think they're gonna draw a line at killing kids to get what they want? Realism in my anime I love it.

Like I realise that sounds vaguely demented but I'm so sick of black vs white, good vs evil. Having two criminal organisations go up against each other? Yes. Having two criminal organisations and a detective agency go up against each other? Yes. Having the morals be grey to the point where your main character, the character with the best morals, still probably wouldn't exactly be anyone's image of good? Who thinks they can't do something not because of morals but because their self esteem is basically 0, maybe even a minus number? Yes. Of The main groups that have been given names there's not one person among them that I belive couldn't kill someone. Even the ones that don't kill people or don't want to could kill people. And I love that. All the villains, all the bad guys, all the characters feel like they could be real people, exaggerated and dramatic, sure, but at their core all the characters feel real, and most of the relationship dynamics you can kind of understand or feel rooted in real life. When you look at your main characters you're not necessarily encouraged to think they can do no wrong. Ugh god I love this anime

Also I'm now pretty sure that Ranpo at least knows that Dazai was in the mafia. Not only does he have deductive abilities but there's a chance he was working for the agency when Dazai joined. The president of the agency knows and I feel like Ranpo knows either because he was told or he figured out. If he knows he didn't tell anyone. I have no proof of this so far, it just makes sense. If he can put on glasses, look at a complete stranger and know that if they go where they're going they'll die, and by looking at a body knows how and when someone died and who killed them and why, then surely he could figure out dazai was in the mafia or something similar? Idk that just makes more sense to me than him not knowing and, while he is pretty childish, he's also 26. He probably knows that telling the other agency members that dazai is a mafia member may not be the best idea. If he can tell Dazais a mafia member he can also probably guess the others reaction and some of them are new to the agency. Also its a detective agency so it's technically on the other side of the law. And the less people that know, the less chance there is of the wrong people finding out, you know.

They literally introduced these kids for the sole purpose of killing them off to send a message and I appreciate it. Honestly these are episodes to establish a characters past and background why are they so good and detailed.

They literally killed a bunch of kids to encourage someone to kill them. This is madness I love it.

Honestly it's really interesting how the leader of the rival group, who I refuse to call a villain was searching for death and to escape, meanwhile dazai is searching for a will to live, a reason to live. Oh yeah this anime is great but its also depressing and there is a pretty big theme of suicide and murder and death running through it so there is that.

He doesn't even leave the mafia because he wants to become a better person, he does it because his only friend told him to while dying in his arms. Or rather he's indifferent to morality and chooses the side of "good" or at least twilight because he was asked to.

OK I think they know dazai was mafia by season 2. That's what I'm gonna go with. It makes more sense, except then Kunikida didn't know but that could've just been Dazai trying to annoy him so idk. If someone knows who exactly knows dazai was in the mafia please let me know.

The fact that this rich guys power is literally the more money I spend the more power I have is a really interesting reflection of life honestly.

I mean dazai kind of implied that he hopes he can become a good person but I literally think that's just because his friend asked him to.

Also the fucked up mentorship that is Dazai and Akutagawa is so toxic and so abusive and yet to some extent I'm here rooting for Akutagawa hoping he gets the acknowledgement he wants. Look, listen, I know this wouldn't make it pess abusive, abusers do praise their victims sometimes to keep them around but honestly I want him to achieve his goals whatever they may be.

Plus I feel like it shows Dazais character as well. He is manipulative, ge is toxic, he is abusive, he is a killer, he is a criminal. He is a walking red flag and how he interacts with Akutagawa shows that, and yet how he treats Atsushi, the main character and his new apprentice I believe he called him is different. He praises him more, he doesn't hit him as much, the one time he did it was to snap him out of it when he was freaking out. Idk how to describe Dazais character in a positive way abd yet he's so entertaining to watch that I can't help but like him and honestly it feels like the audience is being manipulated just as much as everyone else around Dazai only its worse because we've actively seen more of the things he's done that have been less than good and yet we just kinda shrug and go well that's dazai for you but that's not normal. If this was a real person I'd be very concerned but as its a fictional main character I've decided to just not think about it too deeply. I like his character, I think he's interesting.

Also idk how this falls or anything but this guy was basically called, not even weak just not strong enough yet, by Dazai, literally internalised that so hard that even 4 years later, when he's a lot stronger than he was before, he still thinks he's weak simply because Dazai has never said he's strong.

It's kinda like how I feel watching You. Like you know what he's doing is wrong and he's not a good guy but because you're following him and know his point of view you don't completely hate him. This is more regarding how he treats Akutagawa than un general.

And the thing is this show is actually so sad. Like when you listen to the characters talk and the main theme being looking for a will to live, looking for a life purpose, its honestly quite a depressing show, it just has fight scenes and some silly characters and lighter hearted moments that make you forget for a moment that it's a sad, depressing show.

Honestly this guy with the money is literally spending all his money to try and make his family happy but I cannot figure out how destroying part of Japan makes his family happy. Maybe it's something to do with this book he's looking for.

Yeah also I love how impersonal group 3 seems. Like there's the armed detective agency, the mafia and the guild, and the guild are doing all these things but at the end of the day it is just a job for them. They don't actually care about each other or their boss that much, some of them care. it's just a way to make money. I kinda like that.

Also we have Cthulu or some other monster pretending to be human so thats cool.

Also Ranpo made a friend, like someone who isn't in the agency and they can be geniuses together and there's an element of rivalry but they still respect each other and their abilities. I'm so happy for both of them. I did talk about Poe look at that.

They seriously had this grown ass man say he prefers the women in his life to be under 12 so I wasn't overthinking the pedophilia they were putting in. It's good to have this clarification though, and as my friend pointed out still doesn't need to be there but there it is and I can't change it so let's just go with it.

Also Dazai just kinda knows everything and everyone and he's slowly puppet mastering everything. Like he has people in the mafia who still seen loyal to him and do what he tells him. He kind of has a friend in the government. He's in the armed detective agency. And there's 2 years where he was hidden that I still know nothing about so basically all I'm saying is I'm pretty sure Dazai is secretly in charge of all of Japan and everyone else has just failed to realise this yet. Still stand by this and if its not true yet it will be.

OK we had Cthulu and now we have what appear to be demons and apparently the mangas have vampires so this should be interesting.

I mean it makes sense. If they can have supernatural powers why not have supernatural beings as well.

And now one of the characters is a vessel for a god and has been this entire time.

Honestly it's so funny to me to go on tumblr and see people be like oh dazais toxic, he treats Akutagawa badly. Like yeah obviously he's a mafia agent. He's an executive. He was 15 when he joined and I doubt he's much older when Akutagawa joins. Akutagawa is his subordinate. It's like obviously mafia members don't treat their subordinates well. They're the mafia. "Oh Dazai manipulated and strong armed Chuuya and Akutagawa into joining the mafia." What as opposed to the honourable recruitment methods usually used by mafia members? Like they think that's gonna make me find the mentor mentee relationship any less interesting? They also seem to talk like finding this type of dynamic in a fictional show with fictional characters means you somehow support or are fine with abusive dynamics in shows which is literally not how this works? Like you can find something entertaining in fiction that you hate in real life. Like personally I find mind control powers really interesting but in real life they'd be horrifying and I'd hate if they were real. I honestly don't get how seriously some people take enjoying a fictional dynamic between fictional people. And by the way before anyone tries to twist this to say oh so you think it's OK for some people to get abused just because they're in the mafia? No I don't think that, abuse is abuse and abuse is always wrong in real life but that's also how things are in the mafia and among criminals and people in general. That doesn't make it right or good. It's just how things are, just reality, an unfortunate reality but a reality all the same. Sorry if this seems really antagonistic and stuff. It just annoys me when people act like enjoying a fictional dynamic in any way reflects your real life dynamics. Though this may also be because I accidentally tripped and fell into shipping dazai and akutagawa. Listen, I didn't want to ship them, I didn't expect to ship them, and yet ship them I do and I can't change that. As I said in real life this dynamic is horrible and no one who claims to love you should treat you like Dazai treats Akutagawa. I didn't get a choice in this one. I didn't even need fanfiction to make it happen. My brain really looked at all the characters in this show, all the possible ships and went that one and pointed at one of the most toxic ships in this show. I'm sorry I'm disappointed in me too but it could be worse, so I'm just gonna ignore any negativity associated with that particular opinion.

Also if the story I was supposed to take from the dazai and chuuya 15 years old episodes was supposed to be that dazai was a terrible person and a dick and a villain, I'm sorry to say that was not the message I got. I'll be honest I didn't really take a message from the whole Chuuyas former group and dazai conflict, I was too busy thinking of that undertake song you sometimes hear on tiktok you know the line "you're only still alive because I made a promise". And honestly those kids sucked anyway, family isn't something you hold over someone's head as you owe us situation. Dazai was mostly honest about his actions? Like I feel like he never directly lied. Of course there are plenty of ways to avoid completely lying while also not telling the full truth. Is it really Dazais fault everyone was so easy for him to predict? Now did he have to call the boss or reveal he was from the mafia? No. Obviously not but at the same time why should he hide it? He has no reason to. And let's face it whether those kids showed up then or not ,Chuuya was always going to end up working with Dazai to some extent, he already had and also, he still wanted answers for himself. The teens were the ones that decided that was a betrayal and decided to try and kill Chuuya and join up with the mafia's other rivals, which the mafia obviously wouldn't like. Was it manipulated and puppeteered? To some extent, dazai certainly did things on purpose that he didn't have to do, predicting it would cause a specific reaction. But predictions aren't always right. Dazais plan working still relied an awful lot on other people's reactions and choices. And no I feel no emotion for the fact they're 15, so were Dazai and Chuuya, they were still perfectly willing to kill Chuuya for a perceived betrayal. And in response to that Chuuya agrees to Dazais terms to save them. Thus why my brain just went "you're only still alive because I made a promise". Anyway, yeah thise are my thoughts on that i won't comment on Akutagawa's joining the mafia yet because I haven't seen that flashback yet, and Dazai did still mistreat them. I did get the message that he's a master manipulator and can be dangerous but this had already been established.

[mymistakewriting]

About (new post)

It's been a while and almost a hundred new followers since I've done an "about me" post. I figured it was probably time to fix that.

Hi, I'm Kieran. I'm 28, I go by they/them pronouns

I write fanfiction and post headcanons and meta / observations / rants to the void about my fandoms and hyperfixations in my spare time (I work full-time as a server, but don't feel comfortable sharing what company I work at). I do accept requests for writing and headcanons, my inbox is always open for those and to just chat!

I have a discord account that I'm far more active on because I sometimes forget that tumblr exists (ameenjouee is my handle there if anyone wants to add me).

I have a large range of fandoms that I write for, but tend to cycle through and only focus on a handful at a time. I usually post when these fandoms change, but haven't done so yet recently (I'll do so in a new post after this)

This post will also act as a "Before You Follow" post, and an invitation to unfollow me to any newbies around here that don't feel comfortable sticking around with the following information out there:

As a writing blog, I have a few rules:

I do not condone ship bashing. I'm also a multi-shipper within most of my fandoms rather than have one ship that I focus in on. I like some variety in my writing. Any harassment that stems from me writing a ship that isn't majority in a fandom or that "gets in the way" of a popular ship will be answered by a block. I'm not the person to try that shit with.

I don't condone white-washing - be it via fancasts or culturally in portrayal. As someone with Romani heritage who grew up removed from a culture that I have to learn now that I have access to the side of my family that it comes from, I will always go to bat for people and cultures that aren't being represented or heard.

I'm very conscious of tagging triggering topics when I post my writing. If you like seeing my content but need something specific tagged as a trigger, please reach out (anon or not, I want anyone who takes up with my content to be safe reading it), and I'll make sure the topic is tagged both pre-content in post and in the tags from now on.

I will not write reader-insert.

As a person, I also have the following heads up to give:

I'm neurodivergent, that's about all you need on that one.

I'm non-binary, panromantic, demisexual (to be read as: homophobic and transphobic comments ain't gonna fly with me)

I don't have posting schedules, it's very much a "when I have time" or "when I finish it" kind of mess of a blog.

I'm very vocal when it comes to politics, ecological welfare, and human rights - these posts will be mostly contained to my personal blog, not my writing. The only real reason I include it is because the first time someone steps to my blog with some "blue lives matter" bullshit due to my writing for the 911 & Lone Star fandoms, I'll be reporting and blocking you, thanks.

But if all that seems fine by you, welcome to my blog. Feel free to stay a while and chat.

[synthetickitsune]

♡ Ask me about my wips and I'll love you forever btw ♡ ...but also please ignore this - more than anything it's a list for myself to keep track of things because my docs are getting very messy and I'm losing things and forgetting about them... ...but also please don't - this exists because I have nobody to talk with about writing and what I wanna write... ...also drabbles are not included in this because I write those when I feel like writing them...

[Last updated: 18/5/2024]

Requests ...things with ✓ next to them are written and queued up to be posted~

Yonghoon + notes & i hoped i’d meet someone like you for a long time

Joonggil + his gaze touched me before his hands touched me

Florist San

Hoshi + blind date

LSH + bf material

Jaeyoon + sharing drama & your heart is beating so fast [✓]

DK + rainy day & being held [✓]

Soft LSH smut

Jealous hard dom Jun smut

Woozi comfort

Onewe when their s/o wears revealing clothing [1/5]

Yandere!SF9 when their s/o escapes and comes back [5.5/9]

SVT and silent treatment

WIPS... ...the things that I'm currently actively working on and will finish soon... hopefully...

various requests

...the things that are half-finished but I need to be in a certain headspace to continue writing them and it's taking a while...

Angry smut w/ Yonghoon (Onewe)

Non-sexual shibari w/ Inseong (SF9)

Performance unit (SVT) part of my Onewe songs-based scenarios

Academic rivals mini-series w/ Wonwoo & Jeonghan (SVT) • 3 chapters - all of them half-finished because I'm a mess :') and I also like to complicate my life so there'll be sub-plots and outside-of-canon chapters and why tf do I do this to myself?

Cat hybrid Jun (SVT) • it's angsty and sad and I hate making Jun suffer but I love making my characters suffer

...the things that are half-written but I need to find my way back to them...

Overthinking leading to a relationship angst w/ Jaeyoon (SF9)

Android Giuk (Onewe) who discovers that he has feelings

Mermaid Harin (Onewe)

...the things that have some substantial part of them written but I really need to think things through...

Snake hybrid Minghao (SVT) • this was meant to be a lil' drabble or maybe a short oneshot as a treat for myself... it's gonna have chapters... I'm not good with chapters...

Mermaid Jeonghan (SVT) • I just need to figure things out but c'mon... the world obviously needs more mermaid Hannie...

...the things I'm ignoring on purpose because I feel like once I sit down with the intent of writing them I won't stop until they're finished and idk why I just don't do that but ahahaha I'm a mess...

Fallen angel Changkyun (MonstaX) who only recently fell and wants to preserve his falling feathers so he asks taxidermist!reader for help

Exs (exes?) Wonwoo (SVT) and reader who decide to stay friends and meet up and talk and is that love between them a memory or is it real?

Kitsune/Gumiho Yonghoon (Onewe) and reader who used to visit him often when they were a child and visiting their grandparents, walking to his abandoned shrine but now they're adult and their free time is severely limited

(as a side note - ^ all of those are part of a collection I wanna do but these are the ones I have the most concrete image of in my mind)

Part 2 to Crescent Moons (aka my Gumiho Lee Soohyuk fic) where they talk about love and food - and isn't bite also a touch? What's really the difference between wanting to fuck and love someone and to devour them?

A threesome w/ JunHao (SVT) and blindfolded reader because everything happens in a darkness and it's all about trust

...the things I'll write once if it's the last thing I do because I really want to write them...

Yandere!SF9 when their s/o gets lost in public

Finish "the little things" blurbs for all the groups I write for [4 to go]

Dealing with the differences between his loving family and your own dysfunctional one w/ Hwiyoung (SF9)

A very specific deity/multiverse hopper/some non-human being thing with Jeonghan that so far I only have the vibes of

Insatiable needy Jun (SVT) smut where he just can't stop overstimulating himself and as a result you as well

A mafia AU that literally only exists because I'm so fckn weak for JunHao (SVT) and building trust in someone who's like a trapped and scared animal because I have issues

This idea

This idea too

And oh yeah, this one too

...speaking of which, other ideas I'm thinking about writing and that were posted on my blog can be find on this tag here

...the things that will take a while to see the light of day because I'm horrible with chapters and writing series and so I don't wanna post them until I've written them in their entirety but that'll take for-fucking-ever...

Evermorrow - anyone remembers this? because I do and I love it, and I love the characters I've turned them into, and I have the first few chapters written, and then what I lovingly call chapter 50, which, hopefully, won't actually be chapter 50 but it's gonna be later in the story because the reader needs to be pretty close with Jun for things to make sense and Hao and Woozi and DK will finally show up, and then around what I call chapter 60 there's Vernon - and him and the reader will meet Hoshi and Mingyu... and I got this thing mostly all thought out but writing is hard and takes time and I wanna write other things as well but I love this so much :((

...this doesn't actually have a name but it's save in my docs as XenoDroid... - a gift from myself to myself, very niche and nobody will care about it but it's almost 20k words now and it was supposed to be just one smutty one-off but it has chapters and a lil' bit of plot and there's no smut yet even though I have that scene literally burned inside my mind and Yonghoon (Onewe) is a xenomorph alien-human hybrid who can think and speak but is also very animalistic and Kihyun (MonstaX) is an android who's besties with the reader but also befriends Yonghoon behind their back and hhhnnnngggg :(((

[nightswithkookmin]

GOING ON A HIATUS

Thanks to everyone who's taken the time out to read my posts and has enjoyed it so far. It's really been fun and entertaining exchanging thoughts and having these much deeper ship discussions.

I thought this issue was gonna go away but I woke up this morning to more people messaging me about finding my last video analysis on several other platforms without appropriate credit.

But that's not disturbing. The disturbing part is the people sliding into people's DM'S on other platforms to get them to take down my video because they don't want people sharing my content on other platforms as they believe it would only make my blog popular.

For those worried about this whole credit business, thanks for showing this much concern for me? I really appreciate the love and concern if it's from a genuine place of concern. Thank you...

I think some of you already know this by now or might have figured it out, I am a law student, I am very much well aware what is and what isn't within my rights? Lol

I honestly didn't see this whole credit thingy as a big deal. It's not. Not to me. Lol. I repost people's photos without credit too all the time. Often, it's because I don't know who to credit and most time my lazy ass just forgets to. Lol. I think it's normal? It's inconsequential I mean.

The videos I use are usually often water marked by the appropriate owners so I don't go through the hustle of figuring this whole credit business out. If I should decide to come back here again I will check that habit of mine?

While this whole credit business is not a big deal to me, malicious slander and defamation to my character is and I don't take it lightly.

It has been brought to my attention that some Jikookers from Tumblr have since been sliding into people's DM's on other platforms asking them to take down my video and or remove the credit they give to my post.

They are telling people I am problematic, calling me the Taekook Lives of the Jikook community. That I have been spreading lies about Jikook, that the Jikook Tumblr community hates me or something like that and to further caricaturize me and make me appear more evil in order to get people to turn on me and hate me, they make up the most ridiculous lies about me claiming that I believe a notorious serial killer is innocent.

Now I have since deleted my YT account because I don't want my colleagues to find out I am into shipping too lol- shipping is a guilty pleasure of mine and I know how this fandom works unfortunately. I've been a silent part of it since 2014. I mean it's started already. The Doxing and shit.

The original post under which these replies are from couldn't save sadly as my account has been deleted but you can see from my notifications the general feel of what my interests outside shipping looks like.

I am interested in a myriad of topics, from literature, Aliens, writing, Harry Potter, history, activism, advocacy, philosophy, law, politics, NASA, and mystery and murder among other things.

My quora is mostly filled with notifications from my Book community and True crime community and often I do share my thoughts and answer questions with regards to the psychology of murderers, legal evidence, notorious villains in literature- well I guess now you know the kind of lawyer I want to be if and when I'm able to complete law school.

But what has my interest in these topics got to do with Jikook and shipping please?? How does this prove I hate Jikook and spread lies about them?

This Kookie Min Monsta person slipped into someone's DMS and asked the person who had put up my video analysis to take it down or discredit me because to her I am problematic. She is not the only one.

You want so bad to paint me black- no pun intended just to win an argument? You claim I am the evil malicious person here but I am not the one sliding into people's dms trying to take credit away from people for their hardwork, spreading hate and negative energy, making things up to manipulate people's perception of others and get them to hate and turn on them- and all because of A SHIP? Damn. This is pathetic.

Who died and made you the gatekeeper of the jikook shipping community? Honestly antics like these don't work on me try again.

I made a video commentary on my Booktube YT account- yes I am part of the book YouTube community as well sue me or better still slip into their inboxes and tell them I voted for Trump therefore I hate chipmunks.

The commentary I made on YT months ago was when I was in the highs of finding a new passion and it was on Ann Rule's book, The Stranger Besides Me- a true crime novel on Ted Bundy which I found so poorly written that at the end of the book it left with me wondering whether or not Ted Bundy was guilty at all!

The Author's writing style which deviates from most writing styles of True Crime novels I have read gave me trust issues as I stated in the video. It felt more as if she was writing a made up fictional novel than an actual True Crime novel but because she knew Ted Bundy in person she made it seem as if we just had to believe her account.

Then there was this whole thing about the police not being able to match the DNA samples taken from his rape victims, to his own Semen because his Semen was DNAless- in lay man's terms. I'll spare you the technicalities involved.

As I stated in that video, I do believe Ted Bundy was guilty but I do not have much faith in the Judicial system, or criminal procedures or even the Author of that book- a sentiment most people within the true crime community share as well. We just had differing views on whether the writer's style took away from the narrative and waters down on the extent of Bundy's guilt.

We had a Similar conversation about Chris Watt. If the community I was engaging in didn't have a problem with my commentary why do you? Please don't meddle in things you know nothing about. It's embarrassing.

The conversation about whether or not Ted Bundy is innocent is moot but a philosophical one. It has nothing to do with Ted Bundy's guilt but more so the criminal procedures involved in his case and the different accounts that exists surrounding his case.

He was electrocuted, he confessed to his crimes no damn person with brains would think or assume he is innocent and I never said anything of that nature drew any conclusions to that effect.

Besides, I moved on from Ted Bundy a long time ago. Now I am into the Serial Killer who writes death poems and signs it off with drawings of the size of his dick at his crime scenes- mind your own business please or don't and let's have an intellectual discourse about him? Lmho.

I am also into cat memes if you care to know and have a whole IG dedicated to cat memes. I believe human beings are the most dumbest species in all the galaxies and when the Aliens arrive I am snitching.

When my mind is at rest, I often wonder if Aliens have masculinity complex and if they do whether or not their masculinity is contingent on the size of their dicks or whether they have to engage in a battle to the death with an alien grizzly bear to determine who is the man.

I love BTS memes too- a little too much and often end up debating over the internet with random people over whether BTS memes are funnier than cat memes- I'm weird, true. But how does all of that make me a bad person?

It's crazy how these people can go on these other platforms to ask people to take down the credits to my posts as well as my posts itself but can't ask people who run to these other platforms with misinterpretations of my work to take those down.

Instead they come on here to call me out for people's interpretations of my work?? It doesn't work that way. You are the author of your own opinion and interpretation of other people's work. You don't call out the original author for someone's opinion of their work. If that were so I would be emailing Stephanie Meyer for Anna Todd and her After series. Get some education.

I have since blocked this person and others whose Tumblr I have been able to find thanks to all those that's helped me finding them on here.

My gf also tried reaching out to the persons who shared my post after we realised this was becoming an issue and had asked them to credit her or my blog- but honestly I don't care about that yet she won't give it a rest. Lol. My ride or die this one. Sigh.

However, we realized soon that this is not about 'stealing' credit- can't call someone out for not giving credit when I suck at that myself. Lol.

This is about people's malicious intentions and their attempts to silence me and take away my right to freedom of expression however way that they can. This is wrong and evil.

I honestly don't care for all these ship politics these people are engaged in. I've had enough intelligent conversations to know the distinction between arguments that flows from bruised egos and actual conversations around a subject matter.

This whole I am right, she is wrong politics... y'all get that the point of having an opinion is not to be right, right? We all cant have the same perspective and you can't call someone a liar for holding views that is different from yours. That is a bizarre mentality to have.

As I stated in my post, that content I made was a rebuttal to the Taekook theories running around on the internet alleging JK glared at Tae when he pulled on his shoulder because he was jealous Tae and Jin were having fun behind him. He wasn't. He was worried Tae was gonna expose him and JM holding hands behind Suga.

If you don't think they were holding hands then Taekookers were right and his reaction was because he was Jealous of Taejin I guess...

But thats your truth. That's not my truth. I don't believe Taekook is real. JK isn't jealous of Taejin he is not Twelve- but then again he was sneaking around behind Suga holding his boyfriend's hands so I guess he is twelve? Lol. Jikook!

Do you.

But please stop the evil malicious attacks and seek immediate help. There is such a thing as right and wrong and this is just plain wrong. Your Karma and chakra are in the negative nodes and you need to fix it. It is not funny anymore.

Thank you to everyone who has shown genuine concerns for me in the past few days and thank you so much for trying to stand up for me. There are good people on here and I have met and interacted with a lot of them and thank you so much for such a wonderful experience and insightful discussions.

I don't hate people because of our differences in thoughts, beliefs, opinions. There's always room for dissenting opinions in every sphere. At the very least, we can agree to disagree and shake on it. But You can't make up shit about people just to prove your opinion is right and their opinions and views which differ from yours are 'wrong.

I am not a victim though, and they are not bullies, psst. They are just vile pathetic human beings exposing the greens of their insides. What you do says more about who you are as a person and human being. And this is who they are.

Just be a nice decent human being. That's what this world needs. Fix whatever is broken inside of you and free your mind and spirit. Hate is never the answer.

I'm going to be away for a while because I have studies, work and other interests I want to pursue at the moment- it's just my AADD flaring up so if you see me henceforth raving about Nana at least you'd know why. Lol. She's wrecking my Jimin bias. Lmho.

Spread positivity, do the right thing, stand up for a good cause and keep supporting Jikook. Jikook is real.

Until we meet again.

Signed,

GOLDY

[omegangrins]

A Treatise On the Doctor

I don't know how to start this. Because I think of Peter Capaldi's words when he said that the only thing required to be a Doctor Who fan, is kindness.

I like 13 and think Chibnall is doing his best job writing the show.

So I struggle to write this because I am engaging against that very unkindness in the Doctor Who fandom, and trying very hard not to be angry back. "Allways try to be nice but never fail to be kind." But I've begun to wonder more and more if those who speak so loudly against the show really know what the show itself is about.

Enough of talking about other people though, cause frankly they're only important as set-up for this conversation. And again, I'm working kind.

So here's what you're gonna learn from this lifelong fan (and the best Tl;dr you're gonna get):

1. The Doctor sucks. From the very beginning. People complain about character traits now that have been around as long as the show.

2. Due to the Doctor's suckage, they tend to do more harm than good. (And because of this, most of the Doctor's "friends" along the way have been, well, let's leave it at the air quotes for now cause it's a damn big list of "BOOOO!!!".)

3. All of the showrunners and writers and actors and editors and everyone else has allways knows this and has played it this way.

4. And last but not least, since this is a time travel show. If you wanna know what and why stuff is happening now, look it up. Everything that happened before is allways in play.

5. None of this is bad, and in fact, it makes the show morally grayer. It's about kindness at all costs. Even your own.

A. First things first, the hard thing. The Doctor is not grrrreat. I mean, sure they try, but they fail a lot more often. In Extremis, a majority of those fatality index counts come from people the Doctor failed to save. That's why it's worded so specifically as "cause of death". All the death's caused by the Doctor's very interaction with time and lack of saving those around them. And part of it's not their fault, but more often than not, the Doctor says I can save you, and can't, won't, or chooses not to.

And that would be alright, but it took them over 1000 years to realize they should start letting their companions lead lives outside of theirs so THEY DON'T DIE. A bit too long as someone who claims to be better.

Not to mention how many times the Doctor is dismissive of their companions and the people around them only to use them for their help and just bug off again. If they truly cared and wanted to help, they would stay and listen in between adventures. Their lifespan is near infinite anyway. What's a few extra Earth hours with some friends you made along the way. You know, maybe fix some of the psychological and emotional damage created by encountering things behind a human's original scope of reasoning. But nope, we gotta go adventure more, byyyyeee!!

So when people talk about these qualities in 13 in a negative aspect I have to laugh because I'm not sure if they understand the joke. Cause we're talking about an alien that grew up around a species calling themselves Time Lords. I try not to blame them too much for it. 1 had to learn how to be hospitable to humans and it's been a bit of a slow learning curve ever since.

B. After the Doctor survived the horrors of the Time War and happened upon a human companion they felt worth connecting to, what did they do? They took Rose to watch her planet burn in front of her eyes. Great, first date, amirite?

And that's a little bit of companion damage. Do you know that the Doctor is responsible for the almost complete genocide of the Silurian race across multiple occasions. I am legitimately surprised there are any left after all of the ones the Doctor has killed. Like before, they cause destruction either purposefully or accidentally or simply by force of being there.

Remember before how I said that the Doctor just flies away. Yeah, they leave a lot of problems behind when they do (something that I can see Chibnall is planting the seeds of). If you had a time and space machine and practically unlimited capabilities and you choose to just leave after a situation and not check up on them from time to or see if there are any other underlying crises to be solved. But oh no, "gotta follow that rule of time and keep going even though I stopped in the first place because of how interested I was.". This is why 9 has a great arc about this. He thought he killed all the Daleks. They came back. He thought he'd gotten rid of the Slitheen. They came back. He thought he saved Satellite 5 from aliens. But opsies, they came back. And look! They're Daleks. Which he "finally" got rid of.

The Doctor just bounces around all carefree and without an ounce of care for themselves, their companions or consequences unless there's consequences for themselves or their companions. Then they get indignant.

Is that really kind of the person you want flying around fixing things in time and space? Who knows. But at least they are trying. Most of the time the T.A.R.D.I.S. lands somewhere and the authority figures are the most pretentious bull-headed pigs you can find. To me, I laugh cause it seems like both sides end up getting a taste of their own medicine. Usually with the bull charging to death in a sad glory while the Doctor wiles on metaphorically about not being as good as them.

But again, as a "superior" alien with "advanced" technology and "culture" you'd think they'd just know better already. But that's all part of the character. The Doctor may be in flux, but true change is difficult. The real hero of every story is the other people BESIDES the Doctor.

Cause the title is Doctor *Who* . The Who being half of the title, despite having less letters. It's the constant question of "What and why and who is that crazy person that's trying to help?" Why do you think they keep flying back to Earth? (Besides set construction reasons.) They've grown as attached to us as we have to them. And at this point, a lot of their saving us is guilt and embarrassment at having a hand in our timeline.

This is also the same reason the Doctor dumps companions in a fluff. Baggage. Every time a companion gets too heavy to carry the memories of... off they fly.

Except for 13. She's stayed. To this end, we can see how the Doctor changes. Not on our smaller, human timelines, but on the timeline of a god with way too much power.

D. With that in mind, we go Classic. It's the Who you need to consult if you wish to make any critique on what's happening now. Because how can you know how a part operates inside of a whole without seeing the whole part?

Cause I don't know if you've watched it but it can be rough, and I don't mean in the sense of production value (which admittedly they do a fairly decent job of using what money they had. A problem the BBC plagues to Doctor Who to this day.). The 3rd Doctor shits on every one they call friends constantly and then turns around expecting help. 4 did the same. Then 5 masked that contempt with a plucky face and a cheeky word. But it was still there, bubbling out of 6 and 7 as the inability to suffer fools gladly and using their own righteousness to enact change in their companions. A trait that kept going til an entire war and regeneration was used solving the question of "Doctor Who?" Only for them to try and forget twice more by putting on their pretty grinning faces and running away from it.

And I'm only talking from a companion perspective. Each of the Doctors has enacted their own form of genocide on countless species. Sure, it's to "save humans" but at the end of the day you'd have to ask yourself if we're really worth that blood. And this is all in the Doctor's history. As much as they claim better, they're hands are still gushing red.

The Doctor left Jo because she fell in love. They drove Adric to put their life on the line in order to feel adequate. The entirety of the Silurian race has been wiped out fivefold under their watch, with one time by their hand itself. Same for several other singular and unique species you won't be able to find elsewhere in the universe. 7 used time travel to enact a personality change in Ace while simultaneously using her as a pawn in an interdimensional war. The Time War itself. Sure it got erased but the Doctor still did those things ("War" Doctor or whatever nonsense titles they feel necessary to delude themselves). The entirety of Amy's childhood was destroyed by their presence, and Rory got erased. Twice! Sarah Kingdom. We know the list. Hell, the Doctor whisked Barbara and Ian away because they wanted to teach the snobby humans some lessons.

They may have a time machine, but we have the bill of their actions. This is where 13 excels. Because they're trying to be better than themselves. They've learnt the lessons of all those years traveling and the failures they wish they could reverse but don't as a way of keeping a scoreboard of pain. It's not perfect by any means, but look at 12 needing cue cards to understand and react to human grief under duress. They've come a helluva long way. After 50 years, I'm inclined to believe better. After all, it's what the Doctor would want.

E. You know how people like the ASOIAF series because it offers up morally complex characters existing in a morally complex world where black and white are harder to define than grey? Have you ever thought of Doctor Who as the same? Strip past the fairytale and adventure and "wibbly wobbly timey wimeyness and it's just people reacting to situations. We're just harder on the Doctor because they're hard on us. You could go round and round on who's the bigger killer, but at the end of the day Time Lords and humans fight and feel about the same things. It's allways been a joke to pretend otherwise.

That's why I love the Timeless Child. Not for making the Doctor anymore special but for saying that even despite having all of their specialness ripped away and repurposed to create a lie of a society then having the memory wiped of said event, the Doctor broke out of their mold, stole a TARDIS and told the Time Lords to fuck off. That's not a Captain America/Superman hero. That's Batman in space with a society of Lex Luthor's. Gotham and Gallifrey. The Doctor saw what they were a part of and broke free, without even knowing the more horrifying truth. Cause it's the thing I see many fans missing because they're so preocuppied with the Doctor being special. The thing that made the Doctor different was their ability to know the difference and walk away to find better. Now, the Doctor has a reason to go back and find out why they never stopped running.

The Time Lords might be the greatest monsters in the universe. It is in the name. "Lords". Those who would lord over us and impose their will with a banthium fist.

And this is a children's show.

C the thing is, the people who made and make this show all collectively rail against one thing: Hate. Kindness is the way of Doctor's. Even if they're sawing off your leg, it's to do the kindness of saving your life. This is because the people who make this (United Kingdomers) have seen centuries of war and conflict and oppression enacted by their own country in the name of progress. And they want to see it no more. Look no further than any of the Doctor's adventures with UNIT. Allways advocating for peace and being ignored for the comfortable war-cry. It's why it's hard to blame the Doctor when we do very similar and often worse (though we don't have time travel.... yet). The creators of this show know better, see better, and wrote better, to know that the powers that be nipped would nip their creations and sanitize them. So they wrote their messages so strong that you can feel them from the future. They're powerfull enough that even across eras they have all collectively moved me to write this.

That's another point I have to laugh at people saying Doctor Who has never been in your face about progressive politics. The Green Death. Survival. Trial of a Timelord (Yes, all of it. Sit down and power through.) The Happiness Patrol is one of my all time favorite episodes for going there in this regard. People may poo poo but history has its' eyes on you. Doctor Who loves taking potshots at the issues of the day. As long as you don't make the aliens black of course. Make them all the colors of the rainbow but never make them black. That'd be too on the nose (That's something they used to say back in the day! Crazy how far we've come).

So bravoa to Chibnall for continuing the legacy of Doctor Who. From where I'm standing, he's not doing anything different than any other showrunner before him. Cause if you want to argue canon, you at least have to know what created it. This show owes what it is to those Classic eras. And if you think Chibnall is shitting on those years and your childhood.... well, then why did you read this whole thing?

[blogenana]

Doctor Who - Earthshock Live Review

So I have my crisps and lemonade and im ready to continue my journey through classic who - idk why I just started live blogging it...

• People are climbing

• So they've found something- an alien I'm assuming- why do humans always tamper with things we shouldn't

• Oh they haven't found something theyre looking for people

• I hate how classic who drags on so slowly

• Sinister music

• 'probably nothing" foreshadowing...

• Okay get to the killing already

• YES FINALLY HELLO DOCTOR

• Wow I forget they must have their own rooms in the Tardis

• Lots of books in Adrics room

• "why should that interest me" ooh okay Adric getting a bit sassy

• Why's he fed up

• looool "I'm tired of being considered a joke" "why am I being constantly teased" maybe because you're annoying and you make sexist remarks?

• oh chill

• The doctor don't have time to deal with this

• aww okay Adric being jealous that Nyssa and Tegan get more attention from the doctor than him is kinda cute

• 'I give you my word' 'just as you gave your word to Tegan" okaaaaay go off (spoiler alert) ik Adric dies in this because I saw a spoiler so this is very sad foreshadowing that the doctor will break his word to Adric about making time for him- kinda sad

• I hate the celery stick

• okay Adric kick off

• Doctor can't take criticism which is interesting because the last time he was probably ever blamed for something was One with Barbara and Ian. I don't remember any companion ever criticizing him like this before

• 'Well it can wait' you'll regret that

• "I'm tired of being an outsider" this would make sense if we had seen him being an outsider before - in my opinion Tegan is the outsider as she's new and not as mathematically advanced as the others. also I would say that Adric is the closest to the doctor out of all 3 so his point isn't really valid

• I guess this is the writers way of making adrics death more tragic

• ooh Adrics theme

• I swear he was an outsider amongst his own people too

• 'the tools would go missing" why do these people never take the hint

• forgot Adric was from e space- tbh what was the doctors plan when he did demand to go home eventually- did he wanna travel with him till he died?

• "e space is another universe, there isn't a taxi service that goes back and forth"

• Romana mention!

• "im not waiting around while you plot the course to your own destruction" the doctor has never experienced a companion death before - also foreshadowing

• "you know I think since his regeneration he's become decidedly immature" this is funny also like 4 was soooo mature

• I like Adric and Five's relationship

• the actor who plays Adric has gone better

• Nyssa is the most mature out of this entire group

• "breathe deeply and relax" why is Tegan a meditation instructer out of nowhere

• the doctor didn't take much convincing

• lol the doctor bopping Tegans nose was cute

• Ooh Dinosaur bones

• let me guess - the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs was an alien spaceship or aliens killed them

• Someone screamed

• Ooh yeah she be dead

• Okay the villains look like they're wearing gimp costumes

• Reminds me of American Horror Story Murder House & the leather monster

• Aah doctor who giving a lesson on how the dinosaurs were killed. We love a show that educates

• Did I mention how much I hate the celery stick because I hate it honestly whose idea was it

• Bro chill why is this man grabbing the doctor like that what he do

• Calm the fuck down mate

• Gimp people be shooting

• Okay they may be androids but they'll always be gimp people to me

• Android vision

• CYBERMEN!!!! DAMN

• Why they gotta hit us with the plot twist like that i wasn't ready

• The Cybermen looks sad

• Hehehe the face is funny

• Gimps be strong

• Why do the Cybermen sound muffled

• I find it more creepy when they have human voices than Robots because it makes It more real that these machines have humans in them

• hHaven't seen them in some time

• I love Tegans sarcasm

• I'm cracking up at the Cybermen voice

• 1 gimp down 1 to go

• tThe gimps be dead

• 'prepare to activate the devise" dun dun DUN

• Damn the Cybermen be skinny

• I'm bored i want doctor/cybeman action

• Okay it's getting intense

• Cybermen be SHOOK

• "cyber technology is too advanced for earthlings" figure it out then mate

• He's recognised the Tardis

• THE BEST DIALOGUE "TIME LORDS, BUT THEYRE FORBIDDEN TO INTERFERE"

• THIS ONE CALLS HIMSELF THE DOCTOR, AND DOES NOTHING BUT INTERFERE

• YESS PREVIOUS DOCTORS VS CYBERMEN

• I'm geeking out

• Imma watch this bit a few times hang on

• Aah I loved that it was so cool bloody hell I'm a nerd

• The 2nd Cybermen looked shocked while he was watching

• "have you no emotions sir" classic

• "Adric do you have a moment" "I'm hungry" Okay I like him in this one he's a mood. Why is he suddenly likeable the ep he dies

• "all part of the daily routine" see what I mean

• Well your daily routine Is gonna end soon

• He doesn't wanna go home!!

• Doctor is relieved it's cute

• Ah this is sad

• It would be easier if i didn't know he was gonna die

• Cos I do like their relationship

• Okay we're being introduced to new people

• "you're beginning to bore me" the writers knew

• I'm trying really hard to concentrate I've zoned out

• Ah the doctor has got my attention "I want to announce my presence, see what the reaction is" course

• aaaand the doctor is caught and he's being accused for murder again

• Don't they have cctv just check it

• "apprehended why can't he just say caught" me in English classes

• 'even under the threat of death he has the arrogance of a time lord"

• I thought Cybermen had no emotions but this Cybermen just said he wants the doctor to suffer for their past defeats - revenge is an emotion which is v ironic

• Hh SHIT the Cybermen are walking

• lol tegan " im just a mouth and legs" she's such a mood

• The Cybermen music is cool

• The doctors face when he sees them

• Aah the soldier has betrayed them

• Why is it that whenever there's a women in charge the men who is second can't handle it and goes rogue

• iIt's such a typical trope

• The dialogue for the doctor is great

• "you know them"

• "oh yes, we go back a long way"

• Haha "I'm surprised they didn't mention me" 'well perhaps you overestimate your importance" "oh I doubt it" doctor is and will always be that bitch

• The doctor is doing doctory things

• "that's very clever" "oh it is" the doctor bragging about how clever he is starts here

• Damn tegan she just shot a Cyberman

• Flashback to "the doctor makes people into weapons"

• Finally the doctor vs Cybermen showdown

• Lol I knew they would kill the betrayer

• "our records indicate that you have a fondness for earth" (especially earth girls)

• "this time we shall succeed in destroying the earth" no you won't mate

• Ah the Cybermen coming out of plastic Wrap is a throwback to the 2nd Doctor Cybermen story

• Tegan looks like a badass with the gun

• So they're destroying the leaders of various planets before they destroy the Cybermen

• Tegan has no idea what she's doing

• I love how Five says the most savage lines with the most polite tone

• He could tear you down and look like he's complimenting you

• Tegan has been caught

• Cyberman in the Tardis is weird

• 'who is this woman' - 'no-one of consequence' - 'thanks a lot - gotta love Tegan

• Okay wow that scene between the doctor and the Cyberman about emotions gave me goose bumps what a thrilling scene

• The Cybermen has a point- he can control the doctor because he has emotions

• I'll never get tired of the debate about emotions between them because it genuinely feels like the Cyberman defend the concept of having no emotions to defend their existence

• Five looks hot when he's defending emotions

• Fuck they need to leave Adric behind

• Shit I'm getting nervous

• His theme is playing!

• The Doctor looks conflicted

• Adric leaving his hand out after the doctor let go...

• "I'll see you soon" this is the actors best performance because you can see in his eyes he knows he won't

• The Doctor has never had a companion die before so he walks away without looking back

• "it will once you start getting rusty" Tegan is funny

• Adric is plotting

• The Cybermen say they have no emotions but forcing Tegan watch her own planet getting destroyed is extremely sadistic

• Clever Adric

• The Earth looks different

• Okay so Adric's cleverness is what gets him killed because he knows he can crack the code

• The Dinosaurs! I knew it!

• Oh crap Earth is safe but Adric doesn't know that

• I think this comes down to Adric wanting the doctors attention and wanting to be the best to have his attention

• The Doctor has his pin!

• Five suffocating and shooting a Cyberman is shocking to see

• Adric whyyyyyy

• This Cyberman walking towards him is bloody persistent

• "Now I'll never know if i was right" such Adric last words

• Id like to believe he was

• Damn.

• The Doctors face. The fact that it could have been avoided if he just left the ship

• Adric is the first companion that died on the Doctor's watch

• Adric died thinking the Earth was going to be destroyed and he could have stopped it

• The credits!! his gold star! the silence! this must have been a shock to the viewers. If i didn't know beforehand through spoilers I would be going crazy

• Earthshock had it's ups and downs, the downs in regards to the pace of the plot however the story was good and the Cybermen were fantastic especially their interactions against the doctor. Tegan and Adric were great. Nyssa didn't really have much to do. Davison was amazing. I liked the writing.

• Also I liked the structural shift of the story to the cave androids to the bomb to the spaceship to dealing with The Cybermen to saving Earth and then to Adrics death

[caranfindel]

Recap/review 14.06: “Optimism”

THEN: Starts out pretty ominous, with clock-ticky music, Jack's grace getting sucked out, "this is the end of everything," and Jack considering himself useless. We're reminded that New Charlie exists (aw, Dean looked so pretty in AU Land) and Jack has "the mind of a hunter." Michael hurting people and Dean feels guilty (aw, Sam's Beard of Despair, how I miss you). Sounds like we're in for a real downer of an episode, friends.

NOW: Nebraska. Happy music. A cheerful librarian opens up shop, and she's cute as can be but I wore that blouse in the 80s and it needs to stay there (JUST SAY NO TO THE RUFFLED YOKE, LADIES). Her name is Harper, and she has a kind-of-date with a guy named Winston tonight, though she is clearly Not Into You, Winston. An (apparent) coworker named Miles hears her "scream" and comes to her aid, brandishing a stapler, and is reminded that he needs to mind his own business. Winston leaves, clearly walking on air, and then STAYIN' ALIVE STARTS PLAYING and we focus on Winston's feet just like the iconic opening scene of Saturday Night Fever (if you're too young to remember, watch this, IT'S IMPORTANT CULTURAL KNOWLEDGE and there WILL BE A QUIZ LATER) and y'all don't even know how much I love this song. YOU DON'T KNOW. I can't help it. My mom was a huge Bee Gees fan, partially because she was very into Barry Gibb.

Coincidence?

What can I say? I am my mother's child.

Now, where were we?

(Pretty much where we always are, so could you please just move this along?)

Sorry for the digression. Anyway. Now I suspect this isn't going to be a downer episode after all. (Turns out it was directed by Richard Speight, which would have been a clue if I'd known that earlier, bless him.) While I've been digressing, Winston has happily bopped down the street, only to have a hand cover his mouth and drag him off-screen. There's a record scratch and a squirt of dark goo and a scream, so I guess it did turn out to be a downer for Winston, but not for me.

Title card!

{Sidebar: I didn't realize Saturday Night Fever was directed by John Badham, who went on to direct several episodes of Supernatural.}

Jack's drinking coffee in the bunker. He takes a sip and then pours a huge amount of sugar into it, which immediately makes me think of this scene from The Fly when Jeff Goldblum, who does not yet realize that he is turning into a fly, does the same thing.

(Spoiler alert: Ahem.)

Dean walks in and asks what he's doing, and Jack explains that everything tastes different without his powers, and he can't get the coffee to taste the way he likes it. That's because coffee is nasty, Jack. (And also, thanks to the Continuity Fairy for remembering that food tasted different to Cas when he didn't have grace.) Dean asks if Jack has seen Sam, because that's what Dean does; he probably walked in the door and felt a disturbance in the Force and realized he didn't know where Sam was. From Jack, we learn that (1) Dean went on an overnight run to Mobby's love shack cabin and (b) Sam went on a hunt with Charlie without telling Dean. Is Dean okay with this? Are we gonna okay with this? Couldn't he have at least sent a text message? He's supposed to be setting an example!

"Explain to me again how you just let Sam LEAVE."

I guess Sam had to go himself, rather than send someone else, because this is one of those times when there's no random hunters in the bunker. (And where's Rowena? Did Charlie abandon her in the Southwest? Did they have a fight?) Jack imagines Sam and Charlie are doing something "really exciting."

Cut to Sam and Charlie sitting quietly in a truck outside Memphis, bored out of their minds. Hee! It's the kind of crappy old truck I always want Sam to drive, so I love it. They're staring at a bus stop with an ad for Pete the Pestinator, who seems to be an insect exterminator. (Spoiler alert: ahem again.) Sam confirms that "this is where all those people went missing," although if he's been sitting in that truck long enough to be bored, he really should have nailed that down by now. Charlie says "yep." More silent sitting.

Back to the bunker. Dean seems surprised that Sam left Jack there alone (where's Cas?) and Jack says "Sam wanted someone around when you came back. He's worried about you."

"Yeah, that sounds like him," Dean grumbles, and hello, kettle, the pot just called, and said you're black. Jack offers some encouragement, telling him no one blames him for Michael, and Dean says "Cool. Well, I blame me, so." His self-flagellation is interrupted by Jack's Cough of Great Concern. "Maybe I'm allergic to sitting around doing nothing," Jack snarks.

Dean sits down for a heart-to-heart, and Jack says he's been hunting with Cas and wants to do more. Dean says "No offense, Cas is an insurance policy on those hunts." Jack looks hurt. I don't understand this at all. Why wouldn't Jack already know that Cas is there to protect him? And why would this hurt his feelings? I'm so confused. But I immediately forget it, because Dean says "Sam's just trying to keep you safe, okay? He's a smart guy." AND THEN WE CUT TO THIS.

Bless you, Richard Speight, writer Steve Yockey, bless you both.

I literally did burst out laughing at Sam and his fidget spinner. Charlie is not amused, and Sam puts his toy away with some embarrassment.

Bunker. Jack's found a report on our dead friend Winston, who seemed to have human bitemarks taken out of his corpse. And others have gone missing in the area. We skip part of a conversation, but whatever it was, Dean says Sam won't like it. "Sam's not here," says Jack. Oh, no you don't, Jack. Don't you go ignoring the Chief's directives just because he's not here. Dean says he'll go check it out alone, but Jack suddenly remembers Sam's Law and reminds Dean about the Buddy System.

We can be hunting buddies!

Okay, uh, (a), don't call it that, and (b), YOU'RE gonna back ME up?

Oh, Dean. You didn't do the (1) and (b) thing that I love so much. Jack gets to be the one to bare a little bit of his soul now, telling Dean that he also feels guilty about Michael, because he could have killed him but he was "distracted and stupid." He doesn't want to sit around feeling guilty all day, he wants to hunt.

Looks like that was the right button to push, because we cut to Sam on the phone, clearly not a fan of the plan and telling Dean to be careful. I assume his reluctance is because he doesn't trust Jack to watch Dean's back. But Sam, if you can trust Maggie to hunt alone, you can trust Dean with a novice backup. (I know, I know, Dean is more important than Maggie.)

Sam asks again if Charlie is sure this is the right place, and she says it's where four people disappeared. And while she was scouting around, she found a mason jar full of goo. Is this the same goo we saw when Winston was killed? (Spoiler alert: no.) And now she's trying to figure out what they're hunting, so she's reading. I'd have done my reading before the stakeout, but that's just me. (I'd also have done some reading instead of sitting there glaring at Sam while he enjoyed his fidget spinner, but that's also just me.)

(I also might have thought of more interesting things to do while I was stuck in a car with Sam, but they would have interfered with the stakeout. And they aren't anything Charlie would have been interested in anyway.)

Cut to Dick's Red Rooster Diner (ha ha, I see you, Speight). According to Winston's obituary, he had breakfast here every morning. Jack agrees with me that it's an odd thing to put in an obituary, but Dean says that when someone dies young, you don't know what to put in those things. (Oh, think of 20-something Dean's obituary.) He introduces them to the waitress as Agents Berry and Charles, and the only thing I can think of is Chuck Berry, so if someone has a better idea, let me know. He asks for details about Winston, and the only detail she can provide is that he's dead. Jack dutifully writes that detail in his little notebook. (BLESS.)

This waitress is wonderfully snippy, knows her rights, and isn't the least bit interested in talking to these FBI agents, but when Dean hands her some cash she changes her mind. She says they should should be more interested in Harper, who Winston just started "courting," and Jack is confused.

What's courting?

It's what you do before you start dating.

Ah, and that's the thing you do before the sex.

Sometimes you just have the sex.

Okay, Dean's wrong, courting is what you do instead of dating, but this is still a wonderful exchange. And the next part is wonderful too, cutting between the waitress and some customers explaining that Harper was popular in high school, but her boyfriend ran off, and now all these men connected to her have died, and she's really into romance books, and ending on I've heard too much Dean and I'm confused Jack.

Love this.

Back at the stakeout, Sam's biting his nails, which I also love for some reason, and of course the only time we've ever seen him bite his nails was when he was worried about Dean. New Charlie picks right up on it. She tells him Dean will be fine, and comments that he's got other friends, right? Which I don't understand, because it doesn't matter what other friends he has, he's not hunting with them. He's hunting with Jack. "He used to have a pretty damn good wingman," Sam says, and I think no, Sam, what are you saying, he still has you. She says he should call "that guy" to check on him, and Sam says "that guy was you." Charlie gives him a look. "No, it wasn't." And she's right, Sam. SHE IS NOT YOUR CHARLIE. And also, was Charlie ever really Dean's wingman? I don't think so. Sam, of course. Cas, literal wingman. But not Charlie. Charlie was the little sister.

Sam apologizes, and then says "I'm just saying, I'm not surprised you survived the apocalypse." Which isn't what you were saying at all, Sam. Charlie is surprised she survived, because she was just a programmer at Richard Roman Enterprises (Dick Roman! I wonder what happened to your AU version), living with the love of her life, Cara. My heart skipped a beat because I was so ready, guys, for the love of Charlie's life to be Dr. Cara Roberts from Sex and Violence, but apparently not. {Sidebar fic prompt: Sam. Charlie. Dr. Cara. Three-way.) Charlie's Cara was a baker. Charlie tells a sad story about waiting for help that never came, and Cara eventually being killed by people, not angels. Society falls apart. (Or, as Dean once said, demons I get; people are crazy.) Sam insists society isn't falling apart here, and Charlie says "not yet."

Just like last week, we're getting some needed differentiation between the characters we lost and their AU counterparts, which I appreciate.

I also appreciate pretty, attentive, sympathetic Sam.

Diner. Dean calls Jack "Mighty Mouse," for some reason, and congratulations him on finding a case. He tries to teach him about the importance of pie, but Jack's more interested in courting. He's never been exposed to off-screen romance, unless Gabriel and Rowena counts (Dean assures him it doesn't, but how would Jack have been exposed to Gabriel/Rowena anyway, since it happened while he was in AU Land and Gabriel didn't make it back?) Dean promises he'll give him The Talk when they get back, but right now they need to concentrate on finding Harper. {Sidebar fic prompt: Dean's and Sam's versions of The Talk. Would Dean's be like Dean's speech from Rock and a Hard Place?} Jack speculates she might not be human, and Dean says they're going to find out, and it's going to work like a romance novel. Hmm!

Cut to the library, where Harper is working. Dean enters and identifies himself as FBI, with questions about Winston. She doesn't want to talk, and he pushes. Then Jack shows up, asking for a book about the area's history, and defends her against the big mean FBI guy. Dean says "why don't you back off, kid" and Jack responds "No, you back off, old man" and DEAN'S FACE. This was clearly NOT IN THE SCRIPT. I love it. Dean slinks off, dejected, to examine his gracefully-aging face in the rear-view mirror. {Sidebar: I honestly think Jensen is aging a lot better than Dean is. Dean looks tired a lot of the time, and I'd like to believe Show is doing that on purpose, but I don't think it's the case. Jensen always looks awesome.} Harper is delighted, and apparently smitten, judging by the music. Jack introduces himself as "Jack Smith" and she invites him to her apartment, where she has the perfect book.

Why does this library have those convenience store perp measurements at the door? Does it get robbed a lot? Also, how many episodes have signs in the background with the title of a different episode? Not very many, I'm guessing.

As they leave, Miles the Stapler Guy follows and asks where she's going. It must be close to closing time, because Harper says she'll come back and lock up. Miles, who's carrying a bag of trash, refuses to shake Jack's hand. As Jack and Harper go one way, he stomps off in the other direction. I'm suspicious, and so is Dean, who gets out of the car to follow him. As Miles puts the library's trash in an inappropriately small residential bin, he hears a noise. We then cut to Dean, who hears Miles scream but just keeps walking? But then a trash can is knocked over and that gets his attention. He finds Miles dead, and we get a monster POV shot watching him.

Stakeout. Charlie's still reading. Apparently she brought all the books. She says she hates hunting, which surprises Sam, because she's so good at it. She points out that she's good at it because the alternative was death. "I mean, no offense, but who wants to be a hunter? This job, just a lot of tears and death."

Sam says "you said something like that to me once, long ago, about hunting." He quickly apologizes for once again conflating her with Our Charlie. At first I was annoyed at him, but then I started thinking about how awful Our Charlie's death was for him, with the MoC, and the fear, and the worry, and the guilt, and his brother saying he should be the one on the funeral pyre instead, and you know what? I'm gonna cut him some slack for trying to forget all of that ever happened. A lot of slack, in fact.

Charlie casually drops that she's glad this is her last hunt. Did you give the Chief your two week's notice, Charlie? I DON'T THINK SO. She plans to get away from monsters and people, and "live on a mountaintop or something... as long as there's good wifi." I'm sure Sam can get you set up with his magical wifi, Charlie, if you stay on his good side.

Harper's apartment. She seems to be all about love, with a decorative "amore" sign in the kitchen and a big red heart hanging on the wall. She suddenly realizes it's weird that she brought him to her apartment, though she's thinking "putting the moves on you" weird and I'm thinking "inviting a potential serial killer into your home" weird. But maybe I listen to too much My Favorite Murder.

She leaves the room to get the book (odd that it's not on the stuffed bookshelves in her living room, but they're all full of romance novels). Jack asks why the FBI was "hassling" her, and she tells him about Winston's death as he surreptitiously puts a silver coin on the floor and splashes holy water all over his hands. A call comes from Dean, but he ignores it. When she comes back with the book, she notices the coin on the floor and picks it up. She touches his hand when she gives him the coin and notices that it's wet. I would have put the holy water on the coin, although a wet coin on the floor might be as weird as wet hands. He just laughs weirdly and then does a fake cough AND SAYS CHRISTO. SOMEONE FINALLY REMEMBERED CHRISTO. Oh, my heart. I've been waiting 13 years for this moment. She doesn't react to it, so she seems pretty human. He says he's nervous, so she sits on the couch and pats the seat next to her.

Stakeout. Charlie has found something in the books called a Musca. Sam already knows it's a man-fly hybrid (IT'S THE FLY; OUR MONSTER IS JEFF GOLDBLUM) and that no one's seen them, so if they do exist, they keep to themselves. She's impressed with his Sammy smarts. He says he's read all the books, but if he'd read this one, he'd know that every few hundred years a male Musca can't find a mate and he "abandons his community and starts using people's bodies to nest, binding them together with a viscous goo." Ew.

As they walk, in the background we see a figure approaching the two women who are sitting on the bus stop bench. It's clothed in black, carrying a black briefcase, and it has a giant head. At first I think it's literally a giant fly's head. But when Charlie notices it, we get a closer look, and it's a large black hood, like a beekeeper's outfit. It sits down and then casually scoots closer to the women, who scoot away, and it's hilarious.

Harper's apartment. She asks Jack where he's from, and he tells her he lives in Lebanon, Kansas. NO, JACK. DON'T TELL ANYONE WHERE YOU LIVE. Jack coughs some more and then notices a picture of Harper with her boyfriend, Vance. She says he left town after high school because he wanted to see the world, and Jack seems astonished that anyone would leave her. And that was when her bad luck started, but she tries to stay optimistic. "Me too," Jack says. "I had some not-so-great stuff happen in my past. Trying to be positive... it can be hard." Oh, Jack, sweetie. They gaze into each other's eyes and it looks like they're going to kiss. Jack's phone buzzes with a text from Dean that says CALL ME NOW.

Jack? Do you believe in love at first sight?

Do you... (music swells)... mind if I use the bathroom?

Ha!

Jack hides in the bathroom to call Dean. He tells him Harper isn't a monster, and he thinks she's in love with him. Although Dean's sure that's not the case, Jack says "but if she is, I need to know everything about sex. Go." Ha again! Dean tells him about Miles's death, which makes Jack wonder if she's cursed. Dean says it's more like all the guys around her are cursed. "Like me," Jack ponders, just before we get another monster POV shot and a strangled shout from Dean. The phone goes dead.

Jack comes back into the living room and Harper asks if he's okay and if he wants to go for coffee. Then the door bursts open and Dean comes in, and I wonder why she's freaking out until I remember that Dean is Bad FBI Guy to her. He quickly blocks the door and tell her they're here to save her from... whatever it is that's suddenly growling and banging on her door. "At first I thought it was a ghost," he says, "but then it punched me in the face." She's freaked out about a ghost, but Jack reassuringly (NOT!) tells her that he's saying it's NOT a ghost. Dean recognizes a photo and it turns out the monster is her old boyfriend Vance, who she didn't even realize was dead.

For some reason Dean isn't carrying a lot of weapons, but he has a silver knife and finds a silver letter opener on Harper's desk. Silver will slow it down, he tells them, but there's only one way to kill the undead boyfriend. Vance breaks the door down before we learn what that is. Dean starts fighting with the silver knife and tells Jack to get Harper out of there.

Stakeout. It's nighttime now. A lone man sits at the bus stop as Sam tries to convince Charlie that she can't drop out of society. She needs people, and also, it's hard to walk away from being a hunter. "I tried. Our Charlie tried." You know, for someone who did want out of hunting, and did try to get out of it, Sam spends a lot of time convincing others to do it, or at least enabling them. I mean, Dean was all "Patience, if you can live a normal life, do it," and Sam was all "well, Claire, if you're gonna hunt, I guess I should show you how to hack." Although that (and teaching Ghoul!Adam to shoot) was more about protecting someone determined/forced to be a hunter than recruiting. So maybe I don't know what I'm talking about. Anyway, if anyone recognized the futility of getting out of the life, it would be him.

Jeff Goldblum shows up again and sits by his next victim. Charlie wants to go for the kill, but Sam thinks they should wait for him to make his move, in case he's just into weird fashion. Look, Sam, if a guy likes wearing a black beekeeper's bonnet and sidling up to random strangers at bus stops, he deserves to be hunted, whether or not he's actually part bee. When the bus shows up, it blocks their view of the duo. When it leaves, the bench is empty. Which could mean they just got on the bus, but we see something disappearing behind the stop. Sam decides it's a go after all.

Let's stick with this story, rather than cutting back and forth between them like the show did.

Sam and Charlie find a door with a bunch of goo on the handle. Sam says Charlie found something in the books that theorized a brass nail dripped in sugar water would kill a musca. Because yes, of course sugar water, WHICH FLIES EAT, would kill a fly man. (Rolls my eyes at this otherwise delightful episode.) Charlie reminds him they have neither of those things. "So we get creative," Sam says. I'm expecting some kind of MacGuyvering involving a can of Coke, or Sam's sugary coffee. (Spoiler alert: I'm wrong.)

{Sidebar: Why are all the methods of killing monsters so weirdly specific? Chopping off the head should kill ANYTHING.}

They go through the door, which surprisingly leads them into an abandoned warehouse. It's full of flies (normal ones, not half-man flies) and smells like pine cleaner and rotting meat. Yum. Eventually Sam finds the briefcase, which is full of what looks like candy wrappers and also has a white cloth, which he sniffs to discover chloroform. Dude. Don't sniff the chloroform rag. Charlie finds the most recent victim, still alive, by a pile of bodies. Something grabs Charlie's hand. She pulls loose, but falls off a low platform (seriously, it's like two feet high) and... loses consciousness? Okay. Maybe he chloroformed her and I missed it. I'm old and decrepit and this would have barely bruised me. He must have chloroformed her.

Sam tries to wake her up, but is interrupted by the WORST MONSTER COSTUME EVER. Oh god, you guys, this fly man head is so bad. SO BAD.

{Sidebar: Did you know that you don't see much of the shark in Jaws because the model was so bad, Steven Spielberg decided he wanted to shoot it as little as possible? And it actually made the movie better because the unseen monster was so much scarier? Just saying, Speight.}

(Um, have you watched any movies that were made before 1980?)

Well, that was uncalled for.

Jeff Goldblum attacks Sam and gets goo on him, and if this were really a fly, wouldn't that goo be digesting him? Isn't that how flies eat? (Why yes, it is.) Charlie regains consciousness and stabs it with something, which gets it off Sam long enough for him to shoot it in the head. Creativity in action! So, I guess I got my wish. Interesting that, just like last week, the guys figured out that there are actions that will kill anything.

Aftermath! Charlie and Sam are driving, and Sam says he feels bad for the Musca, which could have been happy if it had stayed home with its people. Subtle, Sam. Charlie's all, yeah, okay, I'm like the bug, except not so much. As we see the Musca family coming to retrieve their brother's body, Sam asks Charlie not to leave. "If we help people, then maybe they'll help people, and all that, and that's worth it. Even with all the tears and death, it's worth it." Oh, Sammy. {sniff} She says she'll think about it.

Back to Jack and Harper. It was broad daylight when they got to her apartment, so I don't know why it's nighttime now. How long did he spend in the bathroom? No wonder she asked if he was okay. Cut to Dean gleefully fighting the zombie, who suddenly stops fighting and runs off.

Jack and Harper run to the library, where she struggles with the keys until Jack remembers she left without locking the door. They scurry inside and he locks it. As they hide behind the counter, they see Zombie Vance run by. Jack tells her not to worry, because he locked the door, and she asks if he flipped the switch under the lock? Obviously he didn't, and she goes to do it herself. As she stands, looking out the door, Vance shows up. She unlocks the door, which Jack obviously DID lock, and opens it. He hands her the history book - I guess Jack dropped it - and they kiss.

Um. whoops. Vance is actually still Harper's boyfriend. And he has to eat human flesh. Like, Jack's, for example. Vance lunges for Jack, who hides in the stacks as Harper gives him the villain dialogue over the library's PA system. She likes Jack, but he's obviously a hunter, and she comes from a long line of necromancers, so it would never work out between them. She killed Vance to keep him from leaving after high school, and killing every other guy in her sights is just a fun little romantic roleplay for them. We get a little scare when a hand appears on Jack's shoulder (been a lot of that going around lately), but it's Dean. He tells Jack they have to get Vance back into his grave and then drive a stake into his heart to keep him there. And they're going to convince him using another romance novel method.

Jack tells her he wants to do things Vance can't do - walk her down the aisle, raise a family. This draws Vance out, who lunges at him but finds himself facing Dean. Vance gets Dean against a wall, and Harper calls out to him. Dean thinks she's going to call him off, but she says "Baby, kill him!" and Dean's "huh" look is precious to me. Instead, Dean slaps a handcuff on his arm and cuffs him to a pole or something. Jack cuffs his other arm to a library cart, I think, which is mobile and therefore defeats the purpose of cuffing, but good try, Jack. The cuffs burn Vance, so they're silver or enchanted or something. Seems like a successful hunt, but when the guys look up, the door is open and Harper is gone.

Later we see Harper and her suitcase at a cafe, writing a letter to Jack. So she had time to go home and pack a suitcase, and Dean and Jack didn't go to her apartment and look for her? Guys. Come on. She's sorry she's going to have to kill Jack, but it means she can bring him back to life and they'll be together forever. See you soon, she writes, sealing the envelope addressed to Jack Smith, c/o the Lebanon, Kansas post office. I TOLD YOU NOT TO LET HER KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE, JACK. Is Harper going to be a Big Bad this season? Or maybe a Little Bad? I wouldn't mind seeing her again. She's a charming little villain.

Finally, Jack's drinking coffee again, probably with a lot of sugar, in the bunker. This scene, with them facing each other, is a nice callback to the beginning of the episode. Dean tells Jack he did good, and Jack pushes for more hunts, because he was right. It's not about being right, Dean tells him, it's about what you do after you're wrong, after you've made a mistake. And about not beating yourself up, Jack points out. Dean tells him he's pretty smart, and Jack smiles and coughs and Dean promises to talk about getting him on more hunts when Sam gets back (BECAUSE SAM IS THE ONE TO ASK, YOU BETTER BELIEVE IT) and Jack lies about being fine and then coughs some more and shows Dean his bloody palm and collapses on the floor with blood oozing from his mouth and nose and WELL. THAT ESCALATED QUICKLY.

And the episode ends, without Sam and Dean sharing a single scene. Has that happened before? It's unsettling. I like the ep, though. I liked the relationship focus - Sam bonding with New Charlie, Dean bonding with Jack. I liked the humor. I liked that Sam wasn't ignored, even though the brothers had separate storylines. I liked the continuation of things that have been happening this season, the gentle reminder (but not constant siren) of Dean's guilty feelings and Sam's leadership and Jack's issues. And, of course, CHRISTO!

And there was one weird thing I noticed on first watch, but it didn't jump out at me on rewatch so I don't remember when it happened... Dean said "Son of a B." This is the second episode where they said something weird instead of bitch. What's going on there? Is Dean never going to say "son of a bitch" again? Because that's not good.

What did you guys think? And please help me stay unspoiled; thanks!

[kote-the-inn-keeper]

To threaten Kote, I'd go after his loved ones. Like, if someone was like, "I'm gonna kill you," he'd be like, okay, whatever. "I'm gonna kill Denna" would terrify him. OR since fae magic is a thing and we don't know the parameters, I'd threaten to take all his memories of his parents.

//OH YEAH THAT’D GET HIM REAL GOOD OOF Either or would do it in for him near immediately. Even though we don’t have confirmed evidence he knows where or how Denna is doing, I’m sure that’d still get him furious. The parent thing? Instant rage 100% you better damn well run cause it’s one of the few things that he can look back on without regret. //

//Oops I write a short thing for this fegdrthy//

Everything was… confusing. How things had happened and gotten to such a point left him disoriented and almost sick just from trying to piece everything together. One minute things were fine and the next… 

Kote had been minding his own business and running the inn as usual. The inn was rather empty with the later hours, even his usual patrons who spent the night drinking had long gone home. But some traveler, or he had assumed was a traveler, was still sitting along the far wall and nursing their drink. They had to have been a traveler, since Kote couldn’t even pin-point where their clothes were from. 

They weren’t excessive like those in Vintas, nor would any Vintas individual be making their way through some shabby town such as Newarre. But they weren’t muted like Modegan fashion either. Which put Kote into a more quiet puzzlement as he slowly worked along the bar with his rag, carefully eyeing the person. No visible weapons, or anything military related either. Nothing showing they were Cealdish either. It was stumping him more and more, wondering why a traveler was in his inn and hadn’t even bothered asking for a room even so late at night.

Bast came in from the back and paused at the bar, opening his mouth to say something to Kote, but caught sight of the stranger. The next string of words were a loss to Kote’s human ears, the language unknown as Bast bound over to the stranger and they both began talking and laughing loudly.

Kote sighed softly and rolled his eyes, putting the rag on his shoulder with a bit of annoyance. Of course Bast had invited someone and not told him. He always did that despite being told to give some form of warning. Shaking his head, the innkeeper started to head back towards the kitchen to make sure things were ready for the morning.

“Ah-buh-buh!” Bast called over quickly, parting from his friend finally. He put his hands on the bar and smiled to the innkeeper, seeming excited. “Reshi, I want you to come meet my friend.”

“And I want you to warn me when you bring in guests.” Kote replied bluntly.

Bast pouted, “Come now, no need to be so harsh. Please? I asked them to come out all this way and they’ve been waiting all night.”

Kote eyed Bast carefully, non-verbally asking him if he had told them anything about him.

“I would never. I’m almost offended you would think I would do such a thing. I’m your friend.” Bast huffed, crossing his arms onto the bar and leaning forward more. “Look, I haven’t seen them since I left to come learn with you. Getting a hold of them was hard enough, let alone telling them how to even get to this sad town. I might have also asked them a favor, but I didn’t tell them anything. Just wanted to try something to help you.”

“What did you ask?”

“You’ll have to come talk to them first. I didn’t give details or anything, don’t worry. I made it simple and boring, just like you would have wanted. Besides, they also want to know how my human teacher is; apparently everyone does. So this will help you and help me.” Bast replied, pushing back off the bar and tilting his head towards his friend. “Come on. Just a little while.”

Kote hesitated, rubbing his hands together softly in his tinge of anxiety. Something didn’t feel right, but not with what Bast was saying. Something about the situation was setting alarms off in his mind. But, he gave in, sighing softly and slowly walking after Bast to the far table. 

He crossed his arms when he got there and refused to sit, glancing to the door, before looking to the two fae sitting at the table. Compared to Bast, they were similar in some ways; eerily elegant, bright eyes, a soft but defined features… The usual people look over for spotting fae. Though this person was more androgynous than Bast was, voice included.

“So, this is… him?” They asked, leaning towards Bast a bit more as they eyed Kote.

Bast nodded, “Yes! This is my friend and teacher.”

“…It’s nice to finally meet you, Reshi.”

“Call me Kote, please.” Kote replied, relaxing just a little. “Bast told me you are a friend of his. He doesn’t often have friends stay around here.”

“Oh-hoooo? That’s not what he told me!” They giggled, elbowing Bast who blushed. “I should have known better than to trust what he said. I hardly believed him that you existed, no offense manling.”

Kote waved a hand softly, before crossing his arms once more. “Average people are forgettable. Can I get you anything?”

“So polite. I wonder how much other things about you Bast was wrong about.” They mused, making Bast hiss and kick their shins under the table. “I could use more cider, thank you kindly.”

Kote nodded to the individual, before shooting a glare at Bast as he walked away. 

“So, Kote,” The person spoke up loudly, putting their hand on the top of the tankard. “Bast here told me you struggle to sleep due to nightmares and the like? Is that true?”

Kote looked back to the two, glaring at Bast once more. “Sometimes.”

“I can help with that, if you’d allow me. You see, each fae tends to dabble just a bit more in one or two kinds of magic. Magic is abundant and wild, powerful and on occasion all consuming. Some of you humans have been tampering with magic– you all call it something else. None the less, Bast tends to lean into illusions and gods know what damn else with him–”

Bast elbowed them again and got up from the table to tend to the fire.

“–I myself deal in things more aligned to the mind. Memories, dreams, and whatever else have you. I’m certainly not the best out there, but I take pride in my dealings. From what Bast told me, I can help you sleep much better at night easily! Maybe even stop being so sad all the time and staring off. That really worries him you know.”

Bast threw words in the same language as before that Kote didn’t understand, making his friend sit up taller and cover their mouth softly. 

Kote found a bottle of cider and let out a sharp breath. “He really told you all of that, huh?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to say those things.” They replied quickly.

“How can you help me?” Kote said, trying to change the subject back to whatever fae magic they had to offer. “I don’t understand far magic much, if at all. How it works and why it works is a mystery.”

“As it should be to mankind.” They paused and looked to Bast, switching languages for a moment, before looking back to Kote and speaking again. “Bast says that some of your main troubles come from losing your parents? I’m sorry to hear that, it must have been hard… Though, he won’t tell me how, I can still work to get rid of those memories.”

The innkeeper paused, bottle set on the bar top and staring. Getting rid of their murder? Remembering seeing them as they were? That could be done? It was almost relieving, but a part of him paused and tensed. No, something seemed wrong. There was a catch, there always was. It wasn’t just something about forgetting part of his life that rubbed part of him the wrong way, but the look on the fae’s face said there was a bit more to it than just getting rid of such a gruesome scene. “…How?” He finally asked.

“Just by getting rid of all traces of them in your memory.” They said as if it wasn’t a huge deal.

Having to lose his parents was enough, so not being able to remember them at all terrified him. His heart stopped for a moment and a minute of terror crossed his face, paling and gripping the lip of the bar with his free hand to keep from falling over. His other hand held the bottle neck tightly, white knuckled and shaking slightly. The innkeeper opened his mouth slightly and took a breath, eyes darting away from the person as Bast yelped.

“Ow, ow, ow! Stupid fucking…” Bast hissed out, shaking his hand out and pacing a little as he blew on his hand. The fire had suddenly burst to life for a moment, enough to burn Bast’s hand. “Gods charred body, I hate tending to fires.”

The fae at the table stood part way to to tend to Bast, but looked to Kote curiously. “What? It’s not like human parents mean much. You all live so short and many of you just breed to breed. I’m sure losing a thought of them will do you much more good than harm in the long run.”

His blood ran cold. His next actions weren’t his own. How dare this fae speak of his parents as if they knew them. How dare they say that his parents were anything but truly and deeply compassionate and in love. How dare they act as though his parents meant nothing to him. As though they were meaningless people he didn’t care for. That he didn’t wish were back. That he wished had gotten away instead of him.

“Reshi! What the hell!?” Bast shouted, too late to intercept the bottle that was launched at the other fae. He rushed over to them and picked them up off the floor, putting a hand to their bleeding head. “What in Tehlu’s name was that for?! They were just trying to help!”

“…Get out…” The innkeeper growled through grit teeth.

“What?”

“I said GET OUT!” He shouted, pointing to the door. “They aren’t welcome here! Ever!”

Both fae looked startled and confused, Bast quickly looking guilty but the other one looked furious. “Is this how you treat all your guests?” They spat, using the table as help to stand. One arm was looped around Bast, helping them keep upright. “Throwing bottles at those you don’t want to hear talk anymore? All you humans are the damn same.”

“No, no! No, Reshi isn’t–!” Bast tried, looking nervously between the two.

“You’re lucky I hate your father enough not to go and tell him right now what you’re damn well up to, Bast.” They hissed.

Kote took offense and stood taller, clenching his jaw and trying to hold his tongue. His arms tingled all the way up to his shoulders, cold already setting in up to his elbows. He went to say more, but Bast spoke first.

“Lets just get you up to my room for the mean time. Okay? I’ll patch you up and we can fix this tomorrow.”

“I don’t know if I trust a wild and vicious manling such as that one enough to stay here. I wonder how you even keep here.” They said, but didn’t fight Bast as he dragged them along and up the stairs.

Left alone, Kote slammed his hands on the bar and took a deep breath, hanging his head and trying to calm down. Why had he done that? Why did he throw the bottle? Trying to put together why left him disoriented, almost needing to sit down. He had thrown a bottle at a fae’s head… Merciful Tehlu, what the hell had he just done?

[salytierra]

Hi, I'm from the Discord chat! So, what ways are there to write the representation of a country which is so contradictory that you sometimes wonder how it's still together?

CONTEXT: My buddy here is actually asking on tricks to start writing the representation of their own country (The Netherlands, in their case) since they live in a really odd region and are self-conscious about making the entire country sound like that particular region, instead of a whole.

Those of my mutuals that know exactly in which part of Spain I live, will understand why it’s a worry I had to deal with as well xDD 

So let’s get to…

“THE OH’S AND WOES OF WRITING YOUR HOME COUNTRY AND NOT MAKING IT LOOK LIKE IT’S THEIR ELBOW SPEAKING”

I’ll try to be as broad as I can, while talking also from experience, but in the particular case of the Ned, this post about Dutch Personality might be of use for you. It’s really great!

Also bear in mind, those methods I’ve learned in the past two years are actually plenty of work, but they work well if you are really determined to be very precise and focus on developing this one character. (It’s fun and so, so worth it tho ♥)

1. BASE PERSONALITY 

The base is what we are gonna build the real personality upon. It’s also what we usually are able to grant the character when we are not developing them in the story but leaving them as a secondary; an overlook.In this case, we usually see them through the main character’s eyes.

So we have to do the same. When it comes to writing your own Hetalia Country the problem is that it’s really difficult to do it from within because we are used to look for the differences between our region and the neighboring ones. Specially in countries where particular regions have their own history and cultural traits. We are educated in the particularities of our region, city, even neighborhoods! And people love to look for reasons why their neighbors are dank weird. We focus so much on that that we forget to notice the similarities. In fact, they are so basic to us, we might just not know they exist and confuse them with general human traits!

From the outside it looks differently. 

So for the base personality, look up on how the tourists, expats and your neighbors see your country. In most cases you’ll notice that they don’t really perceive any huge differences between the regions’ people and you will be able to compose a list of common traits. 

Analyse each of them; discard those elements that you are 100% sure are bullshit and that are probably just a common belief. Think about the possible reasons behind every little thing. Is that how the country really is? Is it just how people might perceive it? Or… is it how it wants to be perceived? Why? 

There might be cultural, historical, or even scientific reasons for that. And this is where working on your own country comes in handy. Because it requires a lot of inner knowledge that you already have. From school, pop culture, the news…

2. PARTICULAR TRAITS AND BELIEFS

Build upon that base personality with all the fine details! Since the problem here is not knowing whether something may be general or very particular, research comes in handy. 

Sites like wolframalpha show you a lot of facts; categories, and both general stuff and some very specific. You can also look for world rankings, surveys, social studies… If the hetalia characters represent their population then the highest percentage is the right one for them. And if there’s a more equal divide on something (say: 49/51%) then it’s an opportunity to introduce a problem, a dilemma, in their life. Those are always hella interesting! 

Basically - whatever unsure choice you make, look up how to justify it! This is more your yourself than for your readers. So you can be positive you are doing everything by the books and sleep well at night. In most cases you’ll know the answers already, but the numbers are always good to keep at hand! xDD 

3. COMBINE REGIONAL TRAITS

Now, don’t discard regional particularities. Those are a GOLD mine of extras!! Beauty is in the details ♥

We already talked about this on discord, but the ideal is to make a list with the most prominent traits, traditions, pet-peeves, preferences and yes, also stereotypes, of each region. (Not by making characters for them, because then they’ll develop their own different personality, and you’ll get attached and they will not be useful for being combined into the Entire country) Just a list. 

They don’t have to be of the same thing, just. What is every region more known for? 

Is it that their people are loud and headstrong? Is it that they love cheese too much? Is it that they are lazy and love to party? Is it that they have that one monument that they are overly proud of?…

And I know some of these traits can be contradictory. But so are people. We react differently depending on our mood, the situation, or the people we are with. Combine and apply these traits and particularities in your character when you see fit. 

Ex: Most regions are known for being always on time and others for being late? - What about the character being always on time for work but showing up late for social events? ||  Ex2: Some particular regions are known for being lazy but most are hardworking? - What about focusing their hard work on some tasks and being a champion procrastinator on others? 

Experiment, combine… you’ll see that you know way more than what you think you do ^^

4. DON’T FORGET THAT THEY ARE NOT HUMAN

They are Hella OLD. Whatever great developments or changes happened in the past few centuries, they’ve probably lived through them. That builds character, knowledge and experiences. 

Ex: Why choose one single “vehicular” language that your character has to speak? If A country has several official languages, the representation probably speaks them all and then some dialects to add on. They may use them accordingly to the situation and to where they are. 

5. AND OF COURSE: LOOK AROUND! ♥

This may seem too obvious but it really is a crucial part of the process in this case. Pay attention to the media, the TV, your grandparents… make friends with people from other parts of the country (preferably also APH fans) and consult them if you are not sure… I made some great friends this way and I’m sure you will as well!!

Have fun!! :D

PS: THIS IS JUST MY EXPERIENCE AND HOW I WORK, BUT PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE! IF ANYONE READING THIS HAS MORE TRICKS TO CONTRIBUTE, THAT WOULD BE AMAZING! 

LET’S HELP EACH OTHER OUT ♥

[almaasi]

you have witch powers? i've always been fascinated with "paranormal" stuff, including magic, so i was wondering if u could tell me stuff about it. is magic real? what kind of stuff did ur grandma do? are ghosts and spirits real too? what kinds of spells can witches cast? is it like supernatural? sorry if i'm asking a lot of questions i'm just so fascinated and curious. i didn't even know witches were like, legit until i read ur tags, i just thought that people back then said that so they had 1/2

2/2 a reason to burn a woman they didn’t like. ok now i’m rambling but in short, what can u tell me about witch stuff? i’m just asking cause i’m really curious :)

(about my tags on this)

#whenever phil gets out the tarot cards and pulls something scarily accurate i’m just like…. yes…. good…show us your witch powers…… #(my own experience with tarot? so reassuring. and calming. it’s like asking for a friend’s advice but that friend is your own brain.) #also my great grandmother was a witch by profession and i definitely got some of her magic #i have not yet learned to recognise a feeling when i feel it.. but when stuff happens later i’m like OH THAT WAS MY MYSTERIOUS FEELING #one of our sheep died a week or so ago.. and for two days straight i was outside in the middle of the night staring at the moon #and wondering why i felt death in the air #and the rain made me cry and it felt like release but i didn’t know why #and i immediately started worrying about our sheep but didn’t follow up to see if they were okay #then two days later my mother comes in and tells me one of our sheep died and two days ago had given my mother “the death look” #if you’ve never seen someone or something die… there’s this look they have that’s like a disgraced peacefulness and self-awareness #but basically i knew the sheep was gonna die without any reason for me to think that #and i need to learn to follow up on my instincts because they’re ever-present and i never know when it’s a psychic thing or random anxiety #disclaimer: IS IT ALL BULLSHIT who knows? but science doesn’t know a whole lot about a lot of things and this stuff is natural to me #so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

okay!! i was expecting someone to ask, so here goes. (in case anyone’s wondering, this is a personal post, and no, i’m not making this stuff up.) (feel free to reblog if you want. but it’s so goddamn long aaah)

first off, an opinion: whether or not you believe magic is real in this world is entirely related to whether or not it is real. at least in my books. magic/paramormal stuff can always be observed, but if you don’t believe it’s anything beyond coincidence or skilled trickery, it’s not gonna impact you.

i do believe in ghosts (or djinns, or something else human-like), but in my experience they don’t really do anything except exist in some other realm and occasionally become visible when i’m at my most lucid, at that point between waking and sleeping. most people (myself included) would say it’s just a hallucination. but like…. who’s to say it isn’t real, just in a way we as humans don’t yet understand? y’know?

the most interesting ghost sighting i’ve experienced was when i was fully awake, not hallucinating. i was in a car with my sister, my sister’s friend, and her mother - and we drove over a bridge, and i saw a fritzing semi-translucent black figure walking along the peak. i looked back and it was gone. it wasn’t scary, it was just really cool. i saw that with my own two eyes, i have zero doubt i saw it, and for that moment, it was there.

other times i’ve seen things pass through walls, or felt presences in the room that vanish when i look. i get deja vu maybe once a week. the ability comes and goes in phases, switched on and off whenever i tell someone about it. it’s like that part of my brain gets really shy and goes into hiding when it’s mentioned.

sometimes it can be pretty powerful. there’ve been moments when a deja vu begins, i remember it from a dream, fast-forward through the memory to remember what happens, and i get ahead of present time, so i predict what’s in front of me by about one to three seconds. usually it’s snippets of conversation, or my hands moving to complete an action, or words i’m typing. (let me tell you, it’s so freaking bizarre when you’re consciously typing, thinking about what you’re typing, and simultaneously remembering typing it before, and knowing what you’re about to type despite not yet knowing. and then seeing it happen. i think a lot of people reading this would be like “what?” but i know there’s someone out there who knows exactly what i mean)

for a long time in my teenage years i told people i’d see coloured figures, like auras without physical people, just hanging around out there in the world, but due to health issues a lot of my teenage memories are gone, and the only memory i have of that stuff is the recollection of me telling people about it, and remembering it while telling people. it’s really weird. i sometimes think maybe i made that up?? but i don’t understand why i’d do that when i do actually see other things sometimes.

once, my family visited this old historic building, and i remember seeing a woman in a maid’s outfit duck through a doorway. but she wasn’t actually there. so. idk.

my great-grandmother (or great-great grandmother?) on my mother’s side used to sell love spells to the people in her Indian village. my mother told me about it when i was little. my [great] great grandmother would write a spell on parchment, and the client had to go home and burn it in their fire. and she would curse people, in exchange for payment. that’s all i know about that. but my grandmother (also on my mother’s side) used to have some kind of power, i never got to ask about it while she was still alive. (she was an awesome woman. one of the first women in her country and generation to go to university.)

personally, having been raised as a muslim, i always felt really disconnected from the culture and practices of the religion, even though i believe in the supernatural aspects of it right down to my core. that’s despite my ultimate acknowledgement of facts being deeply rooted in hard science. recently (like, in the past few months) i’ve started to rediscover my faith - directly following on from a quiet interest in the pinterest & instagram aesthetics of paganism and new age magic, which as a concept i was never really sure about. i just really liked how it looked. basically, it clicked in my brain that islamic prayers could, in essence, just be spells. you gotta take everything with a grain of salt. they might not work. but that’s the beauty of it.

a few weeks ago i stumbled across a prayer on tumblr, and read its intended purpose: “Allah will grant whoever recites this seven times in the morning or evening whatever he desires from this world or the next”.

and… i started to think, maybe the purpose is not to actually do that. nothing ought to be a get-out-of-jail-free/do-this-and-your-life-is-made type thing. maybe the purpose is to make you believe nothing can go wrong. and that every bad thing that happens–? it happens so that you can learn from it. and eventually, after many things change, you realise what you desire was not the thing you thought you desired. (idk how to explain that. an example from my life: i really wanted to be a veterinarian growing up. then i got sick, dropped out of school. and now i’m a writer. i want to be a writer more than i ever wanted to be a vet. i had to get sick and my life had to fall apart before i could discover that. writing was never something i’d have considered before.)

my point is, if you believe everything that happens to you will ultimately be a good thing, bad things don’t hurt so much.

and if you take something as a sign, it’s a sign. it’s just your own brain taking hints from the world around you and using them to conjure up a decision. if you wanna believe it’s magic, it is.

personally i like protection prayers/spells and just…generally positive ones. i say prayers for sick friends, people who i see on my tumblr dash who are having a bad time, and if i see or hear about disasters or worldwide events. i’m not expecting it to have a visible impact, but like.. what’s the harm? at the very least it makes me feel like i did something if i don’t have money to give, or i can’t be there with a friend, or the world is falling apart and i’m helpless. praying or saying a spell is just hoping, really, really hard. if some greater being is out there, listening? cool. (but what if god doesn’t wanna do anything? maybe it’s like my cupcake theory. god puts the ingredients in a baking tray, shoves it in the oven, forgets about it. the universe rises as a cupcake. god made it. but the universe is doing its own damn thing.)

regarding tarot cards: again, it’s self-reflection. you can believe answers come from outside influences, but it’s easily just as much about interpreting generic advice and making it mean something to you. but personally i’ve drawn random cards, and known that no other card in the deck would’ve been as relevant at that moment. i’ve used tarot cards to determine the endings for my stories, and coincidentally pulled cards that directly represent my title characters.

one time i was thinking about my fic “The Moonlighter and the Magician” and the card i pulled first was The Magician. and i was like gee thanks tarot cards that’s helpful. (but actually? it meant those cards were on the same wavelength as me. think about it. 78 cards, there’s a one in 78 chance i pull that one on my first try.)

apart from my wonky first-ever tarot readings with the Rider-Waite travel-size tarot deck (which belonged to my mother), i’ve never pulled anything that didn’t eventually make sense. i use The Wild Unknown cards now, i relate to them so much more. plus they’re mine, not borrowed or abandoned for years, which probably helps. (buying those cards was the most money i ever spent on anything. i don’t regret it.)

is any of this like the show ‘supernatural’? not really. the closest i can say my experiences have come to the show would be the episode “faith”. just, the whole episode. it doesn’t matter if it’s the real deal, so long as it works. and boy, does it work for me. and a lot of other people.

like i said, all the spirit-like entities i’ve encountered have been perfectly benign. no monsters, except things i’m pretty sure are nightmares.

but on that note, i take a lot of things to help me sleep. if i didn’t, i’d be waking up screaming night and day (i hit whistle register while screaming, once). i see faces in the dark and creatures in my bedroom, even when my eyes are closed and i’m awake. i sleep with a light on, and i prefer to sleep in the day. i cannot even deal with the presences in my room.

for that matter, my room is definitely the most presence-heavy room in the house. now, although it’s obviously just in a drafty area, i feel the cold spots. all. the. time. i’m feeling one right now as i type this. the door and window are both closed. the heater is always on. the draft comes from the same corner of the ceiling my cat stares at when she’s “staring into space”. there’s definitely something there, but it legit doesn’t bother me. it watches me get dressed sometimes, but it’s not weird about it. like i said, benign.

i feel energy everywhere i go. i can’t stay in my family’s open plan living room comfortably for more than a few minutes, because that room is filled with people and pets coming and going all freaking day, and even when it’s empty, it’s so LOUD. there’s vibrations and voices coming out of the walls, because the house absorbs it all. as a generally tired person, that room exhausts me. i can only stay there if i have social energy. (yes, even an empty room.)

i am so, so sensitive to people’s moods and the energy they let out (to the point where i burst out screaming if i see a negative microexpression during a personal conversation). i find phone calls very difficult, not just because of social anxiety, but because i can’t sense energy as easily as i want to, and is natural for me. skype calls aren’t the same as being there in person. a lot of this could also be autism-related, but nearly everything about me is autism-related, because i’m autistic. go figure.

one time, the day i had my first period, i passed out in a maths exam. all the other times in my life, i’ve seen black or maybe red when i passed out, but this time it was a striking cobalt blue. and i heard SO MANY VOICES, i thought the whole classroom was full of people shouting. my P.E. teacher was observing that exam, she carried me out of the room and lay me on the floor outside. i told her about the voices, she looked at me in confusion and said “there were no voices?? the whole room was silent for the exam.” obviously that was a weird day, but given the amount of times i’ve lost conciousness in my life, before and after that day, i know the warm muggy feeling of slipping away, and i guarantee that one was just a little bit not-normal.

my cat Wilson follows me everywhere. if you’ve ever seen a picture of a witch and her familiar, that’s me and Wilson. she leaves the house if i leave, and she’ll walk down the road beside me to make sure i stay safe. she only lets me leave completely if i go in a car, but even then, she tries to come too. i know what she says when she talks. she speaks in words for me. it translates naturally in my head without a thinking process.

there was this one time when i was about 15 my parents took me to an after-hours medical centre because apparently i was ~speaking in tongues~ or whatever. i don’t remember it, i remember ‘waking up’ with a doctor’s flashlight in my eyes, crying, then holding my sister’s hand as we looked at the fish in the fishtank afterwards. i can’t say how legit that is because i just.. don’t remember it.

one time as a kid, i am absolutely sure i was possessed for about 30 seconds. i was walking down the street on a balmy English afternoon, pine needles scattered underfoot, with my elderly grandmother (paternal), my grandfather, and my sister. i must’ve been 6 or 7? and a streak of evil just bolted through me. and i stuck out my foot and my grandmother fell flat on her face. my grandfather tried to help her up, a car driving by pulled up and asked if they needed help, grandfather said no, and got her back to her feet. i can’t remember if i felt remorse. i think i just knew instinctively that it wasn’t me who did it. but like.. i wasn’t just A Nice Kid, okay, i was The Nicest Kid. i just don’t do things like that. ever. especially not to a kind and generous grandmother who i love so very dearly. i never had before, and i never have since. that’s the single most evil thing i’ve ever done in my life and it came out of nowhere. being more aware now, i think it was a djinn (aka a demon in christian beliefs, i think). they’re known for being mischievous. (my grandmother was fine, by the way. this is the first time i’ve told anyone about this.) now i think about it, i remember cobalt blue behind my eyes then, too.

whoops, this is a really long post now. but uh… basically, i’ve just always been open to feeling these things, and believing in what i sense for myself, without subscribing to whether or not the science has been done yet. in fact, i think i’m open to it because i experienced the same stuff when i was young. the energy i feel is very much real to me, completely tangible. i’ve never been able to see auras, but i feel them on some people. i think just being open to feeling something makes it more likely to come to you. i try not to ignore my instincts (because they’re always right. always.) but i find it’s super hard to distinguish between anxiety (which i feel often) and magical ability (which is far less commonly felt). also sometimes the instinct is so faint it doesn’t even become a passing thought, just a blur of something i half-considered. but in hindsight i realise what it ought to have been, had i paid proper attention.

i can comfortably manage to go outside in bare feet, shut my eyes and let the moonlight do its thing. it has an immensely powerful energy, i always feel cleaner inside when i go back in. (my cat Wilson sometimes asks me to go outside with her when there’s a full moon. almost every night, especially on warm nights, but even freezing ones, we can just stand out there for an hour together. watching the moon set is transcendent. far more so than a sunset.)

right now, due to years of bad health, i have to force some natural abilities away (like the nightmares) because they’re too much for me to handle. i think as i recover, over time it’ll be easier for me to accept that stuff back into my life.

oh, one more thing, regarding my health - i have celiac disease, which has kept me essentially bedridden for the last 7+ years - WHICH BY THE WAY, my family spent literally 9 years trying to diagnose. my doctor kept doing an anaemia test, telling me there was nothing wrong with me and sending me back to school. i saw various specialists, herbalists, a naturopath, physiotherapists, cardiologists, had an MRI scan, saw family counsellors, school counsellors, a hypnotist, etc etc - basically consulted every medical professional under the sun when a simple blood test would’ve done it. stupid misogynistic doctor who thinks all teenage girls fake it to get out of school.

but one thing we did do was visit a psychic, who told me i had something called a candida. my dad, a sceptic and nonbeliever, googled it and said it was “some kind of magical thing in the gut”, and was therefore bullshit, so we continued the search for a diagnosis. years later - years - after a change of doctor (who i chose because i got a good vibe from her picture) we find out it’s celiac disease, a disease of the gut. of the hundreds of people we saw, the only ones to even pinpoint the right body part were the psychics. i googled candida just now and guess what? literally celiac disease. this woman diagnosed me with celiac disease by kneeling at my feet, holding my hand, and shutting her eyes for 30 seconds.

for the record, slightly off topic, i know very few men in real life, and this is what the men in my life have been. my doctor, dismissing me as a liar because i was a teenage girl. and my father, dismissing my declining health as “not trying hard enough”, even now, more than a year after i was diagnosed by a doctor. i think this is why i take refuge with male fictional characters. they’re better. i want them to be soft and understanding like the men i’ve never known.

anyway, this is the part of my life’s story i never really pieced together until right now. it’s a lot, more than i expected. i happily call myself a witch. most of my magic goes into my stories, and i think a lot of people who read them feel it, even if they translate it as passion or love or good vibes or something. the amazing comments i get would speak to that. i love the energy i get from comments, because it does come through in typed words, even if it’s much fainter than seeing people face-to-face. some comments just hit me with waves of goodness, even if the words themselves aren’t so powerful. so i really appreciate that stuff. it’s good stuff.

yep. that’s all. i hope this satisfies your curiosity, anon!!!

[sillyfudgemonkeys]

this is pretty late but I'm wondering: What made you hate Nier Automata after Route A? I'm curious 'cause I usually hear folks say that Route B fleshes out the world and events of Automata, and that the real story doesn't start until Route C

Uhhhhhggggggg tbh I pushed it so far outta my mind I chose to forget about it (and DRV3, sadly ZTD is still in my head....probably cause I only played a little so it wasn’t like I had to retain more than I needed to). I don’t wanna think about it so I’ll try to keep it short.

I dunno, I thought the world was empty and repetitive, there wasn’t much to do, the routes were too short. 2B and 9S were boring as all hell after awhile (I like the O people and our robot buddies better as well as some side characters). Speaking of side characters they didn’t really flesh them out, they’re just freaking there. I was hoping they’d flesh out even 2B or 9S more but they didn’t. 9S was a whiny little baby (which only bothered me by the time I got to Route C I think). The humans not being real was easy to call, even if you hadn’t played the other games. I don’t like how I had to collect a bunch of side items for the game to expand on and explain shit to me. 

A2 was the only main character I actually liked (around Route B I started to dislike the game, but held out for this route cause I knew I got to play her.....and then I found out I had to play as 9S too ahhhrrrggghh), probably cause she was an angry baby and she interested me when I first saw her (HATED how they don’t go into her more in the other routes). And cause she reminds me of Kaine (who was the first character of Nier I was introduced to and was def my kind of character, haven’t played regular Nier yet), probably cause apparently it is hinted she is based of Kaine (tho if that’s the case why isn’t she voiced by Laura Bailey????).

Also Adam and Eve were the most interesting villains of the game and we just kill them off half way through. Not a fan of that (one of the reasons I refuse to watch any more Luke Cage cause of what they did in Season 1, even tho I actually finished that whole season I should’ve stopped half way through tbh). 

I think I was suppose to feel bad for the robots, but as soon as I as I saw them in the desert (when Adam/Eve were born or whatever) I actually got a feeling of such squick that I didn’t care I just wanted them dead and gone. I did like the ones in Pascal’s village, but it didn’t make up for the desert scene. So when they all died I was like “oh man I hope A2′s not sad cause I think she’s gonna be sad” rather than feel sad for the robots or Pascal. 

I just hated the writing in general, just felt.....lacking substance I guess (it’s been awhile tbh so don’t @ me on the writing cause I don’t care for this game at all, I’m refusing to acknowledge its existence any further). Tbh as an introduction to Yoko Taro, it really made me get off on the wrong foot and makes me hate him as a writer. But I will keep my mind open as I go backwards into Nier PS3 and Drakengard or whatever. Cause maybe it was just Automata that pissed me off (it didn’t piss me off during route A, it was more “Ok I know there are other routes, maybe there’s more!” and while I didn’t love the game it was just....fine....and then it went downhill)

(btw while I don’t wanna hear any defense or just anything on Automata, you can tell me stuff about Nier PS3 and Drakengard cause I will give those a fair shot, I just don’t wanna indulge in anymore Automata as much as I can.....and I don’t want to salty up the fandom with my salt, thus I stay away and everyone is happy! :D

of course if Automata 2 comes out....and there’s a trophy list.....what can I say I’m a trophy whore who will play games I don’t like just for the plat but that’s neither here nor there nor is it new news XP and I probs won’t talk about it much anyway other than if I thought it was better than 1 or not but even then I dunno)

So yeah sorry for my salt, I try not to talk about things I hate on here, except for P5....cause I can’t escape P5 (cause P5 is special as it’s part of a video game universe I love thus I must indulge in it so I know more about the universe even if I don’t want to cause I don’t like the game and thus I’m in a catch 22 orz)....but I can escape Automata and DRV3 and ZTD....and so I do.