#also to answer your actual question anon (bcs i just realised i didn't actually do that whoops lmao)

[singsweetmelodies]

i'm almost scared to ask, but... katie what did you even have in 924 drafts?!!!!!

OH GOD. yeah, honestly, dear anon, you should be a little scared to ask... 924 is absolutely batshit insane, i know, i know. i just have this Problem where i'm incredibly distractible, right, and so i'll be half-way through seeing a cool post, and then i need to go do something else. but i don't want to LOSE the cool post, so i just hit "save to drafts" instead so i can find it again and reblog it later. except... i always forget to, uh, actually DO that. which is how i inevitably end up with thousands (sometimes this does happen, literally 🥲🥲) of drafts on my blogs. 🙈

for 2023, though... it is my resolution to Not Do That anymore. no crazy draft saving. i will keep the drafts under 100 this year at all times please and thank you. (hopefully unlike most new year's resolutions, i will be able to keep this one, because come the fuck ON. honestly. smh @ me)

[master-of-the-railway]

(Questions incoming also sorry I haven't been sending asks much lately)

(General questions)

Of all your aus, which one is your favourite to talk or think about?

Who is your favourite character out of that au, either by design, story or just general character?

(Monster au specific questions)

Do any of the engines gain hoarding instincts? (I think that's what it's called anyways)

Does Gator show up in your au, and if so is he a monster too?

Out of all the monster engines, who would be the most likely to go sit in the middle of a lake for fun (or to get away from people bothering them) (I know the above was a random question but now I really want to know lol)

(Children of Sodor au specific questions)

Do the kid engines (Thomas, Percy, Carly, Sandy, etc.) ever try to follow the big engines on their jobs? (Like, imagine the episode where Gordon drags Thomas behind the express, but instead Thomas isn't coupled up and Gordon isn't trying to teach him a lesson, Thomas is just running behind the express as fast as he can because he wants to be like Gordon, and Gordon doesn't realise until Thomas catches up at a station)

Not a question but I have a feeling that during the time before Sandy got to big to be picked up, if someone picked her up and she wasn't expecting it she would probably squeak (based off my cat sounding like a little squeaky toy if I pick her up and she wasn't expecting it)

How does Toad get along with Bruno? (If they've met)

And how does Duck view the kids? Does he stay away from them or does he chat/interact with them?

And now that I'm thinking about the Little Western branchline engines, does Oliver get along with the kids? Or Donald and Douglas?

(ToH au questions)

Does Willow discover she has magic, or does magic only work on the Boiling Isles? (sorry, I'm a bit rusty on ToH lore I cannot remember if magic works in the human realm) If she does discover she has magic, how does she and/or the people around her react?

How do people react to King? He's clearly not a very normal creature even if he is adorable.

Does Hunter ever meet Lady?

Is Belos looking for a way to get to Sodor/Shining time, to get his Golden Guard back, or did he just get a new one and forget about Hunter?

Sorry there's so many questions here lol you don't have to answer them all if you don't want to.

(Anon Orange)

EXCITED STIMMMING YESSSSSSS I LOVE TALKING THIS IS SO GOOD!!!!! Gonna take em' out section by section.

General questions: 1.) Mmmm that's rlly hard to decide on. I love a lot of them equally. I miiight say Children of Sodor? Purely bc AEG is a very big comfort show for me, I love the kiddos a lot, and I love my versions even more. 2.) Out of the group...either Gordon or Kana. COS!Gordon is beloved to me as the gentle old father he is, and Kana is just my favorite AEG in general, so I think about her a lot in my au content.

Monster AU questions: 1.) I'd say none of them are particularly hoarders. Mainly because they don't have anything they'd really want. They are enamored by shiny objects but once they're snapped out of it they don't really care too much. They've got plenty of water, coal, diesel fuel and such, so they're not hoarders of fuel either. The closest you could get would be yard leaders like Gordon, who sometimes would push their "packs" together and try to keep them in one spot because they were worried about losing any of them. They just didn't want any harm to come to their fellow engines and the leaders have particularly strong urges to guard everyone, Gordon was especially bad for it. 2.) I try to include everyone, so yes, Gator would be here too :) Seeing as I'm doing this to pretty much EVERY engine, I think it'd be unfair to leave Gator out of the fun. Adding onto that, despite being a steam engine, I think it'd be fun if he actually resembled an alligator instead of being a fluffy beast. Mainly because hey why not, and also c'mon, his nickname is Gator!! 3.) I think a lot of the engines would take advantage of the ability of getting to chill in water. As long as it's not super deep and they aren't doing it for too long, they can actually swim a bit. And in shallow waters they can just relax and cool off in warmer weather, they all enjoy it quite a bit.

Children of Sodor questions: 1.) The kids absolutely have always been trying to copy the adults. They have basic "instinct" to do jobs, but they don't know how to do things exactly, so they were looking to the older machines to learn how to do what they wanted to so badly. Carly was swinging her hook when Cranky would in an attempt to load cars the way he did, Thomas would beg Annie and Clarabelle to let him pull them so that he could pull a passenger train like Gordon (which he eventually started doing for real!), so on and so forth. 2.) Sandy did get very surprised the first little while, but eventually she got fully unbothered, mainly because Carly was far faster so she would lift Sandy and just carry her along all the time. 3.) Bruno likes to stick to routine and schedule, and he's usually with Diesel or Thomas if he's working, so he's not on the same branch line as Oliver and Toad all that often. He's met Toad before, and he likes him a lot, he's a very polite brake van and they have that same natural solidarity that all rolling stock of the same type feel. 4.) Duck thinks the kids are all very lovely! He'd heard about them when they first arrived, but didn't actually meet them until a few months later. He's not as intensely involved with their lives as some others are but he doesn't mind them at all, he's friendly towards them and will chat with them if they cross paths. Sort of similar to how Edward is with them, but Duck isn't as involved as Edward. 5.) Oliver is actually also a kid! Duck considers him his little brother, and Oliver is the only kid that Duck is almost constantly around. He likes hanging out with the other kids, Percy most of all, but finds himself more comfortable with the older engines. Namely Duck, Douglas, and Edward. 6.) Based off of my headcanon that Donald and Douglas are both really great with human kids, they're FANASTIC with machine kids. They're like the really fun uncles to the Tidmouth kids, if they get the chance to they're going to be spending every second they can with the kids, especially during the wintertime! They wanted to be as involved with the kids' lives as they could and were very present at the sheds when Kana and Nia had each first arrived so that they could make sure the overseas additions were settling in okay. The twins actually taught the young engines to clear snow!

On The Horizon questions: 1.) Magic from a natural born witch works pretty much anywhere, and in canon it does work in the human realm, though I feel I should point out that Sodor and Shining Time both are completely different from the "human realm" that Luna (aka Luz, I finally decided on the new names) came from. But yes, Wendy (aka Willow!) does indeed have magic! She didn't figure it out for a long while as there wasn't anything that really prompted her to do so and for many years of her life she fully believed she was human. The first time it happened was when she was 12 and it was a complete accident, one of her machine siblings had startled her and she just swung her arm around, managing to somehow summon a pretty large thorny vine from the ground. Wendy panicked and they ended up calling Hunter and MC over to investigate, and during that investigation Hunter finally confessed that he'd thought Wendy was a witch from the day he'd first seen her. He then sat down with Wendy and explained to her the very few things he did remember about wild magic, coaching her with his limited knowledge so that she could start training her powers. Her mother and all of her other loved ones were all quite shocked by this fact, but they didn't force Wendy to hide her magic just like the Hatt family didn't hide Oscar (Aka King) from the world. 2.) Speaking of the little guy! The rest of the island was pretty surprised by Oscar's existence. Topham had kept him hidden for the first few months, but he didn't want to keep the little guy cooped up forever, seeing as Oscar's clearly just as intelligent as any other kid and forcing him to hide for his whole life would be cruel and impossible. He did indeed startle many upon first meetings, but everyone adjusted and pretty soon Oscar was out among other kids his age with barely any issue. He did face a bit of bullying due to his strange appearance and clearly being nonhuman, but he has family and some friends who'd stand up for him and fix those problems. 3.) Hunter met Lady about 2 months after he'd been properly adopted by Mr. Conductor, actually! Seeing as the kid was already from a different magical world and he was healing from some rough times, MC thought it'd be a good idea to introduce the kid to Lady. Lady was a very welcome change of pace, she was calm and easy going and being an engine meant she didn't move that much and her facial expressions were far easier for him to read. Her kind voice and demeanor were really soothing to Hunter and him meeting her proved to benefit him greatly. 4.) Originally, I'd had the idea for Belos to go after Hunter. But then I thought about it. Belos, in the past, would kill the grimwalkers for the tiniest betrayals and then just start over with a new one like nothing happened...so I came up with a different plan. At first when Hunter was reported missing, Belos asked the coven to keep an eye out and listen to gossip. Interview residents of the isles. After a week of that, with no sign, he sent scouts to actively search for him. After a week of that? Belos sighed, shrugged, cut his losses, and cooked up a new grimwalker. This one's hair is a bit long and messy, but he looks enough like Caleb that he'll do. And this time, Belos is going to ensure this golden guard won't be going anywhere.

[thenegoteator]

oh:D hey there! it’s the anon who asked what degree you were studying a little while ago:). just a follow-up question — feel free to ignore, i just,,,

okay, so i love english and i like history and i’d love to study one or the other, i think:D. but. but i see articles in the news about how english lit degrees are being discontinued, and when i look at courses, it looks like the analysis of r&j that we did in early high school, and jobs just look terrifying— i’m sorry, this is a silly question, but, just:

what’s it like studying eng/hist? where could one get an idea of what a typical course looks like? and would you recommend? i just. really want to go into eng, i love writing, but i’m thinking about business or something because everyone keeps telling me that i’ll never be able to find any jobs w/ any sort of eng degree— and it’s just, i’d love to hear about it from your perspective, if this ask isn’t too much trouble?<3

hiya, it's no trouble at all!!! I've actually been thinking about your ask all day (and this might be horrifically long bc of it) - you've caught me at the tail end of my degree and I'm in my feelings about it sdlkfjsdklfjds

I think there are a few separate things to unpack here, if that's ok with you - all from my experience, of course, though if someone reading this wants to add on please feel free!! (1) how did I decide to study english and history, (2) these things are not considered very employable and that's terrifying and (3) what does studying them look like on the daily.

so to answer (1) - I took a gap year after high school. several reasons for that, including simply that I had the option and opportunity which I know not everyone does. but I also didn't know which direction I wanted to go in life and didn't want to go to uni only because I didn't know what else to do. I worked at an archive and was able to see people with humanities degrees at work in a way that wasn't as teachers or professors, and realised it really was right up my alley.

personally, my brain is one that meshes well with academic study, and I find studying the humanities uni is a good fit for my skillset and how I like to interact with the world. that's not the case for everyone, and that's ok!! not everyone who enjoys reading likes studying literature, and there doesn't have to be a value judgement in there. but if you find that you do, then that's excellent, and it can be really fulfilling to pursue!

(rest under the cut, this got really long, sorry about that hsdkfjds)

as for (2) - you've caught me at a time when I'm facing my next choices and yes, even though I know this is what I'd like to pursue, it's really scary. This isn't to say that there aren't jobs related to these things! Wherever you see written communication in the world is a place where an English degree would be beneficial. Whether it's writing articles, copywriting, editing, day-to-day communicating in a business, writing social media posts, legal briefs, publishing (both fiction and nonfiction)… our world is stuffed to the brim with words and studying English literature will teach you to be able to understand, write, analyse, and engage with them in a way people are too quick to take for granted.

(you're on the internet - I don't have to tell you how crucial reading comprehension is and how many people lack it).

But an English degree is not a one way ticket to a related job, and being academically inclined to reading and writing does not make you automatically interested in a job along these lines, and it unfortunately doesn't mean people will hire you.

and there's no easy answer here. what I can tell you is that I know someone who studied History and is now a pensions officer. I know someone who did English, volunteered while at uni, and now she works for the charity she volunteered for, in a different city. the point is that you don't have to pick a degree and then commit to that exact path until the heat death of the universe till death do you part - it's more like you're walking through life, and you knock on doors that look interesting, and you go through the ones that open. and if you don't like it, that's ok!! you can turn around!! you can climb out a window!!

it's a nervewracking process, but it is possible, and my top advice is never ever think you have to be stuck doing something that makes you miserable because that's the only way to make money. it's fine not to make your greatest passion your career, but if you can make choices, it's best to go for options you don't actively hate.

and this has gotten long, but to answer (3) - this is very specific to my uni and degree, and I recommend going to open days and talking to lecturers about how they set up their courses if you can!

but in my case, a typical English course is usually structured either around a literary movement (modernism), an era (the Renaissance), a genre (children's literature), a theme (tragedy and knowledge), or something along those lines. If it's books, we'll usually read about 1-2 a week, which gives us a broad overview of the main points of the course topic. We'll have lectures and tutorials or seminars (depending on the year and course coordinator) each week to give us context and let us discuss our ideas. We write essays and papers that go more into detail of a particular book or subject we enjoy, some of which are comparative.

(For example, last year in my children's lit course, I wrote an essay on the idea of emotional growth in Howl's Moving Castle, but I've also written on the concept of monstrosity in Milton compared to Aemilia Lanyer.)

History is a bit different; it tends to involve a broader range of sources (not just texts) as well as historiography (the metahistory of how historians have talked about the historical issue over time, if that makes sense).

I can't say for sure whether this is what you'd enjoy. You've said you really enjoy writing and you seem wary of literary analysis by itself - maybe you'd be more interested in a course focused on English Language and Linguistics, or a course in Communications, or a course in English Literature and Creative Writing. You've said you enjoy history, too - there's a lot of overlap between the disciplines, but it might be in your interests to go to a uni where you can take electives in your first years and see what's the best fit for you! once again, it's ok to take some time and see what works for you.

tl;dr: these are big decisions but none of them are ones you can't change or adjust over time!! don't pursue things you hate. one of the most valuable things you can learn at this point in your life is what kind of things aren't for you, because that helps you start to narrow down the things that could be.

[zerobaseonefics]

bro i just played contexto and it was a wild experience. i guessed the word at my 39th guess but for some fucking reason i didn't realise and i just kept guessing and gettinf frustrated HELP ME like the word was right in fron tof me with the 1 but i thought the word we want has a 0 to it oh my god i feel so stulid

ANYWAY about one for the money two for the show, i watched numerous of those kinda edits and i just think the taylor swift characters are most similar to me. I'm also introverted, nice and with my head in the clouds so if i was a character or smth people would 100% esit me with taylor

and kuscoz writing his name is so hard something something was so fun!! have you watched the show? i was kinda crushing on his gf as a child ngl🤭🤭

and i realized i haven't answered yiur question about the daycare. actually I'm not that passionate about it (i don't do that shit. I'm not passionate about ANYTHING ever) it's just. i finished school a year ago at 16 and now i have to work and working at a daycare is the least worse choice yk

i was at a confirmation (?) party yesterday and it was quite fun but i literally stayed up till almost 2am bc of it💔💔 usually i go to sleep around 10pm or if i'm feeling rebellious i stay up till 11pm💀💀 felt true happiness the second i was able to go home fr

-anon²

HAHAHAHAH 39 GUESSES 💀 you know anon² sometimes you tell the stories to the wrong person. imma just use this to make fun of you 🫵🏼 next time you come around i'll be like "wassup 39 guesses?"

i did but a long time ago!! bro. honestly when i rewatched the movies yesterday i was just simping on more than half of the women BCZ WHY DO THEY LOOK LIKE THAT?? iM NOT TRYING TO BE THE PATHETIC GAY BUT

taylor swift's version ppl are the best . they're cute and soft and 💔💔💔💔

oooh you finished school early!! how does it feel getting rid of this shithole? 💀

bro you broke all of your rules yesterday, you went from 10pm to 2am 😭 hope you'll be able to rest today then!! it's a feiertag (? is it the right word?? i dont remember...) in france today, is it also the case in germany?

[lonelier-version-of-you]

So do you think Henrik’s stereotypically femine body language is subconscious compensation to make himself disappear almost, to be less of a target? Sort of opposite to how Jac makes herself take up more space to protect herself — actually this interests me bc IMO they were both probably targeted due to be vulnerable and overlooked as kids, right since Henrik was in school in another country and Jac was in the system, so it’s interesting that he sort of avoids attention where Jac goes for it

This is so poorly worded omg sorry. But it’s like because he was ‘seen’ by his abuser and targeted as a ‘special’ kid maybe he subconsciously shys away from being ‘seen’ again (went from surgery to management, tried to build a traditional hetero life). Whereas Jac tries to avoid being able to be targeted due to lack of power so that and insecurity means she craves recognition and authority/limelight.

Although as I type I realise Henrik in his OG stint sort of goes all against this because he is muuuuchmore like Jac (which is A Lot in this context on its own) and I’m not sure how aware Jac ever got to be about her patterns and past because she rivalled Henrik for denial due to victim blaming

Sorry now I’m just thinking out loud but now I’m just thinking about how Henrik and John both came across as at least somewhat sex repulsed whereas Jac was almost hyper sexual at times but they all shared this thread of seeing sex and relationships as almost an out of body experience and either just something you did to check off a box or to get something, like setting you did to or for someone else and not something they should be enjoying??

And then you see how their defences fall apart with someone they actually are about ie Johnrik, Russ, Joseph. And John and Jac were both less threatened by flirtations with women (denial of sexuality? Women not being their sexual abusers in the past?) where Henrik had struggles with men and women IMO.

Anon, you have no need to apologise, I not only welcome but encourage people thinking out loud about Henrik and Jac and John in my inbox!

To answer your question: yeah, I think that's totally part of it. I think it can easily coexist with early Henrik as well - he actually does the "trying to take up less space" thing quite a bit throughout his first stint, even in scenes where he's trying to be powerful and intimidating. It's really interesting, actually, how for a character with very obvious anger issues and a desire to be seen as intimidating and in control, especially in his early seasons, Henrik has still always been so defined by fear.

I also definitely agree about Henrik and Jac both being targeted due to being vulnerable, overlooked kids. I think in Henrik's case it ties into his autism as well - one doesn't have to accept the Reyhan nonsense as canon to know that Henrik was definitely a lonely, bullied kid (albeit probably due to several factors, not just his autism, but that certainly wouldn't have helped matters). (*coughs, points at my own fic line again about Henrik being "the awkward, foreign, Jewish boy" at school*) It's just like... obvious. So Henrik was probably very isolated at school, and desperate for attention and company, and then - and this is the point I haven't really seen brought up a lot but it breaks my heart - Henrik was targeted because he didn't have anyone else he could have talked to about what was happening to him, providing no opportunities for him to recognise it was abuse. :((

Regarding Henrik trying to avoid being 'seen', that actually reminds me of a conversation he has with the hospital inspector guy (who turns out to be a former nurse and is just generally blatantly being paralleled with Henrik) in S14E01 "Keep On Keeping On", who says this:

"I got into management out of frustration. I felt powerless. [Henrik: And now?] I think I feel even more powerless."

The inspector guy is just talking about feeling powerless regarding the NHS, but again, this scene is paralleling him with Henrik, so... take the "I got into management because I felt powerless" idea as you will.

I think Henrik trying to build a traditional hetero life was a fairly brief phase of his but it definitely happened nonetheless. (My personal headcanon is that he thought he was gay until he met Maja, then once it finally clicked with him that he had feelings for her he decided he was 100% straight and had been wrong before and he went into hardcore denial about any feelings to the contrary. He realised he was bi in those terms at some point while he was at Rigden.) I think after Maja, though, (after their first breakup that is) he decided to just flat out pretend he had no sexual or romantic feelings at all, and retreated fully into "nothing but the work" mode. (Because of this, I laugh when people do the whole "Henrik never seemed to be interested in anyone!" thing. I just think "lol, he fooled you, he wants you to think he's 'above' sex and he managed it!".)

"Henrik [...] came across as at least somewhat sex repulsed whereas Jac was almost hyper sexual at times" Oh, absolutely, and I'm really glad you said this because I've thought it very often myself but I've never got around to talking about it!! It's one of the most notable differences between them.

With John, though, I'd actually put him closer to Jac on that scale. I think John definitely tried to portray an image of himself as "above" sex, just like Henrik did, but I think it was a lot closer to reality for Henrik than it was for John. I feel like John has probably had a lot of flings and one-night stands over the years, but because the vast majority of it would have been with men (and possibly occasionally with women if he were in a situation where he thinks he can get something out of it - a la Jac sleeping with Joseph's dad), and because he feels ashamed of that, he glosses over it and pretends it doesn't happen. (John's gay, in my head - though occasionally I'll indulge in bi John for a Polyam Cryptid Squad ship - and I think if he were into women, he'd embrace an image as a "ladies' man". But he's not, so he goes for "I Have No Sexual Or Romantic Feelings Whatsoever, I Swear" instead.) Admittedly there's not a lot of actually canonical evidence for this, I've just read a lot of really good fic that has John as hypersexual due to his trauma and now it's a headcanon I can't let go of.

"but they all shared this thread of seeing sex and relationships as almost an out of body experience and either just something you did to check off a box or to get something, like setting you did to or for someone else and not something they should be enjoying??" Oh YES they really did. Again, I've thought about this mostly with Henrik (and have written it into fic before) but I think probably all of them have a "lie back and think of England" mentality to some extent. (This also brings me back to the Sahira storyline, and Henrik's treatment of her, and how he acted like he was entitled to her and she'd just have to give in and be with him eventually, and how blatantly that was a response to his own trauma.) (I've also thought stuff about this with John but I don't think it shows in my fic as much.)

(I don't know where to bring Keira Balfour - the lady from S13E04 "Queen's Gambit" who all but states she's slept with Henrik before - into this but I felt obligated to mention her because her existence is weird considering this. Henrik was very quickly developed into a character way too repressed to have a friend with benefits or ONS, and so obviously the meta reasoning for this is that the writers hadn't properly fleshed him out yet when they wrote that ep, but it's... odd with his later characterisation, in-universe. Supposedly they slept together at a conference - maybe it was overcompensation on Henrik's part? Maybe he ran into John at that conference, got shaken by the tension still between them, and ended up feeling the need to prove his quote-unquote "heterosexuality" to himself by sleeping with Keira? Idk.)

"And John and Jac were both less threatened by flirtations with women (denial of sexuality? Women not being their sexual abusers in the past?) where Henrik had struggles with men and women IMO." You're absolutely right on this too, imo. Henrik definitely has issues when it comes to flirtations both with men and with women. (Like, it's enough so that I've seen people say Henruss would've played out the exact same if Russ were a woman, which I strongly disagree with - it's taking that a bit too far if you ask me - but Henrik is definitely terrified of romantic interactions either way.) (I'd say the best example would be to compare Essie asking him about his feelings for Rox in S20E31 to Serena asking him about his feelings for Russ in S23E43. He responds far more harshly to being asked about Russ than about Rox, but in both scenes, it still clearly makes him uncomfortable.)

For Jac, I think it's that all her sexual abuse was by men, so she's a lot more comfortable flirting with women. For John that's also a possible explanation, but I also go back to the idea of him being gay and it being tied up in that - he doesn't really see being with a woman as a "real" option (since, again, rather than dating women as beards he's just pretending not to be interested in people at all) so it doesn't scare him in that way. (John and Henrik also obviously both have misogyny issues, and I think they manifest in this context in different ways.)

It's interesting that Henrik is different. His only undeniably-canon, not-tied-up-in-retcons sexual assault was by a woman (Birdie Thompson; I think about how fucked up it is that they played that for laughs a lot, but I digress), but he's had issues with women way before that (S13E44 being the obvious example, he's extremely uncomfortable with the chairman's ex-wife coming on to him) so... yeah. (S14E27 could also possibly serve as an example, given he panics, scolds Sahira, and shoves her out of his office - physically shoves her! - when she asks if he's in love with her. But personally I've always thought his issue there was more about the power dynamic and the age gap. If Sahira had been an equal, his age, he might have responded somewhat better.)

[kirisaki-daichi-scenarios]

a discussion of jabberwock with team interaction hcs + deeper nash analysis

for anon who asked "Can we get some headcanons for jabberwock members or like headcanons when they're together? (its okay if it was jason or nash only)" and made me realise it's about time i get these guys' personalities down

note before we start: cause i didn't know their names until i wrote this

zack is the bald one, allen is the one with a headband, nick is the other white guy apart from nash.

team hcs

nick gets bullied for being under 6ft, but not by jason

nah good old jason teases all of them for being short fucks, emphasising that they’re all 5ft tall in comparison to him

he 100% lifts things out of the others' reach and then laughs for ages after when they try get them

unfortunately though, they’re all used to this and now just ignore him. either that or nash stares at him so intensely jason actually repents and hands it back

zack’s another one with a very good glare, but he’s used it too often on jason and it’s since stopped working.

also jason gives me ‘straightens his back as much as possible when getting measured so he’ll measure in as 7ft’ vibes

oh and he thinks he could wrestle a gator and win. i’ve got no explanation for that except for the fact you can't tell me it's ooc.

allen’s very protective over his white headband - it’s his lucky item - but he’d never let anyone know that

he’s confident in his abilities like the rest of them, but there’s nothing wrong with wearing a headband just in case

(nash knows anyway)

they watch nba matches together and do not shut up once throughout the entire match - lots of jeering, booing each other if someone criticises a player they like, lots of “i could do that”, lots of “get your fucking hand out of my popcorn do you want me to punch you in the face” etc

they used to all live together, but nash has since moved out. he was sick and tired of trying to make people do chores, as the only one who kept their room clean.

yeah the others’ house looks like a heap of trash but also very much “where’s my toothbrush?” “it’s in the third coke can by the orange peel behind the sink” *silence* “yeah thanks” *a minute later* “who the fuck has been using my toothbrush”

they’re all “bro your dribbling sucks why are you on this team loser” to one another, but also very protective (aka arrogant for one another) if anyone else Dared to criticise one of their teammates

then again, what kind of person would criticise jabberwock

half of the time he spends with jabberwock, nash is a Single Mother TM trying to get a bunch of man children to behave; the other half of the time, he's just as bad as the rest of them

i talk about this a lot but i get the feeling nash is an exceptionally hard worker, but at least he gets to let his hair down around his teammates sometimes

nash is also the only person jason thought was truly ‘strong’ at first sight

and nash is also the only person who can beat jason in a fight, and also the only person who can get nash to train, and also the only person who can.. [etc. you see my point].

(n.b jason calls himself the ‘almighty me’, nash says that ‘even god can’t beat me’. point made.)

you know how jason silver’s motto is “I have never thought”

imagine him proudly stating that, before zack adds with a straight face, “yeah cause nash does it for you.”

in short, the team would fall apart without nash.

although the team’s communication and coordination is very fine tuned, nash is the guy who keeps everything in order off the court to prevent what is essentially a team of aces ('main characters', if you will) from falling apart

they hang out together a lot, but do all have other friend groups that do not overlap

team bbqs

unofficial rule not to criticise anchovies on pizza because the one time nick did, nash snapped

however pineapple on pizza is fair game, even though zack quite likes it

more than once, jason has brought a girl home and nick has stolen her attention away with effortless trick shots, funky ball manoeuvring etc

more than once nick has had to trek to nash’s place (with a black eye) at midnight to have somewhere to sleep

do you see a correlation?

oh and everyone in the team has been walked in on by nash when they were naked with some girl

nash has absolutely no shame

he apologises to the girl with a charming albeit insincere tone, and then remains standing in front of the bed/couch until his teammate does what he expected of them

usually it involves not having come to practice

allen learnt a few (emphasis on ‘few’) words of japanese before they travelled to japan and was disappointed that he never got to use them

that said, one of those words was hentai

and now a quick analysis of some panels

a) so there's at least one player who wasn't underestimating vorpal swords. if i were to overanalyse, i'd add that nick's wearing a hoodie (possibly athletic wear) whilst nash has a 'fancy' shirt on; perhaps nick wasn't expecting them to be going to host clubs instead of chilling/training?

b) i know what you're thinking: "how can you say nash is a hard worker when he didn't want to practice for the match". i reckon he was still pretty high on the complete and utter success of their previous match, that plus being around girls, encouraged him to have a more 'jason-y' personality. (either that or fujimaki didn't want to add too much depth/realism into nash's character bc he's unequivocally the villain, right? and obviously this helps with the plot and the jabberwock bad geniuses gom good geniuses rhetoric.)

earlier, i mentioned how nash is the only one that could keep the team together, and is thus the undeniable head of the team; here's a clear example. you can see both jason and zack have no interest in continuing - if anything, there's disgust in their faces, kinda just saying "we spat on all of japan, now we can go home". whereas nash won't allow for the slightest of possibilities that there might exist a team stronger than them, and hence agrees to the match. the key thing here is that the others do as he says without too much fuss.

another thing to note is nash's reference to harakiri. now what can we make of that, alongside his proficiency in japanese, in relation to his character? the way i see it, he's either a weeb or possibly has some japanese lineage. (you could spin that even further and say his mother was japanese, taught him the language, then abandoned him, and hence his almost excessive hatred/mockery of the japanese people.) (is that why he wanted to do another match in japan..?)

just a quick point. "thanks to him" - jason isn't so superior as to think that he could win this match effortlessly without nash's support. links pretty nicely with my earlier idea about how nash is the only person jason has always considered 100% strong.

yet another point about how nash is the strongest of the team in pretty much every way you can think of. you know how scary/powerful you have to be to shut jason up (after he's getting real pissed from being prevented from scoring?)

i personally think this is a pretty important panel, though i've never seen anyone mention it before. did nash grow up training in a professional basketball training situation, as opposed to growing up playing streetball like i suspect the others did? well, to answer that question, imma bring in another panel.

here we see visible rage on nick, zack and jason's faces - they can't accept their loss, which is fair enough. but i'd argue that nash's face seems to depict sadness more than it does anger like to rest of them, look at how downturned his mouth is - and he's looking away from the 'camera', as if hiding his shame.

when you combine that with what he says here, i have no doubt that this is someone who has experienced some proper lows in basketball - as would be expected from someone who's played 'properly'. he's possibly not even a prodigy like the rest of them - compare jason's motto with his. "i have never thought" versus "do not suppose opportunity will knock twice at your door".

there's various lines of thinking you could design with this - he might have been trained by alex (hence, himuro having heard of jabberwock, though he should have known of a team as popular of jabberwock regardless), he might have grown up with professional basketballer parents etc. but here's my own little theory:

nash received serious basketball training from early on - maybe because his parents were living vicariously through him, or maybe he always loved the sport and wanted to be no1. so there he was training away, but, as he grew older, it started getting all a bit too much.

he didn't want to dedicate his entire life to basketball. after all, his hobby is water sports and his speciality is boxing; that's a lot of different things to be keeping up with, whereas the pipeline for promising athletes demands people focus solely on basketball. as a result, nash become bitter: stopped attending practice regularly, got in trouble for trash talk of increasing severity, etc.

result was he was kicked out of the program.

only when he was no longer playing basketball again, did he realise how much he missed it. and hence he got into streetball, where he was tremendously successful as someone with so much training, 'elite skills', and the overly confident attitude to boot.

then, one fateful day, he met jason and the rest is history.

[milf-harrington]

hullo it'sa me-

i am hopeful that today i have enough mental stability to write and therefore reply to you answer to my last ask! which i am happy about!

first I find so incredibly amazing that you're actively trying to learn more about maori culture and such, it must feel pretty good to discover small things and understand more and more your heritage. i am a bit of a language/cultures nerd and tbh i've always wanted to learn more about maori culture as a whole, but well I will never be able to learn about stuff like that as thoroughly as i would want, bc you know, linguistics don't really pay well and I need to support my family aNYways i'm realising that i'm making this about me and that's not what i wanted. i also hope this doesn't come off as weird or rude, if it does, feel free to call me out!

tbh same for the introvert thing but that's pretty obvious seeing as i'm asking stuff on ANON -_-

ohhh it's really super sweet how you talk about being an uncle and your sister! one can really see how much you love being one :)

And i guess there's just something so homely to an old library :)

(you're so artistically developed -can you say that? I can't write anymore yeeee- but really i am amazed)

now i'm kinda curious as to what the purple texta anecdote is 👀

I'm slowly realising that this won't be interesting if i just react to everything you mentioned.

i will just say : for the concert thingy, it really depends on what concert you're attending tbh, so like a chopin recital will obviously not have a bunch of lights -but i know you didn't mean that kind of concert- and sometimes the lights are too much, sometimes it's just right and just adds to the feel :)

i really felt that "didn't feel like a teen/person part" i guess i'm still kinda going through it?(like i don't feel like i exist rn it's weird) but froyo my beloved

i did really like how you answered that question, because well for one I wouldn't know how to answer that, and you made a really cool extended "about" out of it!

i know it might be really annoying to just get my "haha i do that " reactions, and tbh I would maybe be bored if someone replied to things i said about myself just with "yea this one time i-" kinda stuff, so again feel free to tell me to tone it down whenever :)

(also for the astrology thing i've always tried to get into it but everyone says different things about the signs and their meanings so i got overwhelmed and now i can't actually tell you why you would think libra is good 😀 )

(but AnYwAys i accept your proposition let's get married 😊 🌹)

also my heart jumped a bit at seeing the tags wow i've been "my-beloved" -ed

no but really i am sending a lot of love, i also saw that you didn't want to go back inside so i hope everything's as good as possible for you, it sucks, i am sending you lots of love💖💖💖

–💐

hi!

that's awesome! im glad you're doing okay today (:

languages and cultures are really interesting, and if i had a better attention span i'd probably be a lot more motivated to learn. even with maori things, i only spend a few days hardcore learning and then i start getting distracted and the next thing i know it's been several months since i even said a word of te reo. and don't feel bad! i think i say it a lot, but i really love hearing about other peoples lives and stuff so yeah don't feel bad about talking about your interests!!

the purple texta anecdote really isn't that interesting which is why i didn't really explain it in my response but it's basically: my mum put me down to sleep and then everyone was outside, but then when mum came in to check on me she discovered that i'd somehow gotten my hands on a purple texta and there was a baby-height line drawn all the way across the walls, the door, the toilet, and it was filled with scribbles bc i'd tried to colour it in lmao. my step dad had to replace the toilet and sand back the door (:

oooh yeah i get that! i suppose when i think concert, i think big ones like green day and my chem? but i'd probably really vibe with small gig-type concerts, like local shows or something (one of my favourite bands played at a bookstore once)

ah i get that! i hope you're able to feel better soon, feeling not-real fucking sucks :/

i have a forbidden romance w fro-yo 😔 i get major headaches from eating yogurt (except greek yogurt??) so my friends wont let me eat fro-yo anymore- but they will let me eat their toppings, which is awesome bc they always get good ones

no i do the same thing sometimes, so it's okay! it always feels more like a sharing of experiences than a "this is about me now" type of thing, at least to me anyway

(a few people in my life really like astrology, and my aunty, the same one from NZ, is an actual astrologist lmao so i've developed a bit of a deeper love for it bc it's like another little thing that connects me to her!)

(!! married at 18, amazing 🌹)

yeah things were okay last night, i'd just gone to sit outside so i could talk to my mate on the phone and then just,, didn't want to go inside bc there was a nice atmosphere. (i mean i was also avoiding the uncomfortable energy that had built up after my parents argued, but it was mostly for the atmosphere of outside)