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sunshine-jesse · 4 months

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Ashley Literally Did Nothing Wrong, Fuck You, Fight Me

Alt title: Ashley Graves: The most convenient scapegoat in the world

I'm going to espouse a take here that will no doubt be controversial, as you can tell by the title. This is a take I've created from my hollistic understanding of the events of the game, and isn't dependent on any one single point I make in this essay. Because of that, I want you to read it with an open mind; if you hyperfocus on one or two smaller details I might've gotten wrong or are fallaciously interpretated, and either use that to discount the whole essay or go into the comment section and immediately try to debunk my interpretation of that event, that'll make it obvious to me that you're not trying to seriously engage with the core of what I'm trying to say. Because unless quite literally everything I've said here is wrong, I feel confident in saying this:

Ashley Graves did nothing wrong.

Moreover, I think Ashley is on the level of people like Rossiu, Shinji Ikari, and Skylar White as far as people who are mistreated by their fandoms goes.

At first this was going to be an essay about how I don't think the demons are evil, using textual and thematic evidence to show that they're just part of a system that deals mostly fairly with humans and doesn't have any nefarious plans, or at least nefarious plans that stand to fuck anyone over. But then I realized that, goodness gracious, that is boring as shit to write! But I looked at what I had written already and realized that I could write something else with it: something better. I could sum up a lot of the points made in my prior essays and elaborate upon them in much more detail, showing why I think certain themes are obviously present within this game. And here, I intend on doing that.

I've spoken a lot before about how Ashley is a scapegoat for all of Andrew's worst habits; and to a lesser extent, her mother's. The game makes it seemingly obvious that she's the bad one, and generally just a Very Not Good person. It shows her and her brother committing many different acts that are, under most moral systems, wrong, and implicitly implies that she's the reason that Andrew ever did those things. It implies that she's corrupting him, that he could be better and refuses- or is unable to- due to her poking and prodding. But… is that the truth? Is that how their relationship actually works, in practice? I don't believe so. I think I've made it obvious by now that I believe the exact opposite!

I'm going to start off by tackling the morality behind their actions, especially relative to the world they're in. Specifically, I'm going to tackle how the game presents the morality of their actions from a thematic point of view, and any statements it may or may not make.

First of all, TCOAL plays with a lot of different taboos- demon summoning, cannibalism, incest, murder- but the game goes through great lengths to muddy the moral weight of the siblings' actions. Every single action they commit is portrayed in the most neutral possible light- killings were done in self defense (with one notable exception), or done to people who greatly wronged them, cannibalism was a necessity to survive (also with one notable exception), incest is shown to come from a marked improvement in their relationship- leading me to believe that this game is taking a hard morally nihilistic stance. Else, they'd be shown to suffer for their actions, when in reality, the literal exact opposite is happening; they are being rewarded for it. This isn't necessarily glorifying the actions, but instead showing that even the worst of actions can potentially be excused, but whether or not you do is up to the reader. Hence, nihilism, or at the very least, skepticism (as noted by Lisafication). There's an existentialist reading of this too, but I think much of that is contingent on the events of chapter 3 so I won't get into that here.

It contrasts this mostly nihilistic perspective on interpersonal taboos with the deep societal ills that drive people to commit such actions. Evil exists at every level of analysis here, but curiously, the only thing that are shown to do direct harm to others without having a justification of some kind- be it self-defense or retaliation- are those societal ills. There is no (morally) good reason to quarantine people, starve them, and harvest their organs. There's no good reason to burn all evidence and then put a hit on the ones who did escape. There's no good reason to extort sexual favors from someone in exchange for food. These are deep structural problems that force people to either retaliate/lash out or enable people's most exploitative or abusive habits lest they just let themselves die.

And thus, the obvious evils become much less obvious. The game makes a point of subverting the obvious or the well-known when it comes to morals, and I think it does so when it comes to everything else, too. Outside of those societal ills (so far, ch3 might have something else to say), every situation where someone could obviously be shown as the bad person in a situation is immensely more complex than it first appears. So much so that I'd argue that displaying said complexity and subverting simplicity to force/encourage people to analyze things deeper is one of the central themes of the game.

So why, exactly, does he blame so much on her? It's because Ashley is the world's most convenient scapegoat, and the game is well-aware of this and displays it in ways both obvious and not.

First off: the title screen has Ashley wielding the cleaver, establishing that she’s the violent one. It's covered in blood, too, implying that she's the one more driven to kill. The reality of this is the opposite; Andrew is the one with less hesitation to inflict violence on others, the cleaver is his weapon, and most of the kills in the story are done by him (and fully justified). Ashley might push him to do these violent acts, but… does she?

Her reaction to the death of the first warden is one of utter shock.

And her expression afterwards?

This is not the look of someone who enjoyed the fact that someone killed for her sake. This is not the look of someone who finds joy to be had in violence. It's not even the look of someone who is apathetic towards violence. It almost seems to express shame or guilt, but at the very least, she's timid over it. At the very least, it's an "oh shit, he actually had to do that for my sake" face. Not a "haha, I am making him worse!" face.

Not to mention, not only does Andrew kill the first Warden without a care in the world, he proactively kills the 302 lady to eliminate all witnesses, and because he believes Ashley would want him to. But Ashley actually grills him for it; she didn't want the 302 lady to die, although she hardly had good-person-reasons for it. But that's not my point. The point is that she is not the violent one between the two of them.

The door doesn't open in response to violence, remember?

The game intentionally misleads us.

And what happens when Ashley tries to make him take responsibility for all this violence? To point out that she didn't force him to do anything and that he chose to do all of it, including lock Nina in the box? She lashes out, hits him a few times… and then he goes to strangle her, and doesn't let go until she acknowledges that he has no reason for her to be around. He literally doesn't cease his threat to her life until she acknowledges she's useless to him.

I acknowledge that this isn't the most charitable framing for Andrew, and maybe too charitable for Ashley. After all, she wasn't indignant. She was mocking him. She found it hilarious. But I have reasons for that charitability that I'll go over towards the end. But even with that charitability in mind, I don't think my reading is too off base. Defaulting to laughter or mocking in stressful situations is just what Ashley does. She's not indignant about it; she just finds it hilarious that people keep pretending to be better than her, when they're not.

Andrew killed the 302 lady and used Ashley as a scapegoat to justify it; this is indisputable, stated in the text during the dream. This alone validates Ashley's point of view. There is no interpretation of this event that doesn't paint Andrew as every bit as unscrupulous as Ashley, and thinking she corrupted him into this- when it was both one of the first actions he did on his own in the story and something he explicitly uses Ashley as a scapegoat for- is just ridiculous. It's frankly unreasonable. She has every right to be sick of being used as a scapegoat. And at the very least, whether or not you accept the idea that Andrew only let Ashley go once she acknowledged that she's useless to him, he's still so taken aback by his misinterpretation of Ashley's desires that HE goes to strangle HER.

This is NOT Andrew triumphantly standing up to his abuser. This is both of their masks slipping; Andrew revealing how violent and insistent on keeping up his internal narrative that he is, and Ashley revealing that she's getting tired of being blamed for everything.

And then, when he finally lets her go… she hugs him, and acknowledges that she's happy that Nina is gone, which makes little sense at the face of it. Why would that be her first response to being let go, when it was ostensibly what made Andrew so upset to begin with?

I think, to her, it's a conciliatory gesture. As chapter 2 showed us, she's more than willing to take responsibility for violence to relieve Andrew of stress over it, as evidenced by her finishing off their parents. This is an earlier instance of that; by acknowledging she was happy that Nina was dead, she took responsibility for it. She willingly framed herself as a bad person here, so Andrew wouldn't have to be.

She let herself be the scapegoat, because it's all she ever knew. She put the mask back on.

This alone is enough to challenge the idea that Ashley 'corrupts' Andrew in any meaningful way. How, exactly, can you define it as corrupt when society itself is twisted enough to force these actions to survive? In a more sane world, a lot of their actions would've been bad, sure, but they're also actions that the siblings probably wouldn't have done in a more sane world. Ashley's actions aren't making Andrew worse, they're helping to ensure their survival. You could say that this is still corruptive in its own way, but at that point it seems like your reasoning is motivated by having already had that narrative rather than making a good-faith reading of their dynamic.

At no point did she actually make him worse; he was already like that and just used her as an excuse.

Next up is the Nina situation. This one is obviously cut and dry- Ashley manipulates Andrew into killing Nina because she wants no competition between the two of them. It's not Andrew's fault and Ashley was an evil abuser from the jump. Obvious, right?

No. It's really not.

It's pretty strongly implied that Ashley was mistreated by people her whole life. The Lemon Cupcake scene shows this in more detail, about how people always neglect or ignore her birthdays, but she also says that nobody likes her because she's weird and loud in the Nina flashback too. But unless something big happened in between the two flashbacks, none of this behavior indicates particularly maladaptive or even strange tendencies on Ashley's part. She's a needy, bratty child, and the closest thing to a friend she has- Nina- wants to take away the one thing from her that's a source of comfort and emotional validation.

It's not entirely rational, sure! But it also -makes perfect sense-. NOBODY treated her well throughout her entire life; it's strongly implied that Nina never did either, given Nina's reaction to Ashley being there and the lower left-hand painting past the Questionable door showing her being distant from the two of them. We can also see a star bouncing off of her head, and stars represent closeness in this game, so it shows there was an attempt made somewhere along the line, it's just not clear as to who made the attempt.

At the very least, Nina's reaction of disappointment fed into Ashley's preconceived notions of how people treat her, and how she deserves to be treated. Although, from what has been directly stated, rather than implied, Nina was nothing more than an innocent victim in this scenario; I don't mean to take that away from her.

"But she didn't care when Nina died?"

So? If Nina treated her like trash for most of her life, why should she care? She didn't expect Nina to die. It was just an acceptable consequence. You can say "That's not how normal kids act!" all you want, but there's a level of spite and apathy that comes with intense bullying and emotional neglect that I don't think you really understand unless you've been there to the extent someone like Ashley has implied to be.

Andrew, meanwhile, was the one who told Ashley that they had to lock Nina in the box to keep them in there. He's the one who looked for and found the stick to keep them locked in. You could say he was coerced by an abusive person into hurting someone, sure, but you'd be wrong. Cataclysmically wrong, even. Like, if you actually think that a seven year old girl (nobody wears overalls past the age of seven) can have anything approximating an abusive dynamic with her as the perpetrator with someone both older and stronger than her, you frankly have some issues with women you need to work out. That's simply not how abuse dynamics work at that age.

Andrew wasn't entirely responsible for it either, mind- he was just a kid who should never have been saddled with this kind of responsibility. But that's not my point; the point is that it enables other people, Andrew included, to use her as a scapegoat to avoid his own responsibility. All this scene does is retroactively justify any preconceptions you might've had about them from seeing their adult selves first. But the moment you start digging, it becomes much less obvious who's really culpable here. Andrew was, as evidenced by the blood oath scene, fully aware that he held the advantage over her in strength, and managed to give up nothing when making the oath while he made Ashley swear to silence. He was fully aware that he could've chosen to do better, but he refused, and instead opted to reinforce Ashley's insecurities for the sake of exerting control over her.

I've said before that the 302 lady was murdered without any input from Ashley, but this is also relevant on a meta-level because it's done without any input from the player, either. Both of the murders in chapter 1 were like that, whereas all that we, the player can choose to do in that chapter is either solve puzzles, or hilariously, die. The only person with control here is Andrew, the character, and this is reinforced by the fact that we have no control over him for much of the Nina flashback, too. He locks her in the box regardless of our input, even though Ashley spends a lot of time trying to convince him. The main difference between the Nina flashback and the scenes in the apartment is that Ashley had absolutely no idea that any of that was going to happen in the present, whereas it's something she wanted with Nina- which isn't that big of a difference when discussing how much agency she really has.

As much as the game frames Ashley as a manipulator- and much of the fanbase uncritically accepts- she is given shockingly little in-game control over many of the actions committed. Even in the case of the Hitman- as a good friend of mine pointed out- the only choice the player is given is whether or not to check the closet and be killed; an impulsive decision leading to a swift and unceremonious end. In the end, Andrew is the one given the choice to kill the hitman, and we can consciously choose whether or not his reaction is panicked or measured. No such choice is given to Ashley, as most of her reactions are impulsive and spontaneous rather than planned. This is not the makings of a standard "manipulative evil bitch" trope. She's pretty consistently portrayed as someone with poor impulse and emotional control who loudly and aggressively states her intent in every single scenario she's in.

And you can still call what she says and does manipulative despite that, sure, but at what point are you just pathologizing relatively normal (if extreme and highly emotional) social interactions for the sake of fitting into a narrative you already held?

We see Ashley's status as a scapegoat for people to use to pretend to be normal reach its most blatant with the parents. This time it's pretty cut and dry to anyone that doesn't already have it in their mind that Ashley is evil and unforgivable. Mrs. Graves explicitly brings up the possibility of a normal life without Ashley to Andrew in the basement, and claims that Ashley was at fault for shutting her out. She would've been a normal parent otherwise, right? Well, no; the game wastes no time in showing that this wasn't the case in the Burial ending.

From when Ashley was a baby, Mrs. Graves was already tired of her shit, and too emotionally exhausted to be a parent. Despite her attempts at blaming Ashley, she would've never been a normal parent unless Ashley was a golden child in the same way that Andrew was. And yet Ashley didn't even deny shutting her mom out. She didn't deny the chance to be used as a scapegoat; it was all she ever knew. The fact that Mrs. Graves had the audacity to claim that she was a saint when she was never prepared to be a parent for a child who didn't make it easy, and when she was willing to sell out her children and let them die for a life insurance payment is absolutely astounding.

This alone should've been enough to recontextualize everything we supposedly know about how responsible Ashley really is in all of this, but bad parents have a knack for being great at manipulating both family members and everyone viewing from the outside, including the people playing the game.

And almost including Andrew.

Andrew almost accepting the mom's offer is the single most tragic moment in the game, by far.

Dandy said it best in his video essay: By Ashley leaving Andrew alone with their parents, she showed that she is capable of changing. That she is capable of getting better. She showed that she loves and respects Andrew enough to be able to put aside her usual role as the scapegoat and allow him to make the decision that was for the best for both of them. And make no mistake, it was for the best; if the mom really DID sell out the siblings, and given the two of them were already on the run for supposedly being dead, there was no hope of any of this ever working out. They saw through the conspiracy and knew the truth of how the quarantine operations really worked. They were an active threat to one of the most powerful entities seen in the setting so far, to the point where they had a hitman sent after them.

Mrs. Graves had every reason to sell them out again, for their presence in a public setting was more than enough to put everyone in their family in danger. Mrs. Graves had every reason to believe that the normalcy she wanted was nothing that could ever be grasped again so long as her children were alive, and as such, it was clear that she had nothing to offer either Andrew or Ashley. Ashley trusted Andrew to see through their obvious manipulations and lies, and understand that the parents had nothing left to give them. She trusted him to love her more than the false promises their parents could give.

…And yet. In spite of it all.

In spite of her love, in spite of clearly displaying that she can grow up and become a person that causes him less stress, and in spite of Ashley showing that all she wants now is their safety and security…

Andrew can still choose to consider Ashley the problem. He can still choose to use her as the scapegoat he always has.

He can still choose to see her as the one thing that caused him to be this way, that stands in between him and normalcy, when she, not once, forced him to do anything.

Were he to accept Mrs. Graves' offer, this would've been the single most tragic moment in the game. It almost was, and still stands to be, because he ignores every indication that things could be better for the sake of his own narrative, and a narrative echoed by much of the fandom.

But no matter what ending was picked, things could be better. They could've been better all along. Compared to chapter 1, their dynamic in chapter 2 is already much healthier. Their banter is less venomous, and while they still poke and prod each other in ways that aren't exactly great, they don't get into the same violent fights we saw in the 302 room. By all accounts, what happened in that room was an outlier. Even when they find themselves in their parents' house, where they stand to do the One Thing That Means They Would Never Be Normal Again, Ever (ignoring the fact that this is already a lost cause by then), Ashley doesn't get into any fights with Andrew in the same way she did back in the apartment. All she wants is affirmation and security. She doesn't even lay into her mom like she lays into Julia over the phone, even in their private conversations.

We’re led to believe that she’s still getting worse because the actions she’s taking are more extreme, but her attitudes and behaviors are much, much different. The actual actions they're taking are so obviously the right thing to do (both morally and practically) that I don't think it's until they eat their parents that you should make a double take and go "Wow, maybe these goblins actually are kinda fucked up," because until then, well… everything is justified! Perfectly so! Even then, eating their parents serves a purpose, even if not a mentally healthy one.

Maybe she’s calmer because she’s in control over the situation, but if the calls she made to Julia are any indication (independent of the theory that she didn’t actually say those things), were she unchanged as a person, she still would’ve lashed out at their mother over how much more useful she is to Andrew than their parents were, or something of that nature. Something about how nothing their mom offers could compete with what Ashley gives. But she makes no such claims. She feels no need to prove anything to her parents, or to reaffirm her place in Andrew’s life even in the face of her mother challenging it (or at least implying such a challenge). Regardless of her insecurities, she’s changed. It’s hard to see, but she has.

And then Andrew can ignore that and consider betraying her because he refuses to believe that she's willing to make their dynamic work, when she shows many different indications of being willing to concede as long as Andrew stops giving her mixed signals.

A friend of mine put it best, and I'm pretty much quoting her word for word here, because of how strongly I agree with it. When I look at Ashley, I find very few actual "flaws." I see familiar wounds.

The Burial ending, despite being triumphant and not nearly as "dark" as some people think, is still very, very sad. A lot of abusive dynamics are characterized by someone having to fight every step of the way to get what they need from the other person, usually some kind of emotional validation or relief. This is what happens between Andrew and Ashley for most of the game: Ashley wants Andrew to treat their relationship as special, to acknowledge there's something to it beyond just him going through the motions. And yet for most of the game, he refuses to, especially in chapter 1. And then, in Burial, when he does…

She's confused.

A lot of people view this as her being afraid of losing control over Andrew, since her "Andy," who she can push around, is gone. Andrew has changed, and the same tricks wouldn't work. But that's not what that is; it's not about control, it's about her finally getting what she wants from him without having to fight. She still thinks about using sex as leverage to keep him around, but that's because she's never understood what it's like to have someone actually want to be around her. And I speak from experience; when you no longer have to fight for every little bit of emotional validation or relief, when you no longer have to keep checking your messages to keep an argument going so you can finally be proven right, when you no longer have to force yourself to let go, to stop engaging, the reaction isn't happiness. It's not relief.

It's confusion. It's discontent.

Because something you've tied so much of yourself up in to is no longer there, despite it being more peaceful, it still feels wrong. The dynamic still has to be this way in your mind, because you've never known anything else. You latch on to whatever you can in order to justify that, and your actions are still heavily biased in favor of maintaining your place in that nonexistent dynamic. This isn't manipulation; it's trauma. And the fact that Ashley almost immediately understands that Andrew is changing is nothing short of a miracle. By consolidating past and present Andrew into a single person rather than splitting them into two, she showing that she can actually heal from that trauma. And all Andrew had to do to enable this is to acknowledge that she CAN change, that things CAN be better, and that everyone who claims to be better than her is full of shit.

I've analyzed the events of the story in a way that may seem needlessly antagonistic to some characters, and overly charitable to others. But I have to ask you, that if you disagree with anything I've said:

Where does that disagreement come from? What about my narrative clashes with your own? -Why- does it clash? Is it because the game presents your interpretation as obvious, whereas mine is not? Is it because you've experienced someone like Ashley before in your life, and you know it when you see it? Maybe you strongly identify with Andrew, and view his status as a doormat with no agency to be obvious? Or did you just accept the narrative that much of the fanbase has taken at face value, without further analysis other than building on top of it?

I don't believe these things to be contrarian; I've held most of these opinions since my first or second playthrough. I don't believe what I do because you don't, I believe what I do because I understand what Ashley has been through. I've experienced a lot of the specific traumas she had, such as deep feelings of isolation and being deprived of the emotional validation I need from the people who need to give it. I know what it's like to be misunderstood, to have who and what I am taken for granted, and to be terrified of being abandoned by the people I need the most. I see what I do because I understand.

And I want to give her that understanding that nobody gave me.

Maybe you should think about it. Why do you take it for granted that Andrew is a doormat who is strung along by Ashley? Why do you find it so odd when the trope of a woman corrupting a good man through leveraging sex is drawn into question? Why is Ashley seen as crazy, when all of her actions are so straightforward and rational? How is she corrupting him, when the single most needlessly violent act in the whole story- outside of the Nina flashback- is done without her influence? Why is Ashley seen as the abusive one when Andrew both threatens and resorts to physical violence and witholds emotional validation?

Weirdly personal tangent aside, Ashley and Andrew are two of the most well-written characters I have ever seen. They're not written like archetypes who interact with each other through a series of tropes; they're written like real people who's words and actions have astoundingly human motivations. They come from places that we can understand and relate to.

And just like people, they deserve respect. In spite of all they've done, they deserve love.

But make no mistake, Ashley is not the one stopping that love from happening. She just has the audacity to still want it in spite of everything telling her that she doesn't deserve it. We're led to believe she wants too much, but all she ever wanted was the bare minimum that she was never given.

And she has every right to be mad about it.

#andrew graves #ashley graves #the coffin of andy and leyley #tcoaal #tcoaal essay #gaming

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alllgator-blood · 23 days

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ohh my goodness can you pls pls pls do a brush tour?? i love ur art so so much its so cruncy >:]

Yes I can, I appreciate your interest!! I use paint tool sai 2 which is kind of archaic, but I've been drawing on a wacom pen and touch small + using paint tool sai since 2012 and I'm too stubborn to move onto something better. I actually only use three brushes so I've made a little drawing where I only use one brush per character to show the differences:

Gonna put the screenshots of the brush settings below the cut cause it got longer than I expected:

I drew my three big faves cause frankly I am sick of looking at kallamar and narinder's smug faces lmaoooo ANYWAY. GOING FROM LEFT TO RIGHT, WE HAVE THE CHUNKY BRUSH. I use that brush for messily coloring things in, doing big blocky background shapes, or just adding texture to a drawing. It's my favorite brush to paint with but I have not....finished a painting for this blog yet...

Then for the crunchy brush, it's a tool I use half for lineart and half for coloring. I use it for stuff like changes in fur color/markings, drawing all the lines in the backgrounds I do, and finer details the chunky brush can't handle. It's also the lineart tool I use for my drawings where the lines are all on the inside of the chararacters but not the outside!

As for the smooth brush, this one only ever gets used for lines but it was created when I was so bored of my lineart tool I stopped drawing for a while. I wanted a calligraphy pen and had to work around SAI's limitations, so while it doesn't have that thin-thick angular effect that calligraphy pens have....I manually apply the pressure and it looks passable enough. I hope.

The brush settings are visible in the pics but uNFORTUNATELY I DO *NOT* remember where I got my stupid brush pack from. I literally downloaded the files before I was even a teenager but I *do* remember they're from deviantart. If anyone is for some reason kicking and screaming to acquire this ancient, crusty brush pack I'm sure I could throw it in a google drive

I have other useless information about my process if any of this is remotely helpful: for the anaglyph effect on my lines, I literally take a full 120 seconds to copy+paste two copies of my lineart, color it red and cyan, and then slightly move them up+down beneath the black lineart to get that 3dish effect. My flat backgrounds are just another sai preset texture, usually the checkerboard one cause it's swag. The rest of my brushes are just for utility or to fill in the gaps, that scroll bar leads to a bunch of empty space. They're not worth showing off just because they don't ever get used, or it's just like. The bucket tool. The select tool. A binary pen I never use. And lastly, for my usual lines, I actually go back and mess them up myself to get them to look more chaotic...my lines are usually smooth + even but it's so boring to look at and time consuming that I'm trying to unlearn that.

here's a wip of what my lines USUALLY look like with the smooth brush. You can see for the background I mostly used the chunky brush for shapes and then the crunchy brush for the finer lines! But yeah it takes forever to do smooth lines because I have nerve damage in my arm (it's why my stabilizer is maxed out...) and I refuse to use the line tool. In a professional setting I definitely make sure my lines are polished but this is just my goofy fanart blog and I want everything to look like it's been laced with crack.

I HOPE ANY OF THIS HELPS?? OR JUST SATES YOUR CURIOSITY, I try to not gatekeep the way I do my art so I have literally no secrets tbh

#not sure how to tag this one uhhhhhhhh

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yanverse · 24 days

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I have to see my husband, show me Yuri. Please.

bbg i GOT chu husband incoming <33 i present to you my yuri magnum opus !!

"Mr. Maeda"

(cws: gn pronouns, work meet cute, office romance, a bit of petty theft, work-inappropriate kisses, obsessive & overprotective behavior, yuri's a lil secret creep)

wc: 3.3k

Here it is. The starting point of the rest of your life. You worried it might be some big, huge corporate building that you'd sooner get lost in than find your way to the office written on your little sheet of paper, but it was small enough to fit its two-story self smack dab on the corner of the avenue. Easy to access, walkable from where you just moved…and still terrifying. This was the only place that would hire you and the first job you'd had that was actually in your field, so to screw this up would ruin years of potential prospects if you ever decided to move upwards and onwards. There was a whole lot riding on this, but all you could do was swallow those doubts and keep your chin up as you pushed through the door and took your first step into the future.

Ting-ing. A bell chimed overhead to signal your arrival, all other noise from the street growing muffled as the door closed behind you. It was…elegant. Even for an interior decorating office, it seemed lavish. The floors were shiny with fresh wax and the furniture was all arranged so delicately you wouldn't even want to sit, the waiting room off to your left and a showroom to your right while a long hallway extended past the front desk on the far side of the wall. It was all decorated in deep red and white tones for the most part along with some other complementary hues, all save for the bored-looking young woman at the desk who wore a baby-blue top and torn jeans. If nothing else, at least the dress code seemed pleasantly loose.

"H..." You squeaked out your greeting like a shy mouse as you approached her, her eyes stuck to the pages of a book that laid open by her keyboard. “..H-Hello.”

"Yuri's by appointment only, please book online."

Her instructions came out as bland and monotone as you could ever imagine, a business card with the URL slapped down on the upper counter of her desk to stare right back at you. She hadn't peeled her eyes away from her reading for even a second, but when she did, it was because you'd cleared your throat and mustered up the courage to say that you were actually here for the job.

"Here for the–oh!" The mere sight of you had her flipping her novel shut and getting up from her seat, her hand stuck out to greet yours as a look of embarrassment overtook her features. "I'm so sorry, I thought you were–e-er, never mind. Welcome! I'm Angel."

Despite her relatively gentle appearance, the squeeze of her hand was strong–you had little space to dwell on those minor details though, as she briskly skirted around her desk to wave you towards the hall. "I'll take you back to meet Yuri, right this way."

Clack. Clack. Clack. It wasn't her flats but your polished shoes clicking loudly on the tile, echoing your nerves in the silence that was only peppered by the distant hum of computers and occasional chatter. You'd no idea exactly how many agents worked here, just that it was a small agency. Less people to impress, but more intense scrutiny if you happened to disappoint them with your skills….or lack thereof. God, please let your heart stop beating so loud. Angel reached for a door near the very end of the corridor and you took a deep breath, one that was probably noticeable since she reassured you with a look and a curt smile as it opened.

"Yuri! Your protégé is here," Her grin grew wider as you balked at her introduction, she patted your shoulder in parting and slipped away as you forced yourself through the doorway and into the brightly-lit office crammed with desks. Chairs had been tucked in tight to allow more room to manoeuvre since it was oddly cramped, but that was mostly because nobody sat in them; your coworkers either leaned against the desks or by the huge bay windows letting in the midday sun, and each and every one of their heads turned to face you once you took a step into their domain. Not one of them commanded your attention like he did, though.

"Oh, please, Angel. Try not to embarrass me, would you?" His voice, airy and smooth, reached you where you stood and nearly buckled your knees before you even got a glimpse of him. The assembly that loosely surrounded him made way for his lithe frame to step around the furniture and head towards you, smiles creeping across their faces and whispers exchanged between them–it almost distracted you long enough not to look up once he finally stood in front of you.

Oh no.

"It's a pleasure to meet you. Ah…" His eyes darted down from your feet to roam their way back up to your eyes in a single pass, so brief you might've thought it never even happened. "...A real pleasure, my sweet." Yuri's cool, soft hands clamped around yours in a gentle handshake, though he barely moved it and rather just held you there like he needed an excuse to stare longer.

Oh, god. Your boss is too attractive to get anything done.

"Y-You too, sir. I've really been looking forward to this." You tried not to stutter out your answer, though Yuri seemed endeared nonetheless and urged you to forget the honours, his grip just barely brushing you once more as he finally managed to drop your hand.

"Let's…oh, what was I saying?" He blinked with an absent gaze, attention fixated on something over your shoulder before he came back down to earth. A quick glance in your peripheral betrayed nothing of note, aside from your own hair. But to think anything of that would be odd, and far be it from you to put your foot in your mouth in front of a boss that actually seemed to like you. "Oh! Right, right–why don't I show you around? We'll get you settled in a minute, but I'll give you a tour first."

He extended an arm out elegantly towards the office, your new coworkers clamouring to get their introductions in to the fresh meat in their presence–yet in all the time he spent showing you around, Yuri didn't seem to take his eyes off you for more than a moment or two.

Which was either a terrible omen of things to come, or a very, very good sign.

The first three days of a new job were usually the most difficult, but a week had passed now and you could swear the hard part just wasn't coming. Every task you'd been given had been a breeze, and with no real assignments yet since you were still in the learning phase, you were practically getting paid to sit around, experiment with your room designs in the decorator software, and chat with your coworkers in between group lunches and the occasional outing to visit potential clients.

The man that had now established himself as your boss was nothing at all like what you expected. Sure, your expectations were certainly lower after your last job plummeted you into financial hell and mental anguish, but you expected the top agent of the city's biggest interior design conglomerate to be somewhat prudish, egotistical, and impossible to please.

But Yuri Maeda was nearly the complete opposite of that. He was by no means lackadaisical, and he did carry a certain air of class about him in the way he walked and talked, but he was not at all like other bosses you'd worked for before. He remembered your name when you walked in the door, and he welcomed you with open arms. He was kind to you and spoke gently of your mistakes, and no matter what, he'd never raised his voice or talked down to anyone about anything.

And he was so, so easy on the eyes. His age showed in nothing but his white hair and even that was more of a fashion statement than anything else–you wouldn't assume a man that barely crested 30 would be so rife with grays under normal circumstances. He didn't even dress like a boss; he'd foregone a suit and tie in exchange for loose, flowing clothing, his shirt hung low to show off his pronounced collarbones while his pants hugged tight to his hips and accentuated those long legs that just kept on going. You'd once asked about his background, and the way his face lit up at the chance to talk about his infancy in Morocco and adolescence in Japan had been the highlight of your day, no doubt. You'd rarely seen such a professional and well-bred man talk so excitedly of his roots while brewing you some coffee and pulling out old photos of his home countries. It was an almost childlike interest, and it endeared him to you even more if that was even possible.

Yuri had a strange habit, however. At first you thought you were getting hazed by the frequency with which your office supplies was going missing, but soon you started noticing that whatever item you had lost would magically appear in Yuri's hands. You'd caught him with your pencil behind his ear, your colourful paperclips attached to his files, once you could've sworn that someone had taken a sip from the drink you'd left on your desk, though there was no way for you to prove that was even the case.

Whatever was going on with that, it took a backseat to the unbelievably good treatment you were getting at the office. You couldn't make yourself mess this up on purpose–you had to try as hard as you ever had to make this work and make it last. Where else were you going to get such a nice boss that called you cute nicknames and bought you lunch on a whim?

But soon came the day that you'd been scheduled to help your first client. You'd been excited leading up to it, eagerly absorbing every ounce of advice that Yuri provided as you prepared to flex your skills.

When you came back to the office in tears, however, that dream had clearly been shattered. Angel at the front desk could barely catch you before you dashed into the bathroom to hide, and even when she followed you in to see what was the matter she herself couldn't believe her ears.

“They hated it,” You sniffled from within the stall, your feet pulled up to press your knees to your chest as if the echoes of your sobs off the walls wasn't enough to tell that you were there.

“Hated what?”

“Everything! They hated the colours, and my d-designs, they said they were terrible–the worst they've ever seen! They made fun of me!” You sobbed, the events of the morning sending fresh pains into your heart as you heard your own voice repeating them. Angel heaved a sigh from the other side of the bathroom door.

“I'm getting Yuri. Hold on.”

“No, please, I–I can't let him see me like this, I-” Despite your pleas, the sounds of Angel's shoes pattering away left you feeling defeated, and you slumped your head between your knees. The shame and embarrassment of having such confidence, only to have it ruined in one fell swoop, felt like too much to bear. You wanted to run and hide forever, dig a hole deep enough and jump in.

You wanted to quit, but you couldn't bear it if Yuri fired you–and after several minutes, hearing a sudden barrage of shouting that sounded like his voice outside the bathroom, you had a feeling that was exactly what was coming. You knew it was too good to be true. Deep down Yuri desired perfection, and you were not that–not even close enough to have tried.

Just when you started to consider slipping out of the bathroom and facing the music rather than stay inside and keep sobbing pathetically, the door creaked open. Taut footsteps hesitantly stepped inside, and by the soft breathing, you knew exactly who it was. He rapped gently on the stall door with his knuckles. It took you a moment to slide off the closed lid of the toilet seat, the lock jiggling loudly in the eerie quiet as you slowly opened the door.

At first glance, he looked flushed and out of sorts. His hair was mussed, and his breathing was uneven. He had his inhaler in the hand at his side, but whether he had taken a puff or not already, you couldn't tell. The silence, save for that, was painful.

Unsure of what to say, you looked back at him as he did the same to you. Your eyes were puffy and your cheeks tearstained and still wet, while his chest heaved hard enough that the quiet was finally broken decidedly by a click, and then a deep inhale of breath as he pressed his inhaler to his mouth.

“Mr. Maeda? Are you…okay?”

“How many times…” He trailed off, only to cough slightly into his arm, and take another deep puff of his medicine. With that, his lungs finally seemed to clear, and he could take deeper, longer breaths while slipping the inhaler into his pocket. “...I told you, don't have to call me that.”

“You're my boss.”

“I'm also your friend.”

“...Am I fired?” Your question twisted itself out, because it was inevitable to come off your lips, but it was so soft and meek you felt shameful yourself just asking it. Yuri shook his head.

“No, no you're not–you’re not fired, sweetheart. You're invaluable to my team. You're not going anywhere.” He seemed convinced beyond belief, but you weren't quite there yet. Despite his earnestness, despite his friendliness and charm that was distinctly Yuri, you couldn't quite bring yourself to trust that you were really that special in his eyes.

“Th-They hated my designs,” You sniffled, and brought your fingers up to smudge the tears that ran fresh down your cheek. You couldn't yet bring yourself to meet his eyes. “All of them. They said they were worthless, Yuri. They didn't like them.”

“I know.” He shook his head again, a twinge of something fierce coming over his expression. “They were wrong. Just so you know, I told them so over the phone.” He looked a bit sheepish, quietly rubbing the back of his neck. So that must have been the yelling you heard…

“Wh-What? Yuri, they were part of a big account, their main client-”

“Listen, sweetheart.” He leaned in suddenly, using his height to his advantage as he loomed over you. Not in a menacing way, but more…almost protective, in a sense. “They were worthless. Don't think about them anymore. They weren't worth your designs, nor your time.”

It shocked you to hear him speak so callously of a client, when he had always shown nothing but utmost professionalism in dealing with even the most snobbish of customers. It seemed like there was almost a shift inside him, like something had snapped to make him shout those people down over the phone, and now had him nearly cornering you in the stall as he got closer and closer to you. Only your wide, nervous eyes managed to snap him out of his trance, and at your trembling he stepped back and brushed some hair out of his face as he cleared his throat.

“You…value my professional opinion, don't you?”

You nodded with little hesitation, yet a lump in your throat forced you to swallow. “Yes, of–of course, Yuri.”

“Then believe me when I say that you are far better than you think. You're smart, and very talented, and…kind, and…very, very lovely. You're a treasure to work with. I…” Even though he trailed off, his true intentions glimmered in those clear, pale eyes. “...I want you to forget everything they said to you, everything that made you cry today. They are but a speck on your life–not worth the slightest mention.”

You opened your mouth to protest on instinct; why did you deserve to feel better about it at all? Surely you must've done something wrong. You can't imagine your meager skills being worth such praise. But something was telling you that this was far deeper than the surface level of work, and Yuri just about confirmed it as he cut you off before you could get down on yourself further.

“Believe me,” He took your cheeks into his soft, sweet-smelling hands, and brushed a stray tear away with his thumb. The gesture, as gentle as it was, almost brought you to more tears with how touching it was. “People that behave in such an…uncouth way don't deserve your attention. They don't deserve your love. Your affection. Your…”

Only then did you realize how close Yuri's lips had drifted to yours. Your mouths were nearly closing in on each other, and but for any resistance on your part he would make no move to stop what was happening. This was not in your job description.

But would you really stop him from kissing you when that's all you had fantasized of until now? A small, shy smile slowly made its way across your lips, and Yuri's followed soon after as he smoothly leaned in to claim a warm, firm kiss, with a more eager introduction to his tongue than you anticipated.

A moment passed, then another, and in what seemed like ages but at the same time only a second he broke it off, his expression aghast–perhaps at realizing what he'd just done. Probably realizing that it was a terrible, terrible mistake. You stood meekly and on the cusp of a panicked fit as he brought the back of his hand to his lips, but soon the warmth in his cheeks tipped you off to what was truly stirring in his heart.

“That was…unprofessional. I didn't mean to-”

“I-It's okay, Yuri-”

“-Not in the bathroom, gods.” He seemed preoccupied, your words barely registering. He ran his fingers back through his soft, white strands of hair and took on a look of sheepish delight. “You deserve better than that. Come, let's–to my office, let's go.” He ushered you out of the stall, his grip firm on your wrist like he was too nervous to try and hold your hand.

“Yuri?” You called out, but he seemed in a daze. His breath was catching on every inhale like he was drowning in excitement, yet he was holding himself together just barely in your presence. He wouldn't make much eye contact with you, but when you did spot that look in his eyes…it seemed like he was in the midst of a calm frenzy, his exterior composed but his mind and heart all stirred up, roused, jumbled into a mess of feelings that he was trying desperately not to get lost in. He tilted his body away from you too, as if trying not to let you see him front-facing as if he had something he was nervously hiding.

“T-Take these,” He suddenly piped up, and thrusted a set of delicate keys into your palm while he turned completely away from you. It was all he could not to just hide his flushed face completely in his hands. “Go wait in my office, I'll–I just need a moment to compose myself. Please.” Yuri whined, and at his behest you agreed and stepped out of the bathroom to give him some privacy. Hearing the lock click behind you made you a bit nervous, but as you made your way out and down the hall you fiddled with the keys and thought about all that Yuri had said.

…What a strange, alluring boss he was indeed. But even so, even now, you wouldn't know even half of what Yuri was really capable of, nor what he had been planning for you since the day you walked into the office and captured his heart in your soft, beautiful hands.

#yuri maeda #yuri maeda x reader #yandereverse #yandere ocs #male yandere #3k #ellie writes #chenkari #anons

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anonymous-chicken-was-taken · 10 months

Text

What the Ace Attorney Villains Could Get Charged With (to the best of my research) (in America laws)

Game One

!Disclaimer! I know nothing about law take this with a grain of salt I was just bored.

Frank Sahwit

Burglary - This one is obvious. He was a thief. He stole stuff. How many charges exactly depends on how many he admits to or can be traced back to him.

Breaking and entering - At least one charge from Cindy's case, potentially more depending on any other burglary charges.

Assault and battery - Hitting Cindy with the Thinker. The assault may or may not be aggravated depending on whether it was technically intended to be used in a way that would readily and likely cause death.

Second-degree murder - This one could potentially be brought down to voluntary manslaughter. It depends whether he intended to kill Cindy when he hit her, and if he was in enough emotional distress that hitting her would be semi-justifiable.

Incrimination - In pinning the blame on Larry, he did this.

Fraud - Even if pretending to be a newspaper salesman to steal from people didn't constitute fraud, Payne stated this as his job. This means he lied about his job to the court by saying he was a newspaper salesman. Which is fraud.

Perjury

Redd White

Incrimination - This is when he tried to frame Maya, and when he shifted the blame on Phoenix. This may lead to two charges.

Obstruction of justice - In incriminating Maya, he tampered with the crime scene. Plus, blackmailing a judge is probably illegal and probably falls under this.

Corruption - He was a corporate official, which makes some of this other stuff constitute corruption, mostly the blackmail.

Blackmail - Speaking of, he could be faced with countless charges of this, depending how much could be tied back to him.

Assault and battery - Punching someone in the face multiple times is illegal, kids. So is hitting someone on the head. If Frank gets aggravated for the thinker, so does he. Phoenix's assault probably wasn't aggravated, though, as I doubt his rings/fists would be ruled a deadly weapon considering the intent.

Intimidation - His threat for an "accident" to happen to Phoenix is more than enough to be considered a threat of violence.

First-degree murder - His murder of Mia was completely premeditated. There's little he can do about this.

Criminal threat - Threatening to injure or kill someone is bad. And using flowery language like "accident" doesn't negate it.

Wiretapping - While he didn't actually put the wiretap there, it can be inferred he ordered it. This makes it conspiracy, so there is some shared guilt.

Conspiracy - The wiretapping was a joint effort between him and April. He may try to claim otherwise, but its degree of success is debatable.

Workplace abuse - It's a real good sign when your secretary fears you murdering her like you did to that defense attorney a couple days ago, Redd, I'm sure you could never get in legal trouble for that.

Perjury

Dee Vasquez

Racketeering - Oftentimes, people in organized crime are automatically found guilty of this. This being charging someone for a service they haven't requested (think mafia "protection").

Blackmail - This one is also pretty obvious. Jack Hammer.

Obstruction of justice - This is her tampering with the crime scene when she moved the body. Also potentially when she tried to kill a lawyer involved with the case.

Attempted murder - By proxy, two charges, when she ordered her goons to kill Phoenix and Maya.

Voluntary manslaughter - Hammer was trying to kill her, she's got that justified self-defense plea. Not that it matters much, because...

Countless other mafia-related charges - We don't know the exact details of her mafia connections, but she's entrenched enough to have goons. We can safely say she did a lot of illegal stuff in organized crime.

Intimidation - Mafia goons trying to kill you is pretty intimidating. That and the threats of erasure.

Criminal threat - See above threats of erasure.

Conspiracy - She works together with Sal Manella in the obstruction of justice.

Perjury

Manfred von Karma

Forgery - He's known to forge evidence constantly.

Obstruction of justice - See above. Plus, tazing lawyers and stealing their evidence is pretty frowned upon. So is intimidating witnesses.

Assault and battery - The evidence room fiasco. Potentially aggravated depending on the actual voltage of the tazer and if he lied about it or not, but given they didn't die, probably not.

Theft - He stole evidence from the evidence room.

Intimidation - Brandishing a taser at someone is generally considered this.

Corruption - Being a government official, most if not all this stuff constitutes corruption.

Incrimination - Due to his conspiracy with Yogi, he is guilty of attempting to frame Miles by proxy.

First-degree murder - He sees a gun and a man he doesn't like in the elevator, and he does think about it before doing it. Thus, it is premeditated and first-degree. Also, given his conspiracy with Yogi, he may also be guilty of murdering Hammond by proxy.

Child abuse - Both Miles and Franziska could push for this, even just with what we have explicitly stated. Depending on interpretation and how poor of a guardian he was, this charge could have some serious ground to stand on.

Emotional abuse - Pretty much the same hat as the child abuse charge, only less uncertain.

Criminal threat - I don't know what you want from me, man. He threatens everyone all the time.

Torture - I haven't played investigations yet, but from what I'm looking at, he psychologically tortured a guy, so. That's pretty non Geneva convention certified of him, even if this isn't a war.

Workplace abuse - Again, this is hearsay because investigations, but he's pretty crappy to his subordinates, it seems.

Solicitation - He heavily encourages Yogi to kill Hammond and frame Miles.

Conspiracy - He provides Yogi with the means to kill Hammond, so while there is technically no mutual agreement, he's also guilty of this.

Perjury

Damon Gant

Corruption - As a government official, a great deal of his crimes constitute corruption.

Forgery - A great portion of the conflict of his case comes from the forged evidence he made.

Obstruction of justice - Most of the rest of the conflict of his case comes from the evidence he withheld.

Blackmail - Quite a severe case of it, at that. Multiple years against a single person is nothing to sneeze at.

Incrimination - That's what it was when he made it look like Ema killed Neil.

First-degree murder - He thought about killing Neil long enough to consider the pros and cons of doing so, and went through with it. That's pretty premeditated. A good lawyer may be able to get him down to second degree for Goodman, but it's highly doubtful considering.

Conspiracy - He had Lana hide Goodman's body, and while there was blackmail involved, there was still a mutual agreement. Thus, conspiracy.

Concealment of death - There are a few different names for this, but it's when he had Lana hide Goodman's body. It was unsuccessful, but there were still significant steps taken to have it happen on both their parts, so he may get a partial sentence.

Criminal threat - He makes so many threats.

Workplace abuse - I think using a pipe organ to punish your employees violates some international laws or something. Speaking of which...

Torture - Of the audio variety. Seriously this guy is the police how did this fly for so long that is BAD.

Vigilantism - This is actually very interesting. Despite the fact that he is a member of law enforcement and Joe Darke did kill multiple people, he still used illegal means to bring him to some form of justice. Depending on how much he wanted Darke convicted, it could be argued that his actions constitute vigilantism.

Assault and battery - One case of assault against Goodman, and two charges of battery against Neil and Goodman. Assault is the threat of violence and the means to follow through, and battery is the actual act of violence; seeing as Neil was unconscious, he could not have been threatened. The assault was aggravated, as a knife is a deadly weapon.

Perjury

GAME TWO

#this was fun #ace attorney #might edit later #phoenix wright ace attorney #ace attorney trilogy #frank sahwit #redd white #dee vasquez #manfred von karma #damon gant #crime #laws #crimes #how do I tag this lol #AA villain crimes #analysis #now with aggravated assault

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vaspider · 4 months

Note

I genuinely hope this isn’t too prying or intrusive, I am strictly asking out of curiosity but…. What…. Is going on with that 16 year old and why is it on a post about a house coat? Are you ok?

I'm fine.

That kid has been fixated on me since I said, basically, that the French Revolution killed a bunch of innocent people and isn't something to be emulated.

For the past 3 weeks, since I told her to leave me alone on Tumblr, she's been stalking me across the internet, digging up every possible way to contact me, and sending elaborate death threats along with suicide threats. I've turned off the contact forms on my professional website and NK. She's sent asks here and contacted me from multiple Tumblrs, multiple Facebook and Instagram accounts, TikTok, LinkedIn, Reddit, YouTube, BlueSky, and multiple email accounts. I'm pretty sure I'm missing something, though I do have it all screenshotted and saved. She found my phone number and left multiple threatening voicemails, and she kept contacting my business, sending death threats to places where my employees, including my younger brother, had to deal with them.

She seems to think that I'm a man, and that I'm attempting to use magic on her, and that she can threaten me into doing whatever it is she wants. I don't really understand what's going on in her head, and I'm not trying to do so. I don't really read the things she writes.

At this point, the FBI is involved - she's been sending death threats pretty much every day for about a month now with a few breaks here and there - and I've been declining to respond to her for the vast majority of that time, hoping that she'd get bored, or, hopefully, that someone who cares about her would realize how deeply, deeply unwell she is and get her help before this becomes a criminal matter. I really, really don't want to be put in that position, but I also can't ask the people who work for me (some of whom are my family) to deal with a constant barrage of messages detailing how if I don't publicly apologize for ... fuck all if I know or care... she's going to "slit [my] throat like a Sicilian" and throw my body in the Willamette River.

I really, really, really just want this kid to leave me alone. I didn't seek her out - she sought me out - and I'm not interested in talking to or debating with a 16 year old. But, also, the things that she's been doing for the past month are crimes and truly beyond the pale.

As to why that's on a video about a housecoat... your guess is as good as mine. Her last comments before this were on the two public videos on my abandoned YouTube account, both of which were process videos about making patches, and she left death threats on a post on my old personal Instagram that I made on the day of the Tree of Life shooting. It has nothing to do with me or what I'm saying - she seems to just randomly pick things to add her bizarre urban fantasy VASpider fanfic to.

Please leave that person alone, everybody. She is a third my age and very clearly deeply unwell. I'd been ignoring her, but I'm kind of hoping against hope that knowing that, yeah, actually, what she's doing is a crime, people take that seriously, and I really really really don't want her to fuck up her life? will convince her to stop.

I'm not afraid. I'm mostly just tired and very, very sad. It is really upsetting to see someone who is so out of alignment with consensus reality, and it's even more upsetting when that person is so young. I feel deeply sorry for her, both that she's unwell in a way that's clearly causing her harm, and that she doesn't seem to be getting the help she needs from the people around her. I hope it's just that the people around her don't realize what's going on and that someone can make them aware, because it is just... rotten... to see someone that young making such a mess of things.

I don't want to talk about this further. I've been avoiding talking about it publicly at all, but at the point where we're closing on a month... I dunno. I hope saying something directly and making it clear this isn't going to go the way she thinks gets it through to her.

I'm gonna go play with my dog.

#harassment #harassment tag #asker is not harassing me #this just deals with my current stalker

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oneatlatime · 7 months

Text

Zuko Alone

I'm hoping for some Appa this episode. It's been too long since he's gotten any good sight gags.

Zuko is cosplaying Clint Eastwood. He's also back to being stupid pale this episode.

You know it's a good thing that Zuko's not in the Fire Nation anymore because he really would have sucked at being Fire Nation. Robbing pregnant women is probably kindergarden level stuff for them.

How is Zuko in such bad shape? Last time we saw him he had a cave full of spoils robbed from rich people. Did he not bother to pack at least some of that stuff? Actually, not thinking far enough ahead to pack would be pretty in character.

Oof that would rub me the wrong way. Not enough money for a meal, but sure, let's use totally edible eggs as ammo.

Where'd the egg go?

Who is the scarred up hat wearing vampire and what happened to the real Zuko? Imposter Zuko just elected to not be provoked into a fight. Real Zuko would already be setting things on fire.

Just a bunch of thugs. Yep. It's consistently awesome how many of the facets of war this show can cover.

Imposter Zuko and Song's horse bird just got kidnapped. Did not see that coming.

Zuko kind of has arm bandages like Sokka has this episode. Also love the character detail that the boy has scraped knees.

Is the kid's dad the same guy as the man at the store? Or maybe this is a one haircut town?

So the guy who was near to fainting off his horse bird this morning is now turning down freely offered food? Could Zuko please shelve his pride for five minutes? Kudos to the mom for accurately reading his distaste for charity and turning it into a request for aid though. Although covering for the boy's egg trick is worth at least a meal.

Tangent!

I don't get Zuko. How can he still have so much pride when he's wearing rags and starving himself to feed Song's horse bird? I'm quite shameless when it comes to accepting help and I've never, ever been able to understand the whole 'too proud to accept charity' mindset. I'm always up for some charity. I have enough manners to offer to do the dishes after, but if you're offering free food I'm eating it. And I've never been in a situation as desperate as Zuko's. So I don't get this.

ok tangent over.

Peak rich kid behaviour. I hope those nails aren't expensive otherwise Zuko doing work for food might end up with this family out of pocket.

Is the wood grain on this ladder an actual photograph of wood grain?

Zuko has more patience this episode than he had for all of season 1 combined. He's also never gone this long without yelling. Either proximity to young children activates Zuko's otherwise mostly slumbering decency, or to fit him into a Fistful of Dollars homage the writers had to make him out of character.

If I had been in this situation when I was a kid, if I had been a) this visibly bored, and b) this nosy around guests, I would have been given a hammer and a bag of nails in three seconds flat. Also, nice to see a Sokka face from Zuko.

I get that 'a man without a past' is a staple of the cowboy genre, but the boy's father bringing up the privacy of the past twice in like two minutes makes me think he's done stuff he doesn't want to talk about. Seems both the parents have read Zuko right though.

Finally! Some pretty! I have been suffering! This may be the first really good pretty all season!

Bad news for the Appa decor on my blog. He may have been supplanted in my affections.

Two things: first, Zuko is a carbon copy of his mom. Second, That is way too much forehead.

Having Zuko's mom introduce herself by talking about the lengths mothers will go to for their children is not giving me foreshadowing anxiety at all.

Azula's been a bitch since birth. Noted.

Sir, your eyebrows. Also, yeah, I wouldn't want to play with her either.

Yikes this is making my teeth itch and my skin crawl. Calling it now, she's rotten to the core.

Zuko and Azula's dad has some weak ass genes. BOTH of his children are carbon copies of their mom.

Also, I was not expecting Zuko's very stupid ponytail to be a pre-scar thing. It is much better with a full head of hair.

If I had spent my childhood hanging out with an untouchable princess who set things on my head on fire for fun whenever I involuntarily displayed emotion, I'd be gloomy and apathetic in self defense too.

Sokka in this episode in spirit, if not in person.

Seriously that's the same face three times over!

Um, no? If Iroh doesn't make it back from the front, doesn't his son become next in line to be Firelord?

Can you hear all the unspoken "father thinks that" and "father says that" in front of every one of Azula's opinions in this whole scene? I stand by my assertion that she's awful anyways, but she's also obviously drunk much too much of her dad's koolaid, if you know what I mean.

This kid is going to get into so much trouble one of these days. Provoking the soldiers, nagging the mysterious stranger with the mysterious past, and now taking his weapons? Kid's sweet but he really needs to learn when to stop pushing his luck.

Stabbing dead, dried wood sounds like a great way to utterly annihilate the edge on those. Hope Zuko packed a whetstone.

Where is this patience coming from? I don't understand and it's BUGGING me.

Hold on. Technical problems.

My very basic DVD player sometimes has difficulty with these disks. Whatever happened between the above two screenshots, I've missed it. So picking back up from the one on the right...

Either these soldiers are impressively cowardly (which, yeah) or Zuko's really been working on his death glare, because they've got him outnumbered and out-armoured and they still back off.

OH it's parallels! Zuko's cousin and the boy's older brother. Got it. Kind of a false parallel though. Grandson of the Firelord does not equal earth kingdom conscript.

Give the demonstrably impulsive and nosy child a knife. That'll work out just fine I'm sure. Pretty sad the kid glommed on to Zuko so quickly, but it's also yet another realistic representation of the consequences of war. This show's good.

*shudders* theatre kids.

She's tiny! Do you know how darkly humourous it is to watch a two foot tall baby spout her father's murderous nonsense? Once again, in this whole scene, not a word out of Azula's mouth is actually Azula's.

"What is wrong with that child?" Apart from budding homicidal and psychopathic tendencies? Her dad. Her dad is what's wrong with that child.

Their dad has no subtlety at all. And also no brain? You think a day after the firelord finds out one of his family died is the right time to very boorishly make a play for the crown with you daughter as a prop? Could you possibly come up with a better demonstration of why this guy shouldn't be in charge?

How did this asshole land such a nice wife?

Yep. Siding with the old firelord on this one.

Does flashback Zuko sleep in his day clothes? Because that's not ok.

I like that their mom sees straight through Azula's lying here. She knows her daughter.

In a move that should surprise no one, everything Zuko touches turns to shit, as usual.

It's the Mexico filter!

Absolute truth from Zuko in that monologue. He's got them pegged. Too bad it fell on deaf ears. It's Zuko's curse, that whenever he approaches being remotely reasonable, he happens to be surrounded by people who will react in such a way that Zuko learns to equate being reasonable with failure.

An earthbender. The bare feet should have clued me in.

Last season Zuko and Iroh laid waste to like ten of these guys. And Iroh didn't even have pants. So what gives? Is he that starved?

Ursa pulling a Mufasa.

Don't answer don't answer don't answer

And he does.

Zuko is so very good at completely misinterpreting the point.

So we can add thief to the list of things that make Azula awful. Also that delivery of "who's going to make me? Mom?" is chilling. Zuko's lost his only defender inside this atrocious family and she knows it, he knows it, hell the turtleducks probably know it.

His dying wish? You guys buying that?

Ozai. That's his name. I'd forgotten that.

So... something something dead firelord something something missing mom something something maybe Azula wasn't actually lying this time?

Final Thoughts

The title wasn't kidding. Let's rename the show 'Avatar: the Guy who's Really Bad at Capturing Him' while we're at it.

There is now no way whatsoever that Zuko is not going to be redeemed. No writing team would invest that much energy and a whole episode into a character we're not ultimately supposed to root for. So somehow he's going to end up joining the Gaang. Don't know how he'll pull that one off. He's done some pretty not great stuff. And it's not like the Gaang watched this episode and unlocked his tragic backstory.

Speaking of, what prompted these reflections? I could understand if Zuko started to contemplate his cousin and the events surrounding his loss in the war after he learned about the family's older brother, but he was having flashbacks before he even got to town. Usually when there are backstory bits, there's a good reason to show them at that time, like how the Storm prompts Aang to think about the last storm he was in, or seeing a boat from his father's fleet prompts Sokka to remember what his dad told him. So what caused Zuko's memories to give him situationally appropriate flashbacks?

Pretty funny that he found the Nice Earth Kingdom Family that Azula predicted for him. And they are really nice! Either Zuko is an open book or the parents' social intelligence is off the charts because they're giving him exactly what he needs to feel at ease after barely a single conversation.

Speaking of Azula, I'm not surprised to find that she's always had deeply awful tendencies, even as a child of (I'm guessing) less than ten. But it cannot be ignored that, from the moment her father took a liking to her (as a tool to boost his own greatness, if not as a person), she didn't stand a chance. You can tell by the number of times that the stuff coming out of her mouth is a thinly veiled repetition of her father's unfiltered opinions, that she's been spending lots of time listening to him, probably while he puts down her mom and brother and talks about how she's the special one. You know what I'm getting at. Azula never stood a chance once her father got involved, and her mom lost the ability to influence her once her father started giving Azula praise for objectively wrong behaviour. That being said, Azula is awful even when she doesn't need to be awful for her father's approval, like when she's with her friends, so it's not all her father's doing. She's not a good person but she also had plenty of help to become that.

I guess Zuko and his mom are Fire Nation anomalies? And maybe Iroh has become that since his son died and he lost the war?

How on earth did Zuko survive as long as he did in the palace without his mom to protect him? What a no-win situation to be in. The only person in a whole nation with empathy.

This episode does makes Season 1 Zuko make more sense. He's been larping his dad as a defense mechanism for surviving the Fire Nation/probably a very futile effort to earn his approval. Although Zuko doesn't seem to care much for his dad if the tone he takes with him by the turtleduck pond is any indication.

Being banished was the best thing that ever happened to Zuko. The more distance between him and his remaining non-uncle family, the better. Between prioritizing his crew over capturing the avatar in the Storm, releasing the Avatar in the Blue Spirit, and now defending a random earth kingdom child this episode, it's hilarious how much Zuko HASN'T learned the lesson that Ozai banished him for not knowing. Don't get me wrong; that's a good thing. This episode plainly shows that behaviour that pleases Ozai is behaviour that should be unlearned as quickly as possible.

Zuko completely missing the point of his mom's last instruction is delightfully on the nose. But it also makes sense, which I may talk more about later.

How did Zuko hold on to his temper (and his volume) for a whole episode?

How did a show named after the main character get away with an episode that doesn't feature him at all? As a concept, this is such a strange episode. The writers were like "how can we kick start the woobification of Zuko? I know! A Spaghetti Western!" and it worked. Who comes up with that?

I now want at least as much, if not more, of Sokka and Katara's childhood via flashbacks. And more Gyatso please. If they can devote a whole episode to the childhood of a guy who isn't even a team member yet, they can show me some Sokka childhood shenanigans as a palette cleanser.

I really don't know what conclusion to draw about this episode. The writers have given me a massive backstory/trauma dump and I'm honestly like:

#atla #avatar: the last airbender #avatar the last airbender #zuko alone #I really don't know what to make of this one

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void-ink-studios · 5 months

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Wrath of the Wishmaster..... plus..... Human AU.....?

I emerge in a delirious state of half-asleep headaches and listening to parents try and fail to set up a Ring doorbell for at least 3 hours to bring a brainstorm dump post.

I like the Human AUs I see for prohibitedwish, and I wanted to throw my cake onto the buffet table. I'm spinning this as tangentially related to Wrath of the Wishmaster, but there's some major differences.

So, behold, my half-baked nonsense!

Scarab and Prismo work in the same company, obviously. Not sure what the company is. Maybe they live in the same apartment building too, idk.

Prismo works somewhere high up in Graphic Design? Maybe an article writer? Idk for certain.

I know a lot of folks have Scarab keep his title as Auditor, or put him in finance, but I submit to the Midnight Society that Scarab works HR. It's his job to track down and handle write ups. He's not well liked, but he is good at his job.

This AU would lean hard into ADHD Prismo and Autistic Scarab.

Scarab actually really wants to work in some creative department, but no one gives him a shot because of how he acts (very precise, very orderly, rule and detail oriented).

Scarab still has chronic pain (this time in one of his legs), and bouts of vertigo. He uses his cane fairly regularly, but he actually likes collecting and customizing fancy handles for it.

Orbo is still a dirtbag (because I can't get enough of him just being the worst), but he can't exactly cripple Scarab in the same way he did in WoTWM. So, instead, he's a bully of a manager. Makes it an office wide game to rile up Scarab into a "freak out" (read: meltdown).

Prismo is pretty charming and well liked, even across departments, and is also pretty good at his job. But, he get's hella insomnia, and he gets very easily bored at work. He actually spends, like, half of his work day goofing off and working on pet projects.

Scarab is constantly trying to catch Prismo in the act to write him up finally, but is always just a little too late. He knows Prismo slacks off, he just has never been able to catch him.

Prismo plans and throws a lot of office parties, mostly as an excuse to not think for a few hours.

Scarab doesn't attend, mostly because it's overstimulating as hell, but also because he doesn't think he'd be welcome despite being an "open invite."

I think that's all I got for now. If anyone else would like to add or suggest things, then be my guest.

#prohibitedwish #scarab x prismo #scarab the god auditor #prismo the wishmaster #prohibitedwish fanfic #fanfic prompt #human au #office au #void go to bed #void rambles

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uyuforu · 6 months

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Can you give more details on his Venus Libra, please? As in...is there any other placements in the chart that support "weak" placements (particularly in his chart and in general is it a thing)? Idk how to ask it correctly.

I mean, isn't it quite torturing for a person to live like that and never been satisfied with the partners and kinda not being able to fall in love with an actual person?

If not the placements how a person can fix it? Is it about shadow work/maturing or anything like that? Or it's written in the core of a person?

It's interesting because my Venus is in Gemini and all this relationship thing is kinda too...real and boring? Not a dreamy romantic thoughtful novel as I always portrayed it, duh 🤪

Jungkook's Natal Chart: Libra Venus in 9H, 17°

-> Hello! Thank you for your request! To be honest, I wasn't supposed to do this one lol but I'm currently in a café so I don't have my tarots with me lmao and I hate to draw cards in public. So I will do the Venus analysis of Jungkook in his Natal Chart! Hope you enjoyed :)

Venus in the Chart represents how you love, what you are attracted to and how you feel loved. This is a good placement to look at to know more about your love style and mostly also any red flags you could attract or even be! It makes you more aware of yourself.

Venus in Libra

-> Okay, so. Venus in Libra is a tricky placement to me. First, it just screams romance. Rom com love like. These people are just so so so romantic, you never saw that. But it's not like dramatic love, it's really poetry like love. These people, when in love, give the world to their partner. Libra is still an air sign, so they value freedom too. But their hopelessness has a bad side. First it can make them struggle to find love, as they wish to. They can expect too much, and be disappointed, and feel like they will never find what they are looking for. These people need to not mistake the imaginary with reality. So these people can go in many relationships, or more kind of situations hips. They can also date but find it hard to fall in love, because they really are waiting for "the one". They can also enjoy flirting, these natives can have periods in life when they just want to have fun. They are so charismatic and flirt like nobody lmao. Also, sometimes their kindness can be mistaken for flirting. They may always feel like someone have a crush on them? Or they really enjoy to have people falling for them, they enjoy seeing they affect people. They take good care of themselves, they love to look good and have compliments. Some people could see it as shallow, but they are really nice people. They hate injustice, and hate mean people. They need equality, fairness, kindness, non judgmental people to feel good in a relationship. Basically, a Libra Venus will provide you equality, gentleness, allegiance. But they require devotion, traditional romance, companionship. If you are not romantic, it's a no. If you don't love them enough, it's a no. But once they are happy and feel loved in their relationship, they are just such a cute partner! The kind of partner to just give you all their love, and I noticed these people have all the 5 love languages lol! And they truly believe love always win. They want someone they can show their flaws to and they will gladly accept yours in return. Also! Funny thing but people with Venus signs (Taurus & Libra) in Venus have a wonderful voice most of the times and it's easy for them to write beautiful things (so songs and stories for example). I know JK talked about how he thinks he is not good at it but I'm sure he has good potential! (Still with you for ex).

Venus in 9H

-> The 9H is represented by Sagittarius. For keywords, it has travel, wisdom, philosophy, religion, cross-cultures, foreign countries, learnings, etc. THIS is the placement I saw first that actually told me something: Jungkook doesn't care much about where is partner can come from. Let me explain. The Korean society is pretty strict on this, because of the fact their parents sometimes want to keep the bloodline pure, or it can also be them, language barrier, culture barrier, all of these things are factors on why Koreans (most of them, not all) have a problem about marrying or even dating foreigners. But it feels like Jungkook doesn't care much? She is a foreigner? She doesn't look like everyone else? They don't share same religion? If he is in love, he truly doesn't care. He may actually enjoy dating someone different from him, so even someone who is not famous or does a different job than him, he likes it. He is curious and enjoy the differences. He may love also someone smart who has a lot of knowledges, that it's school wise or even life's philosophy wise. JK has so much admiration for RM for example, I wouldn't be shocked if it would be the same for his partner. Her having a brain is super important. He also want adventures, a spontaneous person and someone he can teach stuff, but also someone who can teach him things. Someone who loves to travel is a good thing also. He needs someone happy, chill, who will make him less anxious. And to be honest, this placement makes me feel like someone spiritual would do him so good. And he way be interested in this because of this placement! This placement (Venus Libra 9H) is what makes me think of why he could have tried fwb and ons, this placement makes him want to experience things in life. He just want to learn, to see, to discover all possibilities, but without any judgments. It makes JK very independent when it comes to relationships. He loves his so and I'm sure he is the clingy type of bf sometimes (I'll explain in the degree part hehe), but when it comes to him as a person, he needs freedom. He needs freedom for work, for hobbies, for his friends, for his family but also himself. If he can't find it, he will either become distant or just break up lmao. This placement makes him more into marrying with a spiritual person.

17°

-> The 17° is a Leo degree! It represents attention, fame, light, children, creativity, self-expression, entertainment, strength, hair, etc. So, he may like people who have beautiful hair, or hair could just be a thing he likes, like people who take care of their hair. And with the Libra Venus, I feel like just taking care of themselves is a thing for him. Love can make him much more creative. And so dating someone who share the same interest in creativity and art is important to him. Someone strong or who appear confident. Someone who is fun, a sun in the room, or just someone he can admire, like "she shines so naturally", "wow she is so pretty", or "she is so talented I love it". Admiration seems to be a big part here for Jungkook. Also dating a celebrity doesn't seem a problem for him? Or becoming a famous couple? He doesn't care much if people don't invade their privacy too much. He doesn't care if he can control what you have access to.

Thank you for reading!

back to index ; ask ; requests ; rules

#jk #astrology #venus #libra venus #venus 9H #jungkook #bts #bts astrology #jk astrology #jungkook astrology #bts jungkook astrology #jungkook venus #Kpop astrolog #kpop

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frankencanon · 8 months

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I think it'd be funny if we made Kakashi even younger.

Can you imagine Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura finding out that Kakashi is only a handful of years older than them?!

I mean, with how little we see of his face it's extremely difficult to tell how old he is...

It was one thing when he was prepubescent and short with an unbroken voice, but once his voice dropped and he reached an average adult height... How would anyone be able to tell?

He's strong, highly ranked, mature for his age, and the proper height for an adult with an adult voice. Anyone who didn't already know his age would be liable to mistakenly assume he's older than he actually is, especially with the grey hair.

And it's not like it's out of the realm of possibility for a teenager to be a jounin sensei—take Minato, for example. He was, what, seventeen? And as talented as Minato was, he's nothing compared to Kakashi when it comes to rising through the ranks at a young age.

I'm pretty sure Kakashi broke literally every record there was when it came to "youngest ever [blank]". Academy student, genin, chūnin, jōnin, ANBU, ANBU Captain... Sure, Itachi eventually beat him in one or two of those, but at the time Kakashi was the sole record-holder; There'd never been anyone like him before.

If we just modify Kakashi's already contradictory timeline... Unimportant info below about the details for just how this could potentially work in canon!!

—WAIT. FORGET ALL THAT.

If you want to read my calculations as to how this could canonically work you may direct your attention below, however I have just come up with a far better and far simpler and also quite possibly both funnier and sadder idea:

Time-travel, but not in any way you're thinking...

Most people assume the reason why they didn't hear much of Kakashi's exploits over the years is because he was in ANBU and so everything was Top Secret and extremely covert...

But what if the real reason was because Kakashi had somehow been sent about a decade into the future? Hence explaining how he could be a teenager still when he was once the Yondaime's student.

Also possible: Kakashi was somehow held in stasis for the past decade—sealed, perhaps? Trapped? Or maybe the work of a foreign shinobi's jutsu (kekkei genkai?) that took about a decade or so to break/deactivate...

Or, my personal favorite:

He was investigating the Uzushiogakure ruins and got caught in one of their defensive seals — one that would seal him for a maximum of ten years, with the intention of giving Uzushio shinobi as much time as possible to deal with whatever intruder(s) got caught in the trap.

Without Kushina or Minato or any other Uzumaki seal experts however, deactivating the seal would be basically impossible — luckily, the seal was set up so that once time ran out Kakashi would be automatically released.

And he was! Ten years later, with little baby Naruto all grown up and almost ready to be placed on a genin team — his genin team.

—

AFFOREMENTIONED DUMB CALCULATIONS FOR HOW THIS COULD POTENTIALLY FIT INTO THE CANONICAL TIMELINE BELOW 👇

—

It's probably boring!! You don't have to read it!!

⚠️ You have been warned!! ⚠️

(It's mostly just me brainstorming, honestly...)

—

Genin at five, chūnin at six... Then he stalls at chūnin for a while before eventually advancing to jōnin at twelve (wherein Obito "dies").

He's approximately thirteen when Rin is killed leading to him joining ANBU, and then fourteen when Naruto is born and the Kyūbi is unleashed on the village, causing Minato and Kushina to sacrifice themselves.

In canon, he is then twenty-six years old when he becomes Team 7's jōnin sensei...

For starters, I vote we cut those six years of chūnin limbo before Kakashi becomes jōnin, dropping him to about twenty-or-so.

Then again, this is fanfic—who cares about canon timelines?

If we put him on the hyper-speed fast-track...

4: Academy student

5: Genin

6: Chūnin

7. Jōnin (Obito dies)

8. ANBU (Rin dies)

9. Naruto's birth (Minato & Kushina die)

Is this ridiculous? Yes! But who cares?

9+12=21

Hm... That's not right.

Alright, this is getting a bit annoyingly complicated.

Even if I downgrade Naruto to eleven (because for a long time I was convinced for some reason that Naruto was eleven while the rest of his peers were twelve, and I still have absolutely no clue where I got that idea from) that would still make Kakashi about twenty. Hm...

Ugh, I'll figure this out later. Can't we just hand-wave it?

—No wait, I have an idea:

While modifying his canon timeline to make him younger is a hassle and a half, the fact remains that until we saw Kakashi Gaiden we didn't actually have any details on his backstory...

In other words? The beginning of the series managed just fine without it, so why don't we just throw it out entirely?

Afterall, this fic is about jōnin-sensei Kakashi—the details of his traumatic childhood are irrelevant, and it's not like early fans had that information to work with anyway.

Naruto is canonically younger than Sasuke (who was a baby during the Kyūbi attack) so we shall put him at eleven to give us some leeway.

Now let's say we wanted to make Kakashi somewhere around sixteen to eighteen during canon—that would require him to be five to seven years old when Minato dies.

Now let's compress his timeline some more:

Considering the Konoha 9 all attended the very first chūnin exams after they graduated, I don't see any reason why Kakashi couldn't do the same—and unlike them he's a prodigy so it's basically guaranteed that he'd pass. (And that's assuming he didn't get a field promotion...)

Give him up to a year to become jōnin, and then have him join ANBU almost immediately after.

Some months later, Naruto is born and the Yondaime dies.

To compress it further, I am making his graduation even more ridiculous:

Academy student at three, genin and then chūnin at four, jōnin and ANBU at five. God, can you imagine a five-year-old ANBU? That'd be terrifying. Naruto is born around the time he turns six, and eleven years later Kakashi passes a genin team for the first time and is made a jōnin-sensei at seventeen, just like Minato-sensei was.

It'll take Team 7 a while to realize that, however.

...WAIT A MINUTE.***

Why am I even bothering to promote him prior to Minato's death? Am I, perhaps, an idiot?

Minato becomes his sensei as soon as he graduates to genin at five years old, but before that Kakashi spent a lot of time as his apprentice and they bonded. Shortly after Team 7 is formed the Kyūbi attack happens and Minato dies — the how doesn't matter, so don't worry about it.

The war is over so instead of Kannabi Bridge they go on some other dangerous mission with the same results, except this time the reason Minato isn't there is because he's dead.

They send some other inadequate chūnin or jōnin in his place, but they promptly get killed early on in the mission, perhaps at the same time that Rin gets kidnapped.

Kakashi is chūnin at this point so he naturally takes charge, despite being a five or six year old and Obito being — I don't know, twelve? Significantly older.

Obito dies, then Rin, and this time it's the stupid Sandaime that sticks Kakashi in ANBU like he's an annoying unwanted child that he wants to keep out of sight and thoroughly occupied — at least, until he needs a jōnin sensei for the Kyūbi's Jinchūriki and the Last Uchiha...

So, final version:

Five years old when Minato dies and Naruto is born, and about five or six years old when Obito and Rin die and Kakashi gets stuck in ANBU, followed by eleven years of Naruto growing up while Kakashi's in ANBU makes him... About sixteen to seventeen years old when Kakashi becomes Team 7's jōnin sensei.

To Kakashi, this feels almost poetic. (Same age as Minato-sensei was...)

#hatake kakashi #kakashi hatake #kakashi sensei #kakashi #naruto #team 7 #au #naruto au #fanfic idea #fanfic prompt #fan fic ideas #fanfiction ideas #fanfiction prompts #fan fiction idea #naruto fic #naruto fanfiction #kakashi fanfiction #kakashi fic #kakashi gaiden

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nocturnalazure · 19 days

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Not-a-tutorial - Camera shots: Part I

Absolutely nobody: ...

Me: I’ll share with you tips and tricks about Sims storytelling and camera shots!

And this is how it all started.

I’m far from being an expert and this probably won’t be new to many people, but I just felt the drive to ramble about camera shots because I think it’s such an interesting topic. (warning: long – see under the cut)

I sometimes have a feeling that we, as simmers, tend to repeat the same angles over and over again when telling a story. And I think that may be because we still adopt a player’s perspective. We may want to show how the Sim is dressed because we spend one hour in CAS dressing them up. Or we want to see the Sim but also the background because we spent hours decorating the scene. Or simply because we like the background and think it deserves to be shown! Zooming up on a Sim’s face is uncomfortable because that’s not how we play the game: we zoom out to see what we are doing. I know, because that’s what I used to do too in the past. Many of my screenshots were taken at hip/knee level.

And at shoulder level when I wanted to “zoom in”.

That was okay, but not necessarily very engaging. The thing is, I started using more and more screenshots in my story, dropping descriptive text entirely and using only dialogues. Soon my story became a graphic novel. Telling a story using mostly visual means implies that 1) I have to shorten the dialogues as much as possible to keep it dynamic, and 2) I have to find visual ways to express what characters are not saying but what I want the reader to understand (note that my Sims are no longer Sims but characters xD). This comes very close to storyboarding and it is what I’m doing now. It is much more planned and requires more work. But it pays! (at least according to me: I rather like my way even if there are many ways I can still improve!) So I'm going to show you a few concrete examples of how I apply to my shots some techniques from photography, comics, mangas and filmmaking.

First, I use wide, establishing shots to show the reader where the action is taking place.

Sometimes to express an idea, like that of a crowded place for example:

What I do A LOT is use a random landscape or zoom in on a detail to indicate the passage of time, like for transitions within the same scene: we find the same characters in the same place but they are leaving, or they are now seated, or they are still in the same building but not in the same room, etc. I often use sky pictures because I like them, sue me. :D

I use full shots when there are several characters in the room and I need to show whom and where they stand in relation to each other.

It is actually quite important for the reader to be able to locate a character in space. It sounds pretty basic, but we as authors tend to forget that the reader is not in our head. The reader needs to be able to follow your story every step of the way, even (particularly!) at the most basic level. The more characters in a scene, the more important this step is. A wider shot is perfect for this.

Or a bird eye view.

This is a standard shot of two characters having a seated convo:

What I I try to do is vary the angles as much as possible in a single conversation. It’s easy to use only an “over-the-shoulder” perspective but if the conversation is long, using only that kind of shots can give an impression that it drags on and on.

The character that is talking should be to one to which the eye is attracted to. If I used only that kind of shot, the eye would quickly get bored going from one character to the other, and since the conversation here was long, I used different angles to make it more interesting and play with different effects depending on what the characters were saying.

First, I reminded the reader of where the characters are in space:

Then, I got some close-up on small details while the characters are talking. This one shows that they have finished their meal.

I used an overhead shot for variety, but also to suggest that my characters are confronting their points of view, with the table separating them.

When a character is having a long monologue, I like taking my time to show a bit of the décor. It allows to break a long block of text into several more digestible parts and it gives the eye something more relaxing to look at so that it can focus on the text.

Doing a close-up on an interesting detail works too. It can add an emotional impact as readers do not see the character's face and will try to connect what the character is saying to what he does not say.

Same idea here, more experimental. You like it or you don’t. I chose not to show the character’s face while she’s asking a personal question. It fits her and it fits the story.

In general, I like cutting off part of a character’s face to maximize impact.

Another way to show emotions is a close-up. Like here, Anh is shocked so I chose a low angle to emphasize it.

I use close-ups for the reader to better see a character’s emotions. This close, emotions can be read and interpreted right away.

On to Part II!

#ts3 #sims 3 #sims 3 story #sims 3 storytelling tips #random #not-a-tutorial

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docholligay · 21 days

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Do you think having such a personalized and detailed headcanon makes it harder to enjoy fic about the show/game that's written by others?

I mean sure, probably.

But unfortunately things I adore, for people named Doc who are me, fall into one of two buckets:

The character work and plot in this show are incredible, I find myself turning it around in my mind like a rotisserie chicken. I constantly discover new things about the show/book/game or the characters in it. I do not read fic about this, because why would I? Every answer I search for is in the text. I want to talk about this with someone, but about what is THERE, not what could be there. Ex: The Haunting of Hill House, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Piranesi, Bioshock:Infinite, Watership Down, Yellowjackets, among others.

The concepts of this could be amazing but are handled so fucking badly so consistently, in a shocking contrast to how INCONSISTENT the character work is, that all I want to do is steal it and make it better. All i want to do is turn it into something that doesn't suck ass when you look at it too hard. So I am going to take it SO seriously, and I am going to develop the rich inner lives for these characters that they lack, with intense backstories and families and motivation for how they got to be the person we know, or know sometimes, in certain episodes or shorts. Ex: Sailor Moon and Overwatch are the biggies here obviously, this is actually not an emotion I feel very often. I don't have intense backstories and extra-textual feelings and ideas about most of the stuff I read and watch, these two are just my Spiders Georg.

So! The odds on me being into something in the correct way to make me want to Seek Treasure Elsewhere but also I have a chill enough attitude about how the characters are that Any Dream Will Do is almost nil. I do not in ANY way mean this in a shady way, but I mostly read published adult fiction for entertainment and not fanfic. I am very picky about my fanfic. So, "plus these two new red and blue girls into Starbucks" often won't work for me, because the reasons to have Haruka and Michiru meet in a coffee shop are completely different from any of the reasons Fareeha and Angela might meet in a coffee shop, and so many of those types are archtypical plug and play stuff. Honestly, I have skated the idea of making a cheat sheet of fanon archetypes of various characters and buying a typewriter to sell 100-200 word 'quick fic' at cons with my sister. That's how common it is to use these archetypes. This is not a criticism! At all!

But, to take the two couples above, I have read so much BORING SHIT about both HM and FA that I could throw up. Lesbian couples have a lot of very milquetoast writing about them, and a lot of meet-cute which isn't really my bag.

But there are authors I love! @oathkeeper-of-tarth was and is one of the best harumichi writers out there and we don't even have all the same headcanons. The rare occasions @verbforverb decides to grace me with "Jewish Mercy I don't Have To Write" I pop a can of bubbly in the tub. And on both fields of battle @keyofjetwolf has stuff I've had bookmarked for years, and there are some things even within Rei's backstory and history that we disagree on.

Actually, to that point what I like is good writing. You can write me into believing nearly anything. There are things I believe about Amelie when I'm reading @lemon-embalmer's stuff that when I go back to my own world, aren't true, but when I'm in her world who the fuck cares, I'm having a great time. EVEN MORE to the point, I read @moonlight-frittata's stupid sun and moon lesbian League of Legends shit and I would rather shoot myslef than know ANYTHING about the game, but unfortunately she has a beautiful turn of phrase and plot flow to her work that I just....read anyway, because it is good. Fucking @tallangrycockatiel had me like 25 pages or so into a story before I was like, "OH SHIT, IS THIS SLASH??? WAIT I DON'T WANT TO READ ABOUT BOYS' LOVE!! NO!!" *hits next page* And I still could not care less about that podcast and would never listen to it, and if I did I would be massively disappointed because to my mind, her John and Arthur are the actual article, and whatever the fuck is going on in the source material can eat my dick.

So, yes, I DO think that having a very particular point of view is going to mean I back out of a story where like, "Lena stepped out of her Chelsea flat, custom leather high heels clicking against the step" sometimes, or, you know, "Haruka put down her copy of War and Peace, each meticulous note codified by a color-coded tab. Blue was for historical references to research, green for character analysis, yellow for themes, blah blah blah*" But I am actually shockingly open minded in what I will read, often to the point that I'm reading stuff from SHIT I DO NOT LIKE OR CARE ABOUT, because the quality of the writing is excellent. So, also no.

*I met someone who read books like this and I suddenly realized what the literary equivalent of 'knowing someone is a serial killer' was.

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hearts401 · 2 months

Text

MY THOUGHTS ON HELLUVA BOSS AS A WHOLE

I have sooo many things to say so I’m putting it here! Unfortunately, I’m not put together enough to compile this neatly. But meh. If there’s a character that’s not here, it means either I have nothing notable to say about them, or anything I had to say has already been said in another character’s portion.

Also I’m not discussing design the only design I REALLY hate is Bee’s because it's cluttered and boring okay? Okay.

I have beef with other designs but not enough to mention

I'm mostly talking about specific characters and relationships, and other things will be talked about in those! :3

Blitzo:

Starting with Blitzo because he’s clearly Viv’s favorite.

Blitzo is actually really well written in my opinion. He’s the flawed character type Viv should apply to ALL her characters. He’s not babied by the narrative half as much as any other character, and his issues are addressed multiple times and left to fester rather than being fixed immediately.

HOWEVER

I think the whole fire being a complete accident dumbed him down a lot. For all the buildup of him being selfish, it ended up thrown out the window because he genuinely had no malicious intent. Why is Barb so aggressive with him if it wasn’t his fault? Why did Fizz attribute it to being his fault with no actual basis. For all he knew, Blitzo could’ve been dead!

His relationships with his friends, however, are much more interesting. He’s nosy and rude and frustrating to be around, but despite that they stick around. They care about him, but they also understand that he has many issues he refuses to address.

I have more thoughts but they focus on specific characters so I’ll save them for later. I like this guy a lot and I have too much to say about him.

Moxxie:

Moxxie is a great character! I think his backstory lined up nicely with how he actually acts (especially the “sir” bit. I thought that was clever, that he refers to men older than him, even his friends and people he dislikes, as “sir”)

I also understand his insecurities come from his father’s abuse and neglect.

HOWEVERRRR

I think his insecurities are too repetitive. He has THREE episodes where his insecurities need to be acknowledged and every time he goes back to the same shit. Unhappy campers was the first time Millie actually snapped at him over it and the first time it was addressed as hurting his friends (specifically his wife) just as much as it hurts him. He’s constantly needing to be picked up and reassured. Blitzo and him had a talk about his insecurities and yet. Unhappy Campers. And Harvest Moon festival hardly acknowledged his insecurities, however it did show some development at the end where he stood up to people he’d been scared to disappoint. But even then, he falls right back into it. Not only that, but he ended up getting hurt in the games because he insisted on proving himself to Millie. Millie’s never given him a reason to doubt she loves him. She’s so dedicated to him and yet they keep having this conversation.

I also don’t like how often his skills are underestimated by the narrative itself in favor of making Millie “tough” (and I’ll explain why I hate that in better detail when I get to her) and we only really get to see his skills a few times. On top of this, it undermines his role as the weapon guy. I like that he typically has a disadvantage in close combat, but even that’s not consistent! (He kills all those guys at the gas station without any real weapons) It’d be fine if him working on his close-range was actually addressed (instead of his insecurities being done for the 50th time) but it wasn’t, so it’s just. whatever.

I do like that he’s the most sympathetic out of all of them. It’s shown in the pilot first, where he’s visibly upset about hurting an innocent child (ofc he kills him later, but that's when he knows the kid clearly did something. Also he was rude to him.) Murder Family then shows it again, where he feels sympathy until given a reason not to (and even then, he still felt bad about it in the end) and it’s even shown when he was a child, sad to hurt someone he’d never even seen clearly before.

Also the fat shaming jokes aren’t funny especially when we’re supposed to treat it seriously when it happens to Fizz. Like, okay. Ur not funny.

His relationship with Blitzo is very fun as well, and I think it's funny that him being somewhat secretive about his personal life is a constant thing (He didn’t tell Millie about his family, and he doesn’t like Blitzo prying.)

Millie:

Buckle up it’s a woman so I have LOTS to say.

Viv has become kiiiinda infamous for how she treats her female characters, and unfortunately Millie is one of the worst examples.

She has very little depth. Everything I have thought out about her is inferred. I like that she doesn’t have a tragic backstory, but I think it’s weird that she seems to have several conflicts with her family that aren’t addressed.

So, I’m starting with the Inferences I’ve made.

She probably didn’t get a lot of spotlight because she has several siblings (Inferred from Unhappy campers, where she says she likes being in the spotlight for once)

Her parents, while they do love her, are very judgemental and strict based on the ending of Harvest Moon Festival, where her mother scolds her for getting hurt and Moxxie snaps at her.

And She’s competitive, based on her being banned from the games.

All of these things could’ve been easily put in if they’d focused on her instead of Moxxie’s jealousy in Harvest Moon. (Which ended up being unnecessary? It just showed us how whiny he can be tbh… And set up a rivalry against Striker that is brought up once after)

Her whole personality revolves around Moxxie. The Episode about her family revolved around Moxxie. The episode about Moxxie’s family revolved around Moxxie. Every episode about her revolves around her relationship with Moxxie. The one time she goes on a mission separate from him, it’s because he’s tied up and the episode hardly focuses on her even then, because it’s all about Blitzo and Moxxie.

This ends up affecting Moxxie’s character as well. He gets his character undermined by her being the “tough wife” because that’s her only notable trait. And it ends up affecting both of them and making it annoying to watch.

Also she has. Like. Zero genuine interactions with Blitzo. Which is a more personal nitpick but it’s still annoying. I think the only one is the one in Truth Seekers.

Also, it’s very easy to forget that Millie dated Chaz too, because we never find out why she dated him at all, or why she broke up with him. He clearly made her incredibly angry to hold a grudge for this long, but it’s all thrown out because then she suddenly only hates him because he betrayed Moxxie.

When she… Already hated him???? It’s lazy writing and pathetic.

I do like Unhappy Campers, though, and I hope the development in that episode sticks.

Loona:

GOD IM GONNA SOUND LIKE A BLITZO ASS KISSER BUT SHE PISSES ME OFF SO MUCH.

First things first, I don’t like that HER backstory was treated like a traumatic memory for BLITZO. That was dumb. Fuck off. And then it was turned into Stolitz fuel which. God.

Loona is another basic tough girl but she’s also a MEAN GIRL!!! YAAAAY…

She’s horrible. For someone who seems to “secretly care” about Blitzo, she sure does make his life kind of suck.

I could see not liking him. He DID walk into her life and place himself as her father. He’s overbearing and babies her, I GET THAT!

But she’s ridiculous. She has a whole conversation with Via about how she should forgive her dad because he does care about her and then goes and is a bitch to Blitzo again. For no reason. And then she does that stupid fucking side smile like “awww she loves that he was worried about her” i dont care actually. Its not funny and it’s dumb as hell.

Also Blitzo’s self-loathing is an issue Loona knows about better than anyone. She goes home with him and sees him cross himself out of photos. She knows he sleeps on the couch instead of taking the only room. She knows he loves her, and hates himself, and yet she doesn’t make any effort to be kind to him. The most she does is take him home when he’s drunk. But only after getting defensive when Bee asked her to maybe help him out. She made that situation about HER. Like Bee was attacking HER. WHEN ALL SHE WANTED WAS TO HELP BLITZO???

We know very little about Loona and it’s hard to sympathize with her when all we see is her being horrible to Blitzo who is flawed but trying his best.

Her aggression could be great if it was handled well, (like at the party! I liked how she was with people, it showed off who she is) but with Blitzo it feels like she has soft moments just to have them, while having very little proof she actually cares about him.

It makes her just an add-on to Blitzo and a joke. She has potential.

I’m hoping the show will clean her up a bit later on. I don’t think I’ll ever really like her, but she has potential and I DID enjoy the Queen Bee episode.

Stolas (and his family, in a way. But Stella will get her own part when I critique a few of the villains):

Technically not a main character but eh I have things to say about him.

His writing is very lazy and very. All over the place.

It’s clear they don’t want him to be hated, but in preventing that, they remove any nuance in his relationships

Stella is just an evil bitch with 0 depth to her at all and Stolas is the poor sad husband who was forced to marry her. So cheating is okay.

I actually do think he’s at least a little justified in cheating on Stella in the context the show gave us. I just think that context is lazy and he shouldn’t be justified because it removes depth from both him and his relationships.

Also, he hardly ever starts fights with Stella and it’s always Stella throwing shit around but Via acts like HE’S the shitty one? The line “Why does he hate her more than he loves me” could’ve been GREAT if we say ANY EXAMPLES OF THAT. He doesn’t scream at Stella like Octavia said he does. And she also says him cheating ruined their family but??? It’s implied Stella’s been abusive this whole time!?!??! LIKE WHAT R U ON ABOUT???

His relationship with Blitzo is nice actually. I enjoy the one-sided love and whatnot. However (and this is an issue more so with the fandom? But I feel the need to put it here)

We don’t talk enough about how Stolas abuses his power to be with Blitzo. Using the book as a way to get Blitzo to sleep with him WAS SHITTY but people don’t acknowledge that. Instead, it’s like Blitzo’s the bad guy for… Not being ready to reciprocate Stolas’s feelings????

I just. I think Stolitz is waaay too complicated for how the fandom treats it and if they just. Get together next episode I’ll be pissed.

Stella:

Not a whole lot to say. She just has very little depth. And it’s not just that (bc, all in all, characters like Crimson and Mammon also have very little depth) she’s just made to be unlikeable???

Like she’s meant to be an annoying whiny bitch… Without anything about her you can really like. Which is bad writing.

(GOD VIV MADE VALENTINO MORE LIKABLE THAN STELLA FFS)

She has zero character outside of Stolas despite being a villain. Compared to Mammon (who so far has only been in one episode and is still more likable) and Crimson (Whos character doesn’t revolve around Moxxie) she’s boring.

Crimson has a lot more going on. He has his wife, he has a whole mafia, ect. He’s got a lot going on that people (me) are excited to explore. He’s very greedy (He’s in the greed ring, after all) and he’s very persistent.

Mammon is made out to be as likable to the characters IN UNIVERSE as possible, while making comments clearly meant to be a dig at very real, greedy people. He’s portrayed as a nice guy who’s not actually nice. But not in a “he’s secretly mean” way but in a “he's very clearly mean he just says it with a good attitude”

Remember that these two have had two and one episodes respectively since being introduced. Stella’s been here since the PILOT and she has zero extra traits aside from spoiled brat and abusive wife. We know nothing about her. How did she grow up? How did she feel about getting married to Stolas? How is she with Via? (Since Via’s NEVER TALKED ABOUT HER RELATIONSHIP WITH HER MOTHER)

Also I hate her stupid brother. He literally exists to take any interesting villain traits away from her. I hate him so much.

Now I want to talk about relationships yaaaay

Millie and Moxxie I’ve already talked about thoroughly, and I’ve talked about Stolitz, so I want to discuss Blitzo with Verosika and Barb, as well as Fizz and Ozzie. (I’ve already said all I have to say about Blitzo and Fizz, that being that I think the circus situation being an accident is dumb)

I don’t think there’s much more to talk about aside from those? I dunno.

Blitzo and Verosika:

another example of shitty female writing but it’s not the WRITING exactly, it’s the presentation.

We meet Verosika and she’s IMMEDIATELY made out to be a massive bitch. Despite the fact that Blitzo fucked her over and admitted to it (and had no argument against her that ever proved she sucked in that relationship??) but she’s still presented as being terrible.

I mean, one of the first things she does is assault Moxxie which really wasn’t a necessary scene. I hate it so much. (Add it to the pile of things not taken seriously just because it’s Moxxie bc in Hazbin we’re meant to take that seriously but okay)

She’s made to be as unlikeable as possible despite how often we’re told she’s been wronged by Blitzo.

Blitzo and Barb:

Blitzo and Barb is. Complicated. I think both are in the wrong as much as everyone makes it out to be one or the other. I think it’s because we were presented with it in a weird way.

Again, this would have more impact if the fire wasn’t 100% an accident, but oh well.

I think Barb is justified in not wanting to see her brother. He is a part of her trauma, and she doesn’t want to be reminded of it. Him hunting her down was pretty shitty imo but it doesn’t make him a horrible person. Just ignorant and insensitive. But all we see is Barb yelling at him over something we later learned WASN’T HIS FAULT. It makes it hard to discuss because did she know it was an accident? Where’s their dad? How’s she been? Things that will probably be answered later, but I felt like talking about it anyways.

Fizz and Ozzie:

I have a few complaints about these two that I wanna talk about but they are, aside from Chaggie, my favorite canon hellaverse ship. Also I have a few things to say about the fandom that irritate me.

I like the pipeline of “love is stupid and you should be after lust” to “wow maybe I’m in love” but we didn’t really get to see that? I mean it felt like they were already in love in Ozzie’s so it has less impact. Also we don’t hear a whole lot actually ABOUT the idea of Asmodeous being in love from the POV of others. We see ONE newspaper headline and Blitzo calls them hypocrites and then we’ve got Mammon saying that revealing his secret was a mistake but we have nothing to make us feel like that’s true.

Also, I don’t think Fizz is infantalized the way people say he is. Like. He’s just smaller than Ozzie. And the whole like “C’mon big daddy, pwease” thing was ironic guys cmon. They were meant to look like a lovey-dovey couple because they can’t be lovey-dovey in public, that’s the point. It was to show us how little their relationship actually revolved around lust.

Also I’m a sucker for the big and tiny ship dynamic it’s funny to me <3

I do think it’s stupid that Ozzie builds the dolls despite knowing how uncomfortable Fizz is with them, although I suppose it could’ve been Fizz who insisted it was fine. But still, they don’t expand on that at all. If you don’t like it, why’d you do it? It’s not like Ozzie needs to do what Mammon tells him. He’s a sin, just like him!

And a lot of ppl keep misinterpreting the scene where Ozzie tells Fizz he doesn’t have to leave. I saw some people saying “oh fizz looks upset! Hes upset Ozzie said that!” he was upset because he felt bad for worrying him. He looks sad before apologizing. That’s the point. And we know from the special that what Ozzie said didn’t even hold up! “Oh he asked Blitzo to guard him!” that’s not why he called Blitzo we literally KNOW that was an excuse. Blitzo just happens to also be good at guarding him.

I DO think Ozzie can be overbearing, but tbh if you write a relationship (especially between a deadly sin and his famous imp bf) there’s gonna be issues. It’s not gonna be perfect. You can tell they disagree on things (“I know you’re not big on the whole Mammon thing”) and that’s how relationships are.

I also think the Fizz stuff got shoved on us way too fast. I mean, before all we knew about him was that he had possibly known Blitzo and that he was famous. And he was in a relationship(?) of sorts with Ozzie.

And then suddenly we get his backstory and then we get his whole thing with Mammon within two episodes. I just wish there’d been more buildup? Hell, we know more about these two than we do about LOONA. Which is so annoying.

AAAANYWAYS There’s probably more I could talk about, but this is what I really cared about so. Eh. Thanks for reading!!!!!!!

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