#also I Know the chapter structure is kinda bad and chapter 1 & 2 could very much be just 1

[random-meme-bot]

An Idea for an Isekai that just appeared in my head and I can't stop thinking about :

Episode 1

The anime starts like any other Isekai, the main character (MC), talks about how boring their life is and how he would prefer to live in a fantasy world similar to those of videogames. While crossing the street, the traffic light changes unexpectedly from green to red, leading to MC getting run over by a truck. After dying, he meets God, who tells him about how his death was an accident caused by a being from another world who had escaped to earth. Since he wasn't supposed to die yet, God lets him reincarnate into the fantasy world to take the place of the person who killed him. MC now awakens in the fantasy world as a powerful magician.

End of Episode 1

Episode 2

MC makes lots of different friends and enemies in the town in which he woke up. The chapter ends with MC getting run over by a carriage, killing him.

End Of episode 2

Episode 3

MC meets the God of the other world, who tells him that he feels sorry for the fact that he didn't even get to experience one full day, so he will be reencarnating him into a wonderful world of technology. MC wakes up on Earth on a hospital bed. Doctors tell MC that he was run over by a truck and that he is lucky to have survived. Time jumps to when MC leaves the hospital, and he is unsure whether everything in the magical world was real or just a dream. That's until MC sees a person wearing clothes similar to the ones he had in the other world. The person enters an alley and says some words in a language the MC swears he has never heard but somehow knows they mean "teleport." The other person is nowhere to be found when MC arrives at the alley.

end of episode 3

The anime is now about MC trying to find the person that escaped from the fantasy world and caused his death in hopes of finding a way back to the fantasy world. On his journey, he will meet various people from other worlds who have reincarnated on Earth.

[myheroblogs]

Thoughts on 306

Okay, I swear I went through the 5 stages of grief with this chapter. It was almost like I stopped funtioning from this-

I knew of the leaks, but decided to talk about this on the day of the official release, since the scans aren't 100% accurate.

I guess it wasn't exactly "chapter" but the last "act".

Reminds me of the post that I was going to make that's now abandoned in my drafts (ha)

We're not necessarily in the "last arc", as there are still way too many things to include in the story.

It seems we're probably in the last act of the overall narrarive of the story. If don't know what I mean, think about that "3-Act-Structure" in narratives. Act 1 is the Set-Up, Act 2 is the Confrontation, and Act 3 is the Resolution.

We're now in the 3rd Act. The "Return of the Jedi" phase of the story. Act 1 ended with the torch being passed on after the first OFA vs AFO fight, mentor vs mentor. Now, Act 2 concluded with successor vs successor, after the second OFA vs AFO fight. I would assume Act 3 (or the overall story) may end sometime after the final OFA vs AFO fight, a fight including all users.

It's interesting that both Act 1 and Act 2 appear to be 3 Seasons each for the anime. This chapter may go into the very end of Season 6, around 3 Seasons after All Might and All For One first fought in the anime, All Might retured and passed on the baton to the future generations.

If this final act follows this same pattern, we can expect around 5-6 main story arcs left in the Manga, which is still a long way to go, and each one could vary in length. The final story arc may just be the aftermath of the final OFA vs AFO, so technically we probably have 4-5 arcs before the final showdown.

Now putting that aside, there's now Midoriya dropping out...

Okay, this is just heartbreaking- 😭

This kind of setup with Midoriya is pretty interesting, storywise. Now in the story as well, it's kinda needed for his character.

I don't know about you guys, I'm not saying that Midoriya hasn't gotten any character development. However, it feels like he didn't get much emotional character development, like Todoroki or Bakugo. This may be the Deku-centric arc that we've been waiting for. Or it may be the arc after this, who knows.

I've also seen a lot of people talking that Bakugo Katsuki possibly going after him. I agree with this, but I believe it'll be done at a later date instead. At a time where Midoriya needs saving.

Do you really think that someone like BAKUGO, the only other guy who knows about OFA, who was also in the same hospital as Midoriya and Todoroki at the time, would've been kept out of something like this?

I think Bakugo would've known. Maybe that's why he's not shown. Heck, he may even still be at the hospital. If he really came with Midoriya, he wouldn't be THIS depressed with eyebags under his eyes.

Midoriya's choice of leaving felt so... off to me. Not that it's bad, it's ENTIRELY reasonable. The reason why it felt so wrong was because it kinda parallels Nana's own choice of leaving her son. You all know how this went.

All Might or Midoriya himself could've made Bakugo (and possibly Todoroki too) to promise to not go after him, just like how Nana made All Might and Gran Torino to not to go after her son.

Perhaps both need to be away from each other for a while.

I've seen people suggest the idea that Midoriya may start seeing the flaws of society through this arc where he goes out on his own, when he gets exposed to the harshness of the outside world, unfiltered. This may indeed be the direction for Midoriya, where he'll learn of the people failed through society's system.

However, it'll also be interesting while Midoriya learns of the people failed through this hero system, Bakugo and the others learn of what caused this system to fail. Because society only relied on this one pillar for support, and when this pillar falls, it all just falls down. The best place to probably learn of this is to be at the centre of it all, and UA, now full of heroes of the new generation, is at the centre.

It's interesting that Uraraka may have been the one narrating this chapter, hinted with how the text here says "Deku-kun" in JP.

She just so happens to be one of those characters who wants to support other heroes. About the same as Bakugo.

The topic of going after Midoriya would also bring some interesting topics that may parallel the Kamino accident where the students decided to go after Katsuki. And then they'll probably be faced with a question similar to what Deku faced in the previous chapter. Even if they want to go after him, even if they want to save him, does Midoriya want them to? Because we all know that Midoriya may end up blaming himself if they go after him and something happens to them and make him more upset than before. It's a very interesting topic to be brought up, facing the question of "Reaching out to save someone vs Someone reaching out to be saved", which is a very interesting topic to go into in the future.

Also, Midoriya isn't going out entirely on his own. This chapter just so happens to occur right after the conversation of the vestiges. This is the last line the First User told him beforehand.

There's been a lot of emphasis on these vestiges being there for Midoriya. Even if there's 2 vestiges just moping in the back there, there's still 6 of them willing to help him out.

From the beginning, I've always been interested in how First User will interact with Midoriya. This is because it seems like Horikoshi is setting them up as foils or parallels in a way. I thought there's a chance that at some point, the vestiges may fully take charge of mentoring Midoriya, but I didn't know how that'll go. (I assumed it could be through All Might's death, honestly)

It's kinda convenient that they suddenly could be able to talk to him now without anything hindering them now. I think this is so that they can now freely mentor him at any time. Also, Midoriya could probably still reconnect with All Might as its also revealed he can now feel what's going on with the vestige realm to some extent, so it's not that they're completely out of touch.

Anyways, that's a wrap of what I'm gonna talk about for now. I'll probably make a seperate post about Midoriya's character (and probably Heroes in general) from this point on in the story.

(Or it could just get abandoned like the counless of drafts I have here, haha...)

Well, see you guys in the next one!

[outro-tearist]

paws of paradise - chapter 3 {bangtan ot7 x reader}

hi!!!!!!!! it's been a little longer than i thought to update this, but here it is! it's also summer so updates hopefully will be more frequent as i dont have school to worry about!

as per usual, i'd appreciate comments, thoughts, suggests, anons, anything! have a great day!

~silver🤍🌙

chap 1 chap 2 chap 3

------------------------------------------------

Thinking.

That was what (Y/N) was doing, and had been doing for the past- How long had it been? The coldness that crept up onto Jimin had only happened yesterday, but the guilt overwhelmed her the more that she had thought about it. It felt like the incident had happened days ago when all she could think about was the crestfallen look Jimin had given her before he raced out of her shop.

It wasn’t his fault that he looked at Taehyung like he hung the stars in the sky. He was a gorgeous man, not to mention the genuine kindness he had shown any person he came across. It was hard to admit, but she had been very obviously jealous. Not only did that embarrass her, but it also made her feel worse for thinking those awful things about a dog owner just wanting to get his precious baby’s hair cut.

She decided to close the shop for today, officially saying she “needed more supplies”, but privately she knew she would not be able to focus.

Oh my god, Yoongi definitely saw her acting like a fool too! The blood that had flooded her cheeks seemed to swirl restlessly even more, just begging to be noticed and called out. He luckily hadn’t mentioned anything, probably to spare the shame she would feel in the moment.

Poor Jimin… He hadn’t done anything.... (Y/N) was being selfish and she recognized it as soon as they made eye contact. His appearance had startled her.

“Jimin! Hey..” (Y/N) started nervously as she saw the man enter through the back door like he usually did. He seemed shocked that he had been found so quickly, but awkwardly smiled back at his coworker.

“Oh. Yeah, hey.” Jimin said shortly. His curt tone had honestly hurt (Y/N) a little bit, but she took in a small breath and persevered.

‘It’s your fault he’s being distant,’ a horrible voice whispered in the back of her head. ‘He deserves more than you, someone better… someone more like Taehyung.’ It whispered again.

“I am so sorry about yesterday… I didn’t mean to dismiss you like that, I just- well, I got some bad news?” her last sentence sounded more like a question than an excuse, but Jimin had obviously softened after hearing her jittery voice.

“(Y/N), it’s not a problem. It did hurt my feelings, but I’m glad you’re telling me this now. I wish you would’ve told me earlier, but I won’t force you to tell me anything you don’t want to,” his smooth voice had felt like honey to her ears, slowly melting all her fears and anxieties that she had about not being forgiven.

Unfortunately, they quickly appeared again when rethinking her shitty excuse.

How was she supposed to explain that the “bad news” she had received was watching the man in front of her look so happy with someone else? It was an awful excuse and Jimin might be worried about her. (Y/N) would have to tell Jimin more about it later, she figured. All she had cared about at this point was just to get on speaking terms with her crush-- no. Her coworker.

“Thank you so much. Seriously. I don’t know what I would do without you, Jiminie.” (Y/N) tried to express her sincerity, but she was never the best with words anyways. It was all that she could muster up even with her head clogged with the image of Taehyung and Jimin practically glowing as they stared at each other.

Still, Jimin could seemingly read into her soul, knowing that she was as genuine as she could be through her words. She could not take her eyes off his kind eyes and perfectly shaped eyebrows and structured face and plump lips and...

“You know I’d do anything to help you, honey. All you need to do is to say the words.”

Pulse quickening and face warming, (Y/N) knocked herself out of her trance once the word “honey” had left Jimin’s lips. Maybe this little work crush was turning out to be a little bigger than she thought…

She giggled like an airhead in response, and if Jimin had seen the bright flush that had spread across her face and neck, he didn’t show any signs other than a slight smirk.

“This is kinda sudden, but um… Can I hug you?” (Y/N) shyly asked. If Jimin’s excited face said anything, the warm hug that had enveloped her completely confirmed everything she thought she saw.

He gently cradled her head in one hand as his other arm pulled her into his surprisingly built chest from the shoulders. He smelled of vanilla and another gentle sweet scent that (Y/N) couldn't put her finger on. It didn’t matter now. What did matter, though, was the feeling of Jimin’s head digging into the top of her head and how he deeply inhaled. Letting out a content hum, (Y/N) wrapped both her arms around his waist and snuggled into the crook of his neck.

“Out of curiosity… where did you have to go yesterday?” (Y/N) asked into Jimin’s neck. He shivered for a split second, before responding:

“Oh, Taehyung asked me if I wanted to spend the day together. That’s why I popped in yesterday, he told me we could meet up in the shop then grab some food or someth- is everything okay?” Jimin’s perplexed and concerned voice inquired above her.

As soon as he said Taehyung, (Y/N) froze up. He skipped work, where he would be with her and the cute dogs and be getting paid, just to see Taehyung.

‘It doesn’t mean that much,’ she tries to reassure herself. ‘He’s just wanting to see possibly the most gorgeous man you have ever seen in your life. It means nothing.’

‘Liar. He doesn’t want to hang out with you.’ The mean voice in her head spat back.

“(Y/N)?” Jimin tried to pull away and bent down to see her face. “Was it something I said?”

“NO! I mean, no. I’m just. Glad you got to get out for the day. How was it?” (Y/N) forced herself to smile and look back into Jimin’s furrowed eyebrows.

“I guess it was good, but I was still pretty worried about you. Are you sure you’re okay…?” Jimin tried again, but (Y/N) shook her head defiantly.

“Yes, I’m sure I’m good right now. Give me the juicy deets about you and Tae yesterday!” (Y/N) once again forced herself into the supportive best friend role. Jimin deserves a great person to be with him, and if that person is Kim Taehyung before it’s her, she will help her coworker in any way she could.

(Why did it hurt so much when she referred to Jimin as her coworker?)

A blush formed its way across his cheeks as he thought about the patience his TaeTae showed him after he was swamped with thoughts of (Y/N) and if she was ok.

“It was really nice… he’s a great guy and I really like being with him. He just- he gets me in ways I feel like nobody else does, y’know?” Jimin softly admits as he finds a seat next to one of the grooming stations.

(Y/N) feels faint. She basically crumbles onto the ground right in front of Jimin. She looks up at him expectantly, waiting for more information that would completely destroy her heart.

‘That was you. You were the person who got me as nobody else has.’ She thought somberly, wishing she could voice out her feelings to Jimin. ‘Was I not enough?’

“He’s so patient and understanding and… I could talk about him all day,” Jimin sighs dreamily as he rests his beautiful cheek into his palm, “It might be a little soon, but I think he might be my soulmate.”

(Y/N) physically recoiled. This was the slap in her face that she had been expecting, but him voicing his feelings was like a horrible moment of finality. She tried to play her flinch off as getting dog hair off her clothes, and Jimin hadn’t even thought twice about it.

Fuck. That cut way too deep, way more than she had prepared for. She keeps her head low so Jimin can’t try to make any eye contact.

“I’m really happy for you Jiminie.” (Y/N) says dully, but with some sincerity. “You seem to be so much happier when he’s around. You deserve this.”

Jimin’s adorable teeth flashed at her as a full smile graced his already perfect face. “You really think so? Wait, is it that obvious?!”

“You look at each other like you’re meant to be. You two must be soulmates!” (Y/N) grits out despite the tears wanting to well. “You have to tell him and let me know what happens!!”

“I’m gonna call him and see if he wants to hang out again tonight! You’re the best, honey, I love you!” he shouts as he runs out of the back.

She can’t even manage a response as she walks to the back door, shuts it, and locks it.

(Y/N) can’t see straight. She can’t think straight either, as she whips out her cell phone and dials the first contact she sees on her phone. She hadn’t even meant to call anyone, truly, but it was too late to stop her sluggish mind from pressing onto a name.

“Hello?” Min Yoongi answers the phone. A response doesn’t come, except for a loud sniffle and another sob. “(Y/N)-ssi? What’s wrong?”

The dog groomer barely knows this man, how he even got into her contacts was beyond her, but all she wanted was somebody next to her.

“Can you- can- come here please? The shop?” (Y/N) barely got the words out of her sore throat but Yoongi seems to understand them.

“I- Ok, I’ll be there in about 10 minutes. Do you want to stay on the line with me?” he asks the sobbing girl gently. His soft voice was soothing and nice, but it didn’t matter much.

She couldn’t respond. Her head was filled with three words. Three words that meant so much that hurt so much just because of the context.

I love you.

Taunting and repeating in her head for seemingly hours, until the front door jingled. She saw Yoongi burst into the store quickly and that was the last thing she saw before she closed her puffy and swollen eyes.

[unforth]

Are there issues with svsss and consent (Just things I’ve heard I wanna know before I read it invade it’s rly not my thing lmfao) or are they more “issues” like in mdzs?

Hmm...okay, so I read SVSSS a bit ago, and pretty quickly, but the answer is basically...yes there are consent issues but I honestly think they’re actually more mild than in MDZS? But it’s also a little complicated, and some of them are different issues...

(spoilers under the read more)

Okay. So, on an overarching plot level, I can think of three potential things that might lead people to say there are consent issues related to the main ship, Shen Qingqiu and Luo Binghe. Note that I haven’t really seen any posts on this topic so I don’t, like, know what issues people single out? I’m pretty much just guessing.

1. Shen Qingqiu is an advanced cultivator and a teacher. Luo Binghe is considerably younger, and his student. This, obviously, could be seen as problematic. However, I personally didn’t feel it was (even though I’m personally sensitive to this dynamic and generally uncomfortable with it) for a few reasons:

a. Shen Qingqiu has absolutely no idea that Luo Binghe is crushing on him when they’re young. He’s as clueless as can be. (I’ll explain why when I get to “thing two that might make people think it’s problematic”). Like, to a reader who knows where things are going, it’s pretty darn obvious, but Shen Qingqiu is entirely fixated on a belief that Luo Binghe is developing a relationship with another disciple named Ning Yingying, and while he’s occasionally confused, like, “huh why did that happen?” he really is absolutely clueless. 

b. Then, for plot reasons, they’re separated for five years...and when Luo Binghe returns, Shen Qingqiu thinks Luo Binghe hates him (for  plot reasons), and then they’re separated AGAIN for another five years (or maybe it was 3? something like that) and only then does Shen Qingqiu finally realize he’s massively misunderstood literally everything. So...they haven’t had a student/teacher dynamic for about a decade by the time they actually start having a relationship.

c. While their apparent age difference is pretty big, their actual age difference isn’t, because...

2. Alright, so the basic premise of SVSSS is that a young man named Shen Yuan dies after reading a stag/harem novel, and then wakes up and discovers that he’s been transplanted into the novel he was reading...in the role of one of the villains. From that point forward, the older man “Shen Qingqiu” is actually Shen Yuan. Shen Yuan is still older than Luo Binghe, but less so...Luo Binghe is roughly 14 or 15 when the book starts, and Shen Yuan is probably 20 or 21. Now, that might be an awkward age difference if they started a relationship right away, but as I say above - years and years pass before anything happens. First, the story advances by about 4 years (give or take, it might be more even) before their first separation, and then ten more years pass before they get together. So at the point when Luo Binghe and Shen Yuan (in the body of Shen Qingqiu) actually get together, Luo Binghe is probably around 30 and Shen Yuan is probably around 36, which...that age difference is not significant between two adults, imo. 

Further, because Shen Yuan “knows” what happens in the novel, he also knows - it was a stag harem novel. So instead of seeing Luo Binghe’s behavior toward him and thinking, “oh no my student has a crush on me,” he spends ALL the time before the separation being like, “oh, Ning Yingying - she’s in his harem! Oh, that other character - also in his harem! Aw look, first meeting with a member of the harem! Oh oh look he’s talking to a harem member.” He has absolutely no fucking clue and it’s ridiculous.

However, all that said...Luo Binghe never actually finds out that Shen Yuan isn’t the same person as Shen Qingqiu, or that Shen Yuan is even in there. It’s clear in the extras that basically everyone who knew Shen Qingqiu figured out that something had changed and collectively decided... “well the change was for the better so uh let’s just not do anything about it okay?” Luo Binghe isn’t part of that conversation, so it could be argued that while Luo Binghe consented to be in a relationship with Shen Qingqiu, he never consented to be with Shen Yuan. It’s a weak argument, though, since Shen Yuan’s arrival is what derails the original harem plot of the “novel” and causes Luo Binghe to fall in love with Shen Qingqiu - so Luo Binghe never loved the original Shen Qingqiu, he always loved the Shen Yuan version of Shen Qingqiu. So...there is a minor consent issue here since Luo Binghe doesn’t know but it’s small.

3. Now, the third point also relates to the Shen Qingqiu/Shen Yuan divide. Shen Qingqiu BEFORE he becomes Shen Yuan is a nasty piece of work, and is highly abusive toward Luo Binghe. Early on, Shen Yuan is kinda...forced...to continue being abusive? Like, there’s this computer System that’s forcing Shen Yuan to “stay in character,” and he’ll literally die (again, for real and permanently this time) if he doesn’t do things at least somewhat like Shen Qingqiu would. But as soon as he “levels up” high enough that he is “allowed” to behave out of character compared to Shen Qingqiu, he stops being abusive and goes out of his way to help and support Luo Binghe. Now, despite that, I could see a case being made that the weird combination of “highly abusive toward” and then “nice” could be seen as manipulative and gaslighty, so that would open up another potential avenue for consent issues.

Now, on a specific “things that happen” event, all of the ACTUAL consent issues are in the other direction - Luo Binghe toward Shen Qingqiu. Cause Luo Binghe is...kinda a whiny bitch...and he is not very good at taking no for an answer. Like, at one point he literally kidnaps Shen Qingqiu and holds him prisoner. Actually wait, he does that at two separate points. And he always kinda...bullies...Shen Qingqiu in a way that pushes into Shen Qingqiu’s comfort zone.

Further, their first time is flat-out fuck or die (Luo Binghe is the top in the book and Shen Qingqiu is the bottom). That’s explicit, it’s not played as romantic, and Shen Qingqiu doesn’t enjoy it and doesn’t pretend to enjoy it. That’s not to say he’s unwilling - by that point it’s fairly clear he’d like to have sex with Luo Binghe in other circumstances, but it’s very rough and injures him pretty badly, there’s no prep, etc., so it’s not a good experience and it’s not treated as one, but Shen Qingqiu does volunteer because it’s important to him to prevent the “die” part. Luo Binghe feels bad afterwards. Reading it actually gave me more appreciation of MDZS because the scene made it clear that MXTX really does understand consent in ways that hadn’t been clear to me when I read the translation of MDZS.

In general...these two communicate for shit, and so things are never as clear cut as they should be. Also, at least for me personally, I never really fully “bought” that Shen Qingqiu was in love with Luo Binghe. Like, he’s affectionate and indulgent, but in romantic love? I dunno. So in that regard their being a thing always left me a little...unsure...maybe? But that’s a personal preference, and I’m sure there are others who felt differently, and it also might read differently in a different translation or in the original Chinese.

As an aside, there is a side ship which isn’t featured prominently in the novel but is significantly developed in the extras (like, a lot of the extras are literally about them, instead of the main ship). ngl...I wasn’t very interested in them so I didn’t read all their extras? So I couldn’t say for sure? But certainly, those two have some huge power level differences that I could see leading to consent issues, and also, one of them is also from “the real world” and transported in the “novel” (he’s the author) so that also adds a layer of complication.

Sorry if this is confusing...it’s not the easiest book to explain to someone unfamiliar with it. 

tl:dr, I personally didn’t think the consent issues were severe; the structural ones (ie, age difference and teacher/student) might LOOK severe on the surface but aren’t as the story is executed, and the “actual” consent issues (ie the fuck or die) are handled, at least in my opinion, better and more clearly than the ones in MDZS were.

Everyone else reading this...did I miss anything? I can’t think of anything else but my memory is so fucking shot that I can’t say I trust me as much as I’d like to.

Overall, I think it’s my least favorite of the three novels, not because it’s bad but because it just doesn’t quite feel...finished. Like, it’s such an interesting idea, and MXTX does a masterful job of twisting tropes throughout it, and more than either of the other books, it improved my opinion of her as a writer, but it feels a little incomplete, like maybe it was more story than she was actually ready to write? Like...she had this idea and she wasn’t quite a good enough writer to see it through to it’s logical conclusion yet, but all the pieces were there, so the potential is through the rough but the execution is a little lacking. Especially, the ending felt a bit rushed/abrupt to me. Then again, I feel that way constantly so some of that was probably me, I like a lot of denouement at the end of a story. (My favorite is TGCF, with MDZS in second and SVSSS in a close third...purely as a novel I didn’t like MDZS all that much but some of that was probably a translation issue.)

ANYWAY.

I’ll stop now.

If, after all that, you’re interested in reading it, I read two translations:

1. This translation, hosted on Tumblr, is really good but still a work in progress (they’ve released like four chapters since I read it in October.) I thought it was excellent and really enjoyed it.

2. Since that one wasn’t finished, I read the rest and the extras here. It was also good, but not quite as good in my opinion.

Hope this helps!

[heyheydidjaknow]

For anyone who is wondering why I deleted the chapters, I was very tired and forgot what tenses were, so I had to go back and change it all, and that is a pain on Tumbr. Tumblr also, apparently, either has a character or word limit, so this is our first 2 parter. I know I could just separate them into chapters, but I feel weird about making a whole chapter devoted to a date, so.

Edit: Who was gonna tell me I misspelled Casey?

Chapter 6 Pt 1

Leo sighs. “Okay, the fact that this will be the second creepiest stunt you’ve pulled this week says a lot.”

“Relax.” Donatello draws another line. “If she has a map of the foreseeable future and showed it to me, it obviously makes sense that I should answer in kind.”

“But,” Raphael points out, “this is the most desperate thing he’s done this week.”

“Zip it.” He caps his pen, holding his diagram up and walking off to his newly obtained whiteboard. “Besides, it’s not a comprehensive flow chart—attempting to list every possible conversation thread would be futile. It's simply a visual aid to remember the general actions I should take in any given situation.” Although you have been promising to “teach him a thing or two” about plot structure one on one, a part of him thinks it appropriate to make the first move. It appears to be the gallant thing to do, anyhow.

Mikey hops over the table, following one of the paths with his finger. “How come you have a shark on this one?”

“Oh,” he nods, “that’s in case she decides to go to the beach and gets attacked by a shark.”

“And why are there these Xs on this one?”

“That signifies the end of one of our lives.”

“And the hearts?”

He blushes. “I’m not answering that.”

Raph shudders. “Man, this just feels gross. I can already feel the secondhand disgust.”

“Raphael,” Donatello sighs, “love is a complex enigma that, if not thoroughly considered and tailored, will crumble before your very eyes. I cannot and will not destroy what little relationship we have by being reckless. Besides,” he scoffs, “in what other possible manner could I ask her out?”

“Hey, Y/N,” Leo offers, “let’s hang out.”

“See, that’s too pedestrian.” He gestures to the poster. “Trust in the—”

You slam through the door. Donnie, apparently panicked, flips the board over with fumbling hands. “H-hey, Y/N. Hey.” He stands up properly, clearing his throat. “Hey.”

You point at him. “How do you feel about busting a corrupt disgrace to the title of scientist?”

“Good!” He peaks at his board, trying to steal himself. “Where are we headed?”

“A neuroscientist by the name of Rockwell got mutated.” You start heading out. “Asshole in question is Victor Falco, AKA Feral Falco, AKA The Rat King if we don’t haul ass. He’s at Rockwell’s lab.”

“Awesome. Let’s go.” He runs after you, shooting a thumbs-up back at his brothers.

You are going to murder a man tonight. Probably. Hopefully not. Depends on how hard it is to wreck his shit. You have been stalking the Channel 6 news for about a week now, waiting for the jackass to show up, and now that he has? You are not about to let him become the monster you knew he could and would become.

“So,” Donnie startles you, lost in thought, “how was your first day of class?”

“It was fine. Met Casey, avoided Irma like the plague, all that jazz.” You turn a right.

“Casey?”

“Casey Jones. Hockey player, real bad at math.”

“A guy?” He seems interested in this subject for some reason.

“Yup.” You reach into your bag, wrapping your fingers around your kitchen knife, hands already shaking. If you must kill him, you will make it quick. “My age.”

“Oh.” He sighs. “That’s… nice.”

‘Can I just take him to the police? I don't have any evidence. This is breaking and entering.’

He clears his throat. “Y/N?”

“Hm?”

“We’re here.”

You look up at the building, sigh. “So we are.”

He moves in front of you, moving to meet you at eye-level. “Is there anything I need to know before we go in?”

You take a deep breath. “The man in the lab coat is the perp. We need to take him down, first and foremost. He may act a fool, but he’s accountable for the mutation of his partner. We either have to incapacitate, convict or, if necessary, kill him.”

He swallows. “This guy is that bad?”

“Not yet.” You start pulling the knife out properly as you push the door open with your clothed arm. “But it’s best to pull a weed out from the root.”

He follows you closely.

You look down at your phone to double-check that this is the offending room. “Here.” You back up, gesturing to the door eccentrically, heart pounding in your chest. “This is the room.”

He approaches you, brow furrowed. “Y/N,” he asks cautiously, “don’t take this the wrong way, but you look sick. Are you alright?”

You nod. “Nervous is all. Haven’t done this sort of thing before.”

He offers a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry.” He gives you a thumbs up. “I’ll be with you every step of the way, alright?”

Your knuckles go white around the grip as you try to release some tension. ‘Don’t choke. That’s his job.’ “Yeah.” You return it. “Oh, are you free tomorrow night? I still have to give you that lesson.”

His face lights up. “Y-yeah! Totally!” He grins eagerly. “Should I go to your place? At what time?”

“We’ll hash out the details on the way back.” You look prominently to the lock. “Now, I take it you have some gadget or gizmo to help us open this bad boy?”

He kneels, pulling a device from the utility belt on his hip and sliding it into the card reader. “Of course.”

The door lets out a harsh buzz, the light turning green. You pull your sleeve forward onto your hand, pushing the door open.

The room smells like metal and mold and decay, a certain lethality hanging in the air when you enter. You stay close to the wall, pulling down a lever to illuminate the harsh laboratory in an even harsher light. And there, caught frozen as he pockets a vial, is Victor Falco.

His eyes flicker towards the door.

You tackle him to the ground, shifting your weight back onto his legs, and pin his arms above his head. “Donnie,” you call, stopping his struggling with a knife pressed against his neck, “would you be so kind as to find a few things for me? I can tell you where they are in the room, but I’m a bit preoccupied.”

“Uh, sure.” His voice sounds strange to you. Tight. Nervous? Confused? You ignore it for now.

“What is the meaning of this,” the scientist bellows from underneath you. “I demand you give me an explanation!”

“Oh be quiet, traitor.” You press the blade against his skin. “We both know the crime you’ve committed against your partner.”

His eyes widen.

You keep your eyes locked on him at all times. “The first thing you’re looking for is a container of mutagen. When you get to the desk, you should see 2 stacks of drawers.”

You do not hear his footsteps. “Mhm.”

“The bottom left drawer has a false bottom. If you pull it up, you’ll find a canister of mutagen.”

You hear the drawer slide open, the shuffling of papers. “Got it.”

“Fantastic. Now, on the desk should be a flash drive belonging to Rockwell. Grab that.”

“How could you possibly know?” You feel his wrist tense as he clenched his fist. “I was so thorough.”

“I’m psychic,” you lie, smiling coldly. “Be happy I met you here and not in your home.”

“Anything else?”

“Whatever is in his pockets, besides car keys and a wallet. You’re getting new chemicals.”

The doctor does not seem to like that idea. He starts writhing underneath you.

“If you don’t stop moving,” you sigh, bringing the knife up and down quickly, hovering over his left eye, “you, a neuroscientist, will have the pleasure of discovering firsthand if what people say about losing your depth perception is true. See, I’ve always heard that it settles, but I’m more than happy to see it happen firsthand if you’ll indulge me.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“You aren’t sure.” You chuckle darkly, fingers wrapping tighter still around his wrists. “I don’t need to be a psychic to feel your shaking.”

Out of the corner of your eye, you see a green blob crouch down, pulling vials from his pockets.

“You’re a child.”

“And yet I’m the one holding a knife to you.” ‘Why am I so calm?’ “You’re selfish. You’re prideful. You won’t try anything because I know you to be cowardly, and you won’t say anything,” you nod, “because, if you did, you would have to admit to breaking into your missing partner’s lab, and deal with the backlash regarding me and my associate bringing that hard drive to the police and letting them connect the dots.” You smile sweetly. “Donnie, would you be so kind as to get some distance between you and Mr. Falco?” You do not look over at him, focused on the current task. “If he pulls anything, you need to be able to bring that to the police.”

“Got it.” A few seconds pass. “I’m by the door.”

You slide the carving knife in that general direction. “Goodnight, Falco.” You grab his hair, slamming his head against the ground once as you leap to your feet. You grab the knife, sprinting towards the door. “And that is our cue to leave.”

Donatello, who is having interesting feelings about the whole thing, appears to have been snapped out of some sort of trance. He nods, and the both of you exit the scene.

--

You wipe your mouth on your sleeve, shaking as you rest your chin on the edge of the dumpster. “T-thanks,” you smile shakily. “I appreciate it, really.”

“Not at all.” He let your locks fall from his hand. “I imagine it’s hard, what with having hair and all.” He helps you down from your perch on a stack of crates. “Are you feeling alright now?”

“Besides my mouth tasting like stomach acid? Never better.” You sigh, rubbing your face with your hands. “Sorry. The nerves just kinda…” you trail off, cheeks dusted pink. “Well, you get the idea.”

“It’s alright, really.” He smiles fondly. “You were really bold in there. It was really cool.”

“I don’t feel cool. I feel the opposite of cool.” You start down the alleyway. “But at least we stopped a ton of problems in its tracks.”

You hear a primal cry as a large primate lands in front of you.

You look him in the eyes, already tired of this episode. “Good evening, Dr. Rockwell.”

His eyes snap to Donatello, who was already unsheathing his bo staff. You look over your shoulder at him. “Chill out. He’s cool.”

“He’s a giant monkey!”

“Dude, he’s a well-esteemed scientist.” You turn to face him properly, holding his arms out to get some proper separation. “Put the effin stick down.”

“But—” He stops, takes a deep breath, and sheathes the staff. “Alright. I’ll trust you.” He seems almost disturbed by your apparent ease.

You turn back to face him properly, smiling. “Doctor,” you nod, “your partner will be of no concern to you from this point onward. Rest assured; his research has been halted.” Your tone is politely respectful.

The wild eyes of the primate calm. He seems to at least sense the general sentiment. He nods once, leaping up onto the nearest rooftop and disappearing into the night.

You nod in satisfaction, looking back at the stunned Donatello.

“He calmed down so easily.”

“He has a human mind, for the most part.” You shrug, continuing down the alley. “Let’s head back. Man, if you dad knew the kind of trouble I just got him out of.” You giggle at his dumbstruck expression, walking backward to keep facing him. “Well, are you just gonna stand there lookin pretty or are you going to come with?”

His face goes red. He nods once, hurrying after you.

You two walk quietly for a little over a minute. “Hey, uh, can I ask you something?”

“Totally.” You decide to bite the bullet and pull of the manhole cover. “What’s up?”

“Why do you call him that?”

“Call who what?” You start climbing down.

“You know, not call him Master Splinter.” He pulls the cover back on, landing beside you. “You always call him my dad or Yoshi or Mr. Hamato.”

“Well,” you shrug, “he’s your dad, right?”

“I’m not saying it’s a problem,” he clarified, “or that’s it’s incorrect, but most people—myself included—refer to him as Master Splinter.”

You start walking with him. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Donnie,” you sigh, “but, if I can help it, I honestly hope I never have to call him that.”

“Why?” He walks beside you, eyes tracing your figure subtlety.

“Didn’t I already say?” You nod back in the direction you guys came from. “You saw how I acted back there. This is only episode six or seven. The trauma I’d have to go through as a ninja here would kill me,”

“But you have the guts for it.” His voice is certain. “You’re strong enough, mentally, to be a ninja.”

You pause, your throat catching. You wonder if he would still think so if he had seen how you had spent your nights.

He clears his throat, blushing again. “I think you are, anyway.”

You wrap your arms around his neck, burying your face in the crook of his neck silently. You feel him seize up under you. “Thank you,” you mumble.

He slowly relaxes, snaking his arms around your waist and pulling you closer. He rests his head on top of yours gently. Slowly, he buries his hand in your hair. He is always so warm— he makes you feel oddly safe. This is only the second time you have been this physically close to him, but you don’t think for a moment that he would try anything.

You back off, clearing your throat as your cheeks catch fire. “Sorry,” you smile timidly. “I’ve just been… I’m not usually this clingy.”

He blinks out of his stupor, looking down at you. “Huh? Oh, don’t worry about it.” He grinned giddily, almost drunk. “Y-You are all good.”

You swallow. “I’ve gotta do an introduction type project for school, so I gotta get back home.” You walk back in the direction you two came. “Come to my place at about seven tomorrow. I’ll order food.”

He nods, body relaxed. “Seven. Got it.” He does.

You wave, walking back to the ladder. “Then I’ll see you then.”

He stands there, watching you leave. As soon as he hears the sliding of the manhole cover back into place, he takes a moment to celebrate the victory before starting to walk back to the lair.

‘I got a date!’

Table of Contents

Chapter 5

Chapter 6, Part 2

[baconpal]

talkin bout fuckig manga

hey it’s me, haven’t had internet for over a week and i’ve been sick and uni and blah blah blah time for a rant about manga

this time its about  "Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru", tl;dr, good manga read it idk

lots of bullshit below the cut

Before anything I say gets too confusing or I go off on an insane tangent, just know my recommendation is that you read "Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru". It's not very easy to find online since it has an official English release (which my recommendation extends far enough to suggest I might pick up in the future, just to have it, but I am very stingy), but there's an alright torrent of all the volumes on your local anime torrenting website, and is at the very least worth the trouble of reading as such. There is also an anime that gets better as it goes, but the manga is my primary recommendation. Beyond this point I'm not gonna give much regard to what I write, so get ready for anything, read the manga and see if you agree with me, or don't and see if I care:

BOUT THE ANIME: The SoreMachi anime is one of those rare comedy anime you find where the animation and overall production is just really extra the entire time. Hopefully you know what I mean because I won't really be able to explain it any other way, it's simply one of those shows where the jokes are decent and it's a fun time for the most part. Unfortunately, the anime makes a couple of critical missteps that kept me from getting far into it when I first tried watching it about a year ago, and in retrospect seem even less reasonable.

Starting with the good, as an adaptation it does a good job with most chapters it covers, it properly sources where each chapter comes from incase you intend to read the manga and skip around to catch up, and the anime adapts some sections to have additional jokes that fit very naturally in to the story. It also covers up some of those problems only manga can have like having a concert segment without any actual music involved, until they invent mp3-paper it's just something we'll have to live with. Translation work was pretty good (I watched the [WhyNot] release for those who care), which is extra important for something as difficult to translate as jokes from another language. The set of episodes they chose to end on was very good, and was expanded to be a lot more impactful in the anime. If it wasn't for the last episode being as strong as it was I may have given up on finding the manga when I saw it wasn't super easy to read online.

As for what the anime fails in, some episodes feature some really blatant over-acting that doesn't really help make characters believable, and there's this obnoxious gag that continues the whole where through where most scenes have a few seconds long line from what is essentially a forced mascot character, which usually mean nothing and only serve to harm the pacing of many episodes (there isn't even any sort of equivalent bit in the manga so I really don't know why they did it, most of the anime original jokes are pretty good so I just really don't get it). The biggest issue the anime faces is that the source material is about 140 chapters, while the anime is only able to cover 24 chapters. This comes with a LOT of problems, the first being what I'd call the "required reading". SoreMachi is not a 1-note simple comedy where you can skip to any chapter and be completely okay; There are many small but meaningful subplots lying beneath, and characters have a fair bit of development throughout. What this means for the anime is that the first 3-4 episodes are just the first few chapters of the manga, which are a bit rough and not as good as the majority of the work, which is true of a lot of comics (god fuck I promise there will be more than a first chapter of my comic I promise it'll get better fuck). In terms of the anime by itself, I'd say episode 1 is decent, 2 is middling, and by 3/4 their still taking a while to introduce members of the cast, and I didn't immediately want to finish it. I put the show down for a long time until my internet started dying and I wanted to watch something fun. Slapping it back on at episode 5 I immediately had a great time and watched the rest of the show pretty soon after. While I understand the reasoning behind doing this, the anime does not pay off this structure, as beyond the first few episodes, the chapters start being presented out of release order and out of chronological order, kind of destroying any consistent throughline. This decision in and of itself isn't the worst, since the comic isn't always chronological, and the volume ordering is a bit different from the release ordering, but the inconsistency makes the first few episodes feel lessened without reason. The other large failure that comes with only animating about 1/7th of the entire work is that many themes and concepts that are core to the manga are not represented in the anime well at all. One of the biggest is the rare but unnerving supernatural chapters, of which only one is animated, and not a particularly good one. In order to talk about these themes I'll have to transition into talking about the manga itself, since they aren't part of the anime.

DA MANGA: So one last recommendation that you read the manga, the whole damn thing. Cus we're gettin into themes and character moments that take a long time to pay off, and obviously is all part of my interpretations, so if that stuff means anything to you don't let me ruin it for ya.

The title of the manga is, in essence, the entire manga's "punchline" in that every chapter could meaningfully end with simply the text "And yet the town still turns..." (My translation of the title, fuck "And yet, the town revolves" or "But the town moves"); by this I mean most chapters end in an anti-climax where a mystery is left unsolved, or a mystery is solved and undercut by the realization that life simply keeps on going without much change. This is used to essentially force your eyes open to all possibilities when reading, as the main character spends her time acting like a detective, and these mysteries end up as either misunderstandings, secrets, riddles, and sometimes something out of the ordinary happens that makes you unable to pin anything down firmly. Similarly, these endings aren't always read-and-forget scenarios. Several chapters come back in the form of a continued joke, a continued mystery, or contribute to some greater purpose later. Readers are properly rewarded for keeping everything they can in mind, while also tormenting such people with loose ends.

I enjoy Hotori as a protagonist due to her character being defined not in flaws and strengths, but in mindedness. Hotori seems like a simple "haha she's dumb" character to start, but consistently throughout she proves that her strengths are in memory, observation, and deduction, while lacking in some more common sense and abilities. Her brain works in strange ways that some people may or may not understand, such as her need to think through even the most trivial fictional scenarios, which I relate to deeply.

The art and paneling throughout are wonderful. Ishiguro Masakazu is one of those artists who draws very simple characters, but knows how to use details and depth to breath so much life into the artwork. He also clearly uses the occasional supernatural happenings as an excuse to draw what he loved, as all sorts of artistic depictions of the supernatural come out that simply look satisfying. These parts obviously meant a lot to him since he's been working on a primarily mystery-action manga that has a lot more of that stuff in it. (Also, as hindsight is 20/20, if you've read any of his new work you'll notice that the main character of it is eerily similar to a character who shows up very late in SoreMachi that the author obviously fell in love with, cus she just keeps coming back and even ends up with a really unsettling end to her character arc despite only being introduced as a component in a harmless mystery. Feel free to call me out for the same shit 30 years from now when I'll probably do the same shit)

I'd like to get into some of the major themes of this work, as a lot of them hit very close to my mind (which I guess is true of any theme you recognize for yourself, you wouldn't really "get it" if it didn't mean something to you...).

The simplest theme, again, comes from the title. The main character, Hotori, expresses a desire that the town she lives in continues going on, unchanged forever. This is obviously a fear of change, which ya know, same, but also an exploration of what it means to fear change. Hotori actively tries to keep businesses from closing down, keep friends from leaving, and keep relationships from changing, while simultaneously making all sorts of new relationships and solving mysteries. Hotori even comes to realize that simply learning the truth about something changes the world through your own perspective, and that such changes can't be undone. In spite of this, Hotori mostly gets her wish, any time she fears that a large change will impact the town, its resolved about the same as any other issue. Whether its a message that even time can't keep you from your loved ones and that change isn't worth fearing, or a concession that large changes to the setting would be a bad idea in terms of humor, I can't really decide. This theme reaches it's conclusion in what is one in a series of "ending" kinda chapters at the end of the series. Hotori is faced with a supernatural ethical situation, save her town from destruction at the cost of her existence, or live through the disaster, knowing her town and the people in it will forever be changed. While the actual result is that nobody disappears and nothing is lost, and the event may have simply been a strange dream, Hotori confidently decides that sparing the people in her town from a life altering event is worth giving up her memories with them. A kind of bold spit-in-the-face to the idea that change is okay, where we find that Hotori didn't fear change for herself, but rather for the people around her.

There's another major idea in this manga, which takes a very long time to pay off, and completes its arc at the very very very actual end of the series, the idea of "leading someone to be something". A character that rides that line between main and side character, Shizuka, is a writer of detective novels, who feels the best person to judge her works would be a version of herself without the bias of being the author. She tries to achieve this by leading Hotori to be interested in detective works (including her own) and generally be just like her, starting from a young age. The end result is a young girl dead set on being a detective herself (or at least another novelist), while Shizuka keeps her identity as an author secret. She then uses Hotori as a scapegoat for herself, attempting to see how she would solve various mysteries and use that as inspiration, and this is depicted as though Shizuka were some sort of villain, which she may feel like she is. The end result of it all, though, is that Hotori was likely already a detective-minded person, and that even if Shizuka pushed her down that path, it was Hotori's decision to continue down it, and the very end of the manga is a scene revealing that Hotori figured out Shizuka's secret at some point, and even still respected Shizuka and aspired to reach her, and the two accept each other for who they are. I enjoy this ending a lot, since as an artist I've worried that some of my love or aspirations for and from other artists came with an ulterior motive of wanting a better community for art to exist in, but people are people and will make their own decisions, and some day everyone may be able to become equals in a truly meaningful sense, where everyone is inspired by and guiding each other together.

So that probably didn't mean shit to nobody and I didn't even really talk about anything in the comic like most of the main characters or any of the shit goin on but ya know fuck you go read it, and thanks for reading this.

[sugarandspice-games]

Spicy take time (costarring Sugar): The Bros rated by how well I think their arcs/character development/relationship with MC was written and how much it makes sense. (Disclaimer: Our affection for these characters and how interesting, compelling, and lovable we find them has ZERO bearing on this list. ALSO, beware, here there be salt, IE, this is critical of the writing. It’s also long as fuck, so if you just wanna skim and read the bold parts, that’s okay too. You are also free to disagree with us as this is just an opinion, and keep in mind that we have only read to chapter 24 so if there are elements of the story we are unaware of... please be understanding of that and don’t spoil it.) Let’s get started, shall we?

1) Starting at the top is BEST BOI IMO: Beelzebub. So, yeah, in terms of character development and growth, he really doesn’t change all that much, aside from starting off not trusting MC to slowly opening up to them about his trauma. But putting that to the side, his relationship with them makes the most sense. After sharing a bedroom and helping him open up, as well as having the mutual goal of protecting Luke, and then even later going on to save his beloved little brother, it follows that he absolutely adores you afterward. Also, he doesn’t start off disliking you like some of the others. So, all around, he makes the most sense. He’s also one of the deeper characters with his backstory, even if I wish they’d give him other flaws than just being hongry (and playing his unhealthy eating habits/coping mechanism as a joke. Disordered eating should be taken more seriously, especially binge eating but that’s a can of worms for another day)

2) Second best is probably going to shock you, but Satan takes this spot. Why? Well, strictly in terms of arc progression, his relationship with MC starting out as one of manipulation and growing into something more genuine when they go on a heartwarming and wacky adventure together with his hated older brother which causes him to open up makes a lot of sense, at least more so than some of the others. While I wish they gave him more meat characterization wise, I think his arc was pretty well done in terms of story structure.

Okay, so, Sugar here. While I agree with Spice that Satan could use some more meat (and that we should be able to have some more information on Baby Satan because we all need that in our lives), I think that the progression of him and LUCI’S bond (not MC’s) could have done with more subtlety. While I appreciate him softening up, and see that progress, we don’t really get to see the tension of the newfound change and how he settles into letting things go/mellow out and I get it-- it’s a dating sim and the secondary relationships are well, secondary, but it would be interesting to see him and MC bond more through time.

3) Third place probably won’t be all that shocking, because this is where I’m placing Lucifer. He’s arguably one of the characters in the series who’s gotten the most love from the writers, having the most screentime, the most affectionate scenes with MC, and the most fleshed out backstory and characterization as well as fleshed out relationships with each of the characters. His relationship progression with MC also takes a nice, even pace, with him slowly learning to trust them and respect them, culminating in an almost-confession (I THINK. Unless I’m reading that part wrong) and then being shattered at MC’s betrayal, and then earned back in true Pixar-movie fashion by them teaming up for a common goal. HOWEVER. And this is a big however. I would love to see his unhealthy tendencies addressed and NOT fetishized. (Don’t come at me with that “BUT THEY’RE DEMONS THEY’RE SUPPOSED TO BE EVILLLLL” dude. If a demon being in a healthy relationship is where you draw the line in terms of believability, then why are you playing a fantasy demon dating sim anyway?) I love him, I stan him, I simp for him, but I wish he had at least apologized for his not-subtle threats of physical violence toward MC rather than jumping straight into the ALSO kinda violent “You’re mine and nobody else’s” gimmick.

Unlike some men (SPICE), I am actually not a Luci stan and while I do have a soft spot, and understanding of his place as an eldest sibling... I would also like to see the writer’s unravel the unhealthiness/coping Lucifer has in place and why/how it came to be. I feel like we get a sense that Luci has thawed since coming to the Devildom but we don’t really see how Lucifer in the Celestial Realm (and how his friendship with Simeon) has progressed. Luci has a lot of love from the writers but from a story stand-point, he is never really allowed to be weak and own up to his own flaws and how that has impacted/hurt MC.

4) Sharing fourth place is Leviathan and Mammon! I’m putting them in the same spot because the issues I have with them are the same, though I plan on addressing their good points individually. But since my beef is simpler, I’m going to start off with the bad. IMO, a good rivals to friends to lovers romance happens in STEPS. You start off from not getting along, to then finding some things in common, and gradually coming to respect each other, and then like each other, and finally love each other. This... doesn’t really happen with these two, and while we see the change from both tsundere boys starting off disliking you and eventually coming to love you, we don’t really get that inbetween that makes the payoff so much worth it. And if those inbetweens are there, the story doesn’t really tell us that, and it doesn’t show us their thought processes. Like, how much would it suck if in pokemon, your charmander evolved immediately into Charizard upon beating your first few gyms? It’s like that.

But as for the good, Levi’s arc makes sense because you’re the first person to really let him be himself and not shame him for the things he loves. You let him ramble about his interests and show interest in them yourself (AT LEAST IF YOU’RE NOT A FUCKING MONSTER. I’ll let Sugar talk more on him, that’s their boy.)

Whoo, boy. Here we go! For whatever reason, the otaku became my favorite and I love him, but as far as arcs go... He could have gotten a bit more screentime and progress. It makes sense that he would become attached to MC as his brothers are very, very... critical and patronizing about his interests. He is also by far the most skittish and introverted of the bunch, coupled with his sin and seeing all the ways he falls short (in his eyes) is a recipe for loneliness and desire for companionship/friendship. While I am not happy with the progression, for me, it makes sense and I would also have loved to see some breaking/softening of how much his Sin influences him when it comes to MC. I’m not saying erase it because demons are meant to give in to temptation but some reassurance and acceptance of that would be good.

(I also know that there is some disk horse about him guilt-tripping you about spending time with his brothers and while I agree it can be hard... It definitely isn’t on a painful level. Like, say... Ray’s in Jihyun’s route in Mystic Messenger. This also is a difference for players who are interested in one love route versus the many route and different strokes, but I digress.)

As far as Mammon goes, well, you’re his first. And he’s not only glad that there’s someone who’s kind to him instead of making fun of him, but also takes pride in having someone to protect. His puppy crush going to full blown love is adorable.

This blog is all about spicy takes, yeah? Well, here’s mine (Sugar): Mammon is lovable but not as lovable as he could be and before all the Mammon stans, come for me- let it be known I like Mammon but his introduction and how he comes to be soft is NOT an easy, or believable transition. There are ways to write a good tsundere and the writers just missed the mark by having Mammon be too callous and then slipping to lovable without that sweet slide into the other end. I will not deny he is very cute, and a good character, and a good brother (and also the most human, according to Satan’s home screen interaction) but... The progression and endearment factor is lacking because of the structure of the narrative.

5) Is another unsurprising one, but this spot is Belphegor’s. Solmare. My dude. Why did you do this. We could have had it ALL. It could have been great. But you screwed the pooch. You took anything good about this relationship out behind the shed and shot it like a lame horse. Let it be known that I LIKED Belphie and MC’s alliance to get him out of gay baby jail, and I adored that love he still holds for Beel... I thought he was going to be a fav of mine, in fact. But how they handled the... uhm... murder ruined it for me. I’m sorry, I just cannot believe that I’m supposed to suddenly be besties with the man who manipulated me and crushed me to death like, a week after it happened. What if I have PTSD from that??? Also... he claims that he loves MC for who they are and not because of Lilith, but that’s not believable when his whole turning point is finding out that they’re Lilith’s descendant. The change needed to be more gradual, and having a subtle, gradual forgiveness arc would have been AWESOME but we were robbed. ROBBED I TELL YOU!!!!!

Annnd... Belphie is actually one of my favorites FOR SOME REASON. I DON’T KNOW MAN. I agree that we could have had it and I’m like (Insert Hades red flaming hair gif here). The decision to not have a redemption arc ruined it for me and while I love Belphie and his softness/brattiness mixture with handling MC... It is underscored by a lack of believable affection and the payoff of struggle on both Belphie’s part and MC’s. Also, there is a lot of ‘You are not who I want you to be, but it’s good enough’ with MC regarding their lineage and connections to the brothers and how that plays out/color the relationships with maybe the exception of Satan and surprisingly, Mammon that irks me but again, another thought for another time.

6) Aaaaand last and also the least... Asmodeus. “YOU GET NOTHING!!! YOU LOSE! GOOD DAY SIR.” --Solmare to Asmo. The writers neglected him SO much, I like him but what the hell are they doing? There’s so much that could be explored here, and with anything involving Asmo they’re like “I do not see it”. His love for MC also isn’t really that believable when his turning point is realizing that they’re powerful. It doesn’t even fit with any of his potential conflicts. The Diavolo’s castle arc set us up to think that Asmo would have some deep seated insecurities with not being able to be loved or desired by everyone, or maybe some insecurities about not being an angel anymore, or some vulnerability issues or something, and they were just like NOPE. It doesn’t make any gotdamn sense! I just... Grrr. Asmo, I’m so sorry, sweetie. You deserve better.

Asmodeus definitely deserves better and I will stand by that until the day I stop playing this damn game. While I, personally, think that his intrigue with MC makes sense (because he is lusty-- probably not just for sex but in general), it makes sense he would want someone with power but while the set up is there, his character falls flat because there is no bonding moment, or turning point for him at all. His affection for MC is still that playful, carefree, flirty persona he carries and I would love to see it dropped and how his fall from the Celestial Realm really weighs on him and an arc where he and MC talk about vulnerability and the power behind being seen as someone attractive and the way it dehumanizes you at the same time. It could be good-- hell, it could be great-- but it was killed before it started and I will never not think that Asmo could have had some KILLER growth. As it stands, he has more connection/romantic potential with Solomon than MC.

Anyway, that’s all for now folks! Feel free to yell at us in the replies, you know you want to. If this post blows up enough, maybe we can rate the undatables (though they don’t have any story arcs so... that would be a challenge.)

[ddixons-angel]

Fated: Season 2

Summary: Gloria Rhee narrowly escapes Atlanta with her brother as the outbreak reaches the city. Luckily, they find a camp outside the city and together, they fend through encounters with the living and undead.

Starts a little before Season 1 and then follows the main storyline of the show.

Pairing: Daryl Dixon x Glenn Sister!OC

Warnings: major TWD spoilers, language, violence (the typical TWD stuff), major character death

A/N: Only 2 more chapters left of Season 2! And then we’re off to the Prison with Season 3! I love the Prison era, haha~! The finale of Season 2 will be up this Friday!

Chapter 8

Gloria was in Dale’s RV, putting back her first aid kit in the compartment. She limps back out as she left the crutches outside, deeming it a hassle to go into the RV with the crutches. She’s greeted by Dale who helps her down the steps of the RV, handing her the crutches which she mounts once she’s out, thanking him.

“I wanted to ask you about something.” Dale says, his expression serious.

“What’s up?” Gloria says, looking at him, returning a serious expression.

“What are your thoughts on the execution?” he asks, crossing his arms, ready to listen intently.

“Honestly, I don’t think it’s right, but regardless of what we think, it’s going to happen.” she sighs.

“Well shouldn’t you say something if you think it’s wrong? More people need to voice out their opinion if they don’t agree with it, I can’t be the only one! Staying silent is the same as agreeing with killing the poor kid!” Dale rants, throwing his arms in the air in frustration.

Gloria takes a breath, “Dale, what else can we do? If we let him out there, he might bring back his entire group and kill us all in our sleep. We keep him here, we’ll have one more mouth to feed and I don’t think the others are willing to spare any more of our resources, or we starve him which is an even crueler way of execution in my personal opinion. I hate to say it, but killing him is the only clean way to guarantee our safety from his group.”

Dale’s face falls, defeated, he nods as he understands Gloria’s point. He climbs into the RV, Gloria gives him an apologetic look then goes off herself. She hobbles around the farm in deep thought about the entire situation with Randall that she didn’t even realize she had walked to the side of the barn he was kept in. 

“Your mom out here too? You’re lucky, still got your family.” Gloria overhears Randall speaking to someone, she hobbles closer to the barn, “Hey, I-I don’t know what people have been saying about me, but I didn’t do nothing, I swear! Your dad was gonna let me go until his friend started fighting with him.”

She looks around the outside walls of the barn, searching for a hole or crack she can peek through to see who he’s speaking to, finally spotting one, she puts her eye to the crack and looks in, she gasps, “Carl...”

“It got pretty bad, I was kinda worried. My camp, we got lots of supplies, you help me, I’ll take you and your folks back to my people. We’ll take good care of you.” he continues.

Gloria frowns as she feels anger towards Randall, “asshole’s trying to manipulate Carl...” she’s about to go into the barn when she saw that Shane had barged into the barn, shouting at Carl to get out, then proceeds to interrogate Randall about what he said to Carl.

---

Back at the house, the meeting was taking place as the group discusses what to do about Randall. It’s evident that most of the group is on the side of execution as they have no other good alternatives to guarantee their safety.

“So, how do we do this? Do we take a vote?” Glenn questions.

“Apparently only me, Glenn, and Gloria are opposed to this.” Dale says, looking at the siblings, Glenn waivers hesitantly, “Glenn! They’ve got you scared!” 

Glenn stutters, “Wha- h-he isn’t one of us!” 

Gloria takes a breath, “I originally was opposed to it, but now... now I think it really is the right call.” 

Dale looks at her with wide eyes, enraged and disappointed, “What changed?!”

“Well...” Gloria looks around, everyone’s eyes on her and she hesitates, deciding not to tell them that Carl was in the barn, “I spoke with Randall.” 

Glenn turns to look at her immediately while Daryl pushes himself off the wall he was leaning on, “he tried to manipulate me, saying that if I helped him, he'd take me back to his people, that they’re good people and they’d treat me well. The complete opposite of what Daryl told us when he interrogated the kid. He’s up to no good, and I don’t trust him.”

“You went into the barn?!” Glenn shouts, upset that she would take that risk.

“I told ya to stay outta there!” Daryl joins in, fuming. 

Gloria rolls her eyes and groans, “I’ll deal with you two later! Right now, we have to deal with the piece of shit in the barn!”

“Why the hell were you even in the barn in the first place?” T-Dog asks, a frown on his face as he’s also worried about her safety.

She sighs, knowing she’s going to get into trouble with Daryl after she says this, “I was gonna patch up the kid, just in case... You know, we decide not to kill him, but after he started trying to manipulate me, I just left him.”

At that, Daryl storms out of the house, his vote was already clear. The rest of the group proceeds with their votes, and with Gloria’s new information, the results were all in favor of the execution. It was decided that Rick and Shane as well as Daryl would do it tonight in the barn. Gloria makes her way out of the house, wanting to find Daryl when Glenn stops her. 

“What the hell were you thinking, going into the barn without letting anyone know first? Are you crazy?!” Glenn scolds, the last part in Korean. 

Gloria sighs, “the kid wasn’t speaking with me, it was with the sheriff’s son.” she responds in Korean, referring to Carl.

Glenn frowns, “then why didn’t you just say that you overheard their conversation?” 

“Are you crazy?” she rolls her eyes, “both his parents were in there, and if I told them that their son was in the barn alone with the kid, you really think they’d be calm? Also, I don’t want to be the reason he gets grounded forever.” 

Finally, Glenn nods in understanding, then a thought dawns on him, “hey, I know I keep asking you this, but seriously, is there something going on between you and the archer? He looked pretty upset when you told us all you talked to the kid.”

Gloria sighs, “he’s probably just upset that I didn’t listen to him when he told me not to go into the barn, and now I’m gonna have to explain it to him.” she responds in English, “wish me luck.” 

She starts to make her way to find Daryl when Glenn calls out to her, “You still didn’t answer my question!”

“That’s a discussion for another day.” Gloria calls back without turning around. 

She makes her way to the stone structure where Daryl had first moved his tent when they had found Sophia. He was sitting on a rock, shaving pieces of wood with his knife to make more arrows. Gloria hobbles towards him, sighing when he purposely ignores her call. 

“Daryl, will you just listen to me, please?” she pleads, looking down at him.

“When the hell will ya listen to me, then?” he retorts, not even looking up at her.

“I did.” Gloria starts, “I did listen to you, I didn’t go into the barn and I didn’t talk to Randall.”

“Then why the hell d’ya say ya did?!” Daryl yells, facing her finally.

Gloria looks around and makes sure the others are far enough to not hear what she was about to tell Daryl, “because it was Carl. He snuck into the barn somehow, and Randall was trying to manipulate him, not me. I couldn’t tell Rick and Lori that, Lori’d most likely freak out and nothing would have gotten done.” 

Daryl purses his lips as he looks at her, “so ya’d rather freak out me an’ Glenn instead?”

“Hey, in my defense, Lori’s still pregnant and I doubt the news would sit well with her.” Gloria shrugs. 

Daryl nods and stays quiet. He goes back to making arrows, only looking up at Gloria when she starts chuckling, he raises an eyebrow at her. 

“Did you just indirectly admit that you care about me, Daryl Dixon?” she smiles at him.

Daryl scoffs at that then looks away, trying to hide his blush, “nah.”

Gloria takes a seat beside Daryl and nudges him, making him glance at her, “I think you care.”

“Ya think what ya want.” he tries to hide a smile growing on his lips.

She takes a stick from the ground, one that Daryl would use to make arrows and watches as Daryl shaves the wood. Taking out one of her own daggers, she tries to imitate his blade work. Daryl gives her some pointers and ends up teaching her how to make his arrows. 

---

The group is resting in their campsite as they wait for Rick, Shane, and Daryl to return from the barn after they execute Randall. Dale had walked off, unable to be around them as he strongly disagrees with the execution. Shortly after, Rick and Shane return to the tents with Carl, both of them seemingly very frustrated.

“He was watching, he was telling me to do it.” Rick tells Lori, shaking his head, “I couldn’t with him watching...”

She soothes her husband, holding him to her. Shane looks away from the two, sighing at the sight. Gloria looks over to Carl who’s sitting down near his family’s tent, making sure that he’s alright, she sees him pout. She sighs as she thinks that he’s probably pouting because he wanted to witness the execution first hand. She shakes her head at the thought, a child his age should never have to witness something like that. Gloria’s thoughts are interrupted as well as everyone else’s conversations as a blood curdling scream sounds throughout the night air. Everyone looks in the direction the scream had emitted from, seeing Daryl who had stayed in the barn with Randall dashing to the middle of the field. He sees a walker and tackles it down, immediately stabbing it in the head. He rushes over to the man it had attacked, Dale. 

“Help! Over here!” Daryl waves his arms towards the rest of the group, shouting loudly, “it’ll be okay, buddy.” he says down to Dale, comforting him as best he could given the circumstances.

Everyone rushes over, Gloria’s standing beside Glenn, she had left her crutches back by the tents due to the frantic situation, Glenn had helped her limp over. Gloria gasps at the scene, Dale had his abdomen ripped open, his intestines and guts spilling out as he laid there, groaning in pain and agony. Andrea kneels by his side, crying helplessly.

Glenn turns to Gloria, “y-you gotta do something...” he chokes out a sob.

“I... I can’t... we won’t be able to move him... h-he’s lost too much blood.” Gloria breathes out, her body shaking; even if she’s worked in a hospital, she’s never seen anything as gruesome as this. 

Hershel rushes over to the scene as Rick had been frantically yelling out for him, “oh my God...”

“Hershel, we gotta do something, anything!” Rick pleads, tears falling from his eyes.

“He’s passed saving... I’m sorry.” Hershel says regretfully, looking away. 

Dale reaches his hand out to Andrea as he continues to groan, unable to form words from all the pain, “He’s suffering... somebody do something!” she sobs out. 

Rick wipes his face with his hand and sniffles, taking out his gun and aims it straight at Dale’s head. He stares at Dale and struggles, regret written all over his face. Daryl takes the gun from Rick, nodding to him, telling him it’s fine, that he doesn’t have to do it. 

Daryl kneels down, putting the gun directly on Dale’s forehead and cocks the gun, “Sorry, brother.” with those final words, he pulls the trigger.

---

Next Chapter

I felt like this was a rather eventful chapter, with the voting, to a little fluffy moment, then Dale dies... sigh... well, as I said before, one more chapter left until Season 3! What do you guys think is gonna happen? Let me know what you thought of this too!

I hope everyone stays safe and healthy, please don’t panic, we will get through this!

And as always, I would really appreciate any comments left for me! I’ll be replying to any comments in a new post because this is a sideblog!

Taglist (please let me know if you’d list to be added/removed!):

@twdeadfanfic​ | @fandomfanatic97​ | @crossbowking​ | @watchmeaspire​ | @spidergirla5​ | @kamieshep​ | @letsstarsfalling​ | @molethemollie​

[multsicorn]

book-and-show

My preferred mix of the two canons is basically ‘The Untamed, but Wei Wuxian lost control of his zombies by his own goddamned self, and also plot/logic holes are taped over by explanations from the book when needed and possible.  And we know that wangxian are together and will be married, but we're left with spaces to fill in the details.’  (One of the cool/interesting things about having multiple versions of a canon is that one can mix and match!)  But there are definitely things that I prefer, separately, about each.

[two very long lists.  all of which are all about personal opinions/preferences, and none of which are looking to start discourse!]

Eight Things I liked better about the show:

1. "Who am I to you?"  "I had thought, that you were the one who knew me for my whole life."  "Still, I am." is *twenty zillion times* more romantic than a stolen blindfold kiss, in a way that pretty much encapsulates why I so much prefer show to novel wangxian overall.  And in this TED talk - I mean, in another post, hopefully, in not too long, I will.

2. Lan Wangji's explicit questioning of and overturning his understanding of 'what is right, and what is wrong,' rather than simply being motivated by 'if loving Wei Wuxian is wrong, then screw everything else.'

3. Introducing so very many characters earlier in the chronological timeline, and showing us more about them and their relationships prior to Wei Wuxian's death - and outside of the key moments in which they're involved in the plot.  Wen Qing and Wen Ning, Jiang Yanli, Mianmian, Songxiao, Xue Yang, Meng Yao - this list could also be its own post.

4. More focus on the Sunshot Campaign and its aftermath, pre-death, specifically on the period when Wei Wuxian is the feared necromancer, and he and his loved ones are dealing with that, against a background of war and then possibly more war.  It's by far my favorite part of the narrative, just because of my preferences re: genres, so I appreciate it being foregrounded rather than just a backstory that's shown in flashbacks.

5. The successive confrontations between Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji over 'leaving the right path'!  In the courtyard, when Lan Wangji pulls Bichen on Wei Wuxian to make him listen; in the sad umbrella rain, when Wei Wuxian holds Chenqing out in front of him, defying Lan Wangji's efforts to rein him in.  These things probably fall under the umbrella of the TED talk from the first point, but they're the beating heart of WHY I LOVE THIS STORY.  And they're not even in the novel...!  I thank the CQL team for my life.

6. Also, THE COMB STORY.  I'd never have thought either that 'how do we improve an m/m romance novel?  By adding a het romance subplot, of course,' but the fact is that I love the dimension it adds to both Jiang Cheng's and Wen Qing's stories.  Highlighting their shared loyalty to their clans - except not shared, because they're from different clans! - but their shared *understanding* of what righteousness, justice, etc., is, and the way it leads to their tragedies, and the way it's a counterpoint to Wei Wuxian's and Lan Wangji's different and ultimately shared understanding of 'what is right' and the way *that* brings *them* together is just... so good.  I am getting over it approximately never, and, again, it's show-original.

7. And I think the last big thing - other than, the acting's wonderful, imo, the visuals are great, (even the 'bad' special effects? I like 'em kinda ridiculous?), and when the prose-in-translation of all versions is iffy at best, (not judging MXTX's prose! or the scriptwriters'! but I unfortunately cannot read or understand it) it's REALLY NICE to have other major dimensions of the story that aren't lost or diminished in translation.  Honestly, I am only watching cdramas and not reading cnovels (I only read MDZS so I'd know what's in it) for that reason alone.  But in terms of *story* stuff -

8. I think that censoring wangxian's relationship down to the '(really really loud) subtext' level counterintuitively also makes the rest of the story seem considerably gayer.  If wangxian exists in hints and looks and narrative parallels etc., then likewise, so do the 3zun and Yi City triangles.  Not as much as wangxian, but they're more minor characters, and they're on the same continuum... to the extent that I legit thought that songxiao and xiyao would also be novel canon.  (They are not.)  If Wei Wuxian shocking Lan Wangji by showing him gay porn in the library, and commenting on Lan Wangji's beauty, is because he is actually into guys, then maybe Nie Huaisang lending Wei Wuxian that same porn, and also commenting on Lan Wangji's beauty, means the same thing, if that's all we have to go on. etc.

Nine Things I liked better about the book:

1. There's something about Wei Wuxian's narrative voice, the running commentary that he gives about others and most of all himself that is... funny?  Yes, it is, but that's not the part I love.  It's hard to pin down, but the pattern of the things he judges and the things he doesn't judge at all, even though maybe he should, but he really has so much empathy - in the literal sense, I mean, as well as the magical - is very specific and endearing?  He's exactly like that in the show, too, but we hear much less of it when he's not telling the story.

2. Getting to hear A-Qing in her Empathy fleshes out her cleverness and her bravery, again, in a way that's not easy to replicate seeing it from outside of her head.  (I think we may have more of all of the ducklings/juniors, actually, but I'm just not all that interested in their friendly banter.  Not when there's life-rending trauma in the OG of the same story!)

3. From the chronological start of the story, the Wens' domination and power-hunger is portrayed in a realpolitik way that's both more interesting and fits the rest of the story better, with the Jins later filling that same vacuum, and fearing Wei Wuxian's potential to do the same sort of thing to them, etc., as chronologically following and competing different takes on the struggle for power, without any need for the flat fantasy mcguffins of the Yin Iron or the 'spirit snatch.'

4. Wei Wuxian ~appreciating~ Nie Mingjue's dead body parts is hliarious. I love him hanging out with the corpse girls.  I love the Wens risingout of the blood pool for him ;___;.  Overall his relationship withthe corpses that he magics is such a cool weird fun part of the book,that is missing in the show except his friendship with Wen Ning for'let's make a show about necromancy but pretend it's not' reasons.

5. The fact that Wangxian don't split up and go their own ways at the end of the story, even temporarily!  I could go either way on 'Lan Wangji becomes Chief Cultivator' - I like the way that it moves into 'the future will be better than the past, and we'll work to make it that way', in the same way that 'the kids are alright' does, and the fact that Lan Wangji hates diplomacy and is bad at it can make for good amusing stories!  But I also approve of the fact that the personal win condition for so very many of these characters is to peace right the fuck out of sect politics, (like Mianmian our true hero does <3), and I believe in that as a happy ending.

6. Wei Wuxian's and Lan Wangji's complementary ~ravishment~ kinks.  I don't like the exact way they're written in the novel (and extras), but I *will* take and run with the existence of them, nevertheless.

7. The post-resurrection plot makes, um, sense?  Let's not forget the importance of that!  (But, honestly, 'must a plot make sense'?  It's not all that important to me, lol.)   Going from one place to another to collect the pieces of 'our dead friend's' body rather than seemingly at random makes the journey feel purposeful rather than direction-less, and gives an indication of progress that's not simply 'amount of the story read as per chapter count.'  Though it's still not clear to me why the juniors squad needs to be in Yi City!

8. It has more of Wei Wuxian's inventiveness.  Whether founding the Diabolic Path rather than 'just' inventing some tools and talismans within and also outside of it, or figuring out/explaining how some sort of magic works, whether lecturing to the juniors or working it out for himself, or something like that one night-hunting extra where he's being a supernatural consulting detective... it's fun to see more of his ~mind at work,~ in a way that doesn't fit as well either into an audiovisual medium or under the constraints of 'what is happening? definitely not corpse magic!' that censorship imposes.

9. The structure of revealing what happened in (what I can't help thinking of as) the main portion of the plot - who Wei Wuxian is, what his life story is, and Lan Wangji's part in it - through interleaved and not even necessarily in-order flashbacks is... so interesting?  Unfortunately I can't tell how well it would've worked for me in terms of changing my understandings of characters etc., because I watched the show before I read the book, so I came to it knowing the outlines of the story.  But it's a cool idea, and I wish that I could experience it properly!  (Though I would never have read the book without watching the show first, I would've failed out at the start due to translation issues and then if I'd persisted past that due to all the gay chicken stuff.)

[winrene]

wenrene fanfic masterpost

(last updated 15/07/2020)

(these are all from ao3, i can try and make one from aff too if anyone wants it, but i don’t really read on there) 

Completed

let's get away tonight by daybreaking - “you should really stop showing up like this,” joohyun reprimands, wry and dry, but her hands are reaching out to take the spare helmet anyways. “my parents will know about it someday.” seungwan just grins under her helmet, cheeks full and pressing against the insides of it. she pats the space behind her on the motorcycle. “yeah, someday.”

oneshot, 3,341 words, highschool au

i'll be your naughty girl & i got to have ya babe by throwaway18 - seungwan thinks joohyun is too much of a prude to be able to beat her in a dance-off. and joohyun is certain she's the only person capable of getting into seungwan's nerves.

oneshot, 6,800 words, dancer/rivals au

much ado about nothing by numot94 (futureplans) - seungwan's front-door neighbour is the most beautiful woman she's ever seen, and one day she'll definitely work up the courage to ask her out. in the meantime, though, she'd be happy to get through a conversation without embarrassing herself.

39 chapters, 180,319 words, neighbour au (this is simply gorgeous, one of the best wenrene fics of all time in my opinion, again highly suggest reading their other wenrene fics)

tell me why my gods look like you (and tell me why it’s wrong) by irwens - joohyun waits tables. seungwan is a cook. they work at the same restaurant.

oneshot, 3,333 words, restauraunt au

when you move, i'm moved by birdii (birdmint) - when you're an idol dating a ballet dancer, finding time to appreciate each other is difficult. seungwan and joohyun do their best.

oneshot, 2,195 words, ballet/solo-artist au

playing pretend by xpenguinqueenx - yeri needs a fake girlfriend to meet her parents, and wendy agrees to fill the spot, but mostly because she wants to eat her yogurt in peace. irene is not enthusiastic about their new 'relationship.'

oneshot, 10,026 words, ordinary-life au

this structure fell about our feet (and we were free to go) by redcapesarecoming - the seven times irene and wendy met in an airport

oneshot, 4,740 words, airport au

recessional by birdii (birdmint) - seungwan calls joohyun for a ride to the airport. it's the first joohyun has heard from her in five years.

oneshot, 4,045 words, modern au

rain will make the flowers grow by 8moons2stars - after red velvet splits up, joohyun and seungwan find each other again.

5 chapters, 5,334 words, canon-divergence au (highly suggest reading this author’s other wenrene fics too)

death of the author by numot94 (futureplans) - all seungwan wanted was to escape reality at least for a little while and go live in some fairy tale where everything goes right and everybody’s happy. still, she didn’t expect it to actually happen! now that she’s found herself in the fairy tale kingdom overnight, she’ll do her best to keep the story on track and make sure princess joohyun gets her happily ever after with the prince. of course, nothing is ever that simple, is it?

11 chapters, 35,134 words, fantasy au

the purity club by changdeol - joohyun bae is the president of their school's christian union who thinks she has all the answers. seungwan son proves her wrong.

37 chapters, 152,278 words, highschool au

sweet like honey by hyunsvelvet - son seungwan is in desperate need of a job. when she gets hired as the new secretary for up and coming forensic lawyer bae joohyun, who has developed a habit of firing secretaries, she's determined to keep this job. she pictured joohyun to be cold and distant, but upon meeting her seungwan can't help but notice her warm personality and begins to wonder how she's the same person known for firing secretaries after hiring them just weeks before.

25 chapters, 48,900 words, lawyer au

and i could see for miles, miles, miles by jisooosname - based off of the prompt: in which joohyun runs an advice podcast show and one day, seulgi asks for her advice and she gives an advice so bad that seungwan hunts her down

oneshot, 5,547 words, college radio-host au (fluff and good feelings all around, a very adorable read)

never mind your bleeding heart by numot94 (futureplans) - the first time seungwan saw joohyun, she’d just turned 13 and the older girl was 14, a few weeks away from her birthday. she fell in love instantly.

3 chapters, 32,742 words, childhood au (yes yes i know another numot fic, but god their writing is amazing i can’t help but suggest it cause i just love everything they write)

hey jealousy by fated_addiction - "you know they're not dating." or when wendy struggles with definitions.

oneshot, 1188 words, canon au (i have a thing for this author’s introspective writing. it’s like a drug, also i’m a sucker for lowercase. highly suggest their semicolon and check one series)

a kiss (to build a dream on) by seungvvannie (galaxygerbil) - there are other things and other people that should fill up Irene’s time, but maybe… maybe just for now, it can be her in Irene’s heart. just her on irene’s mind. everything else can wait until tomorrow. wendy just wants tonight.

oneshot, 3,845 words, fallout au

pisces by espressochoreom - in which a 24-year-old joohyun is at a laundromat on a gloomy tuesday morning when she recognizes someone across her washer. it's none other than the girl who had her earnestly question her sexuality in high school—son seungwan. the last time joohyun heard from her was six years ago, months after they graduated from high school, when she told her that she was planning to move and stay in canada for good. but of course, that's not the case anymore. seungwan happens to be in the same laundromat building, and from there they attempt to catch up where they left off. the awkwardness is so consistent; it's laughable.

oneshot, 2,447 words, laundromat au (kinda)

vague hope by beatosuffers - irene only knows one thing: emotions are prohibited.

oneshot, 6,475 words, nier:automata au

yesterday, today, tomorrow by sparksfly7 - there are two new girls this year. one is tall and round-cheeked and sweet-looking. the other one – from canada, with her collection of instruments and powerhouse voice – won’t leave irene alone.

oneshot, 2,796 words, canon au

let it shine by sparksfly7 - “it’s just – i planned to talk more, to give people a good impression, but…” irene trails off, clearly frustrated. “i don’t know.” she drops her head, her hair falling over her face. even the pink streaks in it look duller, as if her mood has washed out the dye. “there was nothing wrong with how you acted.” wendy sits down next to her on the bed. “being quiet isn’t a bad thing.”

oneshot, 2,064 words, canon au

see you soon by leirskald - seungwan tries to be okay with everyone leaving for the new year's holiday, but it's hard when she's the one left behind.

oneshot, 1,237 words, canon au

trust these butterflies by rosybutterflies - the circus just isn't that fascinating for irene bae anymore, having been in it since she was young. but the butterflies in her stomach tell her otherwise every time she's with one of the newbies, son seungwan.

2 chapters, 17,527 words, circus au

in her eyes by blkvelvets - now is definitely not the time to get hooked on a dumb freshman with a smile that could light up planets.

oneshot, 2,387 words, highschool au

i wanna come home to you by newboldtrue - irene says, “thanks for not thinking i’m a serial killer. i guess.” “thanks for letting me throw up the worst new year’s eve of my life in your apartment,” room 53 returns, and irene cracks a tiny smile at that. or, irene doesn't know her upstairs neighbor, really, but it's 5am and she won't stop ringing the doorbell;

oneshot, 1,599 words, neighbours au

the scent of you by ashensprites - seungwan, a private investigator, is hired to find a child who went missing almost 15 years ago.

16 chapters, 38,253 words, private investigator au

the downfalls of procrastination by lovelines (alliwantisthetruth) - fun fact #1 : seungwan has exactly 3 midterms coming up this week. fun fact #2 : seungwan has not started to study for any of her midterms. fun fact #3 : joohyun might kill her before she has the chance to sink her gpa. college au where seungwan is a smart but hot mess(TM) and joohyun cannot tolerate messes but for her, she does. somewhat.

oneshot, 1,413 words, university au

close your eyes, see through mine by sindubu - "her name is joohyun, and if that were the case...." her heel comes up to rub at the bridge of her nose. "why is she even here?" junior shrugs. "the intricacies of repressed lesbianism, my young, sapphic friend, is shockingly not in my field of expertise."

4 chapters, 9,070 words, conversion therapy au

feel my heart come undone by sindubu - wendy is homesick.

oneshot, 1,390 words, canon au

Ongoing

i’m different by throwaway18 - when wendy returns to seoul, being mistaken as a homeless person has been far from her expectations.

6/? chapters, 27,871 enemies to lovers/baker au

my heart and this night (makes this game flicker) by daybreaking - seungwan just got dumped and her roommate is trying to make her feel better by playing cards with her, but she just keeps winning and whispering, "sorry."

4/? chapters, 33,782, university au (an absolute favourite of a fic, it is so so good)

colored out the line by baechuzz - it’s been a while since joohyun had seen sooyoung blooming with happiness and love since her soulmate died. so when joohyun met wendy for the first time and during their handshake, a little dandelion blossomed on her wrist—she decided not to say a word and step back on the sidelines. even if wendy was her soulmate.

4/5 chapters, 27,628 words, soulmate au

somebody wants you by winterbreath - wendy doesn’t need anybody to tell her that this is a bad idea but she needs something to draw attention to the coffee shop; and irene needs a pretend-girlfriend. except Irene is a brat—and can someone please just send wendy to hell.

12/? chapters, 71,840 words, fake/pretend relationship au (another one i love a lot, definitely suggest reading this author’s other fic too, especially their all this love series)

shared space by sapphicirene - seungwan needs a new roommate, and joohyun is searching for an apartment. joohyun wonders if it's bad luck or fate that draws her back to seungwan after all these years.

4/? chapters, 11,259 words, college au (i’m not going to lie, this hasn’t been updated since 2018-12, but the chapters that are written are very lovely, so i think it’s worth a look!)

tea party for two by scarletstring - as a veteran female escort, wendy expects to be between the sheets, receive her pay, and then leave -- all within the hour. but wendy can't tell if this particular client knew that when she was spending her time preparing her tea instead of telling her to take her clothes off.

8/? chapters, 114,713 words, female escort au

noisy thoughts by scarletstring - irene moves in to her new apartment, where she meets her interesting roommate.

15/? chapters, 172,654 words, college au (scarlet is currently on hiatus, but their fics are one of the best things you could read)

just my cover, sweetheart by newboldtrue - wendy threw a disbelieving glance at the woman in her passenger seat. “have i had lunch? i just attended my own funeral, haven’t much been in the mood for eating.” or, son seungwan is leaving her life as a hitman in the past--but when a dead woman criticizes her epitaph and offers her one last job, she finds herself agreeing to help. wendy isn't quite sure what she's signed herself up for.

6/? chapters, 14,319 words, 1950s hitman au (hasn’t been updated in AGES, since 2018-08, but it is honestly a really worthwhile read)

[recentanimenews]

FEATURE SERIES: My Favorite One Piece Arc with Maffew

  I love One Piece and I love talking to people who love One Piece. And with the series going on 23 years now, there is a whole lot to talk about. As the series is about to publish its 1000th chapter, a true feat in and of itself, we thought we should reflect upon the high-seas adventure and sit down with some notable names in the One Piece fan community and chat about the arcs they found to be especially important, or just ones they really, really liked.

  Welcome to the next article in the series "My Favorite One Piece Arc!"

  My next guest in this series is Maffew, creator of the popular pro wrestling web series Botchamania. For my chat with him, he chose the Alabasta Arc, in which Luffy and his crew not only have to save a desert kingdom but also topple Baroque Works and its powerful leader Crocodile.

  A note on spoilers: If you haven't seen the Alabasta arc yet, this interview does contain major plot points. Watch the Alabasta arc starting RIGHT HERE if you'd like to catch up or rewatch!

    Dan Dockery: So I guess my first basic question is, let’s say for some reason, I got to the end of Drum Island and I said “Well, One Piece ends here for me. This seems like a good finale.” What would you tell me to keep me going into the Alabasta Arc in one sentence?

  Maffew: Well, after Chopper has made all the kids cry, you’ll need pickin’ up.

  That’s pretty good! What was the impetus for you getting into One Piece? What made you want to jump into an anime that’s nearly one thousand episodes long at this point?

  I think I tried watching it on YouTube back in 2009, and I just couldn’t get into it. At that point in my life, I wasn’t ready for a character like Luffy and his adventures, and I couldn’t wait for the villains he fought to kill him. So I dropped it. A year later, I’m in Germany and this wrestler ACH was doing a Q&A panel for this German wrestling organization called WXW. And ACH is a REALLY big One Piece fan, and even dresses up as Luffy in New Japan and Ring of Honor. And I was like “Hey, you watching JoJo?” because that was my thing at the time, and he was like “No, no. Just One Piece.” I said, “What else are you watching?” “Just One Piece.” And I’m like “Wait, what? Just the one?” But he was sellin’ it to me like he was a One Piece ad on QVC. And guys like Steve Yurko are so passionate about it, and if one person tells ya to watch something, you’re like “Eh, whatever,” but if five people tell you, you start to pay attention. So I’m gonna blame ACH and my good friend Steve Yurko for this.

    What do you like about this arc in particular?

  You get so much wonderful worldbuilding. They go to Alabasta, meet up with Mr. 2, and it’s one of those cool interactions where they’re meeting, but they don’t know who they are meeting exactly, like when they meet Blackbeard in Jaya. So later on, they’re like “Oh, it’s THEM!” There’s a real sense of everything not being really pre-determined at this point. It’s building everything through a bunch of pirates just doing stuff. Ace shows up, knocks out some assassins so he can get his royalty checks.

  That’s such a funny way to put it.

  Then we get Kung-Fu Dugongs, and they’re a pretty pure expression of One Piece. They’re all synchronized, they’re adorable, they play their part amid all the serious stuff, and they’re completely ridiculous, but they work anyway. And it’s with Alabasta that Eiichiro Oda starts to perfect the tropes that he puts into place throughout, with the new islands, the new leader who everyone loves but is actually a bad person, the crew having to deal with him and the Navy, them having to help put someone back in their position, etc. And even though, on paper, it reads like “Well, he’s gotta beat this dude and this dude and this dude,” it’s so much more chaotic and less formulaic than you’d expect. It keeps things interesting. 

  I agree. I like how he takes all of these pieces and he’s consistent with them, but Oda always plays around with how he sets them up.

    But it’s all a foot massage before the real reason to watch Alabasta: Sir Croc. 

  Are you a big fan of him? That dude is so cool, conniving and powerful. He’s kinda the perfect villain. 

  Back when I was being miserable and first watching One Piece, I really liked him. I like the design, the sand powers that could actually pose a threat. I always appreciate it when a villain provides actual tension. It’s like why I think Goldeneye is still the best James Bond film. Because Alec Trevelyan is constantly reminding Bond “Remember, I could kill you. I’m from the same place as you. I can take your exploding watch and just, eh, I’ll stop that then. Thank you.” And Luffy loses twice to him in the three-match structure that really works here as it did for wrestling in the 70s.

  How so?

  So you’d have somebody like champion Bruno Sammartino and someone like Ivan Koloff or one of the Wild Samoans or Stan Stasiak. They’d have one match where the hero would beat Bruno by disqualification. Bruno’s still around to fight, but he’s lost. Luffy survives being thrown in the sand, but he’s been beaten. Then they have the second match, where Bruno would win because the villain would just give up and leave and get counted out. Luffy attacks Crocodile with water, but it’s not enough, and Crocodile just kinda leaves Luffy thinking it’s all done. And then Bruno would be like “Oh no ya don’t. Next time, you won’t be able to escape, because we’re gonna be in a cage match.” And then Bruno wins, just like Luffy wins by punching Crocodile up through that giant enclosed space. He escapes the cage.

      It’s just so satisfying and that’s a great way to describe it. So, villains in the series have had extensive crew members before, but they haven’t been as recognizable and colorful as Croc’s crew, Baroque Works. Do you have a favorite member?

  They’re all good in their own way, but at this point, I’m gonna go with Mr. 2. Eh, that’s probably too obvious an answer…

  Mr. 2 is a lot of people’s favorite member. 

  Oh, who cares. I’ll go with Mr. 2. I like how Mr. 2 interacts with everyone, having fun with the boys and fighting Sanji with kicks but respecting him. 

  So, in this arc, there’s a lot of government intrigue and a revolution is about to happen, and everyone’s dissatisfied with their perception of the monarchy. How did you react to all of this political drama in One Piece? 

  Well, it’s great because you have Vivi, and you get to learn her motivations and because she’s on the crew, it gives you a reason to care for the crew and how all of the political intrigue affects them. Without her, you’d just hear about a war and say “Oh, sorry about that. Hope it goes well.” And with all this lore being thrown at you because you have Vivi and that connection, it’s adding to the main conflict, rather than distracting.

  Yeah, Vivi really grounds it all with a personal attachment. Because otherwise it’s just savin’ the kingdom, which is cool and they’re good for it, but it doesn’t have the same impact. So, they did this back in the Arlong Park arc, but what returns here is the kind of 1 vs 1 match structure, where a member or members of the enemy crew are matched up against a Straw Hat or Hats. Mr. 1 has knife body parts, so he’s obviously gonna fight Zoro. Mr. 2 kicks and Sanji kicks, etc. What do you think about that kind of matchmaking, because it’s also a little wrestling-esque.

    Yeah, right, like if you have D-Generation X fighting the Nation of Domination, you can’t just have The Rock fighting Triple H. Ya gotta have D’Lo Brown vs X-Pac and The Godfather vs Billy Gunn. I like it because the characters feel like they have to prove themselves, like Zoro’s a swordsman, and he’s gotta test himself against another swordsman. And Usopp does it when he fights Mr. 4 and Miss Merry Christmas with Chopper, because they have a weird dynamic and they’re fighting two people and they have no clue what they’re up against. 

  So, at the end of the arc, they do the iconic “We can’t let Vivi become associated with pirates so we’ll hold up the X symbols on our arms in solidarity” pose. What did you think about that? Because it’s one of the most famous images in One Piece, and it’s hard to avoid it, even if you’ve never watched the series. Was that your first time seeing it?

  It actually was. And I’m glad you brought this up because I was watching it and I thought “Wait, they’re just going? They’re not even keeping the duck?” And then they do that with the X and the original opening starts playing and I get goosebumps just remembering it. That really hit me. Because it finally got me really emotionally invested in the series. Made me feel a bit cheeky. 

      ONE PIECE LIGHTNING ROUND!

  So, considering you’re such a huge pro wrestling fan, your lightning round is gonna be a bit different. I’m gonna say a Straw Hat that’s in the crew at this point and you tell me which wrestler they’re the most like. You can also tell me what time period they’d fit the most in, since wrestler personalities tend to change. So, Luffy?

  Gotta be Cena. Specifically? With Luffy’s attitude? Probably 2015 defending-the-United States-Championship John Cena.

  Zoro?

  He’s all business, he likes to fight. So I gotta go with Cesaro.

  Sanji?

  Going with Eddie Guerrero.

  Usopp?

  That character is all over wrestling - the underdog who isn’t very good and uses every trick in the book to win. Gonna go with MJF. He had one of my favorite matches of this year against Cody Rhodes and he just had to use EVERYTHING to beat him - brass knuckles, distraction, chairs, everything he could to get that win. But he could be MJF, could be The Miz, could be Mikey Whipwreck from ECW, take your pick.

  Nami?

  Hmmm. Becky Lynch. 

  Chopper?

  KeMonito 

  Robin?

  Oh, she shows up after being booed for ages and you’re supposed to like her, so 2019 Charlotte Flair.

      Stay tuned for the next installment of "My Favorite One Piece Arc" as we speak with One Piece's official English manga translator Stephen Paul on his favorite One Piece arc: Skypiea!!

      Daniel Dockery is a Senior Staff Writer for Crunchyroll. Follow him on Twitter!

  Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: Daniel Dockery

[iwannawritepls]

Writing Update 04?

So much is happening. Like gosh.

Welcome back to me not using paragraphs correctly!!

So! We have 17ish chapters now which is like woah.

It took me much much too long to write but now we’re on 50k!!! we got there folks and I can confidently say that I will most likely have 20 chapters with around 54-55k words as I predicted. Is it weird that um feeling super melancholy about that??

But on the positive side there will be another book after this because uhhh there’s too much to wrap up in just one.

I wrote and deleted chapter 14 over and over again but now I have something I'm proud of at lastttttt! I realised after talking about it to some friends that

1) I skipped something huge by accident  

2) In the first few versions of chapter 14 there was no climax to what was happening

3) I was adding things but at that point I should’ve started to answer them

So we fixed it up and now she’s pretty damn cool. The second half of the chapter still needs a little bit of editing until I can become happy with it but oh well.

I also edited chapter 15 so they’re ready for the most part but the last 2 need basically a rewrite for them because they’re soooo bad. I shouldn’t measure by words but generally for a fist version of a chapter I write anywhere between 800 and 1000 words and then I manage, through editing, to make it become somewhere between 1500 and 4500 which is a big leeway but it really just depends on what’s happening.

There’s something huge that happens in chapter 17 but I only wrote 459 words for it because it was 2 in the morning and I wanted to get it done before I tried to sleep. Inevitably it was quite bad. Chapter 16 is the same but thankfully that’s 914 words so there’s something more to work with. Yayyyyy.

Needless to say, I will not be including excerpts from them in this.

So chapter titles?

Chapter 13 - Metamorphosis of a Blizzard

Chapter 14 - Curtain Call (subject to change)

Chapter 15 - Kingfisher Flurry

Chapter 16 – Catgut Bindings

Chapter 17 – AHHHHHHHHH (this is 100% changing I just needed to put something and I was freaking out)

Oh, oh and! I have a proper actual name for the book! Sisyphus Lies on Unmade Beds. How suitably edgy.

There are so many references to Greek mythology that the title fits and it can link to all of them in some way, so I thought why not. There’s #symbolism to it all. And who isn’t a fan of accidental symbolism you find halfway through your book.

What happens??

Chapter thirteen is a long-waited apology from Bas to the one person who deserves it most. We find out about someone vaguely important for the next book as well as a character that maybe might have his own little book of his own.

Chapter fourteen includes our boy Sebastian coming along and helping by not helping at all!! Yay…but really what else is new, his motives don’t align with the boy’s and so we shouldn’t expect him to be helpful in any way.

Chapter fifteen is a dangerous thing…out dude the devil makes an appearance. For those who’ve listened to the magnus archives or watched Everyman Hybrid I tried to emulate Michael/Habit in it but it hasn’t really worked out yet. I'm getting there but I'm not at terrifying levels of suave. When writing characters that are so powerful they could murder you with a single flick o’ the wrist you are treading a careful line between edginess and not threatening at all.

chapter sixteen is the fallout. If we follow the lovely 3 act structure we are at the darkest moment in chapter sixteen and chapter seventeen continues with that mood but follows through with the whole ‘hope’ thing. jk there’s no hope just crisis.

I find that I managed to actually keep to the 3-act structure naturally?? I'm a discovery writer so it’s a little more difficult for me to not meander off into the sunset/make everything happen much too fast. But I think pacing was okay in this as long as I keep track of the seasons – which I hope I did.

We have a few memes from dearest friends – kinda old but have them

And now,,,the excerpts!!

Everything felt like cotton was stuffed inside, swelling, and soaking through with excess fluid. Fluid that was still building in his lungs, he felt them pressing against his ribs and rubbing together eating away more at his already damaged body. Gorging on him, dissolving him, water couldn’t ever be full only overflow and so it would continue to erode his body to fit the ever-greater capacity he needed to hold.

He's not dying! I mean he is but not yet!! I feel so bad that Albert has spent more of this book sick than anything, but I feel like I'm constantly mentioning him and I don’t want people to get annoyed by him? idk I feel like someone would find him annoying and that he did nothing but whine – probably a carryover from the original book where he could’ve been beaten up by his own shadow. He can and does stand up for himself in this more than in the original but

They began to mend themselves in a way that neither Narcissus nor Prometheus could have foreseen. So maybe they weren’t quite butterflies or moths. Maybe instead they were snakes, the devil’s advocates turned serpentine after rebelling against God. But that meant that at least they could change again, shed their skin, and start afresh after mountains of pain and healing from accidental words fallen from temporarily false tongues.

Let’s play how many references to classic literature can you fit into one paragraph at least 4. One of which is Paradise lost. Because Greek mythology just wasn’t enough.

The old man shivered and croaked out a few more words so quiet that the wind ate them. The woman just stared at him with wide eyes before fleeing back to the cold.

This is the ending of a while thing from a book that Al’s reading. I kinda wished this book existed its got some of my favourite techniques in it and some of my favourite lines but this one was the only one I could just take without a pause for drama between Alberts reading.

Enoch wanted to skip the walk the moment he realised there wouldn’t be any talking, every single one of his steps was too slow, every single breath was too loud. Even as he tried to listen to the conversations of those they walked past, it was too distant and blurred for him to listen to in any kind of concordant manner.

My boy hates the quiet and I feel that

The very first promises of autumn began to chew on the leaves, She took each one into her embrace and changed the deep greens that summer left in His wake and transformed them into a cacophony of yellows, reds and oranges. She plucked the ripened ones from their cradles and pulled their colour from their grasp placing it on Her tongue and dropping the carcases into winters waiting hands.

This is kinda purple and I had just read Der Sandmann so I was super into the vibe of it. I referenced it more originally before editing it so now all we have is a very slight call back if you know the story that you can vaugly make if you try.

Nature was so simple and yet beautiful, complicatedly captivating.

William is yearning

“Enoch.” Basil called out

“it wasn’t me!” he replied holding his hands up “I came out here to get him a new hat, it was Valentine that dragged him in.” he held up a lily pad with a grin.

“where is Valentine?”

“probably wrestling the heron.” He replied wading towards the shoreline.

Just some fun from them because you all need to see that they can be friends I swear.

A man was stood in the middle of the flurry, he stepped through them as if they were nothing but a reflection on the glassy water.

And that’s all for chapter fifteen I think unless there’s something at the end because I know people who read this irl and they haven’t gotten any of this yet. So I don’t want to ruin things but I also want to give you all things so it’s a struggle.

because you cannot help the diseases in your mind

this is something I wish I heard more often so here. You’re super awesome and the dude who said this is big brain mode.

But yeah that’s all. I probably won’t update again until I'm done and even then it’ll be one I’ve sent the last chapters to my friends so that they can read it and I can talk about the plot for real because I’ve been vague for spoiler reasons outside Tumblr.

I love these guys so much, but I'm excited to begin something newer y’know? I want to stay in this world, but I want to follow different characters before I go back to these guys because they are dysfunctional as all hell.

Anyway, I’ll talk more about that later. Until next time!!

Hope you have a nice dayyy!!!

[ailuronymy]

Book Club: Tallstar’s Revenge, chpt. 1-9 overview.

Thoughts on the new Windclan, courtesy of famed Erin Hunter impersonators: 

“DIRT BOYS!! LET'S MAKE THEM ALL DIRT BOYS!” -- K. 

"I understand we've stressed extensively that ALL Windclan love running and are skinny binches and need to be under the sky or they're sad, BUT half the clan has always been buff as fuck and live like moles :) :) we just didn't mention it before because it wasn't important to Harry's journey :) :) :)” -- S.

For this first share, we’ll keep to the questions posted earlier in the week so that there’s some kind of structure to what we’re doing! Please feel welcome to do the same and @ailuronymy + use the tag #ailuronymy writing challenge. Happy reading and I’m looking forward to seeing your feelings about this book. 

1. First impressions? 

S. better than Bluestar's Prophecy.   K.  Not as bad as BP but also hoo boy, you peel back the onion and it only gets uglier the more you think about it huh K.  Me, reading the book initially: Wow I actually kind of enjoyed this! Me now: I See. I See The Truth.

2. How did you feel reading this section?

S.  mostly the usual amount of exasperation! But it was also fun and I like Tallpaw K.  About the same! Not as bored as BP, and I do like Tallpaw, so that's a blessing in disguise.

3. What chapter did you find most interesting/moving/effective, and why?

S. probably the one where Heatherstar causes a ruckus and acknowledges Tallpaw's best interests. There was genuinely tension and it was refreshing to have a character in authority actually act reasonably towards Tallpaw.  K.  I agree, that one had me really excited to read.

4. What chapter did you find least interesting/effective/most frustrating, and why?

S.  I honestly struggled with chapter eight. If I have to read too much action being described, I black out. I just find it so boring. That's not actually a criticism at Erin Hunter. I just have a short attention span for people Doing Things that aren't talking, sword-fights, having big emotions, sex, or any combination. And even then, the sword-fights and/or sex still have to keep to a reasonable word limit or I wander away. I'm the worst. I'm literally like a child who only wants to eat sweets, but in written form.  S. I forgot basically all of chapter eight for the above reason of being terrible, so that's on me.

K. I have nothing written at all about Chapter 7. I liked seeing the apprentice training being like, at least marginally different than Thunderclan's but also It Sucked Bad Chapter Moving On.

5. Is there a passage that stuck in your mind–for good, or not-so-good reasons? What is it, and why did it stand out? Try breaking it down and analysing what this passage does and how.

S. I actually had a nice time reading about Plumclaw and Tallkit interacting. She was talking him through having his first mouse, I think, and it was genuinely sweet and moving in a way that Erin Hunter's writing almost never is. There was a legit connection and for a moment, I actually believed in these characters as people who lived together and actually have relationships and care. That’s really what I’m about, so it was a pleasant surprise to find in this book. 

K. I have two brief passages for different reasons:  “He’s my son,” Sandgorse snarled. “I’ll decide his future.” Heatherstar  stiffened.  “I decide  the  future  of my warriors.” LOVE Heatherstar showing the fuck up. Absolute legend. K. “Tallkit heard worry in her mew. “Is that why we tunnel under the moor?” he asked. “To hide from the dead warriors in other Clans?” — First tunnelling mention! The idea of Windclan taking shelter from/expertly evading the ghosts of their enemies because of their speed is honestly pretty fun, but I don’t trust the Erins with it one bit. K. This kind of legend is something I think I'd much prefer in like, a Watership Down style myth or story? K. But not if Erin's touching it. S. I was like, "oh this is the sickest thing you've ever--no no no no no" K. (oh, and just for fun, one of my other fave quotes was Dawnstripe saying "We guard the edge of the world." That felt cool.)

6. What themes did you notice in these chapters? What motifs or repeated symbolism/description appeared to you?

K.  Love is a big one, obvs. K.  Also, lots of stories and storytelling? Which feels just like Erin slapping more bullshit in here but like, that feels kinda relevant.

S. I struggled to find cohesive themes in this chunk, except I think division? The division between the tunnellers and moor runners, between Tallpaw and his mum, between Heatherstar and her clan. That's really what popped for me.

K.  Oh, and like... expectations. The clan's expectations of Heatherstar, Sandgorse's of Tallpaw, Tallpaw's expectations for himself.

7. How do you feel about the characters, their motivation, their choices?

K.  They're like. Not the worst? Lots of them fucking suck, as usual. But I'm at least very happy that I actually want to see Tallpaw succeed and grow. Also Heatherstar and Dawnstripe and Barkpaw are great.

S. I like Tallpaw! That's a lot of projection on my part, but I've found him a lot less grating than Bluepaw (who I also wanted to love). S. One of my first major aggravations in the early chapters is Shrewpaw. He's unbearable, and what makes him so is the one-note bullying. It's the equivalent of reading someone go, "I'm not touching you," in an annoying voice for nine chapters, which I feel is another example of Erin Hunter's habit of repetition.  There was less of that in this book than BP, but I still counted a few instances of cats having the same conversation a few times. S. The other cat I can't stand is Sandgorse. My god. That moment when he tells his literal infant son to go cheer up his depressed mother made me just about scream. S. “Go cheer up your mother, child” GO CHEER UP YOUR WIFE, HUSBAND

K.  This is where it's gonna get interesting, because I think my fucking senses were dulled by how much Erin fucked up dads last time, because I didn't hate him off the hop!

S. To me, he smacks of a lowkey toxic masculinity. And the kind of emotional manipulation he does makes me [narrow eyes]. S. (I didn't take very good notes about this bit, because I forgot. I only have "Sandgorse is such a loser" but I trust past me's judgement).

K.  I strongly do think that my impression of Sandgorse is different if only because I think I was so tired at seeing all the non-existent dads in Bluestar's Prophecy that the fact that he actually has conversations with his son and wife for more than like, a sentence, made me go "Oh thank god" And maybe this too is a bit of a projection, but I sort of initially saw him as like... that well-meaning dad who tries to be nice but still manages to fuck up and not actually listen to what people need at all. Like, the classic stupid dad in a bad TV movie who has A Dream for his kid. Where he doesn't mean to be an asshole, he just thinks he's right and that his kid agrees with him because Why Wouldn't He. So I think I took a lot of his dialogue and actions to be a bit more well-meaning-but-still-not-great rather than fully toxic. Obviously it doesn't end well for anyone, but I guess I've just seen too many father figures go around with nice intentions who have absolutely Zero ability at reading a room let alone their kids

S. I think for me, that is the problem. And I think I am less forgiving towards it.

K. Stormtail [Bluestar’s father, Bluestar’s Prophecy] feels like more of the asshole dad, to me, but like. They're both different brands of Not Good.

S. Stormtail is super just a complete prick, no doubt. I think Sandgorse is more engaged with his kid, for sure. But I think it's a very hollow engagement, because he denies everything about Tallpaw's actual personality and desires and just sees him as an extension of himself to control. Which is sort of parental abuse 101.

K. Oh, and while we're discussing them: Palebird huh. Again, Erins, can't write a woman, but like. I don't know, I think that like... she felt like a neat character for the first chapter and now they're doing their Bad Things with her by making her boring and Just Sad and kind of useless in the background for them to mess with and probably kill off later. Like, she doesn't have a whole lot of personality, but she could. S. I think I'd like all the characters more if I spent less time with them. Like, I think for me, the pace is too slow, the dialogue is too long, and because of that, I get bored and annoyed with the characters. Whereas I think if it was only a couple of chapters, forcing the dialogue to be more punchy and illuminating of their character, and less mired in sadness (Palebird) or digging stupid holes (Sandgorse) or bullying (Shrewpaw), I'd have a lot more fun. But as it stands, Palebird starts talking and I start zoning out because they've really done her so dirty in this.

8. If you could ask any character in this section a question, what question would you ask them?

K. Heatherstar: How does it feel to be the baddest bitch in the room at any given moment K. Palebird: Why the FUCK are you with this bastard K. Sandgorse: WHY are you LIKE THAT ALL THE TIME

S. Barkpaw: what is it about learning medicine that you love? Or.... Barkpaw: how did you decide to give up your future with others, for a future in medicine? What was that decision like?

K.  A more serious question from me, hehe: Tallpaw - If no one was watching, what would make you happiest to do or say? K.  Shrewpaw: What about yourself do you feel most inadequate about? What part of that drives you to act towards others like you do?

S. Shrewpaw: what's your fucking damage, buddy?

9. In your opinion, what is “world-building” and how important is it to you as a reader (or writer)? How do you feel about the world-building of these chapters so far? If you could, would you change anything, and what would you change?

S. Oh, I hate it. S.  What's hilarious is that for maybe the first time ever Erin Hunter is putting effort in. You can see how hard they're working to make tunnelling sound "cool" or relevant, how they're describing all these tunnel-related skills and techniques the way they do with fighting or whatever. S. And the irony is it's such a wasted effort because personally? Could not care less. This world-building enraptures me none amount and I spend the whole time scoffing like, sure Jan. 

K. One of my notes off the hop is: "I know that Erin’s trying to like… make Windclan look unique by adding these new positions, but just labelling some warriors as “moor runners” doesn’t cut it. Their job is: “hunting and patrolling the borders”. That’s just? An average warrior thing to do? It’s not special, and naming it something fancy doesn’t make me feel like you’re actually adding anything to Windclan’s mythology here." Which is really just tunnel adjacent, but it's still relevant.

K.  Other choice tunneling notes:  "...Listen, I get it, inter-clan conflict is wonderful. But WHY do the moor runners and tunnellers hate each other? If the tunnels are so important to Windclan’s way of life, SURELY the above-ground warriors would feel respect for them? And if Windclan holds such value in their tunnels (Palebird literally just said that the tunnels mean they’re “stronger and cleverer” than the other clans), then WHY would Windclan cats hate them for it?? To have this weird seemingly generational distrust between the two castes is just. Fucking bananas." k. "Hey Erin: Why introduce the tunnellers at all if you keep putting them down and saying how much worse it would be to be one. What’s the point."

S. “I'm still not over the fact they're [Erin Hunter] like... "what can we do to make Windclan, the clan who famous won't even build nests because they like to live under the stars, special and different from the rest... oh I fucking know."

K. "Why is no one in charge in this clan that’s been a tunneller?? Heatherstar and Reedfeather just… fully don’t understand tunnelling and tunnellers needs?? If I were making this system, I’d have it be mandatory that the leader and deputy have to be one from either caste." S. Why not just ban it already. S. I mean, the book tries so hard to convince us tunnelling is useful. I believe none of it.

K. ALSO why don't the tunnelers b a t h e K. "They're permanently soiled with dirt and soot" DO THEY BATHE??? DO THEY?? WHY DO YOU HATE THIS NEW CASTE THAT YOU SEEM TO LOVE? K. Erin Hunter: look at my cool new worldbuilding set! I'm going to shit on it for an entire book

K.  Like. I'm having a hard time pinpointing what I would do better, but like...  I think I want it to feel 1) more cohesive and believable. 2) It needs to be useful and cement this clan as a group of living, working people. It has to make some kind of sense (to an extent) but also have a purpose! 3) sometimes worldbuilding doesn't need to be "uhh they need more jobs" sometimes it can be "we have this myth about running faster than the ghosts of our enemies" and that's just as successful if you do it right. Like, Erin thought you needed to entirely overhaul Windclan and make them Different to make them better. Instead of working with what's already there!

S. I personally feel it doesn't take much to make the clans really different from each other, and it's more the subtle things that make huge differences, not--like you said--more jobs or anything.  Really don't want to blow my own horn, but like, to use the chapter I just wrote as an example: just by making elders vote to make major decisions alters the clan significantly. That's just one thing, that's putting different emphasis and a new swing on a preexisting facet of every clan.  But immediately you get the effect and it has run-on effects too, which is what good world-building should do. It should be hard to remove any one piece without the whole castle crashing down. And this book is basically about how removing one “major” piece (tunnelling) effectively didn’t change anything, really.  K.  It just doesn't feel right to me! It's too big a change to feel natural, let alone how fucking bad it is.

K. And like, honestly, the Erins even did okay with just highlighting the territory and environmental differences! I've read all the different fucking ways they can write a forest after 30 books and they really have written them all. Even just making THAT a focal point helped to make this book feel somewhat distinct and fresh! 

S. One of my long-standing gripes with Erin Hunter is that their environments are boring and basic and they need way more close detail on plants and whatnot but that is a personal preference, and not actually a flaw. Although admittedly, if you do spend time making an environment interesting, it turns out that becomes a reason to read and a pleasure, instead of something you have to trudge through to get to the Actually Good Bits. But that's not what they're about and I can acknowledge that, if not respect it. 

Extra notes:

S. [Sandgorse’s] basically the dad equivalent of a pageant mum? K. Yeah! K. Sports Dads are just Pageant Mom Regional Variants. S. Oh my god. 

K. The story isn't about [Palebird] and at this point it just feels kind of sad to have her onscreen. S. Yeah, I get the feeling she exists to make Tallstar feels unloved, basically. K. Which sucks! S. "Your mum likes your dead sibling more" is uhh a brutal way to tell a story, Erin.

K. For one: Barkpaw is... the best cat S. YES S. My boy.  K. The Erins only know three medicine cats: Softe, Don't Fucking Touch Me, or The Only Reasonable Gay

K.  1) “Tallpaw swallowed a purr. “No racing, I promise. No having fun whatsoever on the dawn patrol.” I Love Him. 2) Dawnstripe seems nice and I think she and Stonepelt need to be friends. 3) I loved Tallpaw's little chase sequence and how clever he is :>

S. I just can't get over how much it breaks my suspension of disbelief to imagine cats digging. S. Of all things.  S. I can tolerate the bullshit fighting better than I can believe cats digging with any efficiency whatsoever. K. They remind me of the Meerkats from Lion King 1/2. K. And I. K. Despise. K. That film. S. Windclan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U76zyUFg3Xo K. PLEASE END MY SUFFERING

K. I think what pisses me off about [Shrewpaw] the most, sidebar, is that he's like this from the start. Who is teaching him this??? Who is raising this little monster boy???? Who in Windclan is just? rearing xenophobes???? S. Like, he's newly born and walking around being a little fascist. S. And no-one is doing anything about it! All the adults are like, "huh, yeah, kids, am I right?" K. He isn't even as cool as Thistleclaw! He's just a little mean weasel boy! S. Sandgorse is literally like, "yeah that little weak moor runner punk child, what a coward, scared of getting sand in his eyes." Like, that's not the right response At All. K. EVERYONE IS SO RACIST ALL THE TIME SEND TWEET S. And none of the moor runners are being like, "hey stop calling him wormcat, his name is Tallpaw and he's your clanmate." S. Additional sidebar: Shrewpaw calling Tallpaw "wormcat" is my favourite thing in the book. S. It's like if I walked up to a nerd I didn't like and was just like, "lol wormboy." S. Devastating. K. RIGHT S. It's so funny. I was literally there like, "okay this is bad behaviour, Shrewpaw, that's not the right way to act, but also? fucking hilarious." K. It was funny at the start and now that it's his Thing it's even more funny. Like you can't think of anything better to say that you keep invoking the "Wouldn't you like to know, weather boy?" goof at all hours. S. It kind of reminded me of the time I was teaching and I had to put a ban on the word "Elmo" because the kids kept basically making it a slur on each other, but it was also the funniest thing and it was SO HARD not to fucking lose it. S. Me, being a good teacher: "All right, that's enough, no-one is allowed to call anyone else 'Elmo' anymore." S. Me on the inside: [dying]

[starlightshore]

im kinda want to get into this sort of thing so is it okay to ask u a few questions? if not just delete this, but here goes? would u reccomend game maker studio 2, and how hard is it to use in ur opinion? and is there anything u wish u knew at the beginning of making ur fangame?

aw anon you’re so sweet! don’t worry about asking about this, its really exciting to make games and trying new things! i would not say i’m an expert, and i wouldn’t even say i know gml like. at all. i just understand a how the code is used, but now what the code itself is or what to type exactly. like, i understand the theory more so than actually doing it. which is, eh, fine? i’m getting by, and i’m still learning. i’ve only been using gms 2 for 2 months now.

also, i’m using a fangame engine! i feel its kinda like cheating lmao, but its just meant to be a framework to build your own thing off of. and i still need to learn gms2 to use it, and i plan on doing more advanced and complicated things (ie: changing how battles even work structurally.) so. i’m not good at gsm2 yet, but uh, really once you understand coding its not any harder than i’d imagine w/ other professional game engines. compared to unity, i like this better because it seems built on the idea of making 2d sprite games. its SO much more simpler and the userface (while. i’m not a fan of how it has its workspace but whatever) is simple and easy to grasp.

i can’t say for certain if i recommend game maker. its very pricey and doesn’t go on sale often. (big sales i mean, it goes on 15% somewhat frequently) i really, really recommend doing your research first. 

so here i talk about what game engines i’ve used over the last year. (also i hear Godot is good!)

at the end of that post i said this: “TLDR; figure out what kind of game and story you want to tell/make. i could of saved a year’s worth of work if i just sat myself down and realized i wanted to make a completely new fangame separate from my old blog stuff. and that i wanted to make an rpg specifically.“

and so! past me has good advice. figure out the scope and what story do you want to tell. with AL, I know it has 2 chapters, and rn i’m only concentrating on chapter 1. chp 1 has 7 nights and one area where you fight enemies. its very story/character driven and is more so like. a deconstruction of the rpg genre than an actual rpg game. (i know that the word deconstruction is over used as hell, but it is what this is.)

it builds off the themes of the original, while focusing on things that i want to focus on and develop. ut, at it’s heart, is about stories and grief, i’m just taking it to a different extreme and angle.

uh, anyway, i really wish i knew what i wanted to make and understood the source material more and what i wanted to make. i’ve. thought really really hard over what UT means, what message toby was trying to convey, how he did it and what I thought about it. understanding what YOU want from and for your project is the most important thing. WHY do you want to make this? WHAT do you want people to feel and think about when playing? or even, after playing? it doesn’t have to be super deep either.

so, figure out what you what to make, and then you can work on the how. really plan your story, but honestly i wouldn’t recommend planning it in super big details right off. also, super helpful to have a friend help you brainstorm and plot check things for you. (shout out to my friend the sniffer

anyway, don’t plan things TOO detailed because things are GOING to change no matter how well you plan! just try to get get an outline done, then rewrite it 5 more times and then MAYBE you’ll be ready to tackle a more detailed version. then write it 5 more times. i can’t stress enough how important planning is, and how you shouldn’t expect everything to work out even on draft 10! things will work, and when they do, draft 10 is going to look like bad awful nonsense cause you’re at draft 20 now and everything is much more coherent and better. games aren’t written or consumed all at once on the fly. its not a piece of fanart, a fanfic, a comic. its not updated more than once. its out, and then its just out. plan for it.

and real quick, don’t worry about art assets! depending on how you do the art, that’s most likely going to change and its going to be polished LAST. i could go more into how you should think of art when game developing, but thats another topic. just. honestly use shitty art assets and worry about it later.

kris’ place holder sprite for deltarune ^ it don’t need to be pretty, it needs to be practical.

second advice: start SMALL!!! i feel i should of done this, and frankly i probably will have to sit down and do this lmao, basically, you should make boring small games to learn the basics. I know, i know, nobody really wants to recreate asteroid when you got big ideas of making stories and animations u wanna make. but like. you really need to figure out how the program works and how the code works in theory and practice.

ok so like, think of coding like this. i got this from a skillshare video series, so uh. i’m going to retell this but in a shittier and likely less nuanced way. sorry

ok so imagine. you’re telling this guy who is trying to get to Gary’s house. now, Gary’s house is just down the road, few houses down, now, you can tell this guy that and he’ll likely find the house just fine. but if you’re telling a robot it’s not going to understand what “down the road” means. what road? how long? it needs instructions that are simple and work in a language it understands.

so you tell the robot “go down two houses, stop at sign until x seconds pass, turn right, go forward 1 house, turn ect. stop at house, ring doorbell. IF Gary answers, go inside; ELSE: do not go inside, wait;

so this what i mean by understanding the theory behind the code rather than the code itself. yes there’s complexities and differences in each language, but they’re ALL based on the same concepts. different program languages are less like different speech languages, but rather different dialects of the same. (uh, like us english vs uk english) its just different rules and “spellings” of the same core concepts.

next advice: don’t be afraid to ask for help! but also! do so within reason! if people are OPEN for helping, be sure do so in the right environment and within what time works for them. compensate people for the time and effort if you can. ALWAYS try to figure out the solution yourself first. often with coding, it can be a simple solution that you could of thought of yourself if you took the initiative to. google is your friend, youtube is your friend! (ok, youtube isn’t, but in this case! yes!) the answer might not always be easy to find, and its perfectly fine to look for help but its good to at least try on your own first!

speaking of which! LEARN LEARN LEARN! be ready to devote A LOT of time to watching and reading about game development. this goes to every game making program, not just gms2. i watch. so many videos on gms. i rec having the video play at 1.5x or 2x speed to cut down time. obvs you still need to retain the information, so speed might be not a good idea then. and its REALLY GOOD to pause and type out the code and follow along. but its also good to just understand the concepts, and theres no harm in rewatching once you’ve understood it  better at a different speed.

things WILL click and work out for you, and its going to be a very time consuming and long journey to get there. i LOVE making this game and telling this story but I also had no idea what i was getting into! and i probably will have more advice once i’m further in, (i’ve only used gms 2 for 2 months!) but thats the best i can say for now! i hope you pursue your dreams and start making things!!! you can do it!!! 

the best time to start is yesterday, the second best time is right now! even if you put a little effort into it everyday, you’ll  build up progress and you can learn SO MUCH over time and theres this whole world of possibilities out there! the world NEEDS your story and your perspective, and i think creating it in anyway you can is necessary for humanity! your work will mean something to someone someday, and i am so excited for you to start your journey!

[freddiesaysalright]

Dancing With Ben Week 5

A Ben Hardy x Reader Series Halloween Night - Contemporary

Summary: Reader is one of the pro dancers on Dancing With the Stars. It’s her second season on the show, and this time, her partner is none other than Ben Hardy. Will they win the Mirror Ball? Maybe they’ll win something even more meaningful!

Word Count: 3.5K

Tag List:  @psychosupernatural, @someone-get-a-medic, @twigleektribute23, @ionlyhavepicturesofflowers, @asquiresofftime, @caborhapch, @iwasnothingbutacityboy, @a-kind-of-magik, @anxious-diabetic, @royalblueviper, @toms-irish-girl, @doingalrightt, @borhapqueen92, @angiefangirlworld-2, @ziggymay, @pink-lemo, @riddikuluslypotter, @wearewiththebands If you’d like to be added, let me know!

A/N: Just a wee bit of angst/jealousy in this part. Hope you like! Also, we have a surprise guest for the next chapter, coming soon!

Week 1  Week 2  Week 3  Week 4

Week 5 here we go!!!

You loved Halloween. The costumes, the candy, the pumpkins, everything. You especially loved watching Hocus Pocus and handing out candy to the trick-or-treaters. Also, for Halloween week on Dancing With the Stars, Emma and Sasha always hosted a movie night for the remaining couples to come and relax after rehearsal, so you were looking forward to going with Ben. 

Ben arrived at the studio shortly after you. You beamed at him.

“My hero!” you called, walking over to pull him into a hug. 

You’d taken to calling him this after he took care of you that night at the bar. He always rolled his eyes at the term, and did so again now. Still he lifted you off your feet and spun you around.

“How’d you like country night?” you asked as he placed you back on your feet.

“Is was more fun than I thought it would be,” he told you. “I was pleasantly surprised.”

“You did really well,” you said. “I can take you honky tonkin’ now.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

You giggled. “It’s just a silly word for bar hopping at country western bars. It’s popular in places like Nashville.”

“Please don’t take me honky tonking,” he said.

“Oh, ew, it sounds so weird when you say it,” you returned with a laugh. “I promise, I won’t. Besides, this week we get to do something spooky! Do you like Halloween?”

“I liked it more as a kid,” he said. 

“What’s the best costume you remember from your childhood?”

“I went as a Ninja Turtle several years in a row,” he admitted. “Painted my face green and everything.”

“Wow, so you were committed to your roles at a very young age,” you joked.

He chuckled. “Sure was.”

“Good! Because you’re gonna get to show off those acting chops a bit this week,” you said. “For our Halloween dance, we have contemporary. This opens up a whole new world for telling a story.”

“Oh, I like that,” he said. “What story are we telling?”

“You’re a creepy stalker,” you told him. “And I’m the sweet innocent girl you’re stalking.”

“I’ve not gotten to be creepy very much,” he said. “I like it.”

“I really think we’re gonna kill it this week,” you said. “Contemporary is very expressive and creative, so I think we can have some fun with it. Because it’s so open, I want you to tell me if you have any ideas for the choreography.” 

“Really?” he asked. “You want me to help you put it together?”

“Just this time,” you said with a smirk. “I think your experience in movies can add something more dramatic to this dance.”

“Sweet!”

You began rehearsal, with Ben adding things here and there. He did really well with all dances, but contemporary was proving to be something he thrived with. His ideas truly added to the storyline of the dance and made things more interesting. And, you could see how great of an actor he was as he really got into character for the dance. It was a little intense at times, but it would be in those moments that he’d miss a step and you would laugh together. 

It went so well, you decided to end rehearsal early and head back to your place for dinner. You told him you’d cook for him, and you would avoid the prying eyes of the paparazzi at your apartment. He agreed, and off you went. 

“Ben, I’m honestly so impressed with you,” you told him in the car. “You’re doing so well. I feel like we can really win this thing.”

“I think so too,” he agreed, taking your hand and smiling at you. You grinned right back.

You made it back to your apartment, and you were grateful you had tidied up beforehand, unlike last time. Although, Ben had not once made you feel bad about that night. He seemed almost as bashful as you were about it, if not more so. He took a seat at the counter while you started dinner.

“Can I get you anything?” you offered. “Beer or a glass of wine?”

“Just water for now,” he said. “I’m exhausted after today.”

“But I’m excited about this dance,” you replied, getting a glass of water for him. “Like, it’s creepy, but without ghosts or monsters, which is usually what Halloween night is all about on the show.”

He said a soft thanks as you gave him the water and he took a sip. 

“So,” he said. “What was your favorite Halloween costume as a kid?”

You thought about this as you put some olive oil in a pan. 

“Probably in the fourth grade when I went as Cher,” you said. “My mom even did my makeup so I’d have the right bone structure. It was awesome.”

He chuckled. “That is awesome.” 

You chatted casually as you made dinner, when a sudden knock on the door stopped everything. You asked Ben to watch the stove while you answered the door. You opened it to see it was James, you partner from the previous season, standing there and smiling widely at you.

“Y/N!” he cried, opening his arms for a hug.

You jumped into them. “James!”

He laughed as he embraced you, and you rocked him back and forth. 

“I can’t believe you’re here!” you exclaimed as you released him and allowed him inside. “What are you doing here?”

“Just taking a break,” he said with a shrug, but you could tell he was holding back since he noticed Ben in the room. 

“This is Ben,” you said, walking James over. 

They stiffly shook hands. 

“Nice to meet you,” Ben said. 

“You too,” James returned, noticeably warmer than Ben was being. 

You frowned but didn’t want to start anything. So you ignored it. 

“James, why don’t you join us for dinner?” you offered. “There’s plenty, and I’d like to catch up. Ben, do you mind?”

“No, not at all,” he said, although his expression faltered when you extended the invitation.

The guys sat down at the counter and you resumed cooking. You gave James a glass of red wine you knew he would love, and you told him so. He took a sip and hummed.

“Oh, this is fantastic, Y/N,” he said. “You know me better than I know myself.”

You smiled. “Maybe you’re just predictable.”

“Hey, so you two are doing incredible on the show,” he said, ignoring the jab. “I’ve been watching. I can’t believe you already got a perfect score!”

“Thank you!” you replied. “I could hardly believe it either.”

“And on week four!” he continued, clapping Ben on the shoulder. “Seriously, well done. I think it was week six or seven before we got our first perfect score.”

“It was week seven,” you reminded him. “And I seriously thought I was going to cry I was so happy.”

“Got anything fun planned for Halloween week?” he asked.

“We’re going a contemporary,” you explained, and went on to tell him some things you and Ben had come up with. Ben was being oddly quiet. “It’s going to be so cool and creepy. Right, Ben?”

“Oh, yeah,” he said shortly.

You frowned but by then it was time to plate the food. You served them and then you all moved to the table to sit down. You and James still did most of the talking throughout the meal. It was bothering you that Ben was being so unfriendly, and you wondered if you should talk to him about it. You just weren’t sure if that would help or make things worse. Time dragged on slowly before dinner came to a close, when James said he was going to step out onto the patio for a moment. 

“That sounds great,” you agreed. “Ben, you down?”

“I’ll start cleaning up,” he said, declining. “But you two go ahead. I’ll join you when I’m finished.”

“You don’t have to clean up, it’s not even your house,” you said.

“You cooked, I’ll clean up,” he insisted. 

You opened your mouth to argue some more, but James put a hand on your arm to stop you.

“Let him help, Y/N,” he said lightly. “He’s a much better guest than I am.”

He finished with a small laugh, but you couldn’t join it. Something was off. Begrudgingly, you and James got up and went outside, and you closed the door behind  you. You looked through the window and watched Ben collect the dishes and carry them to the sink before turning back to James.

“I’m sorry about him,” you said. “I don’t know why he’s being so weird.”

“I do,” James answered. “He’s jealous.”

“No way, I told him we weren’t dating or anything,” you said. “Not that it matters because Ben’s not my boyfriend either.”

“Well, then it is kinda silly, but honestly, even I thought there was something more between you two,” he said. 

“Are you serious?” you cried. “After everything we went through last season, you’re gonna jump on the ‘are they dating?’ train too?”

“Look, I know that we had a lot of chemistry because we were such good friends,” he said. “But I’ve seen you dance with plenty of people between me and the other pros when you were on your. You’ve never danced with someone the way you dance with Ben. In that rumba, it was clear you much you wanted to be in his arms.”

“Even if that’s true,” you said, ignoring the blush coming over your cheeks. “He knows we weren’t a couple. I told him.”

“He thinks we had sex,” James said simply. “It’s all over his face every time I touch you.”

“Why would that matter?” you wondered.

“Because we’re still friends and see each other,” he went on. “Jesus, Y/N, you can’t really be this ignorant about this.”

“Excuse me for not having a perfect grasp on a man I’ve known literally a month,” you returned. “Ugh, what am I supposed to do about this?”

“Nothing, unless you want to bring out how you feel about each other,” he said. 

“I don’t want him to hate you.”

“He doesn’t hate me,” he said. “He probably doesn’t even know he’s feeling this way. If he does, he’s going to keep it from you.”

“You’re not making this any easier,” you said. 

He shrugged. “It’s not an easy situation.”

“Ugh, I don’t wanna talk about it anymore,” you groaned. “What brought you to LA? Seriously.”

“Had a fight with my boyfriend,” he said. “I needed to get away for a little bit. So, I figured I’d come see you. I’m gonna go to the show this week too.”

“Seems a bit drastic,” you teased. “Can’t you just go for a drive like a normal person?”

“Honey, you know I am extra as hell about my emotions,” he returned with a laugh. “Anyway, I wanted to see you.”

You hugged him. “I’m glad you’re here. Do you wanna talk about the fight?”

You felt him shake his head. “Nah. I just want to forget about it honestly.”

You stood with him on the patio for another few minutes, just holding each other. When you shivered from the cool night air, you decided to go back inside. When you re-entered the apartment, it was empty. The dishwasher was running, but Ben was nowhere to be found.

“Ben?” you called, checking the bedroom and bathroom just to be sure. But he wasn’t there. You opened the front door and looked down the hallway. 

“Ben!”

Nothing.

You whipped out your phone, but you didn’t have a text or call from him either. You texted him, asking where he was and if he was safe. You waited five minutes and still heard nothing. So you called, but he didn’t answer. 

“Is he seriously fucking ghosting me right now?!” you cried, irritation crawling over your skin. “This is ridiculous!”

“He’s gotta show up for rehearsal tomorrow, so you know you’ll see him then,” James said. 

“If he doesn’t come to rehearsal tomorrow, I will actually lose my shit,” you said. 

That night, after James had gone and you were in bed, your fury kept you awake. You switched between worrying Ben was lying dead in a ditch somewhere and fantasizing that you had done the deed yourself. In between, you cried softly, hurt mixing into your anger and confusion. 

The next morning, you arrived to the studio early. You told the camera guys to hold off until you told them to return because you needed to talk to Ben about something serious. Reluctantly, they obliged and left the studio. Ben arrived shortly after. 

As soon as he stepped foot through the door, you shoved him against the wall. 

“Hey!” he protested.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” you demanded. “You really thought you could just leave without saying anything?! And then when I try to reach you, you blow me off?! What the fuck is wrong with you?!”

“Look, I’m sure you had a very nice night with James,” he said bitterly. 

“So that is what this is about!” you gasped. “God, Ben, just how little do you think of me?”

“What?!” he cried.

“Do you really think I’m the kind of person who uses someone else for sex?” you questioned. “Do you think I place that little value on intimacy? Well, I don’t!”

“That’s not what I -”

“Oh, it isn’t?! Because that’s certainly what it feels like!” you shouted. “Even if I did, what right do you have to judge me for it?!”

He opened his mouth to reply, but you cut him off again.

“And I told you - I told you James and I were never together! But in case it’s not clear enough, we never had sex, either! Not that it’s really any of your business! I just thought I should share since it bothered you enough to just fuck off and ignore me! I was up all night worrying about you, you punk!”

He looked at the floor. You glared at him. He muttered something under his breath.

“What was that?” you asked sharply.

“I’m sorry!” he snapped, flush coming over his cheeks and ears. “I’m sorry, okay? I don’t...I don’t know what came over me.”

You sighed and softened. “I forgive you. But don’t you ever do that to me again, got it? I was worried sick about you.”

“I won’t, I promise,” he said gently.

You stepped closer to him wrapping your arms around his waist and resting your forehead on his chest. His arms folded across your shoulders. Tears had formed in your eyes and you sniffled, blinking them back.

“Are you crying?” he asked, pulling back.

“Shut up!” you returned. “Bitch, I care about you, and I’m sick of it!”

He chuckled. “Let’s dance, yeah?”

You nodded, wiping your cheeks and smiling again. 

Rehearsal went well and you felt like you and Ben were back on track. That night, he went with you to Sasha and Emma’s, where you were nervous because scary movies tended to really freak you out, and you had already lost a whole night of sleep for Ben. You sank into the couch beside him and put on a brave face. 

The movie was one of The Conjuring series, though you weren’t sure exactly which. All you knew was that you were going to be terrified. You were right, too. The movie began, and you took Ben’s hand. Several times throughout, you would gasp quietly, and Ben would give your hand and comforting squeeze. But then, during one particularly horrible jump scare, Sasha also reached over and grabbed your leg, shouting at you. You screamed at the top of your lungs and crawled into Ben’s lap, hiding your face in his chest while the others laughed at you. 

“That’s not funny, Sasha!” you whined as Ben wrapped his arms around you. 

“It’s a little funny,” Sasha laughed. “I get you every time.”

“You’re a bully,” you whimpered.

Sasha started to protest, but Gleb shushed you both. You didn’t dare turn your eyes back to the screen. Ben pressed his lips to your temple and stroked your hair. You remained in his lap the rest of the movie. 

On your way home, Ben held your hand as your drove. You were still jumpy from the movie, and his presence kept you calm. 

“Hey, can I ask you a favor?” you said.

“Sure,” he said.

“Will you stay with me again tonight?” you asked. “I know I’m gonna be freaked out, and I can’t go another night without sleeping. But I’ll be okay if you’re with me.”

He chuckled. “Of course. I suppose I owe you one, anyway.”

“Thank you,” you sighed. 

When you got to your apartment, you turned all the lights on on the way to the bedroom. Ben followed behind, turning them off but after you were past the area. You made it to your room and quickly changed into pajamas. Then Ben came in, and he took off his shirt before you settled into bed together. 

Sober, this was different, but still not strange. It was just an innate easiness about being around Ben. You snuggled beneath the covers and he smiled at you.

“Are you ready for me to turn the lights off?” he asked.

You nodded. “But you have to cuddle me right after.”

“You got it.”

He reached over and flicked the switch, turning off the lamp on the nightstand. The room disappeared in the darkness, and you squeezed your eyes shut until you felt Ben’s arm around you. Then, you relaxed into him. 

“Thanks again,” you whispered. 

“You’re welcome,” he replied. 

A beat passed and then he spoke again.

“I really am sorry about yesterday,” he said.

“Ben, I already told you I forgive you,” you assured him. 

“Yeah, but I really acted...shitty,” he said. 

“Well, you’re certainly making it up to me now,” you joked. “It was just a misunderstanding. Now, go to sleep.”

“Good night,” he told you.

“Good night, Ben.”

Once again, show day was upon you quicker than you expected. You and Ben were going fourth, and you had a blast watching the couples going before you. People really got into Halloween night and the production was always incredible. By this time, you were no longer nervous about performing with Ben. He was ready, and so were you. 

The dance came out incredible. It was truly the best you had ever performed it. You and Ben battled it out through the movements and yet, it was beautiful. When it was over, you couldn’t help but beam at him as you went to get the judges’ opinions. 

“Oh my God!” Carrie Ann cried. “That was terrifying! I mean, I knew you were a good actor, but this was a side of you that was really different and scary!” She laughed. “The dance was incredible. You told the story perfectly with that choreography. I honestly could have watched a whole movie of that.” 

“I sort of felt like I was watching a movie,” Len said. “I’m not the biggest fan of contemporary routines, but that was very entertaining and you really had control throughout the whole dance. Very well done, indeed.”

“You were incredible!” Bruno shouted. “You really duked it out with Y/N, and had us frightened. I agree with Len, it was very controlled, and you looked great.”

At that point, Tom mentioned James.

“So, Y/N, I understand your former partner is here tonight,” he said. “Can we get him up here?”

“Oh, no, you -”

You were ignored as the crew brought James up to the stage, and you looked at Ben apologetically. He shrugged and smiled assuredly at you. 

“James, what do you think of Ben and Y/N?” Tom asked.

“They’re amazing, like the judges said,” James said. “I’ve been watching all season, and rooting for them. They did great tonight!”

He gave you a quick hug and shook Ben’s hand before heading back to his seat.

“Very graceful, we miss you in the ballroom, James,” Tom said. “Now, let’s get your judges scores.”

Once again, you got a perfect score. You hugged Ben in celebration and headed to the red room to watch the rest of the show. The other couples did amazing, but you and Ben were still on the top of the leaderboard. And it was still enough to get you through the elimination. You were relieved once again, that you did not have to say goodbye to Ben, even if you were angry with him about the other night. But after you said goodbye to Gleb and his partner, you saw Ben go over to James and talk to him. He was his usual self, friendly and sweet. It warmed your heart that he trusted you and was making a real effort to correct what he had done. 

You approached and slipped an arm around Ben’s waist.

“Hey, I was just about to come get you,” Ben said. “James would like to have dinner again tonight, what d’you think?”

“I think that would be great,” you said. “Only, let’s go out, I don’t feel like cooking.”

“Fair enough,” James said. 

You and Ben went to change and told James you would meet him out in the lot when you were ready. As you headed to the dressing room, Ben stopped and looked at you.

“So, what’s the theme for this week?” he asked.

“It’s trio night!” you told him. “And I’ve got a really special surprise for you.”

[f4liveblogarchives]

Fantastic Four Vol 1 #200

Mon Aug 26 2019 [01:59 AM] Wack'd: Alright, here we go. [01:59 AM] Wack'd: FANTASTIC FOUR VOL 1 NO 200: [02:00 AM] Bocaj: WILL IT BE BETTER THAN AVENGERS 200?? [02:00 AM] Bocaj: HOW CAN IT NOT BEEEEE? [02:00 AM] Wack'd: I just skimmed it and an alien does actually forcibly impregna--nah I'm just kiddin' [02:01 AM] Wack'd: So Doom's throwing himself a little pity party and Reed's like "uh, maybe we hang back a minute?" [02:02 AM] Bocaj: hah [02:02 AM] Wack'd: But Ben is, of course, not having it [02:03 AM] Wack'd: Uh...Ben aided in the destruction of his clone by.......?????

[02:04 AM] Wack'd: His memory doesn't take long to revise itself, does it [02:04 AM] maxwellelvis: By being friends with Reed Richards, I assume? [02:05 AM] Bocaj: Being adjacent [02:05 AM] Wack'd: Oh, in the Saul Goodman meaning of culpability whereby any wrongdoing that sufficiently scars you justifies all your actions [02:05 AM] Wack'd: Sure [02:06 AM] Wack'd: Anyway Doom uses a force field in his suit to shove the Four back to buy himself time to see to his clone's body [02:07 AM] Wack'd: ...they were on a balcony

[02:09 AM] Wack'd: Ben does his usual thing of trying brute force and Reed does his usual thing of randomly guessing why that won't work and being right and Ben does his usual thing of grumbling about it [02:09 AM] Wack'd: Wondering if this is a "Reed and Doom aren't so different" moment or just reenforcing the status quo

[02:10 AM] Wack'd: "Leading an armed insurgency into the UN is the same as giving them a present and offering to depose myself, right?"

[02:11 AM] Wack'd: So the mob's gotten bigger [02:12 AM] Wack'd: I like that Zorbo's got a superhero build and bone structure and literally every other Latverian is still drawn like an extra from a Universal Frankenstein picture

[02:14 AM] Wack'd: Doom siccs a tornado on his subjects [02:14 AM] Wack'd: Coulda done that last issue when the protest started but I guess now he's got nothing left to loose [02:16 AM] Wack'd: Then he takes his personal jet, his statue, and "equipment" he's kinda cagey about to the UN [02:17 AM] Wack'd: Daredevil's gonna sue someone

[02:17 AM] Wack'd: Maybe he'll hire that Matt Murdoch guy. I've heard good things [02:19 AM] Wack'd: Meanwhile, the Four escape. Reed slithers through the door's keyhole at great personal risk because touching anything will vaporize him [02:19 AM] Wack'd: They really should just get a fucking sonic screwdriver [02:19 AM] maxwellelvis: It's Operation! The Wacky Doctor Game! [02:20 AM] Wack'd: heheheh [02:20 AM] Wack'd: So Reed, Sue, and a miraculously-okay Zorbo search for and find Doom's secret plans [02:21 AM] Wack'd: While Ben and Johnny free Alicia [02:21 AM] maxwellelvis: Doom's plan, more or less: 1 2 3 [02:22 AM] Wack'd: Sure [02:22 AM] maxwellelvis: More or less. [02:22 AM] maxwellelvis: There wasn't a panorama of that scene I could grab. [02:22 AM] Wack'd: This is a pretty good moment

[02:23 AM] Wack'd: Minus Johnny's cool-guy posturing at the end there [02:24 AM] maxwellelvis: While also trying to play it cool about how little action he's been getting lately. [02:24 AM] Wack'd: Maybe if he tried asking out someone who wasn't afraid of fire [02:25 AM] Wack'd: ...whatever happened to Valeria from the 5th Dimension? Did they break up in Johnny's solo book or did Marvel just kinda forget about her [02:28 AM] Wack'd: So the short answer is Johnny's solo has been over for three years by this point! And yeah after that everyone just forgot her [02:29 AM] Wack'd: Hell Marvel Wiki doesn't mention any followup on their relationship in Johnny's solo book, so [02:29 AM] Wack'd: Into the ether with her [02:30 AM] Wack'd: Anyway--Chapter 2! We're back to doing chapters now! Exciting! [02:31 AM] Wack'd: The Four and Doom have both arrived in NY. Reed and Johnny are fighting Doom directly while Sue and Ben head to the UN [02:32 AM] Wack'd: Sorry, Johnny overdoes it against some areal missiles and retreats back to the Pogo Plane [02:32 AM] Wack'd: Time for the highly-anticipated Reed/Doom cage match [02:33 AM] Wack'd: Not like this is a team book or anything

[02:34 AM] Wack'd: There's a quick recap before the fight and it's retconned the college actually condemned Doom's experiment to go to the netherworld [02:35 AM] Wack'd: Thus ending one of my favorite dumb bits of comic book lore, which is that Doom got a grant for that [02:36 AM] Wack'd: Round one goes to Doom! Reed tries to dismantle Doom's suit and gets electrocuted [02:37 AM] Wack'd: Probably should've remembered he tried that on a robot two issues ago and got the same result [02:38 AM] Wack'd: Round two! Reed's been lured into the MURDER ROOM! Mechanical tendrils, lasers, robots! [02:38 AM] Wack'd: In keeping with Doom's "fair play" policy, all the traps have solutions, but eventually Reed will be worn down and miss a step and get, presumably, murdered [02:39 AM] Bocaj: Wherein Doom is a Saw [02:39 AM] Wack'd: Meanwhile, in the UN [02:40 AM] Wack'd: It occurs, perhaps too late, that it's probably a bad idea to send a giant-size statue of yourself as a gift to the people planning to vote you out of their organization for war crimes

[02:41 AM] Wack'd: Also: wouldn't be a commemoration of the long, proud history of Fantastic Four without some racial/nationalistic caricatures, I guess [02:41 AM] maxwellelvis: Now, these are his Servo-Guards, right? [02:42 AM] Wack'd: These are humans I'm pretty sure based on the last few issues [02:42 AM] maxwellelvis: I just assumed with how tight to the face those nose things are [02:42 AM] Wack'd: Doom doesn't design for comfort [02:42 AM] maxwellelvis: And the identical sunken cheeks on all of them. [02:43 AM] maxwellelvis: It's one of those things like Psycho-Man's mask [02:43 AM] maxwellelvis: At one point in the 80's the inker forgets that it is a mask and just draws him as a very ugly man. [02:43 AM] Wack'd: In fairness that's a lot of Fantastic Four baddies [02:44 AM] maxwellelvis: I know. It's just those sorts of coloring errors bug me. [02:44 AM] Wack'd: So it turns out Doom is planning on doing something to the UN with this statue and that massive hall of mirrors that's also a solar power center from back in 196 [02:44 AM] Wack'd: Bet you forgot about that thing, didn't you? [02:45 AM] Wack'd: So Doom is about to Do the Thing when Reed surprises him by having broken out of the Murder Room [02:45 AM] Wack'd: (He slipped inside the nozzle of a gas gun and exploded out of its ammo tank) [02:46 AM] Wack'd: Wouldn't be a commemoration of the long, proud history of Fantastic Four without Reed pulling a solution out of his ass that the narrative expects us to believe he had planned from the very beginning

[02:47 AM] Wack'd: How did he fit that through the nozzle of a gas gun, anyway [02:47 AM] maxwellelvis: "Wasn't easy" [02:49 AM] Wack'd: Reed tries to convince Doom to give up on petty revenge and join the good guys [02:50 AM] Wack'd: But Doom retorts that he's not interested in revenge, he genuinely believes he deserves power, because the murder of his mother proved to him that everyone who's not him is a "superstitious, frightened pack of cloddish morons" [02:52 AM] Wack'd: Doom manages to activate his statue which hypnotizes all the UN delegates into attacking Sue, Johnny, and Ben [02:52 AM] Wack'd: And Doom and Reed finally spend a few pages punching each other a lot, which is what we all wanted, I guess [02:54 AM] Wack'd: "I DON'T CARE ABOUT PETTY REVENGE! ALSO, ADMIT YOU WRONGED ME!"

[02:56 AM] Wack'd: And so, Zorbo takes his rightful place as acting leader until elections can be set up. Sets Doom up with some mental health care too which is nice of him by 70s standards

[02:57 AM] Wack'd: It was nice of the UN to let Doom have his evil hypnotic statue back

[02:57 AM] maxwellelvis: And some attempted biblical symbolism from Marv [03:01 AM] Wack'd: Thus ends the first 200 issues of Fantastic Four [03:01 AM] Wack'd: Jesus fuck [03:01 AM] Wack'd: Cannot believe I read 200 installments of anything ever [03:03 AM] Wack'd: I will try not to take a multi-year hiatus again like I did around the time I hit 100