#Mostly because they actually genuinely impacted me in meaningful ways

[fluideli123]

Sonadow Fic Rec

Okay, before you jump down to the masterpieces listed below, I just wanted to state this:

These authors have given this phenomenal content for free, baked with time and effort. I have never once ignored this, hence why I try and comment on each and every one of these fics. However, my energy and ability to be verbose differs day to day. Some of these fics I have not given proper comments for, despite this, I will be on it the moment I can be. In the time being, (once I am able to find my comments on each of these fics) I will be sharing my adoration for them further in other posts (and most likely link back to this one).

With that being said, please, PLEASE take your time to check each of these fics out. If they're not your cup of tea? Valid! But hands down I have never dedicated myself to making a fic rec like this until now. But I MUST share and spread these works, they are much too dear to me not to, and I mean that from the bottom of my heart.

(All fics are listed by order saved in my bookmarks, not in the order read)

tangled threads and bite-marked shoulders by @rubyiiiusions

Words: 32,287 | Series | Complete

Shadow hissed in pain. The laser had just grazed him, but it still stung, and he instinctively gripped the wound it left on his arm. “You dare-” He stopped. The laser hadn’t hit him. In fact, it had struck Sonic, right on his lower left arm. So why did his forearm feel like it just got shot? He whipped around, fear climbing up his throat, and he suddenly became hyper-aware of something new. It was like a sixth sense, feeling the confusion that emitted from Sonic’s fur in waves as if it was his own. “What did you do?!” Shadow snarled. or, eggman accidentally soulbinds shadow and sonic, and no one has any idea how to undo it.

Sleepwalking by Tirainy

Words: 22,117 | Complete

'There is a strong arm curled around his torso, the appendage keeping him close to its owner, whose warm breath is ghosting over the back of his neck. Sonic is sure he went to bed alone the previous night, but he isn't worried about the intruder. After all, this isn't the first time this has happened…'

Secret Admirer by @trenchcoat-gecko

Words: 24,313 | Complete

Sonic understood well what it meant to be loved. He was a world-famous hero, after all; his presence never went unnoticed. For the most part, he lavished in that attention, he soaked it in and encouraged it. But not romantic attention. So, when the blue blur found himself falling in love? Well, the prospect was rather daunting, no matter how easy Amy had made it out to be. So maybe, just maybe, he should just take the easy way out...

Rose Drops Series by @magicstormfrostfire

Words: 122,489 | Series | Complete

Love, Intuition, and a little bit of magic ensues as Amy sends Sonic and Shadow on an unforgettable adventure.

Wolfboy by @trenchcoat-gecko

Words: 73,856 | Complete

World-famous monster hunter Shadow the Hedgehog has a job to do. It doesn't take long for the one-shot wonder to realize that this job won't be as simple as he'd expected: a small town, rumors of a lone werewolf, and a handsome, green-eyed, chronically-injured casanova who manages to worm his way into Shadow's heart... What starts off as a simple job turns out to be something much more life-changing.

Blizzard Bedfellows by @magicstormfrostfire

Words: 21,294 | Complete

When a rare blizzard takes over the island, Sonic is on the run to make sure a certain angry loner is safe and sound. Y-you know, because...uh that's what heroes do.

We never met but can we have a cup of coffee or something? by @whitejungle

Words: 3,630 | Complete

It's been almost two months since Sonic lost someone he didn't even know, but he can't stop thinking about it.

Clean Slate by nottheweirdest

Words: 155,880 | Complete | Note: Squeal pending and I am cheering you on author!! Whatever you decide I am excited to support you!!

Shadow has lost himself before. He knows what it's like to straddle the line between reality and false memories, but this time, it’s Sonic whose memory has vanished. A premeditated set of circumstances and an accidental injury leave Sonic with no memory of who he is, his life, or more importantly, his painful history with Shadow. It’s up to Shadow to remind the hero who he is in the midst of a global outbreak. It’s a chance for redemption. It’s a chance to right the wrongs of the past. It’s a clean slate.

say i reckon (i love you, for a millisecond) by @redamancering

Words: 30,205 | Complete

There’s a hand on his shoulder, barely making contact. A red gauntlet glows around the wrist. Sonic blinks, the pain having evaporated so fast he feels almost weightless. “Shadow?” Shadow’s breathing heavily. “Problem.” The retrieval of the ancient tech Shadow (and Sonic, in tow) has been sent to uncover takes a turn for the worst. In this case, the “worst” means… becoming physically and inextricably linked to each other. For the foreseeable future. OR: Metaphysical handcuffs, and general gay buffoonery.

Judge my sins, not my feelings by yellothebeeloved

Words: 228,479 | Complete | Note: Possible one-shots pending from the author for the series, I am here to support you author!! What ever you decide I'm here for it!

Maybe he's not meant to touch. It's the newest excuse he thought of in hopes that he could prolong the game a little more; a careful ruse to enjoy the bittersweet torture of seeing the days pass them by, while he pretends he doesn't seek azure blue whenever he's restless. At first, all he wanted to do was watch: but now the desire to touch, to have, to affect is at a point where he's not sure whether reaching for Sonic would truly be fruitless. He wonders that especially when Sonic's eyes light up upon seeing him. When he corners Shadow, when he invades his space and he touches and takes and then excuses it by calling it a fight. Shadow truly wonders then: if only he was brave enough to reach out, what would his grip find? Loose stars or a battle-worn body? Standing up, he glances at Sonic again, whose eyes have now met his own. There's something heavy in the eye contact, something Shadow doesn't dare name. Neither of them say anything, and yet Sonic's eyes move away from him again, like they did. Shadow warps away, hiding from the stars once more.

Child of Prophecy by @trenchcoat-gecko

Words: 139,321 | Completed

On the night the Mobius Castle was ransacked, the Queen received a prophecy. “One of three will not cry; send him down the river, for you can only save your kingdom if he does not grow up royal.”

Coming Home by nottheweirdest

Words: 55,740 | Completed

Shadow's life has been full of mistakes, some worse than others, but admitting his unrequited feelings to Sonic tops the list. He's spent the better part of a decade ruminating on his regret and hiding from feelings he couldn't bear to face. He never thought he'd see Sonic again, and he told himself that was for the best. Until now. At the bequest of his former rival, and in an attempt to finally get closure, Shadow has returned to Central City. The reason? Sonic the Hedgehog is marrying Amy Rose. And Shadow is invited.

[dreadnotau]

Happy three years everybody! As always, there’s a lot to say on the occasion, so pop in at the end of the post for the tl;dr if you don’t have time for my detailed diatribes, haha

Boy, time flies, huh? Feels like the second anniversary was just yesterday, but maybe that’s just the several long hiatuses getting to me. I’ve been scarce on uploading anything anywhere for a while now, even though I promised I’d actually pick up the slack this time around. What gives? Well…

For one, college hell, and for two, a lot of unfounded anxiety about putting my art out there. Allow me some theatrics for a moment and I’ll actually get back to the comic at hand… I’ve never had an exceptionally supportive environment for making art. It wasn’t suppressive, not in the slightest, but it also wasn’t… encouraging. It was always treated as a hobby or a distraction rather than something I was allowed to be fully proud of, especially because a lot of my art focused on more cartoon-y and fantasy ideas, rather than still life studies and painting (which people generally outside of the art sphere tend to value more, arbitrarily). Couple that with a childhood full of being bullied over minute shit you hadn’t even considered could be an issue before, and you get a teenager hellbent on never sharing his interests or ideas with anyone, mostly due to the fear of rejection.

I’ve grown, thankfully, but that paranoia and fear doesn’t go away overnight. As I’m sure you all know, Meowchela was the one who originally encouraged me to post this comic, and the only reason she succeeded was because she was the first person in a long time who listened and engaged with my interests and my art in a meaningful way. It’s kind of obvious her friendship had a profound impact on me, and I’d cite her as one of the reasons I was even hopeful enough to apply to an art college in the first place! This comic, and that bond with another person, proved that maybe these things I’m so passionate about weren’t duds, and weren’t something I had to keep to myself.

So, fast forward a few years. About three years, in fact.

During one of my classes, right before this hellish two weeks of exams started, one of the class assistants talked me into showing my comic pages to one of my professors. He’s generally a pretty open guy when it comes to new mediums, but I’m always… apprehensive about showing my less “traditional art”-y things to professors, but, he ended up being genuinely proud of it. Specifically, I showed him pages 85-87 (because they’re my favourites) and, he didn’t read the text, just the visuals were enough for him to say “good job, keep it up” (which is HIGH praise from that guy). When I mentioned I’ve been meaning to simplify the visuals because I didn’t have time to work on the comic very often because of college and classes, he dismissed it on principle. I was honestly caught off guard. Heavily paraphrasing, he suggested that worsening the visuals for an arbitrary deadline was counterproductive to making something that’s Good™.

That’s kinda stuck with me. For a good few years now I was more focused on optimisation rather than visual improvement for the comic, and though it HAS contributed to better visuals in some ways (cutting corners sometimes makes for a less pointy and jagged end result), it’s kind of weird I’m treating an art project that way, isn’t it? I set a lot of… arbitrary deadlines and standards for myself, in the form of expectations and what I “should” or “shouldn’t” be doing at certain stages in my life. I’ve thought of Dread Not as a passion project second and a stepping stone first, if I’m being honest. As if it was too… fandom-y and derivative to be treated with more gravity than that, like it’s an immature project because I was still a child when I came up with it. As if it was something I’m making to Build Up to Something Else, something Bigger and Cooler and More Important, and… the more I think about the future of Dread Not, and even my future career options, the more I realised that’s, ironically, a really immature way to think about it.

If there’s one thing going to this art college has taught me, is that there’s no “right” way to make art, and there’s no “right” way to success as an artist. There’s no clear-cut paths, just more commonly treaded roads, but even those are heavily overgrown. Why should I try to box myself into thinking I have to make things from complete scratch to be taken seriously? What’s so bad about Dread Not as a story and as a comic that’s caused me to vaguely keep it under wraps when conversing with people in my day-to-day life? Why wouldn’t I put all these skills I’ve acquired to improve and expand this project that’s Right There, WAITING for me to finally get off my ass and get pages out there again?

I wish I could say I’ve used all this time away in a particularly clever way, but I really haven’t - at least, it feels like I haven’t. My art has undoubtedly improved over time (though admittedly the art for this post was Very rushed, fuckin exams), and while I’ve been working on projects in the background, chipping away at them in a VERY disorganised way, I haven’t been posting that progress anywhere, and I haven’t made any good progress on my biggest project, Dread Not, because of the other ones. And, honestly? Admitting that kinda stings. This comic means a lot to me, and I wish I actually gave it the time and attention it deserves instead of letting it sit out hiatus after hiatus because I keep failing at structuring my time.

So, my new plan is a little more abstract: find a way to work Dread Not into my school schedule, and slowly build a habit of working on it more often. No clue how long that’ll take, but I think it’ll be worth it to consider it as an option, and hopefully finally end these long, drawn out hiatuses with short bursts of uploads in-between. HOPEFULLY. Building habits was never my strong suit, so please bear with me while I figure this out in what will probably be the most hectic upload schedule in this comics history, which is: no schedule at all.

From now on (until the end of Act 1), I’ll upload pages when they’re ready, and depending on how the weeks go and how complex the page is, they could be weeks or days apart from one another. Hell, some might even take a month to finish if school stuff gets REALLY hectic (god knows Hellish Exam Week number 1 and number 2 won’t be giving me much time to work on the comic), but I’m determined to do this. I want to be able to put my all into this project again!!

(And hopefully finish Act 1 by the end of this semester…)

TL;DR: College is giving me life lessons I didn’t expect, and because of them I’ve decided to give myself a non-existent upload schedule for Dread Not: Pages will be posted when they’re ready, and the spacing between pages could wildly vary depending on circumstances and the actual complexity of the page itself.

As always, thank you for being here, thank you for reading, and thank you for being patient!

If all goes well, there will be new content very, very soon.

[noisytenant]

"hot allostatic load" is very much a work worth reading and discussing, and it's shameful how the harrowing experiences described can be found unchanged these 9 years later. it highlights so many intersecting dynamics and consequences of the transmisogyny, ableism, and racism that are perpetuated within ostensibly "inclusive" spaces.

that being said, i feel like it still kind of reifies the victim/aggressor dichotomy and maintains "abuser" as a meaningful ontological class of malicious actors, and i'm skeptical of that part of the argument.

mostly i feel like messaging is mixed; between nominal challenges to the moral hierarchy and innocence/guilt paradigm, there are a number of lines that assert the innocence and good intent of victims, while taking as fact the malice and wanton destruction of aggressors.

lines like "abusers don't spend years disabled by those thoughts [of being sociopathic, crazy, or abusive] because they don't care if they hurt other people" have me raising my eyebrows. i feel that this line of thinking leaps over all of the little social and mental tricks that enable abuse--the minimization of consequences, the willful and selective ignorance of power dynamics, the magical thinking of intent trumping impact.

it has been my experience that a great deal of abusive individuals think they care deeply about hurting others, and do at times ruminate about the morality of their actions, but inevitably fall back on various justifications to maintain their behavior. i worry that the reassurance, essentially, "an abusive person wouldn't worry about being abusive" can terminate necessary reflection and growth.

it is an important part of the healing process to first realize that it wasn't all your fault, and that you are not uniquely evil or irredeemable. but i think it's an important part of being a political actor to challenge framing issues in terms of blame and ontological badness entirely. sometimes you are the one who fucked up, badly, and the question of handling that situation is fundamental to anticarceral politics.

the essay seems to believe in a type of genuinely "bad person", but it offers little in the way of how to identify them and what to do about them. how does one distinguish confused and righteous people from "pathological liars"? how does one distinguish the airing of personal grievances privately and without a major callout from the weaponization of whisper networks and silent ostracization? what punishments would be appropriate for the "bad people" who avoid them through privilege? if someone fucks up, what does it look like for them to actually atone and change things for the better?

i agree with the concluding sentiment that "there is no kind of justice that resembles hundreds of people ganging up on one person, or tangible lifelong damage being inflicted on someone for failing the rituals of purification that have no connection to real life". we should carefully consider what tools and methods we use in a quest for a more just world, because some of them have grave consequences. but this alone feels imprecise when paired with the whole of the article's wobbly stance on victimhood and abuse, and general lack of suggestions for how marginalized people can be heard and believed.

i guess my feeling is that i'd like to view the piece as a snapshot of this kind of abuse and its effects on all levels, but i personally think many of the core arguments are better discussed elsewhere. it just isn't very precise and honed, and i think a sharp argument is required to cut through the muck of cognitive dissonance and self-justification that perpetuate the abuses we're trying to stop.

anyways, that's just my two cents. hope it resonates with others; if you see the article differently, i'd love to hear a different perspective on it too. i worry if i'm misreading somehow, or overly critical due to unexamined bias. but i can't really know if that's the case if i don't share my thoughts with anyone else. so, here i am with my thoughts. Heart

[linkspooky]

Hey so, i hope you don't mind me asking a question about a ship (if you do, then please feel free totally ignore this ask!)

But i wanted to ask what do you think of Gojo and Utahime "dynamic" so to speak? i see many people shipping them together and this mostly comes with the assumption that Utahime is a tsundere that secretly likes Gojo. This however is false as Utahime was stated in multiple interviews that she genuinely like the rest of his peers does not like him particurlarly. In fact he isn't even aware of it, just thinks she's joking around or something. Storywise they just don't seem written as the characters that would complement or contrast each other in any super meaningful way that will lead to either developments or plot progressions or whatever. Their personalities just don't match? If that even makes sense

I don't see Gojo falling in love with any of his female peers (the few of them that exist already) Akutami even stated that he cannot imagine him being sincere or true hearted with someone. I guess this is another reason why Geto's realtionship with him was so impactful and a reason why the whole story basically revolves around it one way or another? It's impossible to talk about one without brining up the other, they are so intervined.

So that is my ask... i have yet to see a detailed opinion that involves critical reading anywhere on this one so i'd love to see what you have in mind if you want to that is :)

Okay, so I’ll do a post on Gojo and Utahime and what I think their relationship represents in the story. Just to be clear this isn’t a shipping post. I agree with your sentiments anon that Gojo and Utahime do not really have much of a relationship besides coworkers. Gege clearly said in an interview that Gojo’s harassment of Utahime is something Gojo thinks that’s a joke they are both in on, whereas Utahime just plain hates him in return. However, the story is comparing them not because they have a personal relationship but they are both teachers with very different attitudes towards teaching. 

Gojo is a flawed teacher, in fairness to him though the one time we see him actually teach he does try his best to communicate to Yuji in his own way the basic mechanics of Jujutsu in a way that Yuji will be able to understand it as an outsider. Gojo is also someone who comes up with outside of the box and personal ways of teaching his students that is suited to them when he is working with them on a one on one basis. He also gives an incredibly personalized lessons to Megumi, he has a grasp of Megumi’s problems including his tendency to self sacrifice from something as simple as watching him choose to bunt in the baseball tournament. 

. It’s also a lie to say that Gojo doesn’t care about his students, because he clearly does, he only brings Yuji with on his lesson about Domain Expansions because he is absolutely sure that Yuji will not be harmed He makes sure to keep his students out of harms way, most of the time and the one time Yuji does get harmed by fighting a cursed spirit he wasn’t ready for it was the higher ups going behind Gojo’s back. 

However, there are a lot of things holding back, one of them is simply time. Gojo is in such high demand in the sorcery world to exercise cursed spirits that he doesn’t often have time to work with his students on the one on one basis that he did with Yuji. For instance, Gojo never really gets one on one time with Nobara, Maki did not see him as a teacher, etc. etc. 

When Yuji is handed off to Nanami we are shown right away a couple of the ways that Gojo is lacking as a teacher. First, Gojo skipped a lot of the basics with Yuji. if there’s a reason for this it’s probably Gojo’s own personal flaw that he really only understands the world through his own perspective, he probably just didn’t think he had to bother explaining the basics because he assumed that Yuji already knew them. 

There’s a reason Nanami is seen as such a responsible mentor figure by the fandom, in that unlike Gojo he’s the first to remind Yuji that he is still a child, and is mindful of him and his emotional state because he is a child. Nanami draws a clear line between the immaturity of adolescent years and the maturity of adult years. This might be a flaw in Gojo’s perspective because once again, kids grow up fast in the Jujutsu world, they are saddled with a lot of responsibilities and regularly risk their lives on a daily basis even in their high school years. Gojo was also the strongest sorcerer that anyone had ever seen by the time he was in his second year. This could easily explain Gojo’s tendency to just kind of treat the children he’s working with like they are mini-adults. He also prefers to pal around with them, then acting like Nanami who speaks with them in respect to the fact that they are adult and child. 

The third is Gojo is taking these students in, specifically to fit a political agenda. As well intentioned as Gojo is for creating a better world, he doesn’t really help these kids for entirely altruistic reasons for the goodness of his own heart. The choice he offered for Megumi was become a sorcerer for me, or become a sorcerer for the Zenin, which implies he was totally willing to just let Megumi get taken to the toxic household of the Zenin family if Megumi turned him down. Megumi was also a small child with no parents at the time a very vulnerable person, and yet Megumi grows up with the idea that he “owes” Gojo something. 

His goal to “foster strong allies” has the unspoken subtext that he is only helping foster them because he wants them as allies to his cause. He occasionally uses them in more pragmatic ways, to suit his plans. He sends Panda and Inumaki to get beaten up specifically to provoke Yuta into provoking his true strength. Yes, Gojo had faith that Geto wouldn’t kill them, but he was still gambling with the lives of children he was responsible for. There’s a databook question where Gege clarifies that Gojo only helped Yuta because he thought he had potential as a sorcerer. There’s a foiling in how Geto and Gojo connect to the people around them, when Geto took in Mimiko and Nanako he raised them as a parent, Gege calls him “Papa Geto” in the databook. Gojo is not a father figure to Megumi, he’s probably the farthest thing from it. 

All this to compare with how Utahime interacts with her students, and forgive me I am working with limited screentime here for both Utahime and the Kyoto kids. Utahime right away acts more Nanami than Gojo, in that she shows legitimate concern for her students as children that she as an adult is responsible for. 

To be fair to Gojo, I think Utahime has some flaws as well. For instance she seems to be unaware of principal Gakuganji’s plan to send the Kyoto kids to kill Yuji. However, Gojo is the stongest sorcerer, he has a lot of political weight to throw around that Utahime is lacking. Utahime has to probably work inside the system while Gojo can go outside of it and occasionally strongarm the elders or threaten them into getting what he wants. However, Utahime is apparently good enough at playing politics she can investigate the inside of the school without raising any red flags. If Gojo’s approach is loud and bombastic, Utahime’s is quiet and subtle. 

When Miwa goes down right away, Utahime is the first one to get upset and want to go and retrieve her. On the other hand, Mei Mei and Gojo are kind of unbothered. She also coordinates to see if everyone is okay while they are in the middle of fighting off the intruders. 

Once again we don’t really see the kind of teacher Utahime is because of limited screentime, but the Kyoto students act incredibly different than the Tokyo ones. There is an emphasis over and over again on personal connection first exemplified in Mechamaru and Miwa’s connection. Miwa brings up this conflict in the lives of sorcerers, they might die at any moment, and forming connections will only make the loss hurt to much and yet they desire to grow closer.

The Kyoto kids and Tokyo kids represent two halves of this problem, the Kyoto kids are individually weaker but have good cohesion as a group because they choose to grow closer, whereas the Tokyo kids are  stronger individually but they almost never fight together in groups because they choose to grow stronger. 

They all tend to value personal connections, Mai values her personal connection with Maki more then being a sorcerer, Mechamaru desired to connect with everyone, Todo is someone who fights best when he is working together with Yuji and he is someone even Gojo considers to be one of the sorcerers with the most potential.

 Nishimaya values her role as senpai, and feels defensive of both Mai and Miwa. The two times we see them fight, against the Tokyo Kids, and against Kenjaku they have strong group coordination. 

We see their attitude towards group coordination, and putting your allies above everything else when Kamo joins the fight in the culling games. 

Of course this has an obvious drawback, the Kyoto kids all consider themselves individually weak and they are more willing to sacrifice themselves. Gojo’s words come to mind, “Sorcerers always die alone.” However, a life with no connections at all is empty, and what are you even fighting for at that point? Gojo also, has a pretty skewed perspective. There’s a difference in Gojo’s relationship to Shoko and Utahime’s, in that Utahime and Shoko are close friends Utahime even got Shoko to quit smoking for awhile. Shoko and Gojo are work associates and political allies at best. Gojo is also, unable to really connect with anyone after Geto and he’s had one friend in his whole life, and part of the reason for that friendship is that he believed Geto to be the only person as strong as he was. When Gojo mastered the six eyes and became the strongest, that put a distance in their friendship that fell apart over the course of a year. 

Gojo’s views are skewed towards might makes right, and stronger is better, He tends to divide people into weak and strong and assume he can’t connect with the weak. Utahime doesn’t really see people that way. So yeah, the best way to compare them is as teachers, and there is a marked difference in the kind of students they produce. Gojo’s students are all individualists like Gojo which is what makes it so hard t work together, whereas the Kyoto students have a more developed group bond, but are individually weak. I do not think one is better than the other because part of the tragedy of Shibuya arc is that because Gojo’s students failed to work together and all of them ran off to fight on their own, they ended up losing those fights, Yuji loses to Choso, Nobara gets cocky against Mahito and gets her face blown up, Megumi tries to kill himself against a cursed user when he’s too weak to fight. So, there are strengths to their individual teaching styles and weaknesses as well. 

[linklethehistorian]

Linkle, I must know, what are your thoughts on Mori as a character? His actions and motivations?? Id love to hear your opinion, btw that last chapter of cherish was great!! I loved it so much!!!

Ahhh hello there, anon, thank you so much! 🥺😭💕💖🥰 It’s such an honor to get a message like this from someone who is reading the fic. 💕🥺💖🥰💕🥺💖🥰 I’m so glad you liked Chapter 12; it definitely has one of my own personal favorite scenes, tbh (but I won’t take up your time talking about that right now lol). Having a fan base for Cherish is truly lovely; I’m so blessed by each and every one of you. 🥺💖

As for your question, I’m always happy to share!

Before I say anything at all on my opinion, though, I’m first going to make it clear that I am completely setting aside that one…particular matter that has been discussed to death by the fandom for the moment, because I fear far too many people tend to forget that it is entirely possible to make any remotely positive commentary on a fictional character without that actually somehow meaning you condone his alleged…preferences. For the people in the back that need to hear this out loud to be set at ease: I in absolutely no way do.

Now with that out of the way for a bit, let’s talk about the rest of Mori. I’ll throw it under the cut, though, both for length and for potential spoilers of multiple light novels (Dark Era, Fifteen, Storm Bringer, etc.) and obviously the manga up to his last appearance in current arc. Oh and obviously the typical Mori-related trigger subjects. Yeah.

Honestly, on a general note, these days I think Mori as a character is super cool; I’m not sure where precisely I’d rate him on the list of characters because I honestly like nearly every character in BSD and think they’re pretty awesomely written, but on a general scale of 1 to 10, he’s a very solid 8 or 9 for me.

My first introduction to him was…admittedly not at all the best possible representation of him.

When I first joined the fandom, I began my journey through the series by watching the anime adaption of Dark Era, at the behest of a dear friend who said I would be best off doing so before I watched the rest of the show (of which there were only two seasons at the time) and then reading the manga, in order to get the best and most meaningful experience; it is not something I remotely regret, and in honesty, I would probably wholeheartedly recommend any new people to do the same, if they intended to start with the anime. Regardless, though, this decision did have the impact of making me immediately strongly dislike Mori as a person from the very start, given what he did to the orphans, Oda, and Dazai by extension.

Really, I wouldn’t say that I came to see him in any particular shades of grey motivation-wise until I watched the episode titled Double Black, in which there was the first reference of what would have become of the Port Mafia and Yokohama as a whole had he not usurped the throne to the organization so many years ago.

After that, I began to look at him with a bit more understanding and curiosity, horrible and ruthless though his nature may still mostly have been. Fifteen (specifically the light novel, NOT the anime) — which it should be said, I think is the best existing canon representation of Mori in terms of giving us a good look at his thoughts and motivations — only amplified that outlook and interest for me, and I think it alone is largely to thank for why I enjoy him as a character as much as I do in current time.

Although he’s definitely not someone I’d feel particularly comfortable writing an entire story solely around — as I don’t believe I’m expert nor absurdly passionate enough to do so compared to some genuine Mori fans that I know are out there out there — I nevertheless really, really do enjoy writing him, especially in Cherish (which is only the second time I’ve written him, if I’m honest — at least, in anything I’d consider publishing, anyway).

There’s just so much potential in him plot and personality-wise; he is incredibly flexible of a person in terms of his thoughts, mannerisms, motivations, and actions, which makes it super fun to explore and play around with when telling a story. I’d say he easily has one of the most fun personalities among the BSD ensemble, purely because of utterly unpredictable it can be; on one hand, he has moments where (at least outwardly) is capable of being extremely friendly, outgoing, generous and unassuming, and yet on the other, he is very much always inwardly observant of all that is going on around him and capable of quickly switching to being cold, calculating, and openly cruel at the drop of a hat. But even then, usually, his cruelty doesn’t come in the form of physical violence; it’s often emotional manipulation, intimidation, taking your fears and weaknesses and using them against you to get him whatever he feels he needs in the present moment. Sometimes, it isn’t even outwardly visible that the switch of gears happened; he knows how to poison you in the sweetest and most unassuming yet effective way possible — whether that poison is literal or metaphorical. He’s definitely the kind of person who could sing you to sing to sleep every night and kiss your cheek every morning even as he’s secretly plotting your demise. lol

That being said, I think a lot of the fandom, in their hatred for him as a person, tends to mischaracterize him a lot, rather than looking at it objectively. I’ve seen a lot of fics and general fandom takes that portray him as a sadistic person who is cruel simply for the sake of being cruel and does terrible things to others purely for the enjoyment factor, but that is 100% not who Mori is; canonically, Mori does what he does mostly, if not entirely, out of what he feels is necessity as the leader of the organization. Now, I’m not saying there may not be parts of him that enjoy certain things he does — it’s certainly more than possible, and even highly probable — but his actions as godfather are driven by achieving what he feels is the optimal solution, not by personal pleasure and amusement; as a matter of fact, in Fifteen, he even made it clear when speaking to Chuuya that he fully acknowledges a lot of what he does is morally reprehensible — he just feels that it is his duty to commit these atrocities for the ‘greater good’ of the organization, and that the end therefore justifies the means.

The thing is, there is a character in BSD who is exactly the way this portion of the fandom characterizes Mori, and he was even a member of the Port Mafia, so if people really wanted to canonically explore this dynamic of a character who wholly gets off on tormenting people, causing suffering and probing others’ heads rather than doing it as just a business practice, they absolutely could still do it and be true to canon by writing about said other character; it’s just that it’s not a convenient truth that a lot of the fandom wants or likes to face — because that would mean acknowledging that it was everyone’s beloved Dazai and not the oh-so-despised Mori who used to think in such a sick and twisted way during his days in the criminal underworld.

Granted, some people do write both characters very well and very accurately, and I applaud them, but I do find it frustrating when the fandom reduces either Mori to this purely evil, sadistic villain who is bad just for the sake of being bad, because he is so much more interesting as he truly is in canon.

It’s this dichotomy where his dedication to the overall well-being of his people and company is admirable and even understandable, yet at the same time his individual actions when you look at them from a moral perspective are pretty much all morally reprehensible in some way, shape, or form — if not in every way. The same is true of his time in the army; as a general concept, his desire to protect Japan during the Great War was on the whole admirable and understandable, we know that he was well-meaning about it, but at the same time, no matter how desperate the situation was, what he did to Yosano and his entire army was absolutely disgusting and unacceptable — especially because it came so easily to him to do it and he made no apologies for it nor expressed any guilt over the suffering he caused later on.

Do I think Mori is, on the whole, a good person? Absolutely not. Do I think that he sometimes has the best of intentions in mind with his schemes? In the grander scheme of things, yes; it’s just that he mostly doesn’t care who or how many he has to hurt to achieve that so long as it’s slightly less than his net gain from doing it, which in turn cancels out things enough to prevent him from ever being labeled as being or acting as a “good person” at any moment.

I think the best, most objective description of him is to say that he’s pragmatic and ruthless.

…And then obviously there’s the part that everyone in the fandom discusses to death — about the main universe version of him being into little girls. Not a whole lot to say about that; it’s gross, it’s wrong, it’s unforgivable, it’s morally reprehensible, and it’s chilling and disturbing and it definitely completely disqualifies him from being labeled a good person even if he had been able to earn that title from something he did somewhere along the way.

That being said — and I know this is probably going to be controversial to a lot of the fandom, so let me say upfront that I’m not saying that that isn’t 100% a valid and understandable reading of who he is and the way he feels based on all the evidence throughout the series, nor am I trying to convince anyone otherwise — purely because it is fiction and therefore all made up to begin with, at least for my own personal comfort, I typically choose in my own personal readings to just look at him as someone with a particular weakness for little girls because he’s fatherly — although I make no effort to claim that to be the objective truth, nor does such interpretation affect or influence any of my writings in any way; it’s simply the way I prefer to engage with BSD on my own personal time — outside of my writings.

As a matter of fact, in my one fic, Bittersweet Belief, he was intentionally written with the intention of being portrayed as a groomer, and in Cherish, his ‘tastes’ will be portrayed no less nor more suspicious than how they are in canon, and therefore it will never be fully, directly addressed, but may be interpreted however you wish.

I do not need people coming to me providing evidence of why they believe there is no way to look at it differently, as again, I am not arguing that it is objectively untrue in any way that Mori is written to be a pedo in BSD, and when in public spaces among other people talking about it I don’t even try to say otherwise, much less convince anyone of it. I understand fandom etiquette and I am not trying to erase anything about him from others’ perceptions in order to make him more “likable”. I am just engaging with BSD, whenever I am personally reading it and watching it, in the way that is more comfortable for me. Nothing more, nothing less.

Anyway, yeah, Mori’s a super fun character to write and observe in the BSD world! I think there’s a lot of depth to him and he’s very well-written — probably among my top past antagonists purely for the super interesting personality and the purely pragmatic outlook to life and business.

[obsessivelycartoonish]

Hey, um, can I ask something?

I stumbled across this post during my late night tumblr scrolling regarding an apparent clash between the 2012 TMNT and Rottmnt fandoms, mostly in the crossovers they draw/write, about people always slandering the former and calling the brothers toxic & abusive (especially towards Mikey).

[ https://teenagetaleglitter.tumblr.com/post/694408872097710080 ]

They even wrote a 2012/Rise crossover fic of their own as their way to vent about & resolve the debate.

And... It's just- As much as the OP did make some good points, it makes me feel so conflicted now about who's really right and who's truly wrong about the relationships of the brothers from both versions, and my stupid brain won't let me stop obsessing over it until I can get a second opinion. 🤦‍♀️😖

Which is why I'm here now. 😑

I'm only curious, what do you think about this? Can "non-overt" displays of affection still be as impactful and meaningful?

(I'm so sorry if what I'm doing comes across as rude or nosy to anybody. I just really wanted some more insight, I don't want to offend anyone! 🙇‍♀️🙇‍♀️🙇‍♀️)

I’ll try my best to answer this as best as I can😅 I’m gonna be honest - I didn’t realize how much of a debate there was in the first place until I started getting into rottmnt on tumblr

I actually used to watch the 2012 TMNT and genuinely enjoyed the interactions between siblings in that as well as RiseTMNT because I also saw my relationship with my siblings in them as well. Short answer to ur question; yes, “non - overt” displays can be just as impactful and meaningful as “overt” ones.

Speaking from personal experience as someone with a younger and older sibling; there are ways of showing u care without outright saying u care or u love someone! I actually have a hard time saying that I love someone out loud while my older sibling will literally tell me they love me - that doesn’t mean I don’t care for them or love them just as much; the way I show it will be less obvious to someone looking from the outside, but it’s still there! I may be stubborn and not want to be outwardly affectionate with my siblings but that doesn’t mean i won’t be there for them when it counts.

Both shows actually present different ways that siblings/family can interact with one another - I know in 2012TMNT, raph will constantly argue and throw comments at his siblings, but that never meant he despised his siblings or that he didn’t love his brothers; if anything he’s the one of the most over protective siblings. My siblings and I will also argue often and throw comments just cause we’re angry or annoyed, but at the end of the day it doesn’t take away from how much we care for each other and that we’d defend one another anytime/anywhere. If anything, it also shows how comfortable we are around one another - I can argue but still recognize that my siblings view of me won’t change cause I’m acting out.

Meanwhile RiseTMNT shows the brothers as openly affectionate and caring, which is still accurate amongst siblings! It may not be often but I’ll still do acts of service or spend quality time with my siblings and have vulnerable moments where I do say how much I care, and this is just as valid in sibling relationships.

To say that RiseTMNTs version of sibling relationships is healthier than 2012TMNTs version is to be kinda ignorant of the fact that not every familial relationship is hugs and I love yous. I’ve seen my relationship with my siblings reflect the same relationships and interactions in BOTH shows! Both are valid, accurate representations of siblings! Not every healthy relationship between people are the same; and that’s okay!!!! Where some can be open and affectionate, others can be less overt - they both still don’t take away how much siblings actually care or view one another!

(Side note: I know I keep referring to MY siblings and myself, but I’ve also encountered other families/siblings - some outwardly caring and affectionate and some less obvious- and they still had healthy relationships with one another! It all depends on the people/family cause not it’s every one is the same)

I’m not the best at responses like this so hopefully this makes sense🙏

[max1461]

.

not feeling super ok right now.

no sleep, eating weird, still have this bad toothache

still struggling with pandemic-induced brain badness and it's impacting my ability to be normal at this grad program. like I'm mostly getting the work done just fine but I missed a lot of class last quarter and had no social life because it's basically a nightmare to get myself out of the house. also have completely lost my ability to focus on anything so homework takes like 3-4 times as long as it did in undergrad. just fucking miserable still to do everyday normal tasks, even though it's probably two orders of magnitude less intense than a year ago

increasingly worried I will never talk to [person] again, or at least never in a meaningful way, which kind of makes me want to die die die die die.

literally 1 irl friend who I talk to on a weekly-ish basis, rest of my irl friends are just, idk, otherwise preoccupied...

just so not myself due to the brain badness, just can barely get out the door so I always feel like shit and I look like shit. trying to work out again but it's so fucking hard. just feel like shit look like shit. dating app profiles using 4 year old pictures now which is probably, like, deceptive or something. whatever, not like I'm actually gonna meet any of those people anyway

and then last week I learn that my dog has cancer and I just genuinely felt like I wouldn't be able to live any longer. idk. luckily I guess the prognosis seems to be not too bad, and she's very old already, so the vet said it may not shorten her life expectancy. which basically means, well...

literally if she passes away I would like to vanish out of existence please.

idk why I'm even posting this. it's none of anybody's business. just feel like I'm going to explode if I don't tell someone.

I'll be fine don't worry about me. I am not going to kill myself because I have various commitments and loyalties remaining here on earth. but I may be 90% zombie at this point and feel like I could become 100% zombie any day. whatever.

[share-the-damn-bed]

Strap in, my thoughts are unhinged

I unintentionally have not slept (whoo insomnia) and my head hurts. Alright. So I finished volume 2 and I have so many thoughts. So, so many. I’ll try to keep this post to only Jancy since they are my brand. 

Vol. 2 Spoilers ahead!!

Ultimately, it was mostly what I expected. Except I definitely didn’t expect Argyle to make it back to Hawkins. I thought he was going to stay at that SBP in Nevada and Argyle 2.0 was going to help get him back to Cali. It’s an interesting choice but one I welcome. (But no Nancy introduction or genuine interaction?! booooooooooo)

Also, obviously, there were way more St*ncy moments than I anticipated and though cute and touching, I ultimately feel (as I predicted) the Jancy reunion was unearned (mostly on Nancy’s side). At least with Jonathan we have him looking at their photo and deciding to leave for Hawkins and then, when El reveals major danger for our Hawkins crew, Jonathan tries to book a plane ticket ASAP for El because he is worried. However, the fact that the two of them never really expressed concern or thought of one another irked me. It also irked me that the whole Barb thing went unmentioned. My “irk” list is long and will span beyond this post. 

I did like that Steve acknowledged Nancy’s break up helped him start to move forward in life “slowly,” (his words not mine). I’m sad that Steve apparently does have romantic feelings still for Nancy and all the St*ncy moments made me gag. 

But t he St*ncy --> Jancy switch did feel jarring. To the point where I honestly feel bad for St*ncy fans and can anticipate general fans of the show feeling confused (and unfortunately blame Nancy). Like they continued to have these moments (Nancy looking at Steve, then his lips, and then back into his eyes...) and then they had them actually talk about future plans and desires (granted, only Steve’s) and we even got a love confession (again only Steve’s) and then poof! Nancy sees Jonathan and never looks back. Like at all. I expected with everything that happened we’d get some conflicted look on Nancy’s face but nope! Which, I mean, as a Jancy fan I love, but it feels unearned. It’s genuinely bad writing. 

I still don’t think St*ncy is going to happen. I don’t have the clips yet but I do feel like when Steve was confessing about envisioning a future with Nancy (and their six kids... lol I’m willing to give Steve the benefit of the doubt here and say that wasn’t the point. That seeing the future together was the point) Nancy looked like she was going to shoot him down and even looks like she was about to shake her head. But I’m biased. And I was wrong about a lot of the St*ncy stuff being meaningful for Nancy’s Vecna-ing since it didn’t seem to make an impact. At all.

I did find the line between Karen and Nancy right before the Cali group showed up interesting. Karen hands Nancy a box of old stuffed animals from childhood and Nancy goes “Oh, Mr. Rabbit!” or whatever she called it, and Karen stated “It’s okay if you want to save him, you know?.” and Nancy goes “No, he’ll be more loved in a new home.” 

I took this to be referencing her ‘retreating’ back to Steve and her realizing that she was using him once he started confessing his desire for a future together. And that Nancy ultimately decided to let Steve go and find someone who can truly love him and have 6 kids in an RV. Or, it could be referring to Jonathan. Most likely, it means nothing and it was a throw away line. 

Did you sense that, the snark coming through? Welp, that’s because I very much do not trust the writers of the show any more. Officially. I gave them volume 2 to make sense of everything and they failed. hard. I feel like fans across the fandom even Jancy and St*ncy fans alike have pulled together wonderful theories of why things are happening and it ends up being a coincidence. Also, can we talk about how there was no story development for Jonathan and Nancy as a couple?

Episode 1: They are long-distance and are facing issues that are exacerbated by long distance.

Episode 9: They are facing the same, unresolved, undiscussed issues BUT now they are in the same town. Also maybe StEvE?!?!?

Like, we are back to where we started with Jonathan not being honest about his future plans and Nancy thinking he is planning a future with her. (I know that whole plot point might not matter now since they’re back in Hawkins and I don’t even know if they’re going to get to go to college. It’s unclear.) But I also think this brings up a point for the love triangle which they are obviously leaving room for in ST5 (hopefully the negative feedback will prevent this from happening, please?): Steve sees a future with Nancy. Jonathan is sacrificing what he wants to prioritize his Mom and brother but not Nancy (at least he was at the start of the season. we get NO insight into this by the end). But Steve’s plan doesn’t really align with Nancy’s. Idk. 

A line that made me sad was when they’re repairing the cabin, Jonathan says he’s sorry he wasn’t there, she says “to be honest, I’m kinda glad you weren’t” which Jonathan gives her a confused look and Nancy states that she means that she’s glad he was there for Mike and Will.  It just feels like it chipped away at the core foundation of their relationship which I have repeatedly stated is because they are partners and the fact that Nancy was like “yeah, I’m okay with the fact you weren’t by my side” undercuts a lot of what they’ve shown us through the years. 

Also, I’m very confused if the writers want us to think Jonathan did apply to Emerson and just isn’t planning on going or if he straight up didn’t apply and is lying to Nancy. Because the hopeful part of me thinks their little talk at the cabin does sound genuine and they just need to talk it out in way greater detail. 

But the part of me that is dominating my thoughts is STILL TRYING TO MAKE SENSE OF THE LOVE TRIANGLE! Like Jonathan and Nancy seem like they should be good, Nancy definitely seems very happy to be with him and was misty-eyed and excited to see him when he showed up. And she has shown absolutely no second thoughts or wistful looks off to the side  implying that she’s thinking about Steve. She literally never looked at him again since Jonathan’s been there. I just don’t get why they wrote any of the St*ncy stuff. IT DOES NOT MAKE SENSE.

Which leads me to Nancy. I’ve struggled with my feelings with her this season because she has always been my absolute favorite character. I, like many people with favorite characters, identify a lot with her and have always easily understood her, her motivations, her approach, etc. whether it be good or bad. I understood. But this season especially with all the St*ncy/Jancy stuff I had no idea what she was thinking or why she was doing what she was doing. What I’ve come to realize is that I don’t dislike Nancy in ST4, not at all. I just feel a major disconnect from my favorite character and that saddens me. It’s like even though she was there and heavily involved in the story, I miss her and I wish I understood her more (like I usually do).  

In conclusion, ST4 ends with the Hopper-Byers family + Wheelers (the bonus Byers) together for the final showdown.  Jonathan and Nancy are paired off and holding hands. Jancy made it through this season by what felt like the skin of their teeth and are finally together again. And I encourage the Duffer brothers to take all the time in the world to give us season 5 (10, maybe 20 years?) because I do not trust them to not fuck it up but I do trust the many, many talented fic writers in our fandom to do the story justice. 

Anyway, come scream in my asks/comments

[blazehedgehog]

What do you think of "The End" (Sonic Frontiers) as a character?

A little boring, I think. I mean I guess there's a way to do it and make it interesting, but there's not enough meaningful build up to make The End seem scary or powerful, and by the time you get the big reveal of what The End actually is, it feels a little bit like "here are assets we had laying around." Like table scraps.

The speech it gives over the final boss is pretty cool, I guess. It reminds me of Apocalypse from X-Men. It's very "I am the rocks of the eternal shore; crash upon me and be broken."

But then, you know, you hear it like six times in a row and it starts to lose its impact.

I would have liked more build up. I would have liked to go in to that boss fight thinking The End was actually this scary immortal cosmic force. Maybe it's because I streamed all of Sonic Frontiers and you kind of get streamer brain (read: 20% of your thoughts are dedicated to maintaining "The Show" you're putting on) so I just kind of glossed over it, but to me the plot in Sonic Frontiers is mostly at the very start and very end of the game.

The middle part of Frontiers is a lot of Sonic actually sitting down and talking to each one of his friends, like really talking to them for maybe the first time ever, and having genuine character moments with them. Those are good too, but it never feels like it's moving the plot of Frontiers forward. All the mysteries are an inch deep and instead of teasing the answers out they just ignore it completely until the last island.

So most of the game is just "Wow the ancients were fighting something... but what?" We're in a franchise where Sonic has fought THE GOD OF DEATH and THE GOD OF TIME and THE GOD OF DESTRUCTION, so it's like... if you're trying to tell me that The End is particularly dangerous, you're going to have to show me more than a wall with a big (perfectly round) hole in it.

And they don't. All we really get is that one speech. And like I said, it's a cool speech, but we've seen this planet get shattered and then stitched back together again. We've been to the edges of time itself more than once. You're gonna have to punch a little harder if you want to make an impact.

[hex-flareheart]

oh hey so apparently KOG put out a video outlining stuff they're doing in the coming months, for which the ever-wonderful 2nafish has provided a summary

a lot of the changes coming are of course things that should've been the case long ago/outright from initial implementation in some cases, with shared bank becoming Free:tm: being the former (as there was once a time where it did make sense for it to be a paid feature), and a bunch of things becoming bank shareable being the latter, because of course now that Rigomor equipment is irrelevant all that shit is being made bank shareable

also Mystic Stones being reduced to one variant (the best) is genuinely hilarious

anyway don't mind me I'm gonna ramble about this shit for a hot minute

one thing that is a bit interesting to me though is one of the bullet points- "Titles from normal dungeons can be shared among characters in an account". I don't really know what this entails specifically, but if I had to guess this means like. earning a normal title on any character earns it on all characters come implementation. which is probably how it should've been to begin with, particularly for the really impactful titles, but eh. the specific mention of "normal" dungeons does imply though that this most likely won't apply to raid titles.

also Polarize and Adaptation caps being increased. how much we don't know yet, but the former is absolutely comical to me because like. the reason Polarize was even capped in the first place is because the design of this game is so unbelievably, comedically shortsighted that half of the content now takes place at the exact same player level. which means the only way to make later content harder is through making bosses damage sponges and have them do hilarious amounts of damage. which means at some point (and by "at some point" I mean "almost everything past Varnimyr raids") you pass a threshold where it becomes a game of don't get hit at all because anything that hits you has a 90% chance of instantly killing you.

the consequence of this being that Polarize past a certain point doesn't actually impact the damage you're taking in any meaningful way. like obviously 80% Polarize makes you take significantly more damage than 40% Polarize, but it doesn't actually matter much if you're extremely likely to die instantly on getting hit either way. this means past a certain point stacking extra Polarize is basically free damage, which is why it got capped.

this is less of an issue with Adaptation, and to be honest I don't really know why that was capped in the first place. from my understanding it has a multiplicative reduction on environmental debuff, IE 25% Adaptation will take a 40% stat reduction down by 10% rather than a flat 25%, so ultimately Adaptation has largely the same effect (at least from my understanding) at every stage of the game past Elrianode, it's just a bit more pronounced in lategame regions like Pruinaum and Tirnog where the environmental debuff numbers are literally taking your stats down to 20%. (Shout-out to the latter in particular for having fucking 90% environmental debuff, because reducing player stats to 10% of what they should be makes way more sense than just increasing the fucking level cap.)

really it mostly just becomes an issue of how much is reasonably attainable by the typical player- which, that number actually isn't very high, Adaptation is a pretty hard stat to stack. reaching the 45% cap is already pretty tricky, it barely has a reason to exist as-is.

moving on from that, we're also expecting a raid next month, and while the concept of one of the bullet points containing "tried to ease power inflation" is absolutely fucking hilarious for this game regardless of context, there is one thing that I find unambiguously hilarious for different reasons. namely new weapon, and Mystic Stones are being obsoleted! :D

pretty much two years later on the dot (minus like, a week), Vestige of Souls weapons are being obsoleted, in the same region that also obsoleted the last armor set. that said: no random drops, it's just fill a gauge to get it, which honestly depending on how many runs filling that gauge takes, I'd say that's probably better than what we currently have for existing raids. marginally.

the sad part is this is honestly kind of expected at this point, VoS obsoleting FoJ happened a little over two years after, so the schedule checks out, but the fact that a full round of equipment is being obsoleted within the same region is kind of nuts, especially since there's a serious argument to be made for this being effectively one region later. I don't personally count Outskirts as a meaningfully distinct region progression-wise from Pruinaum because like. it's three dungeons. one of which is a raid. for Master Class stuff. it's really more of a Master Road 2 than anything else. and I would not for a second argue that Master Road has any meaningful place in the actual overall progression of the game beyond existing as The Thing You Do Master Class Stuff In.

also yeah as I touched on they're also including new Mystic Stones for some fucking reason. that are just the existing ones but better. aight chief. at least make them provide different stats or effects! though then again: that's what imprint stones do.

final thing: Laby class preview! we only have 1st Job, and I like what I see so far, but I am very cautiously optimistic on this one. like this is the part where I have to remind myself and others that despite being technically hundreds (possibly thousands) of years old, Laby is for all intents and purposes a child, and like.

I like this so far! but I'd be a liar if I said elements of this design like the midriff didn't make me nervous about where this is going. that said by nature this is a very obviously rebellious teen-type aesthetic so it's entirely possible we're not going to get much more revealing than this.

I like the mischievous/rebellious tone we're going for so far, but I also remember the likes of Chiliarch and Diabla. and while unlike Laby, Lu is an adult, just in a physically-regressed body, the point is that KOG has put extremely revealing designs on characters who look like children before. so I think I am justified in being a bit wary here.

and to the probably zero people who are actually reading this who are probably going to be going "she's over 18 so it's fine", or god forbid going "it's just a PNG", in the former case if the character looks and acts like a child, then the number in that age field is entirely irrelevant, as for all intents and purposes they are a child. Laby very much qualifies. (Lu, I'll grant, does not.) and in the latter case.

like. if you're okay with sexualizing minors so long as they're just fictional characters that don't actually exist? you know what, I'll accept that. but I'm not. and I do recognize that that's not something I can judge people for, because that would make me a hypocrite. I'm otherwise a firm believer in separating fiction from reality, and while that particular line is one I'm not willing to cross in either case, to act like no one should be okay with crossing it in a purely fictional context would be... well, like I said, immensely hypocritical. doesn't mean I want to see it, though.

I guess it actually says a lot about me that this general philosophy also applies to a lot of other subjects. I hate GTA for similar reasons. do I think it has a right to exist? yes! but I do not like crime simulator 2013. I would not participate in crime simulator 2013, or in fact a lot of other things that involve doing horrible things to things that look a lot like people.

that was quite the tangent.

I think I'll shut up now.

[mt-words]

Can we get some dream smp fandom positivity posts? As someone who posts mostly analysis and has never once had someone say anything rude in response, I think we perceive the fanbase as more toxic than it is because of a few outspoken individuals. Y'all are pretty chill and I like you.

In no particular order-

I love that Eret’s fans come up with such cool theories, I swear she could give you two sentences of lore and I could see three five page essays on what it could mean about their character within an hour and each of them is unique, intricate, and makes logical sense.

I love the compilations Foolish fans make of him doing ridiculous things on stream, he’s a fun guy that never fails to make me laugh and everything I see from them embodies that energy to me.

I love how creative Hannah’s fans are, you take the awesome ideas she has and turn them into the most amazing designs and concepts.

I love that Techno’s fans might write a ten page essay about his character or just say they enjoy watching him do crime, and you never know which it will be because both come from the same people.

I love how Philza’s fans embrace everything he does with so much enthusiasm. His chat is a flock of crows? Excellent, they can work with that, you will see fifty incredible pieces of art and a hundred theories in the first hour and they’re just getting started.

I love that Niki’s fans are so careful to pay attention and not miss any details. It has been ages and I still see occasional mentions and theories about the “Dear Friend” letter.

I love that Fundy’s fans are very empathetic, they love to find and elaborate on the connections between characters and that’s pretty cool!

I love Tommy’s fans for their energy. They seem passionate about making things right and hopeful that no matter what your situation is things can get better. I’ve seen so many breathtakingly emotional art pieces from this side of the fandom.

I love that George’s fans unapologetically simp for him but then catch me off guard by making deep insights about his character.

I love how Bad’s fans are as genuinely sweet as he is, they’re willing to really look at everything that makes up a character and see the tragedy of it and have compassion about things. And some just want to see an egg rule the server, c'mon, it would be funny.

I love the running gag with Skeppy fans of making Skeppy critical posts, y’all are hilarious.

I love how Purpled fans play up his lack of lore as him being an incredibly powerful cryptid, and they’re right. He totally carried the wither fight on Nov 16th.

I love the balance Quackity fans have between a love of humor, justice, and darker topics. I think like Quackity they are often underestimated and thought of as the jokester side of the fandom to an extent, and then I start reading things they write and it’s well thought out and insightful.

I love that Tubbo’s fans love chaos, cute things, or both to an unhealthy extent. Seeing anything from them reminds me of princess unikitty in all the best ways, and then they turn around and throw a super in depth meaningful analysis at me in the next breath.

I love everything about Sapnap’s fans. Y'all are perfect. The writing and art from the born in fire line? Gold.

I love how Jschlatt fans are generally chill and just enjoy whatever they want to. Their favorite Manburg president was the one who publicly executed his right hand man and gave Dream a resurrection book for firepower, and he looked good doing it.

I love that Callahan has fans. You people are dedicated and I respect it. The fact that Callahan was one of the first names to pop up when everyone was trying to figure out who Harpocrates was even though he rarely involves himself with plot? Your influence knows no bounds.

I love that Alyssa’s fans are simply too powerful. She hasn’t played on the smp since way before I started watching and there are still people defending her barn and drawing pictures of her.

I love that Antfrost’s fans have taken so many ideas and just ran with them and made them awesome. Like him practicing magic? Perfect, he now carries potions and gets a wizard hat.

I love that Dream fans look at a character who has been portrayed as pure evil from many points of view and understand that Everyone has motives based on their situation, even if it isn’t handed to us in an easily understood way.

I love how Jack’s fans are so ready to support any action he takes. Crawling out of hell? Incredible. Killing a child? Good for him! Go team Rocket. Grieving the same child? Learning healthy coping, he’s the coolest.

I love that Connor eats Pants fans are the most reasonable people in this fandom. This is terrifying. Thank you for your service, you always make me smile.

I love that Punz fans unapologetically just love their capitalist mercenary. As they should, his presence always tips the scales and everything he does brings more depth to the characters and plots he interacts with.

I love how much Ranboo fans love complexity. Most of them aren’t afraid to admit that their favorite characters are flawed, because aren’t those flaws what make them interesting and relatable?

I love the variety of Hbomb fans. Half of them may be embracing the cat maid bit while the other half goes on about how impactful and cool L’cast is, but they’re all super chill.

I appreciate that Puffy fans take the time to understand so many perspectives. So many posts I see involving her tie in lore from other characters and find interesting ways to connect them and build them together, kind of like Puffy herself.

I love that Wilbur fans seem to approach the story like they’re solving a puzzle, carefully piecing together details from months apart to figure out how and why everything goes down.

I love how hard Ponk fans work to spread awareness of how awesome he is. Ponk says and does wonderful things and is very fun to watch. I never would have tried his content without them.

I love that Karl fans saw him wanting to be involved and started coming up with such cool ideas around his character that they actually made them canon. Correct me if I’m wrong, wasn’t the time traveler thing a fan theory at first?

I love the creativity Sam fans have with his design and their willingness to discuss complex moral issues. Sam is involved in some heavy lore stuff but he and his fans keep things entertaining and calm.

I’m sure I missed some things, please feel free to add on!

[nanowrimo]

5 Tips for Finishing Your Novel

April’s session of Camp NaNoWriMo is drawing to a close, and you might find yourself nearing the end of your novel. If you need some tips on writing and polishing the ending of your story, author Derek Murphy is here to share a few! Plus, you can check out the rest of our novel-finishing resources on our #NaNoFinMo page. 

You won NaNoWriMo and have a 50k collection of scenes and sentences, but how do you clean it up and get it done? How do you make sure it’s finished, satisfying and enjoyable? Here are 5 powerful strategies for finishing your novel and some helpful writing tips that will push you past the finish line.

1. Give it a satisfying resolution.

In order to have a powerful story, your book should probably focus on a main character’s change or transformation. There’s an inner war, a.k.a. the character’s emotional healing, and an outer war: the conflict that forced the reckoning. If it’s a purely symbolic internal realization, you can mirror that with actual conflict in the real scene: the breaking of a dish, a fit of rage, a sudden ray of sunlight (or a storm… this should not be pleasant; It’s a breaking point and spiritual death/rebirth).

You can clarify the moment of change by setting up an illustrative contrast, a before and after, that shows how those internal changes have resulted in real-world consequences or benefits. Each character’s unique challenge will match their personal weakness or fear. The price for victory is the one thing they have so far refused to do, or something they cannot give up or bear to lose.

Make sure your protagonist has gone through a transformative struggle to arrive at deep insights, knowledge or awareness. Find a way to deepen the incidental scenes so that they become instrumental to a deeper purpose, leading towards an identity-shifting event.

The plot is what happens, and it’s important. But you can make it more dramatic and meaningful by making sure you demonstrate how hard it was and what it cost. It matters, it is remarkable, because it forced your protagonist to change.

Your conclusion might include:

Physical tension as allies perform a tug-of-war battle against resistance, that shows how difficult this struggle is, and how much force is required.

The consideration phase, as characters are tempted last minute or the price for victory is revealed: the sweet memories that give them awareness that this fight is worth the cost or risk (you need to show them making the choice, knowing what they will lose).

The final flashback, as the full backstory is revealed so we can see exactly why this conflict is so difficult or meaningful for the main character.

2. Add (unresolved) conflict.

Your story is made up of the events and scenes, where something happens. Each new event will push the characters further into the plot. Slow scenes where nothing is really happening can be red flags, so the first thing to focus on is increasing conflict, drama, suspense and intrigue. This is what creates urgency. The full reveal, demonstrating why THIS challenge is so difficult and powerful, should happen just before the final battle or resolution.

You want to make sure every scene, especially in your conclusion, has enough conflict. I recommend these three:

Outer Conflict (threats): Challenges or obstacles that prevent the character from achieving goals.

Inner Conflict (doubts): Moral struggles, decisions, guilt or shame, anger.

Friendly Fire (betrayal): Strong disagreements between allies or supporting characters. 

You want to extend and deepen the potential conflict, without resolving it too easily. The biggest destroyer of conflict is conversation: when your characters just sit around and talk to each other. Most conflict involves a lack of information, and a desire for clarity. A lot of conflict is perceived or imagined.

The most important information needs to come last, and come at a great price. The information that has an emotional impact, and influences their actions and decisions, should be big reveals at dramatic peaks. A surprise or twist should be treated as an event: each scene is leading towards a change or new piece of information that provokes the protagonist to respond.

3. Fill plot holes with character motivation.

After you’ve made sure that “what actually happens” is intriguing (opening questions and raising tensions without resolving them) you can focus on making sure the plot holes are filled, and characters are properly motivated – these two things are usually adjacent.

You can find and fill plot holes by asking:

Why are the characters doing this?

Why does any of it matter?

Basically, readers need to respect the main characters enough to care what happens to them, so their choices and actions need to make sense within the given information. If there’s a simpler, easier solution, readers will get stuck up on “why didn’t they just…”? To fix plot holes and gaps in logic or continuity, or make the story go where you need it to, you can add urgency, fix the mood of the scene (bigger stakes require bigger justifications), show characters in a weakened mental state, or raise concerns but have them dismissed, with an excuse or justification.

You need rational characters to make plausible choices that lead to dire consequences. You need show why they don’t do something easier, or nothing at all, or why they face clear challenges, despite potential obstacles.

They’ll also require a deeper motivation, for why they’re willing to put themselves in identity-destroying conflict, rather than just giving up or running away. Why do they stay in THIS fight, when they’ve run from similar ones? If they weren’t ready at the beginning, why are the ready now – what changed in them, as a result of your story’s journey?

Your protagonist needs to have a strong, consistent internal compass, and it needs to be revealed through incidents that establish their character. This is who they are. Without this reliable core identity, we won’t be able to tell a story that forces them to change. 

4. Let readers picture your story with detailed description.

In the final stages of revision, you can begin improving the description with specific details.

It’s smart to start – or end – a chapter with a vivid, immediate scene. You want to leave readers with an image they can see in their minds, hopefully connected to the feeling you aim to evoke. You can close a chapter with a reference back to a motif or image, with a deeper or more reflective context; applying meaning to the metaphor. This will help readers feel engaged, be moved, and leave a lasting impact.

Vivid scenes are mostly a matter of detailed description, so add the specifics about the story environment. Be precise, not vague. Instead of “she put a plate of tea and snacks on the table” you can write “she gently placed an antique porcelain teapot on the table. I could smell it was Earl Grey from the scent of bergamot. The half-sleeve of Oreos and can of onion-flavored Pringles seemed incongruous with the fancy dishes, but I knew she was making an effort to welcome me.”

Focus on the sensations and feelings; but also zero-in on any potential sources of conflict or internal emotions or states of mind. In my example above, the host might be nervous or ashamed of her spread; or perhaps she has a degenerative brain disease and doesn’t notice the incongruity. Tensions are unspoken, potential sources of negative feelings. They hover in the background of your description.

Readers will remember the pictures you put in their heads, not the words on the page.

Description should serve and be bound to the story, not distract from it.

It should be squeezed into and around the scene action, when the protagonist is using or exploring.

Show what’s different, not what’s the same.

Leave space for readers to fill in the gaps, but get them started in the right direction so they aren’t surprised later.

Sidenote: be careful about your metaphors, analogies and similes. Each one will put a picture into readers’ minds, and it can quickly get overcrowded with imagery. You’re asking them to ignore your real scene and think of something else. Use them to confirm and amplify the scene you have, and limit distractions.

5. Prepare to publish.

Typos are bad, but perfectionism will ruin you. This section is about editing and proofreading, but I don’t have time for all that, and you don’t either. The real problem with a story is rarely the number of typos. A very clean book isn’t better if people stop reading.

You can solve a lot of common writing problems, with my big list of 25 common writing mistakes, and self-edit your manuscript to make it as good as possible. After that, a copyeditor or proofreader isn’t always the best investment (and it can also be the biggest publishing cost).

Instead, use an editing software (I like Grammarly) to root out obvious mistakes, but don’t dwell on the small stuff like perfecting every word or rearranging the commas. Spending a very long time wrestling a poorly-written manuscript in shape is less effective than getting something (actually) done to the point where you’re comfortable sharing it.

This may be difficult at first, but you can’t learn and improve without genuine reader feedback (from people who aren’t your mom or best friend; nor the short-sighted opinions of a self-proclaimed literature enthusiast). You need to find readers who enjoy your particular genre, and the sooner you find them, the more valuable feedback you can get.

Shorten the feedback loop: Get over the fear and focus on learning by getting feedback early and often. However, this doesn’t just mean joining a writer’s club: writers are brutal and might focus on trivial things. The safest bet is to make it public, on Wattpad at least. Or get a cheap cover and throw it up on Kindle, Draft2Digital or even your own blog.

Making it public is scary and vulnerable, but it’s better than letting the fear of messing up keep you from the brutal, necessary experience of allowing readers to tell you what they liked and disliked about your writing. Will some people be critical? Yes! But guess what, you’ll get negative reviews even if you’re a brilliant, famous writer. Those are inevitable. And the first negative reviews may teach you more about writing than 10 years attempting to self-edit, afraid of putting your book out into the world.

PS. You can use resources, like my 24-chapter plot outline, as a way to spot story gaps in your manuscript and improve the structure (especially if your book suffers from a “soggy middle.)

Derek Murphy has a PhD in Literature, writes urban fantasy and is the founder of the alliance of young adult authors. More recently, he’s started sharing writing tips on http://www.writethemagic.com

Top photo by Adegbenro Emmanuel Dipo on Unsplash.

[sgt-paul]

why is it that every time i see someone be like "you know what here is a hot take about paul and linda's marriage" ["hot take", as in: their marriage secretly sucked and acchölly they were just about to divorce; they were together mostly because it was convenient and there was no sign of attraction, passion, devotion or any of those things to be found in their emotionless, boring ass traditional marriage; linda was there to just mommy paul which btw she hated doing; they've managed to form somewhat of a bond but just because of the breakup of the band, which was also the single most defining thing that characterized their marriage for 30 years etc] it's always coming from a john stan who is also a shipper. like, babes... stop being so insecure 🥺

anyway i genuinely don't get these people because i dont see anyone pretending that paul and linda's marriage didn't have any problems?! they themselves have said it a dozen of times that it was hard work to keep it together (which to me shows that they had immense faith and trust in each other + their marriage) presumably due to a million things we could possibly have no idea about, but hello?? you can discuss these things without trying to diminish their whole relationship and bond? it's absolutely valid and necessary to point out how paul's traditional, period typical, or straight up chauvinist attitude had a negative impact on linda's life, and that it caused friction between them, or that those few weeks when paul was at his worst were - shocker - very hard for linda, or the impact mary's role and death had on paul's behaviour and tendencies when it came to romantic relationships just in general, or how the differences of their personalities, goals, dreams etc did clash several times, the stress and tension that was constantly there in their marriage because of paul's career, and what this meant for linda's work (or that they both have been insanely possessive of each other, although that's not supposed to be discussed because it would imply that their marriage was just as volatile as paul described it and that in reality it was not defined by the idyllic boredom people are fixated on) and so on and so on. however the fact that they had problems and hardships in their 30 years together, like any normal couple does (plus add onto that the extremely special situation they were in because of paul, um, being one of the biggest rockstars in the world?), which as i've said they did not shy away from - only thing is that they did not detail it to random gossip/rock magazines, does not invalidate all the positive and beautiful things we know about their relationship's journey and does not make their love for each other less strong, intense or authentic

(i'll translate what these people usually mean: i am personally offended by the fact that paul formed a meaningful and life-changing bond with a person (who also happens to be a woman) that was not john therefore i'll do my best to reduce that bond into something that predominantly relied on practicality, rationality, traditional values (ew!) and convenience rather than actual human fucking emotions that i would want paul to feel only towards a certain individual and i'll try to retrace all of his feelings for linda back to what had happened with that certain individual as well because i cannot stand the thought of paul doing something that wasn't in some way influenced by, yes, you guessed it, that certain individual)

[white-tulips]

well, since it’s 5 in the morning I think now’s the perfect time to ramble about my thoughts re: OMORI vs Yume Nikki game design, Black Space, and how trying to copy something successful kind of sets you up for missing the mark 

these are thoughts I’ve been stewing in since january, I don’t want people to forget that I have a lot of opinions about OMORI as a game

(firstly, I’m sorry if this is all over the place or not worded well. it is 5AM)

I’ll preface this by saying that these are merely my opinions. I’m specifically going to be focusing on one aspect of game design here, so if you’re curious about any of my other OMORI game design opinions they’re scattered around my blog and are not hard to find tbh

okay so my thoughts about this are mostly Black Space exclusive, and considering that’s one of the climaxes of the game this might be a bit of a spicy subject to talk about KJFGHKFJG but I am passionate about good game design okay. especially in psychological horror RPG games. (also throwing out there jic that I don’t think OMORI is a bad psychological horror. pls reference this post) 

(also want to say that I genuinely like Black Space. okay? okay)

so this was something that I was talking about with a couple of friends back when I first finished OMORI around the beginning of january. actually, at this point I hadn’t even played Yume Nikki yet, but when I did finally play it recently my thoughts on this were 100% solidified

essentially, our thoughts on this can be boiled down to how Black Space was trying too hard to be Yume Nikki, but didn’t grasp exactly what made Yume Nikki so impactful in the first place

obviously taking inspiration from something you like and wanting to rework it into your own creation is normal, good, and even encouraged! however, the most crucial thing with that is the “reworking” part.  when being inspired by something, the goal is to take what you loved, and didn’t love, and mold it into something entirely new. it shouldn’t be “well I like this thing, and this thing did it like this so I’ll try to do it like that too” because it’s just not going to work. (this is actually an all around issue I have with OMORI, not just Black Space, but more on that later)

so to me, a good 50% of Black Space came of feeling kind of... eh...? it was like... you have 50% that feels so well thought out and meaningful, and then 50% that’s there just to. be there. and be like Yume Nikki, I guess. even before I played Yume Nikki, I couldn’t even remember some of the rooms in Black Space existed until I replayed it again, which is a shame because Black Space is the type of area where everything should leave an impact

now I want to talk about the game design itself-

Yume Nikki is a game about experiences, and atmosphere. there’s limitless area to explore, so much so that it feels endless. there are so few things to interact with that sometimes it feels like you’re doing nothing at all. all you have is aimlessly wandering these huge areas, taking in the sights, and listening to vague sounds and music in the background that are often just a few seconds of audio played on loop. (this is one of my favorite OST in the game. having this be all you hear for 30 minutes as you walk around in a looping forest really does things to your head)

it uses all of these elements to make you feel lost, confused, and very alone. you’re just trapped in a dream, where even with all the space in the world to explore, the lack of anything to do makes it feel suffocating. even the small area you have in the waking world is designed in such a way that feels cramped and destitute-

Yume Nikki is a perfect example of “less is more” and “show, don’t tell.” 

then take OMORI, which doesn’t really know how to balance those things with it’s tendency to try and shove too much in. for instance, think about the over abundance if NPCs with irrelevant fluff dialogue. it was all too much and so dull it got to a point I stopped reading most of them altogether

(and something important to note I think, is that the general feeling of Yume Nikki is the same throughout the entire game. the tone never really changes, and neither do the expectations. OMORI, however, tends to just drop things on you out of nowhere. and that’s not necessarily a bad thing! it works for a lot of different sections of the game, I’ll say. 

however, Black Space was different. it’s kind of like, it just drops you in there and expects you to understand the way it works, despite the fact that all of the other horror segments lead you to have a completely different set of expectations for what you should be doing/feeling. it’s like shifting you into another game entirely, and it’s almost immersion breaking. up until this point, OMORI was not the same type of “show don’t tell” type of game, so suddenly jumping to attempt to do that can make it lose some of it’s impact)

like I mentioned before, Black Space is designed in a way that’s meant to mimic Yume Nikki. and I think we need to ask ourselves “just because we can do this, does it mean that we should?” again, taking inspiration isn’t a bad thing, but it’s the execution that matters

and here’s where my biggest issue actually lies, I suppose. it’s the fact that OMORI has multiple instances of trying to take inspiration from other things, and failing because it’s trying too hard to copy, not rework. it’s just most obvious because of Black Space, I think. because, like I said before, a good half of Black Space is just trying to be Yume Nikki without giving it any OMORI original flavor, and the fact that it’s trying to be something else is immersive breaking as hell to me

for example, take the red mazes. I don’t think the idea to incorporate it into OMORI was bad, but. you can plainly see when you compare the two maps that nothing was really reworked, made more interesting, or even given a OMORI flavored twist-

(Yume Nikki-1 ; OMORI-2)

another instance is less about the game design itself, but surprising/not-surprisingly, it actually has to do with OST

this is something my friend was telling me, because I myself have not read Umineko, but there are OST in OMORI blatantly trying to mimic songs from that VN, even down to their names

the biggest offender imo is GOLDENVENGEANCE which is a decent song, I won’t say it isn’t, but compare it to it’s Umineko inspiration, Golden Slaughterer 

it’s just another unfortunate instance of “this thing I like is good, so I’ll try to copy it!” with no clear grasp on why it’s successful and it’s disappointing. that’s really the only word I have for it at this point, disappointing

and the reason it’s most disappointing is because of things in OMORI that are obvious inspiration, but were reworked so well

let’s take this other Umineko OST, Worldend Dominator. this is a brilliant song, and it’s really fun to listen to. and, it very clearly inspired beloved World's End Valentine

World’s End Valentine slaps. it’s great. it takes aspects of Worldend Dominator and shifts them around to be a unique and fun piece of music that also fits into OMORI perfectly. 

something important to note about this, is that World’s End Valentine and GOLDENVENGEANCE were written by two different composers. what this makes clear to me is that there were people on the OMORI dev team that were better at reworking ideas than others. because, despite a lot of the criticisms I was talking about, there are things in OMORI that are obvious references that I love and think are great!

like this one, the most pointed out nod to Yume Nikki-

I think it’s great. it’s taking a very memorable bit of imagery from Yume Nikki, and giving it a reference while also giving it it’s own deeper meaning beyond just the aesthetics of it. it’s just good, I love it

and yeah, not all of Black Space feels like one giant copy of Yume Nikki. there are plenty of doors that I think take the same aimless, empty, and unsettling feelings and use them in a new way that feels more grounded in OMORI. my personal favorite door is the “Sunny... I love you.” room. 

actually, funnily enough, the area in OMORI that felt the most like Yume Nikki to me wasn’t in Black Space at all. it was actually the snowy area right before Snowglobe Mountain. something about the vast empty space, simple yet atmospheric OST, and little things to find scattered around just gave me a nice Yume Nikki vibe, but mixed with the OMORI style (hell, the OST there and the one for the snowy area in Yume Nikki even have a pleasantly similar vibe, and not in the “oh this is a copy” way [X] [X])

gosh, I feel like if I keep talking I might end up going in circles more than I already have

hopefully my words made sense!! I’d love if anything I said resonated with anyone aha. I just hope that I’m not coming across as hating on something because I’m biased towards something else or something... almost all of the critiques I have about OMORI come from a place of genuine interest

thank you if you read all of this!

[ot3]

i watched red vs blue: zero with my dear friends today and i was asked to “post” my “thoughts” on the subject. Please do not click this readmore unless, for some reason, you want to read three thousand words on the subject of red vs blue: zero critical analysis. i highly doubt that’s the reason anyone is following me, but hey. 

anyway. here you have it. 

Here are my opinions on RVB0 as someone who has quite literally no nostalgia for any older RVB content. I’ve seen seasons 1-13 once and bits and pieces of it more than once here and there, but I only saw it for the first time within the past couple of months. I’ve literally never seen any other RT/AH content. I can name a few people who worked on OG Red vs. Blue but other than Mounty Oum I have NO idea who is responsible for what, really, or what anything else they’ve ever worked on is, or whether or not they’re awful people. I know even less about the people making RVB0 - All I know is that the main writer is named Torrian but I honestly don’t even know if that’s a first name, a last name, or a moniker. All this to say; nothing about my criticism is rooted in any perceived slight against the franchise or branding by the new staff members, because I don’t know or care about any of it. In fact, I’m going to try and avoid any direct comparison between RVB0 and earlier seasons of RVB as a means of critique until the very end, where I’ll look at that relationship specifically.

So here is my opinion of RVB0 as it stands right now:

1. The Writing

Everything about RVB0 feels as if it was written by a first-time writer who hasn’t learned to kill his darlings. The narrative is both simultaneously far too full, leaving very little breathing room for character interaction, and oddly sparse, with a story that lacks any meaningful takeaway, interesting ideas, or genuine emotional connection. It also feels like it’s for a very much younger audience - I don’t mean this as a negative at all. I love tv for kids. I watch more TV for kids than I do for adults, mostly, but I think it’s important to address this because a lot of the time ‘this is for kids’ is used to act like you’re not allowed to critique a narrative thoroughly. It definitely changes the way you critique it, but the critique can still be in good faith.  I watched the entirety of RVB0 only after it was finished, in one sitting, and I was giving it my full attention, essentially like it was a movie. I’m going to assume it was much better to watch in chunks, because as it stood, there was literally no time built into the narrative to process the events that had just transpired, or try and predict what events might be coming in the future. When there’s no time to think about the narrative as you’re watching it, the narrative ends up as being something that happens to the audience, not something they engage with. It’s like the difference between taking notes during a lecture or just sitting and listening. If you’re making no attempt to actively process what’s happening, it doesn’t stick in your mind well. I found myself struggling to recall the events and explanations that had immediately transpired because as soon as one thing had happened, another thing was already happening, and it was like a mental juggling act to try and figure out which information was important enough to dwell on in the time we were given to dwell on it.

Which brings me to another point - pacing. Every event in the show, whether a character moment, a plot moment, or a fight scene, felt like it was supposed to land with almost the exact same amount of emotional weight. It all felt like The Most Important Thing that had Yet Happened. And I understand that this is done as an attempt to squeeze as much as possible out of a rather short runtime, but it fundamentally fails. When everything is the most important thing happening, it all fades into static. That’s what most of 0’s narrative was to me: static. It’s only been a few hours since I watched it but I had to go step by step and type out all of the story beats I could remember and run it by my friends who are much more enthusiastic RVB fans than I am to make sure I hadn’t missed or forgotten anything. I hadn’t, apparently, but the fact that my takeaway from the show was pretty accurate and also disappointingly lackluster says a lot. Strangely enough, the most interesting thing the show alluded to - a holo echo, or whatever the term they used was - was one of the things least extrapolated upon in the show’s incredibly bulky exposition. Benefit of the doubt says that’s something they’ll explore in future seasons (are they getting more? Is that planned? I just realized I don’t actually know.)

And bulky it was! I have quite honestly never seen such flagrant disregard for the rule of “show, don’t tell.” There was not a single ounce of subtlety or implication involved in the storytelling of RVB0. Something was either told to you explicitly, or almost entirely absent from the narrative. Essentially zilch in between. We are told the dynamic the characters have with each other, and their personality pros and cons are listed for us conveniently by Carolina. The plot develops in exposition dumps. This is partially due to the series’ short runtime, but is also very much a result of how that runtime was then used by the writers. They sacrificed a massive chunk of their show for the sake of cramming in a ton of fight scenes, and if they wanted to keep all of those fight scenes, it would have been necessary to pare down their story and characters proportionally in comparison, but they didn’t do that either. They wanted to have it both ways and there simply wasn’t enough time for it. 

The story itself is… uninteresting. It plays out more like the flimsy premise of a video game quest rather than a piece of media to be meaningfully engaged with. RVB0 is I think something I would be pitched by a guy who thinks the MCU and BNHA are the best storytelling to come out of the past decade. It is nothing but tropes. And I hate having to use this as an insult! I love tropes. The worst thing about RVB0 is that nothing it does is wholly unforgivable in its own right. Hunter x Hunter, a phenomenal shonen, is notoriously filled with pages upon pages of detailed exposition and explanations of things, and I absolutely love it. Leverage, my favorite TV show of all time, is literally nothing but a five man band who has to learn to work as a team while seemingly systematically hitting a checklist of every relevant trope in the book. Pacific Rim is an incredibly straightforward good guys vs giant monsters blockbuster to show off some cool fight scenes such as a big robot cutting an alien in half with a giant sword, and it’s some of the most fun I ever have watching a movie. Something being derivative, clunky, poorly executed in some specific areas, narratively weak, or any single one of these flaws, is perfectly fine assuming it’s done with the intention and care that’s necessary to make the good parts shine more. I’ll forgive literally any crime a piece of media commits as long as it’s interesting and/or enjoyable to consume. RVB0 is not that. I’m not sure what the main point of RVB0 was supposed to be, because it seemingly succeeds at nothing. It has absolutely nothing new or innovative to justify its lack of concern for traditional storytelling conventions. Based solely on the amount of screentime things were given, I’d be inclined to say the narrative existed mostly to give flimsy pretense for the fight scenes, but that’s an entire other can of worms.

2. The Visuals + Fights

I have no qualms with things that are all style and no substance. Sometimes you just want to see pretty colors moving on the screen for a while or watch some cool bad guys and monsters or whatever get punched. RVB0 was not this either. The show fundamentally lacked a coherent aesthetic vision. Much of the show had a rather generic sci-fi feel to it with the biggest standouts to this being the very noir looking cityscape, which my friends and I all immediately joked looked like something from a batman game, or the temple, which my friends and I all immediately joked looked like a world of warcraft raid. They were obviously attempting to get variety in their environment design, which I appreciate, but they did this without having a coherent enough visual language to feel like it was all part of the same world. In general, there was also just a lack of visual clarity or strong shots. The value range in any given scene was poor, the compositions and framing were functional at best, and the character animation was unpleasantly exaggerated. It just doesn’t really look that good beyond fancy rendering techniques.

The fight scenes are their entire own beast. Since ‘FIGHT SCENE’ is the largest single category of scenes in the show, they definitely feel worth looking at with a genuine critical eye. Or, at least, I’d like to, but honestly half the time I found myself almost unable to look at them. The camera is rarely still long enough to really enjoy what you’re watching - tracking the motion of the character AND the camera at such constant breakneck high speeds left little time to appreciate any nuances that might have been present in the choreography or character animation. I tried, believe me, I really did, but the fight scenes leave one with the same sort of dizzy convoluted spectacle as a Michael Bay transformers movie. They also really lacked the impact fight scenes are supposed to have.

It’s hard to have a good, memorable fight scene without it doing one of three things: 1. Showing off innovative or creative fighting styles and choreography 2. Making use of the fight’s setting or environment in an engaging and visually interesting way or 3. Further exploring a character’s personality or actions by the way they fight. It’s also hard to do one of these things on its own without at least touching a bit on the other two. For the most part, I find RVB0’s fight scenes fail to do this. Other than rather surface level insubstantial factors, there was little to visually distinguish any of RVB0’s fight scenes from each other. Not only did I find a lot of them difficult to watch and unappealing, I found them all difficult to watch and unappealing in an almost identical way. They felt incredibly interchangeable and very generic. If you could take a fight scene and change the location it was set and also change which characters were participating and have very little change, it’s probably not a good fight scene. 

I think “generic” is really just the defining word of RVB0 and I think that’s also why it falls short in the humor department  as well.

3. The Comedy

Funny shit is hard to write and humor is also incredibly subjective but I definitely got almost no laughs out of RVB0. I think a total of three. By far the best joke was Carolina having a cast on top of her armor, which, I must stress, is an incredibly funny gag and I love it. But overall I think the humor fell short because it felt like it was tacked on more than a natural and intentional part of this world and these characters. A lot of the jokes felt like they were just thrown in wherever they’d fit, without any build up to punchlines and with little regard for what sort of joke each character would make. Like, there was some, obviously Raymond’s sense of humor had the most character to it, but the character-oriented humor still felt very weak. When focusing on character-driven humor, there’s a LOT you can establish about characters based on what sort of jokes they choose to make, who they’re picking as the punchlines of these jokes, and who their in-universe audience for the jokes is. In RVB0, the jokes all felt very immersion-breaking and self aware, directed wholly towards the audience rather than occurring as a natural result of interplay between the characters. This is partially due to how lackluster the character writing was overall, and the previously stated tight timing, but also definitely due to a lack of a real understanding about what makes a joke land. 

A rule of thumb I personally hold for comedy is that, when push comes to shove, more specific is always going to be more funny. The example I gave when trying to explain this was this:

saying two characters had awkward sex in a movie theater: funny

saying two characters had an awkward handjob in a cinemark: even funnier

saying two characters spent 54 minutes of 11:14's 1:26 runtime trying out some uncomfortably-angled hand stuff in the back of a dilapidated cinemark that lost funding halfway through retrofitting into a dinner theater: the funniest

The more specific a joke is, the more it relies on an in-depth understanding of the characters and world you’re dealing with and the more ‘realistic’ it feels within the context of your media. Especially with this kind of humor. When you’re joking with your friends, you don’t go for stock-humor that could be pulled out of a joke book, you go for the specific. You aim for the weak spots. If a set of jokes could be blindly transplanted into another world, onto another cast of characters, then it’s far too generic to be truly funny or memorable. I don’t think there’s a single joke in RVB0 where the humor of it hinged upon the characters or the setting.

Then there’s the issue of situational comedy and physical comedy. This is really where the humor being ‘tacked on’ shows the most. Once again, part of what makes actually solid comedy land properly is it feeling like a natural result of the world you have established. Real life is absurd and comical situations can be found even in the midst of some pretty grim context, and that’s why black comedy is successful, and why comedy shows are allowed to dip into heavier subject matter from time to time, or why dramas often search for levity in humor. It’s a natural part of being human to find humor in almost any situation. The key thing, though, once again, is finding it in the situation. Many of RVB0’s attempts at humor, once again, feel like they would be the exact same jokes when stripped from their context, and that’s almost never good. A pretty fundamental concept in both storytelling in general but particularly comedy writing is ‘setup and payoff’. No joke in RVB0 is a reward for a seemingly innocuous event in an earlier scene or for an overlooked piece of environmental design. The jokes pop in when there’s time for them in between all the exposition and fighting, and are gone as soon as they’re done. There’s no long term, underlying comedic throughline to give any sense of coherence or intent to the sense of humor the show is trying to establish. Every joke is an isolated one-off quip or one-liner, and it fails to engage the audience in a meaningful way.

All together, each individual component of RVB0 feels like it was conjured up independently, without any concern to how it interacted with the larger product they were creating. And I think this is really where it all falls apart. RVB0 feels criminally generic in a way reminiscent of mass-market media which at least has the luxury of attributing these flaws, this complete and total watering down of anything unique, to heavy oversight and large teams with competing visions. But I don’t think that’s the case for RVB0. I don’t know much about what the pipeline is like for this show, but I feel like the fundamental problem it suffers from is a lack of heart.

In comparison to Red vs. Blue

Let's face it. This is a terrible successor to Red vs. Blue. I wouldn’t care if NONE of the old characters were in it - that’s not my problem. I haven’t seen past season 13 because from what I heard the show already jumped the shark a bit and then some. That’s not what makes it a poor follow up. What makes it a bad successor is that it fundamentally lacks any of the aspects of the OG RVB that made it unique or appealing at all. I find myself wondering what Torrian is trying to say with RVB0 and quite literally the only answer I find myself falling back onto is that he isn’t trying to say anything at all. Regardless of what you feel about the original RVB, it undeniably had things to say. The opening “why are we here” speech does an excellent job at establishing that this is a show intended to poke fun at the misery of bureaucracy and subservience to nonsensical systems, not just in the context of military life, but in a very broad-strokes way almost any middle-class worker can relate to. At the end of the day, fiction is at its best when it resonates with some aspect of its audience’s life. I know instantly which parts of the original Red vs Blue I’m supposed to relate to. I can’t say anything even close to that about 0.

RVB is an absurdist parody that heavily satirizes aspects of the military and life as a low-on-the-food-chain worker in general that almost it’s entire target audience will be familiar with. The most significant draw of the show to me was how the dialogue felt like listening to my friends bicker with each other in our group chats. It required no effort for me to connect with and although the narrative never outright looked to the camera and explained ‘we are critiquing the military’s stupid red tape and self-fullfilling eternal conflict’ they didn’t need to, because the writing trusted itself and its audience enough to believe this could be conveyed. It is, in a way, the complete antithesis to the badass superhero macho military man protagonist that we all know so well. RVB was saying something, and it was saying it in a rather novel format.

Nothing about RVB0 is novel. Nothing about RVB0 says anything. Nothing about it compels me to relate to any of these characters or their situations. RVB0 doesn’t feel like absurdism, or satire. RVB0 feels like it is, completely uncritically, the exact media that RVB itself was riffing off of. Both RVB0 and RVB when you watch them give you the feeling that what you’re seeing here is kids on a playground larping with toy soldiers. It’s all ridiculous and over the top cliche stupid garbage where each side is trying to one-up the other. The critical difference is, in RVB, we’re supposed to look at this and laugh at how ridiculous this is. In RVB0 we’re supposed to unironically think this is all pretty badass. 

The PFL arc of the original RVB existed to show us that setting up an elite team of supersoldiers with special powers was something done in bad faith, with poor outcomes, that left everyone involved either cruel, damaged, or dead. It was a bad thing. And what we’re seeing in RVB0 is the same premise, except, this time it’s good. We’re supposed to root for this format. RVB0 feels much more like a demo reel, cutscenes from a video game that doesn’t exist, or a shonen anime fanboy’s journal scribbling than it feels like a piece of media with any objective value in any area.  In every area that RVB was anti-establishment, RVB0 is pure undiluted establishment through and through.  

[anika-ann]

A Cup of Truth (S.R)

Type: One-shot, a bit of coffee shop AU

Pairing: Steve Rogers x fem!reader    Word Count: 3000

Summary: Your favourite pretty blond comes in every day to get a cup of good ol’ joe. You flirt on occasion; mostly you, because your suit of armour – which people boringly call an apron – and his smiles give you confidence.

When the band of dumb goons picks your damn workplace to attack, your confidence flies out of the window. Well. Good thing that the resident Avenger heroes save the day including the one in his all-American star-spangled glory.

Prompt: “You can’t mask that ass. I’d know it anywhere.” (Bold in the text)

Warnings: hostage situation, violence, non-consensual drug use/injected, hospitals, slightly crack-ish humour (?) and some fluff

A/N: For marvelcapsicle’s challenge. Thank you for letting me participate, darling, may you gain more and more sweet followers in the future ♥

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Here’s a thing: Steve Rogers had a lot of fight in him. Before or after injected with the serum, no matter his shirt size, no matter if he could swing his fists effectively or not, he would punch bullies in their face.

When it came to people close to his heart, that rule amplified tenfold. No one touched the people he cared for. And while he would not necessarily call all of them friends, he would go rabid should any harm come their way.

To be fair, the list of ‘his people’ who were still alive wasn’t long; he could almost count them on the fingers of one hand. Tony. Natasha. Clint. Thor. Bruce. Probably Fury. Really, his circle was a bit monotonous, people who could protect themselves just fine at most times, but simultaneously with high-risk job of being the first defence line for the world’s greatest threats.

And then there was you.

You, with your inviting smile whenever he appeared at your counter at the café he had discovered during his endless walks.

You, handing him a drink different to his usual ‘boring’ cup of joe once a week, because that was the deal you had offered and Steve, caught in his curiosity about today’s world and your adorable challenging expression, agreed.

You, with your pretty eyes, irises twinkling at his attempts at flirting, no matter how awkward and out-of-time they sounded, graciously returning the favour… if he was reading the situation right.

You, always grinning wide when discovering a doodle he had left on his napkin, taking it with you back to the counter.

You, blissfully unaware of his double life, genuine in your demeanour, dealing with plain old Steve Rogers, and perfectly safe; at least as safe as one could be on Manhattan.

You in a headlock, as five rogue SHIELD agents decided to crash into the café you worked at of all the damn places, choosing it with deadly precision and nearly driving the poor Captain America into a cardiac arrest.

Not that you had any idea your life mattered to the proclaimed Star-Spangled Man more than anyone else’s. You were the exception to the rule; you were the precious outsider Steve caught feelings for, the one that was not supposed to learn about his other persona for at least a while longer and sure as hell was not supposed to get herself in a mess like this one.

Steve stood frozen as Natasha had two men at gunpoint, Clint fighting another, the last one having been already knocked down by Steve himself. The only injured people were the few customers, scarce at the hour, and the employees; some bruises and insignificant bleeding wounds between all of them.

The worst problem still remained; Perez had his arm around your neck, visibly squeezing your windpipe at least partly if the colour of your face – one stained in tears and Steve could kill at the moment, kill with no remorse – was anything to go by.

He gripped his shield tighter, staring the man down with his jaw clenched and his heart beating its way out of his chest, the syringe at your carotid scaring him more than the reduced airflow to your lungs.

“It’s over, Perez! Let her- let the woman go,” Steve howled, knees slightly bend in posture allowing him to spring forward at any second, to throw his weapon, to punch the living daylight of the bastard that not only betrayed SHIELD, but put his hands on you.

Big, big mistake. He really shouldn’t have done that.

“I like her exactly where she is, Cap,” Perez snarled, a wicked smile on his bloody lips, only his eyes giving away a fraction of his fear. “Move and she gets a ticket straight to hell.”

Perez was outnumbered and he knew it; even if he managed to escape, they would find him easily with Tony Stark’s system of surveillance. Yet, he tightened his grip and with you involuntarily acting like a human shield for him, he started backing away, gaze flickering between the three present Avengers.

Natasha’s right arm twitched as if she wanted to shoot him on spot – but she didn’t want to risk leaving the other two without the threat of immediate death for even a second.

And then several things happened at once; Clint knocked his opponent down with the construction of his bow; Perez who saw it lost his nerve and swiftly slammed the needle into your neck, piercing your skin easily, as easily as Steve’s panicked shout ripped from his throat.

The next second, an arrow was sticking from Perez’ shoulder as he jerked back with a cry of pain and Clint put another arrow through his hand, adding one to his thigh for a good measure. Two gunshots sounded in the background, Natasha’s aim as unmistakable as ever.

Perez fell to the ground with a scream, not even reaching for the gun in his holster before Steve was there to knock him out with a brutal hit straight to his face with his vibranium shield. The crack sounding at the impact was like music to Steve’s ears, the blood spurting from Perez’ nose a pleasant visual.

Yet, it didn’t feel half as satisfactory as Steve hoped as you had stumbled and toppled over your own feet. He barely managed to slow down your fall, gloved palm shooting up under the spot between your shoulder blades, his other hand holding your shoulder. He supported your enfeebled weight as you practically lied over the unconscious man.

Steve didn’t bother paying attention to his surroundings, knowing that the noise around him was Romanoff and Barton apprehending the remaining thugs. Instead, his gaze scanned you head to toe, focusing on your face and neck when he couldn’t find any other injury.

You were pale, eyes misted, unfocused, skin worryingly cold to his touch.

“Hey-- hey! Can you hear me?” Steve demanded urgently, lightly patting your cheek.

At that, your pupils zeroed on him, wide with disbelief, and to his immense shock, a lazy smile spread on your lips.

“Steve?” you breathed out his name and blood crystalized in his veins, his heart, already panicking, speeding up. How did you know his name? Perhaps the drug, the whatever liquid in the syringe was taking effect and you were turning delirious? Shit, they needed a doctor-- “You’re the pretty blond. Steve. My flirty Steve… my hero. Everyone’s hero.”

Steve’s horror escalated with each word. Good news: you were still breathing and apparently quite lucid, even if your speech was more of a mumble. Bad news: his secret identity just blew up.

Luckily, he considered the good news much more important; and lucid he would like to keep you, so he shot Natasha and Clint a meaningful glare, wordlessly asking them to call help. He wasn’t sure whether it registered because both of the spies were staring at him wide-eyed as the woman in his arms just outed him like the café’s regular… one that flirted with her, no less.

Steve cleared his throat, focusing on his mission – to keep you talking. There was no much point in denying it, was it?

“Eh... yeah, it’s me. How-how did you know? I wear a mask-“

“Muscly… real muscly… and that ass,” you muttered and Steve nearly choked on his spit, certain that he just turned red all over, including the area you pointed out.

Wait, did that mean that you had been checking him out?

So not important right now.

“Oh, uhm- how are you feeling? We have to-“

“You can’t mask that ass. I’d know it anywhere,” you continued babbling as if you hadn’t heard him and Steve gulped, feeling his teammates, who still hadn’t called a doctor, what the actual hell- watching you with interest. ”…could bounce a penny off it… no, that ain’t right, a quarter off of it, that’s it… Dream of it sometimes… biting-“

Clint coughed loudly to cover his laughter, finally springing into action after that uncomfortable remark that gave Steve quite a visual he wasn’t sure how he felt about just yet.

“Alright, as amusing as this is, we should get her some medical attention…”

Steve only took his eyes off of you for a moment, shooting Barton a look that screamed ‘You think?!’

“I want to touch it… please lemme touch it—just once,” you pleaded quietly, swaying even in your practically horizontal position, straining your neck to catch a glimpse of the object of your interest. “The best I’ve even seen-“

“I think it’s ethanol she got injected with…” Natasha announced, sniffing the syringe with disgust in her voice. “High concentration.”

And Steve felt like he just got hit by Thor’s hammer… in his head. Seriously?

“…alcohol?” he asked, dumbstruck and utterly relieved, the heavy weight in his stomach lifting a bit. “You think she’s merely… drunk?”

“Well, alcohol straight to the bloodstream is seriously nasty on its own, S-“

“Alcohol nasty, yesss. And this really hurts,” your voice interrupted Natasha and Steve’s heart clenched uncomfortably when the surprised grimace appeared on your face, your eyes indeed clouding in pain, looking up at him, doe-eyed, so vulnerable and trusting.

“Hey, no sad Steeb! Your eyes pretty too. Little pictures you draw… so suuuper cute. I like your hair. You came in the day, wind blew, so messy-- like bed hair, wanna try top that-- I betcha I can do better-“

“Sounds drunk enough to you?” Natasha hummed casually and Steve didn’t even have to look at her to know she was smirking, while he was both fretting over your state and blushing to the roots of his hair because of your blunt compliments and unfiltered fantasies.

You turned your head slowly to Nat as she spoke, a crooked grin curling up your lips. “Hey, you’re pretty too-“

Much to Steve’s annoyance, the Russian spy had the audacity to chuckle and wink at you.

“Why thank you-“

“But prefer blonds,” you babbled again, lowering your voice conspiratorially. “He’s real nice. His biceps are like… huge. Bigger than my head-- ow, my head… spi-spinning- I think-? Whoa— oh… “

Steve called out your name in panic as you went limp in his arms, your body pliant, folding like a house of cards.

“I like her,” Clint noted as he jogged to Steve’s side, kneeling to take your pulse on the unharmed carotid with a furrow to his brows. “The medics are on their way, she’ll hold on until then.”

Steve sighed in relief when Clint nodded in affirmation again, feeling your heart still beating.

Steve’s grip on your tightened, hand sliding behind your head to cradle it gently rather than letting it dangle in such unnatural angle. He manoeuvred it so your cheek rested against his chest, his newly free hand sneaking under your knees so he could lift you with ease as he stood up.

“Nice, Rogers. Keep going like this, squads with weights, and you’ll keep that exceptional ass of yours in shape,” Natasha teased him, but when he turned to glare at her, she gave him a soft smile and beckoned towards your nearly motionless body. “She’ll be okay. Let’s go get her some help.”

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Your head was pounding. The right side of your neck was itchy as hell and felt extremely stiff. The beeping sounding in your ears was a thing from nightmares, echoing in your aching skull.

You felt like shit and honestly, you could cry when you tried to open your eyes and the sharp light hit them, making you swiftly close them again.

A realization slowly crept at you that there was a presence of an intrusive smell too, making you want to puke— or was that just the brutal hangover? Because you felt unbelievably hungover on top of everything. The world seemed to be spinning even behind your closed eyelids and you couldn’t but groan, deciding to only curse the universe mentally since your throat resembled a Sahara Desert.

“Oh, hey gorgeous,” a female voice greeted you from your left and you snapped your eyes open with a startle, staring with shock at the beautiful redhead sitting by your bedside.

For few long seconds, you wondered if you died and went to heaven, because there was a non-descript angelic-like creature watching over you.  You quickly brushed that thought aside, because there was no way Heaven looked like a hospital room and provided you with such shitty sensations attacking your poor body.

So you asked the only logical question, ignoring the dryness of your mouth which soon cause you to cough.

“…who are you?”

A plastic cup with a heavenly cold liquid landed in front of you, the straw sticking from it directed to your lips as the stunning woman frowned discontentedly.

“Oh, you don’t remember?” she asked, seemingly hurt. “My heart is breaking! You told me I was pretty.”

You blinked slowly, finally adjusting to the light, finally able to talk without pain (that much pain, that was) and your head started pounding some more, embarrassment filling every fibre of your being.

What the- oh god, you had really got drunk, hadn’t you, and now you had a total blackout on what you had been up to in your questionable state.

“Eeeer… I did? I mean, you are… but-“

“But you prefer blonds, yeah, I know,” the mysterious woman finished your sentence to her liking and your eyes went wide. How did she- and who was she again, sitting in your hospital room like that? Had you really got so smashed that you didn’t remember her when you should have? When had you met? Shit, your mind was so foggy… “And you think Steve’s a bit prettier. And his ass is the best you’ve ever seen, so I get it…”

“The hell?!” you squealed in utter horror, sitting up straight as the words registered, a flash of blue, red and white flickering in the back of your mind, followed by a sharp stung in your temples. A nauseatingly strong pain resembling an intense cramp – only like ten times worse – shot up your neck as you moved so quickly, ripping a startled yelp from your throat.

A hazy image of the café you worked at blended into a picture Steve’s beautiful eyes – did this woman know your regular, your handsome flirty blond regular? –, sensation of gentle hands cradling your jaw, a sting in your neck—

“You need to be careful with how much you move. Your neck took quite a hit, they had to perform a surgery on you, you got a transfusion. They worried about your brain too. They’ve been monitoring you for four days now and this is the first time you’re awake,” your stranger explained patiently, voice full of compassion.

Your hand involuntarily rose to massage the incriminated place, still unsure of what the woman was talking about, the images in your brain confusing the hell out of you. You still had no idea who she was, but her face was starting to feel a bit familiar – you assumed that whatever had happened, she had been there too, possibly helping you.

And there was something in her green eyes, cautious yet somewhat calming, making it easy to trust her for some inexplicable reason.

“Steve’s gonna be pissed at me for missing it,” she added and grinned. “I made him leave to take care of himself before he could actually start taking roots in here. He’s been worried too. A lot.”

The amount of question marks in your head just doubled, but at the same time, your heart fluttered. Steve had visited you? Often, apparently? That was really, really sweet of him. The thought of him guarding you – and didn’t he have a physique of a bodyguard, once mentioning he was in private security when asked –, brought a dreamy smile to your face.

Perhaps it wasn’t only about flirting for him either…?

“Keep looking so lovestruck and I might forgive him that he hasn’t mention you before. Though I guess I can’t blame him, wanting to keep— anyway. I’m Natasha. Nice to meet you,” she extended her hand towards you at last and you automatically accepted it, telling her your name in return.

Even though that was probably beside the point seeing as she had been found at your bedside in a hospital.

“Hi, Natasha. Nice to meet you too… I think.”

The redhead burst out into a quiet laughter at your hesitance. “Fair enough. After Steve comes back and explains what exactly happened – because it’s not quite my place to tell you –, call me back for the good details. It’s fun to make him blush.”

Despite just only having met this woman, you decided that you kinda liked her and nodded in acceptance of her offer. Steve might be sweet – perhaps even sweet on you it seemed – but some harmless teasing could never hurt. Not when it apparently had something to do with his glorious ass.

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Here’s a thing: Steve Rogers had a lot of fight in him. Before injected with the serum or after, no matter his shirt size, no matter if he could swing his fists effectively or not, he would fight for what mattered.

His teammates and friends certainly fell into the category. The somewhat relationship he had been trying to build with you was right there with them, definitely worth fighting for.

So, after revealing his identity – an action which become inevitable at that point, really – he had a delicate confession to make and a bold question to ask in an almost shy voice. He still asked it, because he would be damned if he gave up on you.

You said yes, your confession about certain harboured feelings matching his.

You said yes, you would like to go out with him very much, because you liked him too.

And no, it wasn’t just because he owned the best backside you had ever seen. Steve Rogers was, according to you, quite memorable and worth fighting for in general too.

(Steve, over time, might have developed a bit of a love-hate relationship with the fact you were getting along with Natasha so well. It was good news and bad news at the same time, seeing as it often resulted in the two of you teaming up against him. Once again, the good news won him over… because he simply loved how easily you fit into his world and how surprisingly well he fit into yours.)

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S.R. masterlist

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Thank you for reading :-*

It’s once a again a bit different from my usual writing; it’s short (like wtf me? short?) and it’s with a quote that is hard to do justice to... so I hope you liked it at leats a bit. Feedback always appreciated :-*